#epic fandom crit

[epic-the-musical-confessions]

it's. it bothers me how aphrodite, voiced by janani, a brown desi woman, is often portrayed so differently in fanart? like, every other character, poc or not, is portrayed pretty much exactly like their singer. notable exception I can think of is ares, but that's more bcs of armour, and even then..

but with aphrodite? blonde hair, light skin, almost always what I'm seeing. which.

.

[bvckbiter]

me going into the rr crit tag lately: perhaps you would be happier writing your own books

[megabuild]

wait I'm so curious what are the four 'sects' of mcyt ?

full disclaimer: this is something i've been thinking up myself largely based on my own personal experience with each aspect of the fandom, so if people want to correct things or add on, i'd be happy to see it! having said that,

this ⤴️ is a condensed look at my fandom crit autism. largely fuelled by the people's want to label mcyt fandom as one single united fandom when that is far from the case- never mind that plenty of smps has vastly different audience, eg. a preteen who's just getting into 3rd life after watching hermitcraft as a kid is not going to be rubbing shoulders with hardcore fans of epic smp, even within fandoms of singular smps there are still vast differences between the areas of discussion- leading to this labelling of four "sects"! there are other areas ofc, such as insta and tiktok, but i would consider these the main areas where mcyt is discussed (at least for hermitcraft/3l, which is my personal focus- i know dsmp was big on tiktok with cosplayers(?) but can't speak to it much) in depth, as well as the main areas ccs may look to in order to understand their fandom.

it's a massive simplification but the categories are as follows; ability to interact directly with ccs (and if the cc is likely to respond), ability to engage with criticism (both valid crit and more negative commentary, veering into hate), ability to engage with characterisation (as in, accepting that cubito is separate from cc, and what level they will accept that it- this also goes for shipping/nsfw content) and the primary age group (because that is in part relevant when dealing with youtube comments.)

to me this especially matters not just for ccs but for people within fandom to understand where certain sentiments (especially irt negative commentary) is coming from and how they can solve that- too often i see people on here picking fights over perceived negativity when it actuality that largely comes from reddit and yt. that's not to say it isn't possible here, but it is certainly less of an issue imo.

[chaifootsteps]

How STUPID and up her own ass can Viv be?

Making a strawman character of the crit community... isn't the epic clapback she thinks it is. She wasted so much screen time and budget diverting her plot to write a OOC vent fic with her cast. Sure, the white knights are cheering like "HAHAHA YEAH, TAKE THAT HATERS!"

but the average passive viewer (which is the majority of most audiences) is just going to be confused/bored at these super random plot lines and the OOCness of Fizz since she suddenly out of nowhere chose to self insert in him. This would be the real reason she's hemorrhaging views.

Its not going to deter her critics either. All this ep has done has become a further call to action. All the people she's spurned who could RUIN HER are BUBBLING OVER with indignation at what essentially is her calling herself the victim while reminding them what she did to them through Mammon.

all the criticals are like "OH DAMN she so mad she's tanking her own show 😂" <- that's not going to make anyone who wants her to crash and burn stop. She's flashing her sonic adventure 2 battle cockpit at us like "YOU'LL NEVER GUESS MY WEAK POINT."

Really if she didn't prove over and over she's reading every single negative thing and seething, people would probably just move on with their lives, find new fandoms and forget about her forgettable show. If all of HB wasn't one big self jerk off (eg meta jokes about how she's so funny that again, will pass right over the average viewers head), and she wasn't pulling off nonsense with Lackadaisy and the other indie shows her victims moved on too, the people she's wronged that have landed back on their feet and found success might be able to let things go.

But she can't accept them thriving anywhere so she chases and indirectly harasses them and that's going to bite her when the yellow tape clears.

Maybe she really DOES know how to foreshadow after all 'cause every day she's looking more and more like that twinkle eyed satanist twit from episode 1 and you have the ex spindles just chomping at the bit to prove 'SHE IS NOT THE HERO'

Especially when you remember that this episode was years in the making. The criticism she got back in the day was nothing compared to what she gets now, and she still found the need to devote an entire character to strawmanning anyone who dislikes her work.

