#like i understand interpretations like that! i'm not trying to discredit anyone for liking these characters

[cedarspiced]

i will be honest. if you water down the whole concept of the terms TMA vs TME as 'penis havers vs vagina havers' all it shows is that you fundamentally misunderstand each of these terms.

[lovemyromance]

The "we don't know what Elain wants because we don't have her POV" is just an excuse to not have to think about the obvious fact that Elain wants Az and Az wants Elain

Because they got Az's POV and did they listen to what he wants?? He wanted to beg on his knees for a taste of Elain, he admitted to being unable to sleep for a year because he wants her so bad, staring at her tylenol for that whole year like a lovesick teenager, exercising until his body gave out to not lie awake thinking about her, touching himself to the thought of her, QUESTIONING HIS RELIGION over her in front of HL Rhys. And they still didn't simply listen to Az's POV and accept that he wants Elain. Instead they twisted the most blatant and tension-filled confirmation of love interests in the history of sjm into some nonsense that fit THEIR pov, regardless of the authors intent.

They should ask themselves, what is it they want from a POV that would make them accept a character is romantically into another character? And if their answer is there is nothing from Az's POV that could have them accept that he wants elain (which is true, given their reaction to his very straight forward pov), then we know that they are just lying and making up excuses when they say a POV is what they need. We all also know that if that same POV of Az was about Gwyn, they would turn it into their bible. Same if it was Lucien about Elain. They simply don't want Az and Elain together. its so obvious its embarrassing.

They don't need anyone's POV. They have already made up their mind. And what they have made up in their mind doesn't fit with any of the povs we've already read. I'm so tired of their bullshit. And i'm tired of BB and sjm not making an announcement and putting this fandom out of its misery.

Sorry for this rant. Thank you for being a voice of reason.

Yeah we all need to rant about sometimes anon, issok. I've never dealt with this level of stupidity and unwillingness to accept fact - and I literally work in finance, where everyone is crazy basically 😅😅

I think I'm just going to resort to a "We shall see" attitude. Because I'm so tired of reading these people's "analysis" and "interpretations" on non-complex, straightforward text.

Idk why they're focused on discrediting every single Elriel moment. Why they need to write an entire paragraph to explain why Azriel giving Elain truthteller was actually bc he loved Mor. Why Azriel saving Elain from Hybern was because he needed to prove Nesta wrong. Why SJM is actually secretly planning a rejected mating bond trope for LoA & Helion.

They're so obsessed with trying to prove Elriel wrong because they don't have anything for EL/GA. Collectively they have one stale mating bond, a ribbon that's supposed to symbolize an enemy, a vague mention of sunshine, and a spark.

There's only so much you can obsesses over those vague points. Their ships haven't even touched or been alone together more than once. They quite literally don't have anything else in canon to keep them occupied - so then they invent headcanons.

Borderline disturbing ones sometimes, like when they said Elain & Gwyn cherish the cloaks of their "mates" from literally the most traumatic day of their lives.

Then they think their headcanons are actually canon, and they read the books trying to fit their square headcanons into a round canon hole.

It doesn't work, but who cares if it doesn't fit to them? They can distract from that fact by then writing full blown essays on why Elriel DOESN't Work.

Inventing all sorts of "interpretations" to prove their point.

They seem to have forgotten this is fairy smut. It's not complex. It does not require interpretation to understand. They purposefully assign a different meaning to the text because they don't like what it spells out, and decided to call that their own interpretation.

And god forbid you say their interpretation of canon doesn't necessary mean it IS canon. Then they'll send anonymous asks to your inbox telling you you're a slut and a whore and wish for a sinkhole to open up and swallow you, your family, your car, your dog, and your 5th grade teacher.

Then they go on tumblr and post some obvious troll anon they received and blame Elriels saying "how come no Elriel is coming to our aid! see look at this hate we get - these Elriels are behind it and they won't speak up!!"

Never mind the fact that they have all of us blocked when we even bring up the c-word: Canon.

Like sorry, I don't really feel sympathy anymore. It sucks - but y'all made this fandom toxic and we all have to deal with it. They don't even have the common sense to know it's an obvious troll account - they take any opportunity to point fingers at Elriels and say we're acting morally superior and also we're the devil incarnate.

Like I'm sorry but how dumb can you fucking be to not see what is happening here? Instead of ignoring the trolls like Elriels do, they decide to spread more hate in the fandom, accusing Elriels, and then turn around and cry that Elriels aren't rushing to their defense in these "trying times"???

Maybe I don't want to be at your defense. Maybe I'm not acting like I'm morally superior, maybe I just am morally superior. Maybe I don't give a shit about this anymore and maybe I just want to sit here and post about Elriel and wait for the next book.

At this point idc. I've never gone out looking for a fight and they can shit talk me all they want but their toddler interpretations do not interest me and I don't care. Im at the point in time where I'm the disgruntled kindergartner teacher just letting the kids say anything while I pound back a shot of whiskey like Elain (in my Stanley mug) 😂😂

[user-needs-new-hyperfixation]

Um hi so sorry to bother you but I really love your writing!!

I think your work is very well written and funny and entertaining!

That being said Ive been wanting to write for a while but get too anxious over getting the characters wrong…

You wouldnt happen to have any tips to get over this, would u?

First off, thank you so much for your kind words!

As a disclaimer, I don't know that I'm much qualified to give writing advice. I have dear friends who are Writers with a capital W; at this point I see myself very much as the hobbiest version: Writer Lite if you will. I don't mean to devalue or discredit my own writing; I just mean to say that...I don't feel like I worry about the things a Writer is supposed to worry about, at least at this point. I write what I want, when and how I want to, and I will regularly and cheerfully sacrifice grammar and canon characterization and pacing on the altar of my own whims.

And tbh, if you're looking at starting out in fanfic specifically, that's probably a good place to start. The stakes are really low so it's a great space to get comfortable. No one is paying you. You don't owe anyone anything. Some people will like your characterizations and style, and other people won't. And (assuming you're a Yuumori fan because you mentioned my writing), the Yuumori fandom is a GREAT place to test the waters, because while the fandom is small and there's never a huge amount of engagement, it's a really polite fandom. Basically everyone here understands the principle of "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."

Anywho, practically speaking: I really like to try to vary characters' voices a bit. Sherlock gets his incredibly-irritating-to-write attempt at a Cockney accent. William and Albert are posh but get to swear sometimes because I think it's funny. Moran is just kind of casual; somewhere between the Moriartys and Sherlock. And so on.

If you're trying to stick really closely to canon characterizations, doing some rereading/watching of the source material before you start can definitely help. But it's also worth noting that sometimes fandom has its own interpretation that's widespread but not really sourced from canon. Can any of us prove canonically that Albert Moriarty is bisexual, promiscuous, and a little bit masochistic? Not in the slightest! And yet for some reason a significant portion of us have just gone "yeah that sounds right," and you'll never get shot down for writing him that way. So there's definitely a lot of space to just have fun with it (though acknowledging in your tags/author's notes that something is OOC can help lol.)

Then of course it's just...just do it! Have fun! Make playlists to write to if you're anything like me! Fall down Google rabbit holes researching what Victorians ate for breakfast! Pretend to be confident but not arrogant (I admit, I will sometimes scroll by things where the author is self-deprecating in the summary: it kind of feels like clicking there is agreeing to do some emotional labour, which is usually part of what I'm trying to escape via fic. 😅) Engage with your chosen fandom, and you'll start to see those group-workshopped headcanons that we enjoy reading about just as much as actual canon characterizations; you'll also make friends that way who will be excited to read your fics!

I hope you have so much fun writing! 😊

[furiousgoldfish]

i'm lonely and isolated (confined actually?) and terrified because my mom has told every single person in my life that i'm evil and stuff. my only friend who knows a little about things lives 300 miles away and we only manage to talk a 15 minutes a day over online text. i spend a couple hours per week doing work from the library and maybe talking to a librarian is my last hope.

but i'm really scared it will backfire- i don't know how to explain things, maybe i'll try using your checklist thing. and i'm scared something will happen and if they report it i'm dead. and i can barely acknowledge it as abuse but things have happened in every way except sexual. but they've never beaten me up so i'm scared no one will believe me. happy birthday by the way. i'm forever grateful to you.

