#it's okay to be sad about media

[hemi-demi]

I want to try and clarify the sadness around the TMAGP 23 JMart stuff in a (slightly) shorter post, spoilers below cut.

Most of us don't think Jon and Martin would be soulmates that always find each other. That's not how multiple universes work and I don't believe in soulmates. If they were to be together in this universe, I want it to be earned.

I would have been perfectly happy with TMA's JMart not showing up at all, I like the ambiguous ending and I wanted them no where near TMAGP unless it's a happy ending for them. They should rest, let me get attached to new characters now.

I would have been delighted by a nice, short cameo from TMAGP JMart and they never show up again. While there's still a possibility of that, it still hurts very badly to hear someone say exactly "Oh, they never even met and they died". That line was written specifically to be painful, and reacting to that as such isn't a weakness or misunderstanding of the material. It is the intended reaction to be sad.

I feel like I was reading a book and someone slipped in some untagged MCD fanfic of my blorbos between the pages without my knowledge. That's going to make people sad, pretty sure that was the point.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

genuinely is my brain erasing itself or is google/tumblr censoring that post about notre dame and old growth forests.

[chesboard]

“ WHAT DO I DO ?! “

“ …I’ll figure it out “

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

favourite twdg villain?

I'm a fond enjoyer of the St. John's as villains. I don't know if they're my favorite just because they're only in one episode, but I love the concept of this family almost immediately jumping into cannibalism toward the start of the outbreak, dealing in human flesh to bandits, and casually feeding this group their friend's legs.

Like... what the hell was this family like before the outbreak that all three of them were like, "Hey now listen... nothing should go to waste, the dead are eating people so why shouldn't we? We gotta survive and in our defense, we only target those who were gonna die anyway... like y'all."

Dude, Mark was shot in this shoulder with an arrow. He wasn't going to die from that injury. It's so fucked that these seemingly friendly people took the group into their home and then fed them Mark's legs.

If we take the idea that everyone is infected and have the capacity within themselves to become walkers, to become monsters, then the St. John's were infected long before the outbreak, y'know? Not literally, but something was wrong with them and the outbreak just further spread that infection and changed them.

But again, are they my favorite? I dunno if I can say that since I have a lot more appreciation for Lily now. Yeah, some of her writing gets a little wonky in ep3 of TFS when she goes on her monologues and shit, but y'know what? I'm into it.

You have to remember who we're talking about and the fact that she's the antagonist; Lily isn't some anti-hero in TFS who secretly has a heart of gold that's brought to light because she reunited with Clementine... she's a fucked up woman who did fucked up things in the name of survival. She's full of rot now. She sees kidnapping children and turning them into soldiers to protect her home as a means to an end, but she doesn't actually give a shit about the people she's taking. They aren't people to her, they're as the episode title suggests, toys in her game. The only one she sees as a person is Clementine, and while that makes her hesitate at first, she sees Clementine's a prize to bring back.

She remembers what happened in S1; her father had a heart attack and as she tried to save him, Kenny smashed his face in with a saltlick and then expected Lily to just stand up and help him get back to his family because "he did what he had to, he made the hard choice." Yes, Larry was a piece of shit. No one liked him, and you can even question Lily on him and she'll tell you that he has a lot of pain. Yes, it makes him an asshole, but he's still her dad and he's all she has. I mean... the simplification is daddy issues, but in all seriousness, I don't doubt for a second that many of Lily's issues stem from Larry being a shitty father to her.

Then everyone thought she was losing it when she insisted there was a traitor in the group, which she was right about, but she was unstable. She was unwell, but how do you help someone like that when you don't have training to go about it? Then Lily ends up killing either Carley or Doug and the group turns on her, and either she's left behind or she steals the van and runs away.

Then we don't know what the hell happened to her until we see her again in TFS, but like... a lone woman with decay festering inside of her joining the delta? Exposing her to their methods? I mean, what else did she have to lose? She had nothing, she lost everything, and she has a lot of issues. Survival is easy when you're numb, when you don't care about the individual; they're all just cogs churning to make the system run, and if a piece doesn't cooperate, you get rid of it and find a new one.

