#it's far more satisfying that being a hater of things everyone likes | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

batsplat · 2 months ago

Note

controversial opinion but I don’t think that in terms of rivalries and feuds marc is that interesting. like if you exclude valentino you’re left with who? dovi? they did have exciting on track battles for sure but let’s face it dovi was never really a huge title threat. and their off track relationship as a result had no tension. but who else?

qualified agreement in that, yes, I also don't think marc's slate of rivalries/feuds is all that satisfying... I just don't feel like this is entirely marc's *fault*. I mean, first off, valentino is definitely a positive outlier in this regard in that he was just working overtime in terms of coming up with compelling feuds. he's not quite the spiders georg of fantastic feuds, but he's not far off either. secondly, when compared to the other aliens + dovi... marc is at a very obvious disadvantage in that those guys were all direct peers who already had a lot of history with each other. dovi made fourteen year old jorge cry, twenty year old casey threw a temper tantrum when dani beat him, teenage jorge was judgemental of casey's fan engagement skills, and obviously there's the jorge/dani of it all. even the bits of that diagram that never had any major beef will have at least had a little bit of sizzling tension, like dovi's wariness of dani as a teammate. marc was always going to be on the back foot here - he really could have done with a pol esparagaro-type figure to crack on and become a big deal in the premier class. you need interpersonal history for a strong rivalry, and marc was always working at a deficit by having to start from scratch

this is the thing, right: imagine a world in which marc is born a few years earlier. in your hearts, do you seriously believe he would not have had a major sustained feud with at least one of jorge, dani, casey or dovi? I'm thinking he gets at least 2-3 in all honesty. casey if they ever ended up teammates is practically a given - and even without that you'd have to say it's a near certainty that it would've gone very badly. I mean good lord, casey vs the marc marquez towing addiction feels like it inevitably ends in casey physically assaulting marc on-track at least once. jorge had feuds with literally everyone, so that one also feels guaranteed. dani was a way less prickly character by the time marc got to the premier class but used to be a notoriously difficult teammate - so those two at honda and, again, odds are pretty good you get something going. dovi's a bit more marginal in that it kinda depends on what their respective competitive situations look like - plus dovi was generally more of a single issue jorge lorenzo hater - but you'd still expect it to be at least a little bit snarkier. so yeah, just a straightforward counterfactual - but it should still demonstrate that the picture is more complicated than 'marc marquez sucks at feuds'. there's clearly more going on here

so I kinda feel like there's two interrelated questions here, right. let's break it down:

how high quality are marc's rivalries/feuds?

to what extent can the quality or lack thereof of marc's rivalries/feuds be attributed to him, versus circumstantial factors that were outside of his control?

now with the first question, again, I do agree that right now in his career... marc could be doing better. he's got one major feud - and admittedly it's a doozy, but it's against a guy who has five major feuds to his name. if you look at that without context then it's quite easy to conclude valentino is putting in all the hard work, with little to no contribution from marc needed. apart from that... well, his other big rivalry on paper is with dovi - which, yeah, that one is lacking in narrative tension. the main issue with that rivalry isn't actually the lack of drama per se, it's that it just doesn't go anywhere. it's a bunch of strong on-track battles with no real arc to connect them, just ends up being completely static past the conclusion of 2017. I never got the sense that the two of them felt massively differently towards each other after 2019 than they had a couple years earlier... that's what kills it imo, like you need something to be happening in a rivalry. you need the two parties to have a substantial impact on each other! you can vaguely make that case for 2017 if you really want to push it - but it's just not enough, it only lasts for a few months, and it's lacking in the build-up and pay-off department. there's no real shift in their dynamic, not in terms of their relationship or their title fights or even their on-track battles... their first big battle is dovi beating marc in austria and their last big battle is dovi beating marc in austria, so you can't even say marc's learned how to deal with the red bull ring's final corner better. the only thing that's substantially changed is that marc knows he'll win the title anyway. look how far we've come

then there's marc's rivalry with dani, interesting on paper and they did have a reasonable amount of tension, but obviously you'd be hard-pressed to mention it in the same sentence as any of the real top tier rivalries. it's just over too soon, marc wins it too conclusively, and they don't have a single memorable on-track battle to their name beyond 'that time marc cut dani's sensor cable'. the jorge rivalry isn't terrible - you've got a few strong-to-iconic on-track battles like jerez + silverstone 2013, mugello + silverstone 2014, mugello 2016, austria 2018... but yeah, the tone is really quite muted and reserved by jorge's standards. there's not a massive amount of development in that relationship post-2013, and it just sort of fizzles out over the years. again, really becomes more of a collection of moments than an actual cohesive narrative arc - like something like austria 2018 is a fun throwback, you've got jorge being mad at marc over the aragon 2018 crash that essentially ended his season, but it also doesn't really lead to anything bigger. maybe there was a teensy bit of hope the honda teammate situation would reawaken that rivalry (me and casey both grabbing the popcorn, mind), but jorge just wasn't competitive enough for that to go anywhere

so, who's fault is this? is marc just mid at starting feuds? why hasn't he started more feuds with a bunch of people who showed they were perfectly capable of starting feuds with each other? why hasn't he given the people more to work with? who can we blame for this sorry state of affairs?

now, honestly, I reckon most of the issues with marc's track record can be put down to circumstance and poor timing. I already said that you'd expect marc to be doing way better if he'd been born early enough to run into the aliens in their primes. this is for several reasons. the first reason is that he managed to miss casey entirely - who on paper has to be the alien you'd expect marc to get on the worst. casey has the most rigid belief structure surrounding riding standards and acceptable levels of aggression, he's the least likely to be okay with marc's 'vicious on-track smiling off it' schtick, he had a multi-year vendetta against the exact sort of behaviour in practise and qualifying marc has made a habit of throughout his career, he is a strong believer in the kind of teammate cooperation in development marc memorably eschewed at honda, he would have also found marc's flavour of media games distasteful at best, he's highly sensitive to anything that could be construed as an attack on him... and marc in turn would have been aware of all this and actively enjoyed pissing casey off. in some respects they feel like an even worse match than valentino and casey. marc and casey on the 'alien compatible personalities quiz' score negative points. so that's just poor timing - marc barely missed out on him! you've removed the most irascible alien from the picture, the guy who had the highest quantity of low level beef with the entire paddock... it's already taken away such a major obvious feud opportunity from marc that you have to be a bit more lenient when judging his record

beyond that, let's turn to two interrelated reasons for why marc didn't get more narrative juice out of his other rivalries with that generation: a) the competitive landscape, and b) how the aliens themselves changed over time. the biggest and most important factor is (a). my general stance with feuds is that it's really really hard to start a feud in year one of a rivalry - you simply need more build-up than that. this is incidentally also 100% true of valentino's feuds. biaggi and valentino already despised each other going into 2001 (incidentally the lack of a narrative arc is why that one's also not a top tier rivalry for me), sete and valentino needed 2003 to set up 2004, valentino and casey were more or less fine in 2007 and ditto with jorge and valentino in 2008 and even mostly 2009. you can likewise point to valentino and marc already having enough significant interactions in 2013-14 to set up the volatility of their on-track encounters in the first half of 2015. for a counterexample, check out valentino and nicky hayden - who were title rivals in 2006 and 2006 alone, and managed to get through that entire year with minimal drama and their relationship emerging entirely unscathed. if hayden had still been more competitive after that year, maybe something would have changed... but as it stands, you do need time to build up the kind of interpersonal history for things to get nasty in a meaningful way. see also btw how dani and valentino's rivalry never got properly nasty, despite some build up in 2006