Hey, it sounds like you're cornered into terror really badly right now, and I can't imagine how scary all of this is for you. Firstly I need you to know that a lot of things that have been said to you have been exaggerated to make you believe the worst is about to happen, if you do anything that might inconvenience your mother or out the abuse - none of those things will happen. From what you're saying, you're a victim of a vicious smear campaign, and a mix of fear-mongering, catastrophizing and escape sabotage. You are right to be afraid, because these are terrifying things to do to a child, and even an adult would be badly traumatized by this. I'll go over your words bit by bit, and this is just my interpretation, if I'm wrong it's okay to completely dismiss what I'm saying.

Abusive parents, especially narcissistic parents, will sometimes spread rumors or outright tell people that their child is lying, selfish, spoiled, lying, dramatic, making stuff up, or even go as far as call the child evil, and why would they do this? Normal parents don't want anyone to see their own children as bad or evil, they're ready to protect their children against such allegations. But abusive parents have a lot to gain by portraying their child in the worst way, calling them evil and manipulative, so that nobody would believe the child when they try to out the abuse. So the entire measure of spreading a smear campaign on you, is done in order to discredit you, so nobody would believe you, and you're aware of this, and rightfully scared that people will not trust in what you say, as was the point of the smear campaign.

I don't have a good way of fighting smear campaigns, I think best you can do is have contacts who your parents can't reach, as you're doing with the librarian, and your friend who lives away. If these people know your perspective and what you've been thru, and they're psychologically not easy to manipulate, they will understand that your parents are lying. (Sadly, I've had friends who knew my part of the story but were still so easily manipulated by my parents, they would cease to believe me after having contact with them.)

You are, however, not wrong to have hope. Your parents have, at this point, put severe efforts into making sure nobody believes you, and that you can't out their abuse to anyone, because they understand that they would be in an awful position if you managed to do that. It's likely they will continue their efforts to keep you confined, unbelieved and sabotaged from escape, just because they're rightfully scared that if you do escape, you can tell people about their abuse, and they might suffer the consequences. This still doesn't mean that they can easily kill you, even if they wanted to, murder is not that easily hushed up and is likely to bring them legal trouble, which they do not want. It's unlikely they will report you dead, because then they'd have a lot to explain to people, and to the police about it.

I don't know how dangerous your parents are and if they had threatened your life before, only you can tell how much danger you're in. But, some things they cannot do. They cannot know if you're just reading something, or thinking something, or going thru a checklist (provided they do not go thru your internet history and you delete it just in case). They cannot stop you from chatting with a friend or from talking to a librarian, even if they wanted to. If you were to reach out to more people and convince them of your part of the story, that would be threatening to your parents, so they will likely try to stop you, and again, only you can know how far they're willing to go, and if this would put you in danger.

But a lot of what they do to keep you from reaching out is just fear-mongering. Making you feel like if you do ANYTHING, that you will end up dead or worse. That won't happen. Nobody is omnipotent or capable of just offing anyone who tries to talk about abuse. You are not in danger when you do things secretly that your parents cannot find out about. You are not going to be punished for just reading, thinking, talking to someone, or secretly planning escape. It's always good to just set a line in what is and isn't possible to happen to you. And if you figure out your parents are actually dangerous people who could cost you your life if you speak, then secret escape and telling no-one your location will protect you (that's what I did).

I hope you can find people who will be on your side, and figure out how to name all of the abuse that happened to you. It's obvious you're very scared and isolated, and confined, and none of this is normal for people who aren't abused and in danger. I'm glad you reached out to me, I'm with you and I hope you get out of there safely. Remember that they want to keep you scared, just in order to sabotage you from actually doing something that would help you escape. Not because all of the fear-mongering is real.

[izamationbroker]

Gee, I wonder who they're talking about! ☆

Now, before I get into the nitty-gritty about this post, I want to make clear of one very important thing:

I don't care whether they headcanon Izaya to have ASPD or not.

In fact, this post isn't really going to be much about Izaya at all. Sorry if you were hoping for a big debate, but per my disclaimer about fandom discourse, I really don't care when people disagree with me. Everyone has their own headcanons, and they're free to enjoy those headcanons however they want.

However,

What rubs me the wrong way about this post is the vaguepost slander and blatant ableism they cite as their evidence.

The language they use to describe people who headcanon Izaya as having ASPD is consistently and intentionally derogatory in an attempt to emphasize inexperience and discredit. That's crossing the line for me from "let it be" to "stepping on my lawn". I know they didn't directly mention me, but it the statement above it's hard to think of anyone else they could have possibly been referring to. That's a deliberate attempt to put me down and start beef from my perspective.

I addressed this at the very beginning of my original essay on Izaya, making clear that I was not a psych professional and that I relied a lot on basic research and the experiences of loved ones who had ASPD. I admitted that I hadn't read all of the novels. I wrote that essay in response to an ask from a friend who wanted me to go in detail about it. Naturally, differential diagnosis is a thing, and on top of that, this is a fictional character we're talking about. It's only fair that different people will interpret the text in different ways.

I was in no way trying to make the case that it was canon, because the only way one could argue it's canon is if Narita said so himself. I won't step on other people's toes about their headcanons if I don't agree with them. Just because I don't personally headcanon Izaya as autistic doesn't mean I'm going to make a long-ass post "debunking" the very possibility and vague the guy who did a writeup on how Izaya fits the criteria (No, in fact I was actually inspired by that post for the format of my own on ASPD).

This person, on the other hand, felt such a visceral disgust to the very notion that this fictional character could possibly have ASPD, that they felt the need to make a post to "debunk" it, like some kind of gross rumor. What does that say about how that person views ASPD and the real people who have it?

That brings me to my second issue with this post: The blatant ableism.

This post makes two main points about why Izaya couldn't have ASPD, and both of those points reek of ablism. "Lack of remorse" is a complex issue in the realm of ASPD, and I see it all the time with my brother and partner, who both have ASPD. From what I understand from the post, the poster seems to believe that people with ASPD are simply incapable of feeling remorse. That is really not the case. In fact, the quoted diagnostic criterion in the DSM V they are referencing says this:

"7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another"

It's more than just a "lack of remorse," the DSM expands further to describe that this criterion is met when some either displays indifference or otherwise rationalizes their actions. Furthermore, there is a marked difference between regret, guilt, and remorse. Like I said, it's a complicated matter.

I know my partner has talked about it already on their own blog, but I wanted to restate it here: People with ASPD are capable of feeling remorse is select situations with select people. For example, in my essay about Izaya, I mentioned that he regrets how Mairu and Kururi turned out because he raised them. They're his family, and very close to him. It makes sense that they would be important to him and exist as an exception to his tendency to rationalize everything he does.

My brother and partner regret things all the time, but usually that's more because of outside consequences rather than internal belief that what they did was wrong or that they hurt someone. Sometimes they feel guilt, but it's quickly rationalized away before they could ever take action on it. In certain circumstances, they have felt true remorse, and because they almost never deal with it, it's probably one of the most painful things they've ever experienced. To make the blanket statement that people with ASPD simply do not experience any form of this complex emotion is extremely dehumanizing and ableist, disregarding the possibility that people are complex and should not be limited a stereotype.

The second point this poster made was that Izaya's disregard for social norms could be explained away by his IQ, and to that I say

What year are you living in?

IQ is a funky little quiz that tests your logical and spatial reasoning rooted in eugenics as an excuse to dehumanize people who don't score high enough. There is nothing social about it, and even if there was, science in this day and age have discarded its relevancy. It's been reduced to a quirky number that puzzle game apps use in their mobile ads to entice you to download them. "People with an extremely low IQ are not capable of understanding the social norms"? Just say they're r*tarded and call it a day. Seriously. Autistic people everywhere (myself included) would be disgusted at this display.

TLDR: Don't gossip and spread ableist propaganda. Oh, and

Stay off my lawn.

