#he will see any piece of media that has a morally and worst of all religiously incorrect action and he will get to the point of swearing

[crescentmp3]

also i do not believe my father knows what a cautionary tale is.

[kismetconstellations]

Hello! I was just wondering what you thought of these cause I feel like I’m losing my mind ? You’re more the expert on shiro and Keith’s relationship so I’d like to see your thoughts!

Oh, God. Sweet Jesus, Lord, give me strength.

I'm going to start using people's understanding of and empathy for Shiro (or obvious lack thereof) as a litmus test for gauging their basic media comprehension. Because it consistently seems that the people with the worst takes on him have outstandingly poor media literacy, and a spectacular unwillingness and inability to so much as attempt to emotionally connect with a character that doesn't reflect them, personally.

Shiro is older, emotionally reserved, and repeatedly finds himself in positions of leadership over people much younger than him, forcing him to be both commanding officer and caregiver/mentor to the best of his ability while privately grappling with his own extreme personal demons. That, somehow, equates to him being a manipulative, "emotionally blackmailing piece of shit".

I'd like someone to explain to me how the man who bailed the kid who stole his car out of juvie because he recognized that kid's potential for greatness, was committing an act of "emotional blackmail". How Shiro advocating for Keith over and over and over again is "emotional blackmail". How Shiro being resigned to dying in his twenties and trusting his closest friend, who he has always believed in, to carry on as leader in his stead, is "emotional blackmail".

I love Leonardo from the 2003 iteration of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I've expressed that love several times on this blog. He's easily one of my favorite characters of all time, and so much of the foundation of my personality and sense of morality was shaped by him. But, when Leonardo is grappling with PTSD, in Season Four, there is very much a strong anger attached to his hurt. Anger at his brothers, for seeming to not take things seriously enough or recognize how close they come to death when they aren't giving one-hundred percent of themselves to every single battle. Anger at Splinter, the sensei and father he loves beyond measure, for not being the unforgiving teacher Leo felt he needed in order to improve. And, anger at himself for not being strong enough to keep his family from believing that they had no other choice but to sacrifice themselves to rid the universe of evil.

Leonardo does yell. He yells at his brothers and his father. He lashes out in a furious rage, and pushes and pushes and pushes himself, desperate to reach a higher tier of ninja, in order to atone for his perceived failure to protect the people he loves.

Shiro, by contrast, almost never yells. He shouts out orders on the battlefield, yes, as soldiers and commanding officers do, but yelling at his teammates, and, specifically, at Keith?

Does this person just interpret any man speaking slightly louder than a whisper as him "yelling"?

Shiro is almost absurdly gentle for someone who has endured the Hell he has. When Lance gets in his face, loudly questioning one of Shiro's calls- a call that is in support of Keith- Shiro doesn't respond with anger, snapping at Lance to shut his mouth or back off. He, instead, calmly moves Lance away from him, explaining in the same calm but firm manner why he's standing by his decision that Keith is the perfect choice to accompany him on that particular mission.

When Shiro had Keith seek out the Red Lion on his own, it's because he knew that Keith was more than capable of handling himself and the Lion would reach out to their Paladin, and because Pidge had just revealed herself to be family of the crew Shiro felt responsible for losing. Meaning that Shiro accompanying her to the holding cells to see if Sam and Matt were among the prisoners onboard was a given.

And, the only person who raises their voice in anger in that entire scene is Pidge.

Teaching Keith "one suicidal trick"... In an effort to connect with him. To show Keith that Shiro, himself, the straitlaced, rule-abiding Garrison Golden Boy, is a bit of a thrill-seeker, too, but you have to learn to temper your impulse with patience for your own good.

It's really, really easy to assign malicious intent to a person's every action when you've already decided to hate them.

"Become the leader, be the first to die".

Oh, like Shiro was?

"He never tells Keith he's a cool kid".

"So, you grew up out here?"

"Yep. Just me and my pop."

(Looks to Keith to gauge where he's at emotionally, and whether it's okay to ask his next question.)

"He was...

He was a fireman, right?"

"Yeah. He was a real hero.

Everyone told him not to run back into that building, but... you couldn't tell him anything."

"Sounds like someone I know."

Directly drawing a positive comparison between Keith and his hero father based on their mutual obstinance, a personality trait that Keith has likely been reprimanded for, in the past? A comparison that makes Keith, himself, smile? Nah, that's nothing like telling Keith that he's "cool".

"Never makes Keith feel welcome".

Calling Shiro "Dumbledore"...

OP, whoever you are, I don't mean to be rude, but, sincerely:

It's interesting that you rarely find a Shiro fan who thinks poorly of Keith, but there's certainly an abundance of Keith fans who seem to believe that Shiro treats Keith poorly, or Shiro should have died and permanently stayed dead to benefit Keith. And, this person repeatedly bringing up Shiro's illness as a "justification" for scapegoating him positively reeks of the ableism every other "critic" of Shiro proudly flaunts like some kind of twisted banner.

But, at least they didn't tack on some homophobia just for the hell of it. Unless that's what referring to Shiro as the "Dumbledore of the franchise" was intended to be.

And, to cap it off and really, really drive home just how poor this person's media literacy is, they're utterly baffled by the inclusion of Adam in Shiro's backstory. As it seems to have entirely escaped them that Adam and his less than supportive attitude were there to illustrate that even Shiro's long-term boyfriend was ready to give up on him, but Keith never did.

Which Shiro knows, and verbally acknowledges.

"Keith, I was dreaming. Keith... You saved me."

I definitely lost braincells reading that screed of hostile idiocy. But, at the very least we can say we suffered through it together?

Treat yourself to your favorite beverage as a palette cleanser after enduring that cavalcade of stupidity. I know I'm going to.

[cellarspider]

25/30 Eschatology for Dummies

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Once again, we dive into that font of madness, Prometheus. I lied last time, we’re not talking about language today, I want to bash my head against the problem of “what in blazes is the intent of this movie”.

As the expedition enters the alien structure, suddenly Shaw remembers that germs can float.

“Wait. We still don’t know how Holloway got infected. If it’s in the air–”

This is one of those maddening little moments where the script tells me that no, the earlier removal of helmets was not just the oversight of someone who didn’t know better. The script chose violence.

“Smells fine to me.”

So does VX nerve gas. Truly, this is the mental acumen required to become rich.

The movie attempts to raise tension through a ZOOM AND ENHANCE, and cluing in those in the audience who may have been thinking “Ha! Foolish Engineers! How would they ever destroy life on Earth if they don’t have any spaceships?”

Well, turns out, there are these great big buildings called “hangars”, and you can put spaceships in them, sometimes even under the ground. I almost feel like if they hadn’t buried the ship, Holloway would’ve tried to see if he could do a burnout in it.

David, meanwhile, is having a great time. He’s giving a guided tour of the ship (that he explored more thoroughly than anyone else), pointing out their technology (that he learned how to use), explaining what they were doing (which he figured out before anyone else did), and assuring Weyland that yes, he can talk to the Engineer (which no one else can do), blithely skating by the reasons why he knows Holloway didn’t die from an airborne illness and how the Engineers were going to press the reset buttons on Earth. Simultaneously excelling at what he was supposed to do and also anticipating Weyland’s inevitable doom, possibly even that of humanity as a whole. It feels appropriately childish for a character that’s extremely young, extremely smart, and has had the worst socialization this side of Immortan Joe’s war boys.

Weyland doesn’t care about any of that, because he’s a horrible homunculus of an old Englishman formed out of a forty-five year old Aussie. This continues to vex me, even now. I keep trying to figure out why they did this. Did they originally intend for him to be depicted as young and change their mind? Was the mobility aid exoskeleton thing they put him in heavy and cumbersome? It’s hard to see in these screenshots, but he is wearing one.