[calypsolemon]

rip anon 😔😔😔 the haters killed it with their lame, unrelated and irrelevant questions...

gjfjggj yeah, honestly I hate to be standoffish its just like. SU crits already poisoned the damn fandom i don't understand why you'd want to continue letting it be part of every conversation about the series. While I'll refute common SU criticisms on here occasionally, my main interest is media analysis, not epic su crit smackdown debates (though, I have a sneaking suspicion a large majority of people don't know the difference). I felt like I was making that clear by answering multiple asks in that vein with what boils down to "I think these talking points aren't really criticisms worth addressing, and Im not that interested" but apparently that's not obvious enough.

Either way, if you want su crit breakdowns and debates there's people on youtube who have already done that in a more thorough capacity than I. I'll probably just turn anon back on when my interest has shifted to something else.

[grayintogreen]

Just finished YCDHN up to date and now I'll be rotating the blorbos in my head all week <3

It's crazy that you're already 1.7 MILLION words in, and at just over halfway done YCDHN is only a lil more than 100k before you're caught up with your first fic... WHICH IS ALREADY THE BIGGEST FIC OF THE CRIT ROLE FANDOM ON AO3 (probably in general tnh)

All this to say I adore it <3 (and also I bow down in awe bc holy shit)

HONESTLY IM IN AWE OF YOU FOR READING THAT MUCH SO QUICKLY DAMN.

But seriously thank you so much!!! The crazy awesome support I get for this epic is what keeps me going on top of being determined to get my vision out there.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

ok like. yes kids are capable of being annoying and immature. yes kids will sometimes have incorrect opinions. but the grown-ass ofmd fans over on twitter who are like, vague tweeting abt minors who hate izzy are SO fucking weird to me. making jokes like "honey your prefrontal cortex isnt even developed yet, stay in your lane" or whatever.

like i agree with the kids on this one, but i don't always! i've been in fandoms enough times to see cliques of fandom teens clumping together and being annoying abt some fandom thing that i strongly disagree on. and it does kind of make me laugh sometimes, if they get really immature.

but my question is why the FUCK would a grown adult engage with that. leave them the fuck alone!!! they're KIDS!!! why would you @ them why would you screenshot their tweets just to roast them why the fuck are you ACTING LIKE THIS. WALK AWAYYYYYYY. PUT UR PHONE DOWN GO FOLD UR LAUNDRY OR FILE UR TAXES GODDAMN!!!

tl;dr if you're a grown adult spending your energy roasting children online for Literally Any Reason i think u should be hunted for sport

[dreamsclock]

I used to be super into sad-ist animations, because it's beautiful art, but it gets genuinely exhausting to deal with the fallout in the comments and across social media platforms, as someone who likes c!Dream. -Minotaur

hey minotaur anon :D so i get this completely LMAO being a c!dream fan and liking any popular animatics / animators usually leads to exhausting takes being rehashed again and again across social media which can be pretty tiring for c!dream fans — especially people who are only c!dream fans ! i find it easier because i’m a huge c!tommy and c!tubbo fan too GDKDBDK, so i can understand how tiring it must be for solo c!dream fans. but because the new animatic looks epic and i want to try and help, here’s some advice !!

how to enjoy c!dream neg stuff as a c!dream apologist

on twitter if you have it: use the mass-block website. it blocks everyone who has liked a tweet you dislike if you use it, and has saved me a lot of stress in the past !! use it as often as you need because it’s your online experience and you should do what it takes to make you comfy :)

on the same lines: on ANY socials, block users reblogging / posting content you don’t like. don’t get involved in discourse if you can help it — just block and move on because it’s the best thing to do. unless anyone brings criticism / neg to my asks / replies / etc, i just ignore it all as best i can ! it can be hard but is much better for my fandom enjoyment.