[boy-above]

why do u dislike him ? you don't have 2 talk abt it if ur uncomfortable of course

well for starters he did call korekiyo a slur in the original japanese, which was removed in the localization lol. basically called him a slur that's like gay/transphobic word all in one. so that would give me reason enough, but theres a lot of things about him in general i've disliked before knowing that.

kaito has a bunch of toxic masculinity going on, it's evident even from the beginning. when everyone is devastated after kaede's execution, he starts getting upset and even angry at them for "whining and complaining" and even hits shuichi for mourning her, saying that shuichi was "pissing him off" for not "being a man" about it. this is the moment i immediately decided kaito was not worth it. you can see his sexism as well when he says women shouldn't have weapons. there's actually more instances of sexist beliefs in the original japanese but these were mostly taken out when it was localized for english.

kaito thinks he's the hero of the story, pretty evident considering he calls shuichi his "sidekick" and in general views shuichi as someone he needs to ~take under his wing~. he viewed shuichi as weak and someone in need of fixing. in general kaito has a very inflated sense of self importance. he's stubborn and thinks his way is the right way.

he displays pretty bad toxic positivity. that's why he and kokichi butted heads as two extremes at the opposite ends of a scale. while kokichi wouldn't trust anyone, kaito was Too trusting. his "always believe in your friends!!" spiel would have gotten them caught So long ago. nobody would have survived had everything been done his way and his only. he got mad at shuichi for finding out the truth that gonta was a killer, despite the fact that everyone else would have been killed if he hadn't. that logic also rubbed off on maki, who got angry at shuichi for considering one of them could be the murderer in the final trial, because "friends don't accuse each other". i've already talked about how horrible of a thing that was to say to shuichi, whose had to condemn all of his friends to execution including kaede and felt shame and guilt for it. i'm pretty sure in the japanese version kaito was also asked something along the lines of "would you really risk everyone's lives and not vote maki even if you knew she were the killer?" and he said yes, he would. which makes him a giant hypocrite because he said something along the lines of "we all want to live! so don't get in our way" to ryoma once he found out he was suicidal.

another thing that always made me annoyed is that he decided that maki was trustworthy, despite her doing absolutely nothing to earn it. even after learning she was an assassin hiding an entire room full of weapons, he still decided he believed in her or whatever, but he made no effort to try to understand kokichi like he did with her. at that point maki told Huge lies, she kept her talent and weapons a secret from everyone, she was a Huge Risk. but kokichi is the one who is demonized for outing her, even though she could have been a huge danger to everyone and it was really important for the group to know! but of course he's the asshole for telling everyone her secwet ): maki is allowed to keep secrets and be mean, and gets patience and understanding from kaito, meanwhile kokichi got none of that. and i'm sorry but i think it's bc he wanted in maki's pants lmao. i'm sure people would argue with me about that and that's understandable, it's just what my immediate interpretation was the first time i experienced the game. if not that though, i would say i'm pretty sure it's his sexism that determined his trust in maki. he most likely viewed maki as a non threat because she's a woman. he has several lines that imply his belief that women are weaker than men, so i think that is why he viewed kokichi as a threat and not maki. if kokichi were a woman i think kaito would have been less likely to see him as a serious threat.

i'd like to talk about the localization and how it frames kaito and kokichi. it has a clear agenda on who it wants to make look better or worse than they are in the original. kaito curses like a sailor in the original, and they took that out for? what reason exactly? they took out kaito calling korekiyo the slur, (and of course taking out the slur was a Good thing) but i'm saying they could have replaced it with something that still could negatively impact how you view kaito as a character, rather than just pretending he didn't say something insensitive about korekiyo at all. if kokichi gets to call miu a slut and miu gets to tell him to go play with himself then there should have been NO issue with having kaito say crude or derogatory things. another sexist thing he does that they took out is when ryoma admits he is suicidal, kaito uses a word for him that describes him as girly or effeminate. this is changed to coward in the translation. calling a suicidal person a coward to begin with is horrible, but then in the original it's like he's calling him a sissy or pussy or something for being mentally ill as if that's only a "girl thing" as well.

my biggest example of the localization making kokichi worse is when he says that line about "when i like someone i'd do anything to get them to notice me, even strangle them"? in the original he said "when i love someone, even if they strangled me, i still wouldn't turn away." like that is the exact OPPOSITE of what he said but they decided that was fine. they make changes like that that demonize kokichi further while making kaito seem better than he actually is. it sounds like a conspiracy theory or somethin but look it up, they cleaned kaito up in the translation, they took out a lot of his negative qualities that would make him a more nuanced character and instead tried to make him the hero he always thought he was :I

my dislike for kaito also results in a dislike for maki because, i'm sure some people don't agree with me, but i think maki is a complete orbiter character for kaito. which is why i think it's so wild that i've seen people call others misogynistic for not liking her (throwing around impactful words like that when someone doesn't like your favorite character is a common thing i see in fandom spaces lol) because i think maki exists to have feelings for kaito. she attached herself to him and she doesn't have much to do with any of the rest or the cast. what little growth or development she did had was directly because of or in relation to kaito. she even started parroting his beliefs after he was gone like i mentioned earlier. that's why i just can't get behind those two. i know some people love them and that's okay. i know there's tons of ways you can interpret them and that's okay! i have just never been able to like them. there's objectively worse characters in this series so i'm not acting like they're Worse than them, my dislike for them is just something i'm more passionate about i guess??? or like, yknow something i feel more strongly. you should never be passionate about hating something haha

[bonesandthebees]

apologies if you’ve been asked this question before a while back, i think i followed you in february when the initial hype for this stream was slowing down but

what did you think of hitting on 16 through a writer’s perspective? do you think that it was written well for someone who isn’t used to storytelling through a more “fic” medium? what did you like about it? was there anything you didn’t like (besides the atrocious formatting lmao)? i’m very curious to know your thoughts on this since you’re an experienced writer who’s been doing this for a while

oh this is a fun question i haven't thought a ton about ho16 in a while... but yeah back when it first dropped, I had a lot of thoughts on it from a writer's perspective! my main thought was how surprised I was at how genuinely well-written it was. like, I'm not saying this to discredit cc!wilbur as a writer or anything, but he said himself that he hadn't really done a lot of prose writing since he was 15 i think?? so I was preparing myself to read something that was definitely a great look at c!wilbur as a character, but possibly wasn't that polished in the prose department

however, I was pleasantly surprised by how well-written it was. there were definitely some instances where I felt he went a little overboard with the formality in his narratorial voice, especially with some of the language he used or the overly complicated way he'd phrase simple things (which is something amateur writers have a tendency to do if they're trying to sound more formal, but if often just comes off as clunky instead). I think if he had been solely doing a c!wilbur limited 3rd person POV that could've worked because that just makes sense for c!wilbur's personal narration to be like that, but he switched between multiple characters including c!quackity, and to me that just didn't read like the kind of 3rd person limited narration you'd get from c!quackity (or anyone besides c!wilbur for that matter). but I think that was more just an issue with that being how cc!wilbur is used to having c!wilbur speak, and he wasn't solely writing for his own character so he wasn't used to having to make a shift like that.

I think he had some absolutely beautiful lines written in there and fantastic uses of imagery. like the line, "Suddenly the world came to an end right in front of them. The words dropped like a guillotine which sliced the entire SMP into two perfect halves. What a coincidence that the apocalyptic guillotine seemed to strike perfectly in the centre of Wilbur’s skull. And what a coincidence that only Wilbur seemed to see or feel it happen." is a line i think about literally all the time. what a fantastic metaphor. it has so many layers of meaning to it, you could probably dissect it for ages and get so many different interpretations out of it.

also, I feel like this doesn't even need to be said, but he absolutely nails writing c!tommy's dialogue. like, obviously he would know how to write c!wilbur's dialogue, but he got every single word c!tommy would say dead on in my opinion. his dialogue for c!quackity, c!tubbo, and c!ranboo wasn't bad or anything either! but you could tell it was slightly different than what the characters would actually say (though c!quackity was probably the most well-characterized out of that trio which makes sense. I bet cc!quackity had the biggest hand in the way wilbur wrote his character in the story). do i think that cc!wilbur consulted cc!tommy for how to write his character? briefly, yeah for sure. but as far as the actual dialogue went? I wouldn't be surprised if cc!wilbur wrote that and cc!tommy didn't change a thing. I think cc!wilbur just understands c!tommy better than literally anyone else on the server that isn't cc!tommy himself, so that's why he was able to nail his voice so well

overall, if I had to summarize my thoughts, I'd say his writing was extremely good for someone who hadn't written prose in that long. there were definitely issues with tone and narratorial voice, and some things were phrased a bit awkwardly, but it all makes sense with the lack of experience. it's all really minor stuff for the most part, and I really loved ho16. as we all know, c!wilbur is my boy, so getting such an in depth look at his character and getting to hear his thoughts in a way we would never have gotten to see in a typical lore stream? it was like a goddamn buffet for me.