Honestly, just have Lance Henriksen play another Weyland again. Lance can definitely play scumbags, and it would honestly be funny to have every single Weyland in every single time period played by him. Have him play Vickers too, for good measure. It would’ve taken me out of the film less than this.

At this point, I personally did not care about any characters besides David and the Engineer. Which is a very strange position to find oneself in, caring most about two characters who seem just fine with humanity going pft! 

And I’d like to examine that. Because fiction can put you in all sorts of strange headspaces that can be thoroughly contradictory to personal morals and self-interest. What was the movie trying to do here, and where has it ended up?

I want to start with some assumptions that mass media tends to make. Fiction, in general culture, is often presented as a moral lesson. Your protagonists are virtuous, and anything that stands in their way is villainous evil. The protagonists are also expected to be likable, and the audience is expected to root for them. A moral tale of who is worthy and who is not.

This is only a small piece of what fiction is. No one of these things is required. Villains are not required, sometimes problems aren’t caused maliciously. Protagonists do not have to be moral. Moral characters don’t have to be likable. You don’t have to root for the protagonists. And none of these divisions are binary.

I am uncertain whether we are supposed to root for the protagonists in this movie. Ridley Scott isn’t a stranger to this idea–look at Blade Runner (1982). Is it good that Deckard hunts down fugitive replicants? No. Absolutely not. Is it a compelling story? Yes! It’s beautifully told and tragic! If you make me watch Roy Batty’s monologue I will cry.

So. It is entirely possible that we are supposed to find the human characters unsympathetic. The Engineers created humanity, and then decided to destroy it. This could have been planned from the start–many religions describe cyclical, world-ending death and rebirth, after all. But this movie is heavily influenced by christianity. Those sects that believe in a destructive apocalypse call it the Last Judgment of humanity, something that occurs when the world has fallen into a state of corruption.

Which then brings us to the question: Does humanity deserve that most fatal judgment?

I mean, in real life, I’d say no, absolutely fucking not. The problem of a suffering world is not sanely responded to with “I’ve got a solution: murder everything”. 

This is fiction, though. We are being presented with a vision of humanity. This has the potential to be a counterpoint to the Engineers’ thinking, or their evidence, or a mix of both.

What is it, then? Most of the cast are morons, selfish, or featureless ciphers. They are a very pessimistic view of humanity. And remember, this is fiction. People don’t need to act like real people. When you think about redeeming qualities in yourself, in your friends, in your favorite so-and-so, this fictional realm does not necessarily contain them. In its barest form, it only contains the characters we see.

We’ve got Janek, who’s been charming and indicated he’s willing to stop the Engineers here, but that’s all we know about him. He’s also behaved in negligent ways that contributed to the deaths of Millburn, Fifield, and the nameless guys mutant Fifield wailed on. Christian morality is big on redemption as a path to unconditional absolution, so is he redeeming himself through a last-minute sobering up? Maybe. I’d note he’s missing the “confession” and “recanting past sins” parts that are usually bundled up with that.

We’ve also got Shaw. Shaw has all the makings of a Final Girl, somebody who is destined to survive the plot. They usually have some redeeming quality that makes you want to root for them. What does Shaw have?

Well, she’s got a never super-defined strain of christian faith. And she’s had a really shit time lately, so it would be cruel to watch her get kicked around more.

So, that’s two. Two could be enough in Abrahamic religions–Lot flees from Sodom to Zoar, and it’s spared from destruction because of his presence. Sure, he does some Weird Shit, but he qualified as righteous by whatever standards were at play there. But Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for want of ten righteous people. 

And all that gets more complicated in New Testament stuff, after God’s pinky promised not to destroy everyone again, except for the aforementioned Last Judgment thing. Is this movie, as christian allegory, advocating for a god of forgiveness, or depicting a just god who punishes the wicked?

No idea. It doesn’t have to be clear, obviously, fiction doesn’t have to be clear, any more than it has to be moral. I didn’t personally want the Engineer to sail off and destroy Earth, but frankly, I could see it from that perspective, given what this poor bugger’s met with upon waking up.

Next time: our Engineer wakes up from a two thousand year trauma nap to find some little monkeys yelling at them. Surely, this will go well.

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Alt-text rambles:

https://extra-images.akamaized.net/image/8a/5by6/2021/04/17/8a6f54c4f0ca4bd397cc22aceb4cb30e_md.jpg 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torc 

[hulloitsdani]

Related to the subject of Alfonse/Kiran's brave alt, what was the inspo for Kiran's fallen alt, out of curiosity? And by any chance, was Slay the Princess a part of it at all? 👀 I'm sorry too about potential Slay the Princess spoilers (it's a very "you can mention the tiniest detail and spoil a chunk of a route on the spot" subject), just I'm super intrigued of how Kiran's fallen alt reflects on Kiran's duo-brave with Brave Alfonse, if, say, fallen Kiran had aspects of The Stranger, or more, The Shifting Mound.

The two bonding in intense, almost horrifying degrees, would make them entwined in a way that blurs the line of where one of them ends, and the other begins.

But then the fallen Kiran is a soul of what used to be, and Lif is a husk of a person that no longer is.

"I made sure that the tear was rough. You carry a part of what should be them [Kiran], and they carry a part of what should be you [Lif/Alfonse]. Things won't be as they are now, but they won't be nothing, either."

I just find the parallel between both extremes of 'fundamentally changed to the point they could no longer go back to what they used to be', and then the far-opposite 'so close together they become something that's both, but not quite'.

OKAY SO BEFORE WE CONTINUE THERES SOME IN STARS AND TIME SPOILERS IN HERE. THERE WILL BE SOME RED TEXT BEFORE HAND BUT BE WARNED.

Anyway.

I am so sorry to report that I wasn’t actively thinking about Slay the Princess while making either the fallen Kiran alt or what I’m going to call the Chosen Consort alt. However, DAMN BRO YOU SO RIGHT. LIKE OH THAT GOES CRAZY.

Slay the Princess and I have a funny relationship, because it’s such a me-coded piece of media. To give you an idea, I have posted mainly fanworks on this blog, right? But if we take a tiny peek into what some of my more personal sketches can look like:

…I think you can see what I mean. Slay the Princess haunts me in the most wonderful little ways. Love that game. The comparisons you have drawn are so god damn right. It was not intentional, but a lot of my work tends to be in a similar vein. That’s DEFINITELY the vibe and I am delighted by the comparison.

I’m also loving the comparison of the two alts! And what you’ve brought up is getting very close at what I was aiming for. See, how I think about it, the Chosen Consort alt is the result of a moral failing. Kiran’s core principles about how they chose to wield power has been compromised and they’re suffering the consequences. Their loneliness got the better of them. They caved. To satisfy their own selfish need to never be alone again, they used their immense power to control the people around them in body and mind. Kiran has become no better than a lot of the gods they’ve killed, and now their body reflects this. However, this failing is mutual. Alfonse also failed to overcome his own loneliness. We don’t know how these two got here, but… Alfonse’s willingness is extremely telling. We know, deep down, that he didn’t fight this for a god damn second. No, instead he fights to keep Kiran on his back just as hard as Kiran fights to keep him. They won’t leave each other. They can’t. Everything may be worse now, but they’ll both be damned if they let the other go alone. Through heaven and hell, for better or for worst, they’ll go together.

The fallen alt is a bit different. It is a failure of a different kind. See, upon working with Kiran (especially for books 3 and 4) I’ve come to the realization that this is not a character who is… well? Like, despite their sunny disposition, they’re doing bad mentally. Life has thrown a lot at them at once and they can only withstand so much.

