#i see more personal attacks against stans than actual arguments anyway

[emperorlotorr]

Adam’s fate foreshadowed in the op?

A main theme in rwby v6 opening “rising” seems to be how everything in nature and life has a purpose and instinctively knows not just what that purpose is but also how to fulfill it. eg  he sparrow's born to fly, The mountains tower, The river knows to reach the sea, Rain will help the flowers be. (Y’all, I feel a piece coming up about that next bit “rain will help the flowers be concerning, you know it, mercury, emerald and hazel but that’s for a later time) You could see that as Adam being a plot device, having served his purpose as a major antagonist to Blake and Yang as well as their foil.

You could also interpret it as “this Adam (as he is now) has served his purpose”, I might be grasping at straws here but it might be hinting at something more. The op shows adam with a flag of the white fang even though Adam already lost their support and his character in v6 seems so detached from his former allies. He’s turned on them, they’ve turned on him, he has very little to do with the white fang anymore and the character itself doesn’t even mention them. He even says “Nobody hurt me quite like you(Blake)” indicating that the Adam we see in v6 doesn’t really care about his goals and ambitions within the white fang or the discrimination and abuse he’s gone through at the hands of humans but is obsessed with Blake. You could argue that’s why the flag is on fire and my next point is moot but the flag itself is not on fire, we see the flames over Adam as well. Fire might indicate passion, it can also indicate rebirth (a theme associated with a Phoenix, the creature that dies every day by burnign to a crisp and gets reborn the day after?), it might not just mean “Adam left the White Fang behind so he burned the flag” or sth.

And then there’s the lyrics over this part. Adam appears only once in this op, very prominently and long enough that you’d definitely notice him but also short enough that he isn’t at the front and center and he also only has one line of lyrics during his time in the spotlight: “the river knows to reach the sea”, this could again, be interpreted as I said before, Everything has its place and purpose and Adam serves his. But, we all know where Adam fell to his death:

That’s right, a river! Ha ha you say, that’s what this foreshadowing is, he falls in the river get it??? Yeah okay sure yet, the line isn’t just about the river. It’s about the river that leads to the sea, a really freaking large body of water. And guess what? There’s actually a sea pretty close to where the main characters are, where the fighting has been taking place these last three episodes or so.

If Adam somehow survived (very unlikely i do know) I feel like that “cinder and neo find him theory” might not be too far of a stretch. Cinder and neo have been following the protagonists, so they’re bound to be close, besides that it could mean Adam comes back entirely different. Whether that is because they make him undead and he’ll be part grimm or something else I don’t know. I do feel like the undead grimm route would be cheap, a way to keep his badass fighting style in but not the character itself (almost as lazy as just introducing an entirely new evil character with the same fighting style) so Idk what i’d think about that.

Because these anti-adam stans have been screaming one thing all along, I’ll adress it: “The adam we see, is the adam we’ve always seen besides the black trailer: an abusive crazed ex boyfriend character and you should judge the character you get.” I could go off about the fact that that still does not take away his backstory, the leadership position in the white fang he had for quite a while or basically, any argument that he’s badass but i’ll give them this: It’s true that the show does its best to show you a textbook case of an abuser, gives him the most over the top lines I’ve ever heard to establish him as manipulative and obsessed, it’s all true! this is Adam as he is on the show. Adam, as he is right now, in the show, is not an antagonist fighting for his cause, he’s exactly what you said he is. That Adam, in this story, has indeed served his purpose as a narrative foil to Blake and Yang (as in both of them, together). But he could still be a major force against Blake, not personally but by idealogy and Weiss most importantly, more personally as revenge for his brand. If they want to, with this foreshadowing and the way the story is going (hopefully a true faunus subplot in atlas, cinder and neo etc etc) that is: if they want to, there’s still a way Adam as a character could continue to be important. (To the anti’s: no not as the new protagonist or the main center of everything or as an example of the “easily forgiven” trope as you seem to suggest that is what every adam stan wants even though it’s really not)

Conclusion: Adam always had two major sets of characterisation to him. In the show itself, it was the manipulative, obsessed, crazed and abusive ex-boyfriend. As a background he always had his ideals as a faunus, his appearances and roles in characters shorts and songs made that very clear. (aka the “angsty morally grey idealogist and victim of abuse and hate crimes that all adam stans wanted him to be”). Adam isn’t just one or the other, he’s both but in the show, in the story as a narrative tool, he’s only ever been the first. That role he played, that purpose is done, “that Adam” is no longer needed and bringing “him” back would be ridiculous, make no sense, have no purpose and be extremely lazy. Without losing Adam as a character (a character with more than one side to him), can still play a major role in the upcoming story by first dealing with the side the show has shown (don’t just forget about it, it would cheapen everything that comes after) and then moving on to the side we’ve only seen glimpses of (but are definitely there)

I’ll be making a piece about that “adam redemption” i mentioned in an earlier post and it will be heavily tied to this so, you could see this as a preview 

[mohluskiepedard]

Rating ATLA Characters literally only from what I’ve seen in fandom

or: posts that probably shouldn’t be on my writeblr except I don’t have a sideblog

the context here is it’s half midnight and I have never seen ATLA except I have opinions now apparently so here we go whoop de do- 

I’m also not actually rating them like numerically that’s too much work i’m just stating opinions I know I’m a fraud

AANG

- A child?  - A son?  - he is Baby. but also. he has had It Rough  - would make the updog joke - has unspeakable power or smth and everyone says he’s better than the Korra girl who comes after him but honestly tastes like sexism to me - doesn’t kill people because he’s like twelve, right? he’s like twelve so he refuses to kill people - I stan honestly - less twelve year olds should kill people - Some people say his name WRONG and they are BAD but i don’t actually know what the right way or the wrong way is so. have fun w that yall - lived in peace unTIL THE FIRE NATION ATTACKED 

KATARA

- She is also like twelve???  - Is everyone here twelve - Cortana?? Katana?? Catbug??  - She has good hair, - Her mother is dead??? her mother is dead n she has a brother but she cares about her mother being dead WAY more than him (or apparently the entire fandom??) - Badass - She seems soft. good. sweet - she’s a water breather or whatever??? her brother is NOT but he is a meme - I love her 

SOKKA

- NGL looks like a fuckboy  - The meme brother! does not do the water things, but he has an aXe???  - dates BAMF lady - ngl until I talked to my ATLA watching friend I thought he canonically dated Zuko  - kinda mad he doesn’t - I haven’t actually seen anything about him except like. in zuko ship posts and also Suki appreciation posts - joined the white lotus not-a-cult by accident???  - dark ATLA tumblr show me more Sokka posts - is his name prounounced the same way as Soccer or isn’t it I need to know - HIS FIRST GIRLFRIEND TURNED INTO THE MOON - (AND THAT’S ROUGH, BUDDY) - He and Suki are a good ship, but also, Sokka Has Two Hands

SUKI

- the BAMF herself - she says STOP in that photo but also to sexism - Rlly all I see of her in fanon is abt her teaching Sokka to drink his respect women juice and I appreciate her doing that but also it’s sad she never gets talked about outside of what she did for a man - I hope she has other badass moments w/o him it would suck if she didn’t - she is NOT the girlfriend who turned into the moon, she is the one who didn’t - I don’t know much else about her ATLA Fandom y’all should appreciate her more

ZUKO

- Look at him... my son... - He has a good redemption arc - he and his sister are evil lesbian and redeemed gay guy??? - has a straight canon ship but should’ve been with Sokka this boy is gay - I Want To Protect Him - That’s literally it - he has a cool uncle and his dad sucks  - people ship him with Katara and I Do Not Get It that’s his sister in law except not really - “We don’t trust Zuko’s change of heart” [the next day] “so Zuko is my closest friend now,”  - His dad was like “fuck up the avatar to prove your worth to me” and Aang was like “counter argument you already have worth and we should fuck up your dad” and I think that’s beautiful - he becomes the fire man and he’s very good at it - Zuko for President 2020 - in the words of myself, half an hour ago: “ I was like "that kid with the burn on his face seems like a sad but then happy mlm who needs found family" and I was RIGHT” - took too long to find a happy picture of him :( Zuko rights NOW please - His mother’s story got compared to an OC of mine and all I can say is oh no and they deserve better based on that alone - I have had Zuko for five minutes but if anything else happens to him I will kill everyone in this throne room and then myself

TOPH

- She is badass but like also will murder you while laughing maniacally? - for some reason reminds me of Nott from Critical Role, another show I Have Not Seen - Is blind but gets more out of making jokes abt being blind than she would from being able to see - “Sight is just a cheap tactic to make weak benders stronger!!!” - Literally the opposite of Aang and has killed many people?? - She Can Tell When You’re Lying. But I do not know how and Am simply mildly threatened by this - Therapist: Toph’s ability to know if you’re lying isn’t real and can’t hurt you. Toph’s ability to know if I’m lying:  - She and Zuko.... buddies???  - if not they should be - tiny sad boy needs friends like toph

AZULA

- Evil Lesbian Culture - [BDG Voice] You committed a war crime! Oopsie! - took be gay do crime too literally - her and Zuko have accurate sibling writin except instead of “you ever want to murder your sibling for breathing in the same space as you,” being a Joke Azula took it seriously - okay but with a name like azula she should be the blue bender this ANNOYS me she should NOT be red bender - AZULa  - AZUL - IT MEANS BLUE - She was half of y’alls gay awakenings and it SHOWS - Should have maybe been redeemed too??? Jury is out no one knows - Was she gay for Ty Lee or wasn’t she I can’t tell how much of that Audio is a joke - IS SHE ALSO TWELVE??? IS EVERYONE HERE TWELVE?? IS THIS TWELVE YEAR OLD COMITTING ATROCITIES? 

UNCLE IROH

- A Good Man - Finally, Some Good Fucking [Adult Figures]  - he has the tea. literally and figuratively - Ozai is like “and I will permanently disfigure my son and throw him out” and Iroh is like “What The Fuck, Ozai,” thus voicing the entire audience’s thoughts - Literally the only adult in this that I trust - I? I love him. this is all I have to say. my love for him is unending. Some1 protect this man from all harm   - he’s Zuko’s uncle (and also Azula ig) but he does not seem related to Ozai. is it just a theme in this family that one sibling is chill and one sibling commits horrendous atrocities against your fellow human beings or  - something happened to his son???? :((((( I Don’t Want Him To Have Suffered Like This

OZAI

- A BAD MAN - Uh Oh (stinky)  - THE WORST OF THE MEN  - I do not like him - Bastard man. nasty. committed war crimes and then went “but what if - get this - i also abused my son,”  - I would like him to Not Be Like This - by Like This I mean present and alive  - :/ 

TY LEE

- She’s NOT the There Is No War In Ba Sing Se lady and I don’t know why i thought she WAS but until I looked up her photo I thought that was her  - She looks like a sweetheart tho - I hope nothing bad happens to her????  - talks about auras??? or smth??? let her vibe - She would talk animatedly to me about warrior cats if she was in my year seven class and I was sat alone and I would understand none of it but appreciate her anyway - if azula bullies her I’ll be :( at Azula and Azula will not care because she has Mommy Issues and therefore is slightly unhinged - She seems like that one kid with no trauma vibing at the edge of [every other kid having trauma] and not really getting it but trying her best - Is she also twelve?????? She maybe looks twelve

CABBAGE MAN 

- HIS CABBAGES - fulfills my favourite trope: ordinary person repeatedly has life disrupted by the inconveniences of relying on actual children to save the world - probably has a campaign post canon for letting trained adults fix the worlds’ problems in the future - or sets up the Very First Cabbage Insurance Company - look at him. he loves his cabbages so much. you go you funky lil cabbage man

ALSO THE MOST IMPORTANT ONES MOMO

- LOOK AT HIM HE’S SO GOOD - small. fluffy. big ears - Lord Momo of the Momo Dynasty: his Momoness - a Good Boy...

APPA

- he looks so soft... - he can fly but he just does it by??? vibing through the air?? motionless??? iconic - I saw that one post about mishearing it as Abba and thinking he was Aang’s dad and he looks like he would be a good stand in dad ngl - he’s so LORGE - a chonky boy - love him

that is everyone I have heard of it and if I left someone out it’s a sign that y’all should talk about em more bc I have no clue they exist put more ATLA On my Dash ig I’ll do Legend of Korra ig maybe apparently that one has canon wlw and i love me some canon wlw

[itsclydebitches]

About Bakugo, I actually think his original characterization is partly why his arc doesn't work for me: it seems like his contempt for others and desire to hurt them is innate, because he was already insulting and humiliating Deku for fun when they were in kindergarden, and at this age I'm not sure it makes sense to blame the adults around him for this behavior. This is also why I don't buy the "childhood friends" narrative, even before the infamous river scene Bakugo was toxic to Deku.

Hard agree, anon. I'm willing to give some wiggle room to the "Bakugo had a messy childhood and that's why he's like this" argument just because I'm not caught up (and thus might be missing some flashbacks/revelations), no one's life is ever perfect, and there's a subjective line between what we read as innocuous tropes vs. realistic traumas (example: is his mom hitting him something we take seriously, or just classic anime "comedy"?), but honestly I'm... not persuaded by that stance. Largely due to what you've said about this contempt being around since the very beginning. Bakugo's cruelty is the introduction to the entire series, the very first thing we see:

First, they're young here. Maybe not kindergarten young, but as we see in the above narration, it's at age four that Bakugo acquired his "I'm the best" thinking (more on that in a second). They're kids. This is not something that developed slowly over the years until Bakugo crossed some kind of line, he's been like this since the very start. Since a kid is capable of forming thoughts, opinions, and making decisions: like attacking another. In what way does this establish them as friends? Izuku literally shaking as he tries to protect another kid Bakugo is has hurt? Bakugo calling him worthless? Gleefully attacking and punching Izuku in the face? They were never friends! Izuku followed Bakugo around because he was paid some kind of attention by him and Bakugo poisoned the well — no one else in class will befriend Izuku. We see this both by the two willing to help beat him up here and, later, when Izuku says he wants to got to U.A. the entire class laughs at both the idea and Bakugo blowing up his desk in response. The bullying is the only kind of "friendship" Izuku has, so he embraces it with a smile and a nickname. Meanwhile, Bakugo allows Izuku to tag along because he makes him feel good in comparison. All Bakugo needs for an ego boost is to look at Izuku. He's the useless, quirkless nobody whose name can be read as "Deku." What's not to like? Izuku makes Bakugo feel good because Bakugo will always come out on top — always win — when pit against him. Did they have a few good moments gushing over All Might? Yeah, but anyone who has been bullied knows that it's not a clear cut "They were consistently awful every second of every day." Sometimes, those moments of pretend or conditional friendship make everything worse.

(As a side note, I keep hearing the more intense fans of Bakugo saying that those who criticize him identify with Izuku "too much" and it's like... yes? He's the protagonist. You're supposed to identify with him. To say nothing of the question of why you'd include such an explicit bullying subplot — arguably at the heart of the narrative in regards to characterization — if you didn't want readers who had experienced bullying to relate to this story. So it's all about victims like Izuku, you're allowed to care, just don't care in a way that holds Bakugo responsible?)

"But Izuku cares about Bakugo. He tried to help him out of the river." Yeah, because Izuku cares about everyone. Overlooking his warped idea of what friendship is due to having no one but Bakugo, Izuku is the kind of person who is going to extend his hand to anyone who needs it, just like All Might would. His extreme compassion and lack of other friends is not good proof that he cares for Bakugo in any true, healthy fashion, let alone that Bakugo cares for him.

As for when this all started, yeah, it was when they were even younger than in the scene above. Toddlers when Bakugo realized he had a strong quirk and Izuku was told he had none. Bakugo's reaction to these events — deciding he's better than everyone else and that justifies harming those "lesser" than him — is instantaneous. That desire was there all along. He just needed an excuse to act on it. After the conversations about the adults' influence on him, I went back to the anime scenes of Bakugo showing his quirk to his class and it's... pretty normal? I mean yes, there's praise, but in what world wouldn't there be praise? A bunch of other kids are going to ooh and ahh over mini explosions and the two teachers, unless they're entirely heartless, are going to tell this kid that he'll indeed make a wonderful hero someday. Those are standard responses for very young kids who aren't going to understand something like, "That is a powerful quirk and you could be a great hero... just don't let that potential go to your head!" There's nothing in those scenes that imply an excess of praise, at least so much that it would totally warp a kid's perspective of others to the extent Bakugo has going on. If I recall correctly, Bakugo's parents are quite disappointed in his behavior, but that never had an impact on him. And as I mentioned previously, we have incredibly talented characters like Momo (getting into U.A. on recommendation), people like Ida who come from families with other heroes they want to impress, Todoroki dealing with a crazy legacy to live up to, tied up in his abuse... yet none of them turned out like Bakugo. All of that didn't kill their compassion, but adults telling Bakugo he has a strong quirk made him into this person? Bakugo wanted to be that person, right from the start.