[white-tulips]

honestly, i never really thought about how basil would end up with trust issues from being abandoned by his friends?? like... i'm fully projecting onto basil here, but if i were him i'd try to ignore the issue because i'd not understand *why* i was upset with everyone when *i* was the person who did something bad, and, to be honest, i might've just assumed everyone knew what i did and was punishing me for it by abandoning me. heck, i can even see basil freaking out every time one of his friends gets upset because he assumes that they're no longer his friend, but doesn't dig deep into why those feelings are there.

idk, you're right about the whole thing, and that's probably why sunny's something fades away, but basil's retreats within himself. basil has a lot more different things to unpack

mmm..... I don't mean to discredit your interpretation or you relating to Basil, but I do still stand by what I said

a lot of Basil's anxiety stems from the thought of if his friends find out about what happened, not him thinking that everyone already knows. those worries are probably what led him to start distancing himself from everyone in the first place imo since he didn't want anyone to find out no matter what (even to the point of him taking his own life in one of the bad ends)

unfortunately Basil has absolutely no screen time so there's a lot left up in the air about him and how he thinks dfjkghkdjf but. something that I do find interesting is that we never actually see Basil holding himself accountable for his actions, and instead he does get upset at other people (namely Sunny). the only times we actually see Basil blaming himself is.... in Sunny's dreams. and those are just Sunny's own imagination. actual Basil lashes out because he feels abandoned, regardless of whether or not he knows that he did something bad

[kiragecko]

Do you guys think this frustration partially comes from Red Robin being one of the few series that actually acknowledges mental health stuff?

(This isn't an attempt to argue with or discredit anyone. I've been trying to understand the nuances of this perspective for a decade now, and I really want to know!)

Like, I usually interpret stories through the world's internal narrative. So, in the DC, head injuries cause NO long-term damage ever, disguises are perfect, and relationships recover quickly and easily from temporary-insanity-induced stabs/strangulations/broken limbs/etc.

I can count on one hand the amount of times I've seen characters talk things out beyond "this is what was actually happening!" and maybe a single "sorry."

By the standards DC has set, things are resolved WELL in RR. Dick asks how Tim is doing. Tim tells Dick TWICE that they're okay! This is more communication than normal! Dick was much worse to Tim during Bruce Wayne: Murderer and post War Games, and those are never talked out at all (that I can remember). This is as much acknowledgement as Kon gives Tim for attempting to clone him and date his girlfriend. (Actually, Kon spends all of that conversation comforting Tim. Which is even worse!)

But maybe those stories don't sting as much because they match the internal logic of their own series better? Maybe I'm out of synch by comparing Red Robin to DC as a whole, rather than to itself? Maybe Red Robin is upsetting because the first 12 issues involve an actual emotional healing arc, long term recovery is hinted at, and then FABIAN NICIEZA takes over and gives Tim multiple girlfriends and the assurance that he is completely without Christian sin?

That would make a lot of sense.

Other people are allowed opinions, but does one count as a Tim fan if Tim&Dick aren’t the favorite team? I’m not so sure! (Technically fine one can, but. It does seem wrong.)

I think we might be OLD fans. Pre-Red Robin, it would be hard to read about the Batfamily without centering those 2. They kind of WERE the Batfamily. Cass had just joined, Jason was pretty insistent he wasn’t coming back, Damian wasn’t there. If you wanted siblings, they were your option, and they were AMAZING.

Dick had put so much work into gaining Tim’s trust and getting him to open up. He’d taken a kid who was almost completely self reliant and self-contained, and taught him to call when he was feeling depressed, or wanted romantic advice. Dick called him little brother, and ruffled his hair, blindfolded him to ride on trains, and teased him about rats as the wriggled through sewers. Dick went to Tim’s Young Justice parent-teacher interview!

Tim, on the other hand, was so good at being quietly supportive, and limiting the amount Dick isolated himself. He’s the only Bat that regularly went to Bludhaven, to provide Nightwing a patrol partner, and Dick a movie buddy. He talked with Dick about things that were bothering his older brother, and then backed off if Dick asked - both of which are unusual in Dick’s life.

They were siblings in a way that we don’t get a huge amount of in media. Neither was a kid, the relationship wasn’t full of cuddles and proclamations of affection (despite fandom), it wasn’t loud and full of fighting. Neither was a stand-in parent (though they both tried, at times). Dick was allowed by the narrative to mess up, to fail Tim multiple times, without being a “bad” big brother.

They’re the reason I got into the Batfamily.

-

I think Young Justice or Teen Titans fans could probably love Tim without realizing he isn’t himself without Dick Grayson. And no one in the last decade has any reason to think they’re anything special together.

Also, the Red Robin Series of Incidents seems to have resonated really deeply with a lot of fans, and their issues with their own siblings. I can’t really imagine a sibling relationship where I can’t talk things through, and help my younger sibling heal, but I’m aware that there are a lot of relationships that aren’t the same. There seem to be a lot of fans who find Dick’s actions unforgivable.

Dick and Damian are now a much more prototypical (media) sibling relationship - media LOVES relationships where one side spends most of their time being perfect so the other can heal, and only struggles where the other can’t see. I can see why. I want someone like that in my life sometimes, too.

Cass managed to claim a large part of Tim’s heart very quickly, and I’m really happy about it.

Jason has been given a lot of work by the fandom, and has multiple interesting sibling relationships because of it. I’m fascinated by what Tim and Jason could be.

There are so many possibilities, now! It’s great.

I just wish modern fandom had seen enough of Dick and Tim that they could see that The Series Of Events After Bruce’s ‘Death’ wasn’t all these two were. That they knew enough about (my interpretation of :P ) old Tim to understand that Tim doesn’t hold those kind of grudges. (It’s actually one of his weaknesses.) That they understood that Tim built a lot of his identity on a foundation accidentally set by Dick, and after finding out, Dick chose to make that foundation stronger, and that they built something strong enough to survive almost anything.

[sunfoxfic]

I have been seeing a lot of takes saying that Gabriel will be redeemed using sentiadrien, and even more takes saying that the writers don't realize that Gabriel is actually abusing Adrien and that to the writers, he's 'just a misunderstood father' and stuff. Which, tbh really seemed like a bad faith interpretation for most part, but then...there are also things like Winny saying that he related most to Gabriel because he was a father and he loved his wife on Twitter and I....GET why one would think that, even though canon hasn't really convinced me that they will redeeem gabriel (and it is also to be noted that said tweet was tweeted before season 2, the hawkmoth reveal. For all we know they could just have been trying to avoid spoilers).

And then there's where people are annoyed that Gabriel has his 'sympathetic' moments and think that the show isn't constant with his character. Which is really kind of bizarre to me since abusers ARE inconsistent in real life too, and I just don't really think that the narrative isn't aware that Gabriel is an Abuser?

Now, back to the sentiadrien redemption thing,what really bothers me with people talking about it is that they most certainly DON'T want it to happen, but then are like almost Certain It Will Because Sentiadrien Is Bad And Wrong? It's just super bad faith engagement and really saddens me:(

Honestly at this point I'm on a pretty short leash with people who don't like sentiAdrien so I see almost none of the positivity (though it does royally piss me off that most proponents of the theory have continued, at least up until the finale, to tag their posts, while people who dislike their posts seem to have forgotten about when the entire fandom agreed to divide it by "adrien agreste is a sentimonster" and "adrien agreste is not a sentimonster." You're telling me I can filter out most to all content about sentiAdrien, which increasingly just looks like canon, but I can't filter out the negativity about it, which is getting increasingly more and more bad faith as time goes on? okay then).

That said, things to keep in mind:

A TV show is a large, huge, big, gigantic, complicated thing. Anyone who boils it down to "there is a bad writer on the writing team, therefore the story is bad" is almost always, in my experience, equating the actual writing of the show to fanworks, and they're just not equitable. Fanfics have usually one, maybe two or three writers on them, and maybe 3-4 beta readers. Even a published novel will have a numerable amount of people working on it: Writer, publishers, editors, the agent, and possibly sensitivity readers, and while that's a lot more than fanfic, it's still not that many.

