#i like to pretend civil war didnt happen

[tianasficrecs168]

Stony Fanfic Recs

So I've got a few ways I've marked up my fanfic list, just so I can sort through it easier (yes I do have a lot. yes I will be sharing).

Brackets (…) means it's still being updated/not done/WIP – and I'm paying close attention to it

Zeros with a strikethrough (000) Disappeared off the net (I still have a doc of it saved somewhere)

A black dot • means it's a one-shot

Ship with + means it's either time travel or dimension hopping – something along those lines

A heart ♡ means it's focused on Sexy times (it's pure filth PWP)

Anyway! Onto my MCU Stony fic recs...

Arysteia: “The Twice-Told Tale” (Steve/Tony+) • For someone he'd hero-worshipped for so long, Steve Rogers in the flesh is a pretty big disappointment. For one thing, he keeps looking at Tony as though he reminds him of someone else, and even if he never says anything, Tony's pretty sure it's his father. A lifetime of not measuring up to Howard's expectations is more than enough, thank you very much, and he's certainly not going to make an effort to live up to any of Steve's. Steve's pretty clearly failed to live up to his expectations, in any case, and that's not hypocritical at all.

Wordsplat: “Hashtag Finally” (Steve/Tony) (000) • Since the story's been deleted from....whichever site, can't remember - I have the doc saved. Also the summary for this one is just the beginning of the fic (I'm lazy): It started with Clint. Technically speaking, Tony never actually invited him. He would have, given any sort of contact information, but Clint disappeared right after the battle of New York and clearly didn't want to be found. Natasha probably knew where he was, but knowing didn't mean sharing, so Tony never got the chance. Invitation or no invitation, three years later Tony still found Clint Barton sitting on his couch, watching Dog Cops and eating Cheetos in his underwear. "Sup." "Shit!" Tony jumped, dropping his mug. "Aw, coffee." Clint peered over the top of the couch. "Sucks, man."

“Meet Your Heroes” (Steve/Tony) (000) • Another one that bit the dust -> google doc The summary is the first few parts of the fic: It’s been a while, sure, but it’s far from his first rodeo and he knows exactly what’s about to happen when the door of the black van in front of him rolls back to reveal four armed men in black ski masks. So yeah, not the best way to kick off the week. He’d had a great weekend. After months of toying with it, scrapping the idea only to circle back around, he’d finally committed and built the mechanized suit he’s envisioned since the “Avengers” first appeared on the scene a few months ago. Part of the reason he’d tried to scrap it so many times was how nervous he’d been to tell Steve. Steve didn’t like to talk much about the mysterious team of superheroes running around their city these days, so Tony had sort of assumed that expressing his desire to join them might make things tense to say the least, if not start an outright fight. To Tony’s pleasant surprise, Steve had instead been weirdly over the moon about it all. Told him to go for it. Went on and on about how the Avengers would be lucky as hell to have him. Practically rewarded him, jumped his bones no less than five minutes after he announced his intentions. So that had been great.

AshitaNewssnoopy: - “Worth It” (Steve/Tony) • When Steve said he wanted to court Tony, he assumed that he just meant that he wanted to take thing slow. And that was fine by Tony. No really, he could do this thing if that's what Steve needed (shut up, Pepper; he so could). Because Steve was worth the wait. But then the gifts started coming and the letters popped up and there were chaste kisses and romance and…and what is even with this? Just when did his life turn into a romance novel?

Anonymous: - “With you” (Steve/Tony) • Sometimes Steve gets overwhelmed by how much he loves Tony.

ItsallAvengers: - “Keep on Beating” (Steve/Tony) • There were an awful lot of things Steve loved about Tony. But one thing in particular Steve could never get enough of was his heartbeat.

Sara_holmes: - “Like Sunlight” (Steve/Tony) • Steve is used to the way it feels by now; a strange but gentle tugging connection under his sternum, warm tingles in his skin whenever they touch. That is, until Tony gets himself kidnapped. Then it kinda feels more like someone is trying to wrench his heart out through his ribcage.

Scifigirl47: - “Some Things Shouldn’t Be a Chore” (Steve/Tony) Steve takes things like personal responsibility and respect seriously. Tony's got people he pays to take care of that kind of thing, and anyway, he's pretty sure that he's going to die of some exotic disease in his workshop, because Dummy's still a little spotty about what is 'clean' enough to put on an open wound. The rest of the Avengers are in this for personal gain, except for Clint, he just enjoys being a dick. And some things shouldn't be a chore.

[christinathezakumechanic]

Want to add onto this with a few other facts after reading up on this absolute legend of a man. James Barry fought in the crimean war, met florence nightingale, got into a pretty famous duel apparently(and won) and generally seems like a total badass. To be quite honest I can kind of see where these guys would be coming from saying he was just a woman pretending to be a man, as that sort of thing has happened before in history, with how misogynistic a lot of systems were. But it takes like 3 minutes of reading about this guy to realize that no, he was definitely a trans man. I dont want to steer this off course from James Barry, but another similar case can be found in the American civil war. This is Albert Cashier, who lived 50 of his years as a man, had multiple people discover he was transgender and surprisingly didn't get outed by any of them, and wasnt outed at all until his mental state deteriorated so much he had to be put in a mental hospital, where unfortunately he was forced to dress as a woman. It sucks that this seems to be a pretty common occurrence that people try to pretend that these men didnt exist.

theres so few trans men in the past because theyre all fucking buried as women😐

[wolfsplosion]

remember The Avengers (2012)....................that was a good movie

[ifandomus]

It just dawned on me that the chair used to wipe Bucky’s memories was never even mentioned or alluded to in tfatws. Like, outside of the trauma words, I’ve always associated the chair heavily with Bucky’s trauma and torture and to not discuss it all!? Seriously? But then again that would have gone against the never narrative they’re trying to manipulate us into believing that Bucky was at least somewhat complicit in what HYDRA forced him to do 🙄 (also please say so if me sending you tfatws asks ever gets annoying)

Thank you for the ask!! And its not annoying at all! I really love getting and answering asks, but my executive dysfunction unfortunately makes it take a while.

Yes this really irritates me too. Did they even mention the amnesia? I really dont want to rewatch it to check for just that.

I think the closest they got to mention the horrific things done to him was when Zemo made light of his imprisonment. There was also the heavy implications in the scene with Shelby. Other than that it was entirely ignored at all times apart from the flashback scene* at the start of episode 4. However that was kind of undercut by when the scene was in the series.

*(I still cant believe that the people who created the rest of the series, also created this scene. My leading theory is that all they did was give Florence the list of words and told her and Sebastian that their characters were testing them, then they let the actors take it from there. And then they let an amazing editor pick the flashbacks. That is the only way it makes any kind of sense for me)

So yeah. Apart from one somehow amazing scene that was undercut by its placement in the series, there wasnt any mentions of it.

They also made the whole ‘would you take the supersoldier serum?’ a huge moral question, but didnt say one word that the serum was forced on Bucky which was literally medical torture. Just remember how the ones we have seen on screen (like Steve and the hydra death squad) reacted to getting it (and unlike Bucky they consented and were surrounded by people they could trust). And also remember how he was both physically and mentally when Steve found him in ca:tfa. He was even repeating his name and serial number which is something soldiers are taught to do if they are ever tortured.

Bucky was imprisoned, experimented on, frozen alive several times, tortured and abused for 70 years. Hydra stole his memories until he didnt remember anything or anyone. He didnt even remember his loved ones or his own name. They took everything from him, and any time there was any chance of him regaining anything they painfully ripped it away from him so that they could continue to use him as a weapon and however else they used him.