Honestly, I think a lot of fans latched onto Bakugo — which is awesome! — but didn't want to admit how horrible he actually is. So they took moments largely out of context and repeated them enough until they became fandom staples. Bakugo and Izuku were close childhood friends who just had a falling out they need to come back from. Bakugo was only like this because the adults in his life drove him to that behavior. Izuku loves Bakugo because he can see how good he is, deep down inside, and definitely not because he's been stuck with him since they were toddlers, unable to escape him even at U.A. It's a very sanitized look at their relationship, embraced because fans want them to be friends or lovers. Which is fine! God knows I'm into a ton of "problematic" ships, I just like acknowledging that they're problematic, not trying to sweeten the situation because fandoms have made others feel guilty for liking anything that's not squeaky clean and pure. Bakugo tormented Izuku for their entire childhood. He encouraged him to commit suicide. He tried to keep him from achieving his dream, both by undermining his confidence and outright threatening him (remember burning his shoulder?). He then reworked that obsession when they both got into U.A., trying to prove Izuku's uselessness, failing, and continually struggling with the thought that he's actually a great hero. And it's like... why do I care? This guy is a horrible person, he's been a horrible person since he was a kid, and his greatest challenge for more than half the story is acknowledging that other people aren't worthless trash. His improvement still hasn't gotten him to the standard of an average person, let alone a hero. If Bakugo were a villain, great, or if the story was going to really highlight the corruption of the hero career as a whole (we take anyone with powerful quirks, no matter how awful they are), great, but as a main character hero whose behavior is supposedly just a cover for a fantastic guy, please overlook everything he does and assume he's worthy of your respect anyway? Ehhh. Why do I care about him as a good guy when there are characters like Ida and Uraraka I could stan? To be clear, I'm not saying other fans can't enjoy whatever characters they enjoy, just that from a storytelling perspective I think it's a failure to introduce Bakugo as such an extreme, make him one of the heroes, give him such a selfish struggle, and then expect a lot of the audience to care. Bakugo either needed to be more balanced from the start — regular flaws instead of such an intense adoration for cruelty from the age of four — or the story needed to unpack his behavior in a way it never bothered to.

[i-did]

Considering your headcannon about Andrew kinda being a victim blamer to a certain degree, do u think it ever causes conflict with neil? (Or others) I think it's an interesting hc and it feels surprisingly fitting but I can't decide whether I think Andrew would voice these opinions or not... He is very straightforward and blunt but idk if he would just recognise that its likely to cause an argument and 'it wont change the past anyway so what's the point?' kinda thing.

(Just wanna clarify that I like Andrew btw lol, I just also think he has flaws and this is one of them, so Andrew stans don't attack me)

Short answer: yes, he brings it up sometimes. 

Long answer where I show examples:

I don’t think he ever blames victims more than perpetrators for anyone except himself. I also don’t think Andrew thinks of it as “blame” but more like actions that were taken and actions that weren’t. If Andrew was too drunk to fight back in a shitty bar he would think “I will not allow myself to ever be drunk enough where I can't fight some asshole back, not ever again” and moves on. Andrew hardly even ever allows himself to relax his shoulders even, and when he wakes up, he wakes up swinging. His mind is very ‘fight’ centric, it’s how he was socialized and raised. I think it changes depending on circumstances as well.

(I will continue to use the word blame for clarity’s sake however) 

Sober Andrew is a lot less talkative than manic Andrew, and manic Andrew definitely said insensitive and unwelcome opinions just to see reactions. Manic Andrew also lets his opinion be known to see if anyone is listening or cares as well, and sober Andrew does so as well, but in a more mousetrap way, waiting to see how the other person will react for a reason and to be read, rather than manic Andrews ‘just because I need some entertainment’ reasons.

Overall I think Andrew wouldn’t really voice these opinions and people definitely don't care to hear them, but they can sense Andrews overall apathy and don't appreciate that either. 

I think Andrew would bring up his opinion scarcely, but it would come out sometimes, and it’s definitely not appreciated. Andrew thinks “if only I was stronger” about himself, and that's what he plans to do, get stronger. So thanksgiving hit him hard because not only was he re-traumatized in more ways than one, he has lost his belief that he is stronger than before and that's all he needs. He got buff, joined exy, carried knives and made sure no one wanted to be closer than a few feet to him, and when they touched him he made sure they learned he did not like to be touched– at all. I believe he still holds onto his “if only I was stronger” mentality still even after Thanksgiving, he re-establishes the foxes fear of him by punching and though violence, its what he knows. Andrew’s least favorite reaction is pity (and so is Neil’s).

Andrew isn’t the type to roll his eyes at anyone but maybe Neil and a few others, he’s very selective with who he lets see his more visible expressions, but overall he doesn’t have the energy in him to emote when he disagrees or what he thinks. He knows it won’t change the past, so he usually doesn’t bring his thoughts into it, but sometimes when he’s annoyed or angry or in an argument he will, and it definitely changes the argument from an argument to more of a fight. 

I think it comes up most often with Neil since Andrew is comfortable enough to share his opinion with him and let it be known, and it’s not always appreciated. Kevin has definitely heard some of this even in canon from Andrew too. Andrew sees things very black and white, so when Kevin says “I can’t” because he's scared, Andrew says “you can, and you will”. Andrew looks at Aaron and sees an almost weaker version of himself who never learned how to hit his mom back. Andrew doesn’t understand those who don't hit back, not after Cass. He believes if someone isn’t hitting back, there should be a reason, and not a sentimental one, otherwise its weakness. And he sees this because its what he thinks of himself, and how he was willing what he was going through for Cass. He thinks his past self should have known better and been stronger, but it's too late now so whatever who cares– or that's what he tells himself. Andrew doesn’t blame Neil’s mom for hitting him necessarily, but he does think “and you didn’t stop her.” and the silent “and you didn’t stop loving her” is there too, and its something that him and Neil do fight on. Andrew also frames things in the “Neil will get himself killed,” way that most people jokingly say, but Andrew means more “undeniably Neil provoked someone, and it’s partially his fault.” 

I think Andrew doesn't think it's Nicky’s ‘fault’ for getting hate-crimed behind Edens, but he does think Nicky was not paying attention and didn’t read the room like usual, and possibly could have avoided it, but what's done is done, and it never comes up. And Andrew is overall anti-family and how they can have power over you, so he definitely blames Nicky for letting his feelings get hurt and heart get crushed by the same parents who sent him to conversion therapy. He thinks “you should know better/what did you expect” and voices this in book 2 to Neil about the Thanksgiving dinner invitation. 

With Aaron, I can see it coming up. When him and Aaron fight, it usually turns into Andrew shutting down and shutting him out and Aaron growing angrier now that he’s seen Andrew shut down, and he can't break through with his anger, and will then push hard before retreating himself and then pushing away back. And yes, the fight is about his mother, in a very similar way to Neil. (Neil hates this, because he sees it as different, his mothers circumstances different, but Andrew does not.)

I think if Allison were to be crying about being mugged and see Andrew’s blank face over Renee’s comforting shoulder, she would just spit out a “fuck you,” and he would shrug, knowing he has no comfort to offer her. Being mugged to most people can be very traumatizing and scary, Andrew grew up in foster home after foster home in Oakland, if he were to mug someone he would look for an Allison, someone who dresses well and likely has a lot of cash on them, multiple credit cards, you could get pretty far before they're all canceled. Andrew learned as a kid how to dress and look, so people don't mug you and if they try they don’t get anything, it's a pretty common city skill. Andrew also blames Allison for hitting Aaron as the reason why he choked her against the asphalt. “She knew what would happen.” He doesn’t think he didn’t not do those actions, but he thinks: cause → reaction.

Andrew thinks, ‘yes I took Matt to Edens, but he was the one who said yes to the drugs, his sobriety was just as weak as I proved it to be.’ Interestingly, Matt actually agrees with Andrew, thinking his methods were harsh but effective.

Besides Matt, Renee is the only one who doesn’t fight him on his opinions, I’m sure she sometimes agrees (or part of her does) and other times she politely disagrees and doesn’t let it rile her. He talks to her more though, and gets to hear his opinions about said things much more often than the other foxes, especially with how he likes to debate her and bait her good christian persona with his own personality, especially because Renee is ‘just like him’ deep down.

He doesn't blame Seth for dying, that he knows is partially Neil’s responsibility but overall Riko who actually did the deed (or hired people to).

As for Dan, I can’t think of any examples rn, kinda a lame note to end on, but this is how it ends.

[aboveallarescuer]

No question, I just wanted to let you know that you & your metas/posts are so so SOO appreciate 🎉😊 you are such a blessing to the Dany fandom.🍾

Your metas are always so thoughtful & insightful, and the frequency with which you publish them, is astonishing & almost a tad scary. 😅

Anyway bless you 🤗💕

And not to mention how you always manages to remain polite, level-headed and respectful in discussions, whenever addressing a real person or talking about a character, yet unwavering & straight to the point. Very admirable 👏🏻 [ I envy you for that😬]

Thank you for sending these messages <333 I have a few mutuals who write much faster than I do, but I appreciate the compliment anyway lol. Especially the second one, because yesterday I was kind of sad thinking about how I probably helped to split the Dany fandom for being so vocal, particularly after that big fight last year...

I don't want to make it seem that the people I disagree with (the "neutrals", as I call them) never make interesting points or are "bad" people (I don't know them in real life and I don't think fandom is activism at all) or necessarily resent/hate Dany because none of these things would be true... So follow whoever you want and never feel like you're "betraying" your group because you don't owe anything to anyone here.

At the same time, though, I do get frustrated when I see that a lot of the "neutrals" mischaracterize Dany as arrogant and/or ruthless and/or hot-headed and/or obsessed with prophecies and/or susceptible to flattery and/or someone who doesn't think ahead and/or anything that actually defines Cersei and/or Stannis (both of whom are foils to Dany). I do get frustrated when I see them acting as if fighting for the Iron Throne is worse than fighting to retake Winterfell. That book!Dany is actually humble, modest, self-reflective, hard on herself, not susceptible to flattery and unwilling to use violence are all things that, to me, should be accepted as obvious facts just as much as Catelyn being driven by her loyalty to her family, Tyrion and Sam being intellectually driven, Davos and Brienne being good people, etc. And when I questioned them about these things, I was accused of dogmatism and intolerance at best and harassment, bullying, doxxing and stalking at worst. That crossed a line for me. And it makes no sense because they say that they're book only fans, but they're clearly still being influenced by the show's portrayal of Dany. I don't know about you, but I change my opinions when I'm presented with information I may have overlooked. That is why I always tend to bring up textual evidence (which most of them don't care to do). But what it seems to me is that the "neutrals" willfully ignore the evidence that Dany stans (and Arya stans too, because we've had similar issues over the years) provide instead of adjusting their views accordingly. Their attitude seems a lot more like mob mentality to me than what I do, imo. And considering how a lot of the people who made/agreed with the false accusations about me were also involved in this disgusting attack against the RL shippers, I can't help but look askance at them and their requests that people accept their takes (which are already the commonly accepted ones) and be nice to each other (because that seems more like telling us to keep quiet because they don't want to feel uncomfortable by having their views challenged, especially since they themselves often start fandom wank and are pretty nasty). So I avoid engaging with their content nowadays because of all these factors and I express my anger sometimes. But I also want to make it clear that it's a personal choice and anyone can follow whoever they want. I don't think it makes you "less" of a Dany fan (though that doesn't prevent you from judging her based on higher standards either because feelings don't always align with logical arguments).

Sorry for using these asks to get some things off my chest, I was feeling kind of guilty after I saw a post about how someone's appreciation for ASOIAF was ruined by their fandom experience (which is supposed to be fun). I hope people can see where I'm coming from. If what I say makes you dislike me, it's totally fine. But I won't stop defending Dany and presenting textual evidence when/if I have the time and energy to accurately characterize her because the double standards against her in this fandom are endless, go way beyond Jonsa hate and the claims that she's being set up to become a villain/Mad Queen and become really evident when you have a comprehensive knowledge of book!Dany's characterization and judge her actions based on the moral standards of her society.

[ursie]

Since no one can feel safe because it’s privileged, isn’t it actually backing racism, homophobia, ableism…? I mean, since nobody deserves feeling safe why would we report and act against it? Safe space don’t exist, so… idk… let’s invade lgbt tags and subreddits with hate? Why shouldn’t they feel welcome anywhere. Let’s invade Black Lives Matter with hate, because why should they have their own supportive tag? Oh, people block anti tags to feel safe? Well, let’s spill hate in non anti tags, why would anyone deserve nice things?

Fyi, most of this “criticism” was just people putting “Solangelo toxic” in tag with no explanation whatsoever. That’s not criticism, that’s being awful. You had to scroll down through dozen of posts like this to find ONE explaining why the person thinks so. Yes, some shippers were nasty and awful attacking insightful posts. But some were trying to present their arguments in normal way and people like you just put them in the same category like the others. At this point you all don’t care about stating facts. You’re just trying to attack other people regardless, just to make them feel bad. That’s why you’re putting it all in Solangelo tag, since anti Solangelo tag can easily be blocked. Most of you present no arguments. You’re just running around screaming “toxic! ableist!” and having nothing else to offer. At the same time you’re shipping far more toxic ships pretending you’re oh-so-rightful.

This is legitimately the funniest anon ever way to not have critical thinking skills and present the most disingenuous counter argument humanly possible <3 good to know you can’t handle discussions in good faith.

Anyway .

Inherent context is key-fandom tags are about fandoms and the players there are members of said fandom whereas in the examples you’ve listed you’re talking about actual minorities and not a fandom? There’s a difference in power between two Pjo stans having a difference in opinion about Solangelo and a cishet man being homophobic in lgbt+ spaces my dude. For starters one affects real actual people irl-whilst the other is about fictional characters

Critical thinking isn’t hate? Fandom tags are for the discussion and community of said fandom-that includes critical thinking and yes even hate-it may not always be fun to see but that is what the block button is for-putting negative posts in main tags is not only not morally wrong it’s literally what a tag feature is designed for my dude

You shouldn’t compare real life bigotry to discourse about online etiquette my dude especially when in your argument your equating allegations of ableism to “ship discourse”

I have made countless posts explaining why and how Solangelo is ableist. I’ve never called it toxic to my memory as again these are fictional children. The vast majority of the crit posts were about the fandom at the moment and therefore not about presenting the entire argument from beginning to end. Also if you need minorities to explain the bigotry they’re facing in a polite or easily to digest manner you’re probably the person they’re complaining about. You’re not entitled to an explanation. You sent this ask you certainly could of done some research.

There is no “normal” way to justify ableism. It’s still upsetting when it’s in the defense of bigotry. “Non threatening” bigotry is still violence. Disabled people are always allowed to be upset about it no many how nice the bigots are.

There have been countless posts “stating facts” disabled people shouldn’t have to cite exact statistics everytime they point out ableism has happened. There is an entire rr crit tag and countless post’s elsewhere delving into people’s issues with his works. If you want the information you are free to get it. Again minorities shouldn’t have to do all the intellectual labor. I say as I explain this to you -_-

Again ship tags are for that and using keywords automatically puts it in the tag. Also again posts about bigotry are more important than personal comfort. Your safe space is not more important than all Disabled people in the fandom my dude

Critical thinking and posts holding bigots and their ideals accountable aren’t attacks and if you truly feels so defensive over them I’d self reflect on that.

Again the tags are present and frankly the words toxic and ableist are enough. They mean things. If a disabled person calls something ableist that is enough my dude.

I don’t speak for everyone’s ships-I’m personally not aware of shipping anything actively “problematic” however other people’s ships and interest does not take away from the arguments made and any attempt to add them to the conversation is just an attempt to change the subject from your own lack of accountability <3

Yes you’re still a bad person

[eppysboys]

Very much agree with your takes on the whole Paul and Stuart+John dynamic.

It's also one of a number of posts I've seen recently in response to certain types of Paul defender who, in their desire to protect and support Paul, end up being often unfairly or overly critical of anyone he didn't have a 100℅ good relationship with at all times.

This particularly frustrates me when the targets of this attack-as-defense strategy are:

a) usually dead, and in some cases (I'm thinking specifically Stu and Brian here) died early enough that they never really had the opportunity to put across a defense of the criticisms levelled against them in the first place.

And b) (again Stuart and Brian are good examples, but I'd also say it applies to George,) is that I feel a number of the arguments made against these people rely very much on narratives made by the same people they are defending Paul from. Narratives that are often unfair or dismissive of those people in much the same way they are to Paul.

For example using the idea that Stuart was an at best mediocre, and lazy, bassist who only importance was in dying to justify Pauls treatment of him as something other than immature jealousy, when we know he was also a gifted artist, who willingly put that on hold in order to join his best friends band just because said best friend asked him to.

Or again using a similar dismissiveness of George's abilities as a songwriter to justify the way Paul and John could also be dismissive of them.

Or slipping into the 'Brian was sad gay whose crush on John meant he always did what he wanted' narrative a bit too easily when discussing the whole Lennon/McCartney credit thing etc.

Anyway I'm not really sure where I'm going with this beyond the idea that I wish some Paul stans could find a way to dispute unfair and inaccurate narratives about Paul without feeding into ones about others, especially others who unlike Paul, can't actually defend themselves.

I 100% agree with everything you've said, anon. It probably speaks to how fandom and it's rhetoric has evolved (online specifically), the way we talk about our favourite celebrities has changed a bit. I think the idea of competition in particular is what ruins things. Looking over at neighbouring fandoms, you can see a bit of competition for who has the most 'moral' fave, which celebrity is in the right and hasn't fucked up in public. You notice with bands in particular, people will pit their fave against others, particularly ones they don't like and rub you the wrong way. And it seems like people are so intent on pointing out how good their favourite person is, not necessarily because it's fun to be a fan of a good person, but because it soothes them to think their energy isn't going to a 'bad' person. The black-and-white way online cultural views people has corrupted just about everything.

So what's this got to do with The Beatles?! I think....just the idea that what we, as fans, have always been put off by and resented was the competition biographers and the media at large thrusted upon the guys and put the microscope over that one tiny facet of their relationship with each other. So seeing fans do it in their own little spaces in an effort to correct the narrative seems a little backwards, or rather, it won't get us that far into understanding the boys much better as it would to just step back and understand the picture from all sides.

I certainly understand the temptation! Paul is blamed for just about everything, and he is in the right a lot of the time, or he's more right than the others. But that being said, not every situation has a 'right and wrong' answer? You know? It's not all black and white, right vs wrong. I think to see every issue specifically from a Paul-lens would be limiting the broader unstandering of the band and what went wrong and why. If the aim is to shift from a Lennon-lens (or biography!Lennon lens) and cast some of that heavenly light on the real band and what actually happened, it's worth considering everyone's feelings, otherwise we end up with another distorted characterisation of one band member.

