#it's just lots of cringe behavior

[no-one-hears-me]

devastated to realize the nice guy in my class is a Nice Guy

[starlooove]

“Fandom isn’t fun anymore fandom isn’t fun anymore” tbh it just feels like white racist “normies” jumped in as opposed to white racist nerds and for me personally u can feeeel it kinda but it doesn’t change much

[crescentfool]

does anyone else want to stick these two in the same room together or is that just me... i simply think they are adjacent in vibes... (+a bonus thing???)

get u a fictional guy that makes you feel like this... seeing these guys just evoke a Similar Kind of Brain Chemical and Response. Help Me.

also have bonus yosuke doodle featuring the same brushes used here...! from january 23rd, lol.

[askinnyblackman]

should this be my opening message y/n (it will not but it would be funny)

[lunathewafflelord]

Sometimes it seems like the anti fandoms are more toxic than the actual fandom that the anti fandom people hate on, it's actually really sad.

MLP fans will know what I'm talking about

[brazilian-whalien52]

Being weird is kind hard in the sense that a thousand people will call you weird, but the moment you say it yourself, somehow people get offended?

It feels like when they call you weird they are saying "you are not like the others, you are odd and freaky" but when I call myself weird they hear "I am not like you idiots normies"

[whenthegoldrays]

sigh

[throwmeabonepleaseandthankyou]

I think i missed a chapter because WHAT ！！(゜ロ゜ノ)ノ

more than likely people who genuinely think the term skibidi is the most hilarious thing in the world. send me pictures of y'alls cat and have me rank them or ask how many school toilets i've blown up, i would LOVE to answer that.

[watchinglikeafangirl]

Yes, it's only part 1/4 of this 8th episode and I'm sure we'll dig a little deeper into Day and Night's backstory BUT I really dislike Day's behavior in the car. What is his problem? Like nobody cares that he is blind and nobody mentions it except for Day himself. For ex he says he's supposed to sit in the front seat "because he's blind"...what does that even mean?! I'm really mad. Day behaves like he's ten but he is a grown man. He is an adult yet never takes responsibility for himself in front of his family members. It's truly irritating and it's simply unfair.

Again, I don't know what happened. Maybe Night wasn't supportive. From what I've seen Night tries a lot whilst Day shoots daggers that seemingly don't make sense and the mother is saying nothing about it. It's uncomforting, rude and disrespectful. It's not just disrespecting Night, it's disrespecting Day himself and even all the other people in the room because it's simply embarassing.

[carcinized]

i have srsly had irl queer people make fun of me for being queer + liking sports and tell me that is like, not gay or something. like ok just say youre chronically online. womens soccer is the queerest thing i have ever been a part of hands down. also youre an awful person

[heirbane]

feel free to ignore if you’ve already talked about this before, but i was running prae recently and it got me curious about gaius’s feelings on livia / nero / rhitahtyn? or the xivth in general. :>

i have been roosting on this for. weeks? months? because i have Thoughts and not a lot of them are popular probably lol. long long post below. so!

Livia and Lucia lived with Gaius after they were orphaned. The wiki gives like one sentence to say they were separated, but there's no linked proof. For the purposes of my canon, Lucia and Livia are identical twins, and fell into Gaius' custody around the age of nine or ten. (Mayhaps they had intended to separate them, but doing so to people so obviously two halves of one soul, as twins are oft believed to be, was cruel.)

Livia and Lucia were Gaius' first children. He was 39 and had spent twenty five years in the military already, a feat both telling of his ability and his early enlistment. Those who made it to twenty summers in the military had their futures financially secured for them. Gaius would never want for anything, and he now felt that he could offer himself up as a mentor figure to those younger... because as a child who had raised himself and had grown up in the military, he believed that all children needed was a safe home, plentiful meals, and education. His coin could provide all of those things.

Gaius scarcely remembered being ten years old. Not from lack of trying but from purposeful forgetfulness, a merciful omission made by his subconscious to truly forget the half-dozen winters spent trying to relieve his mother of her grief and fending for himself. He thinks he remembers being lonely, and cold, and scared. That, he thinks, he can avoid with the twins, even while he's on a tour of duty. He is so resplendently well-off and respected that the girls could attend private lessons and be dressed in the warmest coats.

