#like op is doing the 'why are characters in extremely demanding situations not reacting in a linear or logical way' thing

[angelinthefire]

I gotta disagree with a lot of this. I don't think fans are wrong for wanting more interiority, but i think the original post is overlooking what character-centric stuff we've gotten, and is asking for things out of line with who the characters are.

Like Heimerdinger. Has always been a bit detached from the present day and from people's current suffering. It's not surprising to me at all that he's just focusing on scientific questions.

Regarding Ekko - We know that people aren't generally aware that Jinx killed Silco because Smeech was surprised to find out. We also know how he feels about how things are progressing from his conversation with his bat-guy friend.

As I'm going back through the original post, I'm seeing a number of questions that I think viewers can absolutely assume need time to develop. And also a lot of questions about how characters feel about Heimerdinger which. Isn't that important imo.

And Jayce - the dude is freaking exhausted. He's sleeping in his lab. When Viktor wakes up, Jayce has survived a rocket attack, witnessed the deaths of his colleagues, been attacked and almost killed with a chainsaw. Now his best friend is miraculously awake. A guy can only deal with so much at once, (and a scene can only deal with so much at once while still remaining coherent). Jayce ends that scene, not with rational questions about what's going on, but with an emotional outburst. He's overwhelmed. Of course he's not going to do great processing new information. That's good characterization.

And later, considering what Jayce is going through and how his mind is clearly on other things, I think him being like "sure this may as well happen" when Heimerdinger shows up both makes sense and serves to reinforce his current emotional state.

And I think the op is being really unfair regarding Vi. First, I don't think it was ever made explicit that Jinx firing on the council was an act of revenge. In context, I would call it an act of chaos and despair, actually. I'm pretty confident that we'll get Vi's opinion on an uprising when one actually happens, which it hasn't yet.

The stuff about Vi joining the enforcers because Maddie gassed her up is factually untrue. The point of that scene was primarily to let Vi know about the effort that Caitlyn went through to get her the badge, which you can tell from Vi's reactions. She doesn't show any particular friendliness towards Maddie at all. And I think it's pretty obvious that Rene's attack and Caitlyn's response to it were the prime movers to get Vi to join the enforcers. Seeing as that happened immediately before. The stakes were raised with the attack, creating the sense that something had to be done. And Vi promised Caitlyn that she wouldn't let things fall apart - she's entering caretaker mode regarding Caitlyn, the same role that she's used to playing with Powder. Very interesting characterization imo. (Also not healthy, but why should caitvi be healthy anyways? This is a drama).

Regarding Vi and Jinx in general - throughout the entire first act, Vi is convincing herself that her sister is gone. That's how she's processing all of this. She's separating Powder from Jinx. Jinx is the monster that killed her sister, Vi says that explicitly. And the random kid intervening is more than a random kid intervening, she's a reminder that Jinx is still capable of loving and being loved.

I mean, obviously fans can have criticisms, etc. Are there some things that are clumsy, or info-dump-ish? Sure. But you can't ignore nuance and then say there's no nuance.

Character writing in Arcane Season 2: Act 1

I have big issues with the quality of dialogue and characterization so far in Act 1. Characters and conversations have almost zero depth. Examples:

Heimerdinger - Does he know about the Council attack? How does he feel about it? Is he relieved he was voted out beforehand? Does he feel responsible for the attack, in that if he had taken action sooner, Zaun would not have been driven to this level of violence? Does he feel guilty for the deaths of his colleagues? Viktor was almost killed by the attack but got saved by the very Hexcore Heimerdinger hated. What's his reaction to that??

Lol who cares? Let's do goofy Disney channel hijinks by sneaking into a lab with Ekko. He meets Jayce there. Does he express his concern or relief that his former student just survived a Hextech explosion unscathed? Nope!!! Wacky humour time!!!

