#i'm not an AT apologist in anyway. I think there are other people who deserve the call up over her but she still gives

[reminiscingtonight]

When I say I was shook af to hear Thompson in the doc say she’s excited for the next World Cup cause she won’t have to be the youngest anymore. Like, how is she so confident she’ll even be there?! 😭

This probably sounds petty but I’m so fr I’ve never heard an NT player assume they’ll be at the next World Cup or Olympics like that. Even Williams in the doc was like who knows if I’ll keep getting called up. Thompson just doesn’t seem to be aware at all that she got her call up because of injuries to other players and it’s craaazy.

Tbf she's still young. She has plenty of time to develop and get better. That definitely doesn't excuse the blind belief that she'll automatically make the WC squad in 4 years, but she probably has a higher chance than some of the vets (if the older vets are even playing anymore at that point) if she actually improves

I'm always careful to full on bash someone who's that young because she obviously hasn't had too much experience with the senior team, media, etc. so I'd always take her words with a grain of salt. She's probably just excited (as she should), but I definitely understand how it could rub people the wrong way

[marshemillow]

I know I'm just preaching to the choir at this point, but I absolutely HATE how cancel culture has completely spiraled out of control.

Sorry to fucking break it to you, but nobody takes your callout posts seriously anymore because you've collectively decided that;

"This person is against harassment" "This person ships gross ships" "This person said something off-color on twitter when they were 13" and "This person is a current threat to real children"

Are all on the same level of bad. You really think anyone is going to care about your opinion on the "pedophile" you found this week when your definition of "pedophile" is so broad it could include anyone at any time??

I'm also sick of hearing about all the real predators that flew under the radar harming real children for YEARS just because they said all the right key words and started the right harassment campaigns against the right people, basically clearing them of all suspicion, so shipping gross ships is actually punished way more harshly than being a real child rapist, not that anyone would think otherwise anyway with how many times a callout post goes on and on about how bad some person is because they ship gross ships and have a secret AO3 account where they write stories about abuse and old DeviantArt drawings of zadr from when they were 7, and then right at the end they tack on "oh and also they raped an 11-year-old" as if it's only barely relevant extra information and not what should be THE MAIN POINT OF THE GODDAMN POST!!! Like nobody's going to read that far to get to the real point so the post overall was meaningless!!!

These people clearly need to go back to grade school to read the boy who cried wolf, because it's clear that they think just slamming the PEDO button over and over and over again will always have the same reaction every time, and when it doesn't, they think it means everyone else must be a pedo or pedo-apologist when the callout posters actually just created a reason why they can't be trusted, and don't think I didn't notice how many of these people who are canceled are queer or jewish, trans people are targets I swear like 1/3rd of the time!!! Why are so many cancelled people trans when they make up less than 2% of the overall population?? If you think it's because trans people are predators, then you clearly have worse problems than whoever you're falsely accusing.

It's obviously just a tactic people use to be able to ruin the life of anyone they want as an act of petty revenge and NOT because they're interested in protecting anyone. These are often good innocent people who sometimes end up committing suicide because of how badly their reputation was ruined by allegations that weren't even true.

And that's not even the worst part; Which is that the more you falsely accuse people who are innocent, the less people who have real allegations are believed, the more abusers can get away with abusing.

And that's not even getting into people who are called transphobic because they talk about intersexism, trans men who are slammed for being men, bisexual people who are slammed for having "straight-passing privilage", asians who are victims of horrific racist harassment campaigns even by people who aren't white, and many many other examples, ending in entire communities that are easily groomed into extremist ideologies because they don't have the tools to see through their bullshit thanks to all the bad faith discourse saying shit that's actually nonsense but laiden with guilt, so you HAVE to agree if you don't want to be cancelled yourself, and in turn of course, that leads to even more people who will never admit when they're wrong because "admitting you're wrong" is the same thing as accepting whatever punishment the witch hunters have planned for you on top of losing your humanity because you have to be perfect all the time always and if you make one single mistake you're a monster who deserves to die.

It's so fucking horrific, and it needs to stop.

[hannigramislife]

for my own gratification bc i just ran into nie mingjue hate in the wild, would you mind making a post that defends my poor good boy? he worked so hard and got gaslit to shit before getting murdered terribly ;; literally everyone sat there telling him "youre being too harsh" and he's just responding appropriately. like yeah, if you witness a murder, ya kinda got to do something about that as a clan leader. its kinda your responsibility, even when you care about the person who did the murdering. he was also a really young when he took on the role of clan leader and idk, it just made me rlly sad to see people dunk on him cuz wtf he's literally just trying his best in an impossible situation WHILE being perpetually fucked over by his clan's own traditional cultivation cuz now the stronger he is as a leader, the closer he is to going literally insane and dying bc of it. (mingjue did nothing wrong i will die on this hill) ((sorry for going on a tirade, im just sad and defensive of my good boy rn))

Oh no! I'm so sorry you had to go through Nie Mingjue hate! Truly tragic. I went through that once when in the beginning of me reading the books, when I still had no proper opinions, and never again.

I'm more than willing to make a post about Nie Mingjue! I'm always down to talk about Nie Mingjue tbh, he's my heart and love and if I were to have been given the opportunity to be his right hand person, I would have simply never betrayed his trust and married him. Rip Jin Guangyao but I'm different.

Anyways, I, huhhh, actually think you?? Covered it all??? Pretty much?? Yet I will talk about it. This will be long and non-coherent, because I don't have the books rn to find quotes in them and honestly, I could write essays on Nie Mingjue either way.

Nie Mingjue is a central piece of the narrative, despite the limited amount of appearances he made, and the fact that he wasn't close to the main characters at all. The entire second part of the plot revolves around him- it happened because of him. His murder is a tragedy; literally, by greek standards, man has Cassandra Curse all over him, so I don't get how people can tell me, confidently, that his death was warranted. I've been told the man had asked for it, and this has mostly been by Jin Guangyao apologists.

So let me make something real fucking clear.

Nie Mingjue did not deserve to die. Let's get that out of the way, anyone can fight me on that. Nie Mingjue had more good qualities than half the people in this fucking story, despite his flaws. After his father was brutally murdered when Mingjue was only in his teens, Nie Mingjue stepped up as clan leader. We can only speculate the hardships that await someone leading a clan at such an early age. Yet, political challenges weren't the only thing he had to battle; Nie Mingjue knew about his clan's harmful cultivation, and he knew he was going to die young. So what did he do? His best. Literally his best, always. He was always giving 100% of his abilities, because that's who he was.

Let's talk about who Nie Mingjue was, shall we?

When Jin Guangyao, still Meng Yao then, describes Nie Mingjue, he finds himself perplexed, because Nie Mingjue isn't like other men. He is not frivolous, and he has no vices; Meng Yao describes how Nie Mingjue never showed an interest in arts, or alcohol, or women. All he did was train, and fight the Wens during the war. It shows that he had a one-track mind from the start, and has got a strict discipline; yet this strictly disciplined man, leader of a clan that prizes strength, continuously indulges his lazy and undisciplined half-brother, his one and only heir, despite not understanding his interests. We gather, pretty quickly, that Nie Mingjue is a bleeding heart for his brother, and for the ones he loves in general. We see the same softer side displayed in the presence of Lan Xichen, and of course, for some time, Meng Yao.

People seem to think Nie Mingjue took Meng Yao's betrayal too harshly. As if somehow seeing a man he thought to have been just and honest commit premeditated murder, then cover it up, was something he was just supposed to get over. To this day, I can't believe how Lan Xichen was so understanding of it. But not only did Nie Mingjue catch him in a cowardly act - Meng Yao proceeds to manipulate him, using the fact that Nie Mingjue cared about him, to stab him in the back. Or front, however it happened. I get that Meng Yao was in a difficult position, that he suffered at the Jins, that he felt backed in a corner; but Nie Mingjue was a man that had extended his help to Meng Yao before, and even then, he went to find Meng Yao in righteous fury, ready to help him again. To Nie Mingjue, the idea that Meng Yao "had no other choice" but to kill - to kill in the manner he did - it could have been nothing but a betrayal.

One thing that I personally highly respected Nie Mingjue for was the fact that he did not judge Meng Yao for his background. This is not up for debate; Nie Mingjue stood up for him, quite publicly, quite vocally, when Meng Yao was being insulted over it. And not only that, but he promoted Meng Yao to be his right hand man, just like that. Because he's impulsive, and to prove a point, but it was still huge of him to do. Not even Lan Xichen would have done that - In a society built on power dynamics between social classes, Nie Mingjue was one of the few characters who did not let that define his actions. It wasn't because he was born privileged (though he was) but because he he didn't let anything other than his judgment direct his actions. Nie Mingjue also never shied away from anything; if it had to be done, he did it, no matter the cost.