block tags like c!dream crit, c!dream criticism, c!dream neg, c!dream negative, c!dream negativity, etc. those are some of the best, and you can also block other tags if you need to ^_^

instead, rb / post c!dream positive stuff !! loads of c!dream fans are in the same position when it comes to fan content / takes being negative towards c!dream, so rbing positive c!dream stuff is always helpful for you and others :D

remember that c!dream is getting more and more sympathetic in current lore and soon enjoy people will be animating / creating fan content around that !!!! the current sad-ist animatic seems to be centred around the finale of the disk war, so there probably will be a lot of c!dream neg on socials because he was The Villain TM of that arc and was doing ,, a lot of shitty things honestly, but soon enough people will be (and have been) creating sympathetic c!dream stuff :]

remember this (link leads to twt -> sad-ist’s c!dream design):

and know that sad-ist’s c!dream is my little meow meow <3 no matter what happens we will get to see him !! and maybe prison version of him too !! :DDD

[libertys-lovers]

Hello, Faux Berry Cookie~!

Guess who wants to introduce another Sona~?

(NOTE: The assets are from the game, specifically found on the CR:K fandom wiki!)

This, my friends, is Faux Berry Cookie! She’s a rather successful author within Earthbread, as well someone who’s a bit too honest about her fake flavoring. She’s mainly a Sona for CR:K, but I’m trying to figure out her Ovenbreak version too. I won’t be talking about the OB stuff tho, since it’s still underdeveloped.

In Kingdom, she’d be an Epic Support cookie! Her skill is Story Time: she tells a story during battle, which captivates enemies (AKA: stuns enemies) and inspires her teammates (AKA: giving them an ATK and CRIT boost). Please note tho, I change her skill all the time, so that might not stay the same. Anyways, she wouldn’t have too much involvement in many of the side plots of the game. She’d def tag along on the Tropical Soda Islands trip so she could write about it. However, she’d probably have the most involvement in Interdimensional Super Mayhem seeing as she’s also an interdimensional entity (for context, see here!). Of course, she’d also be dragged into the fight against Dark Enchantress Cookie, but I guess that’s a bit of a given?

Her shtick, as with most of my Sonas, is being that passionate & sleep-deprived artistic type! She also tends to snicker at the baking-puns of Earthbread, which somehow hasn’t given her away of being an outsider. She has this thing too where she just BARELY avoids trouble with the TBD due to comedic events.

She… has a lot of relationships in this dimension, to say the least. I might do a post JUST talking about some of those relationships. Until then though, this is all I’ll say ☺️

[wasflypaw]

Hey uh, I’m working on a fandom crit post but I’m a bit new to the fandom,is there a reason people villainize Tommy for stating his intentions and going through with them, and then turn around and praise Techno for doing the exact same thing or is it just the fandom being biased?

I'll answer this one rn though

It's the fandom being biased

Techno's their fun cool epic awesome guy that wins all the time and gives cool speeches and is never wrong whereas Tommy is a loud annoying child who starts conflict for no reason and has no reason behind his actions

[epic-the-musical-confessions]

I'm growing really uncomfortable with how the fandom talks about some of the cast like Steven Dookie, Mico, and even Jay. It's always "OMG THEY'RE SO CUTE LITTLE ANGEL BABIES DON'T BE MEAN TO THEM" and like....

That's....really bad? They're full grown men? They're not children?

I know it's fun to call them sweet things and be overexaggerated but there's a limit, you know? They're adults. We should be treating them like such.

.

