#i know that his character is much more nuanced than that

[dykedvonte]

One of my mutuals opinions is the "bro code" thing, that Curly is one of those guys who wouldn't care about the victim because the perpetrator is his friend and I'm really banging my head on the wall like that other anon. I've only played through the game once but Curly's behaviour/reactions etc read completely different from the "bro code" thing and I have to wonder if my mutual and I even played the same game.. like the constant digs at him from Jimmy, his body language in his face reveal and so on like you mentioned in your post. While this game is a little different obviously, it kind of reminded of a point in Alice Madness Returns that makes it very clear that Alice's pain blinded her to the abuse of the other children and her failure to act earlier because of it. Curly is guilty of a similar inaction but it doesn't change the fact he was a victim of Jimmy too. I don't think I can look at it any other way because both of these games have really stuck with me.

I genuinely think it really is the idea that people want a simple easy to blame problem and the idea that the only relatable victims of abuse are those that "surpass" it or do a lot to help others. When it comes to victims, especially those that don't fit the typical demographics, who either accidently perpetuate it, enable it or aren't ideal in some way shape or form, people jump to ignore what they went through as it's easier than dealing with those conflicting sentiments.

The bro-code conversation in Mouthwashing stems from a concept I generally dislike that there had to be something about Curly that made him meet or keep being friends with someone like Jimmy. I think people genuinely underestimate how many like decent and good people just know an asshole or are friends with someone who is really bad outside of their view/established dynamics. The game makes it clear none of the inaction against Jimmy is because of a lack of care, it is a lack of understanding from the privaleged postions they have as men to not have to worry about what Anya does/went through and the type of extremes men like Jimmy will go through to cover it up. They are all too preoccupied in their own strifes.

Another thing I see being oversaturated the idea that you have to be a freak, misanthrope or have a disorder to do the thing Jimmy does. The game is an escalation, it's a spiral that I don't see people comment on that Jimmy was not likely having the mood swings and episodes of rage/frustration we were seeing in the game. This is after they all start experiencing the worst moments in their lives that he got THAT openly bad. Of course, this is just my interpretation but much like in real life, people that go to extremes like that usually live mundane lives. It's a pressure cooker affect to where the stress made them pop. It's self inflicted but still the case.

I really think people need to be more willing to acknowledge that not everything needs to be an extreme or in black and white or easy to understand. It doesn't need to be happy or have an answer or solution, especially in the cases where the abused sadly helps perpetuate what they experience. It's not he should've known better from experience or shouldn't he have known what could've happened because victims tend to not like to think in matters of the worst. Not to mention, especially in cases of abuse where it feels so personally directed that you don't expect to happen to someone else.

[missingininaction]

alright, friends, i might say something you don't like but i think it's important. not just to defend a character, but because i think this is literally making people's experience and relationship with this game worse.

give jimmy like two seconds to exist.

by hating jimmy so much you refuse to even say his name, and judge real, living people for liking him, you are cheapening your experience by boiling down the main character to the most ~yuckiest~ moments. and, by not making a seperate space for hating on him, you are drowning out the voices of people who actually have nuanced things to say about his character. you know, the skilled writers and artists that feed the fandom? limitation is what kills fandoms, you have to know that.

is jimmy a good person? no. is he a good captain/companion/worker? Absolutely Not! he crumbles like dust under any pressure and he immediately shifts blame off of himself, he is an actively harmful individual and it's right to be upset by his actions. i literally had to stop myself from saying "man FUCK jimmy." multiple times because i didn't want to spoil how terrible he got to my friends when i showed the game to them.

but you have to understand; people are more than their actions. thats part of the entire point of the game. thats why its so abstract. you are meant to think about the nuances of their situation.

we can agree that anya was way more as a woman than what happened to her and what she did as a result of it, right? that despite her best efforts, she was a victim of circumstance, and she deserves to be understood and analyzed fully?

then why, seeing a fictional man who has done immoral things, are you so disgusted you won't even draw, write or discuss him outside of hate? what is that doing for you, to ignore literally the main character of the game because of his actions?