Nie Mingjue was decisive, and had an iron will. When Meng Yao killed the Nie disciples in Qishan, he wanted to kill Meng Yao. Meng Yao told him, paraphrasing, that "don't you understand that if I hadn't done that, it would have been your corpse up there?" and Wei Wuxian takes it to mean "Translation: I saved you so you can't kill me, because that would mean you're in the wrong." So Nie Mingjue hesitated for a second, then said: "Fine! I'll kill you, and then take my own life!" And the only reason he didn't, was because Lan Xichen was there. Otherwise, Nie Mingjue would have killed his former friend, then followed him to whatever afterlife awaited.

Nie Mingjue is often portrayed like he doesn't understand stuff, like he's stupid, simply because of his black and white sense of morality. That's not correct: Nie Mingjue understands motive, but he doesn't accept the ends justifying the means. Scratch that, he doesn't accept or justify either, if they're unjust. The murder of the Jin commander, the murder of the Nie disciples, not executing Xue Yang - how can Nie Mingjue possibly understand Meng Yao's decisions, when Nie Mingjue would rather die, any day, than live thanks to vile actions?

And then, Nie Mingjue starts falling into qi-deviation. We know that it affected his temper the most, and his judgement. I don't understand how it works, really, so I don't know by the end how much was Nie Mingjue and how much was the mess that the spirit made of him - maybe a combination of the two. But what is certain, is that the rapid qi deviation changed him.

But I could write a hundred more pages on him, meticulously going over every single scene he has ever appeared in, because I find him that interesting. I find him the most interesting, and the most appealing character, because in a story where the navigation of the cultivation world's complex politics and hierarchies with tact and diplomacy is crucial, Nie Mingjue stands uncompromising in his principles, choosing duty and honor over anything else, even when it's hard.

[iamnmbr3]

I'm part of the MENA diaspora and I also think that many of the newly minted Palestinian rights activists (especially the very online ones) will abruptly lose interest in the cause for the rights of Palestinians whenever a ceasefire is declared. :/

I'm sending this anonymously because I don't need Hamas stans on this site screenshooting my blog right now and calling me a Zionist apologist or whatever, even though I absolutely cannot stand Israeli's government.

Absolutely. I would argue that even now a lot of them aren't interested in the cause of Palestinian rights. People who waste energy protesting outside of synagogues or barring Jews from college campuses in countries thousands of miles away from Palestine are not genuinely interested in the cause of rights and dignity for Palestinian people or serious about taking part in real activism to build a peaceful future in the region.

They are appropriating the suffering of the Palestinian people and the work of real activists to center themselves and shield hateful actions and terrorist apologism. The way they have attacked and tried to silence Palestinian people who have condemned Hamas (because guess what? terrorists are everyone's enemy) is so telling. A lot of them haven't even bothered to get educated about basic facts and spew a lot of hateful and harmful misinformation - for example confusing Hamas with the PLO or equating Gazan civilians with the Hamas terrorists who oppress them. Hamas claims to speak for and represent Palestinian people but they do not and anyone saying every day Palestinian people are the same as or represented by terrorists is a raging bigot and on the side of oppressors and murderers.

Literally wtf. I just look at these fake "activists" and I'm at a loss. Wow you yelled antisemitic slurs at some random Jews in a country on the other side of the world from Gaza. Literally what does that accomplish? Do you think people in Gaza who just want to live in peace are thanking you? Do you think that helps them in any way? Of course it doesn't. The only people who that helps are Hamas terrorists. Because Hamas wants to spread hate. The leaders of Hamas brutalize and murder the people of Palestine every day and became billionaires by robbing the people of Gaza. They don't care about the Palestinian people at all. These corrupt Hamas leaders are the only people who are served by spreading hate and attacking random people abroad.

Actual activism that would help the victims of this conflict takes work and compromise. And these so-called terminally online fake "Leftists" just want a movement to treat as a fandom where they can get attention and have an excuse to be bigoted. Like in the US they literally protested the DNC but not the RNC and are threatening not to vote for Harris even tho the Democrats and Harris support a ceasefire (and are actively working towards one) and the Republicans are virulently bigoted and Trump hates Palestinian people so much he literally uses "Palestinian" as a slur against people he doesn't like. It's appalling.

And yeah I hope Netanyahu and his government are kicked out soon. Before October 7 there were mass protests in Israel against Netanyahu and his whole government because he is so bad as a leader and so corrupt. He probably would've been forced out by now if not for this conflict. He wants to be a dictator and is absolutely terrible for regional stability and peace and ending his rule would benefit everyone in the region - Israelis as well as Palestinians. All these so-called activists just focusing on being antisemitic helps him a lot because they are taking attention away from the very deserved and legitimate criticisms that should be focused on him and his government.

But anyway, Hamas is absolutely the enemy of the Palestinian people (as well as of Israel) and acting like criticizing Hamas means you are against the people of Gaza or against Palestinian people or in support of Netanyahu is literally just repeating Hamas propaganda...aka the propaganda of the people who have terrorized and oppressed the people of Gaza every single day since Israel withdrew in 2005. Supporting Hamas doesn't make you woke or progressive or an activist. It makes you a fascist terrorist apologist and supporter of the oppressor.

So many Palestinian people have been forced to flee Gaza because of the brutality of the Hamas regime and then all these Western online "Leftists" cosplaying as activists attack them and shout them down because they don't want to hear that this conflict affects real people and is more complex than a cartoon drama. Real solutions involve work and compromise and nuance. And they aren't interested. Some even say that Palestinian civilians dying should be glorified because it makes them "martyrs." No. Palestinian people are not toys to be played with. They are human beings.

They deserve to live long and peaceful and happy lives - not to be fed into a meat grinder to be "martyred" for the benefit of Hamas's corrupt billionaire leaders or for the entertainment of Twitter warriors.

[shadowqueenjude]

Lorcan defense: The Maeve scene

I'd seen a post that said some of this and I can't remember who'd posted it but I thought it was really well worded and if you ever see this op feel free to comment who you are. Anyway... The Maeve scene in EOS. I NEVER HATED LORCAN FOR THIS AND I'LL EXPLAIN WHY:

We have everyone hating Lorcan because he doesn’t like Aelin and isn’t loyal to her. We have everyone acting like Lorcan betrayed Aelin by calling to Maeve— as if everyone wasn’t fully aware (because Lorcan has never once tried to hide it) that he is fully loyal to Maeve. You cannot betray your enemy by aiding with your master.

Am I saying that he has good judgement? Hell no! Maeve is a scheming evil Valg queen. But Gavriel is ALSO still loyal to her. And so are the other Cadre, excluding Fenrys. Lorcan merely showed Maeve the same loyalty that Aedion would show Aelin. A blind loyalty that isn’t good for anyone to possess. And yes, Lorcan royally fucked Aelin over by getting her captured by Maeve, and since Aelin is the main character, it is natural to side with her.

But honestly, Lorcan did everything a good soldier would do. He is trying to save his queen’s soul by destroying the Wyrdkeys. He is trying to save the girl he promised to protect. He is staying true to his blood oaths and promises and he has promised NOTHING to Aelin. And Aelin royally fucked up by not telling anyone her plans and letting them all sweat thinking they were about to be under attack. And yes, she did it because she didn’t want to disappoint anyone, but she still made a mistake in not confiding in her court.

That being said, Rowan has every right to want to murder Lorcan for her capture. But there’s a certain level of bias to that that I think is good to remember as readers. We are angry at Lorcan for hurting a character we love, but I don’t think he’s done anything morally unforgivable. He did what he thought he had to for his people, his queen, and the girl he loves. ...and Elide punished him enough (but Lorcan still helped her during her periods because she might hate him but he still wanted his girl to be ok *sobs*), plus Lorcan did everything in his power to make up for it. He SOBBED when Rowan said, "Where is my wife?" THIS BATTLE-HARDENED 500 YO WARRIOR SOBBED. HE LOVES HIS BROTHER ROWAN. HE KNOWS HOW MUCH LOSING LYRIA HURT. HE NEVER WANTED THIS FOR HIM. NEVER. THEN WHEN HE SAW AELIN AGAIN HE SOBBED. AGAIN. THE FIRST TWO TIMES HE HAD SOBBED IN HUNDREDS OF YEARS AND IT WAS FOR ROWAN AND AELIN. *and now I'm crying because I remember Elide called him a monster despite all that and he did not deserve that idc I'm a Lorcan apologist*

[emiliejolie]

You know what I'm fucking sick of this. Why does the israeli side always have to clarify that we also care about innocent lives lost in gaza while pro palestinians couldn't care less if every israeli dies, clearly judging by how people reacted to october 7th they would be very happy if israelis were slaughtered again and again. Why do I have to care about people who celebrated our deaths while the other side straight up says that they don't care about us. Israel is the only enemy that has to care for the other side as well like wtf. You ever seen a Russian soldier help a Ukrainian woman? No, you ever seen a county that sacrifices soldiers to protect the lives of innocent people on the other side? Like seriously we are always expected to be kind to our enemy. while pro palestinians are full of hatred under rate disguis of love for the palestinians. Why don't you fucking blame hamas for only caring about themselves, having billions to their name yet the people of gaza are starving. Why aren't you fucking enraged by the fact hamas steals humanitarian aid and sells them to gaza like hello. I'm sick of being nice ,you all wish death upon us but the moment we say the same thing it's unacceptable. Fuck off. Y'all will call me a genocide apologist no matter what so you know what I don't care anymore.