(Providing the essentials - even to a level bordering on excessive, or stifling - is not a love children need. His first daughters were no better off than he at ten: they may have been clothed, in classes, and being raised by one of the military's finest, but they were still cripplingly alone. It is a knife he had handed all of his children, something he doesn't feel the blade of for over a dozen years.)

Livia was desperately, horridly lonely. Even before the death of her parents, she did not receive the amount of attention and love that she felt she needed. Her parents attention had always been split between her and her sister, and - as is often the case in multiple child households - Lucia was often seen as the more proper daughter. Upon their demise, Livia was left with a flurry of emotions she had yet to truly acknowledge and decode as one would growing up. Without a proper parent to idealize and a healthy, consistent environment to grow up in, Livia gorged herself on any and all attention, no matter how uncouth or unhinged. All attention was good attention.

She idolized Gaius to a suffocating degree. After her parents died, it seemed as if he swooped in and brought them into gilded luxury: she had everything she could have ever desired... but somehow - ... she still felt empty. But she felt loved and seen whenever he was home. She didn't know what she wanted, nor did she have the maturity to know there was a what: she simply wanted whatever scraps of affection he would offer... and never quite grew out of that. Trauma and emotional neglect is a bear trap one does not get free from on their own. Unfortunately, Livia was very much alone.

Lucia fled Garlemald at sixteen. Both girls were enrolled in the military at fifteen - one more willing than the other. Livia made leaps and bounds in a short few years, clawing her way to fight at Gaius' side, where she believed she belonged. Lucia focused on espionage, and used her adopted father's name to her advantage... and fled. Livia never saw Lucia after that, and died not knowing if her sister had ever found what she had sought in the savage lands.

Rhitahtyn, by comparison, was decidedly more a younger brother than son. A half dozen years his junior, Rhitahtyn entered the military not long after Gaius turned twenty-four. Not long after, Rhitahtyn was assigned to Gaius' very first platoon of soldiers ... as those from conquered lands were oft used as a new General's testing group.

Rhitahtyn and other Roe folk often used their native tongue to chitchat when in the barracks or otherwise not under the direct eye of Garlemald... or when they believed their superior to be ignorant of the language. Gaius had been in the military over a decade by the time they crossed paths and had chosen to learn the basics of the tongues spoken by those under his command. Needless to say, Rhitahtyn had choice words for his leader. (Needless to say, Gaius had his own in return. The floors of the platoon's bedquarters would never be nearly as clean as the Roe had made them that night as punishment.)

Despite the bad foot they got off on, Gaius saw promise in the younger man. He remained level-headed no matter the confrontation, already had years of work behind him as a mercenary, and had a sharp wit to boot. As time went on, their footing became less uneven, and Gaius began to see him as a peer instead of a recruit. Time and time again, he chose Rhi to be at his side, much like Nero and Livia.

Rhi knew the rest of Gaius' children. He met all of the Au Ri from Terncliff: he knew the Garlean orphans the man sponsored care for. They all came to see the Roe in a similar light to Gaius, despite the wide age gap between himself and them: to his children, Rhi was but another sibling. (It was Alphonse, still losing baby teeth and learning how Garlean names worked, who stumbled over Rhitahtyn's name enough that 'Rhi' came to be. Only the children dubbed him so. It was not a name Gaius would ever admit to using.)

As it is in canon, Gaius would not have sent Rhi to Cape Westwind to die. He would not have left the grounds to Livia and others. He did not believe the Warrior of Light so strong as to put down two soldiers he had trained himself: he had more faith in their abilities - and in Garlemald - than he had fear of the Warrior.

(As not many survived Westwind or after, it took Gaius many, many years to learn how Rhitahtyn perished - a fact only the Warrior of Light carried with them. He knew he had perished: he knew he had fought until the end. But to know that his brother-in-arms had fully intended to go down in flames with the Warrior of Light - ... to say he has regrets is but a sliver of the truth.)

In a perfect world, Gaius may have set up Nero with one of his daughters. In a perfect world, Midas would not have perished, and they would have happily co-parented Cid. Both Cid and Nero were born when Gaius was in his early twenties, and he sees both men in a similar light, much to Nero's disgust. A little competition never hurt anyone, and each boy's promise seemed to ignite fire in the other.

