#it could have been handled way better

[ladystarksneedle]

Alicole expectations from the first episode:

What we got

[hightowered]

and you know i gotta say. the vast majority of the people losing their shit this weekend made it very clear that they do not understand the difference between "artists who want a measure of comfort in their lives" and "the billionaires actually being targeted by phrases like eat the rich." that is such a weird thing to be so proud to announce to the whole entire internet.

it's also extremely weird to behave as though any individual is entitled to an artist's work for free. or that the audience should be the final say in determining what an artist creates. there is a major difference between the betrayal of an artist who produces art and then banks on their social capital to engage in harmful, violent, bigoted behavior (like jk rowling) and the "betrayal" of an artist who decides that they should be or need to be compensated for their work. the latter isn't actually a betrayal at all. it's just a shift.

the thing is that the watcher boys didn't invent capitalism, they didn't invent the streaming model, they didn't invent youtube or patreon. they aren't getting 100% of the money from either. their merch doesn't magically appear as if made by elves while they sleep. their videos don't happen out of nowhere and without incurring bills. they have a business which employs people, and sure, you can say they employ too many people, but do they actually? a bunch of randos on the internet don't actually know that. they don't know these job titles, or how necessary it is to have everyone there. it's pure speculation. the entire company exists within a system they did not invent and are trying to stay afloat in said system while a bunch of assholes on the internet berate them for not acquiescing to their every whim at the expense of their artistic integrity, their ability to compensate their staff fairly, and their ability to keep making art.

and jumping from "i want to continue enjoying this artist's work for free" to "i think people should be fired and the remaining employees should be given greater responsibilities and more tasks to complete" is wild to me. there's nothing leftist in that and so trying to leverage leftist jargon to prove some sort of moral superiority is fucking wild, it's disingenuous, and it's sketchy as hell. you're allowed to be disappointed. you're not magically exempt from being told you're being an asshole if you decide your disappointment entitles you to take part in asshole behavior.

"but we don't want something heavily produced and we don't want these shows" then don't watch! that's it! don't watch! you are not being held hostage and forced to engage with this content. you have the choice not to. throwing a tantrum and launching racist vitriol at steven lim and demanding he step down as CEO shows a level of entitlement and childishness that, frankly, i wish they could have ignored, but they're both kinder & more patient than i am.

anyway congratulations to watcher on their new streaming service and their gorgeous new website, congratulations to the boys on a new step in their careers and on achieving something they've made clear they've wanted for ages, thank you to the boys for all their hard work and for sharing their creativity with us. thank you too for taking such a big and genuinely brave step to no longer be beholden to major corporations and advertisers so you can make the art you want to make. thank you to steven lim for taking so many steps back to keep the company running and for doing your best in a shit economy and while being targeted by this kind of nastiness online. and thank you to the entire team at @wearewatcher for continuing to do amazing work despite being treated like shit by the fan community at large on the internet while you're trying to make a living and create art. you all deserve better than you've been shown of late and i hate that such an exciting moment got overshadowed by so many temper tantrums.

because the whole fucking point, the dream, is getting to make the art that matters to them, without being held back. i'm sorry y'all don't want the heavily produced and high quality shit but your preferences as a member of an audience are not the law by which artists should abide. they are artists and they are free to, and deserve to, make the art they want to make.

[delawaredetroit]

Anyway, on the issue of how Bakugou never gets consequences, and that generally the bad things that happen to him have no connection with his misdeeds...Aoyama's involvement in his kidnapping could have complicated that a bit

Why is Aoyama the traitor? Because his parents arranged for him to receive a quirk from All for One. Why did they do that? So that Aoyama could be "normal" so that he could be spared from the ostracization of being quirkless - i.e. to protect him from the childhood Izuku had. So more or less Aoyama is the traitor because his parents wanted to protect him from people like Bakugou.

The set up is there for this, but there isn't really any follow through with it

[grumpysunfish]

Can we like. Stop projecting modern day western class discussions into mdzs. Or better yet stop talking about class altogether since so many of you are clearly ill prepared for it.

I love mdzs for how complicated and different it is from what I'm used to and seeing all of that get whittled down into the same old tired money/power = bad when it is so much more than that. It's a completely different system and culture. Western capitalist critiques isn't going to cut it people.

[wraithsoutlaws]

i think theres a conversation to be had about how taash's story explores gender roles and transness in ways that could be seen as reductive but if your take away is "they could've given us a butch lesbian and instead we get THIS" about a canon nonbinary character i simply don't want to hear anything else you have to say about it

[sforzesco]

hello! I always like reading your thoughts on various media set in Ancient Rome and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on i claudius?

(I don’t know if you’ve talked abt the show but tumblr search is being awful rn)

thank you for reading and i hope you have a good rest of your day!

oooh I don't think I've really talked about I Claudius here

I enjoy it a lot! its pretty stripped down compared to the big epic productions set in Rome, and it's 1000% to it's favor. kind of like how artists will do limited palettes to push their boundaries, or stage productions allow you to escalate the character in ways you don't get to experience in other mediums. all of that pushes the show into a space where the spectacle of interpersonal drama really thrives and shines

also I like the aspect ratio it was filmed in! I think it adds a visual tightness that exemplifies how the character narratives interlock with each other, especially since the whole thing is like watching a cascading crash of dynastic dominoes.