Instead of dismissing George as 'bitter right til the end', it's worth considering his hurt (that had been festering for years) and his deep friendship and his own understanding of Paul. I don't particularly like/approve of the way George handled his feelings all the time, but I wouldn't dismiss his frustrations and hurt as less than how right Paul was, not all situations are like that. It's too tangled up and interwoven to be right vs wrong.

[stillness-in-green]

Part 2 of the response to this ask:

Part 1 was about where I think Geten’s story is going, and if I think it’s likely that Dabi will kill him; it dealt mainly with how those characters are set up in canon. Part 2 is far more about the fandom, and the assumptions people make that lead them to theories like the one above--specifically, the assumption that the League was always planning on bailing on the PLF. Hit the jump below with me and I'll go over why I think the common arguments for that are misguided at best, and willfully misreading the text at worst.

WARNING: Contains some generalizations about parts of the fandom that I have mostly taken steps to avoid seeing on my dash, so some of my characterizations may be out of date. I’ve tried to desalinate this post as much as possible, but as an unapologetic fan of the MLA and of Spinner (who I do not bring up incidentally), this is a topic I feel particularly strongly about. Apologies, but I Have Seen Things.

DISCLAIMER: I like Geten better than Dabi. I don't think he's better developed; I don't think he's a better character--I just like him better. This is largely down to the fact that I find the MLA fascinating from a worldbuilding perspective and its members compelling personally, whereas I’m less interested in Dabi personally than I am the Todoroki Drama on the whole, and have been tired of Fanon Dabi for approximately 83 years. I’ll also be the first to admit that my take on Dabi is pretty mercenary--hardly the irredeemable psychopath the Hero Stans on Twitter see, but nothing close to Secretly Soft Big Brother Touya, either. If that’s not your bag, you may want to skip this one.

So, here's a bullet point list of the reasons I have personally seen on why the League was always planning to turn on the MLA:

Dabi and Toga mention "getting started early," and Shigaraki mentions a plan, suggesting that the League had a plan in place independent of the one they arranged as the PLF.

Shigaraki says he won't forgive the Liberation Army for messing with peoples' feelings, so he would never really mean it when he forges an alliance with them.

The MLA is quirk supremacist, like Endeavor, so Dabi would never work with them.

Dabi is just using Skeptic against Skeptic's will; it’s not a willing partnership.

Mr. Compress rejects the PLF moniker for Shigaraki, ergo Mr. Compress didn’t genuinely associate Shigaraki and the League with the PLF.

Toga hated Curious, so she wouldn't want to work with the MLA either.

Twice would never forgive them for what they did to Giran.

[Error: argument about Spinner's opinion on the PLF not found.]

So, let's go over those, shall we? Note that a lot of what I'm going to lay out below isn't conclusive. What I want to establish is simply that the canonical evidence isn't conclusive, certainly not as much so as the people who support this view espouse.

|| Dabi and Toga mention "getting started early," and Shigaraki mentions a plan, suggesting that the League had a plan in place independent of the one they arranged as the PLF.

In responses to my recent Overhaul post, I defended Viz’s official translation as an accurate rendering of the dialogue in question. In general, I feel like Caleb Cook is pretty reliable in his translations, if sometimes kind of stiff or dry in localization. However, there are times he makes assumptions about lines--as indeed a translator for a currently-running series will sometimes have to--and sometimes, those assumptions don’t pan out. This is one of those times.

Dabi's line, "Shall we get started early?" is based on an assumption Cook made about a line that doesn't have an actual subject. In the original dialogue--Hayame ni hajimaru ka--there is no “we,” not even in the form of some implicit collective in Dabi’s grammatical inflection, nor is there a question of "should." All Dabi’s doing is musing that the start (again, there’s no subject, and so no indication of the start of what, or the start as initiated by who) is happening early.

Toga's line communicates much the same, save that she does specify that the schedule/plan/arrangement is happening earlier than expected--which is totally true, since her line is in response to Dabi observing that Machia moving must mean Shigaraki's awake, and Shigaraki was supposed to be down for another month.

Shigaraki's line, like Dabi's, lacks a subject to describe what exactly is supposed to start as soon as Shigaraki wakes. He's saying something that would, in a more stilted way, be, "I wake up and then it's the start, right?"

None of these lines suggest that the characters are necessarily talking about any plan other than the one the PLF laid out. Yes, it looks somewhat damning that Shigaraki's first action (after getting himself a cape, anyway) is to have Machia bring him the League, but heck, maybe that was always the plan. Just because Shigaraki wants to rejoin his comrades doesn't mean the rest of the PLF didn't already have machinations that they were supposed to set into motion the moment Machia left. After all, the plan as Hawks understood it did involve simultaneous attacks on major cities--maybe the League was going to be spearheading one of those attacks. Further, Shigaraki knew something was wrong from the moment he regained consciousness, and we don’t know how that knowledge affected the call he made. Hell, maybe the original plan was for the League to be brought to meet him somewhere in a chartered limo; we don’t know.

It's telling that this idea that the League had a Secret Plan to screw over the MLA rarely seems to account for Mr. Compress and Spinner being confused over the suddenness of events. The response to questions about this seems to be that the "villain trio" knew about it, so the ignorance of the rest of the League can just be handwaved--the important members knew, and that's enough. This is ungenerous towards both Twice and Mr. Compress, but I have got particularly little time for Spinner, the narrator of MVA and guy who decided to devote his all to Shigaraki, being disrespected in this fashion. More on that later.

|| Shigaraki says he won't forgive the Liberation Army for messing with peoples' feelings, so he would never really mean it when he forges an alliance with them.

Shigaraki does say he won't forgive the MLA, but consider what he did to the MLA and its leader. He destroyed most of their stronghold, killed scores of them, is directly responsible for Re-Destro losing his legs, and saw that vaunted descendant of Destro about six inches shy of full forehead-on-the-ground dogeza. The League Shigaraki commands killed a great many more of them, including one of their inner circle. He commandeered the Liberation Army, its resources, and its grand cause. I think it’s safe to say he’s more than responded in kind!

I'm not saying Shigaraki feels for the MLA the same way he does about the League, far from it, but I do think he's practical enough after two hundred chapters of character development not to throw them away out of spite. In Chapter 246, he tells Ujiko explicitly, "When someone offers me something, I take it," and, "I'm done taking the heroes lightly. I'll use everything I've got to obliterate the dregs All Might left behind." From a purely practical standpoint, if he intends to throw everything he has at the heroes, he has no reason to throw the MLA under the bus, and 116,000 reasons to keep them around. I'm altogether sure that, so long as they stood to be useful to his plans, he would have kept them around.

|| The MLA is quirk supremacist, like Endeavor, so Dabi would never work with them. + || Dabi is just using Skeptic against Skeptic's will; it’s not a willing partnership.

I hadn’t seen the second point in the wild, but I suppose it must be how the “The League will betray the MLA” theorists are getting around Dabi and Skeptic’s clear collaboration and how that collaboration totally scuttles the first point, huh? Hilarious.

Anyway, setting aside the fact that Dabi showed up to the one planning session we were shown when even Geten didn’t, there’s evidence in the canon that Dabi was working with Skeptic since even before the raid. Consider that Dabi’s video was filmed at the villa (the wall paneling and the style of the couch both match) and ask yourself where the camera he used came from. Once the filming was complete, where was the video stored such that Skeptic could access it from his laptop? If Dabi’d had it on an SD card and Skeptic was seeing it for the first time, why didn’t Spinner, Compress and Toga watch it alongside him? Surely Skeptic would need to watch it through at least once to know when to splice in the footage of Jin’s death for maximum dramatic impact? On that note, by far the most telling piece of evidence is this: if Dabi wasn't already working with Skeptic, then why was he wearing one of Skeptic's body cameras during his confrontation with Hawks?

Further, Skeptic's protest when he’s pulled onto Machia isn't that he doesn’t want to be with the League; it’s that he doesn’t want to leave Re-Destro behind. Once he's resigned that it's going to happen, though, he's cocky about his talents and complimentary of Dabi's big reveal, even if he is exasperated about the League's antics. It's ambiguous, I admit, but given that Dabi's wearing his cameras, he had to have known Dabi had a reason for them--and given that he is both abrasive and mouthy, I can’t imagine he wouldn’t have demanded to know what that reason was.

Hell, Dabi even thanks Skeptic for his editing work, which is more direct positive approval than he's ever shown anyone in the League (give or take the high-five with Twice, which, genuine or not, he would have known he was doing on camera). That much-vaunted panel of Spinner telling Toga to come back to the League? Dabi's grinning, which in isolation you could read as a certain rueful affection, but with the full context of the chapter, it becomes apparent that Dabi is grinning at Skeptic's laptop, seconds after telling Skeptic to "hurry up." Skeptic is, at that moment, probably gearing up the video to project nationwide, and Dabi’s more focused on that than he is Toga’s crisis, even when Compress directly appeals to him for aid. He tells Compress he doesn’t care, the same way he told Hawks he doesn't give a damn about the League.

Let me be clear here: I'm inclined to take Dabi at his word. I think Dabi hangs around the League because, for all that he says one man's conviction can shake the world, he also knows his own limits, and the League offers safety in numbers and an avenue to pursue his revenge. Maybe he finds them acceptable enough company, maybe he even does like them a bit despite himself, but I think any affection he might have for them is entirely incidental to his views on their usefulness. In the same way, while he's willing to bail on the MLA when the heroes attack, I don't think it was his plan to do so, especially not given his apparent immediate regard for Skeptic, as seen in the deleted scene here. Sure, he dislikes Geten, but ultimately, Geten is a stupid kid too tied up in his care for Re-Destro--who's now worshipping the ground Shigaraki walks on--to really be getting in Dabi's way.

Maybe if the MLA really were as quirk supremacist as Geten makes them out to be, Dabi would be actively looking for a way to see ‘em burn, but as I’ve said countless times before, Geten is not a reliable narrator vis a vis the MLA's doctrine. Now, obviously I don't expect Dabi to give them an unearned benefit of the doubt,(1) not after what he heard Geten say, but if Dabi has been working with Skeptic, it doesn't take a genius to realize that while Anthropomorph is a perfectly good quirk, it is categorically not what primarily defines Skeptic’s "worth" in the MLA societal microcosm.

Nothing that Skeptic does reflects the way Geten talks about "elevating one's ability" or "sheer strength" in the way that HeroAca fandom tends to understand as referring to flashy and offensive quirks. And yet, Skeptic is a ranked advisor warranting an introductory panel with RD's inner circle and Geten is not. Perhaps, just perhaps, this might have led Dabi to reevaluating his initial assessment just slightly?

|| Mr. Compress rejects the PLF moniker for Shigaraki, ergo Mr. Compress didn’t genuinely associate Shigaraki and the League with the PLF.

So, this one's pretty wild, because, in the same chapter that had people crowing about Mr. Compress's dialogue, Mr. Compress's actions show the exact opposite of the conclusion this theory would demand. Specifically, if it was always the League's plan to ditch the MLA, Mr. Compress would have darted right past Skeptic, ignoring the man's cries for help. He doesn't--he picks Skeptic up on the way past and (at least in the volume corrections) deposits him safe with Dabi in Spinner's scarf. Of course, Skeptic still stands to be useful, but if one acknowledges that Skeptic's usefulness is reason enough not to abandon him, then what exactly is the argument for leaving 116,000 perfectly useful warm bodies behind?

But let's set aside Compress rescuing Skeptic and focus on the actual point, because that point in itself is still flawed. Mr. Compress's thoughts on the PLF in the specific talk bubble in question are somewhat ambiguous. It's another case of the Viz translation making a couple of assumptions that are just that--assumptions.

Compress's words in the Japanese are as follows:

Chōjō Kaihō Sensen.… Viran rengo no Shigaraki Tomura ga…

Viz then renders the line like so:

The Paranormal Liberation Front's… No, the League of Villain's Shigaraki…

Note that in the Japanese, the possessive no is only included once, to indicate Shigaraki's association with the League. Further, the original doesn't indicate any negation in Compress's thoughts. Yes, he could be rejecting the PLF association for Shigaraki, but he could as easily be narrowing his scope to Shigaraki as the figure he represents to the League, rather than the figure he represents to the PLF--not rejecting wholesale, but rather becoming more specific. Compress might also be thinking first of the PLF as a general organization, then narrowing down to Shigaraki specifically.

Rather than reading this line as an indication that Compress regards the PLF as temporary, I was heartened by the fact that Compress thought about the PLF at all! If the League really had been planning to discard them this entire time, then there's no reason for Compress to have ever taken the Front seriously enough to have thought about them in that moment of crisis. You can carry this back further, too. In Chapter 258, when Twice is asking Hawks for help, he says that Spinner and Compress have been in meetings for days. Coupled with Compress's first thought about the entity that will carry out Harima's desired reformation being the Liberation Front (or possibly "the Liberation Front's Shigaraki"), this indicates to me that Compress was taking it seriously, not just gorging himself on sushi on the MLA's dime.

Indeed, back in Ujiko's lab, when it was just Shigaraki talking about his backstory and his dreams of destruction, Compress looks the opposite of impressed; we know from his narration in 294 that he liked the League because they didn't place any importance on one another’s pasts. Yet, at some point, his view shifted to believing that fulfilling his ancestor's ambition, his bloodline’s duty, really might be back on the table. We as readers don't quite know when that shift happened, but given, again, his initial mental invocation of the PLF, I think we can assume that it's tied to that alliance, those resources. And sure, when the moment of crisis happens and he's really defining who and what Shigaraki is to him, and where his values and priorities lie, it's with the League and Shigaraki as the leader of the League. But that doesn't mean he never had his hopes for the PLF at all, or was partaking in plans to ditch them.

Also too, this is a man who was lamenting the loss of their partnership with Overhaul, a man who personally maimed him, on top of killing a comrade. You're telling me the guy who shrugged off his animosity towards Overhaul would willingly allow the League to plot sabotage against even wealthier collaborators against whom he has even less reason to hold a grudge? Come on, guys.

|| Toga hated Curious, so she wouldn't want to work with the MLA either.

This one's easy: Toga pretty explicitly hated Curious, but she's even more explicit that she likes the MLA because she thinks the world they want to create is wonderful. She says this verbatim at the end of 225, after Curious has spent the entire chapter hounding her with explosions and intrusive questions. What turns her animosity on Curious is not some reveal that the MLA's world would be terrible after all, but Curious calling Toga's "normal" miserable and tragic. Essentially, she doesn't object to the world the MLA wants to bring about; she objects to being turned into a martyr for that world, especially when that martyrdom requires that the things that make Toga happy be characterized as horrific misfortunes.

Toga doesn't like Curious; she kills Curious. And then she comes into a position of leadership, and we don't know a lot about how that position takes her, but she seems delighted to be walking out onto the stage to be announced as such, and she makes active contributions to the discussion of the PLF's plans in Chapter 245. We are, again, given no indication that her lethal response to Curious means that she's planning to ditch the MLA on the whole.

Incidentally, Curious asserts what she does about Toga only in the context of the world as it stands. The world's rejection of Toga's normal, and the extremes that rejection drove Toga to, are what Curious considers tragic and miserable, not Toga's fascination with blood in and of itself. She clearly believes that, in the world the MLA envisions, Toga's life would not be so miserable because she would never have been oppressed to the degree that she snapped. And frankly, Curious isn't wrong. The only reason she is a villain in that scene is that she's willing to murder Toga to project that tragedy to the world. If she'd been willing to sit down and have a civil interview with Toga to print it in a relevant magazine, she would have been fine.

|| Twice would never forgive them for what they did to Giran.

You know, this is a totally fair point. It is, however, somewhat complicated by the fact that Giran himself never left the PLF. Now, there’s almost certainly something to be said about Giran’s whole information broker shtick being terminally compromised by his capture, his maiming, his client list being hacked, etc. He had a bunch of identifying items strewn all over the country that were covered in the national news, items that people who associated with him closely certainly would have recognized. Maybe he’s laying low for a while?

I don’t know why Giran was still around by the time of the raid. I can theorize about his pragmatism or what have you, but the canon really doesn’t give us anything to go on. Still, if he really hated the MLA all that much, as he would be totally justified in doing, it’s pretty bizarre that Horikoshi showed him twice in PLF crowd scenes post-Deika looking nothing worse than kind of confused and uneasy. Heck, you’d think he would at least have merited a better seat in the crowd for the big merger announcement.

Giran aside, the fact that Twice never does hit it off with anyone in his regiment is, I think, telling. If there’s anyone in the League that intentionally kept himself at a distance from the MLA because of hard feelings, it’s likely Twice. After all, if he had befriended anyone, he presumably wouldn’t have needed to go to Hawks for tutoring almost an entire month after Deika. That said, the fact that Twice does go running to Hawks for tutoring shows that he’s at least doing his best to act in accordance with what he thinks Shigaraki and the rest want. That doesn’t preclude the League having a secret plan that he’s either in on and playing along with, or hasn’t been told about because he might not be able to stop himself from vocalizing about it. Still, while absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, obviously absence of evidence is not evidence of presence. So, lacking any sign that the rest of the League is planning treachery, I’m not inclined to assume Twice’s lack of forgiveness is indicative of anything other than his own feelings.

|| [Error: argument about Spinner's opinion on the PLF not found.]

:: INCOMING SALT WARNING :: INCOMING SALT WARNING ::

This is the one that really gets to me. I have never seen an argument that the League is planning to betray the PLF that convincingly explains the fact that Spinner, to all available evidence, threw himself wholeheartedly into trying to make the PLF succeed. To be more precise, I have seen one explanation, and that explanation is that the plan to ditch the MLA was a secret that only Shigaraki, Dabi and sometimes Toga knew about, and to reiterate, that is bullshit.

In my experience, this is an explanation proposed by people who care about Spinner only insofar as he can be a Soft Gaymer Boyfriend or score them rhetorical points, but have little to no interest in his ongoing--and, indeed, increasing--importance to the League generally and Shigaraki’s arc specifically. The dude who talked about how Twice’s home was the League, who got through to Toga while still respecting her choice when no one else could, the guy who recognized the hollowness within Shigaraki but also bonded with him over video games, the man who Mr. Compress said was Shigaraki’s most devoted follower(2)--this man did not do all of that for people in this fandom to say, “Oh, well, the others probably just kept it a secret from him because they thought he’d be bad at lying.”