Bucky was hydras biggest victim, now he is their scapegoat

They introduced Isaiah, another character who was imprisoned, experimented on, dehumanised, tortured and abused for decades, and nothing. They introduced dr Nagel who admitted to working on the winter soldier program (aka the torture and abuse that went into keeping him as the winter soldier) for over 20 years, and nothing. We get a scene where they literally pretends to sell Bucky with some really heavy implications, and nothing. Still absolutely no actual mentions of anything that was done to him. I am still wondering if something happened to them right after that horrific scene with Selby that made them all forget it or something.

Its clear from the interviews that both the director and head writer victimblames Bucky. They are holding him accountable instead of the nazi terrorist organisation that brainwashed and mindcontrolled him. And yes, I also guess that even mentioning the extremely painful ways they controlled him would be a threat to the narrative they wanted.

I havent felt such an amount of manipulation from a MCU project since civil war and endgame

[firelxdykatara]

zutara fandom is such a fucking hypocrite. you all call a native woman who loves her husband, who lives happily with him a trophy wife and a breeding machine, simply because you don't like kataang, despite the fact that in the canon she is still a respected matriarch of the tribe, a healer and trained avatar and has outlawed blood bending. you came up with the trophy wife yourself, but blame it all on bryke. didnt you have a popular headcanon where she has 5 children, abandons her nation to live as the "water tribe ambassador" in the fire nation. yknow because erasing her culture sounds cool i guess

Literally what are you talking about?

Pointing out that Katara is treated, post-atla canon, as Aang’s trophy is not ‘calling a native woman who loves her husband a trophy wife’ because like, I’ve got a newsflash for you, Katara does not exist. And criticizing the way the white men who created her chose to destroy her character in post-canon materials and the sequel show is not the equivalent of being racist or misogynistic--it’s actually calling out the racism and misogyny inherent in her treatment by the show’s creators!

Secondly, I’ve written extensively before about how Katara’s ‘achievements’ post-canon actually aren’t. The show pays minor lipservice to what Katara accomplished, but doesn’t actually show that she did anything worthwhile with her life other than have the Avatar’s children. She ‘outlawed bloodbending’? Sure she did, that’s why she was present at the trial for the most infamous bloodbender in history, right alongside her husband, brother, and friend..... oh wait. She ‘is still a respected matriarch of her tribe’? Sure she is, that’s why she was able to talk sense into her people when they were on the brink of civil war, that’s why people listened when she raised her voice and told them to stop being idiots, that’s why... oh, wait, none of that happened because she stayed in the healing huts the whole time. Oh, but she was ‘a healer’--not just that, but one of the greatest healers who ever lived? Sure! That’s why she was able to heal Korra’s bloodbending related injuries- hm, no, but I’m sure that’s why she was able to heal everyone else when their injuries were revealed to have been caused by bloodbending- no, wait, but I’m POSITIVE it’s why she was able to heal Korra’s injuries when she was recovering from mercury poisoning- wait, she didn’t do that either!

It’s encapsulated pretty neatly by this paragraph:

 [The problem is] that virtually none of these accomplishments matter in the context of LoK. Very little that Katara did during or after the war is so much as referenced, and even the things that are referenced matter very little. Katara never talks about her life except as it pertains to Aang, or her children. She doesn’t get to do anything during the series either, despite there being multiple things that–were it not for her entire personality being vacuumed out with almost surgical precision–she should have done if she were being kept true to character, or if she, like, cared about her family and people at all. (Things like, oh, attending her own granddaughter’s Air Master ceremony, or lifting finger one to save her family when they were in danger, or lifting finger one to step in when her people were getting thrown into a whole ass civil war...... ...)

@araeph‘s Consumed By Destiny series is also relevant here, because it goes into far greater detail about Katara’s utter lack of a character in LoK and the comics, especially as compared with her character in the original show.

As for my ‘popular headcanon’, I do indeed headcanon Zuko and Katara as having five children (though my conceptualization of their family will be different from others, everyone has their own hcs about the steam family and that’s so sexy of us), which should probably be the point where you realize that Katara having three kids with Aang is not what I have a problem with lmfao. But where the hell do you get ‘abandons her nation’ and ‘erasing her culture’ from ‘Water Tribe ambassador’???? Literally where????? The entire point of Katara being ambassador to the Fire Nation is to represent her culture in global matters of state. It’s so that she can be the voice for her people on the world stage, ensuring that their wants and needs are heard and fulfilled as the world moves forward and the nations grow together. It’s literally the complete opposite of ‘abandoning’ her nation, her people, or her culture, because everything about who they are and who she is will be everpresent in her life (and her husband’s life) because she’s thinking about them and acting for them in everything she does politically.

Just say that you hate people headcanoning Katara as having more agency in her own life and influencing global politics than canon allowed for her and go, honestly. Stop pretending you give a shit about Katara when you hold so much hatred for people envisioning something more for her than just being ‘the Avatar’s girl’ for the rest of her life.

[scummy-writes]

[CHAPTER 18]

Shakes my fucking phone, i have gil at full bond level for this fucking story and they still make me pay for it. Suck my dick, cybird.

Anyway

HEY

Okay, stepping back a moment.

-> admits the og plan wasnt to bring her back to obsidian. He just wanted to meet her before he died.

-> seems like every time he's at the entrance, he remembers seeing albert and his mother there, and he has to shake it off.

-> might not be EVERY time but i would imagine it is, honestly.

I guess they'd figure it out anyway with the Civil War, gilbert

Yeah. Yeah. My [censored] hcs about gil are going insane right now.

-> oddly, when she asks if its okay to meet the emperor, he thinks 'not even remotely'

-> give me. Give me a minute. I just need to lay down a little.

Little gilbert approaching his father, wanting to know what happened, and being crushed that his father did it and didnt even care.

I know he has slips in his facade, when he is alone, where he has this vitriol towards himself for almost being like his father. Hes not, but to some degree he is. Tremoring anger.

This also adds in a little to his reaction when she jumped in front of the blade for him, I think.

-> has a moment of describing the throne, says it cant be described as beautiful due to all the sacrifice and. Well general awfulness that it represented

He has sacrificed nearly everything about himself just to try to get rid of monarchy as a whole, so other people wouldnt have to suffer. Way too much for just one man to handle. Neat that he shuts off his emotions more step by step.

Oh hot damn. I didnt know that, neat. Also uhhh explains more. About his anger with the family.

-> not 'should', its 'would'.

So in Rhodolite, he was able to detach from this all, loosely. He didnt have to be emperor, he could have less duties (i imagine?), could spend as much time with her in a beautiful place that she loved, and that he used to (still does?) love. He could pretend she could fall in love with him, since she wouldnt be as terrified.

And now that he's back, he's having to accept his reality that hes done awful things and she knows its worse than she originally imagined, and that he knows that dream is over.

[Camera pans to my wall, with multiple holes punched into it]

I think this was the pov i was warned about.

GILBERT ROUTE SPOILERS POST - HIS POV - MAIN ROUTE

Like the other notes (here), I am continuing my thoughts/notes on Gilbert's route. This post will focus on the His Povs for his main route.

I'll be reblogging this post each chapter or so with personal thoughts and general screaming under a cut. I'll be having it in a format with the chapter numbered, and then a cut directly after where I'll be yelling. I already know some major spoilers with gilberts route, so if you have not finished his route yet, be wary.

I'll be using the tags 'Scum Simps' and 'scum plays gil route' for those of you who want to filter it out. Thank u!