[sajdd]

hello dude! i wanna offer you my thoughts on the l'manberg crit i just saw because i got nervous about reblogging it with my thoughts cause i really don't want to have arguments, but you were very based and i wanna say stuff: there’s this like. huge misconception that l’manberg started out as a literal capital c Country but like…in the beginning it was six people on a little patch of land surrounded by some walls who loved each other and their home and wanted to live in peace. it was not a country in the literal sense of the word; they just called themselves that. that was the idea c!tubbo loved so much and fought so hard for. that was the idea he was trying to preserve. they were very much not a powerful and corrupt Nation in the beginning, y’know? so l’manberg being destroyed, to c!tubbo, is less comparable to a corrupt and rouge country being bombed by the people it wronged, and more like a home being bombed by people who had already destroyed it before? if that makes sense? so c!tubbo didn’t give up so much and fight so hard for a country - he fought for his home. for the people he cared about and wanted to see happy. he feels lost without l’manberg because he feels lost without a home + it was ripped away from him so abruptly and viciously. it doesn’t matter if the people who destroyed it had good intentions or meant well - whatever message they wanted to deliver didn’t translate. he didn’t get closure. he didn’t get to put it to rest himself. the og l’manbergians deserved that. maybe then, they would’ve felt like they could move on.

anyway i hope you have an epic day.

yess!! agreed!!!!! pretty sure this is because majority of the fandom came in during season 2 so whenever people say "lmanberg" they dont think s1 lmanberg goofing around and fighting against dream team, they dont think of schlatt the tyrant taking over, they think of New L'manberg. new lmanberg with the butcher army and the exile and doomsday.

people talk about lmanberg like its just a place, the core of lmanberg was the people. but when everyone scattered and fell apart lmanberg also started falling apart. but with their home place at least there was maybe a chance of them coming back together, but after it got ruthlessly blown to smithereens they all fell apart completely.

idk, i think its a bit funny people are so heavily critical of lmanberg when a lot of the bad things from lmanberg couldve been avoided if not for the actions of dream, techno, wilbur and schlatt lol, its all a defensive mechanism or trauma response 👍 the butcher army wasnt good at all, but when you have people like dream and techno breathing down your neck, people that have literally blown up your home, youre gonna hope you can take them down before they can attack you..

but yeah going back to my main point, most people think of s2 era lmanberg because the fandom wasnt anywhere near as big as it is now during og lmanberg era.

[flightfoot]

hey... i heard umight have a TOA discord... is it open to join?

I’m afraid the one I was in (and helped mod, though I wasn’t there very often those last few months) pretty much imploded. (I think it was the first TOA discord in existence? TOA didn’t really get much of a fandom to speak of until I joined after The Burning Maze came out) Some major fandom drama went down a few months before Tower of Nero released, tensions spiked, I think literally every mod fled the server, and... yeah it was bad. I actually left just before that, when I started having breakdowns over Rick-bashing invading the TOA fandom, I was choking up and crying talking about some of the things I was seeing and hearing concerning that, unfollowed quite a few mutuals who started in on the more intense rr crit, blacklisted every tag I could find related to rr crit, stopped checking the main tags (for a little while at least) and basically yeeted out of the fandom to preserve my own mental health.

Anyway, I was pretty much alone as far as Trials of Apollo went after that, which kinda sucked because the final book released and was EPIC. Luckily, @fearlessinger decided to give it a chance after seeing some of the analyses I put out (we already knew each other from other servers and from tumblr) so it’s just been us two incessantly screaming at each other in DMs on Discord and finding more and more and MORE layers to the series and especially to Apollo’s character development!

[jawnwicks]

3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 16, 18, 20, 23, 27, 28, 31, 33, 36, 39, 42, 43, 45, 51

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

hmmm

I don’t think so? the Winter Soldier fandom kinda went downhill but tbh I stopped paying attention after the bullshit that was Civil War came out.