now, this is not to say people can't hate jimmy. i understand it! as someone who has been a victim of s/a and abuse, i understand if you hate him and are even triggered by him to the point of avoiding mention of him. (but...why are you in this fandom? ((not aggressive im genuinely asking)))

you can feel however you want about any character, my goal is not to control people. but i thought it was common knowledge to not hatepost about someone in their tag? over actual insight into his character and, you know, the main themes of the game?

jimmy is a man who has struggled his whole life. both him and curly confirm that in the game. he's unable to control his emotional outbursts, and he likely had no idea what to expect from being in fucking SPACE for over a year with people he probably didn't even know before that trip. and pony express and their corporate safety corner cutting certainly didnt help, did it?

for one reason or another, he most likely was never actually taught how to manage his emotions. that's just how it is sometimes, growing up as a man. and it would make sense if he was forced to deal with everything himself, no? he always complains, but he still says he'll handle it. because that's what he's always had to do. and this is just the start of what i could say about what made him the way that he is.

he's a victim too, not only of his own actions.

surprise surprise, people who do awful things can also be victims.

honestly, this entire situation baffles me. how are you going to avoid one of the main characters of the game, let alone the one you play as ninety percent of the time? mind you, curly is also guilty, and i am happy to see at least some people giving him space for nuance. because he is also a victim!!! why is it so impossible to see jimmy as nuanced, when literally every other character also has incredible depth to them??

you're tarnishing and spitting on the beautiful writing of this game just because one character is too icky for you to feel comfortable thinking about for too long. it's horror, you absolute morons. it's supposed to make you uncomfortable.

if you hate jimmy, i dont blame you. but please, please, make your own space for it. be kind to people who want to explore jimmy and the darker themes, and like him for what his character represents. this is a video game fandom, not a witch hunt. and please, learn some fandom etiquette while you're at it, okay? okay. thank you

also just say his name. its not a slur youre not gonna go to hell if you say jimmy. like this isn't as important but still it just feels like a microcosm of this whole thing.

[3gremlins]

my personal head canon is that spite isn't actually in opposition to lucanis at all but actually thinks of them as a unit. spoilerish lucanis musings

like even before you do the mindscape quest for him, spite refers to them as a "we" (spite comments "they know we're not right" if rook questions lucanis about his weird behavior during that first quest)

spite actually feels a lot more like cole than the in game narrative gives him credit for- he's a spirit of determination twisted- i'd think he would have been attracted to lucanis' bloody mindedness to stay alive/survive the ossuary already and want to assist in that (and maybe it got twisted by what the venatori were doing by forcing them together? is that how they were attracting the spirits maybe? like laying out sad humans as traps to turn them into demons? if it's in the writing, it's possible i missed it). i think the deal they make is just to put the bond in terms both understand, but there's something deeper there. (as with cole, im not sure if spite totally understands what he does sometimes is harmful to lucanis- like he wants a thing and throws a tantrum and hurts lucanis, but it's kind of like they haven't worked out boundaries? you def get the vibe that spite is also protecting lucanis in other ways and is just...bad at it. they spend a long time in DAI establishing that spirits are attracted to the living world/curious about it, but don't understand it completely either and have to learn to be people/to relate to people. )

also for the mindscape quest, spite actually comes and gets rook to get their help with lucanis- that's not really the behavior of a spirit forced to be somewhere or even making the best of a bad situation, but rather one that wants to be there/cares in some way.

i really wish the game let you refer to them in a more nuanced way- spirit touched/bonded or something instead of "abomination" because they're clearly not. Also especially if you've rolled a Mourn Watch Rook- like you'd think they'd have better language for it or be more understanding. We've seen 3 (4 if you count justice twice, maybe 5 if you count mythal/flemeth?) spirit/demon partnered/created characters in the narrative and i wish the writing around them was more thoughtful about it instead of it seeming sort of one off curiosity every time.