Really? “Bad at lying?” And that’s an adequate justification, is it, for Shigaraki letting Spinner toil for months under false pretenses? For lying to the man who adores him the most? Of course it isn’t, but the people who theorize this don’t really care about Spinner’s adoration for Shigaraki, or the fact that Shigaraki rewarding Spinner’s feelings by allowing him to dedicate himself unstintingly to something Shigaraki was planning to discard from the beginning would be a blatant abuse of Spinner’s trust.

I have never seen anyone try to argue that Spinner was in on a plan to betray the MLA all along. That’s because it’s patently obvious that Spinner--forthright, direct Spinner, who named the merged organization with Re-Destro, spends all his time in meetings, has a direct exchange with Re-Destro about the state of their plans, and is probably the reason RD started wearing polka dots--went all-in on the PLF. But for the people who propose the “the League was always going to bail” theory, Spinner and his labors are an afterthought.

Spinner is not an afterthought. Where Mr. Compress has been captured, Toga could hypothetically be peeled away from the League via Uraraka, and Dabi almost certainly will be peeled away via the Todoroki plot, Spinner’s driving motivation at this point is Shigaraki himself. He connected to Shigaraki’s nihilism, his hatred, but also his humanity--the humanity in Shigaraki Tomura, not in Shimura Tenko. His empathy didn’t spring from contrived psychic glimpses of crying 5-year-olds, but from long months of observation, doubt, and gradually deepening wonder. He’s the only person currently with Shigaraki that I can see caring enough about Shigaraki’s welfare that he might sacrifice his own goals and desires to help Deku save him.

Spinner is not an afterthought, and I refuse to build or entertain theories that treat him that way. So as to his opinions on the MLA? Despite having his own reasons to be leery of them based on how shabbily Trumpet treated him, he was obviously trying to make the Paranormal Liberation Front succeed, which means he must have believed that Shigaraki wanted it to succeed. Therefore, unless you’re prepared to assert that Shigaraki (and everyone else who was in on it!) was cruel enough to lie to Spinner about something he was devoting so much time and energy to, the inescapable conclusion is that Shigaraki also wanted the Front to succeed.

(Note: After letting a friend pre-read this, I have been informed that there is, in fact, one explanation offered for Spinner knowing the League was going to abandon the PLF but working his ass off on the venture anyway, and that explanation is, “Something something wants to prove himself because low self-esteem.” This is so ridiculous I can’t even bring myself to edit this post accordingly. Low self-esteem! Because nothing would alleviate Spinner's low self-esteem like toiling for months over something that holds no worth to the people he actually cares about, right? Right?? Bah. Humbug!)

And but so, to wrap all that up: I fundamentally disagree that the League viewed the Paranormal Liberation Front as a temporary arrangement, at least to the extent that they were actively planning to betray their newfound--new won--allies. The fact that I don't think the League intended to discard the MLA out of hand does, thus, influence my opinion that, whatever Geten's fate will be, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be, "He gets murdered in a way that resembles nothing so much as a sick revenge fantasy dozens of chapters after the last point when such a death would have been remotely tonally appropriate."

Thanks for the ask, anon! Sorry about-- *waves at all of this*

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(1) Not that Mr. “Burns Random Delinquents Alive For Not Measuring Up To His Standards For Villainy” has any moral standing to criticize others for how they determine the value of peoples’ lives, mind.

(2) Other translations for the verb in Mr. Compress’s Japanese line of, “You are the one who ____s Shigaraki the most,” include yearn for, long for, pine for, miss, love dearly, adore, idolize, and revere. “Most devoted follower” is accurate enough, but considerably less homo than some of the things we could have gotten there.

[snkpolls]

SnK Episode 70 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 170 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Manga Readers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll, click here.

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RATE THE EPISODE 167 responses

This episode received good ratings, though it wasn’t as hype as previous episodes have been. We presume this is likely due to the primary focus on Gabi and Falco over the Survey Corps/Warriors. Overall, though, the episode was solid for most respondents. 

Beautiful😍✨

MAPPAGOAT 

Its pretty good

Alright for what it was.

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING GABI AND FALCO MOMENTS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 167 responses

The majority of the most favored Gabi/Falco moments from the episode were in the second half, starting with Gabi’s unfortunate encounter with the horse with 29.9% of the vote. Behind that is Kaya and Gabi’s argument about why Kaya’s mom had to die with 27.5% of the vote. At 21.6%, Kaya remembering Sasha was favored and at 13.2% was Kaya taking Gabi and Falco to her old home. 

Gabi's character is so real. LOVED her and Kaya's argument; the va's went all out & it made me cry

Why do ask us what our favorite Gabi/Falco moment was without the option "I don't have one?" Falco's cool and all but Gabi's story has literally been nothing but a drag to me from start to finish

Would have chosen the horse thing for my favorite moment but went with Kaya remembering Sasha instead. At this point so close to the end of the manga I'd rather focus more on moments with characters I enjoy than obsessing with a character I utterly despise having some misfortune (to put it mildly)

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING MOMENTS FOCUSING ON OTHER CHARACTERS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 168 responses

This pie chart was a bit more colorful than the previous one, with the largest piece going to Mikasa’s headache with her flashback to the night Eren saved her (26.2%). Behind that moment, 16.7% most enjoyed Hange confronting Floch and Co. about their involvement in leaking information about Eren, 16.1% favored seeing Hange remembering Sannes’ warning. 14.9% liked seeing Mikasa and Louise’s brief conversation in the dungeon and 13.1% liked the moment with Magath and the Warriors discussing their retaliation. 

GIVE HANGE A BREAK </3

WHICH FLASHBACK HAD THE MOST EMOTIONAL IMPACT FOR YOU? 169 responses

Nearly half of respondents were most touched by the moment at the end of the episode where Kaya talks about Sasha saving her and says she wishes to become a person like her. 29.6% got most emotional over seeing the flashback to the night Eren saved Mikasa, and 18.3% were most impacted by Hange remembering Sannes’ warning.

RATE JEAN’S OUTFIT 169 responses

Jean doesn’t do anything in this episode really, but he sure did come dressed in, erm, a unique outfit. Overall most people were neutral or felt that he needs to up his fashion game. Although 34.3% altogether ranked on the higher end, feeling he’s a total fashion icon. We’re questioning the legitimacy of these claims or whether they were just being sarcastic for the fun of it. lol

WHO WERE YOU MORE EXCITED ABOUT TO SEE SHIRTLESS? 159 responses

Eren thirst won out on this question, with 70.4% being most excited to see his half naked body in the previous episode. Though Reiner stans came through for him in their support of his shirtless moment this week with nearly 30% of the vote (and commentary).

Poundtown

More half naked Reiner thx

My only disappointment is that the shirtless reiner scene wasn't longer.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE AN EXCUSE TO TALK TO YELENA? 169 responses

When asked if respondents would like an excuse to have a conversation with our chaotic bae Yelena, 40.2% said they would absolutely love a reason to talk to her. 29% aren’t sure if they would want to or not, while 16.6% were a solid “no.” 14.2% didn’t care about this question. 

Yelena is hot

AS ALWAYS, WE’RE GONNA ABOUT CUTS. MAPPA LEFT OUT FALCO’S THOUGHTS ABOUT IT NOT BEING THE RIGHT TIME TO TELL GABI HE DELIVERED EREN’S LETTERS. THOUGHTS? 165 responses

There was a brief moment in the manga after Gabi’s misfortune with the horse where Falco thinks to himself about how he’s not yet ready to tell Gabi about his involvement in Eren’s attack on Liberio. 35.8% had completely forgotten this was a thing at all, while 24.2% felt it would have been a nice thing to keep, although ultimately unneeded. 20.6% feel it wasn’t a big deal since he tells her later anyway, and 9.7% feel that this thought of his will come up at a later time. 

I honestly forgot about it but it would have been really cool to see his thoughts in a better way, if that makes sense.

MAPPA ALSO CUT THE BEGINNING OF PIXIS AND YELENA’S CONVERSATION WHERE HE ASKS HER ABOUT HER CELL, TO WHICH SHE RESPONDS IT WOULD HAVE A BETTER VIEW WITHOUT THE BARS. THOUGHTS? 165 responses

Though a small detail, a few lines were cut from Pixis and Yelena’s conversation as well. 42.4% feel that it was unneeded and feel ok with the cut. 23% thought it wasn’t necessary to begin with, and 20.6% had completely forgotten about this as well. A handful didn’t care or feel saddened by less Yelena content. 

Maybe the actress wouldn’t come in to say one line l idk

I knew something was missing

HOW DOES IT FEEL GETTING TO RELIVE GABI’S EARLY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AGAIN? 167 responses

We get to reexperience Gabi’s evolution from a perpetuator of Marleyan propaganda to someone who learns to “understand Reiner’s feelings” and see that those she was taught to hate are just like her. 25.1% of respondents feel unbothered by her initial resistance to see things any other way as they know where her arc is headed. 22.2% were never annoyed by this facet of her character to begin with and are totally enjoying the ride. 15% love her but can’t help but feel frustrated by these early moments of her development. 13.8% have always felt annoyed by her character and so their feelings remain unchanged, and 10.8% simply stated that they had forgotten just how annoyed they felt by her at all in the early portion of this arc. 

It's annoying AF but looking back/knowing what I know now makes me more empathetic to her storyline. She still annoying AF rn, though.

Back then I was just antsy to get back to the other plot lines. But I’m enjoying this a LOT more this time around.

It's a mix of painful and Gabi I love you but you need sense knocked into you, ya know?

Always hated her, always will, nothing the anime does changes my hatred of her

To quote Eren, "I always hated you".

I feel bad for her, she doesn't deserve this

She’s so annoying but I found Eren just as annoying in the beginning and I grew into loving the character. The get the reasons for her character but boy yams really made her so fucking annoying

Gabi Braun Must Die

HOW DO YOU THINK GABI’S BELIEFS WOULD HAVE DEVELOPED HAD SHE BEEN THE ONE TO MEET EREN INSTEAD OF FALCO? 168 responses

The majority has spoken. 54.8% feel that if Gabi had been the one to encounter Eren at the hospital, her views would have mostly remained the same, as opposed to Falco who was probably a better person to put into that role narratively speaking. 24.4% don’t want to say for sure as there is no way we will ever know, and 14.3% feel that she would have had her views altered to a slight degree, but would still not have been as empathetic to Eren as Falco was.

DID KAYA TALKING ABOUT WANTING TO BE LIKE SASHA HAVE MORE EMOTIONAL IMPACT ON YOU WHEN INITIALLY READING IT IN THE MANGA, OR IN THE ANIME? 168 responses

Overall, the anime had a profound effect on the emotions of the audience. 36.9% state that they were equally impacted in both mediums, though if a side was chosen, 32.7% felt that the anime made the scene more impactful, versus only 19% who thought that Isayama nailed it better in the manga. Only 11.3% were unaffected by this scene in either medium.

PORCO AND PIECK GOT ADDED DIALOGUE IN THE ENDING SCENE, ARGUING THAT THEY MUST RETRIEVE GABI AND FALCO DUE TO THEM BEING VALUABLE WARRIOR CANDIDATES, AND THAT IT WOULD TAKE YEARS TO RETRAIN A NEW BATCH. WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THIS INCLUSION? 167 responses

MAPPA included dialogue of Porco and Pieck vouching for saving Gabi and Falco ASAP, arguing that they should get them for the sake of the warrior program and that losing their talent would be a blow, and it would take ages to train up new warrior candidates. This is most likely just their excuse to appeal to Magath while wanting to save Gabi and Falco because they care about them. 41.9% felt that their commentary added more depth to the situation and the urgency to retaliate against Paradis and get Gabi and Falco back. 28.1% were simply content to get more content of them. 18% weren’t super excited about it, just stating that it was alright, while 9.6% just felt “meh” about the addition. 

I like how they all piled on about the need to take immediate action

I want to say I enjoyed it and it added depth but thinking about it longer makes it sound like they only care about rescuing them only because their valuable warrior candidates. Like, it makes it seem like they don't actually care that much about them, even if I know that's not the case. LOL 

Any extra scene with Pieck is much appreciated!!

made me sad that they only see them as soldiers and not kids that need saving.

WHICH MOMENT FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 165 responses

The vast majority (65.5%) of manga readers are most excited to see Zackley blowing up in the anime (bye bye, poop machine!). At a distant second was seeing Eren his cell at 22.4%. Only 7.3% are looking forward to seeing Mikasa and Armin pleading with Zackley to see Eren, and Yelena and Pixis got minimal love. 

My memory is not working well, did Wit showed Zackleys poop machine or was it supposed to be shown in the next episode?

WE GOT CONFIRMATION THAT EPISODE 16 OF THIS SEASON IS GOING TO END ON CHAPTER 116. THOUGHTS? 159 responses

The plurality of respondents (42.8%) seemed a bit disappointed, but had no problem accepting this cliffhanger. 27% seemed rather displeased, but nonetheless were also understanding of MAPPA’s decision. In contrast, 10.7% looked back to the Promotional Video (which had content from up 122) and expressed their PAIN. 8.2% actually wanted the season to end on this cliffhanger, so they were rather pleased instead. We also received a lot of write-ins.  

There absolutely needs to be season part 2, i don't accept any early endings

I am... not sure yet.

As long as it means less cut content lmao

Don't really care much where it's gonna end. I just hope the pacing is good.

i read it ages ago idek which chapter 116 is

I want people to stop complaining about the trailer “lying to them”.  Also my anime only gf is going to be very frustrated with where episode 16 ends.

I thought it would end with 122 according to the preview and it would have been, IMO one of the best cliff hanger ever since all the logic of the plot turns around with revelation about Eren path shenangians. However, I think it's really fine since it allowed MAPPA to take its time to show us the story without making to much choices or compromise. It also means longer s4 part2 if there's one.

I dare you to stop at chapter 114 and fluster up all Levi fans

I am going to die waiting for Paths. 

I need to recheck chapter 116 I forgot about almost everything happened after ema encounter in 112 :D

I don't care as long as they all cover it eventually.

Chapter 119 would have been a better end, but well, I'm gradually learning to lower my expectations for this season

I just roll with whatever they give me xD only fearing Hange's farewell </3

:((((

both 122 and 116 are okay for me tbh

It's all fine to me

Someone explain this whole "ending on chapter 116" thing please

It should've been 117 :/

I was hoping for 119, but I get why they picked 116

WHAT ARE YOU MOST HOPING FOR AS A CONTINUATION? 169 responses

In a nearly unanimous vote, the large majority of respondents feel that the series is best wrapped up with a “part 2” of the final season over the potential for MAPPA to conclude things as a movie (or as movies). Hopefully we’ll have an answer from MAPPA on this front at the end of this run. :)

Another season or movie series works as long as they keep to the source material

I’m happy with either. 

I really really reeeeeeally hope it's not movies. I do not want movies! It would take literal years for fans outside of Japan to get a proper conclusion to the series. Last time people waited years for a season so many people stopped caring, moved on and the popularity took a huge hit it never recovered from. I'm worried that due to Demon Slayer's success they're gonna get greedy but SNK movies wouldn't even make a fraction of what Demon Slayer made. That series is a behemoth over there, it's insane. And I love SNK but Evangelion it is not, and people aren't going to wait and will lose interest. Just please, NO MOVIES!

Final Season Part 2 BUT with lots of time to adapt it

part two but don't call it part two XD.... let's stay in a hiatus for an anime season or 2. or more i don't care , i hope they have enough time to make the amazing job they are doing right now :) 

Series Spin-Off after Final Season Part 2 !!

A movie would be super sick but unrealistic

Whatever MAPPA decides is best

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

The scenery is a 10/10

gabi braun and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad island vacation. 

Gabi sucks

All hail the Eldian Empire

I thought it was overall really good and funny because of the scenes where falco and gabi were just arguing,, it didn’t have much blood and all but I still really liked it!

I never noticed this in the manga, but seeing gabi constantly almost give them away and falco anxiously making up excuses felt like watching reiner and bert again 😂 

Gabbbiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!! Kaya MVP btw.

Bless MAPPA for delivering on the shirtless scenes after we got robbed in Season 3. lol :p But seriously, this episode's scenery was gorgeous.

It was like the calm before the storm that's about to come with the next episode. Episode 71 will be when everything starts to violently turn

people should understand Gabi's character even more

I think Falco was very cute the whole time

Gabi beating that guard was way more brutal in the anime, but the scene of her slapping Lisa's hand away was badly done here.

It was a bit boring, but it was needed for character development

One thing I noticed about this episode is how heavily it featured female characters being influenced by other female characters/female characters in general (Louise and Mikasa; Kaya and Sasha; Kaya and Gabi; arguably Hange depending on how you identify them) which was a nice reminder that of the fact that AOT isn't one of those shows that falls heavily in the 'one token girl' dynamic. Isayama worked to include a wide variety of female characters with very differing outlooks, which clash occasionally, without it ever being about romance. 

Like most of this season (except episodes 1 and 7 maybe), I appreciate Mappa's work but that's all. I'm sad, disappointed, and I guess it's a good thing this season will end on chapter 116. Let's hope they will have enough time to adapt Part 2 and make it legendary, because this first part is good at best. Also, I totally forgot how annoying Gabi was back then. I really like her now, but geez, she was awful this episode.

Felt good to see Gabi get horsebite all over again. Can't wait to see how MAPPA extends Nicolo punching her lol

cool episode, i’m looking forward to seeing more of gabi’s development in the future episodes :))

The horror of mikasa's newly resignified memory... PERFECT. i was fearing they would use wit's romanticized scene... which worked just fine in the first season BUT NOT NOW! because the whole connotation of the memory is different. ALSO! the scenery was insane! 