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

oh so many

Frodo/Sam (LOTR)

Kirk/Spock (Star Trek)

David Lieberman/Frank Castle (The Punisher)

Arthur Fleck/TDK Joker (Betmen movies)

Tennant!Doctor/Simm!Master (Doctor Who)

Nathan Ingram/Harold Finch (Person of Interest)

Harold Finch/Mark Snow (Person of Interest)

cough Jesse/Walt (Breaking Bad) or Jesse/Saul/Walt

Gaius Baltar/Six (Battlestar Galactica)

Walter/Peter (Fringe) yeah fuck off

Alice/Luther (Luther)

Bucky Barnes/Steven Rogers (TWS) sometimes

9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

People are just completely on the NOSE about how horny they are about Arthur Fleck ALL THE FUCKIGN TIME

11. Who is your current OTP?

Joker/Joker my good sir

16. Are there any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

as mentioned before I’m not a very big fan of Harley/any Joker

not the biggest fan of Arthur/Sophie either

honestly for the same reason: She Should Not Have To Deal With That

18. What ship have you written the most about?

AO3 tells me it’s Person of Interest but I think you know what ship I’ve written the most fucking words for...

33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics?

Oneshots mostly. Sometimes I get really into an idea and then it goes multi-chap, but most of the time I have way too little an attention span for that.

36. What’s your favourite genre to write?

SAD, closely followed by HORNY

39. What is your greatest strength as a writer?

hmmm

words that sound a little like poetry but thankfully not too much

using physicality and imagery to evoke a sense of both how characters are feeling and an overall atmosphere

single punchy oneshots

creating pain upon pain upon pain

really enjoying writing porn

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

you, obviously, but here’s some more

livenudebigfoot​ - writes some cracking POI fic and has been blessed with the ability to stick with that show to the very end.

TAFKAB - writes incredible LOTR and Star Trek fic but very sadly deleted their online accounts sometime last year. Here’s one that was saved.

Dien - wrote some amazing POI fic centred around Harold Finch in all his guises. I’m still a huge fan of the CIA AU version of him.

Jungle Kitty - a long-time Kirk/Spock writer with a fuckton of talent.

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

Golden Boy by Jungle Kitty. This fic was written in 1998 and I’m still head over heels for it even though I must have first read it ten or more years ago. It’s a Kirk/Spock AU, where Kirk spends his time paying his way through Starfleet as an escort at an alien-frequented bar. It utterly wrecks me every single time.

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

I already answered this but I have another complaint: people who take the time to leave a comment but it’s just the most half-assed nasty crit you’ve ever seen. Just fuck off and read the tags next time.

[naruhearts]

OKAY SO I've just spent the best part of an hour scrolling through your blog and reading a bunch of your destiel meta and I HAD to message you... I was one of the many people who STRONGLY believed destiel had a chance of being canon after season 8 (more like season gr8 am i right), but throughout the years I slowly lost all hope. However, S14 has made me 110% invested in the show again and YOUR META IS GIVING ME HOPE FOR DESTIEL, which is TERRIFYING. Your writing is wonderful and I'm STRESSED.

Got back from Washington late last night!

Oh my gosh @alovelikecas, your message really made my day and I’m SO glad you enjoy my meta xox (even when most of my meta looks like, to me, sloppy-ass writing, haha! I’ll probably make an end-season meta post after 14x20 — if I have the time — that touches upon SPN’s current and repeating themes since Season New Beginnings S12/Dabb Era, not to mention I have, like, some more unfinished meta in my drafts >.>)

Yeah I mean, I didn’t join Destiel land until Summer 2016, and before that, I was late to the Season 11 party, so I basically had no narrative context for anything, and I’ll copy-paste what I said here: 

Looking back, one significant thing I recall? S11 gave me a sense of Destiel’s true narrative validity (as not a ‘fanon’ ship but organically developed in the canon) when I perceived it as a season that was ‘missing something’. Keep in mind I had no idea about Destiel yet while watching S11 at the time.

I was literally asking myself — repeatedly — why Dean/Amara seemed to contain odd narrative holes, considering A. Dean explicitly said that the non-consensual attraction he felt for Amara was NOT love and “it scares him”, B. Amara told Dean that ‘something stops you - keeps you from having it all’, C. Djinn!Amara stated that she can: ‘feel the love [Dean] feels, except it’s cloaked in shame,’ and D. Mildred’s iconic ‘You’re pining for someone’ —> which did not logically correlate with A and C, meaning: since Dean doesn’t freely love Amara and thus isn’t possibly pining for her — with female love interests as currently non-existent (I remember crossing off the dead/gone girls on a piece of paper lol) — who the hell was he pining for, then?