TV shows are huge. Every TV show that you've enjoyed or hated has had someone working on it that you hate. I guarantee it. And I don't just mean Bill the Lighting Guy, I mean one of the producers, writers, storyboarders, animators, directors, etc -- someone who makes impactful decisions about the show. There's no moral purity.

Did Winny say that he relates to Gabriel? I'm not gonna verify, but I don't doubt it. Whether or not that's unforgivable I'll get to in a sec, but you can't decide whether or not a show is Good and Moral based on a tweet one of the writers made, no matter how genuine and terrible that tweet is. If you decide that one tweet is enough to sour the entire show, then you're likely discrediting the many other writers that work on this show, who may or may not agree with Winny on that front. Don't let two guys be the face of everything on this show, because it's way bigger than two guys.

As for whether that tweet should be taken at face value.... I mean, you're right, if it was pre-Collector then take it with a grain of salt. But even if it was 100% genuine, the truth of the matter is that villains are human. Real life villains, anyway. You can't take their humanity away from them just because they do bad things. Writing them as humans will help you understand better what it takes to fall so low (and how to avoid that), and what it takes to make someone better. I haven't spoken on this but I personally sometimes see takes about Gabriel that just take punitive justice too far. I don't like him, I don't want him to be redeemed, but.... I don't think punishing him is going to do any good, and in a real world situation, I don't believe in anything except restorative justice. (Given, this isn't real world, so I'm not going to make the blanket statement that people should want Gabriel to be better... but it makes me feel weird when people explicitly don't want him to get better.)

It's not immoral to humanize villains. Not even child abusers and terrorists.

As for everything specifically sentiAdrien, just ignore (and block, if you must) people who will not look at the argument that sentiAdrien can do good. There's no proof that sentiAdrien will be used to redeem Gabriel beyond conjecture. And frankly, even if you don't think it will be used to redeem Gabriel, I'm not a fan of people who are sort of on the train of "sentiAdrien has the potential to make people feel invalidated and therefore it is unimportant that sentiAdrien has the potential to make people feel validated." It is true, some people see Adrien in a situation where he's forced to do something against his will, and they'll be reminded of less than comfortable facts about how they were raised. But this plotline has the potential to show Adrien breaking free of those constrictions on him, which could be so empowering for people who feel debilitated by what they've gone through.

But yeah, that's my take. I don't see any excuses, at this point, for anyone to be fully convinced that sentiAdrien is Bad and Can Only Be Bad. I'm not gonna give the time of day to those people, and I suggest you don't either.

[allamericansbitch]

I feel like the issue in general you can say it stems from secret messages (seems a pattern of a innocent thing that gets blown out of proportion like secret sessions and easter eggs) and the media previously saying which boyfriend a song was about because this idea of "proving" what a song is about is a huge swiftie thing like recent with tvfn there was debate is it about harry or jake there was another post about how now after redtv they feel like clean is about jake not harry tbh I see a lot of swifities who analyse and interpret her lyrics by solely focusing on her exes and stuff instead of just listening to the music and feeling it like if this was english class and we were writing essays about what the author intended then sure that's all fine (tbh it's fine as a tumblr post too but when you see it all the time its like do you think about anything other than her love life) like a lot of thinkpieces about why taylor is an amazing lyricist always go in depth about her personal life and I always find it not nice like other artists and fandoms you can literally say a song is about anything even fictional stories and that's fine there's no outright big discourse about it all, I think it's sorta expected that their are queer swifities who adopt this "proving" approach when a lot of straight swifities have been doing this since her career started basically I guess I'm trying to say as much as those types of gaylors/kaylors are in the wrong and need to learn to do better (also the idea of having a celeb/artist/actor come out as queer so you can finally relate to them is another issue like you don't have to relate to every aspect of a celeb to resonate with their feelings their artwork i know from first hand being poc/queer it's hard when you've never seen someone like yourself in someone famous but you don't have to 'see' it, sometimes you can just let yourself feel things from their artwork it's okay and the way some gaylors/kaylors get defensive you can understand them from the point of view that they may have once been invalidated for their queer feelings so have adopted a defensive stance like this it's understandable and as hard as it is we need to unlearn this) I think the way for that to happen is for all of us swifities need to collectively unlearn that "proving" behaviour when it comes to her music whether it's old music or new (sorry if I'm not making a lot of sense, I guess I don't think it's completely black and white and that there could be more compassion in general in the fandom also well sorry for using your blog as a spokesperson thing and lastly there are kaylors who go out their way to discredit everything she's said about joe and that is horrible to constantly act like everything she does is a lie and yeah there are gonna be some who don't feel like they need to unlearn anything so we can all try not to generalise and just not engage with anyone that's not willing to change)

yes i completely agree! we definitely need to unlearn this parasocial relationship stuff of 'solving easter eggs' and thinking we know enough about her personal life to investigate it and prove which songs are about which person. all of it just discredits her work. i've been guilty of it, i'm sure everyone has been at some point.

[trans-xianxian]

Hey this isn't meant as hate (sorry if it does hurt you!! truly!) & it's long so feel free to delete but I think going after other tumblrs for what seems to be (unless I'm missing context) liking a book that you don't & haven't read properly, & having ships & fandom interests you don't like, ... I just don't think it's deserved? Like these are just Tumblrs & they're not TERFs/racists or anything actually bad? I know Lise likes "dark" ships & content but unlike most calls outs there's really nothing on their blog I would call understandably offensive? And I don't know all of them but what has alice or winepresswrath ever done? As for the gayjiangcheng incident, I find it a little surreal you're claiming he threw a fit over you mocking him when I came away from that under the impression that you were the one throwing a fit over fandom hcs bc you were having a very stressful day. Okay, to back away from something that was getting meaner than I intended, I truly think this isn't a healthy way of being in fandom. I see you complaining about "fujioshis" (using an inherently racist meaning that literal TERFs invented) yet tag "mdzs" despite not wanting to interact with book fans, & complaining about fandom tropes like trans hcs, & this is just not healthy! You do have some valid points I'm not discrediting that but they're often very ill-applied! This is the perspective of someone your age: please stop creating fights on the internet & find something meaningful for yourself that isn't inaccurately applying social inequality in places where it is irrelevant. These people aren't hurting anyone, but you are sending harassment their way which hurts them, & you are hurting yourself. I'm very sorry you have experienced transphobic attacks (I have read what posts I could find that seemed pertinent) but you aren't giving others the same empathy. I'm very sorry, I'm sure you are getting a lot of hate rn over this, & I very much hope that you have a really good day when this is all over.

well for starters I'm not "going after" anybody. I'm curating my space, and I clearly state that in my post. I'm not "sending them harassment" either. I don't even want my post to be reblogged because I don't want it to be spread around and cause problems. for anybody. I'm simply trying to make it very clear what environment I want on this blog. I'm not sending any hate, I'm not being rude or aggressive, I'm not encouraging others to do those things, I'm just setting boundaries. putting out of list of blogs that I don't want people who support to interact with me, isn't the horrible attack you seem to be interpreting it as. I don't need a lecture from you about how I should run my silly little blog on tumblr dot com or what you think I've done wrong in my life. I do not know you, and you do not know me. I find it very inappropriate that you're trying to come into my inbox and tell me what actions of mine are unhealthy or what things are making me unhappy. I appreciate that you're not yelling at me and calling me names, but you've still crossed a boundary, and I don't understand why you're spending your time trying to shame somebody who disagrees with you on a fundamental level

almost everybody on that list is there because they ship incest or pedophilia pairings, or have stated that they're okay with people who do. but since that probably isn't something you'd take issue with, I'm not going to waste my time explaining what all of them did and will just elaborate on one person on the list that maybe you'll care about: ky/uhudraws literally gives asian characters yellow skin in their art. they also like h*talia

have a good day

[wlw-lovestruck-fiction]

While I understand that anon loves Vivienne and is angry that someone wold say something negative about her, I don't think it's ok to discredit other's feelings about her. Yes, she was hurt and ab*sed by her father and the life they led, but just because someone is hurting doesn't mean they can be ab*sive too. There is a reason why ab*se is often a cycle and why the saying 'Hurt people hurt people' exists. Yes she needed someone to love her and accept her, but that doesn't mean that what she did in s1 and s2 was okay or healthy. Yes she was very hurt, but it would've been far better for her, MC and even the Poppy if she had been able to go to therapy and try to get better instead of existing as she was. I understand anon's anger, but the fact is that Vivi WAS ab*sive in her own way and the previous anon had every right to feel tr*ggered and uncomfortable. Nobody has any right to say what someone should and shouldn't feel, even if those feelings make you angry or you disagree with them. It's not about you. At the end of the day these are FICTIONAL CHARACTERS and their personalities and behaviours can be interpreted in countless ways by different people, it just dependes on the person and their life experience. Getting angry over something like that is pointless, since there is very little chance you will change their mind(and yes I see how hypocritical I'm being by saying that since I just got upset over that comment lol). In the end we're all just human and we're all going to have a different response to things and people and characters and I honestly think that those differences are what make the world so interesting and beautiful(wow, sappy much? I'm just gonna stop myself before I start spewing sparkles and rainbows lol)

Hello there! As a psychology student and someone who doesn't really like Viv, I agree with you. Let me add my points to it.