I truly think it's horrible that hamas uses people as humans shields, I'm not denying the fact that innocent people are dying, and starving. And when I see what's happening in gaza I still feel bad but then I remember what brought us into this mess.

After seeing people celebrate our deaths I will never look at them the same way. Never. We were calming down from the attack and epople were shouting gas the jews, were saying israelis deserve it.

I'm very sorry but I care more about my brothers and sisters then about people who teach their kids to blow themselves up to kill jews. Hate on me all you want you do it anyway, I said what I said.

[eddo-tensei]

More thoughts on Derision (Spoilers, obviously)

I think it's amusing that the default counter-argument to anyone who criticizes this episode boils down to "Well, you're just a Chloe Stan!" Which is something I had to deal with myself recently. Apparently, you can only hate this episode if you're a Chloe apologist. First off, hi, I'm Eddo. I wrote a fanfic where Chloe literally gets thrown into the dirt and suffer an allergic reaction to cacti, both times being her own fault. I feel like my Chloe Stan license should be revoked after that.

Anyways, I'm not surprised with the direction they went with Chloe in Derision. It's been stated since around Season 4 that Chloe was on a "Damnation Arc", so they've been doing everything they can to make her worse and worse. So, I'm not surprised or even angry that they continued this here. I'm annoyed, but not angry. What I AM angry about would be the other characters who got mangled in this shitshow.

Writers? Could you please stop having Chat threaten people with Cataclysm after he's shown regret doing it to people by accident TWICE?! This has happened three times now, counting what happened with Scarabella. Yes, I know he did this before with Darker Owl, but that just makes it worse because that happened right AFTER he regretted doing this to Monarch. You know, the guy who's been tormenting and attacking everyone for over a year? I guess to Chat, Damocles and Kim deserve it more for ripping away a fantasy and pulling a shitty prank respectively.

I know I complained about this a lot already, but this needs to be stressed upon. If we're going to take Cataclysm seriously, especially with what later episodes showed us, maybe DON'T have your hero threaten people with it for relatively petty reasons? "BUT IT'S FOR TRUE LOVE!!!1!!" Yeah, no. When he tried to do it on Darker Owl, Ladybug told him to cut that crap. It then happened again with Dark Humor with Ladybug telling him not to do it. It doesn't matter if it's for "true love." Both times he did this so far, Ladybug made it clear that this was a bad idea. So, maybe you guys should stop trying to encourage it. I refuse to believe that Chat believes that Monarch is more deserving to live after everything that he did than Kim after what he did. Speaking of Kim...

My friendly neighborhood dumb jock, why would the writers do this to you? When we only had the leaks to go by, I actually tried to scour for any interactions Kim had with Marinette and I can confirm that with the revelations we got in Derision, they REALLY don't make sense. Yes, Kim was a bit of a douche in the first season. Origins had him push Ivan around to the point of being the trigger for the Akuma. But he wasn't THIS much of a douchenozzle. Moreover, I have a hard time believing Marinette would be as friendly as she is with Kim throughout the series given what he did to her as revealed in this episode. Also, I know this is going to sound offensive, but...Kim was Marinette's first crush? Really? That's what you're going with? I'm not trying to insult Kim, but there was NOTHING that hinted to this. I can't help but think this was the thought process of the writers when they brought this up:

"So, we need to have Chloe do something to Marinette that would explain why Marinette struggles to be with Adrien. It has to be something big and traumatic. More importantly, it has to involve Marinette actually having a past crush that Chloe ruined and it has to be a character we're familiar with, so we can't make up an OC for it. We can't use Nino because he had a crush on her and it wouldn't make sense for her to reciprocate. We can't use Nathaniel because his crush went almost completely unnoticed by Marinette and he's also gay now. We can't use Ivan because he likes Mylene and we can't complicate that. We can't use Max because most people think he's ace and subverting that would piss a ton of people off. Oh, and we can't have it be any of the girls either because our show would get cancelled if Marinette isn't straight. So, let's just make it this guy."

"This. Fucking. Guy."

I'm having a hard time thinking of any other reason. I know some people theorized in the past that Kim and Marinette might've had a thing, but I don't think they held any water. Even now, however, I really don't think people should be happy it was canonized in this way.

I always held the belief that Chloe was responsible for Marinette's behavior, but my idea of it was that Chloe had been bullying Marinette for a long time and those years of sustained bullying took its toll on the poor baker girl that made it difficult for her to not only open her heart to people she loves, but have difficulties making friends in general until Alya came along. Yeah, Chloe doesn't look good in this case either, but it would've been more reasonable and would probably resonate with a lot more people who probably had to deal with bullies messing with them for a long time because these effects usually aren't instant. They get built on for a long time and it can really mess up their perception on things.

I think a good story would've been Marinette having to heal from that sustained trauma and while it is difficult since nobody can just quickly heal from trauma, it'd be a good journey for Marinette to be able to open up again with Alya and Adrien being just the first two pieces Marinette needs for her recovery.

But now, instead of all that, it turns out Chloe just pulled a prank that just unleashed a cavalcade of trauma on Marinette all at once that is hyper-specific to how she handles her crush that Adrien and ONLY Adrien can heal. All the while, it turns out that the prank was actually pulled by a guy who I really thought was just kinda fun and cool, but now I can't talk about him in the same way again because he's been thrown under the bus for the sake of this nonsense plot that's difficult not to call a full-on retcon. Do you know what I can call a retcon, though? Or rather who?

I am sorry to all of the people who are probably stanning Socqueline right now, but I CAN'T vibe with her. I'm not saying you're not allowed to like her either, because that would be dumb, but I DON'T like how she was presented in Derision. First off, to get this out of the way, we're no strangers to characters being introduced out of nowhere. Felix and Zoe are both characters that come to mind. The thing is you can at least explain their respective absences easily. Felix had likely been distant from Adrien for a long time with him only coming in out of obligation with Amelie. Zoe is actually even more easy to explain given that she was shoved into a boarding school by Audrey and wouldn't really be able to connect with any of the characters until she was forced to transfer. Socqueline, however, does not have that luxury and cannot be easily explained away not only with how we found her, but for the fact that there was NO hint to her existing until Season 5 and that is inexcusable given how much importance this character now has. To put it in perspective, this is how we are introduced to Socqueline in Jubilation:

Marinette: That fake Ladybug from this morning, I think it was Socqueline, a school friend from last year. Knowing her, I’m sure she means well. But I have to convince her to stop putting herself in danger like that.

That's it. She just calls her a school friend. Yes, it's clear that she's at least important enough for Marinette to remember her name, she was just called a school friend. At the very least, she did have an interesting story with her trying to be Ladybug in order to help people. Of course, she had to be talked out of it because it's causing issues with the real Ladybug, but it's a decent story and Socqueline had only made a few appearances here and there.

And then Derision.

Yes, Socqueline referred to Chloe as "that monster", so it's clear that they planned her to have something against Chloe since her first appearance. However, Derision showed us that Socqueline wasn't just a school friend. She was Marinette's closest confidant in the school years prior to the start of the series. She actively protects Marinette from bullies, particularly Chloe, and was clearly a huge inspiration for her until Chloe got her suspended from school.

First off, in case I haven't made it clear, we haven't seen Socqueline AT ALL until Season 5. Not even a hint to her existence. So given how significant she was made out to be in Derision, WHY HASN'T SHE MADE ANY APPEARANCES IN THE SERIES BEFOREHAND?! She doesn't even have the excuse of being outside of Paris like Felix and Zoe do because she's STILL there and in an arts and crafts store no less, which probably would've been a great place for Marinette to hang out in with her friends if the writers thought this through. But they didn't and Socqueline's debut comes off as severely jarring because we have this character who was really important to Marinette's life just not show up until she started cosplaying as Ladybug.

Secondly, it muddles Marinette's own backstory as well as severely hampering the significance of Alya. Now instead of being alone with nobody to help her against Chloe, which makes her friendship with Alya all the more stronger, Marinette just had this super cool friend who was always there for her until mean ol' Chloe got her kicked out of school. Doesn't that sound like something you'd see in a fanfic, specifically one that's salting Alya given how Socqueline was depicted as Marinette's BFF?