Plus I think there's something to say about Lily not wanting to be perceived as weak again. That whole display she put on in the cells? Telling the story of what happened to Minerva and Sophie? I get the criticism that it feels like Lily did a 180 between episodes but like... yeah dude, because it's a performance. It's not just her and Clementine anymore. It's a display of power and authority. She's playing the part and thriving in it as she ensures everyone else is terrified of her.

But then when Clementine and AJ get the upper hand? Again, she's not afraid to play up the pleading to earn enough sympathy to spare her- hell, just to let their guard down enough to strike and get the upper hand again. I mean, she's got nothing else to lose, right? If she doesn't go for it, she'll be killed and sure, you can kill her anyway but at least she tried.

Honestly, I look at Lily in TFS and still see that scared little girl playing the tough bitch, just like Carley said in S1. It's just now escalated from "tough bitch" to a downright vile person. She's so... lost? I suppose? Lost within herself and the monstrous means she's taken to survive.

I get the criticisms of how she was used in TFS, but for me, it's like when people complain about Minerva not getting the redemption arc she supposedly should've gotten, y'know? There's no saving her. Lily was never on our side, and there was no getting her on our side. She wasn't ever going to redeem herself. Even if you spare her and she drifts away on her raft, can someone like her actually find redemption? Or will she just find another group that'll feed into her rot?

Truly, I say let her be horrid. Let her be the piece of shit villain with a few fleeting moments of humanity. Let her drown in the blood she's spilled.

[novadreii]

netflix's the dragon prince: hey, we're here to ride the nostalgia wave from those of you who never emotionally recovered from avatar: the last airbender. we're gonna give you 7 seasons of a similar but insanely watered down formula depicting 4-5 different factions forced to work together for the fate of their world, while grappling with familiar moral quandaries such as:

growing up means not seeing things as black or white; they are actually shades of grey! every other theme in this show however, will contradict this. don't worry about it.

don't let the pain you endure turn you into a bitter old bitch. it's actually infinitely cooler of you to always, without fail, take the high road and be the Bigger Person.

since hatred and bitterness can't undo the wrongs committed against you, they are functionally useless emotions and you shouldn't have them. dummy.

we are all made up of Good and Bad, but only the actually Good Guys who tell the Bad parts of themselves to F off deserve to be happy.

retribution and revenge and violence are always Bad, and committed by Bad People only.

you can save everyone!

everyone is capable of change, they just gotta make the right Choices. Easy peezy.

everyone deserves to live, even killers.

also, there will be so many quips written into the dialogue that you'll risk breaking a tooth from cringing so hard. and lots of gay so we don't get shit from you all like the last time we had to bend over backwards to network TV LGBT restrictions. enjoy feeling good about being doormats, nerds!

[toothpastewolf]

“oh but aros can still date and aces can still have sex !! there are always exceptions !!”

while i agree with this, why is most if not all aro and/or ace rep i come across an “exception”. why are they all exceptions can’t we just have one character that’s not please

[stripedchickens]

Watching danny motta watch the owl house (because I tried once a while ago and had to stop a few episodes in because I couldn’t handle the filler episodes- a huge mistake on my part) THE IDEAS !! For self insert fanfiction mostly-

I am loving danny mottas hype and love for the show! And getting to learn more about it before watching it has definitely made me want to watch it fully on my own now. My plan is to read some fanfics and then watch the show so I can’t wait to be more into toh!

[hermitcraftx]

just got a dm abt one of my posts and y'all please don't try and show the hermits (or any minecraft youtuber or content creator for that matter) my posts, i'm uncomfortable with it and don't want any of my posts shown to a cc. if they stumble upon it naturally that's unfortunate but i can live with it since i do maintag a lot (something i REALLY need to stop doing tbh i already know i need to make a tagging system just for my blog that wont clog results) but going out of ur way to show a cc is entirely different and something i am not comfortable with.

no hate to the person at all but even if i wasn't a little silly and weird with it sometimes i wouldn't be comfortable with it, i want my blog to be a purely fandom only space with none of the creators involved <3 please respect this

[anglerflsh]

neurodivergency moment on my part

[anxiously-sidequesting]

So I don't know if it was ever revealed how Duncan felt when we killed Malistaire all three times but I'm wondering if maybe some part of him could hate us for that too. Like you hear that and you go "but why. Malistaire was terrible and even Duncan knew that(?). Why would he hate you for getting rid of him."