Now, this doesn’t become obvious until book 3, because it’s there where Kiran comes under threat of losing EVERYTHING. TWICE. For a second time, everyone they know and love is at risk of slipping through their fingers thanks to forces outside of their control. They’re not taking it well. Kiran agrees to walk straight into a potential suicide mission into the realm of the dead, because they know deep down that they don’t have it in them to start from square one again. They can’t do it. It would break them. Kiran doesn’t technically have to die in Askr at any point during book 3. If they had the self preservation, they could run into another world and let their friends shut the door behind them. But they can’t. That’s still a death sentence. For them, it’s Askr or nothing at all. You must understand, Kiran has already experienced Líf’s level of loss. But unlike him, they didn’t have to face it by themself. The Order was there and CAUGHT them before the worst could happen. But this runs the risk of exactly that, and they know they wouldn’t survive it without the Order.

So, pretell, what happens to that mentality once it becomes clear that the only way to defeat Hel is to activate the blood rite?

See, Kiran dying to Hel would be a worst case scenario. Giving Hel the ability to potentially summon and artificially add more the dead, similar to how she had done with Eir, would be inconceivably bad. Might genuinely become unstoppable. So they’re not allowed to die in a way that would add them to the ranks of Hel’s forces. No easy out. But as they sit there, alone in this blood temple with hoards of the dead clambering at the doors, they contemplate this. There’s only one choice, isn’t there?

There is only one way out.

This how we get the fallen alt, who is not simply a Kiran who activated the blood rite, but who failed to find the will to keep going and destroyed themself. Then, to add salt to the wound, they have to watch another version of themself get the happy ending built off their sacrifices. It’s INFURIATING in ways they don’t have the words for. God, can they imagine how this feels? To know some copy of them won, and yet they’re left with nothing?

BEFORE WE CONTINUE: If you have not played In Stars and Time, maybe don’t read this next bit? It’s kinda major spoilers. Play it yourself. It’s a wonderful little game. You won’t regret it.

Got it?

Cool.

THATS THE MOST LOOP CODED SHIT IVE EVER SEEN. Had JelloApocalypse’s play through and performance of Loop on screen to give me vibes. Had an animatic of said performance by the lovely artist Str8 Rät also on screen for even more vibes. How Can You Help Me, Stardust? Was on repeat and made it to 14 on my end of year wrapped playlist. Loop my beloved! Hits Kiran with the Loop beam!!! Slay the Princess might not have been the direct inspo but In Stars and Time 100% was!

SPOILERS OVER: Anyway, this compliments how you phrased all these dualities in fun ways. Kiran fallen alt and Líf, even in this state, are still two halves of a whole. Soul of what once was and the husk of what no longer is still have a shared braincell and agree that throwing hands with an alternate self will definitely solve something (it won’t.) It’s fascinating how their separation is what partially lead them down this road, while the refusal to be separated is what creates the Chosen Consort. They won’t let each other go and that’s what has damned them both. Two halves have become a whole and are loosing the individuals along the way.

In looping back a little to the Slay The Princess comparison, these two remain reflective of each other. No matter what. The fingerprints of the other cannot be washed away. How can they be? With loneliness haunting the narrative in the way that it does? Loneliness is the question, through each other they find an answer, but it turns out that’s not always a simple good thing. Apparently you and your friend having very complimentary issues can either make you a lot better or infinitely worse. Sometimes both. And hot damn that’s fun to dig into.

Needless to say, I think these two are neat. There’s multiple ways for their story to go catastrophically wrong and I love that for them. They deserve to be a little doomed. For fun and enrichment. And someone should definitely make a Slay the Princess AU that would be cool.

[cartoonrival]

Nrto/Brto for 3 10 & 17?

bro literally the wider naruto fandom sucks so bad idek where to begin

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

i dont have a specific example so instead im gonna give a general gripe about a trend that ive seen in many takes over time

the black and white thinking and refusal to think for half a second about characters other than ur faves Reminds Me Of Something!real ones know. the way people talk about any character with any sort of greyness to their morality kinda makes me crazy and i lowkey think ppl bring up kishimoto TOO MUCH in their discussion of the storys themes bc while obviously like its important to talk abt WHY he wrote it the way he did esp wrt nationalism and all, i think also it sort of dulls ur ability to think anything complex about it if u blame everything u dont like or think was "sloppily done" on kishimoto. judging every character based on kishimoto's morals instead of their own if that makes sense? its not like "the wrong way to do things" i just personally find it really boring when thats the only way youll look at a text. like no wonder you guys are constantly making jokes about how naruto sucks and you'd never recommend it, you wont even allow yourselves to think about the story as its own piece of art beyond just "kishimoto wrote it this way because he sucks" like do you ever think maybe youre killing some of the fun of media analysis... i think its why so many people hate sakura or kakashi or itachi or anyone else. and this always comes out in the way ppl characterize bc theyre like Um I've Fixed Them :) and then its the blandest shit ever because you absolutely refuse to work even slightly WITH the story you claim to love, only fighting tooth and nail against it.

some examples of what i mean w this: basically any conversation about itachi that tries to categorize him as either good or bad. basically any conversation about sakura that tries to do literally anything or nothing with her. people making sns blandly romantic as if the insane and inventive ways they talk about their feelings for each other in canon isnt genuinely part of what makes it so maddeningly fascinating and awesome. anyone who thinks kakashi is a bad teacher. its just this refusal to meet the characters where they are and think of anything in terms of the text itself rather than exclusively in a meta way, ie "this is how it would be if it was good." no its not. you just made it how it would be if it was bland and obvious. dont you literally think the fact that the guy writing it was accidentally writing his characters to be struggling against the same shit that he was struggling against irl and struggling to keep Out of his writing is like. wildly fascinating and part of waht makes the story intersting to pick apart. but ok. this also applies to aspects of boruto primarily sasusaku and naruhina marriages. no one gets it like i doooooo

10. worst part of fanon

everybodys always shipping kakashi with someone and its never even guy. if youre gonna ship kakashi it had better fucking be with guy bc theres gen srs no one else he would be caught dead romancing with and i cant even see how you could read any of his other relationships as romantic. he doesnt even HAVE a relationship with iruka. i get that not every ship has to have canon support but its all either 1) literally not even interesting to think about or 2) what they have actually going on is way more interesting but see my response to question 3. its the same with gaara honestly the more i think about it the more annoyed i get about the ignorance surrounding just-short-of-canon aroace gaara ToT like if u didnt know then ok... but you should learn because its awesome. i just thinking the shipping culture in the fandom is annoying like everyone has to be shipped with someone and that seems to come before their genuinely interesting relationships. and those genuinely interesting relationships are sanded down into something normal. idk this is a gripe that goes w Many Many fandoms but i feel like w naruto its particularly bad largely on account of See Previous Answer. ppl are like "its written this way bc kishimoto is homophobic i will fix this" then they make it suck because shockingly ik kishi actually wrote a good as fuck story if deeply flawed

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

ill be fr i dont gen seek out fics or art independently to be 100% sure that stuff i'd be looking for isn't out there somewhere. but i think ppl really really should just. think about sakura more. i literally love her sm but ppl won't think abt her beyond either 1) she sucks and i hate her (but this is because of kishimoto's writing and has nothing to do with me! if i rewrote naruto then she wouldn't be there 😌 this is a kindness to her and not because i cant be assed to think about a woman for 5 seconds) or 2) girlboss!!!! like.... is that scene in the land of iron not BIBLICAL to anyone else....??? is her devotion to someone she's lost faith in out of loyalty to someone she loves and is losing her ability to understand not FASCINATING???? TO ANYONE ELSE???? IS THE WAY SHE PICKS UP THE TRAITS OF HER TEACHER THAT HE SPECIFICALLY IS NOT MEANING TO PASS ON TO HER NOT HEARTWRENCHING???????? you people suck. instead you write ooc sns over and over and draw kakashi without his mask kissing fucking obito

[tenebriskukris]

An Exhumation of Hikaru Kamiki's Character Act III Act II: Two Idiots Walk Off A Cliff And The Writing Follows Suit

Spoilers for the entirety of Oshi No Ko below.