Thirdly, if Chloe was able to get Socqueline suspended so easily, then why hadn't she been able to do that with the other students? Yeah, she got close with Alya, but that didn't stick. If Chloe really had the ability to just make students disappear even if it happened once, she would NOT hesitate to try and do this again with any other student who slighted her, ESPECIALLY Marinette. But she doesn't. Once her attempt on Alya failed, she didn't try again. Hell, LILA had more attempts to get Marinette kicked out of school than Chloe did and actually got closer to doing it than Chloe would ever get, which is weird since she doesn't have the title of "Mayor's Daughter" to throw around like Chloe would. This just feels like something done to explain away why Socqueline didn't show up in the series which doesn't work because she's STILL IN PARIS and I'm pretty sure Marinette would be more than happy to meet with Socqueline given how close they were, but that never happened.

Fourthly, I'm guessing nobody felt like pointing it out because it felt too obvious, but doesn't Socqueline just come off as the writer's answer to Bridgette? You know, the older Marinette based on the anime PV that some fan writers implement into their own stories? Yeah, she's not one-to-one similar to Marinette like Bridgette is, but it definitely feels like another instance of the writers pulling stuff out of fanon just to put a canon spin on it. And like all the other instances, it's a bad spin.

Lastly, this whole incident with the prank and Socqueline's suspension took place a few months before Origins. Not even a year at the earliest. It was specifically stated that Socqueline was suspended three weeks before the end of the school year. Given how close that time gap, the way everyone behaves in Origins makes almost no sense. Marinette would be a lot more horrified of Chloe if Derision was anything to go by and Chloe would be more willing to try and cast Alya out so Marinette doesn't have any allies given that Derision showed Chloe REALLY wanting to make sure nobody helps Marinette. The only point I could even give any leeway to is Kim and even then, again, he's not that much of a douche in Origins as he was in Derision. So, really, it all just comes off as a blatant retcon specifically to try and explain the new direction the writers are taking with certain characters. And do you want to know the dumbest thing? Apparently, Socqueline was such an inspiration to Marinette that the latter changed her hair to be more like Socqueline's.

No, seriously. That's also how they explain why Marinette has different hairstyles. I know Expository Hairstyle Changes are a thing in fiction, but this is just awkward as hell given how traumatic and melodramatic the whole thing is. You don't need to say that Marinette's hairstyle came from someone who she considered a hero because nothing about Marinette indicated that her hairstyle is important. This isn't like Josuke changing his hairstyle to be based on the man who saved him as a child. It's a purely cosmetic change that's suddenly given a shit-ton of significance because now it's connected to this horribly traumatic incident. In fact, you know what this reminds me of?

Actually, the whole segment where this Linkara clip came from seems to sum up a lot of things wrong with Derision. It's not just bad because it makes some characters look bad or introduces stuff out of nowhere. It's bad because now everything in the flashback is now part of all of the characters! Every prior episode will now have to be viewed with a lens tinted by the events of this episode. Now nobody can discuss Kim without people salting on him for the prank, now nobody can talk about how important Alya's friendship with Marinette because of Socqueline's sudden boost in significance (In fact, it's very likely that Alya salters will try to use Socqueline as a replacement friend), and now nobody can speculate the intrigue of Marinette's past because EVERYTHING about her behavior is linked to this specific incident and nothing else. That's what pisses me off about this episode. That's why I share that Double D meme so frequently. I could care less about how much of a monster Chloe was depicted to be in this episode, but I am going to complain when other characters are butchered in the process. I will complain about one thing concerning her, though.

Isn't it amazing that you can tell the writers are trying DESPERATELY to squish any and all positive interpretations of Chloe, even trying to downplay parental neglect because "this character also didn't have a mom and they didn't turn out this way" even though Mylene's and Chloe's situations are still VASTLY different? You can make the argument that Audrey's absence doesn't excuse Chloe's actions. In fact, I don't think it really does either, but saying that there's only one valid response to an absent parent is EXTREMELY insensitive to people who might be going through similar situations.

Oh, and to cap this all off? This is the favorite episode of one of the main writers. Said writer possibly being considered to be the new director for Season 6 of Miraculous and onwards. I'm not gonna name which one for obvious reasons, but it's been confirmed.

I feel like this is a good indication that you need to hop off this series.

[danmei-confessions]

I honestly haven't been in the SVSSS fandom for very long but the way that some SJ fans talk about the character disturbs me, especially when they try to downplay his abusive actions or deny them. I've had disgruntled fans come onto posts I've made regarding the character's (canonical) abusive traits, claiming that I'm attacking them or just hate the character (which is not true, SJ as both victim and abuser is just an important part of his character, and it makes me really uncomfortable when vocal sections of the fandom say that SJ actually didn't abuse LBH, or that it wasn't that bad, because any abuse is "that bad" and the "it wasn't that bad compared to other things" argument gets used to discount survivors irl).

From my experience in fandom, I hadn't seen anything to the contrary so far-- SJ fans I've argued with on my posts like to demonize LBH and even characters like YQY and SY to extreme degrees, or to claim that I'm a LBH/LBG apologist because I point out that he was abused by SJ so his desire for revenge is justified... even though I never claimed that LBG was right for what he did and yes-- LBG's actions were worse than SJ's! Just as SJ's were worse than QJL's-- if we are looking at sheer scale of the actions and their affects, nothing to do with quality or morality of a person or whatever. Even writing off everything SJ did before coming to CQM because of being under duress, he still viciously abused LBH for around 5-7 years, while QJL only abused SJ for 3 years, so like it or not, there was more abuse for a longer period of time in that situation. The dilemmas of the legal and/or moral 'rightness' of either situation could be argued over forever, but the scale of SJ's abuses was larger than the scale of QJL's abuses. And of course, LBG's abuses was honestly much larger than either of theirs-- but that's laid out in his character anyway, he goes to exponential extremes.

Honestly, I haven't seen anyone say that LBG was justified in what he did and that was never what I tried to argue, because tbh I thought it was common knowledge that he was a terrible person. But people seem to misinterpret me and think that's what I'm saying anyway-- that because SJ was an abuser, he deserved what LBG did to him, and anyone who likes him is terrible as well. Which is never what I said, but what always seemed to be what people thought I was saying...

And now that I've seen things like that discord message, you know what, I get it. I understand why SJ fans have such a knee-jerk reaction to people pointing out his abusive actions, because honestly if this is the kind of shit that people give you guys for daring to like a character that just happens to be problematic, or heavens forbid liking that character and relating to him because you know what? So do I, there's a reason he's popular, he has a compelling story and he's very understandable in the way that he is!

Like on one hand, it makes me personally very uncomfortable to see people say that SJ wasn't abusive, or that he wasn't that bad, and blaming LBH for being abused. Just like it would make me uncomfortable to say any of that about SJ irt QJL/WYZ. But on the other hand, if the only way you were allowed to like a character without being harassed and attacked and having accusations thrown at you was if the character wasn't actually problematic, no wonder you don't want to hear that kind of analysis and it feels like a personal attack!

Anyway, what I want to say to the fandom as a whole is, please don't make assumptions about people and attack them for liking or relating to a character-- any character. You have no idea why they like or relate to a character, and honestly it's absolutely disgusting to make accusations and attacks on people for something like this. And for SJ fans, I'm genuinely sorry if what was meant to be character analysis posts on canonical traits of the character, as well as a reminder that victim-blaming and abuse apologism and denial are pretty not cool, was read as an attack and calling the fans bad people for it. I get you guys have had it rough and the fandom hasn't treated you well-- but also, please try to curb knee-jerk reactions, not everyone is out to get you. If you just don't like thinking about SJ's abusive traits, or prefer to write the character OOC or with different motives, then just say that. Pointing out canon is not the same as an attack. From looking at the debates on this blog, it seems like a lot of people are reading attacks into statements where there aren't meant to be any.

Not everyone who points of SJ's abuse hates the character or his fans-- some people just like to analyze the text, or find it uncomfortable when it seems like people are victim-blaming because of their own life experiences. But also, not everyone who doesn't want to focus on SJ's abusive traits and prefers to focus on other aspects of the character is excusing abuse or anything like that-- sometimes it's just not relevant to the story being told.

The answer isn't to claim your fav was never abusive when he was. the answer is for people to not pass judgment on other fans because of what they want to write about or what characters they like, and not to read attacks into statements where they're not meant. It's no one's place to pass judgement on someone else whose life you know nothing about from behind a screen-- and it's also not good to lash out at others because you've been hurt in the past.

Fandom, please stop forgetting that other fans are actual real people with real lives, real stories, and real trauma that you don't know about. There is never a reason to send hate, abuse, and death threats to anyone, no matter how much you disagree with them.

.

