#everyone has their own opinions and that’s fine

[okkos-ferrum]

Unorganized helluva boss apology tour rant cuz I think I'm going crazy

Disclaimer, cuz I know helluva fans can get defensive: A lot of this is probably my subjective opinion. I'll state my tldr as my actual objective piece of criticism, but otherwise my gripes throughout this could be based on my tastes and expectations. I genuinely don't want to take away anyone's enjoyment of this show nor hate on anyone involved, so if u just want to enjoy helluva, totally skip this :]

I think I'll actually have to give my hot take here and criticize this episode, because everyone has given way too much praise for an episode I think - in the long run - hurts the show

Im not gonna even bother organizing my thoughts I'm just gonna rant, but to start, i think the decision to start the ep right after full moon chronologically wasn't the best move. The full moon episode cliffhanger was an impactful scene and a dramatic way to start the rift between stolas and blitzo. It's where the dam of two-ish seasons finally breaks, where to me, stolas and blitzo have already said everything needed to be said, at least at the emotional maturity they currently are at. Any changes in said conversation about their relationship would require growth from both separately in order to foster a healthy discussion.

So to undercut that tension by IMMIEDTLY having blitzo somehow wiggle his way back into stolas's private property to have both double down on their stance diminishes the weight new moon's finale had. The conversation, while it does add further clarity, feels repetitive and emotionally taxing to watch, because the show has literally zero scenes of either of them reflecting on the previous night. So it's just them starting up the same fight with the same talking points we already know.

Yeah, maybe it is in character for blitzo to demand a conversation after new moon, but it shouldn't have been the path the show took. It should've allowed the story to stew in the feelings brought out in new moon, both in a narrative and meta sense by taking a break from stolatiz.

Cuz honestly I'm a bit drained of it atm. The show sells itself on the premise of blitzo being a "boss" (a hell of a bos-) and him working with imp. But all of s2 has had this obsession with stolatiz ever since the popularity of ozzie's (for good reason that episode was amazing and one of my personal favs still).

Just abt half the eps in s2 carry an emotional weight around the stolitz relationship. (where s1 has stolitz is make out sessions and the occasional threat to their life, s2 takes it up to actual life or death situations and full backstories) . This increased tension and focus draws away from the intial episodic format to become a more serialized (and imo) melodrama abt the status of the stolitz relationship. Rather than concern itself over any of the imp characters and their emotions, helluva has made all of its emotional beats and stakes throughtout the whole season relate to stoltiz in some way (or it's parallel with fizz and Ozzie in ep 7).

To return back to the ep, I also take issue with its writing of verosika. I will admit that this could be subjective, as my partner, who loves verosika and was worried abt her writing going into the ep, enjoyed how the ep integrated her. But idk, I think it is so lame that an ep like full moon, which is marketed to be abt stolitz, is fine wasting its time writing the cherubs for 90% of the episode, while can't bother making verosika a larger character in her own ep.

Like she's a SINGER, but no she's back up for STOLAS'S SONG this ep. And it's not stolas's hasn't had the chance to sing love ballads before, he's got plenty. But no, the host of the party can't even be a duet to stolas, she's gotta be back up. Like it couldve been a way stronger connection between these two if they sang a duet, rather than the show AGAIN prioritizing verbalizing stolas's emotions again.

We get a full flashback to blitzo's relationship with both fizz and stolas, but nothing on his other significant relationship??? Just a line or two of how it went down and that's it??

Side tangent: It gets on my nerves how so many people are realizing now that verosika is not a bad person. Like it's clear from even in her intro ep in s1 ep 3 she's angry rightfully for how blitzo screwed her over. But now that she actually is being nice and forgiving to stolas and blitzo respectively, now she has earned the fandom's respect??? Like the amt of comments of "Oh wow, verosika isn't a villain, she's an anatognist" drives me insane

Like to me, this ep should've stepped away from stolas directly, and focus on blitzo and verosika. Have blitzo go back to ignoring his feelings by jumping back head first into business, now with the asmodeous crystal. Then bump into verosika somehow. However it may happen, verosika and blitzo, either angrily or calmly, reflect on their own past relationship at the end, which might have blitzo making a realization of how he is repeating his past mistakes. Use the episodic format to slowly allow blitzo to mature so the next time he meets stolas, he won't just double down like he did in the beginning of the ep.