compare and contrast with marc's situation. 2013 is actually perfectly good set up... except then it's immediately followed by a dud of a season, where marc is dominant enough in the first half to make the title fight essentially a non-starter. after 2013, dani really isn't a competitive threat to marc anymore outside of isolated patches, and marc so effectively wrests control away from that team that he doesn't really need to do anything more dramatic. (also a question of the personalities involved - if you paired up jorge with marc as teammates in 2014, that situation immediately looks a lot more volatile.) now, okay, you might query the lack of tension between marc and jorge in 2015... but marc was just too focused on valentino that year, not least because that's the guy he was actually fighting on-track. and he nukes himself out of that title fight fairly early on, so the interpersonal valentino stuff kinda becomes the main source of competitive stakes for him at certain times in that season. 2016 the title fight fizzles out around assen, and then jorge's off into the competitive wilderness himself at first ducati then honda. and with dovi, you've got the obvious problem is that the seasons are in the wrong order. dovi was a serious title threat... but only in the first year of that rivalry, aka 2017. and only for part of that season! at the start of the year, it was really vinales marc was focused on - hence badgering him in pre-season testing - and it really took quite a while for marc and dovi to establish themselves as the two title contenders. as a season, it most closely resembles the chaos of 2006 - which, again, didn't lead to any drama between valentino and hayden in part because it just wasn't as focused on two protagonists. after that, dovi has a poor start to 2018, and by 2019 marc's just flattening everyone. it's basically like if you switched 2003 and 2004 for sete/valentino (though obviously sete's 2003 is a fair bit more competitive than dovi's 2018)... you needed the proper title fight when they were already established rivals. real take - valentino in marc's situation most likely doesn't start a feud with dovi in 2017-19 for the simple reason that he just does not need to. valentino's feuds typically come from some sense of competitive necessity, or at the very least convenience... casey is the strongest example here, where valentino behaves as closely as he ever has to a rational actor and only really escalates that feud when it makes perfect sense to do so. with dovi, given how little threat he posed in 2018-19 and especially presuming there's not a preexisting interpersonal relationship that can be twisted by the injection of competitive stakes (as there was with sete)... why bother?

this, to me, is really the main explanation for prime!marc's feud record. he runs into versions of the aliens that all eventually drop off competitively, and doesn't have to face the same level from them as a collective as he would have in say 2008-09. he doesn't have to face casey. and his sete equivalent is just not as much of a competitive threat as sete was beyond the first year of that rivalry. feuds do need something to get them going - and generally, competing against the same guy across multiple seasons, feeling genuinely threatened by them, is one of the most common and important preconditions. the second alien-related factor is how the aliens themselves had changed. again, we're missing casey... and then with jorge and dani, well, they'd definitely mellowed from where they were at c. 2006-08. there's a few reasons for this. firstly, they grew up. just a little. it's been known to happen. secondly, you do have to mention the sic factor... discussed a bit here and I don't really want to go into too much depth about it, but obviously it does make a difference that jorge and especially dani had gone through this experience where they'd essentially been feuding with another rider who then died. inevitably, that will have played into how they reacted to marc. thirdly, this is a topic for another post but... jorge and dani (and casey) had become pretty determined in 2011-12 not to give the media and fans what they were so desperately yearning for (drama) - in an act of generational solidarity against the concept of beef. it was a bit of a reaction against how they felt constantly misinterpreted by fans and media, as well as essentially being quite contrarian about being incessantly called 'boring' all the time... and a fuck you to valentino and his supporters in the fanbase + media specifically by having things be more civil between the three of them than they had been in times past (plus how they rejected any sort of hard riding). all this means marc has the misfortune to run into versions of the aliens who are actually very much trying not to start feuds. I mean, even valentino wasn't really out to start feuds, it just sort of ended up happening... it's way harder to start a feud with 2013!jorge than it is with 2008!jorge - and the two major jorge feuds that still flare up past 2013 are one where there's already significant history (like, say, jorge thinking dovi was already attempting to 'undermine his morale' when they were both teenagers)

the other situational factor is the time marc has spent in the competitive wilderness. marc was 27 when his arm injury happened. as a point of comparison, that's the age valentino was in 2006 - by which point he has had two major feuds plus a couple more minor ones. in a way, right, you can say marc wasn't doing that badly at that stage... marc is now 31, aka valentino's age in 2010. by then, valentino had added two more major feuds to his collection; he's quite productive in his late twenties you have to say. but marc obviously hasn't been in a situation where he's going to be getting embroiled in great rivalries... the only title he'd been fighting for before this year was champion of crashes. you're less likely to start feuds when you're in the competitive wilderness - there's just not any point and marc quite frankly had better things to worry about. the thing about 2019 is that at the time, people did feel like marc might have been setting up some juicy rivalries... the most common names talked about back then were rinsy and especially fabio. now, as it turned out, rinsy was outshone by his teammate in the one year suzuki was in the title fight, so that probably wouldn't have become a big thing regardless of marc's situation - but fabio... well, I don't know if I think marc would've started feuding with him necessarily, but you'd at least hope for some flavour of interesting rivalry. admittedly, you were giving marc a bit of an unfairly difficult task here, given the age gap equivalent rival for valentino is casey. again, look me in the eyes and tell me you think fabio quartararo isn't harder to start a feud with than casey stoner. starting a feud with casey is easy mode. give me fifteen minutes trapped with him in a conveniently broken lift and I bet you I could make him my lifelong enemy

still, crucially we never got to see that play out. and without the injury, marc would've already had several years to fight pecco and even jorge martin on equal-ish terms, which again just isn't an opportunity he's had until this year. those were some of his prime feud-starting years stolen from him... though also, speaking of casey vs fabio - I mean, that's the other thing, isn't it. whether you want to blame it on this generation of rider personalities or overly professionalised upbringing or the social media climate or whatever, the general willingness to feud with other riders has massively declined in the paddock. even insulting your fellow riders is pretty rare. casey thought the media and fans were too harsh to him back in the day, to put it mildly, but in a lot of ways it'd be far worse for him now. (incidentally, y'know the whole mir apologising to marc thing - can you imagine casey doing that? the correct answer is no, obviously not, how is that even a question, are you insane.) and even that generation was seen as a milder assortment of characters than valentino's lot, who in turn were at times considered oddly friendly by the guys who came before them. there are no max biaggi's in today's motogp. sete failing to threaten to punch valentino after jerez 2005 was considered disappointingly polite by a lot of the media. It Was A Different Time. it's not just that marc's feud rate is flagging - it's the case for everyone, which is how you get acosta offering to try and spice things up between the current title contenders. marc does need someone to feud with, and it doesn't help if they're all being so awfully conflict-averse

so, that's the marc defence case. marc just hasn't had enough plausible opportunities to start proper feuds, and you can't really judge him by how situational factors keep conspiring against him on that front. now, I think that is probably the main reason why it's been quite so dire for him... but still, it's also not quite satisfying to pretend like marc and valentino are quite literally identical in that regard, that they would have ended up with exactly the same profile of feuds in each other's positions. admittedly I don't really believe valentino would have had a radically different number of feuds in marc's career timeline... jorge is if anything the most proactive of the lot, often not even really needing much competitive justification to escalate a feud. still, you do suspect that there are differences in marc's approach that would always make him a little less likely to come up with these high quality feuds. one factor is motivation - valentino generally needs to get more creative in order to motivate himself to win than marc does, cf how much more flighty he gets when things are going well for him. valentino has long had a reputation for using his rivals to motivate himself, building them up as enemies and so on. there's rivals for which this is more the case than others, and it's a bit more complicated than that... but in general, valentino really benefits from these feuds, and is more reliant on them than marc is. marc can also use his rivals to motivate himself, cf 'his record at misano'. the most egregious example is 2019, where he comes in off the back of two back-to-back last lap defeats, hops onto the rear tyres of the yamaha's for much of that weekend until eventually he has that spat with valentino in qualifying that conveniently gives him the fire to reverse the recent trend and snatch victory away from poor fabio on the last lap. that's probably the most proactive he's been about it, and it's the kind of enterprising spirit I'm always happy to see in my riders. but in general... he does also just seem pretty content to reel off victories without any added source of motivation. valentino needs to jump through a few more hoops to get himself going, which happen to be very feud-inducing hoops. marc is far more capable of showing up and just doing the business