Vivienne was abusive. From a psychological standpoint she could've left some SERIOUS damage on MC. (I study that shit. That relationship is borderline toxic right up to season 4, at which point I stopped reading.)

Yes. You can enjoy her if you want. She's a fictional character and I'm not judging anyone for liking the characters they do. (I mean, I'm a fan of Morinth of Mass Effect and she's a fucking bad person and I acknowledge that.)

If you say Vivienne wasn't abusive, let me give you one scene to prove my point.

End of season 1. Let's take it apart.

She seduced and kissed MC.

Her lips were poisoned. It could've done some serious damage to MC.

SHE LEFT HER ALONE WHILE SHE WAS UNCONSCIOUS.

She left plane tickets so MC could follow her.

See the point?

The biggest issue here? Leaving someone unconscious while poisoned, with no one but a group of people (who left her ALONE) knowing where she was.

MC WAS IN A PHYSICALLY WEAKENED STATE, HELPLESS TO ANYTHING. NO ONE TO GUARD OVER HER. NO ONE TO TAKE CARE OR KNOW SHE WAS THERE IN CASE ANYTHING HAPPENED.

And it was Vivienne's decision to leave her like that.

And Vivienne's past does not excuse the actions she's done as a person herself. It influenced them, yes. And still, she was the one who chose to do it. She is every bit responsible fo what she did.

Still, she's a fictional character and you're absolutely allowed and encouraged to enjoy her route and the eventual growth I was told about. Just don't excuse her abuse. It happened. Saying she's not been abusive is plain wrong. Don't close your eyes from the truth and put her on a pedestal. She is a flawed character who made horrible mistakes and treated other people wrong - and that's good. The world is not black and white. Saying she's innocent is just as wrong as saying she's a literal demon from hell. She's trying to become better and that's very commendable.

And different people will enjoy different pieces of fiction. Just please don't say wrong things about a character just because you'd like to pretend it never happened. See her as the complex character she is, where she came from, how she's responsible for her actions, and how she can improve herself without denying she behaved in the way she did. - Mod JD

[ardenttheories]

I don't expect a super serious answer from this, but I'm just curious. in a perfect world, how would hs^2 be written? do you have any particular headcanons or plot lines that would be interesting to explore? I understand the hesitation in answering a question like this, because other people might try to discredit your critiques under the guise of "well its not ur headcanons so that's why ur mad". anyways, just curious because I respect your perspective and ideas

In complete honesty? The first thing I would consider vital is a diverse team of people - genuinely diverse - to consider every point of representation with. I’m talking people of different races (to avoid the anti-black coding of Gamzee), with mental illnesses (to avoid the ableism in both Gamzee and Dirk), with different gender identities (to more accurately and healthily portray Jade, Roxy, Vriska, June - any character we could feasibly want to make trans or nonbinary), with different romanticisms and sexualities (so that we could write genuine MLM and WLW relationships without falling into homophobic pitfalls; to avoid biphobic stereotypes), and overall, with different traumatic experiences and triggers (so that we could more accurately gauge what triggers would need to be tagged and how to go over them in an appropriate and respectful manner).

We could never be 100% perfect, but with a team like that, we could at least get close to it. 

Additionally, I’d bring back either fan prompts or closely listen to fan theories and conversations. Homestuck^2 was touted to be written with the fandom in mind; to consider the direction we were asking it to go in, while basing it around a general barebones structure. I’d want to make sure we were including as much of that in as humanly possible. So, if a fan theory seemed like it’d fit into the story? I’d want to include that with the rest of the text; if the fans liked a specific character? I’d want to try and include them more often. Little things to show that we’re listening and that we’re writing the story WITH the fans - like how early Homestuck used to be.

On an actual storyline basis, I really do love the concept of Meat and Candy; that there’s one timeline that goes off the rails and one that is very rigidly stuck to a track. I wouldn’t want to change that concept entirely, but I would want to make it more palpatable for people to read. 

This would mean, for me, absolutely getting rid of anything to do with Yiffany. I’d completely replace that with Dave and Jade having a child together via ectobiology; how Jade has to raise their child in Dave’s absence after he goes missing, how that affects her, who she turns to for comfort and help. 

I’d want to focus Candy more on that feeling of helplessness and dissociation. On John feeling adrift in a world that doesn’t quite connect with him, that doesn’t entirely feel real; how that would affect his relationships, his friends, his family. In this timeline, all of the rebellion stuff would be completely background to the interpersonal connections everyone has (the things that supposedly don’t matter, as is the point of Candy), with much more emphasis on how useless and frivolous the whole war is. It’d get to a point where nobody actually knows why they’re fighting anymore except for the fact that they are, and that even Jane, who started it out of a genuine fear for the human race, is getting tired of it, is losing resources, is starting to realise that she’s drifting away from her own child. 

A truce would be garnered, started by Jane who just very much wants to reconnect with her son, with Karkat taking on the role as troll emissiary. It features long talks in a large, empty room, pouring over papers, where Jane admits that she doesn’t actually know what anyone is up to these days, how long it’s been since she’s seen her husband, since she’s seen John, and Karkat quietly confesses that it’s been several years since he’s seen Dave or Jade, and that he misses them both. 

After that, a lot of the content of Candy would focus on healing. They would get back to their happily ever after, even though some things would never be the same, and there would still be inconsequentialities. It would also correspond with John coming to the slow realisation that he really doesn’t need a plot to be happy at all; that just because it doesn’t matter to the overarching story doesn’t mean it can’t matter to him. 

The Candy timeline, therefore, would close early; it would fade from our view just as Dirk feared, but it would be happy and content, and free from any further meddling. I’d essentially want to enforce this idea that, yes, we can still have happy endings - even if they aren’t “full of meaning”. They can still be satisfying.

The Meat timeline, on the other hand, would have a significant focus on Dirk and his attempts to continue the plot. I think it would be fun, admittedly, if nothing went the way he thought it would. That after all of his villany and his acceptance of destruction in order to facilitate something he thought would be better, he actually just lost complete and utter control. 

The plot isn’t something that he alone can continue. It’s created with character conflict, with motivations and rises and falls and losses and gains; trying to recreate SBURB, to try and restart the cycle, isn’t what a plot needs to be. It isn’t what he thinks it will do. 

I’m unsure if you’ve seen this recently, but there’s been a lot of fanwork around the Lord!Jake English idea that went around several years back (when people saw the Caliborn sona). Now, this I’d want to put into it. 

Jake, fed up with being stepped on, walked over, hurt, suffering from the trauma of being completely and utterly ruined by Dirk, absolutely flips shit. He chases after Dirk to seek revenge, to cut short whatever bullshit he’s trying to do, and therefore much of the comic becomes this constant back and forth with an increasing fear for Dirk the closer Jake gets as he traverses Paradox Space.

It’s very much clear that when Jake arrives, Dirk will lose. There’s no question about it. Nobody suggests that anything else will happen. There’s several arguments on Meat’s Earth C over whether or not they should try to stop Jake, or let him stop Dirk - and whether or not Jake will calm down afterwards or continue his rampage. 