Much akin to Livia and Lucia, Nero is ... definitely the black sheep. While close to the age of his adult children, the man froths at the mouth when such is spoken, forever rushing to be great in his own right. Nero's sights for the future - his future, specifically - is both endearing and infuriating to Gaius, who sees his soldiers as part of a larger whole.

Unfortunately, no matter how infuriating or offbeat he is, Nero is a genius... but would have still come up short, had Cid stayed in Garlemald. Gaius knows this. Nero knows this, and he will fight until he is near dead to get out of the shadow Cid left behind by simply existing.

(Nero does not know why the shadow remains. He does not know why Gaius is soft-hearted for Cid, or why his voice is so fond for Midas. His relationship with the scientist is a secret only two other people were privy to: Midas' wife, and Cid. By the time Gaius meets Nero, Midas' widow has long since disappeared from under Garlemald's eye... and Cid is presumed dead.)

Had Lucia not fled and had Livia been sound of mind, he does think they would have made a fine lineage, all things considered. However, Livia only had eyes for Gaius... and Nero only had eyes for Cid.

[cartoonchaos]

i hate former twitter users SO MUCH i’ve seen 3 recent tumblr posts TODAY that amount to “why do so many adults care about/get invested in media for children lol y’all are weirdos don’t you have taxes to do” go AWAYYYY go away go away PLEASE go back to twitter i promise they still have genshin impact porn PLEASE don’t come near me i have a VERY large sword

[variousnumbers]

sometimes the loudest bitch in the room…. is also the most autistic (and will be replaying this interaction in their mind in horror for the foreseeable future bc they fully cannot tell if they’re being annoying)

[the-one-who-rises]

It is very frustrating feeling so alone in a character interpretation. Like, i don't think everybody is wrong, it's just that an annoying amount of people are so locked into fanon inventions that it's hard to hold my own line. I don't think I'm crazy here, i try to stay to close to canon facts and rational inferences, but I'm no great talent at analysis, if I'm alone am i wrong?

Being accurate is important to me, and part of the fun, if i wanted to invent my own guy, I'd just do that. But i want to dig and find the truth (even though it doesn't really matter big picture) and i think the truth follows a subtler, softer line than the bulk of fans seem to enjoy.

And then there's like, two camps of being wrong IMO, the super chaos, dumb gay asshole, and the super angsty every single word and action is an act because he's just so misunderstood by his family.

And then I'm struggling to hold a balance in my own head between expanding his character with the previous iterations of himself and still being comfortable with him being different and unique among them and also a product of his slightly different genre from the past versions.

This is supposed to be fun, and i am genuinely having more fun than I've had in ages! but i am also ready to strangle my own brain about this

I just like him, and it's annoying to constantly evaluate fandom nonsense with the "he would not fuckin say that" lens. i guess i finally understand the pain now 😔 it's just been so long since i had a character i actually cared about enough to really understand that genre of posts. The annoyance of "are we really looking at the same guy" and the "yes, but that's a pretty surface level way to look at things don't you think?"

[claire-starsword]

who said shining force and shining soul are too different from each other. i just spent half an hour to make a mithril weapon. same fucking experience

[adickaboutspoons]