because it's so interesting! you could even see an alt universe where the reason fenris has got creepy lyrium ghost powers is there's some kind of spirit bond there too (hey it's the venatori doing creepy venatori shit, not that big of a stretch) and why he can veer sort of wildly the same way anders/justice can depending on hawke's empathy bond re: rivalry/friendship (like a darker flip of spirit cole versus human cole maybe? ) idk there's so much there and we get little breadcrumbs lol (that's okay, i've got fan art ideas)

[nightmare-foundation]

I really want to offer my analysis here, because I don't entirely agree with this take, given that it's far more nuanced than what's seen here

Dick said he wished Jason had died in Nightwing v2 #119, in the midst of the Brothers in Blood arc. He thought this to himself right after fighting Jason, after Jason started running around in his own Nightwing costume, killing people and traumatizing bystanders, making Nightwing public enemy #1 and essentially ruining his reputation and trying to ruin his vigilante life, which Jason continues to do even after Dick expresses that he doesn't like what he's doing.

I'll be honest, I really don't blame Dick for briefly wanting Jason dead, considering the guy was deliberately ruining Dicks reputation as a vigilante, and pushing past every boundary Dick set up. Sure, it's no excuse, but I wouldn't expect Dick to welcome Jason back with open arms after something like that. I wouldn't either, frankly. Also, Jason pretty deliberately cut Dicks hand open too, and jokes about it. Jason wasn't giving Dick any reason to be friendly with him, especially knowing Dicks strict moral code. Also, Dick never once expressed this thought out loud, and honestly I'm not sure how in character it is for him to think something like that and not at least regret it.

As for the second time- that isn't Dick wanting Jason dead again. Dick is working off of the assumption that Jason never died in the first place, and on top of that, Jason DID originally die at the end of Under the Hood (note the effects from the Superboy Prime punch that shows up at the end of the comic, that also showed up when Jason was revived in his coffin). Dick isn't expressing that he wished Jason was dead here, he's literally saying that Jason wasn't supposed to be alive- that two separate events (Ethiopia, the end of UtH) should've killed him. That's the unbelievable part, the part that 'makes him sound crazy', because Jason isn't dead when he's supposed to be.

Another point- Brothers in Blood is infamously out of character for both Dick and Jason, and overall very wacky, especially at this point. Winick, in an interview, stated that Jason hated the idea of Dick (i don't have a link right now, but I can find it for you), but in this comic, he wants to be buddies? Not to mention Dick not regretting wanting someone dead, especially after the events of Nightwing v2 #93, which he was still very much recovering from at this point, hence the year long break from being Nightwing (which Jason interrupted by forcing Dick to act when he wasn't ready to).

Also... Dick, presumably, has no idea about what Jason went through. He isn't aware of how much he's struggling. All Dick is probably aware of (because let's be real, Bruce is shit at communicating), is that Jason somehow survived Ethiopia, came back years later as a murderous crime lord, supposedly died in a fight with Bruce, and is back again and wreaking havoc and killing people in HIS suit and refusing to stop. Hell, he probably JUST found out Jason was alive! But this is ALL Dick knows. I highly doubt he knows the details of the showdown between him and Bruce, or why Jason does what he does, etc. Jason sure as hell isn't explaining anything beyond why he kills, and that doesn't matter to Dick because he's strictly against killing, to the point of mental breakdowns if he does it himself or is responsible in some way (see: his reaction to beating the Joker to death and Blockbusters death). Jason isn't at all giving Dick any reason to sit down and talk to him, or be friendly. Sure, he wanted to know if they could be brothers again, but he could've communicated this earlier in a far more normal way lol.

And just so we're being fair: I'm also not entirely sure Jason actually didn't care when Dick supposedly died. Look at his face when he says "That's Blüdhaven.", and then his almost performative, kinda fake sounding words afterwards. Jason certainly hated the idea of Dick (the perfect golden boy who always listened to Batman and got all the love), but he never actually HATED-hated Dick, and even if he did, certainly not enough to want him dead. He even goes out of his way to save Dick and give him important information he just happened to overhear. On top of that, Jason is frequently depicted during this time as lying, both to himself and others, specifically when Winick writes him (see: Red Hood: The Lost Days. What he says and what he does don't line up). So I don't believe Jason really wanted Dick dead, or even just didn't care.