In the end, Dirk fails. Jake catches up to him, and just before he hits the killing blow, the entire thing goes dark. Our narrator dead, the plot abandoned; there is nothing more to see. This I would want to use to enforce the idea that, yes, plot can still be satisfying as hell and still have integral moments and be heavy and harsh - but it can also end in a way that leaves open questions because that shows that it isn’t the best ending you can get. 

And then we jump back to Terezi, using her Seer powers. Both timelines have been her trying to use her powers to See what’s in store, where she should go, what she should do. She’s still floating through Paradox Space, looking for Vriska, and as such she’s met with this... sort of internal dilemma. 

She knows, now, that the chances of her dying out here are high. She also knows that even if she does survive, she’s pretty much never going to see Vriska again anyway. She knows there’s a chance at a happier relationship with John, and that the only way she can get that is if she somehow manages to make a timeline where Meat and Candy merge together at once. 

So, she flies back. She manages to arrive on Earth C the day of John’s big decision, and interrupts him before he can go to the picnic. Through their dialogue, John gets it stuck in his head that, hey, there’s something BIGGER out here that you need to do, but you need to do that amazing thing again where you make a third Choice.

When John arrives at the picnic, he decides to eat some of the pumpkin instead - to which you might be thinking, what pumpkin? The one he put there, of course, using his retcon powers.

So we start on the Pumpkin timeline, written entirely in the 1st person narrative from John’s POV. It’s a completely biased interpretation of what’s going on, but it’s honest to John’s own thoughts and feelings, too, allowing everyone to act the way they usually would do without any influence, but still having a narrative touch. 

It shows John actively fighting to free the timeline from Dirk’s and Alternate Calliope’s narrative controls, those little hooks they’ve planted in it since time began, with a lot of back-and-forth as the two talk to John through the narration (which, he hears their voices as thoughts in his head). 

John attempts to free them both from their own biases and chains, encouraging Alternate!Calliope to leave the space she’s isolated herself in and join Earth C while convincing Dirk to undo the bullshit villain schtick he’s on (and that plot or no plot, there’s still a reason worth living for). 

It’d be a timeline filled with references back to original Homestuck (and funny quips from both Alternate!Calliope and Dirk along the way), a lot of morality discussion, plenty of theorising on narrative control and arcs and the placement of plot and fluff in a satisfying story, and have plenty of representation and romance and hints towards kids, too (such as nonbinary RoxyJaneCallie, DaveJadeKat, aromantic Jake, JohnDirk [because I couldn’t stop myself, honestly, with how their Classpects work so well hand in hand], and definitely RoseMary being the first to adopt a child that they absolutely do not call Vriska). 

It’d fill plotholes the fandom wants to be filled, and it’d have drama, of course, in the form of figuring out a way to destroy Lord English that doesn’t inherently lead to the Candy timeline. But it’d go back and forth between the heavy, plot-filled moments and the slower, relationship-based moments, with more humanising and development of Dirk and Alternate!Calliope and John as rounded characters.

That’s the best my tired mind can come up with right now. It’s something I’ve daydreamed about a lot, actually; how I’d rewrite Homestuck^2, or what my own ending to Homestuck would be using it as a foundation. I hope it makes sense! It’s a fun little thought experiment, honestly.

[lastsonlost]

This is what it looks like when you can't see past your own bias.

Aka: what happens when your lived experience is inconvenient to the narrative.

By Andrea Thompson

Watching the movie “Brian Banks” is...awkward. To some extent, it's a classic sports underdog movie, but the struggles Brian Banks had to overcome are anything but conventional. As the movie continually points out, he's exceptional. And he is, in more ways that this movie is aware of.

Based on a true story, which the movie is quick to point out with dramatic music (uh oh), the title character, played by Aldis Hodge, muses on his great love for football, which he was on track to play professionally until he was stopped in his tracks at 16 years old. It's how he was stopped that would make anyone pause; Banks was falsely accused of rape by a classmate.

After some bad legal advice leads to jail time and some years struggling to navigate the conditions of his parole (and having to register as a sex offender), Banks struggles to simply find a job while simultaneously fighting to clear his name and reclaim his life. He also repeatedly writes the Innocence Project and asks them to take his case. Refusing to give up even after they reject him, Banks goes to meet with the lawyers on the project in person, first convincing them to give him advice, then take him on, and finally, actively fight for him.

It's impossible not to get invested in just how much Banks had to overcome, from his poverty-stricken childhood and the various legal road blocks that threaten to end his fight before it even begins. Banks wasn't imprisoned, so he was not a priority for the Innocence Project, and since he took a plea rather than going to trial, he needs completely new evidence rather than simply using what was already discovered. He also has to stay sane in jail, especially when he's put in solitary. Banks even took the initiative and managed to record his accuser recanting her confession.

Except. Except. Well, there was going to be misgivings about this film being released during the #MeToo Era, wasn't there? That the film would fully embrace Brian's perspective and his struggles is natural, even admirable. However, this type of story demands more, and what the movie doesn't say is far more noteworthy than what it does. It doesn't mention that the percentage of false rape accusations are not only incredibly low, the conviction rate for them is even lower. It limits its empathy for what many women have gone through to one scene, where Banks's love interest Karina (Melanie Liburd) reveals she was raped in college, and how devastating the aftermath was for her.

Even if there's little to no doubt of Brian's innocence, it's hard not to wince as his accuser is subjected to the kinds of questions which are used to discredit actual victims, as the men questioning her ask just what she expected to happen when she went off alone with Brian, why she didn't shout, etc. It also doesn't help that Brian and the people assisting him are all easily identifiable as various levels of middle class while his accuser and his family are...not so much, let's just say.

Yes, Brian Banks suffered a terrible injustice, and he proved himself to be exceptional not just for his athletic prowess, but the strength of character it took to fight for the truth over a period of years. The performances are also incredible, and help to elevate this movie above the simplistic melodrama it would otherwise be, although it also depicts faith and how it can be a bedrock for those in pain more respectfully than most mainstream films are typically capable of. It's all in service of someone who deserves to be vindicated, but it shouldn't have to come at the expense of so many other victims.

Rating: C-

Fortunately I wasn't the only one who took issue with this "review".

Cassandra3

This is a disgusting review of a great film. I can not believe that I read what I just read. And also why did you put "(duh duh)" after saying it was a true story. You give Feminism a bad name and I am embarrassed to even have someone like you even pretend to fight for women's rights. SMH

Andree4

This is a wretched review, that quite possibly reveals deep-seated implicit biases, on your part. You didn't review the movie, you made a political statement, rooted in radical feminist, and male-hating rhetoric. This man, along with other men of similar misfortunes, is the victim-not the woman who accused him. He is a human being, that has every right to have his story told, unmolested by contrived issues that would shift the focus off of him, onto a non-victim. And so what if his economic status is above his false accusers status: does it then justify her lies against this man, that resulted in his imprisonment? Nice attempt at a fake out, but I'm sorry-you miserably failed. At the core it appears as if you feel more sorry for false accusers of men, than the men who are falsely accused by these liars. It appears that way, in light of you inserting that jab. This pitiful analysis betrays your binary agenda: all women are truthful and good, in spite of potential liars and deceivers amongst them, whereas all men are just BAD-because they're men. And God help the men if they are assertive, confident and forthright, for then they'll be accused of having TOXIC MASCULINITY, whereas a woman with those same qualities will be labeled a BOSS. Look at the woman in the mirror...

Crystal4

This is a horrible review of the movie. It doesn’t even review the movie. It more about your perspective in the Brian Banks case. I have never seen so much bias. You make it sound like the movie forces you to see Brian Banks as a victim. When in all reality he IS the victim. He was accused of raping his girlfriend and it was completely false. It was prisoned and register as a sex offender. His whole life changed on a lie from a girl who’s family wanted money. What other victims did it come at the cost of ? He just telling his story. SHOULD HE LIE OR WATER IT DOWN, BECAUSE IT HURTS YOUR SENSITIVE IDEALS ? Should he not get justice? Please explain to me what you are trying to say.

Jesse4

Even in the face of a story that proves there are two sides to this extremely challenging issue, you demonstrate that you have no regard for men who can see their lives completely destroyed when false allegations happen. This review is equivalent to me watching The Accused then writing about how it was important to shine a light on violent gang rape, but not if the movie didn’t properly explore situations where men were jailed over false allegations. I also love how you threw in the problem with WHITE MEN when the movie is about a BLACK WOMAN FALSELY ACCUSING A BLACK MAN OF RAPE. Your ideology clouds your vision to where the hierarchy of victimhood drives all understanding of right/wrong and how any narrative should be interpreted. It’s transparent to 90% of us, but your kind lives in an echo chamber. You aren’t more educated...you’re more indoctrinated and I’m looking forward to the cultural shift that sees your viewpoints thrown in the dustpan of history.