Mostly I was responding to the points raised in @scarrletmoon's response, but you raise some excellent points to which I'd like to respond. Feel free to ignore if you're tired of my bullshit. I completely understand the impulse. 1st, you're absolutely right; I was coming across as gate-keepery by saying that I find Stede's eccentricities charming as though that ought be the default experience. For that I apologize. I ought to have taken more care. When I said "And that's valid, but I would say that those are the parts that the crew and Ed grow to love once they embrace those parts of him instead of cringing at them" what I meant to convey is that the experience of 2nd-hand embarrassment when Stede does something that recalls to the viewer times when they have felt ashamed/were made to feel shame because of something they did is absolutely understandable, but we can take heart in Stede being accepted & loved for those parts of him, & find hope that so too may we be embraced for our own quirks & foibles. My intention was to encourage others to be more gentle with & accepting of their own perceived failings, but I can see now that I failed to adequately express that, & for that I am sorry. I do take issue with the suggestion that I am strawmanning, though; I would argue that how one views Stede's motivation & framing absolutely informs the extent to which/moments in which one finds his behavior cringe-worthy. In your original post, you contend Stede is "pretending to be this macho pirate captain who totally knows what he's doing" & your response above adds he's a bad manager & a jerk because he's praising himself & chiding his employees, whom you interpret as him treating as stand-ins for his own children. If that's how you're framing the scenario, then, sure - I can see how his behavior comes across as cringe to you. But that's not at all how I perceived it. I will grant he is pretending more expertise than he actually possesses, but he IS a pirate captain, & as to the attribution of "macho" I absolutely disagree, specifically because he is textually interested in a form of piracy that is not that. Because that is my understanding of the scene, in the debrief scene I see a person excited at the success of what, if Black Pete is to be believed, is their very 1st raid, & doesn't understand why everyone else wasn't also chuffed. He then listens to Wee John' criticism & encourages him to clarify WHY he feels the way he does. When Wee John identifies the lack of a flag as a contributing factor to his disgruntlement, Stede provides materials so they can rectify the deficit. This isn't Stede forcing arts & crafts on these grown-ass men (& Jim) - it's Stede hearing a problem & supplying the means to a solution. Similarly, he hears out Buttons about the crew's dissatisfaction, & tries to rectify it by finding a more appealing target for a raid, even though he obviously feels unequal to the task himself. To me, that's the complete opposite of a bad manager (to me he's a bad manager when he's being dismissive of the crew's input, like the fuckery brainstorming, & even then he climbs down from his high horse & apologizes. Which? GREAT manager!). Where you see Stede infantilizing his crew, I see them taking part in activities that, while generally relegated to childhood, aren't implicitly childish, & of their own volition, & Stede sowing the seeds that will eventually blossom into a found family (not imposing an established family structure). For clarity, I'm not saying my interpretation is objectively right, nor that yours is wrong. I'm just saying framing is going to influence perception of whether Stede's behavior is Cringe, & that's kind of what I was getting at with my myriad examples of Stede behaving "authentically" or "inauthentically" & when that is a viable predictor of a general fandom perception of when Stede is being Cringe. Because I really don't think it is. This is going to continue in the notes because tumlr thinks they can cut my mic.

listen I love stede a lot - I think he's the bravest character in the show. he changes everyone he meets for the better. he embodies what I think of as the thesis of the show. if he wasn't the way that he is, the show would not be very good, imo.

but in ep one he gives his pirate crew notes on the raid they just did as though they were a community theater troupe and his notes were 1) complimenting his own opening speech as "very inspiring" and 2) complaining that that the crew wasn't sufficiently enthusiastic about robbing two poor fisherman of a single plant.

during the raid his narration went "some men are born to be pirate captains, others learn on the job. me? well I'm a pretty solid mix of both" as though he has any idea what he's doing.

and AFTER the raid Olu has to gently point out to him that piracy isn't a game to the rest of the crew.

There's a reason that Rhys Darby was the only person capable of playing Stede without making him seem like a total dick. And I think that's bc Rhys was able to convey the idea that Stede's behavior in the first few eps is coming out of this deep sense of insecurity - he's doing some Stede-y things (flag making! paying the crew! bedtime stories!) that are great but he's also pretending to be this macho pirate captain who totally knows what he's doing. And it's the pretending that makes people cringe with second hand embarrassment. While also, often, seeing themselves in it and feeling a great deal of sympathy for Stede about it.

The reason Stede is like this is because HE thinks there's something deeply wrong with him, a belief that has been solidified by everyone around him his entire life, and therefore he needs to do everything he can to hide that deeply wrong thing about him. When he unpacks that and embraces the things about himself he originally thought were embarrassing (being weak, pathetic, soft, etc), he can stop pretending. And that's when other characters grow to love him! And so people will sometimes call him cringe because they aspire to be cringe like him, to embrace the parts of themselves that they were punished for and live more authentically.

because he changes! that's the point! he moves from cringe (pretending to be someone he's not) to cringe (being true to himself, always a deeply vulnerable thing to be) and it takes a lot of hard work. that's what makes me LIKE him as a character. that's what I think makes him the bravest character on the show. because he doesn't start out perfect. he's a puppet who grows into a real boy and that means that for a period of time he was a puppet, and that's okay.