159 ends off with the start of the second confrontation between Hikaru and Aqua with all the issues that the previous confrontation had with a new serving of shitty writing to boot! For starters, how did Aqua find Hikaru in the first place? Why is he approaching Hikaru alone when he presumably has Akane help him protect Ruby and judging by the sky during the time when Nino tried to stab “Ruby”, this confrontation chronologically happens after Nino gets caught red handed. 

The narrative does not feel the need to answer any logical questions any reader might have about this current situation. Just open your mouth and let the authors shit in it. That’s what the manga is telling the reader throughout this entire confrontation. Don’t believe me? Chapter 160 and all the chapters after that are proof enough in my mind.

160 leads us off with Hikaru explaining how he’d met Nino and Ryosuke and the circumstances that led to Ai’s death, to which Aqua doesn’t believe for a moment considering that he never did anything to save Ruby from Nino considering that he’d just stood by and let it happen. It makes sense, after all. Hikaru himself didn’t go to the police or towards Aqua or Ruby if he suspected that Nino was unstable. Aqua then goes on to describe Hikaru as a liar who manipulated people for his own ends, with clear panels of Ryosuke and Nino involved, validating this conclusion.

Hikaru then goes on this tirade about how Aqua and him are not so different because they lie to fulfill their goals—which is the most dogshit “Not So Different” Remark that I’ve ever seen in a piece of media. Fundamentally speaking Hikaru has used his abilities to make people pawns of his own demented game of murder while Aqua, even at his very worst, never manipulated people to the extremes that Hikaru has. It’s a matter of looking at the end results of said manipulation and reason behind such manipulation in the first place. Aqua manipulated people to kill his father, a murderer, in order to avenge Ai and even then he wasn’t even very good at it—so much so that Ruby when she had two black star eyes was a superior manipulator—and the fact that Hikaru is just plainly a more insidious murderer doesn’t make their moral standings anywhere close to equal.

Of course this could just be the man latching onto something, anything to get Aqua, who is pointing a knife at him, to back down, but the manga doesn’t deserve that kind of credit as a whole. 

161 brings us to a bloody monologue by everyone’s favorite plot device, Crow Girl! If there was ever a way to handwave characterization and move the plot along, it would be through her. I don’t think I need to reiterate exactly Why shoving this information down the readers’ throats is bad after all this time so I’ll proceed directly to the real meat of this interaction.

Hikaru and Aqua have a little talk at the edge of the cliff, discussing how Ruby isn’t eternal and that if Aqua kills Hikaru, Ruby will be branded the sister of a murderer. Hikaru goes on this whole speech about how Ruby won’t be able to be an idol if Aqua kills him—which is so funny since Aqua could easily claim self defense here with the lie that he could spin. The important bit is that he appears so confident and nonchalant about this whole situation, thinking to himself that Aqua���s not going to actually have the guts to kill him. Why would he? The kid has his entire life in front of him and using it to kill someone who’s already on borrowed time is just counterproductive.

Of course, when push comes to shove, Aqua commits to killing Hikaru. We see quite clearly in the panels that Hikaru just fucking folds immediately. The readers see his panicked face, his unease, his general surprise as someone is finally willing to bite the bullet and cut out the cancer. It’s a moment that, under other circumstances, would’ve been quite satisfying to see unfold. 

Once again, my criticism for Hikaru from the last act still rings true. Villains need to be seen at their best before they can be cast down for the hero to vanquish, and this entire confrontation was just processed too fast for Hikaru’s big moments of manipulation to not be undercut by just how fucking pathetic he was at the end. Even with Aqua having a knife, Hikaru still has over fifteen years of age over Aqua. He should be at least competing with Aqua physically, especially since Aqua stabbed himself in the stupidest attempt at a double suicide I’ve ever seen. Hikaru could’ve pushed Aqua away, could’ve ran after Aqua stabbed himself, could’ve just ducked after Aqua’s lunge, or just ran in general the moment that Aqua came out with a knife. It’s just a contrived scenario all around that really throws shade at Hikaru’s intelligence and the general quality of the manga that it’s legitimately impressive how bad this chapter is after one analyzes it for a few minutes.

162 ends Hikaru’s life by having him be choked by Aqua as they both drown together. You’d think that a literal adult would be able to shake off a teenager, especially one that’s already bleeding out, but nope! He hit his head on the rocks on the way down! And it wasn’t even shown to the reader! Incredible writing chops right there!

The cherry on top of Hikaru’s character here are his thoughts as he drowns. It’s impressive how all the sympathy for a character can drain away when his final thoughts are that he wished he could’ve killed his daughter so he can get closer to the girlfriend he’d pulled the strings to kill in the first place. It’s one final reminder at the depth of depravity that Hikaru choices have landed him in. One of the last things in the world that Hikaru and Ai made together and he wants nothing more than to crush it in his hands so that he can feel closer to Ai. I’d say it’s tragic but the narrative and the writing has left much to be desired in his portrayal.

With this chapter passes the last vestiges of Hikaru Kamiki. I’d say good riddance but considering how the narrative fumbled his character enough for this death to be a mercy. There’s one final mention of him by the narrative in 165 which slideshows Hikaru’s crimes to the reader in an unsatisfactory way but by now the man is finished so there’s no point touching on it besides nailing in the fact that Hikaru was—is—a murderer.

These chapters dictate just how far the series’ writing quality has fallen. I’m not going to speak about Aqua’s general stupidity, how contrived the circumstances were to deal with Hikaru, as well as the sheer lack of setup for this second confrontation in the first place. I’ve done that plenty in my chapter reviews for the series. I am instead going to talk about Hikaru as a character in general now that all is said and done as well as my thoughts on him. 

Hikaru, in these chapters, fumbled so badly as an antagonist that all the setup that was used to dredge up intrigue regarding his character amounted to nothing. In the span of a handful of chapters, he was defused as an antagonist, revealed to be the true antagonist of the series, and then unceremoniously and unsatisfyingly taken out of the series. His confrontations with Aqua was half baked and sudden given the manga’s pacing, broke suspension of disbelief multiple times—sometimes within the same chapter, even—and was just a flat mess of on all accounts that squandered all the effort that was used to set him up. As a whole, they feel anticlimactic, contrived, and feel like they were written without thought to the rest of the chapters that came before it.

All the mystique that the series established regarding Hikaru Kamiki disappeared as soon as he took his first steps into the spotlight. There was none of that mysterious figure lingering in the shadows with knowledge that the main cast were seeking all along, none of this big industry figure who Aqua had to painstakingly hunt down. Stripped away from the darkness and lies that shrouded him is just a pathetic little man desperately clinging to Ai’s silhouette who doesn’t even feel interesting to watch as he unravels right in front of the readers.