[1eos]

im black and from the pacific northwest and what you and anon said about white northerners is so true, white liberals here will pretend like the north is a perfect safe haven where everyone is equal and nothing goes wrong and im here like,,,,, what fucked up delusional fantasy are you living in????? i would probably be more comfortable visiting a southern state because at least the racist folk down there are loud and proud about it, and i would know where not to go and who to avoid, but in my experience up here it is a literal guessing game. you wont know someone is racist until they offhandedly mention they voted for tr*mp, that they support cops, or say/do some other racist bullshit and expect you to be passive and brush it off because respectability politics. on top of that the second you leave a highly populated metro area there are areas as dangerous as known sundown towns and you’re just as at-risk of hate crime as you would be in a southern state. and in said highly populated metro areas there is a plethora of police brutality and racial injustice. but according to liberals we’re a blue state and that makes us better!

tea! it's really gotta be some idealistic fantasy bc every poc abt the business know everywhere is racist 😭😭😭😭😭its really just a different form. nd i won't even say ALL racists in the south are obvious abt it bc every other white woman got mixed kids nd act like wannabe black girls but let something happen they are gonna cash in that white woman privilege its just that the south got the stigma (rightfully i mean the civil war DID happen) of being racist nd now northerners use that as a scapegoat (which ironically only negatively affects poc 🤔 hmmmmmmmmm) to be up their own asses. idk why the stereotype that the north isnt racist is still a thing bc sun down towns are literally everywhere gkakkgkga. if there are white ppl there are racists like hello abraham lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation nd didnt even believe black ppl deserved equal rights lmaooooooooooooooooooooooo why is it 2021 nd ppl r still thinking this country is not rotted to its core. its so funnyyyyyyyyyy like imagine thinking racism cares abt the mason dixon line!!!!!! i cant!!!!!

[kendrixtermina]

Would there have been fossils in the first age?

Speculation inspired by THIS post

So yeah would there be fossils? Life would only have begun fairly recently at that point. 

Maybe there would be remains of creatures that lived during the days of the lamps...

We’re told that Valinor has a lot of unique animals that don’t exist anywhere else, because everything there is closer to the Valar’s orignal plans.  - So Celegorm definitely wrestled various mythical beasts. Perhaps some of them existed in small numbers in middle earth but were mostly gone by the second age. 

 So Celegorm definitely had a rack of trophies of hippogriff, manticore, chimera, what have you... (Feanor and his other kids described the creatures scientifically on their travels) Perhaps he was frustrated with his inability to catch a unicorn. Maybe he caught one at some point when he was young but only briefly, and was then unable to repeat the feat. Like that would just fit his character a lot from its implications as a symbol.

Or maybe at some point he caught all those fancy creatures at least once,  and perhaps privately wished to fight some of those creatures of darkness that Orome and his Maiar mention now and then, with this being a private reason for why he went with his father to middle earth. Perhaps he proudly thought that beating up Orcs or Werewolves would be a new challenge. 

Imagine Finrod stumbling on some fossils while expanding his city, and then explaining to his Edain friends what sort of creatures they belonged to, having seen some of their still-living offshoots in Valinor. Yavanna being touched when Nerdanel or Finrod sculps an extinct creature that she thought of as a plan that didnt work because of Melkor.

Something tells me Finrod would totally have a thing for fossils, it just seems to fit his whole philosophic bent and how he likes to speculate about the plans of Eru. He had a hall full of fancily displayed fossils in Nargothrond. On good days he fanboys about it, on bad days he stands there all pensively pondering his impending doom. 

Dragons are actually Morgoth’s cheap knockup of Dinosaurs, but since most humans and elves have never seen one he can pretend that he came up with it by himself. I mean in one of the versions that’s Morgoth’s express reasons for wanting to seize the one tidbit of the universe where Illuvatar wanted to put his own creatures - Melkor can tell the elves and men whatever he wants whereas his Maia henchmen know that Illuvatar and the other Ainur had their part in makig the universe because they were there. 

Finrod is suuuuper onto him though. There were enough similarities in the anatomy documented in Finrod’s mini-museum. Lucky for Turin, Finduillas once brough him there and bombarded him with cool facts about prehistoric creatures in a sad attempt as wooing him. He wasn’t very interested at the time, but later on, great uncle Finrod’s speculations about where a dragon’s spleen might be came in very handy. 

There would be no ruins to dig up yet since the elves were the first to build anything and the older ones still personally remember their hunter-gatherer days at Cuivienen, followed soon by the dwarves - there were dwarf ruins by the time the war of the jewels happened, such as Mim’s hideout and some predecessor where Nargothrond was eventually built, but of course dwarf generations are a lot shorter, leaving enough time for civilizations to have risen and fallen while the Elves were all chilling in Doriath or Valinor. 

No Dwarves in Valinor tho, so no ruins for Feanor & co to stumble across and dig up. 

Then again, I suppose there could be ruins of stuff built by Maiar before the lamps incident. The Maiar who built it would still be around and would probably find the whole thing adorable. Feanor guessed the building’s former looks and purpose about 90% right but mistook the outhouse for a magical contraption. 

[princessmyriad]

.

[yoramkelmer]

The rise and fall of the Twilight-Craze

Let me tell you about my first encounter with Twilight - it was a “read”-week in 6th or 7th grade, and I picked up a very new book at the library of my elementary school. So I started reading it. I remember reading the first chapters, but never finishing it. I remember how I found the protagonist to be very whiny, and very disrespectful too. 

Also, at this point I also didnt know that this would be a vampire-novel, as the backcover of the book - this being the first danish translation/edition of the novel - never mentioned it. 

Anyway, afterwards, I forgot about it pretty quickly. 

Flashforward to a year later. 

I´m over in Germany, visiting my grandmother, and I buy some books - the german translation of Twilight being among them - and then I start reading it later in the fall. While I did think that the name Stephenie Meyer sounded familiar, I could not remember why. At this point I should also mention that 6th and 7th grade was a very traumatising period for me, and I had by that point pretty much blacked much of that period out of my mind, focusing on the now and future. And yeah, I was 14, so there was still much to come. 

Anywway, as I start reading the novel later in the fall, I suddenly remembered that one book I never finished back in 6th or 7th grade - and am kinda amused. Yeah, anyway, I still found Bella Swan to be a very whiny girl, and I actually liked the novel, and honestly did not think that much about it afterwards. Though I did learn not long after that a movie would come out later that year, I - while I was looking forward to it - did not imagine that it would start a big craze, that I later learned from the Wikipedia article of the South Park episode The Ungroundable to be named “The Twilight Craze”. 

I enjoyed the movie, actually - I watched it with my best friend (who went on to become the biggest Twilight fan I know, at least for as long as the craze lasted) and it is a memory that I like to think back on. I still think that both Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson did a good job in these movies - though more on that later. 

So, flash forward to the fall of 2009, where I am in Thailand with my parents. On the way to Thailand - as we went through Germany -  I bought the subsequent books New Moon and Eclipse. I read these books very quickly, and my mom as well. 

New Moon - and I´m talking about the novel here - did introduce some rather interesting ideas, such as the Volturi. One thing, however, already stuck me back then - it was the fact that Meyer completely distorted the actual folklore of an actual native american tribe, the Quileutes, for her own way, and it seemed really disrespectful back then already. And as for the Volturi, despite being mentioned early on, we didn´t really get that much from them - though as for the climax of the novel, I was pretty disturbed by the fact that the Volturi let in hundreds of tourists into their palace just to eat them after closing the doors. While that scenario is already pretty much horrifying, what really disturbed me was that Bella - and by extension, Stephenie Meyer herself - immediately forgot about it after it happened and moved on with the plot. That, and another thing - are we really gonna accept it as okay that one from Jacobs tribe physically hurt and mutilated his wifes face after wolfing out, because he feels sorry and he forgave her? It already seemed really wrong back then. 

What I also noticed was the fact that Bella Swan essentially only hung out with Jacob so she could play with his feelings, and so she could get into dangerous situations so she could get these hallucinations of Edward. With that said - I also could not really see what was so special about the relationship between Bella and Edward. 