Ekko - Does Ekko know Jinx killed Silco? If yes, how does he feel about that? Is he shocked? Confused? If he doesn't know, what does he think happened to Silco? What do Zaunites like him make of Silco's death if Jinx got rid of his body? How does he feel about the Council attack? Does he support it or does he think Jinx went too far? Is he on the fence?

Lol who cares? We don't need to know any of this. Let Ekko have goofy scenes with Heimerdinger. Speaking of Heimer, what the fuck is Ekko's opinion on Heimerdinger's criminal negligence of the Undercity for the past two fucking centuries? Because he sure warmed up to that hairball quick. This is an issue that started in Season 1 Episode 8, but I had hopes they would address it in Season 2. I guess not.

Jayce - How does Jayce feel about seeing Heimerdinger again, when their last meeting was Jayce betraying him? We know he felt guilty about it in Season 1 so why was there no inkling of it during their meeting in the lab? Why doesn't Jayce tell Heimer that the Hexcore saved Viktor? The Hexcore having the potential to save Viktor's life was a huge point of contention for them in Season 1 and was partially the reason for Jayce's betrayal, but neither of them mention it. Lol. Viktor wakes up and tells him that Sky was killed by the Hexcore in their lab. Jayce: "Oh no! Anyway..." ?????? No questions as to how and when this happened? No questions as to where Sky's body is? You just learned your employee was fucking killed in your lab a few days ago and this is your reaction?

Vi - How does Vi feel about the fact that the tyrants who killed her parents are dead by Jinx's hand? She herself wanted to take revenge on the Council in the past, so how does she feel now that her little sister's the one who did it? When Caitlyn yaps about avenging her mother's death by killing Jinx, does Vi realize that Jinx's attack was in itself vengeance for their parents' deaths on the bridge? Which were sanctioned by the Council? Will she ever bring this up to Caitlyn? Probably not. What exactly is Vi's opinion on a Zaunite uprising against topside? Does she no longer think it's the right way to go about things?

What does she think happened to Ekko? The last time she saw him, he was fighting Jinx to the death. He could be dead for all she knows. And she doesn't even think about or mention him once. Seems like she doesn't give a shit about Little Man lol. Did the writers forget they are childhood friends?

What eventually drives her to join the enforcers? Could it be concern for her sister, that she somehow thinks the badge would allow her more say in advocating for lesser sentencing? Could it be ideology, that she genuinely believes stricter policing of the Undercity is the way to prevent more Silcos? Lol nope! She's convinced by some rando giving her an ego boost about how Kewl and Badazz she was attacking the factory of child labourers. (A+ manipulation by Caitlyn by the way. What a wholesome and healthy romance Caitvi is turning out to be!)

What causes the rift between Vi and Caitlyn? Could it be Vi's love for Jinx, because as much she tries to convince herself her sister is dead and that Jinx is a different person, deep down she knows that Jinx is still her sister and for all Vi's bluster and rage, she can't bear to see Jinx actually die when push comes to shove? Lol nope!!! She's actually totally okay with a fucking enforcer killing her fucking sister, the exact thing that orphaned them both. Vi only draws the line when a random kid intervenes, after which Caitlyn proceeds to domestically abuse Vi and leave her crying on the floor without looking back.

There is so much detail and nuance missing. This is why almost every scene and conversation feels so empty. Every conversation is comically rushed and not allowed to breathe. The characters' superficial personality traits are there for the most part, but their underlying motivations, feelings, opinions, and desires are completely neglected to fulfill whatever the plot demands them to do.

[itsclydebitches]

Funny you bring up James being open to working with Robyn. Based on what's presented I thought he was more hesitant towards her. And to be fair, for good reason. She has her heart in the right place like him but she tends to go to extremes too. Spying on the Amity Project, being extremely aggressive when angry (like Yang), talking over people on big issues (the scene with Marrow), resorting to theft just after losing the election, her lie-detector power. If I were I James I'd be wary of her too.