Overall, it's WAY more nuanced than just "Dick wanted Jason dead when he just found out his little brother was alive". Sure, is it kinda shitty to wish someone dead? Of course. Is it in character here? Not very. Do I blame him? Not at all. Do I believe they were shitty to each other in other ways? Absolutely! They have SO many issues, and have hurt each other a lot, I'm definitely not arguing that they haven't. But I don't think wanting the other dead was ever a real issue, nor a flaw in their relationship.

til that slade bombing bludhaven happens at the same time jason and bruce are duking it out in the under the red hood storyline and they see it happening.

in other news, jason peter todd is a raging asshole omg what a jerk THAT’S YOUR BROTHER?!??? WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOU LOVE DICK

[my-pjo-stuff]

i think the reason why people who are against authority also hate Luke is because Luke wasn't anti authority, he was anti olympian/ god.

Seen through his method of trying to dissemble the authoritative power of the gods by overthrowing them with another form of authoritative power. Kronos was no better than the gods - not in myth or pjo - and by trying to take down one government by reinforcing another, similar (if not the same), he is therefore not proving to be anti authority instead just anti god.

Not a great comparison but similarly to when the Russian revolution had overthrown the Tsar due to autocratic rule however then implemented their own autocratic rule in the form of the soviets. This is not solving any issues but rather reinforcing the same structure through a different leadership, there is very little to no chance Kronos would have provided better conditions for the demigods.

that's just my two cents as to why people may be anti authority and anti Luke, (personally i love the titan army) he is simply trading one authority for another which may benefit him (although he was manipulated to believe so). It's his actions that speak the loudest.

Personally I think while this may be the case in a meta light, we have to remember that Luke did not know all this. The Olympians were not just autocratic, they were downright tyrannical. The conditions were at the very bottom for demigods. If you remember up until Rick's retcon for HOO Luke was considered very old by demigodstandarts at the age of 19. They had practically no human rights at all. Luke allied with Kronos because it literally was his only fighting chance for his revolution, aswell as having gotten the promise to get a Golden Age for demigods. As it stands the "authoritarian government" thing was just something that would be there either way, the difference in the two options (to Luke) being "government that actively harms us" VS "government that doesn't". This is absolutely no attack on you or anyone else, but I think we need to remember to see these things from the POVs of the character. We as the audience can always easily say he should have done X or shouldn't have trusted Y based on the info we get- but we need to remember that most characters simply don't have that perspective. Ontop of that Kronos wasn't that much worse than the gods either by comparison. I mean...his main "crime" he's known for is being a tyrant and eating his kids. Zeus has canonically been at least compared to a tyrant one time. He ate Athena's mother in the myth to avoid a prophecy- that's how we got Athena coming from his skull. All things considered the gods and Kronos are round about on the same level on awful. Since you drew the comparison to Russia- the people who revolted against the Tsar did so not with the intent to instate another dictator. They did so because they were being exploited and starved by an upper class. The following tyranny was just something that developed after it in spite of the original idea and goals of the revolution. Luke was anti-establishment IMO who was forced to compromise his original values to some degree to even have a fighting chance.

Basically what I want to say is that while yes, everything you said is true- it's a lot more nuanced and complicated than that. And while it may take some time and thought to get into it- if people want to discuss on the topic they either have to put the work in or just stay out of it.

[ittybittyremy]

I really hate the use of the word "hypocrite" in the CR fandom because it doesn't let people appreciate the nuances of the characters/situations. This is not to say that the characters don't have their hypocritical moments. I just think there are people who slap the word on a character and call it a day, not even bothering to try to understand it.

I have more to say but TLDR: Hypocrisy is a fact but it feels like an insult because it implies that there is no reason that the contrast of ideas exists.

You won't like to hear this but everybody (including you) is/will be a hypocrite at some point. There are many cases of this, some more severe than others.