there's a related factor here that's a bit more nebulous and it's just... how they go about winning, both races and titles. now, okay, obviously they're both aggressive riders - marc notably so for the entirety of his career, while valentino got more aggressive after leaving honda and having to compensate for a bike disadvantage (having already been a menace in the lower classes). generally marc is the more aggressive rider, with valentino a little happier to pick and choose his moments and only escalating when he really feels he has to. similar peaks, lower baseline of aggression. that being said, valentino relied on one-on-one duels a lot more in winning his titles than marc did. marc's biggest strengths in winning his titles was a consistent and relentless pace advantage over the opposition, where he was able to score higher on his bad days than they were on theirs. his wins were generally more likely to be dominant than valentino's were (though it is admittedly quite hard to tell at times whether valentino was really riding anywhere close to 100% in his honda days) - and the momentum swings in his title fights tend to be because his opponents had made errors. valentino kinda needed the 1 vs 1 thing to be clicking for him to win his titles, because that's what his whole game is built on. 2004 plays out completely differently if valentino doesn't win any number of close duels - obviously welkom, but perhaps even more importantly the mugello/catalunya/assen stretch of the season he entered with a points deficit and left the new championship leader (with his relationship with sete rather worse for wear to boot). 2008 is obviously the poster child for this, as to a slighter lesser extent is 2009, which has been covered elsewhere on this blog and will be again in the near future... marc, by contrast, kinda thrives on losing close duels against his title rivals that are worrying to them because he was so close to victory at his weaker tracks. you can cite various mugello and austria and qatar races here... again, has been discussed elsewhere, but the point is that it's just a bigger part of valentino's game than it is for marc. and if so much in terms of stakes and championship momentum is attached to these single races... well, that's actually pretty much the perfect trigger point for starting feuds. by the latter half of his prime, marc kinda knew he could get away with losing some of these fights, especially against dovi (vs how he allegedly was 'angry' after the rins defeat and really relished the triumphalism of beating poor sweet fabio). valentino could extremely not afford to lose some of these duels if he wanted to win the title, and often ended up souring his relationships with his competitors in the process of winning. again, laguna 2008 is the poster child here - valentino's behaviour in this race is far more significant in determining that relationship's trajectory than him being 'mildly chilly' towards casey for the preceding one and a half years

the last factor kinda feels like the most obvious one: valentino often was just more proactive in his shit stirring, especially off-track. marc tends to do a lot of his psychological warfare on the track, which is discussed in more detail in the mind games post but is obviously reflected in stuff like stalking specific riders endlessly in practise and qualifying. valentino does plenty of on-track psychological warfare and he certainly wasn't averse to the odd towing shenanigans (just ask casey), but he was also more prepared to just fire a few shots in the media. he's capable of more subtlety than he's sometimes given credit for, had a pretty good feel for escalation... which can actually be quite frustrating, because at times you have to take his rivals at their word when they say he was being mean about them in the media - not always easy to find actual examples of that! he'd also get creative about how to exert pressure on his rivals - for which one of the more obvious examples would be getting proxies like his crew chief jb to do the mudslinging on his behalf. still, it shouldn't be too controversial to say he's more likely to attack his rivals directly in the media than marc is - who ramps up the subtlety all the way and usually just gestures vaguely in the direction of saying something that could be a snide remark... but isn't really direct enough to actually be a clear attack. now, if you set baby casey or baby jorge on the case, notoriously sensitive characters that they were, there'd still be a decent chance they take offence at the sort of thing marc says about his rivals... but as it stands, marc clearly prefers this less obvious approach, and this current lot isn't going to call him out on it. and yes, obviously sepang 2015 and the repercussions thereof will have strengthened marc's conservatism in this regard, a wish to avoid any further drama paired with a desire to show that valentino was the problem in that particular rivalry by avoiding any further feuds. and if marc's less likely to be proactive in media mudslinging and is also less likely to find himself in the sort of race that burns interpersonal relationships... well, it's not surprising he'd be less predisposed to feuds, is it

there's some other stuff we could bring in here, like valentino's tendency to play an active role in narrativising his career that fortunately just happens to also makes feuds more likely (topic for another post currently in the drafts). you could talk about how marc is less sensitive than jorge or especially casey, how he's more likely to brush off criticisms and then commit himself to on-track revenge. how he has a lot of low level beef with other riders that has just never quite been given the space or opportunity to grow into a proper feud. how jorge is more impulsive and is likelier to start fights immediately in response to a perceived slight, versus marc who is far likelier to bottle things up. in general, though, I still put most of the blame on circumstance. while valentino is definitely the frontrunner in the feuding department, there's no single correct way to go about starting your feuds - and jorge, for instance, has really showcased an alternative approach that can also yield some very positive results. marc should have been given more opportunities to figure out his own way to start up multiple narratively complex rivalries/feuds. he has some traits that are well-suited to a strong profile of rivalries and feuds, from his on-track aggression to his tendency to play games in the media to his ruthlessness to his ability to take defeats personally and feel threatened by rivals. the towing thing. his behaviour as a teammate. how uncompromising his approach towards riding is. there's a lot of strong stuff there, it just hasn't been given the chance to shine as much as you'd like

all that being said... he still has time! there's no reason to believe next year won't give us what we hope for in that regard, as long as that's a reasonably competitive title fight. and I don't think it'd be fair to pecco and marc to attribute any heated rivalry between them completely or even mostly on valentino - they have enough reasons unrelated to him to desperately want to beat each other. if anything, the valentino factor is unfortunately more likely to make them both a bit more restrained in that regard, wary of the drama of it all... but here's hoping! and they've already built up a bit of history now, some significant on-track encounters - I'd say that in an ideal world they've done more than enough prep work for them to get to feud territory next year. the other obvious name is pedro, a charmingly genre aware child with what a rather pronounced scepticism towards marc specifically, who feels like he would not only be up for a feud with marc but has quite possibly already game-planned what that feud would look like. hey, you never know, maybe I will successfully barter away my soul to finally make yamaha competitive again... let's see if we can try to get that depressed frenchie interested in some proper rivalries once he's back in the game. hopefully, marc still has a few competitive years ahead of him - and hopefully, he'll also get some help from the other side to get something narratively compelling going. I believe in him! remember, valentino pissed away two entire years in his early thirties but still managed to start his most long-lasting and emotionally devastating feud at the age of 36. isn't that inspiring? it's never too late to burn bridges. I for one hope marc still has something rancid in store for us

#OPTIMISM WINS #the biggest feud of 2017-19 was actually me vs jorge lorenzo after he definitively killed any hope of a title fight at catalunya 2019 #in retrospect. yes. that was very funny. but at the time i was considerably less amused #you can have high level feuding during periods of domination but only if it's been previously set up imo #like again the 2019 equivalent is 2005 which obviously DOES have extremely rancid vibes but only because 2004 was as close as it was #//#brr brr #batsplat responds #alien tag #low key very funny that dani casey dovi and jorge were all born in a two year stretch. all got to grow up judging each other #the literal definition of 'wow these people are so weird. thank god i'm the normal one'#i do actually need to write that jorge/casey post because juxtaposing their thoughts about each other as teenagers -#- just makes me laugh every time. like it's not even a BAD vibe as it is a completely discordant one. paints such a funny picture

26 notes · View notes

queenburd · 1 year ago

Text

Scrolled through a blog for like 2 minutes or so and realized every single post I’d seen was them dissing other people, saying they weren’t mad but that it was fun to make fun of those people, and ooooh look the haters are so worked up in my inbox, I’m so clever

And that just feels like an exhausting life to live. Isn’t it just deeply tiring to just make content abt how everyone around you is wrong, actually. Can you, I don’t know, dedicate some time to creating art and finding and posting about things you like instead?

Maybe it’s the mental disabilities I have but I have always found being constantly negative or mean to others or angry about something to be so much more tiring than making things I like. Is that insane??

This is a random text post quietly venting I guess but like…. I hope people who see this post think about how much more fulfilling it is to make things you like then to take time talking about people and things you don’t like. I hope maybe somebody can gain something or learn something from this kind of post. Idk.

Life is too short and filled with too many depressing things and too many WONDERFUL things to spend time trying to be clever and mean about other people. Put that time and energy into something far more satisfying, that adds to your life or to the world instead.

19 notes · View notes

times-of-drought · 2 months ago

Note

Storyteller Saturday! What is a Glass Demon?

Hello! Happy Storyteller Saturday! :3

The Glass Demon is Satan an ancient creature in the setting from one of my most polished plot-wise stories!

In the setting, the main kind of creature aside from humans is Elemental. There are many, many types of elementals, ranging from typical ones, like fire, to more uncommon ones, like light or even magic itself.