To my recollection the most we really hear about his thoughts is that comment that it takes both parties cooperating if you want to work together... which, fair. RWBYJNR really lays into Ironwood about not being on Team Robyn, but he’s right to point out that it’s not his sole responsibility to make things work. She has to put some trust in him too. Which frankly, she doesn’t. As you point out, throughout the volume Robyn proves herself to be a very hot-headed, untrustworthy person: 

She’s spying on the project and only approaches Clover and the others when she doesn’t succeed in figuring things out on her own. It implies that she’s more interested in just getting that information rather than actually working with Ironwood. If she’d been able to undermine him solo, she would have 

The ‘defender of Mantle’ moniker is a huge part of her identity, to the point where Robyn talks over an actual Faunus in regards to issues of discrimination. She’s really intent on being the leader of victims---a victim herself---rather than acknowledging her own privilege

She resorts to theft and violence in order to get what she wants. As noble as her goal is, the fact remains that Robyn straight up doesn’t know what those supplies are for and doesn’t care about any consequences attached to her taking them 

She hears from two teens what the project actually is and just... runs with that. Again, she doesn’t seem particularly interested in working with Ironwood. Robyn just wants information and doesn’t care where it comes from. Yang and Blake spill the beans? Great. I have what I want. No reason to approach Ironwood about this, or think through issues of loyalty if his subordinates are going behind his back regarding such significant, classified information

Then, despite knowing about Amity, she joins a dinner wherein she is supported by and in turn supports Jacques Schnee. To be blunt, Robyn is written as incredibly stupid at times. She just lost to Jacques and is supposedly furious about it. Everyone has suspicions that the election was rigged. Yes she’s going to demand that Ironwood let her use her semblance on him in front of their biggest political enemy? Again, Robyn just wants information and she wants it now. Like Yang out in the snow---is demanding Ozpin’s secrets in front of a complete stranger really the best course of action?---Robyn’s anger and aggression blinds her to all potential repercussions. She’s impatient, entitled, and that combination makes her very dangerous

Proceeds to betray Ironwood the second he does something she doesn’t like. As I mentioned in my recap, no one but Clover goes, “Hey. Don’t you think that if Ironwood is suddenly declaring martial law and calling for arrests that something really significant must have gone down? Don’t you have any trust that he does these things for a reason?” Nope. Her being proven wrong about Amity---oh wow, you weren’t doing something nefarious---didn’t matter. Ironwood trusting her, the council, and then the people of Mantle didn't matter. Him letting her use her semblance on him didn’t matter. Trusting her to help take down Tyrian didn’t matter. Ironwood keeps demonstrating trust and then the second Robyn is asked to do the same she breaks from him, proving that Ironwood was right to be wary. She never wanted to work with him in the first place, just wanted him to act as a lackey to her. That scene in the airship was the perfect culmination of everything dangerous about Robyn: I’m going to jump to conclusions, it’s going to make me pissed, I’m going to listen to the serial killer we have tied up, and I’m going to start a fight despite the fact that I’m not the one under arrest. She heard three sentences from a teen over her comm and that was enough to break her “loyalty,” to the extent that she actively caused a serial killer’s escape and the subsequent crash

Like so many characters in RWBY nowadays, Robyn looks like one thing on the surface when she’s actually another. She looks like the classic Robin Hood we should all be supporting, but she’s been chucked into a far more complicated situation than “Super rich people stealing from the poor is bad” and thus her actions do far more harm than good. Ironwood isn’t a greedy sheriff out to fill his own pocket; he’s using those resources to try and save the whole world, Mantle included. Robyn isn’t just stealing goods, she’s trying to steal information in front of their enemies and is outright shooting allies when she doesn’t get her way. So... yeah. If Ironwood got even a smidge of an inkling of what she’s really like, I wouldn’t have put any trust in her either. Especially when we see her doing very little to earn trust from him. She’s like RWBYJNR that way. All the characters in Volume 7 demand more and more trust from Ironwood, despite the fact that he’s the only character across those 13 episodes who is taking action that proves his own trust in others. No one (except the Ace Ops and Winter) is willing to meet him halfway. Not unless meeting comes with the caveat of, “You’re going to do precisely what I want, right?” Ruby and Oscar will only spill the beans about Salem when Ironwood agrees to their plans. Robyn will only support him up until she hears a totally-out-of-context order she doesn’t like. The extreme differences in trust are really apparent throughout this volume. Ironwood has done a lot to demonstrate why he’s trustworthy to everyone, but it’s never enough. In contrast, Ruby has made some reeeaally bad decisions lately, but the group is still willing to keep quiet when she starts to pull an Ozpin. That trust in the form of “I don’t agree with this but I’ll hold off on reacting until I get more information because I know you always have reasons for the things you do” is never extended to Ironwood by RWBYJNR or Robyn. 