As a small example, I hate the sound of other people clicking their pens repeatedly but I click my pen repeatedly all the time. Is that hypocritical? Yes! You could slap that label call it that and call it a day and it wouldn't be technically wrong. However, you could also figure out why these contrasts exist. In my case, my thing with noises has to do with control. I don't mind my pen clicking because I can choose the tempo and decide when to stop it. But others make that exact same noise, I can't control it and I don't know when it'll stop.

Hypocrisy is a fact but it feels like an insult because it implies that there is no reason that the contrast of ideas exists.

This is not meant to say that all hypocrisy makes sense or has reason. Reasonless hypocrisy is one of the foundations of prejudice/discrimination but that's a whole other conversation.

There will also be reasons of hypocrisies existing that you disagree with. However, just because you disagree with the reason doesn't mean that the reason does not exist.

Back to Critical Role

I made this post because of people's reactions to Ashton regarding their views on the gods versus the primordials. During the CR Cooldown, the cast calls Asthon out for their hypocrisy of their views on the gods versus the titans. This is what Taliesin says about it:

"It's the difference between the feeling of being small in front of someone rather than being small in front of everything. Is really what happened, which is instead of having the smallness and raging at the big person, it was 'I'm in the middle of this.' [Asthon] didn't feel separated from it... It was more feeling the place in the cosmos, rather than actual people going 'oh it's you' and you're like 'fuck'."

Of course, you can understand Ashton’s hypocrisy and disagree with the reasoning. That's fine, as long as you see their reasons and acknowledge that they exist. It may not make sense to you but it makes sense to the character.

[mephoj]

taco and mephone have fascinating parallels more people could explore if taco haters weren't biased cowards

[duskdog]

The big defenses that I see from Jason Todd stans for this are these: 1. He didn't try to kill her by blowing up the school. I agree, actually -- I don't think he tried to kill her, I think he was sure she'd get clear (Mia herself suspects this and says as much)... but he still blew up a school for absolutely no good reason. 2. You guys are exaggerating the details. I don't believe we are, because it's a lot more nuanced than just "hero vs hero" -- if you're familiar with Mia's character, it should be obvious about why this attack was potentially more damaging to her than it might be to some other random hero. Regardless, the facts of what he did, without "exaggeration" or introspection into what any of this could have meant for Mia personally are bad enough to stand on their own merits: He kidnapped someone he has never even met before. It is a fact that he did this.

He took the time to research her origin -- which no reasonable person can deny includes some very sensitive topics such as sexual abuse, child trafficking, underage drug use, and HIV infection -- and then deliberately flaunted this information in her face. It is a fact that he did this. He attempted to convince her that her guardian wasn't like her and would never understand her. It is a fact that he did this. He fought her, including shooting at her, despite the fact that they didn't even know each other and she had never committed any wrong against him. It is a fact that he did this. He blew up her school, which not only disrupted her schooling, but the schooling of many other students, and caused a large amount of property damage. It is a fact that he did this. Mia was later shown to be troubled by this encounter, beyond anything she had previously shown for other "normal" fights. This is a fact that is expressed by Green Arrow, as well as shown on-panel where she lies alone and thoughtful, cuddling a soft toy. My point being, nobody has to "exaggerate" in order for any reasonable person to conclude that Jason was an unprovoked aggressor here, and that what he did was bad. "Oh he did that stuff, but it wasn't as bad as you say it was" isn't the winning argument that people seem to think it is. What, exactly, is the threshold for "bad enough" for a character to be held responsible for what they do? If you want to argue that Jason has changed since then? Sure, that's fair. But that has absolutely zero bearing on the things he did when he was like this. Taking responsibility for this attack would go a long way towards showing character growth, but we're unlikely to ever see that. Let your fave own his flaws and mistakes.

i really can’t get over the fact that at one point jason blew up a school because a teenage girl said no to being his partner

[mostlyvoid-partiallyflowers]

The most recent episode of Interview with a Vampire let's us see Lestat's side of the story and see how it compares to Louis' accounting of their relationship. As a result, it reaffirms just how unreliable of a narrator Louis is, but it also further illuminates elements of his character that the director and writers have been playing with since the beginning of the show.