Horse for President!

Damn, MAPPA's killing it on the scenery this episode. I really enjoyed the animation as well as the plot and voice acting.

In spite of the animation quality I had to give it an obligatory 1 because it was a Gabi episode, and anything involving Gabi automatically decreases the overall quality of the story

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 156 responses

Thank you again to everyone who participated!

[crossdressingdeath]

(1/3) It always amuses me how stans try to justify JC actions by his abusive upbringing while there were 3 children in that family and both others turned very kind and/or very moral and not at all like JC (and frankly, he didn't even have the hardest position in the dysfunctional dynamic). Or LXC and LWJ whose upbringing was even more screwed up with a LQ who was certainly playing favorites and wanting perfection, and yet this never draw a wedge between them or created any jealousy.

(2/3)LXC loves for LWJ to excel! Same with "but JC had it so hard rebuilding Lotus Pier, WWX was goofing off with the Wens"...JC was paying people to do that for him, yes, while WWX was trying to start from scratch a settlement over a mountain of corpses with a bunch of weak or old people and not to die of hunger comes winter. While separated from all his friends and hated as a monster by the cultivation world. "But JC was so lonely during the 13/16y, so that justifies him lashing out" And WWX

(3/3) was dead, killed by his brother and thinking that there was not a person left on his side in the end, and yet, that didn't make him act like a dick? Or athg else really, because everything that JC went through in the past, WWX did also, but in a worse way because he lost his parents young, lived in the streets, didn't have JC societal privilege or money and has to harness an unstable necromancy practice on top of that. And yet no one uses it as arguments to explain his actions, only for JC 

Honestly? While none of the Jiang kids were in a good position, out of the three of them... JC did have it the easiest. It was still awful for him, don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting his childhood didn’t suck, but given it was made very clear to JYL that her only purpose was to be married off to JZX so her mother could tie her bloodline to her best friend’s and WWX was treated like a servant at best... Yeah. If I had to pick, I’d choose having a distant father and dealing with a mother who’s constantly emotionally abusive over having a distant father and dealing with a mother who’s constantly emotionally abusive and being treated like a bargaining chip/treated like a servant and/or bastard and being whipped for actions that would get the rest of the clan a lecture at worst. Again, I’m not saying JC didn’t have it bad, but his siblings having it worse is... interesting, given neither of them decided to be dicks to Literally Everyone over it.

I do have to say, even though this is about JC, there’s nothing suggesting LQR was playing favourites with LXC and LWJ. He was strict, yes, probably stricter than he should’ve been, and LXC probably did get more one-on-one interaction with him, but given LXC was going to be sect leader/became sect leader at a young age that makes sense. This is not super important to the point of this post, but I do find it odd how often people make LQR out to be this horrible person who’s always awful to his nephews because he’s Strict when we... don’t actually know anything about how he raised them. I don’t like him all that much, and he probably didn’t do a fantastic job of raising them, but the man did try, and he clearly wants his nephews to be safe and happy (even though he has inaccurate views of what that entails...), and given how the parents/parental figures of the cast generally act he deserves some credit for that. Also the Twin Jades ended up considerably better-adjusted than most of their age group, which... isn’t saying much all things considered but it does say something. If nothing else neither of them seem to feel actively unsafe around him, so he’s definitely not the worst parental figure in this novel.

...I had a surprising number of thoughts on LQR there. Whoops, sorry about the tangent. Maybe I’ll make a post about him at some point. Anyway, yeah, LXC and LWJ clearly adore each other! LXC would be delighted if LWJ surpassed him at something! Same with Nie bros; they argue a lot, but there’s no denying that they love each other. That’s what insults and threats out of love look like; NMJ threatens NHS all the time, but NHS clearly isn’t all that bothered by it until JGY starts fucking with NMJ’s mind and the threats become more serious, which really isn’t NMJ’s fault. It’s because in the other sibling relationships both parties are invested in staying close. They love each other and want to be close for the rest of their lives! Meanwhile JC is obsessed with WWX outperforming him at Literally Everything, and WWX genuinely believes that JC is allowed to treat him the way he does and it’s fine and healthy.

And yeah, JC wasn’t exactly rebuilding Lotus Pier all by his lonesome with his own two hands. In fact, going by what we see all the rebuilding was done well before WWX left! And I don’t doubt for a second that WWX was involved in that process; I have very mixed feelings about the scene in CQL where he blows off his duties to go and get drunk, because on the one hand it does do a good job of showing just how bad his mental state is getting (and how JC refuses to acknowledge it despite WWX obviously being Not Okay), but on the other hand... I just can’t see WWX not throwing himself into helping JC with everything he’s got even while his mental state is coming crashing down around him. I mean, this is the guy who created an incredibly powerful weapon that even he couldn’t fully control, not knowing what using it would do to him, to help his brother win a war. I’m pretty much certain that WWX ran himself into the ground helping JC rebuild and run the sect... then when he found himself in charge of a small group of desperate people, scrambling to keep them fed and clothed and healthy, JC just abandoned him to deal with it on his own.

And the whole “Oh, but JC was so lonely, don’t you feel bad for him?” shtick. I hate it so much. If he didn’t want to be lonely, he should’ve considered that before alienating everyone in his age group and leading an army to murder his brother, the only person left who was willing to put up with him! It’s... really hard to feel bad for someone who’s brought most of their suffering on themselves through a series of generally shitty and frequently downright cruel actions with easily foreseeable consequences. If he got sick of being alone, he should’ve apologized to his peers for being a dick to... literally all of them and tried to make amends and strike up some sort of relationship. Or, if that didn’t work, go out! Meet new people! Try not to be as awful to them! Also, he’s a sect leader. If he couldn’t even maintain a positive relationship with other sect leaders, people who, let me remind you, he has to work with on a regular basis and several of whom are actually nice and friendly people, that is on him. If you are awful to people you will end up alone. And then JC decided to respond to learning that the people he was a dick to every time he saw them (and, in LWJ and NHS’s cases, caused the death of someone they cared about) wanted nothing to do with him... by whining about how lonely he was as if that wasn’t largely his fault. Like, he lost his family and that’s awful, but he could have had friends to help him through his grief, and it’s his own damn fault that he doesn’t.

WWX’s life was miserable. He had plenty of friends, yeah, but he spent years on the streets after his parents died brutal deaths; was raised in a family where he was treated like a servant and a scapegoat; lost everything in an event he was blamed for despite having nothing to do with the attack; had to sacrifice his incredibly powerful golden core (thereby losing his primary means of defending himself while on the run and drastically shortening his lifespan) to keep his brother from letting himself die; was thrown into a corpse pit for three months where he had to create an entirely new and experimental (and as such incredibly dangerous) form of cultivation and probably resort to cannibalism just to survive; had to fight a war almost immediately after escaping; spent a... good portion of time (not sure how long exactly because the MDZS timeline is more a suggestion than an actual coherent timeline) being treated alternately as a tame pet or a rabid animal and having to pretend everything was just fine while everyone tried to either control him or remove him and his brother very obviously got increasingly resentful of his skill and power; had to abandon his home, his family, and everything he had left of his old life to save a bunch of innocent people while everyone, including his brother, acted like he’d gone mad for not wanting to let them die horribly; had to go back to the corpse pit he spent three months in because it was the only place where they might be safe; accidentally killed his brother-in-law due to losing control after being ambushed on the way to a celebration for his nephew that he was invited to by people he trusted, almost certainly making him wonder on at least some level if that was why he was invited; lost two members of his new family who he clearly loved because of said accidental murdering; learned their deaths were for nothing and, when he retaliated against the planned attack that shouldn’t have happened because that’s what WQ and WN gave their lives to prevent, saw his beloved sister die to save him; and, after all that, lost the rest of his new family to a siege on a civilian population led by his brother. And after all that, his response was... to destroy the incredibly dangerous weapon he’d made because he didn’t trust the sects to not destroy each other and themselves with it and kill himself rather than risk losing control again and hurting anyone else. In the novel too; I don’t doubt for a second that WWX planned on dying in that siege, even if he didn’t expect destroying the seal to do it.

Take a look at that paragraph. All those things that happened to WWX. And in the end, he was kind. He was so, so kind, and remains kind even after thirteen years of being dead. He would have been well within his rights to go all “Then let me be evil” on the sects, but every time he attacked them they struck first, and most of the serious damage he did happened as a direct result of losing control of his experimental and mostly unknown new cultivation, which is a real risk even with spiritual cultivation; NMJ probably would have happily killed everyone in Qinghe if the qi deviation hadn’t gotten to him first, given how easy it was for him to attack even his beloved little brother. Everything bad that happened to JC is on that list, pretty much. Everything that JC suffered WWX did too, with some variations in the details (and of course dead versus alone for the same period of time). JC had the advantage of a sect at his back and a high rank by virtue of his birth, while WWX’s position was entirely reliant on JFM and, later, JC. And yet some people insist that WWX’s trauma doesn’t excuse his actions but JC’s somehow does. Now, some people argue it’s different because WWX was a mass murderer. Yeah, well, JC’s a fucking serial killer, and he doesn’t have the excuse of losing control due to using resentful energy to cultivate and being attacked by everyone he’d ever known and trusted.

...I’ve kind of lost track of where I’m going with this. Short version: I very strongly disagree with anyone who insists WWX’s trauma doesn’t excuse his actions while bending over backwards to argue that JC’s trauma excuses his.

[littlemisssquiggles]

So ...about "The Warrior in the Woods"...

Okay so this morning, this squiggle meister took a read at a preview for one of the stories that would be featured in the upcoming RWBY: Fairy Tales of Remnant set to release this year September 15th. It’s titled “The Warrior in the Woods”. If you haven’t read the small preview of the tale for yourself, you can find it right here on kobo.com where you can also preorder a digital copy of the book.

Speaking of, does anyone know where one can preorder a hardcopy version of this book? Or do I have to wait till it comes out in September to order the hard copy version then? Of all the upcoming RWBY-related projects that I was most looking forward to, it’s definitely this one and I’d definitely love to own a tangible copy of the book for myself if it’s available.

Anyways let’s talk about “The Warrior in the Woods” story specifically. Obviously I read it and without spoiling much from the short story, all I can say is that I definitely loved it. I think right out the gate, I’m going to peg this one as one of my favourites of the fairy tales purely because I found it to be a rather sweet one.

[SPOILERS AHEAD! NUFF SAID]

Plot-wise, the tale focuses on a young boy who ends up getting lost in the woods after wandering out too far from his home village while out playing with his friends. Basically the gist is that the people of this boy’s village have lived in peace away from the Grimm; so much so that the villagers; as well as its youths had never encountered a creature of Grimm before.

While lost in the forest, the boy is attacked by a Bolbatusk Grimm (I believe) during which he is rescued by a woman with silver eyes. In a nutshell, the boy is saved by a Silver Eyed Warrior which leads into a routine where every year from the day they met, the young boy would always return to the forest in the hopes of meeting the Silver Eyed Warrior again.

Let’s get into what I liked about this tale:  The whole relationship between the young boy and the Silver Eye who I will hereby refer to as “Warrior”. From the get-go, it’s very evident that the Boy is infatuated with the Warrior but what I found adorable was that this boy’s interest in the Warrior was what encouraged him to brave the forest in the hopes of seeing her time and time again for two to three more years (I believe if I’m remembering correctly). And what I thought was interesting was that each time the boy ventured into the forest, he was described as being much braver and stronger than previous encounters.

During his first encounter with the Warrior, the boy was completely powerless during his first run in with a Grimm but as the years went by, the boy would learn from his experiences and would go in a little more prepared each time. While he still needed the Warrior to come to his aid (which she always did in spite of saying she wouldn’t save him and telling him never to return), I definitely dug how much the boy began to mature with each time he met the Warrior as reflected in his growing combat competency.

I liked the angle of the Boy being motivated to become a stronger person thanks to his meeting with the Warrior. I liked that just as much as I love the angle of how much the Warrior in turn grew to care for the Boy in her own way.

When we first meet the Warrior, she described as strong and beautiful (by the Boy) yet hardened and reserved due to her past experiences since according to her story, her kind were known to be hunted and slain by humans because of their power (as we the readers are aware of from the main series as of V4-V6).

So due to this, the Warrior has basically settled into a life of solitude and survival. This is even reflected in her initial attitude towards the Boy since after saving him the first time, she warned him never to return again.

Unfortunately for the Warrior, she had underestimated the Boy’s persistence since he did return to her and each time they’d meet in the woods upon her saving him, the young boy would bring her gifts as a token of his appreciation and fondness of her as well as a symbol of their growing bond.

And in spite of pushing him away at first and all the times they would “meet” afterwards, I liked how it was shown how much the Boy had grown on the Warrior and how his compassion had warmed him up to her to the point that I think she began looking forward to seeing him in a way---or rather she expected him to always return to her in a sense.

Until one year when the boy returned to woods, he would find his Warrior gone. Whether that meant the warrior had eventually met her fate or simply moved on, I don’t know. It is of my assumption that the Warrior was ultimately killed in battle. The ending of story in regards to the Warrior’s fate felt a bit ambiguous to me. The story mentioned the possibility of the Warrior being dead but honestly never confirms it. Not really. So for me, I’m only assuming that the Warrior did die since that’s how the tale left her conclusion.

Now for the real meat of this post---the comparison that I’ve already seen my Rosegardening peers make after reading this tale and now I’m going to chip in and basically say the same thing too. 

Yes, the Boy and the Warrior definitely remind me of Oscar Pine and Ruby Rose. 

It’s actually kind of hard to NOT make that stark comparison.

After finishing the tale, my theory is that the Boy was probably around the same age as Oscar is currently when he first met the Warrior. Probably 14-15 years of age and I’d like to think that he was probably 17-18 years old by his third and last encounter with the Warrior since later in the story, the author began referring to the boy as a “young adult man” (I believe).  

As for the age of the Warrior, that one has me stumped to be honest. In the story, she is described as “woman”. I also recall the author describing the Warrior having strands of silver in her hair which made me think she was probably a much older woman---probably in her 40s.

Then again…women in their late 20s to early 30s can start showing signs of grey hair. Not to mention that people as young as 18 can start greying out due to family background and stress. 

So…in that case, I dunno. Going off the featured artwork of the Warrior in the preview, she doesn’t look to be that old at all. So I’m going to safely assume, that compared to the Boy, she was probably in her late 20s or so.  

That’s my cookie crumb deduction.

Either way, here we have yet a second example of a RWBY content featuring an adolescent male expressing romantic interest in an older woman with the writers behind the tale treating this dynamic as something wholesome and rather quite sweet. I would be lying through my teeth if I said I wasn’t rooting for the Boy and the Warrior to end up together-together.  I am NOT sorry. My hopeless romantic of a shipping heart couldn’t help but find the boy’s interactions with his Warrior to be adorable since the story treated it that way.

It’s for this reason why despite the story’s ending, a part of me is still kind of hopeful that the preview isn’t the whole story for that specific tale; y’know what I mean? Like I’m kind of hoping that once the full book is out, there will be more to the Warrior in the Woods story that potentially reveals the young boy and the Warrior reuniting and having their happy ending together.

I could be completely wrong here but dagnabbit, they got me again folks. Not gonna lie. I want this now. I need Roosterteeth to adapt this book into a new animated series like World of Remnant. These characters don’t even have names and already I adore their bond and story together.

Overall, as you can tell, I’m smitten with the relationship between the Boy and his Warrior. And the ending where the boy; now a man, professes his love for his Warrior since the day they met only made me gush even more over this pair. In the squiggle shire, we stan “A Boy and his Warrior”. That’s what I’m going to call this pair.

I guess the point that I’m trying to make here is that it’s nice to see a love---even if it was unrequited in a sense---between a young man and an older woman be treated respectfully in literature. We live in a time when people would screech over the slightest age difference while ignoring the context of the relationship itself.

Though only a short story, I’m happy that the author of Fairy Tales of Remnant portrayed the rapport between the Boy and his Warrior as a sweet relationship.

It’s here where I’m reminded of the Rosegarden dynamic. For the most part, the CRWBY Writers have always treated the bond between Ruby and Oscar as wholesome. It’s what makes the arguments against it in regards to their small 2-year age different sound so silly in my opinion.

So that being said, thank you CRWBY and E.C. Myers for creating yet another sweet dynamic between a young adolescent teenage boy and an otherwise “older” and much more experienced Silver Eyed Warrior.

“…I wish I could have been there for her,” he said slowly, “the way she was there for us.” If she was dead, she had died alone.

“Why did you keep going back there, year after year?” a village woman asked him. “Because she saved you?”

“For that reason, and for many more,” he said slowly. “But I believe she knew the deepest reason of all.”

The group waited. He gazed into the fire.

“I fell in love with her the moment I saw her silver eyes.”

- “The Warrior in the Woods” | Fairy Tales of Remnant by E.C Myers 

 I would like to say more about this story but I’m afraid right now, all I can give are my first impressions. In a way, my mind is all a tizzy with how much this tale got me thinking in respect to the growth and potential future of the Rosegarden relationship.

I’m not trying to imply that I’m taking this as a sign of their endgame. Nah. That would be too premature of me. But it did get me thinking and excited for them in respect to Oscar’s continued development.

I think what I loved and enjoyed the most out of this tale is how much the Boy reminded me of my favourite little prince and how his endearing love for his Warrior made me think of how much Oscar looks to Ruby as someone to believe in and perhaps, even fall in love with.

And what got me the most was the line about the Boy wishing he could’ve been there for his Warrior the same way she had been there for him and by extension the people of his village.

That line hit me deep since that’s exactly how Ruby has been with Oscar from the moment the two met!

Out of everyone amongst the hero team, Ruby has supported Oscar the most from the start. She’s always stood by him. Looked out for him. Protected him and believed in him or supported him even when others were reluctant about that.

She was the first person to mention how brave he is in spite of his fears. And above all else, Ruby inspired Oscar to be a stronger person. Not just for himself and the huntsmen in his care; like his teammates. But for her.