>INTERMISSION ==>

>INTERMISSION 2 ==>

[dumbblondesposts]

I'm sorry, but if you genuinely still can't understand the reasons for why people hated Elena so much, after all these years, then I'm afraid you're a lost cause. All the hate, backlash, and criticism Elena received was 100% justified and deserved. She's by far the worst and most boring, bland, vapid, weakest, useless, and worthless excuse of a main protagonist I've ever seen in any movie, show, book, and media. Nothing remotely interesting or compelling about her in the slightest. She has no personality or agency, and she contributed nothing whatsoever to the show. Her only personality and the only thing she contributed was going back and forth between two brothers, constantly whining and crying and playing the victim, and being a selfish, self-centered, and self-absorbed little twat that makes everything about her and thinks the world revolves around her. 

And before you use trauma as an excuse to defend her, I've seen plenty of other female characters from other shows and movies that have been through similar or worse things than Elena did, and they were a million times better and more likable than Elena could ever be. Stop using trauma and abuse as a weapon and to guilt people into changing their opinions about Elena. Don't pretend to give a shit about victims of abuse and trauma, when I don't see any of you extending that same grace to people like Caroline, Bonnie, Katherine, Rebekah, and Vicki, who have all been through shit too, and were far more interesting and better characters than Elena were. And you hate them for the exact same reasons, just like how a lot of you hate female characters in general for trauma and abuse they've been dealt. 

So, don't act so innocent when a lot of you villainize the hell out of Caroline for being the only character on the show that actually acted like an actual teenage girl, had believable flaws and imperfections, and was actually a lot more relatable than Elena was. And when you also villainize and victim blame/shame and slut shame her for the rape and abuse she suffered at the hands of Damon. You hate Caroline for rightfully hating her rapist and abuser, and not wanting Elena to be with him. But you don't hate Elena, who's supposed to be the best friend, and clearly has no shame sleeping with a rapist, knowing exactly what he did. Makes perfect sense. 

And I will most definitely always hate Elena for her decision to kill Kol, along with thousands and thousands of other vampires in his sireline. I don't care what Kol did, she will always be a straight piece of shit and a fucking cunt for that. And the audacity she had to be mad at Stefan for sleeping with Katherine and Rebekah, when she was flaunting the fact that she was sleeping with his abusive, rapist brother? Yeah, 100% FUCK HER! She has no say in who Stefan can and can't see. 

How Elena even has fans or people defending her is beyond me. If she wasn't such a bland bitch and had an actual personality and something to offer to the story and was just a decent person in general, then people would've actually liked her and rooted for her. But she was never leading lady material. That should've gone to Caroline or Katherine, mostly Katherine. But I'd do fine with Caroline too, she doesn't need a family legacy or nothing like that to lead the show. LITERALLY ANYTHING IS BETTER THAN ELENA!

Jesus you hate her THIS MUCH 😭??

writing a whole article that only showcases you contradicting yourself is funny, Elena was not in fact any more of a morally corrupt character than the rest of them including bonnie and Rebekah whom you used as an example here who also befriended rapists/murderers so what's your point

Also how are you talking about the unnecessary hate female characters get for being rightfully traumatized after going through so much and then turn around to say Elena's trauma isn't justified

"she was whiny and self centered" so was every male character in that show

And what has Caroline done that's so much more impactful to deserve being the "leading lady" over Elena exactly?

[hopecorps]

Okay, so I made a post few days ago detailing as to why Buddie fans hate Tommy so much. Might wanna give it a read. https://www.tumblr.com/chaoticbiguysblog/759077831483457536/i-feel-like-initially-most-people-were-on-the-same?source=share

I feel like you're only focusing on what Buddies say to BT fans and not what comes from the other side. People have literally called us homophobic and what not for not shipping BT, and that's like the most PG comment I've gotten.

You're obviously coming from a good and genuine place, but I hope my post cleared some things about why people dislike Tommy and his fans so much. As for expanding on the racism and sexist points, ofc people grow, but he was shitty to two fan favourite characters, you don't see everyone advocating for people to like Taylor who has also hurt Bobby, Hen and Chim so why are we obligated to like him?

Thank you for this!! And I agree! I fear my intention in writing the post wasn't entirely clear because I do agree! And I read your post and I think it's really well put! You are not obligated to like any ship I would never say that!!

Sorry for all the exclamation points it's just important to me that you know I'm being genuine when I say that.

Though, side tangent, I care way more about character analysis than I care about like. Ships? I like Abbie. I like Taylor. Not in a "I think they're good people" way but in a "I think they're interesting people with clear motivations and interesting trauma" way. So I love Taylor I love that she's fucked up and I love that she has problems and I love that she's a little freak who in canon self-flagellates with sex. But that's me and that's sort of where I'm coming from even though I am a Buddie shipper I am way more interested in character than I am about fandom interpretations of fuckin anything. AND I think in my post I do literally say verbatim: I am not going to tell people they HAVE to like/forgive/give the slightest shit about ANY character, least of all Tommy, who I mainly find boring at best and annoying at worst.

My post is largely about fandom etiquette. I do even point out in that post that the BuckTommy retaliation of "oh so you guys hate gay men" among the other ridiculous shit is immature irrelevant and annoying. I'm not doubting AT ALL that there are BuckTommy shippers who have said heinous, racist, backwards, and inappropriate shit. I have seen a lot of it.

My problem is that Buddie shippers by and large have been inappropriate on a much larger scale and JUSTIFIED it by saying that anyone who ships BuckTommy is 1. fetishizing gay men 2. racist by proxy 3. literally belongs in a mental hospital. None of these things are actually true and none of these things are moral justifications for treating people like shit. (I mean you can treat racists like shit but god isn't that exhausting. Especially when it's like. You are making an assumption that they're racist because they like a ship that some people who are racist like. That's really it.)

BECAUSE and this is my BIGGEST point: you do not need a moral justification to dislike a ship, or dislike a person. There are AT MOST like 150 active BuckTommy shippers on twitter. And most of them are fucking with you. You (the Royal You, not like. You Personally. I'm sure you've literally done nothing wrong I'm sorry if this is coming across as aggressive) can block them and you don't need to make an example out of them. The need to justify MORALLY that These People Are Doing Something Wrong for Consuming A Piece Of Media In A Way I Don't Approve Of is the problem that I have.

[thethistlegirlwrites]

WIP Questionnaire

Thanks for the open tag, @verba-writing !

I'll do these for Thief of Hearts since it's my Camp Nano April WIP!

What was the first part of your wip that you created?

So, fun story, I actually came up with the base premise of this idea almost 10 years ago. My freshman year of college (2014-15, *gasp*) my roommate and I binge watched Criminal Minds, and we got through episode 3.02 and my brain apparently decided to take 'what if stealing hearts was a little more metaphorical than this but more literal than the usual meaning', wrote down a title and tagline, then forgot it for the next nine years until I found it while spring cleaning my Google drive.

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

I want to say "Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perri just because it's too good to pass up how specifically it works, but I also think "Things that Stop You Dreaming" by Passenger really fits the whole world of the story really well, so either of those two.

Who are your favourite characters you've made? Why?

For this story? Definitely Emmett and Rory. Making me choose between them would be like making me choose a favorite child. They're both delightfully flawed, morally grey, and just trying to make it in a city that kind of wants to kill them. Emmett has a knack for making the worst possible decisions without realizing that's what he's doing, Rory is ruthless and probably would have been described as heartless BEFORE Emmett actually stole her heart, and they've just generally been very fun to throw together, force to work on the same side, and watch the sparks (and occasional knife) fly.

What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

I think oddly enough this one is going to appeal to dystopia lovers as much or more than pure fantasy readers. I just read a Korean YA novel in translation, Snowglobe, that basically was an inverted version of the perpetual winter city in TOH, and really felt like that was a fairly close comparative story. Aside from that, I'm not really sure. I like a plethora of weird things that shouldn't go together so I'm not sure at all of what a shared fan base looks like. I'm always cobbling together my projects out of bizarre combinations of inspiration sources and I have zero idea where they will land or what will be a hit with anyone besides me and the few people who get to listen to me bemoan the writing process and read the chaotic early drafts.