[fluffs-n-stuffs]

"Cuhut it out- you guys!" "Nu-uh, not until you're all perked up first! You don't want those gym challengers meetin' with an ol' mopey leader, do ya?" "Whitney's right, dear friend. No need to hide that beautiful smile of yours, alright?~"

What it takes to cheer up Johto's beloved ghost boy 👻💕

[deus-ex-mona]

something something guys who think of the backs of the girls they love

and girls who pinch the cheeks of the guys they love

[seventeendeer]

just watched the barbie movie everyone was discoursing about last year and I can't help but feel like a lot of the problems in its execution could have been avoided if the kid character's arc had been about learning to embrace girly stuff as an act of rebellion against the adultification of teen girls while barbie went full butch transmasc

[cinderellaenjoyer]

Lautski thank you for not having a girl who can be demonised by the fandom for 'getting in the way of the Ship'

[phasesofpencils]

This is the last im gonna say about Apology tour but, like this whole romance plot could have potentially been at least interesting if it was handled well. But as it stands it's just frustrating.

If there was actual nuance. If they would actually acknowledge that BOTH sides were and continue to be toxic towards each other, and not just having Viv try to cover her ass in tweets about "acknowledging both are at fault". It COULD have been a compelling melodrama about a weird relationship and miscommunication. But the main issue and this season's entire problem is that it only feels like they want us to see it from Stolas's POV, and hold his hand, and retroactivley justify his behavior in season 1 as "cute" naive flirting.

Every time Stolas gets a little self aware about Blitz never having been happy, and how wrong their deal was, and how maybe he didn't actually treat Blitz as well as he thought he did, its just one step forwards and 5 steps back and he either continues to ignore it in favor of his own fantasy of Blitz and their relationship or literally in the new episode OTHER CHARACTERS tell him to ignore the one logical thought he's had. We have not STOPPED getting Stolas's POV of how he sees Blitz, but we've hardly seen anything on how Blitz sees Stolas. other than thinking he's just a rich asshole and we're supposed to take that as like him being a "tsundere" about it. We get so little on Blitz's perspective that it feels more like the story trying to force Blitz into being into Stolas for the plot than actually developing an attraction to him (not even touching on the weird and highly toxic dynamic of their relationship past and present that again is just being played as like Stolas being naive).

It's just a constant dog piling onto Blitz and it doesn't feel fair. It doesn't feel fair that apparently we have to WAIT for another character to FINALLY call out Stolas when this entire season has been dedicated to calling out and blaming Blitz. It doesn't feel fair that even people in Blitz's life that should probably be a little more on his side, like Fizz or the I.M.P gang still feel like they're trying to make Blitz feel bad for not recognizing Stolas's feelings and/or won't actually listen or understand what their relationship was actually like and just make assumptions for him on how he's supposed to feel. It isn't fair that every little character flaw Blitz has is poked and prodded and called out but every character flaw Stolas has is ignored or temporarily reconciled (see every time he ignores his daughter and makes up with her) or excused as "but he's just naive cus he's new to love and rich and sheltered". Stolas keeps blaming Blitz for "always making it about sex" and "talking like Striker" and "I've never looked down on you" and I'm just SCREAMING for Blitz to call him out on his hypocrisy and stop groveling to him. Stolas and the show just has the worse habit of ignoring his flaws as real consequence-having flaws and won't stop victimizing him for it meanwhile Blitz is just constantly demonized for his flaws. The show feels like it plays favorites, and it's just so old and repetitive at this point and it's not fun and not compelling when i just go into every episode thinking "how are they gonna blame blitz and victimize stolas this time".

[satans-knitwear]

My brother finally has some time to spare and has said he will take me to some petshop to sort the dogs out properly! We need to get them soft training treats to fill the tin, replacement squeaky toys for recall training, a distraction/brain-teasing toy for when i am working at home with just the puppers and some wet dog food for the resident fussy eater (not belle. She eats anything.)

Just incase you feel like it! ⬇️

Pypl Cshpp

[puhpandas]

john disagreeing with in his words "copying and pasting the origin story from the books into the games effectively spoiling everything about it" in his new video is so fucking based he is so real

[agueforts]

me vs eternal grudges abt d20 captions

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

thinking about superheroes unfortunately

[elytrafemme]

and obviously this is by far the least important part of ANY of this, but i'm going to pretty strongly dissociate myself from anything relating to that smp-- mostly for my own mental health (again, not to center myself here). as for CS, i would like to continue it, though obviously the disclaimers again will be heavy. it is a story i wrote to cope with abuse, and if fanworks like that are called to be stopped then i will obviously rethink things. but i will give it a lot of time to figure out how to meaningfully create something from a piece of media created by unfathomably shitty people, and i'd like to be able to continue writing for the message that CS was set to convey.

again, this is not the focus of the conversation, but i just wanted to say that since i am online for once and i figure i may get an ask or two about it.