The Boy was inspired by the Warrior to become a stronger man, not just for himself but also the people of his village. Not only that but I loved how the young man even wanted to be strong enough to support his Warrior too

“…I wish I could have been there for her,” he said slowly, “the way she was there for us.”

I love that. I love that line because it reminds me of everything I’ve been saying about Oscar and his inspiration from the Little Prince.

What was the lesson the Fox taught the Prince? Love and responsibility. To be responsible for the people who love and support you just as much as you love and support them.

I got the same vibe from this story from the relationship between the Boy and the Warrior. The sad reality is that the Boy never got a chance to be there entirely for his Warrior and thus she was believed to have died alone; never truly knowing the whole truth of how much she meant to him and how much he loved her.

This is a parallel that I’m hoping for in V8 in respect to Oscar’s side of the story with him on his own in Mantle with only Oz. I’m hoping that during his journey back to Atlas; Oscar comes to terms with his feelings for Ruby. What would even be amazing is if at some point, the tale of the Warrior in the Woods is brought to life and told in the main series.

I would absolutely love it if at some point Oz would tell Oscar the Tale of the Warrior in the Woods when the little prince starts thinking about his rose. Even better, what if…“The Warrior in the Woods” is how Oscar learns the “Fox’s lesson to the Little Prince”?

Imagine if…Oz, fairy tale and it through hearing that story and learning of the Boy’s dedication to his Warrior that it helps Oscar realize how much Ruby means to him!

Overall, what I’m mainly anticipating is for Oscar to come to terms with his true deepest feelings for Ruby. For me, I would love it if Oscar really is no different than the Boy in the fairy tale. 

What would even be more of a trip is if Oscar is a descendant of the Boy or meets someone in his travels who is related to that boy in the tale and it’s a story and lesson that’s been passed down throughout their family for generations.

I know that might be pushing it a little bit but it’s not a bad concept. Either that or…Oz is the one who tells Oscar the Tale of the Warrior in the Woods. It would make sense for Oscar to hear that tale through Oz since, ironically, isn’t he the one who compiled the Fairy Tales from Remnant book? Correct me if I’m wrong. I know his notes are a feature of the book.

Anyways,  either way, I want to see Oscar realize how much he loves Ruby and it’s his love for her that further fuels his drive to support and protect her.

The Boy never got his chance to be there to protect his Warrior. While he kept her legacy alive through her story, the sad truth is the Warrior died alone never knowing how the Boy felt for her.

This is something I’m expecting NOT to be repeated with Rosegarden. I want to see Oscar promise to Ruby that he will always be there for her; fighting by her side for the cause they both believe him: Saving humanity. And above all else, I want to see Oscar realize his love for his rose in the hopes of one day telling her that to her face.

While I don’t know if we’ll have Ruby return Oscar’s feelings. Regardless, this is what I’m anticipating to see at least for Oscar’s side of things and this fairy-tale gave me more believe for that. Then again, it’s just a story and only time will really tell for what the CRWBY Writers have in store for V8. But a squiggle meister can wonder and hope, right?

In the meantime, like I said, I’m excited for the official release of Fairy Tales of Remnant.

I don’t plan on reading any more of the previewed stories though. I don’t know about some folks, but for this squiggle meister, I more want to wait till the book is out so I can hopefully get a hard copy because I do want to own the book itself.

That way I can read it through, make notes of things and always have that stuff on hand when I want to make a point of analysis for future musings and headcanon posts. Plus I really want that book. This is one of the sure-fire times where RoosterTeeth will actually get my money. (Still waiting patiently on dem Oscar merch though).

So with that being said, I think “The Warrior in the Woods” will be the ONLY story preview I will read and talk about for now.

I know there are previews for the other stories available but I’d rather not read them now. I think I’ll wait for the full book to go through and give my official thoughts then. We’ll see. Until then, this is all I got to say for now folks.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

[thatyanderecritic]

i really like the yandere dynamic but i dont openly post or reblog about it anymore cuz i've had people give me a hard time over it being problematic. and i get told im terrible, get called a freak... idk. do you have any advice for dealing with this...?

Hey anon, sorry for not getting to you sooner. We have a lot of questioned queued up to be answered but I decided to put you first since this is a pretty big issue. 

To be a yandere fan, we’re in a rather precarious position. Like any fandom, we are plagued with bad apples that end up painting the community’s face as a whole. You know the type of bad apples that all fandoms have: the overzealous stans that either attack those outside the community for not sharing a view or catering to our fandom. We also suffer from infighting/bullying between yandere fans because not everyone shares the same views on what a yandere is or even for something as stupid as a yandere headcanon for a character that never was a yandere, to begin with. But unlike most fandoms, the works that we support tend to go against us at times. That is to say... since we’re a bit of an under “funded” (e.g. don’t have enough yandere media. Especially for male yanderes) fandom, people tend to quickly put CrAzY characters on a pedestal without question. And this hurts our credibility, ALOT.  Having group within the fandom worshipping some non-yandere, psychotic girl as a yandere just because she’s kawaii while the more “sane” fans try to explain, “No, we swear yandere’s aren’t like that” doesn’t look good for our case. 

Is there anything we can do about people attacking us for our preference? Not exactly, I’m sorry to say. The moment humans gained self-awareness and free will, universal mental unity became a myth. There will always be a disconnect, even on concepts that all humans should be in agreement on. Would you believe me if I say that some people don’t believe that people should be allowed to have a livable wage? Of course, people will have their reasons as to why they think a certain way regardless if it sounds logical or not. Just because they have a reason doesn’t mean it’s reasonable but in a world where emotions is king, logical will never win.

People who attack you for liking yanderes most likely were victims of abuse and went through some sort of trauma that yanderes are usually identified/linked with. If they weren’t direct victims then they know someone who is a victim. And if it isn’t either of these two, then they’re most likely a bleeding heart with a “higher than thou” sense of morality. Regardless of the reasoning, they all have their hearts in the right places but rigid in their perspective of the world. Already, the decision is cemented and may never change. To most, we’re as egregious as pedophiles and incest-lovers just because we like villains. After all: “How in the world could anyone remotely ‘like’ such awful people?! Clearly, there is something wrong with THEM.” Of course, we have our reasons for liking yanderes but most people close their ears and eyes since they already judged us based on our interest. For those who were victims of abuse or know someone, I understand that they’re reaching out to attack those who seem to defend characters that may or may not be similar to their assailant/abuser. They attack, they defend invisible victims, and in a way, looking for purpose... looking at how they can turn their trauma into a positive. But most of the time, they overstep their boundaries and try to enforce their authority in something they don’t understand. 

The only way we can approach these types of people is to send an open invitation for a diplomatic talk in trying to reach a middle ground. While a change of opinion would be nice, it would be nearly impossible since a lot of people are grounded in their personal moral compass. If they are open for a conversation, then all hope is not lost. Ideally, if a conversation is open then the most important thing is to validate their emotions invested in this situation. 9 out of time 10, people are stubborn in an argument because they feel like they’re getting personally targeted either by their identity, their pride, or their emotions. Therefore, they double down and become louder in their argument, not because of their view but because they believe they are defending themselves. From there, once the other recognize that you aren’t attacking them, you shift the conversation onto yourself and point out how they were making you feel the same away but they were actively attacking you; not only that, treating you as less than human just because you prefer villainous FICTIONAL characters. Ideally, at this point, the other recognizes their hypocrisy and you both agree in staying in your own lanes. If by some miracle they’re open of a different perspective, then you’re given a platform to say why you like yanderes... typical reasons being the idea of unconditional love or coping. 

But this is all hypothetical and the most desirable outcome. But more than often, people are more than comfortable at screaming at you every time you try to open your mouth... most likely something they learned because someone shut them down in such a way. Not only that, they most likely formed their own counter-arguments already since a lot of yandere fans have the same reasons as to why they like yanderes: unconditional love or coping. The counter-argument can usually be boiled down to two reasons: unethical and risking future victims seeking a “yandere” partner. Ethicality... this is a low hanging fruit to argue. Everyone (well the majority of people, again it’s universally impossible to be on the same page) would agree that it’s bad to stalk a person. Even a yandere fan would say never to stalk a person IRL. But because of this, they think they got you in an “ethical checkmate”. It’s a cheap argument and they’re just trying to make you feel like a monster for your preferences in fictional characters. Funny enough, this is a tactic that abusers would use to shame their victim into compliance... hm...

The second counter-argument people use is “think of the youths!” Let’s be real... it’s scientifically proven that kids and teens are easily impressionable because of their underdeveloped brains and lack of experience. Not only the concerns of the younger members of society, they fear that by allowing us to enjoy our media, we are “normalizing” abusive relationships in society. Considering the state of the United State’s government, I understand where the fear is coming from. But they’re barking up the wrong tree and especially using the wrong method in preventing this dystopian future. I always see these people bring up the ‘Jaws’ case as to why there should be no yanderes and no support for them. You know, the case where there was a sudden increase in shark hunting due to public fear which pushed certain shark species into endangerment. It’s always this argument, I swear... anyways, they always toss this without never diving in deeper as to why this happened. 

Before Jaws, people didn’t know anything about sharks in general. There just wasn’t any interest in sharks because we humans just didn’t find time interesting at the time. They were there and we can’t really eat sharks. But, there were already tales about sharks being “man-eaters” from those stranded out at sea or curious citizens. The stereotype was already there. But Jaws brought sharks to the forefront of public scrutiny and shark hunting competitions came up because “what’s the harm? Sharks are man-eaters”. This dropped the shark population, but because of this there was an interest in sharks, funding to research them suddenly increased. Scientist turned their attention on sharks while later on fed to informing the public, making them educated and less scared of shark attacks. Jaws came out in 1975... Shark Week on the discovery channel came out in 1988... there’s a reason, folks. People became interested in sharks. Yes, Jaws hurt the shark population but it’s slowly been going up. Damage takes time to repair. But it also brought about awareness. While the stereotype isn’t dead (that’s just humans at this point and it’s always been a stereotype ever since man was on a boat), it opened a conversation. And that’s the key point here. (Here’s a link. But you can go even further if you research)

Abusive relationships, manipulative people, toxic actions... these are nothing new. “Getting rid” of yandere fans will not solve this issue, just like telling your kid “there are kids starving in Africa” will not end world hunger. For the Jaws example, I point to the argument that politicians make about how video games create violent people. We know that it’s nonsense, you know it’s nonsense. But there is a fear of the “unknown”. People back then thought that cartoons like Tom and Jerry would cause kids to grow up violent. And even further back, people thought that reading books created lazy people. The fear on what’s on TV is a fear people had since the beginning of time. People aren’t as soft as they believe they are but they can lack information... Instead of shutting down people and censor what goes on TV, use it as a stepping stone for the bigger conversation. It’s a lack of knowledge and fear of the unknown that killed the sharks but it is knowledge that is now protecting them. 

This is especially important for our younger peers. Raise of hands, who actually changed their minds as a teenager after someone called you stupid or told you “no” with giving a logical reason besides “because I say so.” I’m going to guess we got an empty room here. Attacking our younger peers or those who are older just because they like a character trope IS NOT HELPING THEM AND ESPECIALLY NOT MAKING THE ATTACKERS LOOK LIKE HEROES. THEY LOOK LIKE JACKASSES. Fuck man, the younger ones want acceptance and looking a supportive group by joining a fandom. Calling them toxic just pushes them to the edge these people never wanted them to be. The same applying to the older ones. We all got our issues and y’all never know what it is. That’s why I hate seeing people in our fandom gatekeep against our younger peers. They’re going to come in even though you say crap like “Lmaooo, my blog/game is 18+! Okay, byeeeee!” If you want to protect them then be their fucking guide, my dudes. You can have a mature conversation with them and explain the difference between fiction and reality and what’s wrong and right. “Yanderes are pretty cool, ay sport? But notice how that guy gaslighted the girl? That is a common tactic people do IRL. Be sure to recognize it as a red flag.” Fuck, is that so fucking hard for everyone? Some people act like they never grew on the internet during the early 2000s.Y’all were a teenager once. If what you’re doing wouldn’t help teenage you in the past, then you’re doing it wrong. Smh. 

Finally, I do want to make a point for those who use coping reasons. While I do understand where you’re coming from, you guys are our most vulnerable to these attacks but also the reason for the attacks as well. It’s the mindset of “How could you support something like this?! You must be a horrible person.” I know a lot of people aren’t like that but also, we got bad apples... people who take this for coping reasons way too far. To them, I ask them to come back from the edge and let’s look for help together. Using yanderes to embrace “yandere tendencies” or rationalizing your abuse as normal isn’t the way. Use it to help you breathe and help you feel grounded but don’t let it define you... especially don’t make it a lifeline. As for those who know the difference and can separate fiction from reality, I applaud you but you got some work in helping those who are too deep. I’ve seen some of the yandere Tumblr group chats on the app. I’ll be real... YIKES. It’s a bit of an echo chamber. I ended up having to message a user on a side since I saw red flags in the group chat when I was lurking. People were trying to give the wrong help by encouraging their actions. Just... don’t do this y’all. I get you relate but don’t get your homie in jail or a court date for a restraining order. 

Anyways, I’m sorry anon for pulling farther and farther away from you specifically since this is a big issue that everyone tackles and I’m also sorry that I can’t give you an “end all” answer. First, you can try having a civil conversation with these people. Try for the middle ground and if you feel like you can push further, then try to do a change of mind. But I know this is hard, especially when tensions build and emotions get heated. But it’s important to never explode that anger... or at least direct that anger into a logical response. The moment you explode and made an error of judgment, you will lose and suffer publically. If a conversation isn’t possible, then encourage these people to stay in their lane and unfollow you. Why the fuck are they following you if they hate the things you reblog? Sounds unhealthy... suggest some hobbies or blogs to follow instead. From there, if they try to continue the hate, just block them and delete the messages. As they say, don’t feed the trolls. Y’all may think you’ve seen all the hate anons we get but we get a lot more than what we answer. We just delete them because they’re typically incoherent or stupid. They don’t come back lol. 

From there, anon, surround yourself with people who you find agreeable and who you relate to. A lot of yandere blogs are down for a talk, I’ll be real. Just be sure you open up that you want to be friends lol. So... yeah. I’m sorry this isn’t perfect, but I hope it helps. Don’t be afraid of being yourself!

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

I Need to Talk About “Problematic Faves” within TWDG [1/?]

You know what I love about TWDG and its characters...? 

How flawed they all are.

I’m not talking that they’re flawed in the stupid “My biggest problem is that I love too gosh darn much!” or “My defining character flaw is that I’m super clumsy lolz!” I mean that practically every single character we’ve met across these games has done at least one terribly awful thing. 

That includes all of our favorite characters. 

It doesn’t matter who your favorite character is. They have done at least one terrible thing within these games, if not many. 

This can include theft, murder, assault, using racist slurs/being racist in general, different acts of violence using weapons, verbal abuse, lying, sacrificing others for themselves, property damage, assisting in suicide, abandonment, and many other things that potentially result in the harm of others or themselves. 

We don’t like to think that our favorite character could ever do any of these things, or if they did, they have an excuse for why they did it.

Take Clementine for example. We all love Clementine. We’ve all been with her since the beginning, we’ve all watched her grow, and we’ve all morphed her into the person she is by the time s4 ends. 

But when you look at Clementine, as well as some of her actions and behaviors across the series, through a completely unbiased lens, it’s not hard to throw a certain overused word at her. 

“Problematic”

Clementine has killed several people. Most of them were in defense, but there are certain kills that are hard to defend or justify. 

My favorite example to use is when she shot the asshole who traded her bad bullets then asked Javi to lie for her. It’s easy to say, “Well, she didn’t mean to do it! She thought the bullets wouldn’t fire! Besides, that guy WAS the asshole who sold her the bad batteries and attacked her!”

Okay, fine. But that doesn’t mean diddly squat. 

Clementine knows better than to point a gun at someone she doesn’t have any intention of shooting. That was one of the first lessons Lee taught her, and it’s even a lesson she taught Sarah in s2. Clementine pointed the gun at him and fired anyway, which is WHY he got up and ended up attacking Javi. Then, Clementine shot the gun again, but this time it actually fired and killed him. She knew she fucked up, but the deed was done and she murdered that man. 

Clementine is just one of many characters who we could throw that phrase “Problematic Fave” at. At the end of the day, I could argue that every single favorite character within TWDG would fall into this category at some level, whether it be low or high. 

Even characters who we baby like “Oh precious child who has never done anything wrong in their life!” have an argument that can be made against them. 

Well, okay, except Rosie.

Rosie is the one exception I’ll allow. Even though she’s not a person, she’s a dog, but I still consider her a character. 

But, Clementine’s different. She’s our protagonist, therefore, it’s much easier to explain her actions or make excuses for what she does. Hell, a good chunk of her actions are made by us, so if she does something “wrong,” then we’re to blame for making that choice as her, further developing her character with the use of that choice. 

What about the characters who aren’t our playable protagonists? 

What about the major and side characters who have made poor decisions? The characters that we’ve thrown this label of “Problematic Fave” at more than others? The characters we’d consider “villains,” or in the very least “antagonistic.” 

What about the characters under those labels that we end up loving, and even defending, despite the terrible things they’ve done or said? Despite groups of others in the community saying that it’s wrong to like these characters?

Today I want to talk about those characters who are higher on the “Problematic Fave” tier list, and get to the bottom of WHY we love them. 

It’s not wrong for us to like these characters. 

Let’s get that out of the way right off the bat.

It’s not wrong to enjoy or love an antagonist, or a morally complex/gray character. I argue that everyone has an antagonist that they love, whether it be within the twdg universe or otherwise. 

I’m not here to shame anyone for liking a character who happened to be labeled under this “Problematic Fave” term by others who like to throw it around to start fights. 

If anything, I’m letting know that it’s totally okay to love these characters as long as you’re being safe about it. As in, you’re not excusing these bad behaviors while acting like these unhealthy things are okay when they’re clearly not.