Then I read Eclipse - and one thing stuck out to me there: it´s the fact that the mentioned backstories of the individual Cullens - Carlisles past with the Volturi, Rosalie seeking out and killing her rapists, Jaspers backstory from the american civil war (as I later learned from Das Mervins sporkings, she got a lot of stuff wrong there, to put it mildly), or how Alice was abandoned by her family in an asylum and pretended she was dead, where she ultimately got turned - all of these backstories are a hundred times way more interesting than the perks of being Bella Swan and her love life! 

Also, I immediately knew that the vampire army was a work of Victoria, and that it was to kill Bella - only upon reading the sporkings by Das Mervin did I learn that it was supposed to be a “twist”. 

On the way back from Thailand I bought Breaking Dawn shortly before leaving Germany, but I never finished it - you know why? Because some of my classmembers spilled the tea on the spoiler that Jacob imprints on Bellas daughter. I was just grossed out. I later learned that the book is what turned many fans off Twilight - and the imprinting thing was one of the reasons why, in many cases. 

Anyway, then a few weeks after returning from Thailand, I went in to see New Moon with two of my best friends, and it is a memory that I cherish very much. 

And that was the time when the Twilight Craze really, really went off - with all the cringeworthy “Are you Team Edward, or Team Jacob?” stuff, and how out of touch with reality some of the fangirls seemed - there were apparently some who really believed that Edward Cullen exists, and so much more. I still didnt think too much about it, as I had other things to look for. 

Though - despite liking the movies and the books at the time - I really, really enjoyed a lot of the parodies on the Twilight Craze, like this one from Smosh. The thing is, that Twilight became the probably most parodied thing in the 2009-2010 period. And that may have been one of the things that killed the craze - but more on that later. 

Then, in the summer of 2010 - one of the best summers of my life - I was in Miami with my family. And then my best friend and I got to watch Eclipse in a gigantic cinema in a very big mall in Miami Beach - that was unforgettable. And I also remember that I wasnt the only one who laughed over Taylor Lautners overacting. Good to know. 

During that same summer, I remember then seeing a new book by Stephenie Meyer in the bookstores - “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner”. As this was before my friend and I saw the movie, I myself did not think that much about it; but I then later realised that Bree was the girl killed by the Volturi at the end of Eclipse, and that the novel - as the title already states - was about her time with the army of newborns. That sounded like an actual interesting plot. Shortly before watching Eclipse, the trailer for “Vampires Suck” came out - and the trailer was very funny, way more funny than the actual movie. 

So....Eclipse was a huge hit that summer. But you know what that also was? The end of the Twilight Craze itself. In fact, it can also be compared with another contemporary hit of the 2009-2010 period - Avatar. While that was the biggest hit of the winter of 2009-2010, as soon as spring started, everyone forgot about it. And while Eclipse itself got a lot of mixed reviews, like the preceding movies of the franchise, it simply was the end of the craze itself. 

I think here are some of the factors:

Twilight was pretty much EVERYWHERE in the media in 2009-2010, not only from advertisement, product placements, and posters, but also from parodies, not to mention how often Twilight was mentioned in actual news broadcast. In other words, people got tired of it - not just the people who werent even fans of the franchise in the first place, but also more moderate fans, like I considered myself then. And yeah - now thinking back on it, I was also pretty tired of seeing Twilight everywhere even before Eclipse was released in the cinemas. 

And another thing is this: The Second Life of Bree Tanner. While the novel was released in early June of 2010, mere weeks before the movie came out, it was very bestselling, because of the Twilight Craze. And the reason why it was released was most likely because even Stephenie Meyer herself had a feeling that the craze soon would end, and had to publish something Twilight-related in advance, so she could be talked about again. Officially, the novella started as a short story to tie in with her illustrated guide for Twilight. 

I bought the book later that summer while in Germany - and I found it not very well written, and forgot about it very shortly afterwards. Even my friend found it forgettable. I recently read the sporking of the book on Das Mervin to be reminded of what actually happened - and boy, does it suck! And here is my point - many Twilight fans probably realised with that book that Stephenie Meyer isnt that good a writer. (A lot of people had the same reactions to “The Host” - including me, who never finished the novel because of that)

And then, as soon as the summer of 2010 was over, Twilight was over. People had enough. 

I know that the final film was - because of Harry Potter - split in two parts (a decision that was continued when The Hunger Games were made into movies, and a decision that ultimately killed the Divergent franchise), and was released in the winter of 2011 and 2012. I watched both of them - and I was immediately struck by this in 2012: While there of course were trailers and posters for these films, there was simply not the same exposure to the franchise as back in 2009-2010. 

And by the time of the release of Breaking Dawn part 2 in the winter of 2012, I had already been redpilled regarding Mary Sues, and had a field day of counting all the Mary Sue points in the movies. 

Yeah, Bella Swan is one of the biggest Mary Sues in existence, and was created as a way of Stephenie Meyer wanting to live out an idealised version of her highschool years. 

That, and Stephenie Meyer isnt that great a writer - just read the sporking on Das Mervin. 

During the reading of the sporkings, I also realised the way how Meyer demonises every blonde - from Lauren to Rosalie, and how Leah Clearwater is demonised for being an independent woman who doesnt bow down to Bella Sue and who actually does something, unlike Bella Sue. 

Now, onto the thing with Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. Both are very good actors, and I think it is sad to see how haunted they were in the past decade of Twilight. Many have accused Stewart of being a bad actress because of Twilight (not to mention that they haven´t seen her brilliant performance in Speak) - I disagree. Kristen Stewart showed what a spoiled, ungrateful and dull Sue Bella is, and Pattinson what a creepy, controllable Stalker Edward is. And I´m now especially happy to see how especially Pattinson is recovering now, as Kristen Stewart did get to prove herself in movies like Camp X-Ray. 

Anyway, that was my rant on the Twilight Craze. 

[teddy-feathers]

look my problem with the au megamind where Roxanne is the alien and megamind is the reporter is i cant stop thinking about what i want out of that and how its probably not what other people want out of that which should mean 'oh shit i gotta write it' but really means 'in the next couple of months im going to rewatch megamind and be extremely frustrated because idk how to write these people as is let alone in an au'

but here are some thoughts

Itd have to take place on megaminds home world so like. have to develop that culture and frame it as the usual and other things as oddities

metroman still shows up at the same time the baby human does

roxan richie and metromans rivalry is less of a game and more of a metroman one up'd her ome to many times so now shes gotta take him out

its fine not because shes incompetent- in fact her death rays and pointy sticks are ingenious and have 0% public property or civilian causalities - but because metroman is not only impossible to kill, he adapts to anything that gets close (anything that doesnt kill him makes him stronger literally)

i guess this means theres a good chunk of the story that is centered around human adaptability vs perfect hero dudes adaptability

Roxanne Ritchie is actually a noted scientist or something at the local research facility - i figure blue people planet is really advanced and everyones at least a little technosmart but while it doesnt come as easily or naturally to Roxanne her way of thinking is really unique n shiz and shes an asset to every team....

but if you see her in a mask with some project from the lab macguivered into a gun trying to kill metroman well, no ones getting hurt and humans need hobbies and everyone respects the mask desptie the fact shes the ONLY human on the planet so its not like its hard to figure out who she is

she does spend a lot of nights having to rebuild projects and apologizing and such but basically everyone plays the plausible deniability card and asks her questions abiut what went wrong and okay so the masked menace failed after you let them steal our project but lets pretend for a moment the goal was to fix crops how would you say this did? and grumply shed revamp the guns weird side effect into an alien pollinating crop duster or whatever

got carried away when REALLY all I WANTED to say was

Whille Roxanne Ritchie is adaptable ingenuity and gets away at the last minute NOT because no ones trying to catch her but shes just that CLEVER and thinks ahead and shiz....