Originally posted by elizabethrobertajones

Obviously, without writing long-ass paragraphs of meta about it again in this post, S11 made sense as soon as I watched it within the Destiel context (especially after I read up on some grandiose pieces of Destiel meta (@charlie-minion was the very first person who inspired me to write meta; I followed her once I joined the fandom Oh my god, here we go, holy crap this subtext – I’m invested in this godforsaken ship because they’re in love with each other and I’m not getting off any time soon. The rest is history.

I’m aware that I do come off as positive (and I’m still Destiel-positive; whatever happens in 14x20 this week may or may not change that), but I hope you don’t mind if I use your lovely ask as an additional opportunity to clarify my meta standpoint: no one’s saying Destiel WILL become text. 

The general Destiel meta community (all subfactions: Destiel-positive, -negative, -neutral, and in-between) is not the Most Holy Canon Word, and we aren’t SPN writers, and again, we can’t actually speak to the veracity of Destiel as guaranteed-gonna-go-textual, but we — a diverse pool of critical thinkers from all walks of life: particularly those who have some degree of experience in literary academia/English literature studies (fun fact: I was actually pursuing a Minor’s in English until I changed my mind - my first love’s Health Science/Biology, which I stuck with, but here I am doing lit-crit analysis on the side *wink*) — can speak to the veracity of Destiel as a real, palpable, and ever-substantial long-running romance narrative aka the love story between Dean and Cas IS THERE. I see it. We all see it. We didn’t pluck it out of the random ether one day. It naturally evolved across the show’s overarching narrative like some vast spiderweb, linked together by numerous character arc amalgamations of Dean Winchester and Castiel as separate individuals who were then brought together — who brought themselves together, by the sheer force of free will and choice — and are now inherent parts of the other’s story (and respective character progression).

I say this too many times to count: the entire point of writing meta? Personally, it enables me to appreciate the literary gorgeousness of Dean and Cas’ relationship as, first and foremost, a tentative alliance offset by the very moment Cas raised Dean from perdition (it’s a poetic beginning). Their alliance then inevitably proliferated into a rocky — at times, necessarily turbulent — friendship, then a deep profound bond…one that crossed platonic boundaries since S7/8 and is, ultimately, indelibly rooted in romance. Together, Dean and Cas build up each other’s strengths, complement each other’s flaws, and narratively motivate the other to self-introspect — to become the best version of themselves that they were always meant to be: self-actualized entities who let go of their painful, horrifying, psychologically/emotionally destitute pasts.

These above reasons and more are why I think Destiel belongs right up there on the shelf of Ye Olde Classics, similar to epics by John Milton, Shakespearian tragic dramas, Homeric characteristic cruxes, and the great Odyssey journey: a legendary journey, fraught with circumstance, that finally ended with Odysseus (now an enlightened man) returning to Penelope, the love of his life.

Channeling the scope of Homer’s Odyssey, Destiel is an incredible storytelling feat of obstacles, both internal and external, romance tropes, mirroring, foreshadowing, and visual cadence/emotion, enhancing SPN’s already character-driven main plot in that Dean and Cas try to make it back to one another; like Penelope, their love holds true despite everything. If Destiel were an M/F couple, we all know their love story would be absolutely undeniable to the GA.

I do understand the bitterness S14’s fostered in some viewers, though. I do understand that Dean and Cas seem distant (and yeah, it’s a noticeable difference compared to S12/S13), but I believe the Destiel subtext is still heavy and holds steady.

Right now, at this point, there remains multiple personal issues for the characters to solve, you know? Dean and Cas aren’t talking properly; their love languages stay mistranslated, although we’re persistently shown that they still understand each other on a certain level that no one else can, and the visual narrative keeps framing them as on-the-nose solid counterparts: a domestic-spousal romantic unit independent of Sam.