There's this part in the episode where Lestat turns to Louis and apologizes and it's framed with Lestat turned to Louis on one side and Claudia on his other side. They're the angel and devil on Louis' shoulders, but who is the angel and who is the devil? And as my friend said, Armand and Daniel are placed into that same dynamic with Louis later on. We are being asked to decide who to trust, who's telling the truth, who's the good guy, but the fact of unreliability robs us of that decision.

This whole story is about Louis, he's the protagonist, though not the narrator, and he is constantly being pulled in two directions, no matter when or where he is in his story. He's a mind split in two, divided by nature and circumstance. He's vampire and human, owner and owned, father and child, angel and devil. He's both telling the story and being told the story. His history is a story he tells himself, and as we've seen, sometimes that story is not whole.

Louis is the angel who saved Claudia from the fire but he's also the devil who sentenced her to an life of endless torment, the adult trapped in the body of a child. He's the angel who rescued Lestat from his grief and also the devil who abandoned him, who couldn't love him, could only kill and leave him.

He's pulled in two directions, internally and externally at all times and so it's no wonder that he feels the need to confess, first to the priest, then Daniel, and then Daniel again.

He's desperate to be heard, a Black man with power in Jim Crow America who's controlled by his position as someone with a seat at the table but one who will never be considered equal. He doesn't belong to the Black community or the white community, he can't. He acts as a go-between, a bridge, one who is pushed and pulled until he can't take it anymore. He's a fledgling child to an undead father, he's a young queer man discovering his sexual identity with an infinitely experienced partner. He's confessing because he wants to be absolved, that human part of him that was raised Catholic, that child who believed, he wants to be saved. He wants to be seen.

Louis wants to attain a forever life that is morally pure, but he can't. He's been soiled by sin, by "the devil," as he calls Lestat, and he can never be clean again. Deep down, I think he knows this, but he can't stop trying to repent. He tries to self-flagellate by staying with Lestat and then tries to repent by killing him, but can't actually follow through. He follows Claudia to Europe to try and assuage his guilt. He sets himself on fire, attempts to burn himself at the stake, to purify his body, rid himself of the dark gift.

Louis is a man endlessly trying to account for the pain he has caused and he ultimately fails, over and over again, because he can't get rid of what he is. A monster. He's an endlessly hungry monster. He's hungry for love, for respect, for power, for forgiveness, for death. He's a hole that can never be filled. He can never truly acquire any of those things because he will always be punishing himself for wanting and needing them in the first place. He will never truly believe he deserves them and as a result, can't accept them if they are ever offered. He can never be absolved for he has damned himself by accepting the dark gift and thus has tainted himself past the point of saving.

[makotonaegiunderstander]