[sugar-and-spite]

wow, this is a long one! i know i don't post a lot abt system stuff here, but there's a lot of people in the notes here that don't seem to understand how systems work, so i'm gonna give my two cents.

originally, i voted YTA on this (OP was the asshole for their treatment of kayla). however, given the additional info, i'm changing my vote to ESH. i don't think either of you are in the right here.

to clarify some misunderstandings in OP's post and the notes about how fictives/systems work, here we go:

new system members often form during times of stress or strong emotions. no one can control what a new system member will be like - many systems have a lot of fictives, and that's completely normal!

system members can leave "front" (no longer be active/interacting with the world), go dormant, or even die. how common this is depends on the system, but a member leaving front for a long time or going dormant in response to heavy stress or trauma happens often.

a fictive doesn't necessarily know everything about their source (the media they're a fictive of), and learning new things about their source can be extremely stressful for them if the character they're a fictive of is hurt in some way! it can also cause a cognitive disconnect or even an identity crisis if their source is different from what they remember or how they see themselves.

combining the above two, i fully believed that Chi could have left front or gone dormant in response to the stress OP deliberately inflicted on their system. losing a member can be an extremely painful experience, so despite Kayla's seeming overreaction, i voted YTA (OP is the asshole, not Kayla).

however, now we have new information from Kayla, and this does change my perspective on things. to summarize my thoughts on Kayla's addition:

first off, you can't misgender someone just because you're upset with them. being upset with OP for changing Chi's sexuality, and then deliberately ignoring their own gender identity, is hypocritical at best.

secondly, you also can't claim ownership over someone else's OC. ever. in any situation. OP was a huge dick for reacting the way they did, but it's still their OC. your Chi and their Chi are not the same person - even fictives that are remarkably similar to their source aren't the literal exact source character. they're a separate entity. i don't think fake-claiming someone is ever acceptable, but i understand why people are doing it in this case. i'm going to choose to believe in good faith that Kayla is a system, and just not aware of the right and wrong ways to behave.

for reference, some reasonable boundaries that Kayla could have set to protect her Chi are as follows:

asking OP to put things about Chi in a specific discord channel that Kayla could mute

if Kayla/Chi couldn't keep themselves from accessing that channel, adding a role that prevents Kayla from seeing the channel at all

asking for Chi's original information back to have it privately (not use as their own anywhere else)

blocking OP so they couldn't see the content of any of their messages anymore

TLDR:

OP was deliberately an ableist asshole

Kayla was deliberately a transphobic asshole

OP's Chi and Kayla's Chi are not the same entity

Kayla has no right to make demands of OP's Chi (and vice versa)

AITA for telling my friend that I did not care it made her upset about some of the things I did with my OCs?

I (18F) made OCs with my friends: Kayla (18F), Bell (18F), and Kia (18F). Kayla said that she had a system that had fictives in it. I didn't really understand what she meant by that, but I wasn't going to judge. At least for a little while. We added a discord bot that would help Kayla be able to talk through her different identities in the server. But it got weird.

One day I saw her talking as if she was one of my ocs (I'll dub Chi for this post) and I felt weirded out by that. Kayla then announced that Chi was part of her system. She goes on about how Chi had suddenly appeared in her system and it took 2 days before her other identities accepted her as part of them.