But like I think it's so....... interesting in a very, very, very sad way how Duncan so easily latches onto anyone who directly feeds into his delusions of grandeur. And that's no fault of his own that he was manipulated by the nasty Schism but when you think about how desperately clung to the idea that Malistaire, easily one of the greatest necromancers any of us had ever heard of (at that time), somehow actually recognized Duncan's talents (even when canon supports that Duncan wasn't all that talented, at least no more than the next necromancer) and then praised him for it so often that Duncan believed that he would be the next Death Professor is. I mean ☹️

So like with that mindset I unfortunately feel like it would be quite easy to twist even Malistaire's death as something that's horrible and awful and all our fault. ESPECIALLY if the Schism was feeding into Duncan's already broken mind and shattered ego and was constantly telling him that everything bad that ever happened to him ever in his life was Our Fault. That's like a realistic conclusion that someone like Duncan could come to

And like, at this point in time, are Malistaire's crimes even a factor in how he thinks????? Was Duncan ever able to separate Malistaire's talent and skills and prowess from the terrible and awful things he did? If Duncan wasn't able to consciously tell that distinction in the first place I can't imagine it would be any better during the years he was being manipulated and isolated and lied to

Like in Duncan's mind it probably isn't, "maybe I shouldn't idolize a national criminal, or idolize anyone at all for that matter, and aspire to be like someone so harmful when I can recognize my own talent and build from there" it's probably more like, "you (the wizard) permanently got rid of a brilliant mind, an innocent person who just made a few mistakes, and someone who believed in me no matter what just so that you could be the better than me and loved by everyone else" and that's! very sad actually!

[sonknuxadow]

potential sonic 3 spoilers incoming if anyone cares. anyway . apparently there was an official survey about the knuckles show/scu in general and one of the questions was about what name you would use for an eggman/shadow/gerald teamup. which is a weirdly specific question. and also one of the name options was team dark …….. ?? even though rouge isnt mentioned in the question and theres no sign of her being in the next movie in general ? i was willing to accept amy being introduced a little after knuckles and tails but between there still being no sign of her being in the next movie and now this if they actually have gerald time travel or something and have him be the third member of the dark story trio instead of rouge then i will be fully convinced that theyre going out of their way to exclude as many already existing girl characters as possible. like i get cgi is expensive which could be part of the reason rouge might not have made the cut. but damn . assuming this is real anyway it could just be another fake leak but idk

[stardust-moth]

looking at some takes on characters or relationships or scenes in which things happen between them and just thinking,

How in the hell are people interpreting it this way??? But then i step back and realize that the story or character in question is fundamentally and extraordinarily different from the average person's life experience and I go,

ah,

you guys just... don't have a deep enough understanding of trauma responses...

[glindyupland]

I just think it’s silly that so many people complain about Villain Amaya as “wasted potential” and that “we were robbed” like-

My pals, post canon fan fiction is right there. The desire to free her husband is right there. Either by touching an evil book while being too eager to remember the obsidian oil, or being possessed by contact (ie what she believes is true loves kiss) when trying to reason with him in the dungeon.

We don’t need a rewrite, we can have a continuation. Both can be true. Amaya is a complex character, she can handle it.

[yuukei-yikes]

funny to think while ayano & haruka were plagued by The Horrors shintaro was just an asshole for NO apparent reason other than he felt like it and takane was just. living her damn life. just a girl in the world....

[rainbowbeanstyles]

.

[uncanny-tranny]

If anybody wants to know what the perfect depiction of recovery looks like in media, I think you should look no further than Anton Ego in Ratatouille. Weight gain is such a beautiful part of recovery, yet there are few pieces of media willing to depict weight gain as something joyful or even neutral. Weight gain is a beautiful thing in recovery. We need to start depicting it as so.