What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

Timing of the plotline. I've been constantly changing when things happen because all the action is crammed into a 48 hour window but ironically that's turned out to be MORE time than I know what to do with given the pace the plot needs to have, so I'm finding ways to flesh things out and frustrate some of the characters' plans so that it's not all over TOO fast.

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Rory has a pet magical pigeon named Blizzard. He's been affected by the magic that floods the city of Rime, and while he's adapted to endure the extreme cold and see in the perpetual dark, he's nearly flightless because of one wing that is more or less just a warped stub. He's going to be fun to flesh out as a part of the story, and he's sort of Rory's answering service when she's out making a messenger delivery, since people can leave messages they want sent in a little pouch he wears on his back while he's on duty. It would be nearly impossible to have more than one generation of animal in the city without them mutating because of the magic, so most people don't even bother. Small animals that pose minimal risk if their descendants develop magical powers or strange features like foot-long fangs are the only regularly kept animals in Rime, and since most people can't afford to feed themselves and a pet, there's very few domesticated creatures at all.

How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

Mostly on foot, or by ship if they're leaving the city by the port. Keeping large animals in Rime would be costly and that's prohibitive for most people, and the large animals that can manage the winters are mostly the local caribou population, which have been affected by the magic much like Rory's pigeon. Someone might be able to ride them, but it also might end very badly.

What part of your wip are you working on rn?

Drafting. I've gotten the main plot points knocked out, but I'm filling in the gaps and trying to plot a daring rescue right along with my characters, so that's fun. Mostly I'm just following them around with a clipboard and pencil trying to take notes and keep up and getting whiplash from watching them argue about any and everything.

What aspects (tropes, maybe?) of your wip do you think will draw people in?

I'm hoping the worldbuilding is a big draw because that's always the part of a project I go crazy with. I hope people find the idea of a magic-warded permanently winter city where daylight is basically a version of the northern lights appealing enough to be curious. My other big draw is the characters, because I personally love them very much and I hope other people do too. I do have a few fun tropes but a lot of them are skewed slightly to the side, like the kind of chaotic enemies-to-coparents arc and sharing body warmth but also half convinced the other person will kill you when you fall asleep.

What are your hopes for your wip?

Honestly, just that people get to enjoy it and fall in love with the characters the way I did. I would genuinely love to log onto Tumblr and see that someone had made fan art of them, or a moodboard, or to realize a fic category had appeared on AO3 (one of my draft beta readers @nade2308 already wrote a soft cute slice-of-life future fic after bingereading what there was of the draft to see, and I'm genuinely just floored and gleeful about that fact). I'm also sort of lurking like a gremlin ready to watch people lose it over my 'strong female character' choosing to parent a child as the culmination of her arc. Yes, Rory can kill you about ten ways but one of those is to mom you to death. And like the menace I am (and having seen the discourse on Tumblr) I am doing the evil hand rubbing waiting for the response to that one...

No pressure tagging @catwings-writes-things , @nade2308writes, @telltaleclerk, @the-one-and-only-valkyrie, @imbrisvastatio and anyone else who wants to hop on the train for this one!

Questions are:

1. What was the first part of your wip that you created?

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

3. Who are your favourite characters you've made? Why?

4. What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

7. How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

8. What part of your wip are you working on rn?

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe?) of your wip do you think will draw people in?

10. What are your hopes for your wip?

[musical-chick-13]

I think the thing that primarily bugs me about the whole He Wouldn't Fucking Say That is that the people these posts seem(???) to be targeting are of the Willful Media Illiteracy kind. In the sense of "refusing to, in any way, meet the work where it's at and superimpose their own preferences on everything while claiming that was the unambiguous intention of the original work." And uh. Well.

The thing about that. Is that those people are. Well they think that they're right. They're gonna see those posts and they're not going to realize that it's talking about them. They will never be aware of what they are doing. So like. All this does is make people who ARE going, "Well maybe this wasn't the intention, but What If" or "Idc if this isn't canon, it makes me feel better and I think it's neat" or just...people who think deeply about a work and want to translate their findings into fanworks and/or want to figure out what an idea would look like if depicted in-canon all feel really self-conscious about creating. You're not going to shame the people you ACTUALLY have beef with out of their behavior; you'll only shame unrelated people out of doing unrelated, harmless things.

Like. Trust me. I'm just as frustrated as the next person over fandom willfully twisting the text to paint every woman or character of color in the worst light possible. I'm just as annoyed with the string of "feel bad for the worst white man alive because trust me, we know deep down he's actually just a helpless sad boy, and one (1) hug would fix him forever, this is why we should make everything about him." I, too, question why there seems to be this obsessive need to pretend flawed media isn't flawed as some sort of moral purity test, or to insist that there's a Secret Progressive Reading of every single piece of questionable media (or, similarly, that volatile/destructive/toxic/disconcerting/etc. relationships are actually Super Unproblematic and Healthy Guys, I Promise). I'm just as close to going postal as anyone else over the insistence that we sanitize works and genres of uncomfortable themes or topics or over the continued asinine claim that depiction equals endorsement. But. I don't think going "He Would Not Fucking Say That" actually addresses any of those problems or does anything helpful. Yes, it's a meme. Yes, it spawned as a direct result of one of the behaviors I mentioned in this paragraph. But it has. Long since lost any meaningful value, I feel like. It doesn't seem like a meme anymore. It just seems kind of mean-spirited toward anyone who...idk wants to write a self-indulgent reader-insert fic or something.

[burning-bubble-tea]

I’m being boring and reading about niche internet drama instead of doing anything else and like the Jello apocalypse drama is so weird?? Like y’all. Even if he is some egotistical whatever that’s not like…. A horrible thing?

Like from what I’m getting a sense of, Jello just kinda talked about something he shouldn’t have under NDA and he said he changed dialogue when translating an anime and he made it “politically charged”. And like I’m biased, he changed things in a way that aligns to my political views a bit but also like there’s politics in everything?

Like yes, it’s important to critique “my way or the highway” mentality but as someone who feels the allure of the high horse sometimes it is intoxicating. Being on a high horse especially when disempowered can be dangerously enjoyable. Like it’s fun to feel in the right. And so Jello did that. Whoop de doo? Like I was so worried when I started seeing jello drama stuff and I was like oh gosh oh fuck did he like hurt someone in a horrible awful way? And then it’s like… oh, he has bad faith criticism of media, specifically one piece, he’s a bit of a preachy leftist and he mistranslated an anime to make it better in his eyes.

Like yeah, I wouldn’t necessarily do the same things but I don’t think we need to say he’s an egotistical maniac who hates art and is falling off so hard and we were all stupid for ever watching his videos like…..

As a queer person, some of the people we idolize are… problematic. I’m not saying I idolize jello by any means but like we can critique people who are entertainers in the public eye and it doesn’t need to be “internet drama” like I get it, internet drama is fun, look at me I’m engaging with it right now! But we don’t always need to clout chase this hard … right? Oh who am I kidding, internet is going to internet, I just hope jello is ignoring it, also he doesn’t need some random Tumblr blog defending him I don’t know the guy at all I’ve just watched videos of his in the past.

Whatever human nature is to use hyperbole as it creates more compelling communication and we are a social species so shit or get off the pot I guess.

Tl;dr if jello’s worst crime is that he’s a bit annoying and pretentious that’s fine with me cause so am I and I still have friends and people who like me. There’s nothing morally wrong with people annoying sometimes.