I think, personally, the decision to have verosika host the anti blitzo party diminishes her as a character. It chooses to again define her by how blitzo hurt her, rather than touching on the other underdeveloped parts of her character. She has shown to be very petty yes, but to go through all this effort seems too much, since she is a pop star and should have better things to do.

Maybe explore how she, a succubus, who is meant to have primarily sexual relationships, goes abt on her day to day as a celebrity who went to rehab. Or her relationship with maybe knowing barbie. Or the other ways to explore the set ups for her in ep 3. But no, she plays second fiddle to her second focus ep for the stoltiz drama. But yeah sure, let's have full moon be abt the cherubs.

On a final and likely my most pettiest point, this ep made me cringe a lot. I'm sorry, this is very subjective of me, but I need to say it. So much of this ep felt like fanfic. Always hammering in how "he's a prince and you're an imp" kind of deal. Stolas getting overly drunk after taking a swig of one drink to have blitzo handle him being drunk. The million puppy dog eyes by blitzo, like it felt too pitying. The rushed pacing felt like a result of this indulgent kind of writing, where it priotizes creating the cute shipping scenes before thinking about the actual plot and its effect later on. Again, just my taste tho

Alright I think I ranted enough but ...

Tl;dr: Apology tour messes up the pacing and focus of the show by continously centering itself around the stolitz drama rather than allowing time to reflect by themselves

[twinklebitch]

idk if it’s just me but i feel like so many criticisms of this season boil down to expecting an actual play improv show to be as coherent and cohesive as a scripted piece of media.

and also i don’t think some of you have ever played dnd and it shows

[skydrag0n]

Tim’s a bisexual with a preference for women

[oceanwithouthermoon]

i think its weird that i have to make this disclaimer but the internet is crazy so wtvr,, anyway,,

if i say i dont like something, that doesnt mean "that thing is bad and nobody should post it.."

i swear literally every time i even mention that i dislike something, people will go "wow does that mean u fucking hate me cuz i post that thing? ur a fucking stupid bitch and all ur opinions r wrong" LIKE ?? er.. no. just because i say i dont like certain characterizations of certain characters (the saiki k fandom is CRAZY about this cuz i can state an opinion on literally any character and a group of people will still go 'well only we're allowed to post our opinions about them because we're always right!1!1!'), or certain ship tropes (mentioned my hatred of toxic yaoi maybe once or twice on here months ago and people STILL get mad at me as if i said toxic yaoi lovers r evil or something), or certain ships, or WHATEVER, does not mean that i HATE the people who are posting them or that i think they shouldnt post them at all, NO, im just posting about my personal tastes on my personal blog and it would be extremely weird and hypocritical if i decided that i was the ONLY person that was allowed to do that,,

i think the only reason people assume that is because there are a lot of other people on here who ARE like that, and a lot of people toe the line between posting that they dont like something and posting that they think everyone who likes that thing is stupid, annoying, and wrong,, so i guess all i can say is, sorry for whatever made you make these assumptions but they arent true about me so plz leave me alone ʘ‿ʘ ur doing the same thing to me that ur accusing me of but i didnt do it in the first place so ur just actively being a dick for no reason

[aroace-poly-show]

personally offended by like half the cards in that tournament WHAT DID THOSE CARDS DO TO YOU

[seiya-starsniper]

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[martyrbat]

so many of you talk about the cruel adults in your childhood that negatively effected you and caused lifelong insecurity yet you're still perfectly fine with being that mean stranger to any kid that has the misfortune of existing around you and thats just really gross !!!

[bmpmp3]

and since im in a musicposting mood you should listen to jellyfish right NOW

[stardustdiiving]

From the ship ask! What's a pairing most people seem to like in Genshin that you don't?