Megamind is the guy trying to interview her in the middle of a fight like he thinks he's cute - i mean he is but shes chasing after metroman and skids to a stop because this jerk stepped in for a comment. or shes lining up the perfect shot but theres a close up of megaminds reporter bag in the way

the thing is that maybe... blue people arent violent. a natural disaster hit recently and theyre coming back from it and if the two adopted alien kids want to play extreme tag well no ones getting hurt and Roxanne Ritchie will grow out of her competitiveness no doubt caused by just how superior EVERYONE on the planet is by finding her own niche and metroman will grow up and stop bating her because maybe he IS still better than everyone else and thats met with "oh very nice we're proud" but it doesnt really validate him or make him feel special because its just treated as a special thing he can do by everyong but Roxanne Ritchie and once he's found something that makes him feel good regardless of the attention or lack of it he'll stop playing too

but megamind? megamind has an imagination that loves drama and blowing things out of proportion and thats part of why his reports are so popular? like yeah everyones treating this super hero showdown with indulgence but megamind is good at framing theatrics so that this news story is actually a compelling narrative? and also everyone can see the tension is going to have one of these three "kids" confessing live someday

and maybe he gets carried away. one of those 'aw well next time you could do x or y' or has some technological creation that accidentally actually makes Metroman flinch during an interview

and Roxanne Ritchie starts paying attentionto him for the first time.

and minion warns him but he doesnt listen. minion is lower class and is afraid of being replaced like a pet like some people do but Roxanne Ritchie Ritchie doesnt have a minion and even if she did theyre Best Friends not like those other blue people minion uperclass people.

and he carelessly says something unforgivable and Roxanne Richie uses his ideas and actually succeeds in killing metroman

so she goes to prison - a place they had to build just for her because this hasnt happened since stars knows when

and somebody else is doing the camera because minion left just is gone and megamind looks defeated but testifies against her and is quiet and subdued and stpps being a reporter for a bit

and.... idk. i feel like we'll have to resolve the whole class system so minon goes underground and finds other minons who are unhappy with the way of things and if theyre ALREADY rebuilding society after that huge natural disaster that DIDNT blow up their planet thanks TO a minion well ehy cant they fix this too?

so theres a rebellion going on and theyve got a secret weapon to make blue people listen and idk but i feel like it's Metroman

and... how do stories like this go ive forgotten

minion wouldnt tell megamind or he would

metroman would break Roxanne Ritchie out of prison during the first riot of the minion revolt?

they talk and compare why they hated eachother and slowly work together and are actually a great team?

and then they need a reporter to make themselves heard as something other than minions going crazy

and so of course they go to megamind for help getting the story out

something something megamind is minions sidekick for this adventure

"Roxanne Ritchie was raised by the planet and turned against it and instigated civil unrest and killed a person who was also the good child etc etc instead of just growing up to face your problems"

"actually im alive and i finally found my place? helping out the real heros?"

"i mean i did try to kill him, but he forgave me and we're kinda working together because planet of moms and dads that raised us? yall actually are the ones who need to grow up and let go of the traditions that dont serve etc etc"

and megamind does a huge public apology to minion

and... uhhhhhhhhh fuck i really dont know how these storyies go

the blue people start making amends

metroman basically becomes a social worker for minion childern because finding their original families is a bit hard and most of these kids are just going to end up being raised by super dad but at least the rebellion minion families are actually geting to be their own family units and in a couple gens thatll be normal

Roxanne Ritchie goes back to being the token human in the lab and hangs up her super suit and is generally dissatisfied with this

until one night a hero breaks into her apartment to make her answer for her crimes and so for a legit hot second theyre fighting and megamind says something and Roxanne apologizes and then fighting stops being an argument and goes into banter flirting

the worss "where theres evil good will rise up to fight it" peob comes up a lot in this fic in different iterations

anyways megamind isnjust basically like hey wanna do this like. for the rest of our lives dramatic battle showdowns like its entertainment but like no theyre doing this for real?

the answer is hell yeah

and its a polyship and sometimes Roxanne is helping with the kids and then Megamind bursts in to "save" the family from her evil clutches and 90% of the time everything is improve

megamind kidnaps Roxanne to make metromind save her and a good half of the conversation is that hes an idiot for coming shes tried to kill him three times this week and hes bitching because do you know how hard it is to find a sitter for 30 odd minion kids this short notice and they better make it up to him

Roxanne is not superdad but the 30 odd minion kids adore when she comes over because they mob the villain so hard until finally mega comes to save her because hes actually very good with the kids

of course this poly ship isnt complete without minion and at some point minion and mega realize theyve actually been married for years and Roxanne and metro tease them shamelessly for it

minion and his race need a real name obviously

when Roxanne was a... graduate her senior project theses thingy was essentially "im going to go back to planet earth itll be great ive figured out were im from and how to go there in a reasonable amout of time" and everyone had to sit her down and explain that unlike metroman they knew where she was from the planet was just destroyed.

they never figured out where metroman was from because his direction sharply changed to follow baby Roxannes course and mirrored her coding despite very obviously how he had originated from elsewhere

this is important because his race is basically coming to conquer the blue people planet soon - the group finds out - and will download all the survival upgrades metroman has gotten to become unkillable and then just come down to the surface and be unstoppable taking the place over and whiping out the planet like theyve done many many times

a good chunk of the time trying to figure out how to stop them when this planet is REALLY against murder war and violence for good reason and even if they WOULD do that its impossible over looks some alone time that leads to megamind and metroman figuring out how to like kill him so when the bad guys show up theyll go "whelp better not fuck with them" and leave but between roxanne and minion they manage to not only stabilize metroman (Roxanne blood transfusions maybe???) but they manage to scare the aliens so bad they tuck tail and leave speading rumors that these are the scariest mfs in space (go minion)

metroman never lets Roxanne live down saving his life

eventually space humans show up to check the place out

megamind loves everything human despite most of the planet thinking theyre primitive and showing it

roxanne is reluctant to meet them at first but then really relates to them?

for a good long while it REALLY seems like megamind and Roxanne are just going to go on space adventures with the humans leaving metroman and minion - who really doesnt like them and also they kinda rub him the wrong way because he's non bipedal and they kinda make fun of him in a 'we totally dont mean anything by it lighten up' sort of way.

they don't go of course but they may have stolen a lot of atar charts n shit and who hasnt wanted to take a road trip through space with 30 odd childern who will need names and personalities and may be chopped down to a slightly more reasonable number by this point?

metroman loves space karaoke and his natural abilites mean he learns languages fast but no he still cant carry a tune

megamind and Roxanne still duke it out on various alien cityscapes

minion usually breaks them out of jail if theyre not to be let out the next day because nothing was actually damaged that didnt belong to them.

one memorable occasion it was metoman in a fight with megamind and they wont say what its about but both look very put out and minion looks smug

it doesn't matter in the end because Roxanne teams up with the childern to propose to them first

apparantly i had a lot more ideas about this then i meant to? i mean its not well thoughout out and despite the drama a good half the fic is just going to be cute relationship building stuff between the four of them

[gringoslur]

if u all dare to reblog shit from endgame u better tag it because i'm blocking everyone who makes me watch any of it. im just gonna think that that clownery never happend. im not even gonna pretend that i find any sense of it. its just not canon and thats all. theres so many people with 0 taste that love this bs and thats why we have this stupid ass ending.