Unfortunately for both humanity and elementals, humans cannot inherently, directly create magic. It is not obtainable to them, simply put. They can, however, employ the 'help' of elementals, using them to craft more and more intricate spells or simply use magic for the human. A spell can be weaved by elementals and humans together, preparing it and storing it somewhere or in something (an artifact, an item, a scroll et cetera) and used by the human anytime, anywhere, so the profession of spellweavers who coordinate different kinds of elementals is highly respectable.

(It started out on rules of equality, but as elementals started being more and more exploited and bound by magical rules crafted by humans, less and less of them were free to do what they wanted and move where they wanted to. But that aspect of the kingdom where the story takes place is more about the story itself, not the Glass Demon fnksdj I got too far)(long story short, the kingdom 'employs' all elementals in it to serve humans. Every new elemental that is born there has to be woven into the pact, binding it like its parents.)

The Glass Demon is, at least now, more of a myth rather than a historical figure. A story told in plays and stories, The Bad Guy in any plot about overcoming the greatest evil. Everyone knows what the Glass Demon embodies, but almost nobody knows what really happened centuries ago.

There used to be a mage. The Mage, often called by haters The Sightless Mage. A real, full-blooded human, with all faults that came with that. They were power hungry, driven only by greed and pride. They were on top, with the greatest understanding of all intricacies of magic and spellweaving. They were not satisfied with that, however. They wanted to attain the unattainable - to be able to wield magic by themselves, with no assistance from elementals. It did not work out, to their dismay.

The only person who knows exactly how their current form came to be is the Glass Demon itself, but stories often involve the Mage employing dozens of elementals, experts in their craft, to help create the most foul artifact. It was supposed to be a new staff for the Mage, one that would allow them to directly use any kind of magic, with no preparation. Not a human, but still holding a copied human soul and The Mage's mind, causing them to be linked and have the same goals.

Well, the soul got copied and transferred, sure. One crucial bit of research The Mage missed to do before was that the soul is not linked to the body's mind. Transferring one does not inherently transfer the other.

I have to admit, the rule of the world was kept. What came out of the ritual was no human. But it was no staff, at least not after the first few seconds. A twisted form of sharp edges rang out the ritual circle, twitching surfaces and contorting in silent wails no-longer-flesh, seemingly shattered, constantly on the verge of falling apart in thousands of little, glittering pieces, The Glass Demon came to be. The first and last artificial elemental, albeit one with a human soul. At the beginning, the thing had no mind, only the most vile qualities inherited from the soul. In a bloody, murderous rage, it has slain its creator and their assistants. Alone, in a isolated vault, it has learned everything it could. Their form was not stable, constantly shifting and cracking with each step, but they have managed to at least vaguely hold a humanoid form. Full of hate, it started destroying everything they came across. Humans, elementals, villages and cities, nothing could resist the sharp, agonizing wrath.

Finally, after years of carnage, a counter-spell of sorts has been developed. Researchers found The Foul Mage's notes, their research, and crafted a binding curse.

Tricked, the Glass Demon was constricted into a shape similar to their original form - a silver staff the shape of a crescent moon, with the Demon's eye hanged between the tips, constantly looking out for victims.

The artifact not only has been sealed away, but additionally enveloped in layers of protective and offensive spells. Anyone who would try to reach the Demon would have to be an expert spellcaster, and after that whole debacle these have been strictly and closely monitored.

Not only that, but even if one managed to tear through all the layers, they still would have to be able to overcome the Demon, lest their form would be overwhelmed and destroyed by its power the moment they bound themselves to the staff just like a human would bind themselves to an elemental.

No human would have enough resistance to survive the binding and no elemental could bind itself to another, even if artificial, one.

Well. Until the main character of my story, Razareth, came along, a half human, half elemental ;)))

#firstborn.prince #storyteller saturday #fjdvksjn I am not normal about them #the demon is like. very present in fiction as a write in for any evil malicious entity that must be defeated #I think for example in plays with it in it; the actor puts on a glass mask and everyone knows who the character is #the Demon is treated as if it's not real; like. a child's story to scare them into sleeping and not being powerhungry etc #thats why at first nobody believes that Razareth actually came into the possession of the Demon because its as if someone came up and said #Yo The Devil is in my bracelet and I can do better magic thanks to him #only later in the story it is believed when the Demon makes a deal for all Razareth's humanity and glass spikes and plates literally cover #half of his body #hehe #Uh. I hope I was not THAT chaotic in my explanations T-T #THE LORE IS VERY LORING AND I AM YAPPINGGG #I have sm lore in my headddd

2 notes · View notes

fandomsoda · 1 year ago

Text

Obligatory SB Ruin first-impressions opinion piece

On its face, I do not like Ruin. It is not satisfying at all and simply opens up more questions in a very, VERY annoying way. And the few character moments I do adore about it are underutilized and short-lived. And that pisses me the HELL off.

Roxy and Cassie’s past and connection feel like an afterthought. It feels like it’s there to bait us, honestly. Like nothing came out of that other than an out-of-nowhere gutwrench scene that feels so cheap in hindsight. And Eclipse, god Eclipse (or as I call them when I don’t want to get canon vs fanon confused- Ruinclipse). Eclipse is great. I adore them, just like everyone else does. But there is not enough of them, not even close. In fact, I would rather have not gotten them at all because how DARE Steelwool make a character they KNEW would be fucking BELOVED and only give them like 3 lines of dialogue? And they’re great. Their voice in particular is fucking incredible. Kellen Goff KNOWS what he’s doing with character voices. But there was like none of them. And that angers me for OBVIOUS FUCKING REASONS.

My biggest gripe with Ruin is that it has things that are really fucking good, but there isn’t ENOUGH.

And don’t even get me started on how the whole mimic thing came out of nowhere and just brings up more questions and complicates things EVEN MORE. And now I am desperately digging for an un-before-discovered ending in feeble hope for SOMETHING, ANYTHING, that even vaguely SEEMS like closure or an actual fucking ENDING.

We have no background for anything, btw. We don’t know how Cassie knows Gregory, we don’t know where she came from, we know NOTHING about her.

This dlc sacrificed half-decent storytelling in favor of scares and gameplay and that is the exact opposite of what it should have tried to do. I consider Ruin a massive fucking step down from Security Breach as someone who loves Security Breach despite its flaws.

Ruin was not exactly boring like most critics I’ve seen claim, but rather the moments of excitement and good HAVE NO PAYOFF.

As it stands right now, I would honestly rather Ruin not have happened.

I will still post about it, and join in fandom hype, but not because of what it is. But rather what I know it could be. I say all of these things out of love. Because I love FNAF and I love SB and I love the direction it took, but god I hate how they have done nothing to enrich it with Ruin. This dlc honestly feels like a big waste of time. They focused on pleasing the gameplay-obsessed haters who wouldn’t have appreciated the dlc no matter what happened and completely forgot what was actually good about the initial game. And that deeply saddens me. I hope things get better. I hope whatever we uncover later gives closure, I hope there are things in the future, but as of right now this was a massive disappointment.

And honestly the bar of my expectations was barely an inch from the ground relative to the base game.

Edit: wow I sound angrier here than I thought I did when it was initially made. I promise I mean all of this in a “it’s so close to being great and I’m frustrated at how far it fell” way and this is not just me screaming “it didn’t meet a quota for the amount of things I like in it”. The lore problems are the biggest issue here (even though FNAF lore was already fucked but it’s never fun to see it get further mangled) it just specifically is extra aggravating how little of the exciting character moments we got if that makes sense.

#text post #soda rambles #is this a rant?#more of just a strongly-worded think piece #sb ruin spoilers #fnaf sb ruin #ruin dlc #ruin spoilers

18 notes · View notes

aoyama-division · 1 year ago

Text

Wara Osaka! ~What a OSAKA! (Jet Set Trio Ver.)

Bring the Beat!

[Tomi:]

(Yeaaaahhhh!)

[Karada:]

Jet Set Trio, comin' atcha!

[Tomi:]

(That's good, that's good!)

Ladies and gentlemen, bring your attention to me!

Prepare yourselves for something you may only see once in your meager lifetimes!

Enjoy it while it lasts!

We are Aoyama!

[Jet Set Trio:]

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama!

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama!

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama!

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama!

Yo, take a look here

The rich and powerful are gonna take over the world

Well, watch and learn

The rich and powerful are gonna knock you all dead

[Karada:]

Go get 'em, Tomi!