something I’ve been thinking abt is how many people think Makoto is immune to despair. I don’t think he is. I think becoming the ultimate Hope was BECAUSE he felt despair. He wouldn’t have fully reached that point without Junko. Makoto becoming such a beacon was his last attempt to avoid completely falling and it wasn’t because he didn’t feel despair, it was because he was too damn stubborn to allow everything to go to waste and he refused to sacrifice his beliefs for someone else’s. His inner monologue tells me he DID experience the same new low the other suvivors did in the final trial, but at the point where he had the choice to give up and die, he looked at the others and he looked at Junko and he couldn’t allow it to happen, not out of self preservation, but because the idea that Junko would have control over their lives made him FURIOUS. and that utter refusal to die kicked in, wether luck or otherwise, and he made the concious effort for one last push while something in him was breaking. He had to be broken in order for the Ultimate Hope to come through so aggressively, bc it could only exist in the face of the Ultimate Despair. He snapped the same way she did, but in the other direction. In what could have been his final moments he chose to embody everything Junko wasn’t, and every single optimistic and luck fueled ideal in him suddenly charged forward and pushed him. It was a combination of the final straw and a choice. Makoto isn’t immune to feeling despair, he’s just too stubborn to fall into it of his own volition. I think that’s why I like that scene in DR3 so much. People were SO SHOCKED Makoto actually fell for the tape, that he actually became despair for a moment. I saw people getting mad or disappointed, saying it was pathetic and Makoto seemed to fall from some sort of pedestal for them. Honestly part of me wonders if that sort of mentality, which clearly people had in universe, affected Makoto a bit. Like he started to see himself as less of a person, subconsciously. Prompting him to take more risks, less self preservation, act way more bold. It seems he has to be reminded a lot not to put himself in danger by his friends, to not do something too reckless. All over the place I would see in regards to that scene either this frivolous ‘oh this was just angst drama with no meaning behind it’ or ‘he can do better than that. he’s so weak’ or ‘come on, there’s no way he’d fall into despair, he’s the Ultimate Hope!’ This kind of mentality, which was kind of ironic considering Ryota was there the entire time saying the same thing and treating Makoto the same way. Like Makoto was superhuman. Like Makoto didn’t feel despair the same way ‘normal people’ did. In a way that was also how Munakata saw Makoto. Makoto stopped being a PERSON to the world when he became Ultimate Hope, he became a concept, a belief system, much the same way Junko ascended beyond herself. But the difference is that treating Makoto that way is the opposite of the reason Makoto became such a representative for hope. He wasn’t doing something no one else could. He was doing something everyone had the chance to, he just… was a little more optimistic, a little more stubborn, a little more ‘gung-ho’ about things. He just took the lead where no one else did, where no one else knew they even COULD in the face of Junko’s unstoppable force. She had overcome the biggest threats and obstacles in the world, what could one person do? And the answer Makoto found was, anything. Everything. It doesn’t all rest on Makoto, he’s just the one that was inspired to try to do what seemed like the impossible. But as evidenced by the change in his friends after that trial, it’s clearly not something only Makoto is capable of. The others pulled out of despair thanks to Makoto, but it was their choice to do so.

“But… this world is so huge, and we’re so small. What can we do…? No, we can probably do anything. Yeah! We can do anything!”

[butwhatifidothis]

Still baffled that Hopes so blatantly wrote Claude as the typical Evil Vaguely Middle Eastern Man set on destroying the Good White Nation for his Evil Vaguely Middle Eastern Nation that is often seen in fantasy settings - complete with him being seen as worse than a white woman who does many of the same evil deeds he does in-verse, even by his friends (should it be the bad ending route of SB) - and so many in the fandom were so eager to gobble that shit up. INSIST that "Clearly A Racist Stereotype" is LEAGUES better than "Subversion Of A Racist Stereotype" even. Like I don't think I'll ever get over how supremely fucked that is

[iguessitsjustme]

*takes you by the hand as gently as I can*

You can dislike Maya without turning her into a one dimensional villain that serves no purpose to the story.

You can dislike Maya without disparaging the story and message the show is trying to convey.

You can hate Maya without moralizing your hatred. You can just hate her. It’s okay.

[shaolin-spin-doctor]

not sure if this is a hot take but. imo. Fire God Liu Kang kinda sucks and it's the worst direction NRS could've taken his character in tbh

[seventh-district]

not even gonna tag this properly bc i don't wanna get Involved but i do have some Thoughts i need to get out into the void so here we go

(aaa quick edit: CW for mention/discussion of Boothill leaks)

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 5!!!

[quietwingsinthesky]

Do you agree w/ the fandom interpretation that john was so homophobic he’d have beaten up and abandoned his sons for being gay? Cause sure, he grew up in the 60s as a mechanic and then later became a marine during the vietnam war, but i also don’t think homophobia would’ve necessarily been a priority for him? Like obviously he’s not gonna be the full on supportive and politically correct loving dad, but i think that the fandom’s general opinion on that is pretty warped by people’s relationships w/ their own fathers

I do think this is one place where people tend to project. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that; working out our issues through fiction is healthy and good! I don’t think there’s any canon proof of it beyond, as you said, him being a marine from the sixties who would probably not be super knowledgeable about being queer, maybe a little apprehensive about it from what he’s absorbed through the culture he grew up in. I think we’d be correct to point out that if Sam or Dean were queer, he might be uncomfortable about it, he might try to avoid the topic, which is in of itself hurtful.