(ship asks prompt)

MAN OKAY I honestly could answer this with a good third of popular Genshin ships…but none of these are really solid dislikes, it’s just me feeling specific about how I like to see it executed & finding the way the fandom handles it is either unsatisfying, or generates an environment that kinda stresses me out NJDNCNC

To narrow it down to one I feel matches the question best I think I’m gonna go with Kokomi/Sara. It’s not really an active dislike or anything I promise I’m genuinely chilling. *insane person voice* but see I am just very stressed out with the in universe geo-politics happening in the background of this Genshin impact ship

I MEAN THAT IN A VERY SILLY WAY. but also I do have a genuine elaboration on what i mean which is like…how do I say this.

I really like Watasumi Island and find their existence + circumstances as a nation really interesting, especially regarding their dynamic with the Shogunate—it’s like the one part of inazuman politics that really catches my interest. But see the way I took the way the Shogunate + Watasumi dynamic was being written was specifically that Watasumi is/was suffering from colonization/imperialism at the hands of the Shogunate. I don’t see them as equal enemies on opposing sides of a conflict I’m just kind of like. Oh my god the Shogunate tries to control their primary food sources + military and after the war u see like, Gorou helping smuggle medicine and food supplies to treat their wounded war veterans bc the Shogunate is imposing high taxes on them they can’t afford to pay. The Raiden Shogun slaughtered their deity who was kind of backed into a corner on trying to secure vital resources for his people and to this day his corpse is just sitting on her territory getting ravaged and mined for weapons !! That’s crazy! I like thinking Abt that!

While I think Inazuma suffered from the writers dropping the ball with a lot of things I am generally happy this dynamic is explored/acknowledged repeatedly and Watasumi at least to me doesn’t feel like it’s constantly written in a really meanspirited and shitty way you know. Like, in the medicine supply smuggling thing i mentioned — that’s a route in Heizhou’s hangout that ends in a conclusion that something may have severely hurt the vitality of Watasumi’s land and it’s ability to provide, but that doesn’t mean they won’t survive or all hope is lost, because theres people within Watasumi who care and embody that hope and vitality within themselves and are working hard to build stability and provide for everyone. Like idk that’s really cool and I genuinely found it a really nice narrative that really makes me root for Watasumi

But then we get to Sara & Kokomi and ppl just do not talk about this dynamic between both nations at all from what I see, despite it being really relevant to the characters and in theory the appeal of the ship? And I jusurjfucn I guess it confuses me a lot bc I remember, most recently for example on the TCG event, I was so confused seeing everyone post about their interactions for days about how it was cute they were engaging in card matches together and Sara wanted to be friends…and then I played the event myself and we get this scene where Kokomi is standing off starring out at sea alone, and she talks about how she doesn’t like how she can’t see Watasumi from here, and how that was especially agonizing to experience during the war, and then gets caught up in her memories of the war and talks about how a lot of her people are still recovering from the trauma of it, and how she’s participating in this event bc she’s anxious about wanting to build good relations between the Shogunate and Watasumi so her nation doesn’t suffer more in the future AND IM JUST…MAN

Like I do think I can see Sara & Kokomi being friends, Sara’s character feels like it’s the concept of “individual with genuinely good morals working in an oppressive system doesnt stop the damage the system causes” kind of deal BUT IDK…I get fandom experiences can very anecdotal and I’m sure there are shippers who handle this aspect of the ship but when at large it just feels like it’s filed down to a vague enemies to lovers + contrasting aesthetic girlfriends ship I guess it def leans more towards being one I’m not really into. I think it doesn’t help it strikes the specific fandom pet peeve I have where I sometimes feel ppl water down a lot of wlw ships down to just being surface level cute and I am a lesbian who likes very nuanced and complicated character dynamic exploration so I’m personally just like. Yeah idk I guess this seems rlly widely accepted fanon wise but I don’t rlly click with it at all djjcnfj while I could be interested in this dynamic being explored, just if I were doing my own take on it ik adding romantic tones wouldnt feel super necessary to make it feel more interesting to me personally yk x__x

I just feel very excitable about a lot of genshin things and Watasumi vs Shogunate related things hits that mark of interest for me…definitely not implying the shippers r doing something wrong by making silly lighthearted posts and being less interested in types of analysis I enjoy but I guess that’s the most popular ship I feel the least interested in I can think of?