[mytragedyperson]

Also, I'm one of those people who, if a character hurts in any way my favourite character, the one I want to protect and the one i want to be loved, in canon, I will struggle to forgive you. There are exceptions to this. For example, Kageyama is a character i love and who i want to be protected but I don't dislike Oikawa, Kunimi or Kindaichi because they were kids and everyone had their own part in that. When I say hurt, I mean like Reki from sk8 the infinity and Adam. I love Reki, i think he's sunshine, i think he deserves to be loved and protected, I want him to be happy and healthy. And Adam treats him like shit and makes him doubt himeslf and physically hurts him. so personally i don't really care what justicication some people may think he has. I won't ever like Adam. Plus, i also really like Miya and Cherry and he hurt them too so i can't forgive him.

But then on the other side of that, if i like a character, i will be kind of an apologist? Like, it's not so much I think my favourite characters can do no wrong. They can, they do, and I can accept this. But I'll also make justifications.

For example, dazai Osamu from Bungou Stray Dogs, and particularly his treatment of Akutagawa. Now, let me start by making this clear: i know Dazai treats Akutagawa like shit. I know he abused him and even now he uses Akutagawa's admiration to manipulate him. I'm not here to argue that Dazai is in any way in the right. I'm not even trying to convince people who dislike Dazai for these things to like him. Because, i'm sure, if I was someone whose favourite character was Akutagawa, I'd probably at least struggle to like him at times, too. However, whenever i think about Dazai and Akutagawa, my brain just ends up going in circles. Because one second I'll be thinking Dazai should've never been the one training him or trying to be this teacher role for him anyway. Dazai was himself a traumatised teenager, only two years older than Akutagawa. Akutagawa needed somewhere to stay and someone to care about him, but I'm not sure Dazai knows how to care about people, especially at that point. Most of the people around him are abusive. Mori is raising him at this time, but even before that, it's unclear if he ever had caring, loving parents. And I hate to say this, this is the mafia. there may be some good people there, some who do genuinely care about the people under them, but i imagine most of the mafia don't, they can't. And with Akutagawa's Ability, realistically, there may be others who could maybe train him, if they have similar Abilities or if they're stronger or have more training, but Akutagawa's is a very strong and deadly Ability and not everyone in the mafia has abilities. And they might not treat Akutagawa much better. This doesn't make Dazai right, but Dazai may just be the only person he'd actually listen to, even slightly. Anyone else would either be killed by him or end up finding a way to kill him because he is too dangerous to have around as an organisation. So i don't agree with Dazai's actions but, i also don't fully get what alternative there is. Maybe Chuuya but if he's going to be away, that's not viable really. So i don't know what the alternative is, and that sucks, because he does deserve better but i don't know what better is in this case

[urproblematicfav-arsonk]

(Different anon, CW for discussion of rape)

Stella raped Stolas, willingly and on purpose. While I have zero disagreements that she is also a victim of the arranged marriage and all the culture surrounding all that, some of your points (which were mostly good points, I feel the need to preface this with the fact that you and I are very much in agreement about what Stolas has done wrong) seemed to suggest, at least to me, that she causes less harm to Stolas that she does to her. Like when you bring up how Stolas yells at her and how that's not okay, I think it's really important to acknowledge that she is his abuser, and he is reacting to her active abuse of him. She throws and breaks things, she constantly berates him in front of their daughter, she plotted his literal murder in front of her too, she bragged about raping him at the "still not divorced" party, she physically assaults him, she downplays his emotions and his trauma, and so on. That's just what we see on-screen. I don't think it's abusive for Stolas to have a strong reaction to that.

All of your other points, totally agree with. And it's very possible that I've misinterpreted your thoughts/words regarding Stella (I am basing this ask off a single post of yours, while sleep deprived, so I acknowledge that I may have missed or misinterpreted something). As a victim of domestic abuse, I just felt the need to share my thoughts about their dynamic. And if we disagree that's okay too!

Either way, thank you for your points regarding Stolas and Octavia. You're the only other person I've seen who even touches on that, and it was oddly refreshing. I had similar thoughts but always felt brushed aside when I said something in a discord server about it. 100+ people there and not one seemed to agree about it

I love that you need to preface ranting about Stella with me being right about Stolas lmao.

Anyway, put this off because I was already really tired and worked up over the previous anon I got about this at 5am, and then life stuff was STRESSING ME THE FUCK OUT, and then I went on a collectively 40 hour bus trip to Ohio. Got busy, and didn't care enough about this lmao.

But I'm back now. And eating cheesecake so I'm in a mood to rant without being agitated.

I'm not a Stella "apologist" in the sense that I think she did nothing wrong. But I do think she was robbed as a character (and subsequently Georgina Leahy, who was completely fucking wasted as an actor)

I'm not saying what Stella does isn't abuse or rape. But Stella being a rapist, doesn't make Stolas NOT a rapist lmao. And also, the sentiment that Stella is this evil, awful bad bad WOMAN who causes all the problems, unlike pure baby Stolas is both basically canon and also what 90% of the fandom believes in.

And I'm a fucking contrarian and also unlike Viv, actually believe in Inside Of Every Demon Is A Rainbow, and that everyone deserves empathy and the chance to be better.

One of the big problems with Hazbin/Helluva as a concept, is that it doesn't believe in that.

Characters like Stella, or Valentino, or any character that does something worse than a misdemeanor are immediately, both by the text and fandom, completely written off as Broken and Unredeemable.

Genuinely, what does this scene say? What am I, the audience supposed to take away from this, what bit of valuable character development am I learning from this view of Stella?

It's that she's been like this from the start. She was always bad. There's no point helping her, or wanting her to get better. You see, she was like.......that, even when she was a kid! So really its her fault she's like this.

Stella and Stolas are both products of a patriarchal, sexist society where rape and abuse is expected. They were both set up to fail. That were both groomed to think behaving like this is normal and fine.

There's a way to make Stella a villian and an antagonist without it just reeking of misogyny. She doesn't feel like a well rounded character, with goals and thoughts. She's just a Horrible Woman who makes Man sad. And with the added problem of Stolas participating in sex trafficking, abusing his daughter, and just his all around classisim and racisim, it makes it seem like Stella is only bad because she's mean and not because those things are bad.

HH/HB has a SERIOUS problem with framing abuse(usually sexual??) as Fine and Okay as long as the person doing it is One Of The Good Ones. Val isn't sad or sympathetic, he's scary, so when he's sexually violent it's not only expected, but the most groundbreakingly evil thing he could do and we should kill him and remove him from the story immediately. Angel is sad, and we like him, so his sexual violence is okay because he didn't mean it like that, he's just making a mistake, it's a story about growing after all.

Same goes for Stella and Stolas.

As for Stella being the "abuser", I don't necessarily disagree. But abuse is complicated and especially when dealing with something like marriage or close relationships in general, it can get messy on strict titles like that. People rarely ever stay in one neat box of The Bad One, and The Good One. They can be terrible to each other at the same time, and both suck for it.

We don't really know a whole lot about their past together, however its a patriarchy, and Stolas is the patriarch. No matter what, he has automatic superiorly over her. He's educated, he's a prince, he has the grimoire. Stella was more or less given to him. At the very least, at the start it was probably closer to a mutual abuse/rape situation where neither of them wanted it but Stolas had a duty and Stella was required to participate.

I don't think Stolas' outbursts against her put him in the wrong because he isn't being nice enough about being traumatized. But with everything else happening, it feels hollow and like poor writing. The narrative is just hyper focusing on how much Stolas is suffering because of this society, and then immediately writing Stella off as evil because she evil with no awareness. It's boring. It's dumb. It's disappointing.

Stella exists as a character to make Stolas seem more pathetic and relatable, she's barely even a person. You see his shitty behavior and go "well, look at his wife and everything, of course he's kinda weird sometimes. it's not his fault."

And I think Stolas yelling at Stella is less about their abuse to each other, and how doing that in front of Octavia is bad for her. This divorce is already hard on her, and having to deal with that kind of household sucks. They could keep the fighting under wraps more.

I'm like, a harcore Valangel redemption arc believer, where they can move on from the abuse and mess of their relationship and find a way to reconcile and be civil. And I think Stella and Stolas could've had that too.

They could realize how its less about how much they hate each other, and more the expectations and trauma forced onto them since they were babies. They could bond over how much they don't want Octavia to be another cycle of that. Stella's murder attempt could be about her trying to secure her station in life, keep her image in public, make sure she has the power to give her daughter a slightly better life. Stella could face how fucking awful she is, and find a way to show that she wants to change but she feels trapped. Stolas doesn't want to be there, Stella doesn't want to be there, let them bitches work together. Fuck it, make the public divorce a scam to make one of them look better so it goes faster.

I'm not even actually anti Stolas, I actually liked him for most of the show until shit started really falling apart recently. I just want a timeline where the writing in this show isn't awful and all the characters have real, nuanced arcs. It's just so boring and stupid.