Originally posted by incatastrophicmind

They want to be there for the other. They need to quash the final remnants of their respective internal loathing (Dean’s self-worthiness, Cas’ self-expendability) before they’re able to give the other 100% of their time, efforts, attention, and love (as flawed and complicated but compellingly beautiful as it can possibly be). During the times Dean and Cas do try to talk shit out, extraneous issues continue to get between them.

As other friends/meta pals discussed with me, S14 is like S10 in that it’s confusing the cast/audiences. And exactly: S8, besides S11/S12/early S13, also belongs in the close-to-canon serious Destiel narrative transition! I can discuss the showrunning/writer problem of SBL (Singer + Bucklemming; @occamshipper hits the nail on the head) that tugs subtext – especially subtext linked to Destiel – back and forth, sometimes in the weirdest nonsensical ways, but I won’t go too far into it here. I agree, however, with the recent idea that Jensen does seem a bit confused as to where he should bring Dean emotionally this season (don’t get me wrong, I do NOT believe Dean is OOC; OOC is a completely different concept vs expected character behaviour). And if Dean’s consistently romance-coded past interactions with Cas are any indication, Jensen would also — in the same vein as all of us — want Dean and Cas to start getting their shit together. Long-running fictional characters like Dean and Cas, conceived over 10 years, are so well-written to the point where you, the author, can predict what they’ll do even if you just plop both of them inside a room and give them no direction, and I personally feel that nowadays Jensen is prevented from achieving Dean’s further internal growth/unsure how to act in the moment because of some dumb SBL scripts saying one thing while his character’s heart says another. Wank aside—

Season 15 should hopefully convey a much more logical subtextual perspective e.g. unbelievably amazingly cohesive Season Destiel 11 that aired after choppy S10. Not all hope is lost!! I also want to clarify that I personally LOVED Season 14 in general. It’s been mostly Emotion-centric constant, with Yockey, Berens, Perez, and Dabb usually making my top-rank SPN writer list.

Currently the narrative’s still allowing pretty significant (imho) wiggle room for the lovers to fracture apart and get back together, where their miscommunication comes to a dramatic head. We just saw Dean and Cas argue over Jack’s well-being in 14x18 and 19. Dean — besides putting Cas at the top of his You’re-Dead-to-Me-Because-You-Lied-but-I-Still-Love-You-Goddammit hitlist (for clear spousal-coded reasons) and taking Cas’ actions to heart (he’s the person he trusted the most who lied to him) — no doubt blamed himself for what happened, and Sam was, like I said, the mouthpiece of truth. TFW were all culpable. They all failed Jack in some way, shape, or form.

I’m not expecting anything for 14x20, but I’m nervous either way! Thanks for sticking with my long answer

[pumpkinsadlatte]

Hey, is it October? Because it’s about to get Pumpkin Spicy in here.

RWBY is still, despite coming up on Volume Six, a very young show. I mean... it took ten entire seasons to really understand one character in Red Vs. Blue, and people still have negative opinions about Agent Texas. We have set up a lot of complex issues and backstories yet to be explored, something that RoosterTeeth has absolutely done before, but I think the fandom is focusing too heavily on the fact that they aren’t telling us everything at once.

As you may or may not know, one of my now-fourteen RWBY roleplay muses is one Adam Taurus. I chose to play Adam as he is presented on-screen, rather than attempting to justify him, or playing him as canon divergent. As a result, I have spent quite a lot of time analyzing his character and solidifying my read on how he thinks. I have applied a similar philosophy to all of my muses, most relevant to this argument being my analysis of Jacques Schnee, who I believe is a fascinating connection to Adam, as strange as that may sound.