Now... maybe you’re wondering WHY this is something that I feel I NEED to talk about. What brought this up and whatnot. 

I need to talk about this because I have a problematic fave and it’s bothered me for a long time. 

Before I get started, we should all be on the same page of what defines a “Problematic Fave,” since it’s a phrase that I’ll use throughout this whole thing.

 If you go to Google and search this term, this is the definition it’ll bring up: 

Very vague. And when I asked you guys:

It’s an easy enough term to understand. We all get the general idea. 

The problem is, like I mentioned before, every single character within this TWDG universe is problematic at some point. They’ve all said hurtful things, they’ve done hurtful things.... it’s the apocalypse! 

But there are a handful of characters who end up getting this thrown at them WAY more than any other characters. Not just “villain” characters either, like the St. Johns or Lilly, but characters who seem to have more gray coloring to them, those who are more antagonistic, who make more poor decisions, who get others killed or hurt, who display unhealthy behaviors. Those who we can’t quite put our fingers on if they are “good” or “bad.”

I’m sure that at least one character has popped in your brain as you’ve read thus far.

Let’s talk about the popular ones:

Kenny 

In my opinion, Kenny is... well, he's problematic. Whether you love or hate him, you have to admit that a lot of his actions over the course of seasons 1 and 2, though mostly 2, are harmful. 

I’m one of those people who don’t love or hate him. I’m more on the dislike side when it comes to s2 Kenny, but I can see why someone would love or hate him overall. 

On one hand, he IS an interesting character to take the time to study. His character tells us a lot about what happens to a normal, nice family man thrown into the apocalypse who loses everyone he’s ever loved, including his only child, his wife, and what happens when that family man has to keep going with the world trying to beat him down. 

He has his kind moments. He clearly cares about Clementine and AJ, but his behavior and actions, if not kept under control, could lead to disaster. They DO lead to disaster, since no one can stand to be around him, leading to everyone abandoning him, and in turn, abandoning Clementine and AJ. 

All of the weight of what’s happened to him has left him angry and violent. He lashes out at Clementine after Sarita’s death, going as far as to BLAME Clementine for it regardless of her choices. He isolates her from the group, becomes possessive the moment they meet back up again, and picks fights when he shouldn’t, which result in harm to her and others. He beats the shit out of Arvo in front of everyone as if he’s right in physically harming this disabled kid because of the situation they all find themselves in. 

In the end, if you actually have Clementine shoot him, he tells her and the player that “you made the right choice,” as if he knows he’s been such an antagonistic character that it’s only right that he die. 

The end to every good story has the so-called “bad guy” die... right?

Kenny is an obvious example of a favorite character being problematic, if not THE most obvious. He has so many people who love him, and just as many who hate him. 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard or witnessed arguments about Kenny and this phrase was thrown around with other words like “toxic” and “abusive” yada yada. 

It makes sense to me that someone would question why Kenny would be another’s favorite character just as it makes sense that someone would love him. 

It all depends on how you see him and if you’re mature enough to accept and understand his trauma, unhealthy behaviors, and overall character [the good and the bad] for what it is. He’s a broken man, but it doesn’t give him an excuse to lash out at those he’s supposed to love and protect. 

What really gets me is that Kenny is loved by so many people and they’re vocal about it, probably even more vocal than those who hate him. And I’m not shaming you. 

The kind, mature Kenny stans of our community aren’t afraid to express their love for this character. They know who he is, and they’re willing to discuss him with others who love him, as well as with those who don’t in a calm manner. This is something I highly respect and thought deserved acknowledgment.

I have a point to mentioning this, because with my problematic fave, I have never openly admitted to how much I like this character because I was always scared of the potential hate that could be thrown my way. I mean, whenever I search this character, there’s a lot of shade being thrown around. 

Then times changed, my blog grew bigger and I became more confident in sharing my opinions and views, as well as discussing several positive and negative aspects of TWDG with all of you. 

Now, this isn’t just applicable to Kenny, either.

Of the characters who fall higher on this “Problematic Fave” tier list we’ve somehow acquired, there are a lot of people who absolutely adore Minerva. 

Marlon-

Even Lilly has people who love her-

Hell, there are people who SWEAR by 400 Days’ Nate. 

^THIS crazy bastard! 

I was even shocked to see there are a handful of people who really like Arvo, too!

Before we continue, I do want to reiterate that I’m not coming for anyone who likes Kenny, Minerva, or any of the other characters mentioned above. I want to make that clear in case I say something pertaining to these characters that you take offense to. Well all know how easy it is to be offended on here. Besides, I’m not one to judge given that I have my own problem character that I love and y’all are gonna judge me anyway, so let’s just chill. 

This whole idea of why we love these characters is fascinating. 

If we ever met these people in real life, we wouldn’t be so quick to love them and we know it. But, because they’re fictional and put out there for us to analyze and talk about with one another, we find ourselves attached to them.

I simply want to understand why. 

Now that we have a list of the more popular characters who fall into this tier, I’ll be using them as examples throughout the rest of these posts. 

However... before we get into that, I’m sure you’ve noticed that I haven’t told you who MY problematic fave is and why. 

Well, allow me to enlighten you because, even though I’m using Kenny, Minerva, ect. as examples, this character will be my MAIN example. 

Time to come out and admit it. 

...

...

...

It’s David.

I really like David.

I even dare admit that I.... kind of love him?

Why, you ask....?

David is a character I’ve rarely talked about.

The only time he ever seems to come up is when we’re talking about Livid, and we all know how that one goes. 

Even when we talk about ANF as a whole, it’s usually a discussion about Emo Clementine or how Gabe should’ve had a better character arc or just how gosh darn gorgeous Javi is or how Conrad is actually the best character and totally should’ve been a romance option because Javrad is the true OTP of ANF.

But that’s a topic y’all aren’t ready for.

Anyway.

I know that there are those out there who, like me, like David for what he is and his character development throughout ANF. I’m not going to act like I’m the one person in the world who likes him because I can’t be. 

However, it seems like every time I get an ask that involves David [and isn’t Livid] is hateful or otherwise negative a good 95% of the time.

That, on top of being a predominantly s4 blog, is why I haven’t talked much about David or admitted that I like him as much as I do.

But now the cat’s out of the bag.

CJ has a hidden love for David Garcia.

It’s true. This jerk is my big problematic fave.

And I can already hear it now: 

“CJ, how can you actually like David after he treated everyone so poorly and took AJ away from Clem?”

Oh, I don’t know... how can anyone love Kenny after the way he treated everyone so poorly and was a real prick to Clementine after Sarita’s death? 

Why does anyone love Minerva after she got Tenn/Louis/Violet KILLED and Clementine bit? 

Why does anyone like Nate, who literally murders an old, wounded couple and is overall an insane son of a bitch?

That’s why we’re here, ya dingus.

To figure this out. 

In preparation for this, I actually went and did some digging on what people think of David. I thought, “Maybe I’ll find some character analysis’ or posts that share my thoughts.” 

After reading a bunch of threads about him on various websites, I concluded that 99% of them look the same:

[ Also, where are these people who support David against Clementine? Because I did not find them, random person on wikipedia. I must not be looking in the right places. All I found were Kenny defense posts on your David thread. Riddle me that, random person on wikipedia whose name I scribbled out but just realized I missed the “edited by” rendering the scribble pointless!]

This did nothing but increase my anxiety about making this whole post because I’d rather not have paragraphs like this sent to my inbox for the next twenty years. 

But, I’m doing it anyway. Obviously. 

I have a real love-hate relationship with David, in case you couldn’t tell.

I should hate David. I really should.

I mean, I don’t like Kenny, and I fucking loathe Lilly. They’re two characters that have a lot in common with David, so logically, you’d think that I’d group him in with them and hate his dumb face. 

But I don’t. 

Even though David is an asshole. 

He likes to do things that really piss me off, then turn around like “I can’t change because I’m a soldier” as if changing and not doing bad things is completely impossible for him!

David breaks a grieving woman’s arm after her husband dies, takes AJ away from Clementine after kicking her [a 13-year-old] out of their group by herself, gets more upset over how his glass got broken than over his wife’s cut hand, constantly fights with and puts Javi down, barely mourns Mari’s death, and a number of other things.

I know change is hard, David, and you have a lot of trauma from being a soldier, but that’s not an excuse to do bad things! I firmly believe that with enough effort, love, and support, you can slowly get better! I really hate you, you infuriating man!

But I also love him.

....But I also really hate him.

Do you see my dilemma?

And y’know what? I got plenty to say about all the things he’s done. 

David is a fascinating character. 

Even now, going back up and rereading what I wrote, I have to urge to jump in and be like “Well, okay, I actually have a theory on why he did that...” as if I’m ready to defend him from myself. How does that work?! 

Well, okay, not necessary defend him in the way of justifying why he’d break that woman’s arm or anything, but instead show that he’s a gray character who is much more complex than people give him credit for. I have the urge to explain David’s character as a matter of character analysis and discussion, not pretend he didn’t do anything wrong or make excuses for his unhealthy and problematic behaviors.

Does that sound familiar?

David Garcia is to me what Kenny is to a lot of people.

I have a theory on why he married Kate in the first place when they clearly weren’t compatible as a couple! I have theories on why he was quick to boot Clementine out but look the other way when Lingard got high on their meds! Explanations of why having him and Gabe alive in the end is the better ending!

oh god everyone is going to hate me haha-

I have it all, and maybe one day I’ll sit down and write an entire in-depth character analysis of David if anyone is actually interested, but right now I just want to understand why I like to him in the first place because it makes no sense.

Since day one, it’s boggled my mind as to WHY I’ve always found myself leaning in favor of David. 

With every episode that came out after e2, David was the character who always piqued my interest and I found myself wanting to side with him just to see what would happen. Why did I still like him even though he kept doing things that I knew were wrong? Or that pissed me off?

Why was I furious when I reached my ending only to have David end up dead?

Why was I so pissed that this character, who drove me INSANE for most of the game, died?

Is it because I see a part of myself in him? Is it because of his character design, the performance of his voice acting, and his overall writing? Does it have anything to do with his backstory and relationship with Javi? Is it because I’m actually one of those people who see someone like this and think “hey I can fix you!” but don’t know it? What is it?

Why is David Garcia my “Problematic Fave” of TWDG?

Continued in [2/?]

[musette22]

Hi Minnie! First of all, thank you for being so sweet, reasonable and respectful, I can't even describe how much joy your blog gives me! You are a true pro in emotional support for Evanstan fandom, so I guess I kinda need some reassurance. [1]

The thing is, as you probably know, some Seb stans on Twitter take the whole Chris insta situation and turn it into smth embarassing, like making fun of Seb and Mackie ignoring Chris and calling the idea of the challenge stupid (even though Chris did donate, not just "asked fans for money", as they say). It's like they feel the need to attack the first before smb calls they fav out. [2]

I know there ARE good people in Seb fandom, it's just that the aggressive ones are so loud and spread their bs so fast, I end up seeing it on my TL. No matter how stupid it sounds, it keeps making me sad to see so much hate towards Chris and his fans not from some random locals but from Seb stans. It's like two halves of my heart are torn apart. Not even ship-wise, it just seems so hard to love them both and be present on twitter these days. [3]

And, since I'm whiney af today, one more twitter thing: the CW promo era was some kind of honeymoon for us, sure, but I've recently seen some opinions on how Chris was all lovey-dovey and Seb was stiff and bored and uncomfortable, how their interviews were unnatural and boring. I mean, in my part of fandom (non-English speaking country) there has always been a popular perception of boys' dynamic as these "over-excited puppy playing around a confused cat" vids, if you know what I mean. [4]

But it kinda seemed ok for me, and the way they acted a little awkward around each other etc. Well, you can tell I'm easily affected cause now it does feel more negative to me. Stuuupid, I know. Maybe it's my "let's feel sorry for Chris and his fans" phase, idk. Sorry for bringing it here, you just seem to reassure people so well. [5 and last, it was long lol]

Hello my lovely!! This was indeed long hahaha but that’s totally fine, I myself am also someone who also has trouble keeping things short to I feel you 😘 

This is a very long reply so I’m putting it under the cut so I don’t clog up people’s dashes!

Okay so first of all, let me say I was never a fan of Twitter, but everything I’ve heard lately has just lowered my opinion of it even further. I know there’s a lot of amazing stuff and brilliant folks on there as well, but it also seems to be where all the bitchy, hateful, entitled and inappropriate people congregate. So personally, I’m very happy with my little community on Tumblr when it comes to fandom, and for news and social media I prefer actual news outlets and instagram. The sad truth is that there are a lot of harmful and hateful opinions in the world, and as someone who struggles with anxiety, I try to find ways to avoid a lot of it. Especially the stuff I can’t do anything about (you can try to reason with most haters until you’re blue in the face, and 90% of the time it’s not going to make an ounce of difference). It’s much easier to curate your own experiences on platforms like Tumblr and even Instagram than it is on Twitter, or so I’ve gathered. So I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of helpful advice for you there apart from ‘maybe try and stay away from Twitter if you can’ which you probably don’t really want either...

As for the whole Seb vs Chris issue: it’s clearly completely ridiculous. There is no ground whatsoever to believe they’re at odds. At worst, they’re now just casual work friends, but there is no reason to believe there’s any bad blood. It’s interesting to consider that initially, the argument seemed to be they had fallen out and both disliked each other (no idea where that came from but sure), then it was that Chris didn’t like Sebastian (because he allegedly shaded him when he joked that Scarjo was the only one of his friends who came to see Lobby Hero), and then Chris got Instagram and tagged and followed Seb, but because Seb hasn’t responded to the challenge yet, he now apparently hates Chris. For what reason, god only knows, because only last year at MCM London (where I was present myself) Sebastian gushed about Chris and his experiences with him while filming the Cap movies, and lets not forget it was him who initiated the hug at the Endgame premiere. Long story short: they don’t dislike each other. They’re completely fine, people just like to make up drama for whatever reason.   

As for the Sebastian stans who hate Chris and vice vera: to be honest, I wasn’t even really aware it was an issue until recently, because I was under the naive impression that it was kind of impossible to love one but hate the other. Both of them are such amiable, sweet, thoughtful, funny, talented guys, and everyone who actually knows them adores them, so why on earth anyone could hate either of them is beyond me. But even if you do, I genuinely don’t understand this need to pit them against each other? Why? I think a lot of it is down to people just liking drama, or being actual 12 year-olds who still see the world in a kind of high school dynamic-way. I’m not saying Chris and Sebastian have never done anything wrong, but in my opinion, none of it warrants outright hate or being cancelled over. It’s such an immature and unreasonable take. I’m just sorry for the people who can’t love both of them, because man, are they missing out! I understand that it’s painful for you to see all those opinions when you love both of them so much, but that’s why I try to just avoid them. I know they exist, but not seeing them makes dealing with it a whole lot easier, I promise! ❤️

With regard to the challenge itself: if the celebrities who are taking part in it are not donating themselves, then yeah, that would be problematic. However, we know that Chris donates to a ton of different charities, so there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s donated to this cause as well. Asking people to buy tickets to try and win this “prize” is not in itself an issue, if you ask me. People can think for themselves, can’t they? If they think it’s worth it, they think it’s worth it. They’re not being forced to part with their money, and moreover said money is being used to help people in need. Of course fake and problematic charities exist, but there are still good ones out there as well, so let’s assume for the moment this one is actually doing all of this from a genuine desire to help people and it’s not some money grabbing scheme.

Furthermore, as I’ve said so many times before, I really don’t believe Sebastian and Mackie are “ignoring” Chris. If they’re choosing not to do the challenge (they still might do it at some point) then I’m sure they have a good reason for that and it isn’t that they’re holding a grudge and are thinking “screw this charity and that Chris Evans, I’m going to ghost him to get my revenge!” I mean, do these people even realize how ridiculous that sounds 🙄 I also believe they would have let Chris know about their decision privately. They do have each other’s phone numbers, you know... 

And lastly, about the CW press tour... I don’t know what footage these people have been watching to come to such conclusions, or what’s wrong with their eyes and ears, but that makes NO sense to me. I’ll tell you what; it was mostly the footage from the CW press tour that got me convinced there was something going in between the two of them! Both Chris and Sebastian acted in a way that screamed “smitten kittens” to me, and if there was ever any “stiffness” from Sebastian’s side, then that was no doubt just his slightly more reserved personality compared to Chris and Mackie’s. Chris and Sebastian’s videos together give me LIFE, so for anyone to call them boring is actually kind of insulting lol. To me, almost every interaction Chris and Seb had during that press tour showed that they were either low-key (in a friendship way) or high-key (in a romantic way) crushing on each other, and they clearly admire each other very much. Any awkwardness I’ve ever seen between them for me seemed to stem from that crush (is anyone not at least a little awkward around their crush sometimes?) and not from any dislike from either side. That’s actually such a ridiculous idea to me that it doesn’t even make me worried, it just makes me laugh. Some people really don’t have eyes, it seems. 

Anyway, that was a reeeeeeaaaaaallllyyyyy long reply lmao, I’m sorry! I hope this helps a little though, because I do know how shitty it is to feel like you do about things that are supposed to make you happy!! Tuning out the haters and focusing on people who feel the same way you do in my experience is the best way to get to feeling good again 🥰 Big hug, and hopefully you’ll feel better soon!

[fragnanceinth4w]

True Ending ?

Before you keep reading this has massive spoilers for the game... Like Seven route, Secret Endings, Jumin route, V route, Judge or Forgive..... Don't read if you haven't cleared the game haha thanks

Welcome to me ranting about how toxic the MysMe fandom is again !!! Or just read me yelling about the game in general.. This time I'm going talk about Seven, or Saeyoung if you prefer jdkskdjd.