[toy-capsule]

barbie movie rewrite because it was okay but i know how it couldve been better

ya so i've only watched the movie once and actively as i was watching it i was thinking of ways to rework the plot.. and i wrote none of it down after i saw it. but i like this website and i should post here more so here's my nonsense thoughts :)

so couple of main changes need to take place for this movie to work as a proper feminist movie in my opinion. making it perfect or overly nuanced isn't my idea of fixing it; I would much rather improve the fundamental message and conclusion so it isn't a specifically flawed intro to feminism because that is a really valuable thing for movie's in this climate to be.

change 1: alan deserved better!

one of the biggest philosophy's of feminism i believe in is intersectionality. alan is in a very interesting spot in the barbie world which i believe makes him uniquely suited for the movie's core conflict- an opportunity that the writers squandered (number one pathetic character apologist here). anyways, from what ive seen in the commentary and reactions this movie has, is that like weird barbie, alan is seen as a bit of a queer icon. but instead of his typical pre-movie interpretation of him just being a gay man, ive witnessed many also head canon them as non-binary as well (I'll stick to he/they pronouns for them here!) because of how much he chooses to associate with the barbies over the kens more often than not. i cannot believe that this wasn't explored more in the conclusion.

this leads me into my main argument for alan- instead of simply inspiring the resolution they should've been a much more important key player. how this might happen starts with the dance off in the third act. i think that pitting the kens against each other here was a pretty low blow narratively, it really establishes a pretty unfortunate theme for the ending which is just division between the two groups. (the barbie movie is really just misogyny but in reverse and doesn't attempt to fix any of the problems it acknowledges.) instead of infantilizing the kens -which was fine at the beginning of the movie for shits and giggles but became less funny and more frustrating as the movie went on- i think a much more productive start to the beach dance-off scene could've been alan trying to talk sense into the kens (like gloria does for the brainwashed barbies.) it would have needed to fail at this point for the sake of conflict but it would have brought in an easy applicable solution for our real life equivalent of misogyny into the narrative - men (and those apart of their sphere socially) talking to and checking their fellow peers when they are doing sexist shit

after the barbies take over the supreme court and do their thing we have a bit of tension to resolve still. even though gosling's stereotypical ken (sken) has discovered that he is kenough, that can't be said for the rest of the ken's. liu's ken #2 (real character name) should probably be the one to try to enforce the patriarchy just because of the preestablished tension. i think it would be a wonderful moment to see sken stand up to him properly here and really acknowledge alan's message here of respecting the other Barbie's as people and friends (shout out ace stereotypical barbie!) rather than objects. additionally they ask for respect in turn (equal representation on the supreme court because that ending was so foul wtf) also maybe some hand holding action because i am nothing if not a poly sken/alan/ken2 shipper- this is still a tumblr analysis what did you expect)

change 2: ruth shouldn't have been god, barbie should've

barbie becoming human at the end was weird and gross. who would actually want to be human? i'm sorry but if i lived as an inspirational concept to little girls around the world i think i would've taken that power a bit more seriously.

i'm so glad ruth was included in this movie and she should still play a key part in barbie's crisis and development. but.. instead of being god i think she should've acted more as a guiding spirit to barbie or a silly (possibly vengeful - literally just for fun i have no basis for this) ghost haunting mattel. after all, all of barbie's power comes from being an idea that can persevere throughout generations, and ruth is well... dead. i think instead of asking to become human when she got agency the conversation shouldve gone a bit more like this : ruth: what do you want barbie? barbie: honestly i don't know, is that normal? ruth: yes honey, (big dramatic monolouge about not rushing to find purpose.. etc) barbie: after everything that's happened i still dont feel like i belong ruth : that's okay too. you have all the time in the universe to decide what you want to be, youre in control of your own destiny barbie: the universe sounds nice actually, but there is one thing i need to do before i go *she fucking obliterates mattel's ceo and thats how she debuts as god*

not the best but better than her going to the fucking gyno as an ending

minor changes!

I think gloria and sasha should have gotten more development, making them mirror ruth and barbie wouldve been a nice touch. maybe an ending or after credits scene depicting the two of them having a similar conversation to the one i just described would have been silly. (also please take sasha more seriously that girl is right about everything and is listened to only a third of the time she actually gets lines. she could've been an excellent dead-pan comedic foil to the more absurdist jokes of the film, under utilized fave) big opportunity to make that conversation absolutely unhinged too:

gloria: you can be whatever you want in life kid sasha: *actively pinning up pictures of warner bros ceo david zaslav on a bulletin board with a big red x and looks directly into the camera* I know mom <3

mattel's depiction was barely passable. i have had enough of major companies being posed as villains but keeping them silly and unthreatening- its unfaithful and disrespectful to real life. start them off as silly and shitty, thats fine. it matches the tone of the movie- but as parallels between real life and the movie converge in the third act, mattel should start acting like the predatory company they actually are.

their investment in reinstating barbie as supreme leader over ken despite him making more money in the name of "feminism" would have never in a star death ever happen. literally the entire board only being men was a joke they really fucking made and still had them supporting women- it ruins the entire thesis of the movie and makes the message muddy. fix that, keep them forcefully trying to pair up barbie and ken but change it so its true life: nothing more than an effort to make more of a profit and bring patriarchy to barbieland. this would've brough the climax to an apex and match the stakes to my barbie god conclusion.

anyways yeah i loved the artistic direction of this movie and the casting but not much else! let me know if i missed anything and thx for reading

[talkingbl]

Two Things Can Be True At Once: Prom, Phuwin, Yui & Mark (aka MSP + Phuwin)

I have a lot of thoughts about each of these scandals and reactions to them that I want to address. We'll go in order.

Prom: What Prom said was absolutely horrendous. I could not believe my ears and eyes and feel like he deserves every bit of criticism being tossed his way. He openly admitted to violating the human rights of CHILDREN, all for a weird cool-guy fantasy he wanted to portray for his damn near grown friends. That is maximum creep behavior and I hope he learns a powerful lesson from all of this. In spite of his apology, violating a child's right to privacy in those moments is way too much for me to feel comfortable with. Plus, the fact that he felt comfortable enough to say it on national TV until he got a little backlash speaks volumes to me.

Yui: Look, I'm not claiming to be in that woman's mind or know why she dismissed the reaction to Prom's disgusting statements--I only know that she has a job to do. For her to all but tell a much younger, more impressionable person that his dangerous words and actions were okay since it'll all blow over anyway was wrong and garbage can behavior. Being the adult in the situation, regardless of what her intent was, the effect is to become a pedo-apologist. She should have never told him his actions were okay, regardless of if she was just trying to talk him off a ledge or whatever. It is NEVER okay to do what Prom said he did--and it's completely fucked up that I even have to say that.

Phuwin: What Phuwin said was completely inappropriate and, unfortunately, a very common incidence even today. As someone who has ADHD, I can totally see why many are hurt by his words. Him using the r-word was indecent and deserved the criticism being lodged against him. And while I personally thought his apology was well-crafted, people have the right not to accept it. For me, I go on peoples' general feel in addition to their actions and words and Phuwin doesn't feel like this big bad monster to me. Again, totally up to other neurodivergents if they want to accept his apology.

Mark: This situation is a bit different than the others IMO, because I don't know the full context behind the most incriminating-sounding statement "it's normal." There is a very strong reason to believe Mark was stating "it's normal [to be stressed about this]" (since the sentence immediately preceding "it's normal" is about Prom being stressed). I want to be clear that I've not heard the full audio myself and every translation seems to attribute different words to Mark (but Yui's message stays consistent). Like, seriously, even Thai people don't even know what was said. For that reason, I am hard-pressed to feel the need to personally cancel Mark (but if you want to, that's your business). I think it would be misguided of me to feel the need to end this person because of something I barely understand myself. But this leads me into my next point when these scandals start piling up...

Folks on the internet do not live in the real world. For chronically-online young people, it takes not even a scintilla of evidence against someone to rip their entire livelihood away from them. Not only that, but these folks will hear a lie or exaggeration and RUN with it. They will hear that Mond, who was on the same Safe House season as Gemini, did Blackface (he did); Prom, who was on the same show as Gemini, spied on kids in the shower (he did); and Gemini colonized Namibia (he didn't) and will believe each allegation as if there's any truth to the last claim simply because Gem is associated with those two in some vague way. I'm not saying Gem is (or will turn out to be) an angel but the way some of these folks will just believe any characterization of things without looking at the evidence for themselves is dangerous.

I want to be clear. Calling Prom out is not dangerous to anyone. If anything, you're protecting more poor children from being spied on. However, running with lies, half-truths, or yet-to-be confirmed speculation is dangerous. I just wish more people would approach things logically instead of going on witch-hunts and calling anyone who exposes that tendency a "sympathizer" or "apologist".

That said, I want clean up the trash in our media (Build, apparently now Prom, etc.), but don't see the point in calling everything trash and taking it to the dump indiscriminately.

[aceofshitposts]

5 QUESTIONS, 15 (or whatever).

Got tagged by @generatorcat and @glaciya ❤️

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYBODY?