"but it just came out you cant s-" no. fuck off. fuck you. im not a person that cares about spoilers, i even search for them cuz i dont care. i love them. cuz i enjoy seeing it develop. i enjoy seeing how they make a thing happen, i enjoy the grown, i enjoy the logic behind it, i enjoy the finish product. i dont need a shocking moment to enjoy something. i dont need to be surprised by a twist, bc ill STILL be surprised about how good they make that twist happen.

but this? this is so fucking stupid. its gonna be bad and i know it. the fucking actors didnt even knew what the fuck they were doing and what their characters did in the movie, how the fuck you want a good product with that shit? it doesnt even make fucking sense. why the fuck people let it go this far. dont let this fucking movie to be one of the most important in our times, please. this is just embarrasing. this is what the most "top movies of our time" has to offer? people got paid so much to write this nonsense? how the fuck so many people, without getting paid, make so many good pieces of art (because thats what they actually are) but this is what gets so much attention and its making people rich? I was ok with infinity war being mediocre, and even civil war not using that much logic at all, but im like, done. the quality of this shit went so down that its off my limits. please make a category for "movies that only white cishet guys that love basic and bland content like" and put most of the mcu movies in there. the fighting scenes arent even that good. lets stop lying, my dudes.

[ifandomus]

Why do people like Zemo?!

Something I have been wondering about for a while now is why people like Zemo as much as they do. He even gets more appreciation than Sam, who is an incredible person (the reason isnt exactly difficult to figure out*). While Zemo is an interesting character, and he does have some good points it doesnt change that he has killed and hurt a lot of innocent people and a lot of people gloss over that fact. I can understand his motive, but I cant get past what he did.

*(Racism)

Its not suprising because white cis men usually gets away with anything they do, especially if they are charismatic, attractive and rich (like Zemo and Tony). They can kill and hurt as many people as they want, and people will still stan them and either justify what they did, or just gloss over it. And the fact that it keeps happening is a big problem. And its happening both in real life, and in at least most fandoms.

Now I am not saying that liking morally darker people is wrong. I also like some of them. What I am saying is that glossing over their bad actions is a problem. If you add in villanising other characters who havent done anything remotely that bad being critisised more, it gets really irritating.

Now lets get more into Zemo, and compare him to the other two Sokovians who wanted revenge on the avengers. (I wont really be talking about anything past civil war, or this would get very long and my ADHD can only handle so much.)

Zemo killed a lot of innocent people. I couldnt find an exact number on anything but the bombing, but it was over a dozen at least. First the bombing killed 12 people, including king T’chaka (the fact that his death is so glossed over is not lost on me*1). Then he kills Dr. Theo Broussard. Then he uses Bucky*2 to kill and injure an unknown number of people at the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre. None of these people had anything to do with his motive! The only ones I can excuse him for is Karpov and the other 5 winter soldiers. But I cant look past the rest.

1*(Racism and Xenophobia)

2*(Zemo uses Buckys body without his consent. The fact that some people ships them sickens me!)

Now for his motive. This part I can understand. He lost his father, wife and son. I cant even imagine how painful that must be! However that does not give him the right to hurt innocent people! I can understand why he would blame the avengers, but the only ones among them who were responsible in any way were Tony, Bruce and maybe a tiny bit Wanda (even though Tony having a bad nightmare would have had the same results). The main one responsible is of course Ultron. No one but Tony and Bruce knew about creating Ultron, because if they did they would have stopped it. It was actually a betrayel of Thor. When Ultron broke free they did everything they could to stop him and save people. Its not their fault that they werent able to save everyone. They did everything they could and without them Ultron would have killed everyone on earth. So it makes sense that he would blame some of the avengers, but most were completly innocent and risked their lives trying to save as many as possible. And in Pietros case actually gave their life.

Wich brings me to two other people who also wanted revenge, the Maximoff twins. Although Wanda is usually the only one of them to be held responsible (the fact that she is female and an eastern European immigrant is also not lost on me*). Now some people gloss over what she did too, wich is wrong. Dont get me wrong I love Wanda, but that doesnt mean that I cant admit that she has made some bad mistakes. Granted she feels a lot of remorse and regret wich we dont really see Zemo do. However a lot of people are villanising Wanda completly.

*(Sexism and Xenophobia)

Like Zemo the twins lost their family. Their parents were killed by a Stark missile, then they had to wait for two days with another one right by them. They couldnt move from where they were hiding, so they would have been starving and dehydrated, but all they could do were wait and hope that the missile didnt blow them up. Then they had to move to an orphanage, given the conditions in the country I cant imagine that would be a nice place. And keep in mind they were 10 years old. They got desperate and wanted to protect their country, so they end up joining hydra wich was pretending to be shield at the time. But only untill they got the power they needed to defend their country. Now the twins were younger than Zemo, and the weapon that killed their parents came from from Stark industries. So it makes sense that they would have a personal grudge. However Zemo was older, he led a Sokovians kill squad, and he is a very critical thinker. So it makes less sense for him to hold a personal grudge on most of the avengers.

For their revenge the only people the twins intentionally harmed were the avengers, unlike Zemo who knowingly killed a lot of people that he knew had nothing to do with it. The twins wanted to protect their country, while Zemo declared it a failed state. So why are the twins critisised and hated more than Zemo?!

[probably-aziraphale]

G rambling

Honestly i wanted to do a collab with g the moment I stepped out of the portal and saw him standing on the island in that big goofy sweater. He hadn't even started to roll it up yet, just let the long sleeves dangle over his hands. The absolute goof was so nervous about joining everyone, and I wish i had stepped up first to help him.

But watching him start working on his base was like watching a caterpillar turn into a butterfly. He just instantly fell into his element.

All the little pranks and jokes and games he started were very much needed for everyone. Hes one of the reasons we all had a lowered stress level for the season.

The first time I got to properly hang out with him was after the civil war when we went end busting together. And I think thats the official moment i fell for him, watching him loop around the chorus fruit and fly circles around the different end cities. There were several times i would kind of zone out watching him (which is how he beat me loot wise) and im sure he probably thought i was weird.

Then there was the whole jangler thing, and im still surprised he figured it out so quickly and easily. Doc and I had absolutely 0 clue who it was. (And i mean the way the cookie in the sky was built should have been a MASSIVE give away come on). Hes so much smarter than he lets on, and its all the better of a surprise when he exceeds someone's expectations.

Im forever grateful that the stupid renbob joke was what made him decide to ask me for help with the whole hippie thing (and it totally had nothing to do with me having intimate knowledge about doc)

The whole hippie thing was where we really started to get to know each other better. Where we'd sit in the grass at night watching the stars and he'd braid my hair while i played guitar. Where naming mushrooms is a normal friend activity and sleeping in the same rv could still be a close friends thing.

And when Impulse joined us i instantly got him alone and asked his advice. Explained the whole thing to him and just said "what do i do to see if this is a friend thing or a live thing?" And Impukse and i brainstormed the concert idea

G had no idea what we were building up until impulse was setting up all the technical stuff and i was adding decorations and getting the hippilagers to the audience area.

Impulse ran the sound system while i (and a couple of villager musicians) went through everything like a normal concert, G front and center watching (and scar and doc several rows back pretending they weren't enjoing themselves)

I gave impulse the signal, broke out the ukulele, and started up with the plan. Singing Dodie's Would You Be So Kind directly to G, finally letting go of my anxiety as i confessed through song.

And when he took my hand and jumped up onto the stage to dance with me i was so happy. A big ol sappy moment where we kissed at the end of the song.

From that point on he was more touchy feely; always holding my hand or arm, playing with my hair (and ears), literally dropping in to give me surprise kisses and then fly off again. It was like opening the floodgates to affection city.

And going back to alpha made g panic. He had admitted to me once that he had been in love before, but had lost them at the hands of something he didnt understand. And he was terrified of losing me as well. When impulse created the portal to hop to the next version, i got stuck.

And for over a year i was in this kind of void parallel world, standing next to them, but not actualky their on the same plane of existence.