[thestalwartheart]

Hellooo I thought I might bang out some incoherent thoughts following your post about the influx of Blanc fans who hate Bond (or think they do because they've never actually bothered to watch any of the films) since I can't sleep :). I mentioned in my reply to your post earlier that a lot of people can't handle the idea of being emotionally invested a piece of media where the main character is morally ambiguous which genuinely annoys/terrifies me. It would be interesting to get a sense of how you/others actually became Bond fans in the first place and some of the reactions you get from people if you tell them. I get that part of the appeal for Benoit is that he's a bit of a blank slate. You can really project whatever you want onto him because he intentionally doesn't have many defining characteristics, other than the fact that he's queer and has a killer wardrobe. He's always in control of every situation he's in as well as his emotions and understandably, he makes you as a viewer feel safe. Like I get that and I love him dearly but he's also ripe for a certain kind of fan to be really really annoying. I also remember during the glass onion press tour when Edward Norton would always say in interviews that he thought Daniel was more Blanc than Bond in real life and when someone told Daniel about that he was basically like "what the fuck is Ed on about??" which I thought was hilarious. Not to read too deeply into it but I genuinely feel like so much of what he brought to Bond comes from his soul and I always got the sense that his Bond films are deeply personal, which is why they have us out here crying and throwing up. Anyway, thank you for all you have given to the Bond/00Q/Daniel Craig enjoyer community, you are truly a gem <3

I became a Bond fan when I was about twelve and my mother decided moderating film content for a girl about to enter high school was a useless endeavour. Pierce Brosnan was my first Bond. It was the gadgets that hooked me in, mostly, but I grew up after that point watching the films and loving them. Casino Royale was the first one I ever saw in cinema and I'll never forget the tension during that poker game with Le Chiffre. You could really hear the audience's teeth grinding with the stress lol.

I've never really heard any adverse reactions from people when I tell I'm a fan of Bond, but that might be because Daniel Craig's interpretation of the character seems to have lent the films a certain credibility that people aren't as willing to extend to the previous films. At worst, people think it's a bit naff that I like them, which...yeah sure. It probably is! But cringe culture is dead and I am enough of a critical thinker to enjoy problematic or morally ambiguous content without believing any of it should happen in real life. For instance, I think had there been a real public inquiry into intelligence services like M faced in Skyfall, I would probably take the side of the opposition. But it's Bond, so I was cheering M on while she quoted Tennyson.

The best way I can sum my thoughts on Daniel Craig and Bond is to refer to the lovely Ben Whishaw, who said in this interview that Daniel was remarkably clever in the ways he managed to bring the franchise into the twenty-first century, while still being aware of the history of it.

Interestingly, he also said there actually is a lot of Daniel in Bond's character, which is something I was delighted to hear him point out. I mean, Daniel Craig will be the first to admit that he doesn't want to be anything like Bond (see this post for an example and a laugh). Yet, he manages to capture the really vulnerable core of Bond under all that masculine posturing. In the end, Bond has accepted that life isn't all about duty to your country. Love, friendship and family are the things that make you feel steady even when you feel like you're about to tear yourself apart. I can't imagine any previous iteration of Bond managing to carry off that message in a believable way. And I think it happened because Daniel Craig had an incredible, unprecedented amount of creative control over the character.

I'm sure the Knives Out films gave Daniel a wonderful reprieve from having to carry all that literary and film history, but he's so proud of those Bond films, and has said so over and over, even when he's been frustrated with the toll on his body and his personal life. They're great films, and, oddly enough, I think people are only realising it now that his era is over. I hope more people dive into them and see the passion he had for that role, even with all of its ups and downs.

The last thing I'll say is that some fans have a tendency to project their own joys, frustrations and preferences onto actors, assuming that they are, in some way, facsimiles of the characters they play. At the end of the day, Daniel Craig simply doing his job. The characters are brilliant because he is brilliant. It's not real life.

Anyway, I'll continue stanning both Bond and Blanc! Thanks for the ask, friend!

[biillyhargroves]

the new wave of minors that have become st stans keep tweeting the dumbest hate tweets about billy and getting 10k or more likes. it's so annoying, like ive just seen someone saying he would've been an andr*w t*t* fan and it has almost 6k likes.... what show have we been watching??

I’ll be honest, I don’t really concern myself with what other fans are doing or saying re: Billy, especially when they’re younger. I was a little bitch with strong opinions and a smart mouth in high school; only difference was I didn’t have the Internet echo chamber to shout into, and when my friends didn’t agree with my takes I still had to see them in school the next day, so peace had to be kept. I know I sound old as fuck but the rise of social media and its popularity among young people + the shift of fan culture into the mainstream has changed fandom A Lot and…not always for the better.

The thing that really concerns me about all of this is the faction of young fans who like and may relate to Billy Hargrove or characters like him who are having to stay silent or risk ridicule and abuse from fans with different opinions. Fandom is supposed to be a safe space, a community, but somehow Twitter/Tumblr/TikTok etc has turned it into a morality contest. There are kids out there who may see themselves in Billy’s home life, in his parentification, in his loneliness, in his anger and they deserve a safe space to express their appreciation for the character without subjecting themselves to online violence. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be that deep! People can like or dislike characters for any reason or no reason at all and they deserve to do so in peace. There’s no reason for any of us to be so up in arms about literal works of fiction.

I could go on forever but I will end with this: when I was younger, it was an inside joke among my friends that I liked a certain ~type~ of character. A friend could hand me a piece of media and be like “X is an absolute dumpster fire of a human. The worst person imaginable. They’re gonna be your favorite.” They’d point out the bad boy characters, the morally grey ones, the most sinister villains and be like “I bet Lex loves them” and 9 times out of 10 they were right. No one looked at me differently or judged my morals based on the characters I liked. That never once happened. Not until the Internet; specifically, not until Stranger Things.

[mrrightandmrbubble]

X-posting myself again with more word vomit...

Over the last week, the giant wave of love shown for Taylor has been both heartbreaking and comforting. He meant so much to so many people, in so many ways, so it's been a personal and a shared pain.

At the same time, however, there has been this:

- Media lurking and waiting to show the band at their most vulnerable

- Tinhatters hitching their wagon to Taylor's star and exploiting the lack of information surrounding his death as a tool for more fearmongering

- Dave Grohl impersonators messaging fans pretending 'he' wishes to have private contact with them to talk about Taylor, and eventually ask for money - a new and perverse twist on an old scam

- Print-on-demand scam stores Photoshopping pics of Dave holding a Taylor tribute shirt

- Westboro being Westboro

- People making broad assumptions to condemn Taylor and substance use disorder as a moral failing

- Supposedly close friends of Taylor's yet were only ever seen at shows (coattail riders), claiming Dave killed Taylor in a satanic ritual while forcing them to have the jab (I don't know, it's lacking in logic as well as compassion)

So intermingled with these complex feelings of grief is a growing anger at how Taylor is being treated in his absence. By and large, he was kind and generous - equivocally so to whoever he met, regardless of status. Most of these stories come from times when he wasn't on duty, so to speak - when he was just being a neighbour, a friend, a customer, a guy on the street. Your character is what you do when you think no one is looking.

It makes me nauseous to look at people taking pieces from him to suit themselves, like he's some old furniture left on the sidewalk. If I can see it, his family can see it. They're already going through one of the worst things that can happen to them - they shouldn't have to endure people dehumanising the person they love on top of that.

He doesn't deserve this. His loved ones don't deserve this. Never did, never will.