My birth middle name was also my paternal grandmother's name, so I was kinda named after her. But then I went and changed my legal name to something I liked better lmao so...

Ah shit. I did name myself after something. My middle name is now Draco 😂😂 BEFORE YOU JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS. IT WAS ACTUALLY ONE OF MY FAVOURITE NAMES DUE TO THE MOVIE DRAGONHEART and its my favourite constellation.... But I am also a Draco Malfoy apologist 😔

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?

Uuuuh someone last week? I was in the throes of another bpd episode and having a Time

3. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?

Absolutely not. I'm not a child rearing kind of person. I've never really wanted children and I still don't. It's funny cuz of course the idea will come up when you're with friends like I'm school and I just sort of picked names to fit in but I truly was never able to actually picture myself as married or having kids or what I would want it to be like.

4. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?

Oh yes haha I've been told my delivery is so dry that people have trouble telling if I'm actually joking or not 😅

5. WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED?

Used to play volleyball in school. Briefly did some track stuff.

Now I do dog sports like agility :) or well I will once Al is old enough. I used to do ability with my old boss's dogs and help teach the classes though.

6. WHAT'S THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT SOMEONE?

Oh that's tough. Uh usually whether or not I like them on fist instinct and whether I think they like me lol

7. EYE COLOUR?

Brown

8. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?

I love both?? Scary movies though often compel me because there's like things going on and puzzles to work out

9. ANY SPECIAL TALENTS?

I can catch things without looking? Uuh, I wouldn't call this a talent but people are mystified by it anyway: my ability to get dogs to listen to me lol

It's all about persistence

10. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

hospital, almost exactly one month early

11. WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES?

Video games, writing, art of various types, photography

12. DO YOU HAVE PETS?

Yes! I currently have a great pyrenees/gsd/golden retriever mix and I love him very much. He's 4.5 months now and such a sweetheart. He's doing really well with his service work training too but he's still got puppy brain lol

13. HOW TALL ARE YOU?

5'6"

14. FAVOURITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL?

Honestly it's hard to say since I really struggled with school my whole life. I always loved evolutionary science, though, and still do.

15. DREAM JOB?

Running a wolf-dog sanctuary. These animals don't deserve what the get just because of people's ignorance and would love to run a place where they're safe and loved by someone who knows how to handle them.

Honestly I'd probably expand it to other unreleasable wildlife too but my main passion is canids.

Right now I'm settling for opening my own doggy daycare 😂

Another one would just to be independently wealthy and run my own little farm ala harvest moon/story of seasons and have like 15 dogs.

Gonna tag @yasmindifference @krizariel @nanapop @penumbra-twist

[heathersproship]

7.) Ship the antis in your fandom like, but you think is hella problematic?

and

8.) Ship that is (presented as) cute in canon/fanon, but you think is problematic anyway.

If you want ofc.

Holy shit I didn't think anyone would ask me anything, thank you so much!!

I'm... so sorry for the oncoming rants. Oh boy lol.

CW for mentions of coercion toward the end

7) Chansaw. Chansaw, Chansaw, Chansaw. Without a sliver of a shadow of a doubt.

Antis like it because WLW, and as we all know, WLW >>>>> HET ALWAYS. And also, WLW is never toxic because they say so, and if you disagree, you're an ugly pedo rape apologist! HET BAAAAAD, WLW GOOOOOOOD! uwu! Because, you see, when a boy pulls your pigtails because he likes you, it's problematic. But when a girl pulls your pigtails because she likes you, suddenly it's all right! Because it's different when it's a GIRL. She's not a BOY, so it's different, see? Because if it's a BOY, it's not gay. It's m/f, not f/f, and it's less valid if it's not f/f don't you know uwu I'm so progressive and if you don't like this specific ship UM you're homophobic 💀💀💀 l + ratio + bozo /S

Never mind the fact there's literally three other girls to choose from, so this is hardly the only wlw ship we have to work with or perish. 5/8 of the students are girls, and Ms. Flem is the only notable adult. Never mind that all Chandler and Veronica do is butt heads the entire time they're on screen together. At least when Veronica got together with J.D., she actually liked him. He had nothing to offer her, yet she still decided he was worth the trouble and only realized she dun goofed later on when he proves he's not exactly safe to be around. Whereas she got with the Heathers specifically for the benefits of popularity, not because she liked them (in the musical, her exact words were "They're solid Teflon - never bothered, never harassed / I would give anything to be like that." Not them. Like that), and she paid for it with her talent of forgery.

I've seen the argument Chansaw is better because Chandler was just a bully, whereas J.D. murdered people. OBVIOUSLY no one is doubting murder is worse than bullying. Right?? That's a given (I hope). But they seem to be forgetting bullying is also bad behavior. Plus, when that's not the question being asked, any attempt to insist that's still the answer just derails and distracts from the point. The question is NOT "whose actions are more bad/who can we deem the WORSER PERSON (and therefore who DESERVES to be HATED MORE)?" but "do their actions paint them as bad people?" Murdering is bad, yes, obviously, but so is being a cunt. Veronica didn't want to murder, but she ALSO didn't want to be an asshole to others, not for shits and giggles, and definitely not to Martha Dunnstock, who's done literally nothing to anyone. I don't see how that's so hard to understand. The scale of the offense doesn't matter because that’s not the point.

8) Again, Chansaw. None of the relationships in Heathers are without some level of problematic bs, but this one kickstarts it. The story wouldn't exist if this relationship was any better than it canonically is.

Heather Chandler treats everyone around her with the utmost contempt, including Veronica Sawyer, and the fact that antis love this ship so much is one of the fandom's biggest ironies. You can't wear the "Mythic Bitch" badge with pride but recoil and screech and desperately try to reframe it as something else when she actually and unapologetically behaves like a bitch. Passing off the toxicity as romantic also goes against anti beliefs since that's romanticizing toxicity, is it not? And insisting she's actually not a bitch because "well um uhm uhhhm ackshually see what happened was like their own personal headcanon dictates she's just mean because like misunderstood uwu and like daddy issues owo and if you don’t agree their interpretation is the only valid one despite blatantly contradicting canon then did you know you're the wrongest person in the whole wide world to ever wrong and also did you know deserve the death?" is like... first of all, headcanons are just headcanons, not canon-canon, and no one has to agree with ones they don’t like, and second of all, we clearly did not watch the same story because that girl has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

(And no! Her high school junior ass getting coerced into blowing a uni guy in the movie doesn't make her misunderstood! Sympathetic, absolutely. But there's nothing to misunderstand. Adult man pressure girl at party. Girl hate this. Girl mad. Girl mad so girl mean to friend for not getting hurt too. Friend sick. Friend want go home. Girl not let sick friend go since sick friend not hurt like girl was. Sick friend vomit. Girl mad at sick friend more. Friend mad at girl. Girl drop friend. Friend try say sorry. Girl not say sorry back. Girl not care. Friend kill girl. Friend not mean to. Girl dead. What's not to get?

Also no! Her singing her "suicide" note in the musical doesn't mean jack because we all saw her "suicide" was murder (that's literally the premise), and her murderers are writing this note to cover their asses. All the stuff they're making her say is to make it look like she murdered herself so they don't get in trouble. It can't be more obvious than it's shown! I can't believe antis are so desperate to prove they only stan Good People they choose to blatantly ignore concrete evidence of shit going on and try to insist their pure viewing is the universal interpretation of events! There's headcanon and then there's whatever this is!)

[will80sbyers]

Hey dani!! I'm not one of the haters and I really do love your posts but I think calling people rape apologists and nazi sympathizers taking it a bit too far, don't you think? I really wish gay mikers and bi mikers, henry theorists and non-henry theorists could just stop fighting on tumblr. This is just a fandom space and it literally makes no sense for everyone to be constantly fighting. I personally believe Mike being gay would make more sense narrative wise, but you're entitled to your own opinion and i respect that. I'm bi myself so i understand the need for more rep in the media, and I wouldn't be mad either way because in the end we're at least getting queer representation one way or another. I really wanted to say something about all the drama going on right now, and I hope fandom spaces can become less toxic. Anyway have a nice day!

Hey!