[Tomi:]

Well, well, well

Time to show you peons exactly how it's done

You can hate all you want, but we're still #1

I really don't know how many times I must say

The rich and powerful will always stay that way

The influence that the three of us brings

Even a minuscule is worth more than any of your things

I hear you lot constantly complain that it isn't fair

The lifestyle you live is simply too much to bear!

Well, should I really care?

[Karada:]

No, you shouldn't have to care!

It's not our fault that we were born into wealth

It's physically impossible for you chumps to try to stop us

We've lived this way so long, we won't ever adjust!

Aoyama, our city, is a jewel of its own!

Glistening every day, just like the sun

And standing guard is the Strongman of Japan

And to you haters complaining, FYI: we don't give a damn!

[Jet Set Trio:]

Yo, take a look here

The rich and powerful are gonna take over the world

Well, watch and learn

The rich and powerful are gonna knock you all dead

[Karada:]

You're up next, Lu!

[Luis:]

Yeah, yeah...

First, let me say, I don't think that I'm the best

Being better than the next, it would make me stressed

But I work hard to prove that I'm not like the rest

As long I'm satisfied where I am, then I'm blessed

That's why I keep my head up high to the sky

For any answers to questions that may arise

And a word to the wise, it gets hard at times

But just remember: always keep your eyes on the prize

[Karada:]

Fly high!

[Tomi:]

Think big!

[Luis:]

Go far!

[Karada:]

Stand tall!

[Luis:]

Yeah, that's right!

[Tomi & Karada:]

Give it your all!

[Luis:]

And if you ever fall...

[Tomi:]

...then get back up on your feet

[Karada:]

Don't just sit and bawl!

[Luis:]

Fire burning hot!

[Karada:]

Just take your shot!

[Tomi:]

We're the JST, and you will never take our spot!

[Jet Set Trio:]

We're Aoyama!

We won't be bought!

Think you can beat us?

No, you cannot!

We are the true upper class

Run all you want; we won't be passed

The distance between us is too vast

Our place is first and never last

Our moment has just begun

The bonds we have won't be undone

What division can beat us? There is none!

And that's why our number is one!

[Tomi:]

You peasants should all revel in our glory!

[Karada:]

Come on everybody, just clap your hands!

[Jet Set Trio:]

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama!

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama!

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama!

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama! (Okay, now everyone!)

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama! (Listen what we say!)

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama! (Clap your hands, clap your hands!)

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama! (Yeah, that's it!)

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama!

Yo, take a look here (Take a look at us)

The rich and powerful are gonna take over the world (Take over the world)

Well, watch and learn (Watch and learn!)

The rich and powerful are gonna knock you all dead (Clap your hands!)

Yo, take a look here (Take a look at us)

The rich and powerful are gonna take over the world (Take over the world)

Well, watch and learn (Watch and learn!)

The rich and powerful are gonna knock you all dead

(1, 2, 3, let's go!)

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama! (Raise your voice!)

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama! (We're not done yet!)

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama! (Keep it going!)

Wara, Aoyama

What a Aoyama! (Last time!)

Wara, Aoyama!

#hypmic #hypnosis mic #hypnosis microphone #hypmic oc #hypnosis mic oc #tomi chōten #karada kessaku #luis kōkyū #jet set trio #aoyama division #dotsuitare hompo #what a osaka

9 notes · View notes

the5n00k · 1 year ago

Note

CHOOSE VIOLENCE ASKS: 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 22, 23, 25

I am so sorry for so many feel free to skip as many as you want lol

DAYUM OKAY (readmore bc this is long af and I don't wanna clog timelines)

4: it takes a lot for me to block you and usually I won't do it at all in most cases but some people are in my replies on Twitter a little Too Much saying some weird ass stuff occasionally I'll just say fuck it bye bye and block em

6: the most annoying ship fans are the ones that harass other people because they ship something different/not at all case closed (this even goes for proshitters, just block them and move on, harassment is never okay)

7: this happens. Far more often than I'd like to admit. And sometimes it changes depending on who I've been talking to. And I don't necessarily hate this character but most recently it's Andrea? She's got a great arc set up and I don't mind seeing her on screen at all, she's fun but whenever some people bring her up it's just. I know they're about to say some dumb shit. Doesn't help with how weird Twitter is about the girls

🗣️📣 THAT MOLLY IS A BAD FRIEND BECAUSE SHE FELL IN PUPPY LOVE WITH A GHOST HUNTER‼️‼️‼️

HOLY SHIT WAS THAT AN EXHAUSTING WEEK AFTER I WANNA DANCE WITH SOME-OLLIE.

ALSO everyone seems to think enemies to lovers is a tried and true ship dynamic when SOMETIMES IT JUST DOESN'T WORK‼️ REALLY FUNNY COMING FROM A SCRINX FAN BUT C'MON SOME OF THEM ARE JUST PLAIN TOXIC! EVEN THE CANON ONES

10: how starved people are for emotional content that they'll write characters completely ooc to make a dramatic and dark plot. I'm sorry but there's a balance to this shit you can't just kill off a character or take every good thing away and have it be narratively satisfying. Again, rich coming from me but most of my shit has a point

13: Tord from Eddsworld. What the fuck even happened to that poor character

14: I don't read a lot of fics so I can't really answer this one but can I complain about my own fics and say "really fking cheesy emotional speech between the mcs"

15: this isn't even fandom specific but when people overuse the chromatic aberration and don't mark it as eyestrain like OW WHY I CAN'T EVEN COMPREHEND WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE IMAGE‼️‼️‼️

16: I don't understand how people are so attracted to the dark and brooding types like. I've literally never been attracted to a character like that

They're cool??? But I don't see the appeal? Romantically at least. Give me my goofy asses and my Absolutely Deranged men pls

18: for TGAMM, they been sleeping on my mans Darryl (gonna pretend like I haven't as well)

And the episode Lock, Stock, and Peril literally one of my favorites from s1 please

22: I barely see Anyone else drawing scratch being a fucked up creature PLEASE I CAN'T KEEP SUSTAINING MYSELF LIKE THIS‼️

23: gonna be honest I was a Mollie hater and Ollie hater in general before season 2 aired (victim of leaks 💔) but one of my friends gaslit me until I started shipping it ironically to make the fandom mad and now I would die for them

25: that some episodes of TGAMM are boring because they're not plot relevant or they're too predictable. My friends in Christ you are watching the 2021-2023 equivalent of a slapstick cartoon with slide whistles and crash cymbals, the point isn't to subvert expectations all the time, it's to have a silly fun episode sometimes with comedy first and foremost please the show is literally a slice of life comedy

I think that's everything hope I answered the right ones my attention span is completely SHOT today whoops

#tgamm #(mostly)#ask me things #aired out some dirty laundry thank you Silvia

6 notes · View notes

latineslytherin · 2 years ago

Text

You know what I think the problem is? the haters never learned to deal with the fact that not everyone is going to like you. That some people will just... hate you for whatever reason (this includes wanting you to not exist, or thinking you're lesser). And growing up already having to confront that every day of my life as a latine - I'm used to it. (And yeah its shitty I'm used to it, but it is out of my control so why sweat it?) It's just bundled in to that some times (or a lot of times) people are assholes and that's okay - so long as they aren't assholes in a way that physically and directly hurts me or mine, or other people like me - I'm not gonna spend any more time thinking about them. They can go ahead and let me and people like me live rent free in their head. They're the ones stewing in negativity.

And having come to the realization of my gender issues and my transness (thats a word) - I just was already accustomed to the fact that some people just want to limit my rights, my movements, my existence as a person. So the holder of Wizarding World IP...hating people like me - and continuing stereotypes in her work - I was just like... what's fucking new? That always happens, thats already existing and she is not the first person - nor will she be the last. Its like big fucking deal. Moving on, and just putting her entire existence and importance out of my mind.

I think the haters... just either never had to deal with that reality for their entire childhood - or never came to that conclusion for their own mental well being of just existing without thinking or worrying about what other people think of you and your people every day of your life. You know? Like...yeah recognize it, but set it aside and enjoy life when and where you can. You ain't got long in this world anyway. Why ruin the time you got with such negativity unless it's to do with your direct survival.