First off, let me start by saying I have nothing against him, LIKE NOTHING I REALLY DON'T LIKE ABOUT HIM. I love him so much and he's my son 🥺 And of course he deserves to be healthy and happy and all. My only problem is not with the character itself, but with the character's fandom. Same goes for Ray but we're not about to start another thing now 🤡

Everyone talks about Seven as if he's the "true route" "true ending" and "canon". No. He's not?? I mean, I don't know, I never asked Cheritz specifically, so if anyone reading this has proof where Cheritz directly says he is the canon ending and he's the one the MC is supposed to end up with, PLEASE message me, and I will shut up. Trust me, I just did some research and I can't seem to find where Cheritz confirms that... And this is about the "reset" theory as well, where does it say that Seven loves you in every route? Because if that's true, I'm going to feel... Really guilty about it. Jk I won't lmao. Why would he like me in the first place? He doesn't even know me... I didn't even try to get close to him lmao. So if you find something that I can't seem to be able to find, I'm a message away. :)

I don't like Seven's ending. I don't like it, like AT ALL. And not because you don't end up with Jihyun (People talk that way about his route.. Saying you don't end up with Saeran) but because he DIES. It's pretty much self-explanatory that he dies in all the other routes (except his!!) as well,(excluding Saeran, because I haven't played it yet.. But I heard he gets a bad ending there too) since he stays in Mint Eye and we all know he'll end up dead anyways.. It's what he wants. He wants to protect everyone and he is willing to give up his life to save them. But in Seven's ending, not only they (kind of) SHOW HOW HE DIES but he also DIES RIGHT IN FRONT OF JUMIN, HIS CHILDHOOD BEST FRIEND. Jihyun is literally the only one he has. He doesn't have a mother, his father is basically ignoring him with his shitty gold diggers and he's not close to anyone in the RFA. HE IS COLD BECAUSE HE THINKS SHOWING HIS FEELINGS DOESN'T MATTER. He doesn't even want to become friends with anyone at all.

(Another kinda big parenthesis here, the reason why he doesn't like women isn't because "Does Jumin Han is gay" or whatever, I DESPISE that stupid "joke" so much, it's not funny at all, and it's so unoriginal. It's the other way around, he and Jihyun are the ones that are most likely to be straight,since they both were canonically "in love" with Rika and in their respective routes, they end up with MC. The reason why he doesn't like women is because of the amount of women his father dates. He doesn't know that there could be someone that would truly care about him, not for his money, but for he, as a person. He thinks all women are the same, and he's not completely wrong.. most of us are like this. It's all so much deeper than "he's gay!!" and it is not funny or something you should joke about. He is not a character that should be used for LGBT+ representation or whatever.)

Back to our topic, Jumin and Jihyun were best friends for about two decades. (not one!!! They didn't meet when they were 15, tf) (And they also shouldn't be shipped together????? They're best friends, their friendship is so pure.. Stop misunderstanding it??????????) How would you feel like if you watched your childhood best friend, the one you've been friends with for 20 years, pretty much the only one you still have by your side, just die? And you could do nothing to save him?? You do not overcome something like that.. It's permanent trauma. And it's even worse considering that this is not his route, meaning that now he's left with nobody. Since Seven and Jumin share a story mode, (I mean Deep Story..) the Sarah storyline is canon, and Jumin probably ends up with her.. Which only just makes things even worse for him.

You know let's just say, this is Seven's route. It's not Jumin, so obviously he can't be happy, or as much happy as Seven. I can accept that.. What annoys me is that everyone says Seven's ending is the true ending.

How is it the true ending though? The only ones that actually end up happy is Seven, Saeran and MC. Again, THIS IS NOT WRONG, IT IS ONLY NORMAL TO NOT BE ABLE TO HAVE EVERYONE HAPPY.

Right?

No??????? Have y'all even played Judge or Forgive???????????? I mean of course you haven't, y'all's asses are stuck to Saeran route and sobbing over how "his AE isn't out yet !!!!!!!!!!!" like bitch shut the fuck up at least you got a kiss CG. Anyways, if you even bothered to do V route and his AE, Saeran doesn't die !!!! He actually is happy !!!!!!!! You know who else is happy? SEVEN IS HAPPY. Like actually happy.

This is the reason why I consider V's ending the true ending.. Of course part of the reason is because he's my fav but I actually can support my opinion with arguments.. Unlike y'all saying Seven route is true ending because his route has the most plot twists (????? and how does that make it the true ending ?????)

You see, V's ending actually leaves pretty much everyone satisfied. Of course not everyone is HAPPY HAPPY but at least nobody dies??????? Seven and Saeran finally meet and Saeran "forgives Seven for abandoning him" (yeah I ain't blaming him, there was nothing he could do really) and like they're actually happy lol. Yeah they're HAPPY HAPPY because they don't need a girl more than they need each other.

I remember making a post on Instagram were I talked about how I consider V's ending the canon one because it leaves everyone happy and someone just commented that Saeran dies in his route?? I answered saying that he actually is not dead and he is safe and happy in the end and they kept talking bullshit like "yeah but he's not really happy" UHHH????? HE IS??????? JUST BECAUSE HE'S NOT WITH THE MC DOESN'T MEAN HE CAN'T BE HAPPY????

Tbh this is just my personal opinion but I think Saeran needs a family more than he needs MC... I haven't played his route yet and maybe it's because I played V's too many times but I CANNOT picture him as my boyfriend or husband.. I see him as my son. And I think that he'd be happier with Seven (his brother) and V (his father figure) rather than just MC as his wife. Then again, that's only my opinion.. It just kinda annoys me how obsessed he is with you at the start of Another Story and how you kinda support that obsession if you get his route.. That's not really true. I think the MC only wants to help him, but why can't we do that in V's route..? Do y'all really HAVE to date someone to believe they're happy?

How about everyone can think whatever they want?? Like, we can choose whatever ending we like?? (Bad Endings excluded, cough cough Rika stans, cough cough toxic Jumin "stans") If someone thinks Yoosung is the true ending, that's up to them.. Do not just go around saying Seven is true ending as if it's confirmed and actually canon.. Because it's not. We don't care about how much you like him and how cute and funny he is. Shut the fuck up.

I've been typing for literal days so Imma just saying this lastly, EVEN RIKA IS HAPPY IN V'S AE. I don't really know about Judge Ending cause I heard it's fucked up but in Forgive Ending, she actually becomes a better person. Like truly regrets everything she did and actually does good to people. This is the only Rika I approve of.. Shut the fuck up toxic Rika stans 🤢🤢🤮

Anyways yeah that's all.. My personal opinion, don't you even think about fucking attacking me you toxic assholes (only talking about the toxic part of the fandom...) But we can argue :^)

Have a great day / night ~ ✨

[bustedbernie]

Oh hai. Lately there have been a slew of think pieces about Bernie Sanders being the front-runner, discussing how his movement has threatened to withhold their votes from Democrats if Bernie isn’t the nominee. Hidden between the lines is the idea that Democrats, in general, owe their votes to Sanders if he is the nominee, regardless of the fact that his voters do NOT owe Dems their votes if he is not. So, rather than call them out for using the same tactics that lost the 2016 election, there is a faction in the media that is growing more and more permissive to the idea that Bernie and his Revolution are somehow the victims in all this, and that mainstream Dems have done them wrong time and time again when picking a candidate that appeals to the Dems masses.

Let me let you in on a little secret.

I don’t owe Bernie Sanders or his fucked off revolution of stanerific emo-marxist cyber-terrorists a goddamn bit of shit the fuck all. When these utter fucking geniuses in the media reflect on how energized and dedicated his enthusiastic fans are when engaging in their harassment of the average Dem, they seem to think the people who have been abused don’t fucking matter. These Dems are people who have never done anything whatsoever to deserve the constant bullying, cyber-stalking, targeting, threats, or in my case, being falsely reported to the FBI by fans of Bernie who seek to silence dissent. What these media personalities don’t understand is that the abuse by Bernie fans, in his name, actually causes the gap between MAGA and Berners to shrink to the point where it is non-existent. There is no real difference between the abuse from either side, and since Sanders isn’t the warm and fuzzy type that reaches out to the people who have been abused, often there appears to be no real difference between Sanders and Trump.

Slate:

Still, the Bernie-or-Busters, small as they may be, have spun their position into an argument for why others should vote for Bernie Sanders too, regardless of the platform they prefer. As efforts in political persuasion go, this contingent puts forward an openly hostile argument. Sanders is the only electable candidate, they suggest, not just because of his policies, but because of the single-mindedness of his followers. The reason you should vote for Sanders is that we won’t vote for anyone else. You don’t want Trump to win again, do you?

No. But I also don’t want Bernie Sanders to win. In a case of one not liking either candidate, people look to see which movement they feel most comfortable with, Bernie’s or Trump’s. If it turns out that both movements engage in racist behavior, sexism, and homophobia, it really doesn’t matter what they profess to be in favor of as far as policy is concerned, what matters is how they treat their fellow citizens by and large. We all know that unless we take back the Senate with a large majority that can defeat Republican attempts to stop legislation from hitting Sanders’ desk, nothing will pass anyway. So, if you’re not in favor of Bernie’s policies in the first place, and do not like him or his movement, why would you be enthusiastic about showing up for the guy who leads the movement that engages in attacks on you?

Yes, it sounds like ugly hostage taking—not a brilliant persuasive strategy but a crude ego-boosting exercise for a group of leftists who can’t resist the impulse to lord some power over an electorate that doesn’t normally consider them relevant. But that’s exactly what makes it so normal, even understandable, in a depressing “we’re all human” sort of way. [NO.] Because the truth is this: Every threat these Sanders stans are explicitly making is one the venerated Centrist Swing Voter makes implicitly—and isn’t judged for. The centrist never even has to articulate his threat.

Excuse me, it IS ugly hostage taking, it is NOT normal, and no, it doesn’t make me see them as more human.

Another thing is this: not everyone opposed to Bernie Sanders is a Centrist, Moderate, or a Swing voter. Many of us are as far left or to the left of Sanders, I for one am definately to his left, and had supported him in 2015. That was until his racist abusive Bern Mafia targeted me for expressing concern about his lack of outreach to black voters. I noticed his lack of history in hiring black people (D.C. is Chocolate City, we could not find one black staffer in 2015; I am open to correction on this point; if he had black staffers prior to 2015, please send me receipts because I have been looking for them.), lamented and mocked his poor showing at Netroots, fumed over his constant MLK appropriation, jeered at his white ass crowds, and felt humiliated by his inability to discuss black people in ways that were not centered on Poverty or Prisons. It is HIS FAULT that his voters have no clue how to engage Black people without resorting to stereotypes and outright bigotry, because he does the same thing.

Buzzfeed:

Sanders, seated across the table, a yellow legal pad at hand, responded with a question of his own, according to two people present: “Aren’t most of the people who sell the drugs African American?” The candidate, whose aides froze in the moment, was quickly rebuffed: The answer, the activists told him, was no. Even confronted with figures and data to the contrary, Sanders appeared to have still struggled to grasp that he had made an error, the two people present said.

No. He did not apologize for spreading this stereotype, and yes, it shows how he views black people in general.

Slate:

One of many disorienting factors in this election cycle is the fact that the left is more popular and more viable than it has been in a long, long time. They have not one but two exciting candidates, and both are offering policies closer to what leftists actually want than most presidential contenders in U.S. history have.

I wanted the party to move to the Left towards the direction of where I stood too. I can’t really name my ideology because it’s so far left I am almost hitting the wall. Additionally, I am more Libertarian than Sanders, who trends more authoritarian. Yet, I instinctively know that playing a game of “my way or the highway” won’t lead to a place where poverty programs are expanded up and out, ensuring all necessities of life are provided. It will lead to gridlock and we will make zero progress.

Because folks at the center tend to be wooed by multiple candidates, they’re used to having options, and they’re used to the experience of their vote determining who ends up with the nomination. This means that they usually like the candidate they vote for, in the primary and in the general. Not so for leftists, who get to merely tolerate the candidates they end up having to vote for in order to mitigate the damage from a worse result.

Here’s the rub… I’m Black. None of this shit applies to me, because as a Black person, I rarely even LIKE or TRUST any of the candidates I have been voting for over the years. I also usually, especially in State and Locally, don’t have any say so in determining the nominee of any race. I am always stuck voting for whoever White People choose as the candidate, and as such, am merely tolerating whoever is chosen to prevent a worse outcome, which usually means preventing a racist shitmonger from winning a race.

Speaking of race… Progressives refuse to address race as a factor in anything; they like to ignore race in everything they do and allow Prison Policy to stand in for Racial Policy, so it’s impossible to get them to see my reality. They get this shit from Bernie.

From Buzzfeed:

“The real issue is not whether you’re black or white, whether you’re a woman or a man,” he said in a 1988 interview. “The real issue is whose side are you on? Are you on the side of workers and poor people or are you on the side of big money and the corporations?”

Not much has changed with Bernie, as you know, Bernie never changes, because he was born as a 72 year old yelly man, just like Benjamin Button, but louder and not as cute.

“It’s not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!’” No, that’s not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry,” the Vermont independent senator and former Democratic presidential candidate said in a not-so-subtle rebuke to Hillary Clinton”

Bernie’s attacks on Identity Politics filtered down to his base, causing them to feel confident in their attacks on Blacks, LGBTQ, and Women who brought up issues of race, sexuality, and gender over the past few years. They love to say shit to black people online that they would never say to an actual Black person IN PERSON, because they are scared as fuck of Black people. Kinda like Bernie. The refrain of “that’s identity politics, not real policy’ rang out constantly on social media the past few years to the point where pointing out racism, homophobia, and sexism was met with swarms of white men attacking Black people, All Women Who Dared To Be THAT Bitch, LGBTQ, and really, anyone worried about social justice issues that focused on identity. The attacks were and ARE bigoted in the extreme.

This is racist as fuck and is one of the ways the Bernie Titty-Babies managed to marginalize Kamala Harris and drive a wedge between her and Black Voters. Somehow they thought keeping it going would make us like dusty ass Bernie more, but they’re stupid, because we don’t even like that geriatric Bernadook now.

This is homophobic.

Bernie’s supporters are engaging in a hate campaign against Mayor Pete and are trying to convince the world that they are not being homophobic, they are just saying Pete is suppressing his dangerous serial killer nature by being so straight laced. This is fucked up because they are attacking a gay man for being “straight appearing” in spite of the fact that his seeming straightness is how he interacts with a world that hates gay people, and has at times (and Still Does) MURDERED men and women who are gay for not assimilating or conforming to hetero-normative stereotypes. Bernie ignores this behavior from his fans like he ignores all of their nasty hate campaigns. I blame him.

This is misogynistic. No explanation needed.

Racist and fat shaming. Black hair is not your fucking business, bitch. Back the fuck up.

This is just blatantly false and caused people to harass Kamala Harris supporters until they stopped using the Yellow Circles she asked supporters to wear, it stems from the misogynoir his fans engaged in towards Kamala. Bernie has never said shit, so I blame him.

Bigotry. Also erasure of Biden’s Black support in a effort to make it seem as if Bernie is the candidate of diversity. Bernie is at fault, he also erases minorities.

Sexist. Also, damn near all of his fans seem to hate Obama on the same level and with as much heat as MAGA. Why the fuck would we want to join in unity with this man when his fans HATE the first black President. Oh, you think Bernie has nothing to do with setting the tone?

“The business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so has been a failure,” Sanders started, responding to a question about the young voters who supported his campaign. “People sometimes don’t see that because there was a charismatic individual named Barack Obama, who won the presidency in 2008 and 2012.

“He was obviously an extraordinary candidate, brilliant guy. But behind that reality, over the last 10 years, Democrats have lost about 1,000 seats in state legislatures all across this country.”

Bernie doesn’t fucking like Obama either.

Sexism. Racism. Bernie does the worst with Black Women, and is often dismissive when asked a question by one of us. So, his fans see nothing to lose by targeting us in particular, and we in turn are likely the largest group of people willing to sit this one out if Bernie manages to come out on top. The media is no help whatsoever to marginalized people, because they ultimately weave a narrative where Bernie comes out the victim.

We can already see it happening amongst the Children of the Bern, where they have taken to labeling K-Hive, a movement started by a Black Woman (Me) for a Black Woman (Kamala Harris), “Liberal ISIS” for our resistance to Bernie and willingness to defend the other candidates from the attacks levied by the Berner Swarm.

Oh, cry me a fucking river! We don’t dox, cyberstalk, harass, abuse, try to get people fired, engage in bigotry, we learn from our mistakes, and we never make it our mission to ruin someone’s life.

We simply turn the tables on the bros and ask tough questions, like Kamala Harris. If that breaks you down, you were already broken before you found us. Oh, yeah. That’s another thing. We don’t go looking for Berners to abuse; we wait until they come to abuse US and refuse to play along.

Regardless of what poor Peter Daou says, there is no “Unadulterated Hatred” in asking if someone has checked on him.

So, yes, I can blame Bernie for the nastiness of his movement and choose not to ever join it no matter what. Progressives love to play forever victims, even while they engage in their vile abuse, but I do not have to empower their movement or help them elect Bernie. Maybe if enough people sound the alarm and let him know we will not be helping him in November while suffering constantly at the hands of his Branch Bernidians, then he will have no choice but to be a leader and fucking lead these assholes into being decent people. I don’t expect the abuse to magically end if Bernie becomes President or loses to Trump, and I also don’t expect him to do shit about it, so I guess I’m just Never Bernie. What I am now stuck with is the same as always; White States get to vote first and create the narrative that Dem voters are in favor of whoever these powerful white voters choose, and I am sick of it and sick of Sanders. I didn’t become a Democrat to not only be marginalized by the White Moderate, but to also suffer abuse from the punk ass White leftist bitchmade humdinger of a Revolution. I’m not here to empower shitfucks that search me out no matter where I am just to heap abuse on me, threaten me, or report me to the FBI as a possible MASS SHOOTER, all because I think Bernie is an old bigot who minimizes Black oppression to appease the white voters he thinks he’ll need to win the General.

I’m just Never Bernie, deal with it or die mad about it. I don’t care which.