Gordon Shumway4

At no point in this cinematic review did you review the movie on its story-telling, 'watchability', acting, or general movie presentation. You took your biased, personal opinion about the story, and decided that it does not fit your false narrative that the female is always the victim.

[parkchuuya]

Foreword: The interpretation better known as unpopular opinion by the blogger seeks to give the reader another point of view but mainly to share the blogger's thoughts. It does not necessarily mean to disregard other opinions from the experts. The blogger is just a casual fan who in many reasons can't put down a pen. It may or may not resonate with your own interpretation. If it doesn't, I apologize. Just scroll down. But if it does, welcome to the club.

Date Written: June 3, 2020

Atsushi and Akutagawa has always been ride or die for Dazai.

Dazai's kids are more rampaging than Odasaku's orphans. They just don't go well together. In fact, they would be willing to kill each other when lazily pushed. But these two no matter how much hatred they have, they could create a blast when they work together, so yes Dazai being a fan of "teamwork makes the dream work". But it was not that these two were made for each other to be a younger version of Double Black. In fact, their representation to their senior is much more than just a Shin Soukouku. They both reminded Dazai of his past and present and possibly future.

Back in his Port Mafia days, it's always been fight or die so Akutagawa had to be strong or stronger in order to live because that's Port Mafia. Imagine having the power to control the underground, you have to be strict and merciless and more authorative. Akutagawa's health is crucial that's why Dazai had to break his bones before anyone could kill him for good. This rather cruel treatment Akutagawa received from his mentor crafted a somewhat goal to him as his motive to fulfill the standards Dazai had set. It became his ultimate goal that later gone wrong and bloomed a feeling of anger and hatred. This became more intense when Dazai had gone MIA, abandoned his mission, and left Port Mafia. It's as if Akutagawa had lost all strands of hopes he was willing to build to get that approval and of course who wouldn't get hurt like that. He's ghosted.

But did he really not care about his eldest son?

I think Dazai purposely left that kind of impression to Akutagawa so he would hate him and continue to get stronger and one day prove to him how he gotten strong; and that he would match his soon-to-be partner in crime, Atsushi my baby. That's why whilst fighting his own demons, Dazai managed to escape before anyone could notice that he's sinking... and he wanted Akutagawa to apply all he has taught him since day 1 and one day, be able to finally realize what it meant to be "strong".

On the other hand, Dazai had to tame the beast and recruit him to become a member of Armed Detective Agency. While Akutagawa is in the dark side, Atsushi with his naive, innocent and pure posture needs to be on the lighter side since opposite attracts. Dazai knows Akutagawa will do everything to surpass his goals so he thought he should be fine in the Port Mafia- secretly hiding his intention of preparing the two as mini double black version for the bloody battle against Fyodor the rat Dostoyevsky. As a detective, Dazai's treatment to Atsushi is soft compared to Akutagawa who sufferred in a lot of killings. By murdering people, Akutagawa had somehow found a reason to live not for himself but also for his sister, Gin. Unlike Akutagawa, Atsushi was more vulnerable, more tender that if he's been told to kill himself, he would arguably, eventually rather do over a period of unfortunate time. So Dazai had to carefully mold him and build barriers to Atsushi's fragile vessel sans giving him the idea of being "privileged".

That does mean different treatment means biased?

I don't think that's the case.

Dazai Osamu and The Dark Era, Chapter 3

In the Dark Era, when Odasaku asked Dazai about his subordinate Akutagawa I was convinced that Dazai already  "approved" Akutagawa's strength because if not, then there's no need for him to passively invite him in Port  Mafia. There's no need to waste time of hard training without special treatment. And the question still lingered at the tip of my tongue waiting to recall of what we known as an excuse or "reason". I think Dazai saw Akutagawa in him. No emotion at all. Just a powerful stray dog running around the alley slums, doing everything to survive. He's filled with anger and revenge and that's what keeps driving him to hold on. Even if it's cruel, even if it's painful. Back to history, Dazai Osamu appreciated Ryunosuke Akutagawa and he looked up to him so bad that it affected him when the latter committed suicide. This drove the aspiring author to follow the footsteps of his idol. In BSD, their roles are reversed. It was Akutagawa who was longing for Dazai's appreciation and Akutagawa seems not a fan of his mentor's suicidal habits.

The rather odd truth I found by their relationship was simply assuming. The retrospect taught me to look again in another point of view. Akutagawa is Dazai's past self, emotions, feelings, even boredom. He reminds him of what was the smell of bloodlust and violence again before he realized it was too late. It seems he "hates" Akutagawa because he still could not forgive himself for what happened though no one was saying it's easy. But after the exasperating fight with The Guild, he pulled off his mentor status and finally after a long period of time, he delivered the words by himself in person, "You've gotten strong", a few words enough for Akutagawa to realized Atsushi was right all along and his view of the world was twisted and wrong. Dazai knows it was the only resolution to pave a way for Akutagawa's character development and it needs to be him as his superior.

I think the miscommunication between these two were  notably shown. It was like:

For Dazai: Action speaks louder than words; but

For Akutagawa: The pen is mightier than the sword.

Akutagawa's jealousy or should I say, envy as we follow the chapters and the episode was enormous that it blinded him from the very path he wanted to take. The paces became blurry and muddy it was like he stepped directly on a quicksand and he forgot what he should do at times of chaos that killing is not always the right solution. This is why Dazai could not reach him in the first season's ending song. He does not know when enough is enough and because they were both a shadow of darkness in the past, there was only one boat eligible for one person and Dazai chose to save no one nor himself. This could also explain at least for me, when Dazai touched Atsushi's head, Akutagawa cried in blood. The blood represents his anger saturated with confusion and betrayal. Why did it have to be Atsushi and not him. But this could also explain that the both of them were submerging and they needed someone whose heart is strong no ability could ever tear, someone whose soul is pure and innocent. Someone who understands both good and evil but proceeded with kindness. He did not choose between them. He simply sought salvation and by faith, he met Atsushi.

Changing the focus to Atsushi, who's been tortured in his childhood, tormented, and broken, he was way unfortunate than the both of them. For the sake of his mental health, Dazai had to guide him into the light even though it means staying with him in the present. He even let himself captured by the Port Mafia to obtain information regarding the 7 billion bounty put on Atsushi's head. If someone asks me, I think he's already melting the brick facade he built for himself and Atsushi was the only one who notices that he's trying to get better. Atsushi is the living proof of Odasaku's last words, to be on the side that saves the poor because his life will at least get better, that is... if you're trying to live. Why did he obey Odasaku aside from the fact that he was his only true friend? Wasn't it because he felt guilty or he's just sentimental? No. It's because... he actually wanted to taste how living actually is. And he did. Now, things are going to change. For him, for Akutagawa and also for Atsushi.

And for Dazai, he caught himself tangled by Atsushi's healing abilities. He reminds Dazai of the beauty of the world without violence. Atsushi's view might find argumentative but at least it's philisophical. Atsushi always find the right words whenever Dazai talks to him. A simple nod, and "yes" brought a slight suprise to him. It's Atsushi's nature that even knowing the good and evil, Atsushi wish to perceive good and kindness. And to this extent, the rotten past Dazai was trying to conceal felt a permission to be forgiven. It took only one touch in the forehead for him to approve of Atsushi and as he tried to get along with him, he is also learning and developing. Atsushi might open doors for Dazai and also for Akutagawa to completely move forward.

After the war shin sokoukou had gone through, Dazai showed us that these two when guide together, is like a perfect harmony that without realizing, compliment each others' strength and value thus also discrediting his contribution, for us to realize that one does not need any appreciation or recognition to realize your own worth.

You are worthy and it's something you should NEVER ask validation from nor apologize for.

That's all for today, I'm beat, notice me Chuuya senpai ;-;

Follow me on my anime amino account where I post all my bsd stuffs ;-;

http://aminoapps.com/p/y0iwdr