I said that it was weird that Kayla put one of my ocs in her system, but she insisted she wasn't doing it on purpose. Bell and Kia asked me to just knock it off and respect Kayla because "people with systems can't control it when their system changes." I said that I don't like that she has Chi in her system and that Chi was my OC. This felt like someone was stealing my OC from me. Kayla got upset about that and said "you're upsetting everyone in my system by saying Chi doesn't belong there. We have all accepted her and hearing you reject her makes us all upset. Please apologize."

I refused to. Then I remembered that I had shared all of Chi's info in my own personal channel. The others can view it, but they can't type in it. So I deleted everything about Chi in there and left a note that Chi was being revised. That sent Kayla into a panic. "Stop! You can't!" She kept saying and "What did you do?" over and over again. I simply said that I was making changes to Chi. Kayla freaked out more over that and said that it was making her system distressed and that I needed to stop. I told her that I already set my mind to it.

Later I reposted Chi's info with some changes. Changed her from being a kind and caring person to cruel and dismissive. I also made it so that she had a criminal history and had murdered people before. She has trouble making friends and thinks everyone is constantly out to get her. To be honest, I like this version of her more than her previous incarnation.

Kayla did not like this and had a meltdown. She started screaming "what did you do?! What did you do?! What did you do to Chi?!" In the voice call we were having with Bell and Kia. She started begging me to change her back because Chi stopped responding in her system and has vanished. And the rest of her identities were in a panic now. She said "Murderer. You killed her. You killed Chi. For us, this feels like someone just died. A part of us is missing. We feel incomplete now. Please fix this. BRING HER BACK! CHANGE HER BACK! MURDERER! MURDERER! YOU'RE A MURDERER!"

I told her that I refused to change her back and this was the new Chi. This would be how Chi will be from now on no matter what people said because "My OC, my rules."

Kayla logged off of discord after calling me an asshole. Even Bell and Kia are siding with her saying that I took it too far. They also said I was an asshole for murdering a part of Kayla's like that. I said that Chi was not Kayla's to control, and that only I should get a say in what is done with Chi. They called me an asshole for not considering Kayla and her system's feelings right now because they were all mourning.

I don't think I did anything wrong, but maybe I should apologize. I would still refuse to change Chi back to what she was before though. So it would just be a half apology just to make her happy.

AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[chamerionwrites]

If you’re not holding the “basically no one under 40″ person to what they said, why do that for the people who replied?

Because imo people are allowed to express their feelings - sometimes in less-than-perfectly-articulated ways - up until the moment they begin taking those feelings out on other people. That’s the difference. Somebody venting generalized anxiety/sadness/anger/etc about the state of the world on their own blog is neither directing those feelings AT anyone else nor demanding that anyone else engage with them, even if followers or passers-by happen to see it and feel uncomfortable or upset. Somebody who chooses to deal with their discomfort by lashing out at that person with harsh character condemnation because they dared to be less than 100% sunny and cheerful in public is taking out their feelings on another person.

I don’t understand why this distinction is so difficult to make.

I worry that in the world you’re pushing for, we’ll be doing that to people who get triggered in reaction to other people being triggered, but not to people who get triggered by other means. (I don’t think this is your intent, but I worry it will be an effect.) I think that would be bad. 

This is a little bit convoluted but if I understand you correctly, you’re saying that if the rule is "You're not allowed to hurt people just because you’re upset," then people aren't allowed to make vent posts because those vent posts might hurt people.

Again, you’re seeing a double standard here that I simply don’t. Like I said, this is a problem of competing access needs. I completely accept that encountering expressions of negative emotion - especially hyperbolic or clumsily-phrased negative emotion - is often painful for people. However as long as the person expressing those emotions isn’t directing them at other people or demanding their engagement, I don’t accept that they are doing harm in the same way as somebody who lashes out at another person with victim-blaming language for being Too Sad In Public. “My needs are different than your needs, and this sometimes creates intractable situations or painful compromises” is not the same as “my needs are different than your needs, which gives me the right to attack you.”