I’ve seen some Adam crit lately, and while I in fact live for villain analysis, I feel like a lot of people may be missing some points with some of RWBY’s villains, or at least, some of the adversaries present in the storyline. I say “adversaries” because I don’t really see characters like, say, Cardin or the Grimm or Vernal as real villains. I also find that while the fandom seems more than happy to criticize Adam for superficial reasons, they don’t talk about the slimy bits of his character. And they don’t seem to talk about Jacques Schnee much at all. And here’s the thing: I absolutely understand why. They’re tough character types to talk about, and people like them can be very triggering to analyze and otherwise deal with. God knows I sometimes have trouble with Jacques because of how much he reminds me of someone who caused me a lot of damage.

I’d like to present the theory that Adam and Jacques are a very interesting parallel. Not just in the show but in the fandom. And here’s why: Both of them have a need for power and control, especially over other people, or people whom they view as inferior. And in their quests to obtain that control, both of them have been unhealthy influences on a main heroine of the show. Jacques’ toxicity was longer-lasting and more damaging because it began infecting Weiss from birth. It shaped who she was as a person and was “normal” to her. Until she was out of his sphere of influence, she had no reason to think that the way he acted was something to question or even fear. It’s a very dangerous type of toxicity. But Adam’s was harder-hitting. Blake was an oppressed child because of her race, and she witnessed her father step down as the leader of the White Fang, and her parents step away from the fight to stop the oppression. I submit that it is only natural that she gravitated toward the person who most aggressively remained “on her side” after that. This placed her in a position that turned her into a victim of Adam’s unhinged personality.

The only thing about my whole argument, though, is that WE DON’T KNOW HOW THINGS REALLY WERE FOR BLAKE. We know that she began to notice Adam behaving erratically, becoming more violent and aggressive, but we really don’t know how long she was with him, or how long it took before he began to display this behavior. We don’t know how quickly it escalated. We just know that Blake left after it got bad enough that it would affect how she interacts with others. Caused her to freeze with fear when she saw him at Beacon. I think Weiss can make my point for me here. Blake was afraid of Adam.

Until now, Adam had largely been just a lurking enemy, hanging out in spoken word along and rarely appearing in person. The only character who has appeared less than him and still maintained the same heavy relevance is Salem, and this is appropriate for the same reason in both cases: they are lurking threats. Characters like Tyrian and Watts, who are in the same category of “lurking threats” are terrifying in how little we know about them in general, whereas Adam and Salem are terrifying in how little we need to know about them. We can understand Adam’s motivations to a certain degree, through what has been explained to us about him and through what we know about the sociopolitical climate in Remnant. But we have also seen his lurking in a different, and much more realistic light: as a symbol of the fear he sparked in Blake.

When you have been a victim of abuse, either in a familial sense or in a romantic relationship, it is not uncommon to become afraid of crossing paths with your abuser. To do everything in your power to keep them away from you, and away from the people you care about. Particularly if your abuser is aggressive, or even violent. They become a lurking threat, hiding around every corner until you turn it, always standing behind you or just outside your window. They’re always the one who’s calling your phone until you look to see that they’re not. They’re that car that’s making the same turn as you and has been behind you for the past six miles.

I don’t think a lot of people understand that the Menagerie vs. White Fang altercation went the worst way possible FOR ADAM. No, there wasn’t a big epic battle, it wasn’t a huge spectacle. But that was what Adam wanted. Adam wants to be able to point fingers at humans, and at faunus who “betray their own kind” by opposing the White Fang. But that altercation ended with Adam betraying his own. With Adam being betrayed. With Adam running away from the people he allied himself with. As Ilia says, he abandoned his people and lost all of the power that he had. He has nothing now but spite, and in his hands, that’s still dangerous, but nowhere near as dangerous as he once was. People like Adam don’t necessarily need to be defeated in fire and blood, but often, all they need is to be knocked down into anonymity and irrelevance. However, the problem with doing that is that they very often become far more dangerous on a personal level through their determination to regain the power that they lost, or that was “taken away from them.”

The Haven Incident didn’t see Adam destroyed, but it saw Blake stand up to her abuser in a very major way. And I am of the belief that it saw a blow to Adam that may turn him into a much more formidable force down the road.