[ghostsessioned]

Can you ramble to me about Olivia (if/when you have time)

MOM HOLY FUCK THE QUESTION OF THE CENTURY.

i would love. to ramble about my favorite fucking character ever. The character ever. camena's Most Annoying blonde - turned blue - haired moon loving lesbian. i love her spunk, i love her attitude, her lack of self - control, her demeanor and "get it done" agenda. her thinking she doesn't care but she cares too much and it frustrates her because she shouldn't. thinking she's better off without anyone but feeling lonely on nights where she could be hanging out with violet and charlie but chose not to. she knows she's in over her head ! she doesn't care ! she'll deal with the consequences later, that's how she's Always worked. needless rambling going off the rails and not having any sense of direction 101

if olivia has a million fans, then i am one of them. if olivia has only one fan then that is me. if olivia has no fans, then that means i am no longer on earth. if the world is against olivia, then i am against the world.

[haemosexuality]

i feel like im probably gonna be talking about this a lot here since i cant talk to Her about it and it really is bothering me so much

[lyxchen]

Okay look I love Kitty and Yuri together but I don't actually think they should end up together. Because I think Yuri is genuinely in love with Julianna and she won't just give that up. So far from what I've seen they are very much in a good relationship with each other and plan to stay that way. They are cute, they are happy, they have plans for the future and they fought so hard to be together so it would be really unfair and also out of character to just take that away from them especially since they are finally back together now. And I do think Kitty deserves do find a cute girlfriend but it doesn't have to be Yuri. There are for sure so many other cute girl Kitty hasn't met yet that will also be perfect for her. I think Yuri is very important for Kitty because she is part of her self discovery. Kitty found out she was into girls through Yuri and that's great!! But that doesn't immediately mean that they have to be together, especially when Yuri is already in a committed relationship. I do think they are very cute together and would be amazing as friends tho!!

[essektheylyss]

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[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

Why do people bring their unnecessary input into ur posts like damn it's just a theory 😭 we're out here having fun and clowning hop off our dicks bro

gvskdjsksj they want to fuck us so bad it makes them look stupid

yeah i mean look. i tend not to interact with stuff i disagree/don't vibe with. cos 1) it's not that deep, 2) it doesn't effect my opinion of the books, and 3) it's really none of my business if strangers on the internet have dif opinions, so long as they're not harming anyone.

but sometimes i forget that that's not how most of the internet functions. so i'm always slightly jarred when people add their conflicting opinions on a post that does not explicitly ask for other opinions.

having said that, it's a totally fair misconception to have tbh, seeing as virtually all other social media seems to operate on a "discussion for discussion's sake" basis. for me though, my blog here on Tumblr will, for the most part, always operate under the rule of thumb: "this is my opinion and i'm not really looking to argue with people who disagree with me".

maybe in the past i've been more lenient about discussion on my theory/analysis posts. but especially recently, i don't have the time or energy to tolerate it (like a "i'm too old/broke for this" kinda vibe 🙈).

when people ask me things about TFOTA, i'm always answering under the implication that this is my opinion/interpretation/etc. of the text. even if i provide text-based evidence, i'm not trying to convince you of anything. i'm not saying my interpretation is fact. i'm saying "here's what i believe and here are my reasons for believing it".

if you agree, great! i'm so happy i could provide a way for you to connect more with a series that we all love.

if you don't agree, that's cool, too. you can keep it pushin. there is still space enough within the fandom for you to make your own posts featuring Your Interpretations, and have fun in that space with people who agree with you, rather than sit here poking holes in the fun that other people are trying to have.

that's the beauty of fiction.

everyone can and does have their own interpretation, and all of us can be right, simultaneously. you don't have to "prove people wrong" or tell people who have an opinion why you disagree with them for your opinion to be valid. because your opinion is intrinsically valid.

and chances are, you're not going to change anyone's mind.

[twopoppies]

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[eve-is-a-terf]

this tumblr popped up on my feed last year about October and I thought I’d give it a hate read and then I was like. Hm. Damn this makes sense. And that’s what peaked me lol.

wow, congratulations on being radicalized into our cult lmao!! jk, i love to hear other people's peaking stories, and so many come from hatereading. i always wonder how many TRA lurkers on radblr eventually become radical feminists themselves haha