I think it's taking it exactly where they took it first, they wanted to put fiction to the same field as reality so this applies to their way of thinking... they should be okay with me assuming that they are those types of people by following how they think if they were coherent, but they don't like it when I do the same thing they do and go crying about it distorting the meaning of the conversation or conveniently forgetting the tag where I point out it's irony and hyperbolic language in response to the asks they were sending me, pretending to be Gandhi while harassing others online

Those posts were in direct response to people sending me asks and telling me that you should forgive serial killers in real life and if you don't then it means that you support cops, the actual prison system and capital punishment from the state - I made a comparison because serial killers are not that better from rapists or Nazis, in fact they are overlapping often in real life because a lot of serial killers kill to satisfy sexual urges and exert control on others like that and a lot of Nazis were people so convinced of their superiority to consider others not worthy of value and so kill them for that (exactly like Henry does btw, he says it in the show literally that he kills because he's a predator and they are weak and deserve to be killed because of that)

people that are listening to whoever is talking shit again because they can't let things go and are fixated on starting drama again should look at the whole context of the conversation before judging

For the rest I am not the one constantly fighting I am the one that's not okay with being harassed online and so responds to the attacks, when I have problems with something someone says here I block them I don't go into their blogs to send a ton of hate asks about who they are as a person making big ass accusations first... but I do punch back as I said, I'm not here to take the bullying from these kids

I don't care about the Bi Vs. Gay "discourse" and never did, I think you can think whatever you want about Mike, I think he's bi and it makes more sense in the narrative for many reasons but I'm not into debating about that with others anymore because when I did - always being civil and kind about it - people started sending me hate asks because they don't like the idea of bi mike

The only thing I don't like is when the reasons to justify believing in gay Mike are reasons born from biphobic thinking, so sometimes I respond to those reasons making my own posts in my own blog and then people take it as "discourse" like I was going into their blogs to send them asks telling them they are idiots for believing gay Mike (thing that some gay Mike truthers do constantly about bi mike truthers by the way)

I wish the fandom was less toxic too that's why I block people because I want to have a peaceful experience here and have fun... this is the last ask I'm gonna post about this because I'm over it

Have a nice day too 🌈

[trials-of-a-spirit-worker]

I want to add to this as a huge Azula fan myself.

Seeing her defeated was kind of like watching Killmonger be defeated. It's meant to be a relief and a sense of tragedy. You are allowed to feel pity for a villainous character and still want to see them beat by the heroes.

Both of these characters are lost in their own anger, their own extremisms and are so far gone from self awareness the only thing to stop them is defeat. It just be like that sometimes.

And that's not to say neither were incapable of stepping back and realizing "oh shit... This is not the way." I think in both senses of the character if you wrote it right, if you swung it right, you could write a damn good redemption. Not a heroic turn; but one where they understand it's time to atone and reflect. Realistically I could never see either Azula or Killmonger turning over completely but maybe, just maybe realizing "Holy fuck was I wrong for this shit I did". But this is about Azula specifically. Besides, anytime I talk about Killmonger and shit I get yelled at anyway for slightly pitying the angry fucker.

Azula needed to face her inner demons and it's the act of running from them that pushes her into the familiarity of the illusion of her superiority. It's so easy to be Ozai's champion child, the prodigy, etc. She must be perfect, she must be worthy of the love her father places on her because deep down she knows what it looks like when that love is stripped away. To be "loved" by that man and the fucked up society of the Fire Nation is to be safe.

Zuko is living proof of his love abandoned. The "you can't treat me like Zuko" line is DAMNING. There is a point of awareness where she knows falling in line will keep her safe.

Does that excuse any of her actions? Fuck. No. She knew what the fuck she was doing and took joy in it. There's no way to negate that. She thrived on conquering, she thrived on being the ruthless princess and the power she snatched. To say she's some tortured soul who doesn't know what she's doing is very diminishing to the amazing character she is. To say she had to because of Ozai is to kill her agency as a terrifying villain. And Azula is a horrific villain. That's why I love her. To me, her most powerful moments were her taking control of situations without having to bend. The beating Long Feng with turning of the Dai Li, getting in Sokka's head during the Day of Black Sun and wasting time; the scariest thing is she knows how to take control and bend things to her will. That's what makes her such a great villain and what makes her downfall so damn good. She's losing control, bit by bit and it's slowly driving her mad because control is all she knows. And yes, you can argue this is Ozai's fault. I'm sure Ozai was no doubt a shit father and mentor to Azula. But she is not some UwU babygirl who was forced by her father to do some terrible things. No, she was raised by a horrible person and became a horrible person herself. Point blank.

To be an Azula apologist is to diminish her character.

To me, Azula has an arc. It's a downward spiral and damn is it a good one. She is made to foil Zuko in the terms of parental abuse. Some people learn and thrive in spite of the pain of abuse and others succumb to the abuse and continue the cycle. It's very clear who is representing what. She is meant to fall apart being so close to true familial love and yet pushing herself so far from it. That's why it's Ursa who haunts her at the end. "My mother thinks I'm a monster", "My mother fears me", "Fear is the only way", these thoughts are all she knows and it's been blinding her to making meaningful relationships. In the end, Azula winds up alone, and unloved because of her own making. Somewhere, she knew or even hoped, that she could be loved too, she wants the love that to her only Zuko seems to have since that love is what makes people defy Ozai and her. She never saw that she was deserving of unconditional love or even had it through Ursa and was robbed of that from Ozai. That talk with herself shows that she knows enough that she's got a problem and she shoves that shit down. To hear Ursa tell her she loved her even in her imagination is so contradictory to who she's supposed to be or even who she's trying to be that she has to shatter the suggestion of her mother just to quiet her swirling thoughts.

That conversation with Ursa is a huge inner fight with herself and ultimately a fight she loses as she sobs.

I think a lot of the case of "Azula is still a child" gets conflated with she's innocent. Which is not true. Azula is a child soldier and that is true and tragic, however, she's got massive power due to her upbringing and title. Plus, she's old enough to know her actions have massive consequences. She's a person who thinks for the long term. She's a child, but a brilliant and evil one.

I honestly believe in other AUs where Ursa took both the kids successfully or her being away from her father she would've been an entirely different person maybe even a good person. I do acknowledge where Ozai has his claws in her but I refuse to absolve her for her own actions.

To this day, Azula is one of my favorite characters in Avatar hands down. There are so many different layers to her and I honestly wish sometimes people would truly break down her character like they do her brother, because you would find some great means of how to write a tragic yet arguably irredeemable villain.

Not every villain should be redeemed, should be fixed. But I think every character should be understood.

Azula stans really need to stop projecting the tough childhoods they had unto her. She is not some helpless little girl who never did anything bad on her own accord. Her fangirls are nothing but toxic terfs who think any criticism for them are sins from the patriarchy, please.

Idk enough Azula apologists to say they are all terfs or not, but I think the larger issue is people aren't comfortable rooting for the bad guy anymore. I, personally blame Wicked. I love the show, and I really liked the book, but it kickstarted this trend of What If stories that make villains more sympathetic. In a lot of cases, they just outright flip who was the villain and who was the hero, which is the least interesting thing you could do in terms of exploring a villain character's motives (glaring daggers at you, Maleficent).

No one is all black or all white. Everyone exists in shades of grey, and that includes villains. There's nothing wrong with exploring the grey areas of villains. Some of the best villains in literature are multi-dimensional. Some of them are even sympathetic, but at the end of the day, they are villains and nothing justifies their destruction. The best recent example I can think of is Killmonger from the Black Panther movie. He wasn't wrong to criticize the exploitation of Africa and the Black Diaspora by the West. He wasn't wrong for thinking that Wakanda should've stepped up and intervened. His anger was absolutely justified, but his methods absolutely were not. As an audience we can both love and empathize with Killmonger but also admit he was the villain.

That is, unfortunately, not how a lot of Azula's staunchest defenders approach her. Instead of allowing themselves to feel empathy for her, even though she is definitely in the wrong and has definitely made decisions on her own accord that show her own moral compass is broken, they have to turn her into a victim of circumstance. I think that is actually a very sexist way to look at Azula, though I don't really think for the most part her defenders are trying to be. Azula made choices she didn't have to. She was a child who was likely abused (albeit in a different way from Zuko). She was also an abuser herself, and very ruthless and cunning in her own right. All those things can be true at the same time, but Azula defenders can't seem to accept that.

Now I could speculate on why this is, and personally, I think it's because of this really annoying trend of needing your fandom opinions to align with your morals. I don't have much to base that on, though. I don't spend a ton of time engaging with a lot of people on the opposite end of the fandom from me, so I haven't heard directly from the more rational Azula defenders on why they think the way they do (the ones I've interacted with have been just...the worst and I didn't care to engage with them for long). Even if I did, who is self aware enough to say "my need to defend this villain is because I don't feel comfortable liking them if they are truly bad"? My opinion is based entirely on the posts that I see on my feed sometimes of mutuals getting asks that accuse them of terrible things because of the characters and tropes they like. Also, on the metas I sometimes see explaining how rather than being the villain, Azula was a broken little thing who had been failed by everyone around her, including her brother- who was a child himself, and her uncle- who couldn't have intervened even if he wanted because Azula wouldn't have ever accepted his help.

I could be right, or I could be way off base, but I think if we're ever going to see a decline in the rabid defenders of characters like Azula, we have to get to a point where we can admit we like bad guys without trying to make them heroes. It's okay to like a character and still want to see them defeated in the end. Or to want to see them win, even if it means that evil has triumphed. It doesn't mean anything about you as a person. It just means that you like a good story.