I watched grian grieve my loss, watched him lose Impulse too, watched him relive the past world he came from, the one he didnt like to talk about.

I tried to make jokes, to tell him i was still there. And it kind of worked.

And when Taurtis appeared i afraid g would stay with him, refuse to go onto the next versions so that he couldnt lose this love. But he was strong. Knew what had to happen.

So when Taurtis left, g didn't blame "the watchers" didnt blame me and impulse because he understood that you cant mess with a timeline.

He became a lot more somber after that, working hard to get the group to the end portal to fight the dragon.

And watching him fight the dragon i remebered end busting with him and how he told me he had slain it before, but in a less advanced society. In a world where it was easier. We all figured out that the power of slaying the dragon would be enough to reuinite him with us.

And suddenly we were back in hermitcraft like nothing had happened. And g wouldnt let go of me and impulse. When he blew up the bootleg time machine, he wouldn't stop holding me, couldnt stop crying into my jacket.

We watched Scar and Doc announce area 77 as an amusement park, and G broke even more. We all did. Everything we had been through was pointless.

Impulse ran back to the commune and licked himself in his rv. G couldnt stop the panic attacks he was having. And me? I felt empty, the purple streak in my hair glowing in the night felt like the only proof of what we had been through.

The next morning G got us together. Told us we were going into area 77, and stealing the infinity portal. He realized that was how Doc was getting people back, and he wanted to try to get Taurtis to join. I was worried, but at this point we were all fueled by spite and rage so we went through with it.

Making it there we had no idea how to move the portal, and G accidently broke it. Doc wasnt mad. In fact he figured we'd probably try to steal it. The whole time we were gone he had been watching and examining the changes in time/space as well as monitering the new layer of reality that seemed to appear and dissapear quickly.

Doc and G worked together to see if there was a way to get Taurtis to our world.

And it broke g's heart to hear that there wasn't.

And for a while i was scared he wouldnt want to be with me anymore, but instead he rubbed his face with his sweater sleeve, and asked if i wanted to start a new project with him.

A big fancy british castle with horses and fake butlers. For "Alfred Griansworth" and "Nigel Renfeather"

But really it was an excuse to basically live together for the rest of the season.

[ravenaveira]

People that say Taka was the best team/friends for him is like saying a drug addicts friends who are also drug addicts are whats best for them simply because they went along with and encouraged their habit rather than trying to get them help and off a toxic lifestyle

Just because you have friends that support your bad habits doesnt mean their good friends and whats best for you

Friends who try to get you out of that toxic lifestyle to a better place where your clear-headed and healthy THOSE are real friends who want the best for you

I know this is a weird topic to touch on after the previous episode which I'm not downplaying because I thought it was wholesome, but the fact that people blatantly ignore how toxic and unhealthy Taka was for Sasuke AT THE TIME really just rubs me the wrong way

Do I think his relationship with Team 7 perfect? course not, but you can definitely see the difference between how TRUE friends behave and how enablers behave

Whenever Sasuke talked or thought about Team 7 he viewed them like family and precious bonds he had to cut in order to focus on and pursue revenge

Whenever Sasuke talked or thought about Taka he treated them as strictly subordinates, we never see him bothering to interact with them other than pursuing his goals and once they were no longer needed? he discarded and abandoned them without a second thought, he didnt even know Karin was an Uzumaki or that he even met her in the past which shows how little he cared about any of them on a personal level, the only one I can say Sasuke even remotely cared about to that degree is Jugo

None of them tried to empathize with Sasuke, none of them tried to talk to him about his struggles or problems and let him suffer alone, none of them cared for Sasuke to that point and if they did then they had one hell of a way of showing it

So my point? yes I think Sasuke cared somewhat about Taka in his own way and yes I think Taka cared for Sasuke as well I'm not saying they didnt, I'm just saying they didnt care enough

And it seems crazy to me that the same people who complain about the injustices done to Sasuke and his clan are the same one who support Taka and them supporting Sasuke and his crimes against pretty much everyone

Yes killing Danzo was a good thing but it was still a crime, Sasuke and Taka joined Akatsuki and tried to kidnap the 8 tails which was a crime against the Cloud village, Sasuke attacked the 5 kage summit and every single kage there making him an international criminal regardless if his goal was just Danzo it was still a risk of them getting involved, Sasuke just being a rogue ninja joining another rogue ninja is a crime, Sasuke attempting to kill all the 5 kage after the war would have been a crime

Yes some injustices can be resolved through violence but that is not the one and ONLY solution, Sasuke going rogue unfortunately even from a narrative standpoint yea it needed to happen for him to train with a Sanin etc but the only way to resolve Konoha’s injustice was to go through the right channels and expose to corruption that was in it, once Sasuke left and started committing crimes he lost the moral high ground and anything he said or did would easily be ignored and just thought of as another crazed Uchiha who deserved to die

You can argue yes but then Naruto and Kakashi could have said something once they found out but by that point it was like Temari said, it was FAR too late for Sasuke and even with the truth revealed how does that excuse his actions at the summit? against Bee? joining Akatsuki? killing Itachi and Danzo MIGHT have been able to be excused but the rest? there's no way that was getting overlooked even with the corruption exposed Sasuke was still just as much in the wrong now

I'm a huge Sasuke fan but even I can acknowledge that not every single one of his actions was 100% right and just, his actions towards the people who actually wronged him WERE in the right, but his actions in everything that didnt? yes he was in the wrong no ifs ands or buts about it

So for those who think Taka is so much better for Sasuke because they supported his criminal actions [except Jugo I believe he’d be fine either way] but not Team 7 who wanted Sasuke to stop his criminal actions and return to his senses and be in a healthy condition again, truly make me wonder if they actually care about Sasuke’s well being or just think everyone who isnt a yes man to everything Sasuke did somehow dont care about his feelings or the injustices done to him and just wanna change him

Yeah, change him for the BETTER not worse, if anything Taka tried to do the opposite of that but hey I guess being a bad influence is better than being a good one

And listen we can go back and forth all day about Sasuke's situation after the war because I agree wholeheartedly that thats bullshit, but realistically speaking the fact that some things about the Uchiha massacre are unresolved like those two elders even being allowed to breathe, realistically speaking what CAN you really do? the Uchihas are dead and the main man responsible is dead and Hiruzen who failed to stop it is also dead so what would exposing everything do at that point? everyone directly involved is DEAD so exposing it really is pointless even if only to clear Itachi’s name which I'm gonna say something alot of you wont like

But the Uchiha’s were not all innocent victims, atleast not the ones involved and planning the coup, yes they were treated unfairly but does that mean the best approach to fixing this is to overthrow the government? how does that make you look? your proving their suspicions of you right by attempting to be the threat they all think you are, that is NOT how you get your point across and demand justice for your clan by planning a coup that would result in many lives lost including your own

Does that mean do nothing? course not, but if you want their trust then you have to EARN it and if you want justice and equality then go on strike and refuse to serve them until their willing to talk and compromise, seriously the Uchiha was a HUGE asset to Konoha so them refusing to obey and offer their services definitely would have gotten their attention and force them to listen and find a compromise, if that didnt work they could have tried spreading the word to fellow citizens and gain their support as I'm pretty sure not EVERYONE in Konoha felt the same way towards them and would have joined their cause for equality

But no, they chose the path of violence and it resulted in their entire clan's downfall and they end up with NOTHING but a bad name, so what did they gain? absolutely nothing, so was it worth it? NO

So lets stop acting like Konoha’s the big bad villain that did nothing but wrong and the Uchiha’s were pure innocent souls that did nothing wrong to deserve what happened to them because Ima say it THEY DID and their downfall was entirely their own fault for their approach, was it right? of course not genocides never ok and just as the Uchihas could have found another method Konoha could have as well so they were both in the wrong not just one or the other