Like legit when the IP Holder started on her bullshit I was still.. figuring shit out for myself. I just stared at her words in the news and was like "Well that's fucking disappointing. Okay moving on." And everytime more shit came out about her, I would do what I can to offset her words by donating or being an ear for other gender questioning people. And I would pout the IP holder out of my mind because she is so far removed from me - I have no control over her. But I do have control over how I behave directly with people around me.

Plus there's something so beautiful and satisfying about taking something she made and putting my hands all over it. Knowing she hates people like me. Like here I am, someone you hate and I'm metaphorically ripping it up, shitting on the stuff you loved dearly and uplifting to create my own story. So what if it means buying the thing to find my own joy in the crap she put out. I will enjoy my fertilized metaphorical flowers and crops and there ain't a damn thing she can do about it. I exist and enjoy life. I do not need her approval or recognition. She is nothing but the manure I use to fertilize my joy.

#hogwarts legacy

15 notes · View notes

will80sbyers · 1 year ago

Note

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 🌈

#stranger things #ask #anti henry creel #bi mike wheeler #mike wheeler #byler

6 notes · View notes

darkness-holds-eternal-light · 1 year ago

Text

So as life feels too hard to handle at the moment, I am once again back with the waist-deep Snape discourse! 😌😁

(By the way, whenever things seem so hard and you are trying to accomplish something important and you feel discouraged, I always remember that it took J.K. Rowling about 12 attempts at getting her book published and everyone rejected it until finally she found a publisher that would take her book and things went well and I'm eternally grateful for that. ❤)

So the Snape discourse is basically the situation in the fan community at the moment that got me thinking. 🤔 We don't have to go into the extremely deep, scary parts but I'd like to address some of the shit that the haters are constantly throwing at us. (I'm saying "us" as in Snape-fans, specifically the actual Snape from the books. I'm aware that I'm blocked by quite a few Snape fans here on Tumblr because of some of my opinions I suppose. Which I recently found is not necessarily a bad thing because it gives me a bit more freedom not having to avoid certain subjects in fear of bullying and stuff.)

I think it's quite wonderful to have such a complex character as our favourite because it leaves so much room for exploring and expanding. For example I had recently thought about what it would've felt like to actually be in Snape's position when he yelled the terrible "Mudblood!" thing. I'm a huge fan of acting/ trying on roles and I'm even curious how other people would experience that if they put themselves in the role! I haven't gotten further there yet but I think that the antis are throwing these hateful things at us because they believe that it would scare us to actually look at them. I'm in Slytherin for a reason, well for many reasons, but I'm interested to look at this. So thankfully this is all fiction and we can look at it from a bit of a distance and learn through imagination. I love that.

So I've been thinking, what would it be like to actually be in Hogwarts? And to actually sit in Potions Class? I've been re-reading "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" so far very attentively especially in terms of how Snape is truly written.

How would it be to sit in Potions Class and wanting Professor Snape to like me? I'm an adult now, so this is an entirely different scenario. Cue the fanfictions. ;) But as a student, obviously in my head he would like me and we'd have a great connection. But I'm somewhat willing to look into the possibilities here, akin to the book. I've met men like him in my life. What do you do if he stands in front of your desk and tells you that you're doing a miserable job and your potion is rubbish and you look silly and he threatens to give that potion to your beloved cat? Like, this is hard, I'm willing to think about this mean question that the haters are often throwing. I know I would love him no less. But my cat comes first, always. If we leave out the question of a third party, an animal or a human, if it is just him being mean at you, what do you do? I've had to solve this situation a couple of times in my life and I can't say that I have found a satisfying solution thus far. Which is part of why I can understand Lily's choice to a certain degree and I don't blame her. I assume that Snape would like me and I think that is fair but we know that that doesn't necessarily protect you from his cruelty. This is scary but maybe, with the safety of imaginary play, it would be worth playing that role for a moment to find out where we would go with this? I'm definitely curious and as extremely creative as fanfiction writers and fanart creators are, I'm sure that there can be a healing solution to this eventually. Fiction has more possibilities. 😊 I'm creative too, so maybe I'll try for myself.

Still, I like that Snape is a fictional character and we can watch him from a bit of a distance and even if we go closer, he'd obviously like us. :) And this world is entirely our own, and this place is loving. 💚 Maybe that is also the message to ourselves, that it doesn't have to be argued free from "real life's" constrictions to be true and beautiful and lovely.

#personal #harry potter #discourse #j k rowling #severus snape #lily evans #Fantasy #Writing #Magical world

3 notes · View notes

teamsasukes · 1 year ago

Note

Hello! I'll request 1, 12 and 16 for the game. Hope you have a nice day.

1. the character everyone gets wrong

idk about everyone but i'm just going to say sasuke and kakashi and sakura because i very rarely see them depicted or discussed in ways i wholly agree with. they're my favourites though so i'm honestly pickier about them anyway

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

help are there any unpopular naruto characters😭 i reluctantly enjoy jiraiya -- not that he's not gross and creepy -- just because i love the sannin and also his inability to commit to anything is kind of funny. and yeah he's not unpopular anywhere apart from tumblr but i find the dominant fandom opinion of him quite reductive. i feel like people love jiraiya more for what they think he meant to naruto than anything that actually constitutes the character.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

would it be rude if i said everything to do with the founders era💀 listen by the point that we got madara i was so checked out like i did not care!!!! we had the akatsuki and obito (+ the whole team minato thing) and the sannin and it would have been really nice to see a satisfying and grounded culmination to all of those things instead of shoving undead hokage in there. i don't really see how them actually being present added any value that flashbacks couldn't have achieved and imo it really bloated the story. i also think the founders era round of team 7 (well, pretty much just sns) parallells was by far the most stale. in theory i could understand the hype if i went and reread the war arc with a more open mind but i like being a hater

#sorry i took like a week to answer this the succession finale rotted my brain #thank u for the ask hope u have a good one!!#naruto #asks

3 notes · View notes

solarapplejuice · 1 year ago

Text

one of the things that i think a lot of people feel cheapens SU's already strained narrative actually also works in its favor from a different angle, one which i wish the show pushed more. the fact that gems are effectively immortal, and can't even die after being shattered or broken, is immediately understood as one of the many ways that the show lessens the harm of the diamonds by making their state sanctioned execution useless. unless they've disintegrated gems and flown their dust far apart into the vast reaches of space, the only gem in the narrative who is dead dead is Rose Quartz. and yeah, it's true, the story should be judged on this implication.

but hey! cant give the haters any inch so lets talk about a misconception, that SU is about forgiveness. i'm not sure if it's ever really been about that even once, instead it's always been *change.* hell there's a whole song about it! the fact is that in SU's world anyone can change, and you're not required to wait for anyone to do so, but everyone probably could do it! and this is super important, because understanding this means that the gems being immortal takes a different shape in the story, and probably lends more weight to the diamonds redemption than any amount of lessening the violence they've enacted. because gems can't really die, they have to carry the sins that they've done to each other forever. and as long as they continue to live together, that means that often victims and abusers will share the world together. there's really no point, then, for people like the diamonds to put their foot down and keep trying to rule as supreme dictators. running away is an option for either side (and should absolutely be valid for victims), but SU has shown time and time and again that if your problems involve hurting others, then you don't get to run away from them. therefore there's really no choice for the diamonds ahead of them except to do better, to atone for what they've done forever and be good to the people they've hurt. the tragedy of Rose Quartz is that she doesn't get to do that - she's dead, and so people like Spinel and Pearl and Steven have to live knowing the ways she's deeply hurt or helped them, the ways she's helped or hurt others, and come to their own complicated and likely never fully satisfying feelings about her. *we,* the audience, have to reconcile all of that and make our own conclusions based on our own histories as people, which is probably why her story is the best part of SU for me.

in any case, i think it's why watching the diamonds' messy attempts to be better in future is so unsettling. you really do get the sense of "are they doing this because they want to, or because steven is telling them to, have they grown past taking and receiving orders?" SU wants us to believe that on a long enough timescale they will learn, but how LONG is that going to take? could anything go wrong during that time, especially knowing that White was almost killed by her current gig of mind control-assisted introspective therapy? they always feel like they're walking on the thread between their old ways and being better, or as someone else put it, "barely hinged." and you are so right, i WOULD fucking sit down and watch 5 more seasons of that.