I don't want or expect anything by putting this out there. I can’t do a single thing about any of it except contribute content that is loving and respectful to all. I guess I just wish the world was a little kinder and don't know why Taylor has been targeted like this, when he wasn't one to put nastiness like this out into the world. It hurts to see people be so cruel.

[usernamesuggestionsarefunny]

Unpopular Euphoria opinion: Yeah, Nate Jacobs is an asshole who should end up in jail but the worst thing he has ever done is physically assault Tyler (And Maddy, which was horrible, but lets be real, he fucked up Tyler way worse + he framed him and literally RUINED his life but no one cares because he is a dude and a minor character) like that and yet most of the fandom doesn't even remember that or the fact Maddy was complicit in the framing of Tyler, instead they focus on petty stuff like Nate being no meaner than any other cliche edgy bad boy in young adult media or even some of the other "Euphoria" heroes in their worst moments for that matter.

Like, it is super hard for me to take the "fuck Nate Jacobs" tag or the fandom morality police complaints about other people "excusing" his actions seriously when half the same fandom doesn't give a shit about his main victim, Tyler, whose story wasn't even resolved, we are just meant to assume he stays in jail as opposed to Jules, whom Nate somewhat tried to make amends to by apologizing and giving her the cd back, for example. All I am saying is that the fandom doesn't give a shit unless it is a main character Nate is hurting and then they go stan Fez who beat a man up in front of his kid in order to rob a house, sells drugs to high schoolers and takes a literal child to his drug deals, which ends up tragically.

But... b-but Fez had no choice, his grandma, he was raised that wayyy

Oh, so trauma is a valid "excuse" depending on how the narrative frames it, I get it, or when it fits you lmao

Anyway Nate is a good villain and an abusive piece of shit, what he did to Rue was disgusting, and both Cassie and Maddy deserve way better but he is overhyped when it comes to how alledgedly unredeemable and evil he is. He is no Bryce Walker I am sorry lol. That is the only thing I am saying.

And speaking of Bryce Walker, can we talk about the ease with which the fandom forgives Cal for raping Jules or doesn't even acknowledge it as rape? And no, I am not talking about not knowing she was 17, which is of course extremely questionable but could indeed have been a simple mistake. I am talking about the fact she was clearly in pain during that whole disturbing scene and Cal couldn't have given less of a fuck. No, Jules probably doesn't see it as rape but she is clearly disturbed by the experience, so much so she detaches herself from it according to Rue. That 👏 is 👏 the 👏 trauma.

It was so unsettling to watch an adult man treating a young girl as nothing more than an object (If you meet a man who wasn't disturbed stay the fuck away), and I don't doubt there were other men and women he treated like Jules (That is without even getting into the whole "filming people without their consent" aspect), but people forgot the moment we were shown Cal's tragic backstory. Am I supposed to feel sorry after Cal's soap opera and not Nate's? Screw you. Also, sorry if I have higher standards for grown ass men than for the teenagers they sucked at raising and keeping from finding their illegal porn (This is for the people commenting that they "feel sorry for Cal for having such an awful son", like, fuck you, you are full of shit, Nate is exactly the kind of son someone like Cal "deserves").

[shoezuki]

Preamble that I feel bad for the guy tbh but how he's dealing w/ it is on him. End a the day he's a whole stranger and he's not like two, he can handle himself (presumably) and if he can't it ain't our business. Also necessary preamble that there are many Ranboo enjoyers who aren't cringe. A lot of them actually. To the point where I don't really like to bring stuff like this up in specific bc it Does magnify problems via exposure

However. Disclaimer that this is a complaint about the worst aspects of my time in a fandom and that this is not all of it aside

TWT RANBOO STANS *DESPISE* LISTENING TO "OUR" STREAMER LIKE NO ONE FUCKING ELSE. THEY FUCKIN' HATE IT. EVERY WORD THAT IS SAID ONSTREAM OR ON ANY OF HIS MEDIA ACCTS IS NOTHING TO THEM. Ranboo is literally not even a streamer to them the way they act. The man will beg, literally fucking BEG over and over to not mention him in people's chats, to not *yell at people in chat to not spam,* to please not use him as a profpic if they're getting into drama, and then concede ground to please not use him as a profpic if you're sending threats, please do not fucking send threats, please, he has said this so many times, and Yet my comrades' twt blocklists are full of Ranboo profpics that send death threats with 0 shame. 0 shame, what so fucking ever. Chat too! Chat the fuck too! Chat is way better than twt bc at least it's not violent but I swear to Christ they are literally deaf! Begging for answers to questions that are answered in his bios and over and over onstream already and in the FAQ that is RIGHT THERE if you scroll down a HALF FUCKING CENTIMETER! Spamming stupid shit, and then spamming "CHAT STOP" even as streamer exhaustedly says "chaaat putting 'chat stop' just makes more spam".

Literally not a single Ranboo stan has basic damn listening or reading comprehension. It shows in how people fail to comprehend basic fucking facts abt his RP character (everyone knew this was coming) and it shows in how no matter how much he fucking pleads people to stop sending fucking death threats with his face attached or says he's uncomfortable giving out certain information people will just trample on those boundaries as if they ain't fucking there. Being in the Ranboo stan twtbase is literally training to blatantly ignore boundaries and dehumanize streamers and it shows in every aspect of how they treat not just "our" streamer but every single person, character, and social media personality they goddamned come across as text to speech machines, dressup dolls, and punching bags

It honestly blows my fucking mind. Like. Ostensibly, you enjoy this streamer and his content, right? Which I would think means you watch his content? But apparently fucking not!

It is honestly fucking disgusting it is unbelievable. I don't like to dwell on it for aforementioned reasons and like, dwelling is also smth streamer has mentioned correctly as Not Good, but genuinely the situation in certain small vocal pockets of the Ranboo stanbase is horrific and I hope these people get so much help and also maybe better material than increasingly unreadable censorship for "die." Actual productive debate is really fun, guys, come have a redemption arc and argue about the effects New L'Manberg had on c!Ranboo with me, please, why can't we all be nice, god, why,

Anyway that's my piece. Thank you for hearing me out I believe this is the first time I've gotten the chance to try to flex the new lack of charalimit for asks and I must say I enjoy it

YEAAAAAA FUCK IT UUUPPPPP FUCK YESSSSSSSSSSS JESUS FUCK YAAAAA

tbhtbh I USED to watch ranboo but i jus like. Cant anymore from donations n the unfortunate fact that So Many People whove gotten At me on twitter have ranboo pfps and how a lot of them treat him is genuinely Gross to me. Even jus w like. Seeing shit bout him and tubbo being 'roommates' rn like i HATE that shit. Ppl objectify him n ignore his boundaries n jus do such horrible shit w his name all over their accts n its despicable. I feel so harshly for the dude like that shit Sucks. But also he does tend to 'give in' to twitter shit sometimes like when he was saying not to trend stuff bout his meetup because he didnt want to 'overshadow' current events (altho ppl on twitter couldnt even listen to him for THAT)

Its jus a Shame cuz like. The dude Is genuinely cool. N he cares a lot. I feel his 'fans' of this calibre take advantage of his leniency/desire to please people and his Anxieties around messing up in any minor way n they jus. Walk on him in that regard. Cant even respect their own streamer

I think a bit ago i said somethin on it like. How sometimes i think these twitter ppl dont even LIKE ranboo or actually Watch Him. They jus want to feel some sort of moral superiority of stanning an 'unproblematic' cc and have some sense of control over a cc considering how he was made to apologize on his alt for those largrly harmless 'i dress like a lesbian' jokes he made. Like truly this weirdass gross community they made under his name is such a fucking shame n it sucks. No doubt its turned other ppl away from his streams Like Me