In the world that you’re pushing for, people are never allowed to express negativity in public because it might upset someone (“We should also be setting things up such that people don’t feel the need to act that way, e.g. setting up private spaces for people to vent so they don’t need to do it in public”). The point of my post is that in any given space, what’s considered negative or upsetting is frequently dictated by power - which means that banning anything that makes someone uncomfortable from public spaces becomes a tool for silencing anyone who challenges people in power. I think this is sometimes well-intentioned, but nonetheless extremely bad.

The bit they replied to isn’t necessarily the bit they reacted to…my vague sense of online discourse tells me that OP would have received less pushback without the “basically no one under 40.″

As I already said, I don’t disagree with you that this probably accounts for some of why people were motivated to respond that way. I simply don’t think it’s relevant to the question of whether they SHOULD have responded that way, which is what my post was about.

“Basically” is not the same thing, it mediates the strength of a statement but not the confidence in it. 

So we agree that, by qualifying their statement with “basically,” the OP mediated the strength of what they said. In other words: not literally everyone under the age of 40 feels this way, merely many people. (And because OP is speaking in this kind of emotional and anecdotal way, we can probably further infer that they meant “many people in my own experience and/or social circle”).

Kvetching and commiseration are part of human communication. Distinguishing between someone speaking in an emotional register vs a more formal and factual one is part of human communication. Yes, there are places (many places, in fact!) where it’s not appropriate to communicate in that kind of imprecise way. I don’t agree with you that “in a vent post on your personal blog” is one of those places, simply because other people - all of whom are perfectly free to unfollow, mute, block tags, etc - might see it and be upset by it. 

On the subject of double standards, expressions of positive emotion - even imprecise or hyperbolic ones - are almost never subject to this kind of demand for self-censorship in the name of not hurting other people’s feelings. A person with a terrible fear of dogs thanks to a traumatic bite they received as a child might be pained by a post about how every dog is a pure and perfect angel of a creature. However I think most people can agree that they’re being a bit of a self-centered killjoy if they shoulder their way in to rant about it on a post where some stranger is gushing in this kind of hyperbolic emotional register because they have a sweet new puppy and are understandably excited about it. And the fact that most people are PERFECTLY willing to make allowances for positive hyperbole, yet show up in droves to condemn negative hyperbole, gives the lie to any claim that the real concern is about accuracy of information or precision of language, as opposed to policing other people’s emotional expression for the sake of their own comfort.

Obviously they can be [spreading misinformation]? Sure "basically no one under 40″ is obvious hyperbole, but it’s not obvious how hyperbolic. Some people are going to read it and more-or-less believe it.

We agree that it’s obvious hyperbole. By this measure, anybody being obviously facetious or ironic is “spreading misinformation” if someone who isn’t good at detecting irony takes them seriously. Again, most people seem perfectly willing and able to do the interpretive work required to understand not-strictly-literal human communication up until the moment it causes them emotional discomfort by not being cheerful enough.

I do think it should be pushed back against. Probably not in the way the people you quote did push back, but somehow.

And I’ve already said multiple times that the problem isn’t that people disagreed or pushed back, it’s (1) that they defaulted to victim-blaming character condemnation and (2) that this is part of a broad societal pattern where accusations of “negativity” are weaponized to silence anybody who criticizes an unjust status quo.

If we agree on that then I don’t understand why you’re arguing.

There’s something I want to say about toxic positivity and the difference between hope and optimism, and the way people misuse the former when they really mean the latter; for ages I’ve been turning over thoughts about it and then discarding them, because I know it will make people mad and while they have a right to their feelings, this is a horribly tender spot for me and it takes a lot of spoons to sit down and write about it, and the thought of doing that and then getting angry responses leaves me preemptively exhausted

But it’s getting to the point where I might have to say it anyway