I’m well and settled on the opinion that Steven Universe had to seriously stack the deck in its own favor to prevent the narrative from ending with anyone getting guillotined. I mean, Steven conveniently having a foot in the door with the diamonds because he turned out to be related, sure, but it goes into the characterization and worldbuilding, too.

Rather than cackling dictators, first off, The Diamonds had to be emotionally-arrested overgrown children; the dynamic between them and Pink was always, with context, less of a parent-child thing and more like three twelve-year-olds lecturing an eight-year-old on adult responsibility, they’re fundamentally aping a notion of the right way to be and I think it’s a mistake to view them as fully-realized people at the point where Steven finds them. Gem society, too, is less of a society, with all its messy moving parts, and more of a sanitized dollhouse representation of a society that’s only just starting to morph into the real deal via the rebellion. There’s no genuinely complicated politics to untangle; just gems meaninglessly play-acting at politics. And, crucially, nobody is getting anything out of any of it- gems are a needless society, they expand endlessly because they…. don’t not do that, there’s no material incentive to behave the way they do, no economic reality Steven has to counter in order to make the horror stop. All he has to do is convince three emotional runts to stop being awful.

Now, where I differ in my thinking, I think, is that in contorting the worldbuilding to make sure that the diamond redemption wasn’t something patently insane, they really hit upon an incredibly compelling science-fiction set-up. Three Elder Gods playing “It’s A Good Life” with a tea-party sham of a civilization full of individuals who nonetheless feel real pain, Three Elder Gods who cause harm, and lots of it, but mainly through their lack of moral context and lack of understanding of what even constitutes harm, Three Elder Gods whom you, a puny human, actually have some pretty potent emotional leverage over but no way to overpower if it comes to a fight? A set-up where part of the horror is how easy it would be to pinpoint the source of the horror and make it stop? That’s fucking dynamite! I’d watch five whole seasons of just that! Hell, even in canon it doesn’t even stop- two years later and Steven is still kinda trying to deal with the fact that the Diamond’s good behavior is kinda-sorta dependent on his willingness to keep dealing with them and he has no real way to be sure any of it is sticking! There’s no actual end in sight! There’s no clean resolution! It’s messy and it’s harrowing and it’s specifically because culpability and morality and ethics and all of that is so goddamn sticky when you’re a consequentialist trying to play ball with super-advanced childlike Von Neuman Machines!

#steven universe #thoughts #white diamond #rose quartz

2K notes · View notes

cloverwoodss · 2 years ago

Text

Huzzah!!!! I had to take a break for a bit but I finally finished except the playstation quest obviously asdfghjk

Below cut for some random stuff about the game

ommggggg the Jackdaw quest being different for every house and getting pieces each time was awesome! The Azkaban part was SPOOKY The story for him is honestly so sad tho like :’[ feel so bad for him and Anne

I didn’t get to take ANY SS of what she did to the lady we were with because it just SHOCKED me so bad-

ANYWAYS I really do hope they eventually do/finish a DLC or SOMETHING because I will NOT be satisfied until Sebastian’s twin’s story is finished. They leave you on a CLIFFHANGER!!!!

I’m actually wanting to do a small comic of what I WISH happened near the end of the game- And so far everyone has said they loved the concept and wish it did actually happen so???? Yeh I hope to one day actually do that.

Honestly my head hurts from finishing the last stretch so I’ll leave it with these last words.

I believe in removing the creator from the creation (being able to love the creation but not the creator) and I don’t support what JK has said. I support those who worked on this game and put their love and passion into it. This, like so many other things, are so much more than who started it. I do not support those who bully and hate on those who show any sort of like towards Harry Potter franchise. Those people are just YIKES. If you’re someone who has been bullied by them please get into the habit of being block happy, believe me it frees your spirit SO MUCH to block the haters lmaaoooo

#blog in the woods

1 note · View note

ikilledamanforthisurl · 2 years ago

Note

Minami x6 you are okay boss everyone needs to recharge sometimes……. Im actually extremely head empty today so apologies if this is like just Entirely Words V_V But real real…… I wish there was more general discussion of Majima's relationship with his family because iirc it wasn’t even something he asked for initially but he gets it Anyways and now he just has to deal with it. But not only that it soon becomes somehow The Biggest Family in the tojo which leads now to Majima basically being responsible for like so much of the clan to the point where he’s constantly getting threatened because there’s no one else TO threaten anymore the tojo is in such shambles…. and well how are you expecting him to act normally and kindly in this sort of situation. I wish the games took it more seriously because I feel like at least w what we see of Nishida Majima's casual violence and abuse is treated a bit too Jokingly but like I get why he’s Like That. World is a hell the cycles just keep continuing forever! Also nah you’re okay for tangents I also actually love Majima a lot I just feel myself break out into hives whenever I have to witness fandom Majima Family stuff where a lot of it treats it as though it’s just like funny cutesy hahas and not like an Organisation of extremely violent and fucked up people who realistically probably don’t know how to really interact with each other and the interesting ways this could be shown. Like i love shitposts top but come on gang. Png

Also I hope you don’t take this poorly but I have no idea who Aratani is <///3 I couldn’t find him on the wiki and Im not super far yet in the yakuza franchise so you’ll have to excuse me if your points In Regards to majima family members which one actually is taken seriously and which one is not Im just nodding along. But YES real I loooveeeeeee the whole minor theme of like reputation and stories in yakuza…. I think Kiryu is the most notable example of this with how much reverence people put on his name and how it affects like important characters (nishiki most obviously but also Ryuji and the whole debate of “There can only be one dragon” etc) but Majima would definitely also have stories about him that would spread far and wide and it doesn’t matter if they’re true or even real at all because it’s the Image that lingers and that would affect the people around him too most importantly to this discussion Minami. Wants to be somebody ism IS real and i am shaking it around by the neck

Minami might be a lil side character goofy guy but he is my friend and ill put the work into developing him if i must. RGG hire me for my spin off game where you are a employee at Majima construction and you do building minigames and get to hang out with and get to know better Nishida and Minami respectively amen. And i hope the playlist making of one day goes well <33

FEAR NOT! i have pickture of the sulking wretched fiend.....

I'm afraid i don't have a screenshot of him not going on about his whole deal but he's literally patriarch-gunner personified....... Aratani (and most other M.Family men that i'll ever mention for a while besides Minami and Nishida) is a Dead Souls exclusive! i am currently watching a playthru of DS because i've already exposed myself to spoilers a'plenty cause idrc + i think having the most atrocious watchorder of Yakuza is really really funny. We've gone from all of Y0 shown to me by an ex > a lil bit of Y1 > Dead Souls > and then imma do either Y7 or Y3. i enjoy making things harder for myself

also ive had the exact same wishful thinking to myself....... sidecharacter spinoff game...... where u just hang out with them or some shit whatever. most loserific iteration being a Minami focused one because Who Even Wants That but i'll own it idc i have ideas. i have plans. the haters (rggstudios legal team) will sabotage me etc etc. i'd like to think i could have an okay shot at balancing the At First I Lol'd with the But Then I Serioused in a way that's satisfying 'cause both are integral to these characters to me. just like, two more seconds of thinking implications of Anything through would do this series Wonders

but sidetracking cause you mentioned M.Construction and its got me Thinking Again cause like.... i like the idea of balancing Nishida + Minami as opposites in many ways who clash and struggle to fit in with the other. they're not perfect opposites by any means but they function pretty closely. i like stressed, decent Nishida representing the side of the family involved with M.Con while lenient punk twat Minami is firmly planted in the Yakuza side. if Junior Leader is at all involved with a training position then that kind of helps prop up this idea a little bit.... though, ofc, there would be plenty overlap, having so many men on payroll practically requires you to make jobs for them, so it's not like the Family is divided into these two sectors or anything.... lots of mixing of shifts goes down no doubt. whether there is a method to this assignment is another story entirely (probably depends on each person's strengths, abilities, whether they applied for sitework specifically, or as punishment/reward)