Itachi also isnt a saint for the same reason the Uchiha’s and Konoha isnt and thats choosing the wrong approach to resolving the problems, there were many other paths he could have chosen but he chose the worst ones every time so just clearing Itachi’s name because of his good intentions wouldnt be right because his methods were beyond fucked up on so many levels

So my point is Sasuke was a victim of both sides wrongdoings, Taka didnt help with that at all, Team 7 tried to empathize and tried to understand and console him and save him from himself, its just that Sasuke didnt let them and pushed them away and thats of no fault of theirs since they did try but mainly Sasuke and them being mostly in the dark about everything

Yet Taka knowing almost everything didnt even try to reach out to him or help him cope in any way, Karin you’d think would understand and get through to Sasuke the most, cared more about her lust for him and seeing his ‘smile’ than actually empathizing with him and helping him through the turmoil he was in, Suigetsu made it clear he was out for himself from the start and Jugo is just wholeheartedly loyal to Sasuke no matter what

The fact that in the end, Sasuke makes no attempt to visit them until he needs them for something speaks volumes of his attachment to them, I think Taka thinks more of Sasuke than Sasuke does of them

He didnt even say goodbye to them before he left for his redemption journey nor did he bring them along on his years-long mission which again speaks volumes

So all Im saying is, Taka being the best team for Sasuke and his true friends is complete bull because I have yet to see any argument or reasoning for this be anything other than he chose them and that they went along with everything he did without question

If you have a better reason for why you think this then please share with me I welcome it maybe you can change my mind, but as of right now all the arguments I see is bullshit or occasionally shipping based which isnt a legitimate reason btw, so if you can be civil then I'm all ears

Note: I didnt mention the other Kages because it should be obvious their ways were screwed up as well and ruined a lot of lives, however what does Sasuke’s idea of basically ruling as a dictator resolve? how does that fix and reform the system? Sasuke wont live forever so what happens when he dies? he cant be the enemy that unites everyone once he’s dead and gone it’ll return back to how things were and thus mission failed another Uchiha dies for nothing, Sasuke’s approach to the situation was just a temporary solution not a permanent one and one that wouldnt last long anyway so lets not pretend Sasuke had the best solution to the problem when in all honesty both his and Naruto’s solutions were flawed and it makes sense that they’d work together using both methods rather than one and compromise, again we can argue about Sasuke’s situation after the war all day but fact of the matter is just gotta accept this is what it is and move on, at least Sasuke achieved partially what he wanted which was a bright future for the next generation and the villages to be at peace with one another without the need of a common enemy anymore, are things completely resolved? no, but its progress, and 15 years is nowhere near enough time to fix decades worth of damage so its still a work in progress and will be for a long time

[unforth]

alright usually I keep my fucking mouth shut on posts like this but I can't let it pass today. Preface: I am profoundly anti slavery and my kids are half-black. I am not saying the below cause I think slavery should have continued; in fact I routinely refer to it as the US's "original sin" and think it should have been abolished when the constitution was written. But all that said...

Yall aren't right. It wasn't this easy. And believing it was this easy not only downplays the accomplishments of places like Pennsylvania, it also completely misses the point of why Reconstruction was a failure and we're still dealing with issues in the US to this day.

It's very sweet and ludicrously naive to say, "they could just free the slaves!" We're talking about hundreds of thousands of people with a net worth of zero, most uneducated, many never self-sufficient. They had nothing - not a penny. Freeing them without a plan to support them WAS economically unviable, and pretending that the problem began and ended with "well they're free our work here is done!" was why share cropping and Jim Crow happened. Manumission of one or two slaves, pretty easy. Manumission of hundreds at a time? Complicated but doable with careful planning. Manumissioj of MILLIONS at a time as eventually happened? With no plan? And no preparation? Catastrophic.

Where will they live?

How will they eat?

What will they wear?

Where will the money to support them come from? Where will the land for them to live on come from? How will they live?

The government couldn't just pay for this; early views of government were to have it as minimal as possible, there wasn't even a national tax system until 1861 - created to fund the Civil War, ya know, the one that freed the slaves and the tax continued to - you guessed - at least ATTEMPT to pay the absolutely insane amounts of money that the newly freed people needed to enable them to be integrated into the society they'd been systematically denied access to their entire lives.

We're talking about m.i.l.l.i.o.n.s of abused, traumatized, tortured people, many with debilitating injuries caused by what they'd been subjected to, who couldn't read or write and had never had to support themselves, being just...ta da, now you're free, go do the thing! (This is an over simplification - many slaves did interact with society, did earn income, weren't treated that badly, etc., but en masse as a socio-economic group it could be assumed they needed the support).

When people like George Washington manumitted at their deaths, they did so by leaving enough money in their wills set aside for the slaves to be supported/helped with transitioning into freedom - and did so at the cost of leaving that wealth to their families. Further, many literally couldn't afford to. Slavery as a farming system was fucking busted, the money to do it came in loans in the spring given against projected/anticipated crop yield. When the crops didn't yield as expected? The owners went into debt to New York City bankers. A few bad years in a row? Could leave everyone trapped in a cycle of "one more year, just one good year..."

Slavery was an awful system. Of course it was far worse for the slaves, this isn't meant to be "boohoohoo poor white owners," it's meant to be, "you cannot say this was simple when you understand jackshit about the economics of early 19th century America you just sound like a fucking tool your hindsight is lovely and sweet and oh so progressive and totally fucking useless."

Thomas Jefferson, in classic "the worst person you know just made a good point" fashion, said "we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go" - even people who wanted to end slavery looked at the economic realities and went "oh fuck." And that's not even mentioning the part where the also had to contend, politically and economically and socially, with the people who genuinely DIDNT want to end it, of which there were many.

In the end, millions of slaves and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians died because no one could find a political or economic way out of this situation. And even then, when confronted by the questions on what happens next...they failed. Miserably. Dismally. Disastrously. We still suffer the consequences because they looked at the biggest, most expensive questions of the age, and instead of seeking solutions, they abdicated responsibility and left millions of newly freed people destitute and vulnerable and said, "we did our part, the rest is up to you."

To see Tumblr people who don't know history act like this was all nothing is fucking i.n.f.u.r.i.a.t.i.n.g. do you really think you're so noble and could have done so much fucking better?

The questions raised by freeing slaves were answerable, and many individuals and even states did answer them, but thinking that there are no economic repercussions for freeing slaves is insane.

The US failed when it formed as a nation with slavery. It failed again when, only 12 years after the end of the Civil War and start of slavery, northern liberals said "whelp we did what we were supposed to do," wiped their hands and left (note: this is a massive over simplification of why reconstruction ended I know that please don't come at me).

Don't sell short people like the Grimke's: what they did was insanely difficult, not something easy that anyone in their position could have attempted, and they're the more commendable for that. You make everyone who did realize how difficult this was seem unremarkable when you act like this wasn't among the most challenging issue in the US's history, and one we completely utterly fucking failed to solve.

And don't act like this was simple when you clearly know fucking nothing about the actual history.

Slavery was one of the worst things in our history (and only ONE of the worst things, God I hate this fucking country) and it should have been abolished centuries before but it wasn't because ABOLITION WAS FUCKING HARD AND LUDICROUSLY EXPENSIVE. IT WAS AN ECONOMIC ISSUE. (Not an economic necessity but definitely a huge problem).

...I'm starting to repeat myself. I'll shut up know.

Just know you sound like a idiot to anyone who knows anything about US history when you act like your 200 years after the fact solutions of "they should just free them!" would have actually worked at all.

Slavery could have, and should have, been ended.

But it was absolutely NOT easy.