The thing about me is: I fully disagree that John was ever physically abusive towards his kids. At most, I will bend this interpretation to say he was probably too harsh on them while teaching them to fight and that maybe he and Sam have traded blows before when arguments got too loud (by blows, I mean, probably shoving with the yelling, you know, assertion of physical space. It seems realistic to me that two people who have been using violence for a long time to protect themselves, and for John, his family, down to the hierarchal power he’s put in place of him -> Dean -> Sam, would resort to it when things got too heated.)

(I also think that sometimes fandom’s insistence that John had to be physically abusive can sometimes get a little insulting because it perpetuates the idea that emotional abuse does less harm and can be overlooked and for flattening out John’s character in a way the show very literally pointed to and said He Did Not Do That. This is the entire point of Max’s episode in s1, for the show to point out that their experiences of abuse were different. How well it was handled is arguable, but I take it as clear evidence that when we talk about John’s relationship with his sons, the focus should be on the emotional abuse, the codependency he developed with Dean from a very young age, his neglect of them both, his attempts to suppress Sam, etc. And I appreciate this about the show, because you can’t talk about any of those things without also talking about why they’re happening, why John thinks this is necessary, how he loves his sons and isolates them to protect them and ends up doing more and more damage that will never leave them through their entire lives.

I’m sure there’s depictions of John being physically abusive that handle it with the same amount of nuance that the show handles him being emotionally abusive in canon. I have not seen them, unfortunately. I’ve seen John being physically abusive 90% of the time just being used as shorthand for him being Bad and Evil and A Terrible Father. Which does not interest me. So I will remain here as a staunch defender of He Would Not Fucking Hit His Kids.)

Sorry, okay, we got off topic there this is about gay shit.

The point of All Of That was for me to be able to say, John’s not going to react to his sons being queer by beating them. He’s definitely not going to abandon them. Hello? John Winchester? Abandon his kids? John Winchester, the guy who has been keeping them in warded up motel rooms their whole lives and moving them across the country out of paranoia the demon who killed his wife could find them if they say anywhere too long? John Winchester who only trusted one or two people to ever look after his sons when he went on a hunting trip too long? We think that John would ditch his kid because they’re queer???

Like I said, I think the most realistic reaction for John, (if not just flat out him going ‘that’s fine, now load this gun while I time you because that’s more important for me to know that you can do’, because. He kind of has bigger priorities to worry about here. Like werewolves.) would be discomfort and pushing it out of his view, ignoring it. Which would still fucking hurt! And would have horrible effects on Sam and Dean both, would encourage Dean to repress it if he thinks his dad is ashamed of him, would push Sam away if he trusts John with this fact about himself and can’t be accepted easily.

I just think this is truer to John’s character.

Anyway. If nothing else here persuades anyone reading that John Would Not Fucking Do That, well. He thought his kid was demonspawn, remember? He thought Sam was corrupted and might not be able to be saved. I don’t think you can get more clear queercoding than that, and you know what John’s very telling response was to that information, to finding out something a thousand times more terrifying than Sam being gay ever could be? To refuse to look at it. To insist to himself that whatever Hell wanted with Sam, he wouldn’t let it happen. To tell Dean to take care of it, because even when John is certain that his son might literally become a demon, he could never bring himself to pull the trigger on him. Because he loves Sam.

So like. He literally would not do anything for the much smaller realization that Sam is gay. His son has demon blood that might turn him super evil, and John still wouldn’t hurt him.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is, I try to keep the fact that John loved his sons at the forefront of my mind when I’m writing stuff about him, because I think if you let that slide out of your head, you can very easily make him much worse, much more flat than he was in canon. The real picture of him is just an extremely flawed man in a terrible situation who fucks up his kids as much as he protects them.

And also he wouldn’t care about them being gay because JohnAzazel real and true and they fucked sloppy in that hospital basement-