(shit i made up territory) Minami is probably assigned to M.Con worksites often.... probably as punishment 'cause you already know this man got the 80HDeez he can't sit still and not cause trouble for the life of him. it both keeps him in one place and occupied while still holding over his head that he Fucked Up, Dummy. oh great, now I gotta deal with Nishida's bullshit (petty squabbling ensues in the office that's my setup to get the two to interact on a regular basis anyways.... there's lots of fun to be had with these two, but so little actually bridges them together. they're SOOO WORSTIES but they work on the other ends of the Family. one's at Oyaji's beck-and-call and the other is kept as far away from Oyaji as possible the millisecond he annoys him a lil too much. one belongs in finance and requires anxiety drugs while the other can't dress himself and needs rehab. oh my god theyre so (crushes them in my hands like putty

#ikildaman shut the fuck up #laughing at being called boss also. me? boss? you have contracted yakuza goon syndrome #i cant even say i hate it its kindof slay.....(guy whose faves are all gang goons #in a strangely beautiful irony Minami probably Does get stories told about him..#theyre just not told with the fearful reverence that Majimas are #Majima basically crawled out of hell kicking and screaming and shrieking and killing. Minami is just a weirdo #(said with love)#everything u say abt Majima nd his Family are so real and true btw you get me you Get It #I NEED A SPOTLIGHT ON THE FAMILY MEN.... I NEED IT NEEOWWW #something beyond using them as plot and joke props. please #i need just one family man to be a Person a little bit. pleeeeeeease #i think Kido is like this a little bit but im not sure. looking forward to meeting him #Rikiya too ohmy god how could i forget

0 notes

atqh16 · 5 months ago

Text

I think the fact that I’m late to the fandom also plays a part. Cause I find few haters and more JC supporters. One of my biggest pet peeve isn’t even how some of them unfairly put down other characters to prop up JC. It’s how in an attempt to protect JC some of them will see him only as a victim and strip him of his flaws and mistakes when no, that’s what made him compelling in the first place! That’s what makes his growth so satisfying by the end. And tbh I think the fact that a lot of people agreed with my original post shows how extreme JC lovers have been.

Though I’ve had arguments with antis too. Like the whole homophobic thing is so stupid. I like it as a fanon gag or crack but like you said everyone is a little homophobic in the story.

Context definitely matters when it comes analyzing material but I think at the same time it’s also important to know when to break out of it. Like the amount of people who use the context to justify the killing the Wen remnants, to the point where some see it as deserved is alarming. Like the context definitely adds layers to the logic used in universe but it absolutely does not justify what they did. It’s another issue I have with many JC lovers who freak out at the idea of JC having done anything horrible. That Loki effect where they take the woobification too far. Like I said, maybe if I didn’t make it clear in my original post, my issue is with fans who insist on justifying their favs even when the story itself makes it clear that they were in the wrong.

When it comes to JC’s treatment of Jin Ling I’m simply very particular about any adult verbally degrading a child, especially if they are that child’s guardian/parent. I think it gets swept under the rug as being acceptable way too often when it absolutely should not be. It has nothing to do with gentle parenting or any of the like. I simply think verbal insults and threats (even if they are empty) towards a child is unacceptable. Especially since at one point the child themselves would not have known they were empty. As I’ve said abuse is an extremely complicated issue that is rarely black and white. A lot of times it’s mixed up with genuine affection and love that is simply warped by a person’s interpretation of how to express it. Like I had no doubt that no matter what Lady Jiang did Jiang Cheng still loved her with everything in him. Even then I’m not saying Jiang Chengs actions towards Jin Ling makes him an irredeemable monster. I think he simply needs to self reflect and recognize his own faults and the fact that he’s proven to be capable of doing these things is one of the reasons I adore him as a character. I don’t think the fact that therapy was non existent in that era or the fact that his actions were culturally and socially acceptable is a good reason to excuse his behaviour. It makes them very understandable but there’s a difference.

I definitely disagree with you in regards to Lan Zhan. That might simply be how we both interact differently with the source material, which is valid, but I find him to be just as compelling as Jiang Cheng or Nie Huaisang or Wei Ying. Especially after we find out more about the past version of himself. Mxtx does this thing with her characters where you are meant to read between the lines and she allows room for readers to simply fill the blanks with their own thoughts and theories and it’s one of the things I like best about her writing because it allows more reader-content interaction. Some might consider that lazy writing but I disagree. It’s why I don’t have an issue with different interpretations of a character. Simply the resistance to criticism. I love Wei Ying but absolutely understand many of the issues people have with him though I do think some readers are more harsh with him than they should be and I think it’s a product of him being a main character and being a character that’s generally loved by most readers. Which is unfair but that’s a topic for another day.

Like people keep saying that Wei Ying kept running away from giving Jiang Cheng the answers and explanations he deserved to know and in a way he did but I disagree as to why. I think Wei Ying genuinely thought he was protecting Jiang Cheng by hiding the truth (he wasn’t). I think his actions came out of a place of love instead of selfishness especially since we have a lot of proof that Wei Ying loved his siblings dearly. I think he let Jiang Fengmian’s last words get to his head. I think the idea that he had a savior complex is an unfair oversimplification of his character the same way some people simplify Jiang Cheng to simply being a bitter hateful person. I think he’s just as much a victim of generational trauma as Jiang Cheng is but his detractors don’t take that into account the same way they do with their favs. I think by the end of the story him leaving wasn’t about him running away but about him sincerely thinking his presence would be a hindrance to his brothers healing journey and after seeing the level of contempt his brother showed him at his return, I don’t blame him for thinking that. Even if I do disagree with his decision. BUT I think the hint of reconciliation that we saw between them during the climax was mxtx’s way of giving their relationship an open ending. I think their story would have required an entirely different book and I get that mxtx might have felt it was not a story she could tell or was ready to tell. Disappointing but it’s only her second series so I’m giving her room especially since tgcf shows how much she has improved. It’s why I frequent mdzs fanfic spaces more than I do tgcf. Haven’t read svsss cause I’m finding it super hard to find a readable online version cause I don’t have the choice of getting the physical copy.

I think in regards to Wen Ning it’s really unfair to judge him for being harsh with his words. Especially since we give Jiang Cheng himself SO much leeway for being a consistent ass throughout the story and the golden core reveal was one of the few moments Wen Ning allowed himself to be emotional. He’s tried his best to take accountability for his actions throughout the rest of the story and for a character who has basically lost everything I think it was understandable to see him react the way he did with Jiang Cheng who was physically fighting with a defenseless Wei Ying at the time even if the latter ‘started it’. I think it’s really telling that it took Jiang Cheng raising his whip against Wei Ying for Wen Ning to step in. I don’t know if Wei Ying ever talked about how Lady Jiang used zidian against him as a child but I think it’s still significant enough to note.

But I definitely still think his intention was to shake Jiang Cheng out of his denial and I still think while awful, everything Wen Ning said was something Jiang Cheng needed to hear. Even if he was incorrect with some of his points. I don’t think Wen Ning was meant to be entirely accurate with his words. I think like you said he is his own unreliable narrator but he still provides a valuable perspective. Jiang Cheng didn’t need to just hear the truth. He needed to decipher some of it himself. I think it’s why his words during his confrontation with Wei Ying at the climax about how his anger was still valid was so very very important because it was. It very much was. But him recognizing that it didn’t justify his actions was what was pivotal.

Can you tell that Jiang Cheng is my Roman Empire and the resistance towards criticism by some fans is what irks me the most and not actually his character?

I don’t think Wen Ning told Jiang Cheng about the golden core because he wanted him to know he owed Wei Ying or any of the sort. Like a lot of people seem to think that and therefore conclude Wen Ning was out of line. But it’s more likely that he did it to give Jiang Cheng the wake up call he needed. Because he has lived for 13 years in denial of the truth in that Jiang Yan Li’s death was not Wei Yings fault and he himself had a hand in his brothers demise. It was meant to be a reminder to him of who Wei Ying actually is and the made version he has in his head is a perception that has been warped by his anger and grief. It’s meant to be a reminder of how much Wei Ying loved him. Jiang Chengs anger is understandable but it doesn’t justify him treating Wei Ying the way he did and putting all the blame on him without ever trying to comprehend the choices his brother made and why he made them.

#jiang cheng #wei ying #lan zhan #wen ning #lan wangji #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #jin ling

648 notes · View notes