#low effort analysis lol

[crowfromfoggyforest]

I've seen people say "hell in hazbin doesn't even seem that bad..."

Sure, hellaverse hell isn't torture in a traditional way, but it's a place that pushes you to continue your miserable life and constantly give in to the darkest temptations because they're all around you. It's a place where you can never get better, where you can never escape the cycle you got stuck in during your life.

[lord-squiggletits]

i know i’m late to the conversation—i just watched the movie this month—but i feel compelled to say this because i was genuinely shocked (still am) to see that the overwhelming takeaway for many viewers was the "d-16/megatron was right" bs. while it’s understandable to sympathize with his anger and grief, justifying his actions in the end or framing them as entirely right feels so deeply misguided. what surprised me even more was the tendency to shift the blame on orion/optimus, as though he was solely responsible for d-16’s downfall. it’s disheartening to see orion/optimus being villainized so much. his efforts to reason with d-16 came from a place of desperation and hope, as he tried to prevent the escalation of violence. at that point, d-16 had already begun to spiral into his unchecked rage, disregarding the safety of those around him. to see that nuance overlooked, with orion being faulted for a situation that was far beyond his control (the whole "don't be like sentinel" thing is often used to shit on op lol), is genuinely baffling.

while i love that the movie showed the tragedy of d-16’s arc and even empathize with his situation, painting his actions as justified—and vilifying orion/optimus in the process—feels like a misreading of the movie’s core message. sorry but i was so happy to see your post about the movie, it was tiring to see so many 'megatron was right about this and that' comments.

Oh man if you're new to this fandom, you really ought to know that this place is full of people who glorify terrorism and war in the name of "justified revolution" and it doesn't really matter what Dee/Megatron does or how horrible/over-the-top it is, he's oppressed or he's mentally ill or he's just plain upset which means that everything he does is justified and questioning him makes you evil.

It's so funny because I hoped for sure that a continuity where both OP and Megatron were working class individuals before the war would reduce this kind of shit take (compare to something like archivist/librarian OP and gladiator Megs in TFP or CBV, or cop OP and miner Megs in IDW1), but unfortunately this fandom literally still found a way to blame Orion for everything even though he suffered the exact same things Dee did..... and furthermore Orion literally was the rebel challenging the system compared to Dee who wanted to keep his head low and not cause trouble so honestly at this point I just think the fandom (and somehow new fans whose first exposure to TF is this movie) purely sides with Megatron on everything as either a knee-jerk reaction or some misguided attempt at being counterculture and intelligent.

People get sooooo mad when you tell them that unbridled rage and killing everyone who disagrees with you isn't a good social/political strategy, but then again this is a problem that is universal to humanity and not just the Transformers fandom. It's just a shame that so many people looked at a movie that blatantly spells out what the moral of the story is, and has all of the protagonists be working class oppressed people fighting against a tyrannical system, and their takeaway from it is still basically "fascism is okay if you're mad enough about it and if your friends try to stop you it's a sign that they're centrist liberals who think punching Nazis makes you as bad as a Nazi." It's childish black-and-white thinking masquerading as critical literary analysis.

And at this point people pretty much just don't give a shit about Orion/Optimus and will find a way to make him the villain no matter what the context is, no matter if he also has feelings or if he also deserves to be respected/listened to/validated as Megatron's long-time (possibly lifelong) friend. If ppl look at the way Dee treated Orion and their other friends and DON'T see what was concerning about that then there's really no saving them until they deradicalize a little and learn what usually happens when "kill all the bad people until society is a utopia" is implemented as a governing party's primary strategy.

[ledreca]

obligatory tommy taffy hc post

once again if ur one of my disc friends for the love of god do not press read more. thanks

sort of half headcanons half character analysis idk i was just writing whatever i thought of since everyone else is

warnings: written under the assumption youve read the book, includes heavy spoilers for both the reddit story and published third parent book by elias witherow, mentions/jokes of some of the more violent acts comitted by taffy but nothing explicit or sexual. you read the book you know what youre in for. also long ass post sorry i wrote all this on my phone last night

go ahead and preface everything here with "i think" cus as these are headcanons they are just my personal thoughts and ideas of stuff making up his character. that i made up

he has "real" hair, or at the very least it's made up of individual strands and not just a chunk of blond plastic. brushable and styleable!

his soft plastic doll-like skin is actually a fairly recent development. previous iterations through time had him being made of stuff like stained wood, stuffed cloth, porcelain, whatever rez saw humans using for idols and toys and such at the time. the plastic variant is comparatively modern, obviously inspired by barbie toy lines

the skin is surprisingly malleable, functioning similarly to both the human epidermis and the plastic of a modern toy. its able to bend smoothly and fold in areas, but also any imprints of say, fingernail scratches or bite marks, will remain there until he does something about it. it irritates him to no end how impressionable it is but he tolerates it for the benefits appearance-wise

he doesn't have eyeballs per say, but he does have the sockets and general shape of them. they aren't flat. the whites of his eyes, eyelashes, and eyebrows all appear painted on tho he is still able to emote with his eyebrows. the iris is also painted on but he can move them just like a regular human can

the blue glow of his eyes is controllable by will and strengthened by heightened emotions, tho he prefers to keep a low ambient level in low light

his mouth area lacks any shape or definition, and instead also appears painted on like his other features. his teeth also lack real detail and look uncannily simple on his 3 dimensional living body (I like to think rez wanted to give him a more silly cartoonish glee vibe and instead got uncanny and sinister ones). it can still open and emote differently than his default wide toothy grin.

lets get to the guts . . . (haha) his interior is full of flesh. just flesh. like what someone who didn't know what humans or mammals or organs are would imagine is inside something only known as soft and made of meat. just full of dark and meat and goo and warp all coated in a thin layer of syrupy yellow. (I can't actually come up with a reasoning for rezs choice in making his blood yellow. maybe he thought it to be associated with happier things than humanity's red blood and that it would never really matter anyway since he'd totally never get sliced open? lol!). rez got a little lazy when it came to designing something as complicated (and objectively subparly structured) as the human organ system so he just said screw it

looking at his exterior skin tho you would never be able to tell nothing really makes sense underneath, cus his body concaves and bends and is detailed in every way that would suggest a fully developed skeletal structure and organs. he can bend any way he'd like, but he does still prefer to try and follow anatomical standards. he also appears to have a circulatory and cardiovascular system, seeing as his blood can rush to his face and other areas to "blush" yellow (yeah hc he can blush). you might even be able to hear a facsimile of a heartbeat if you had your ear pressed up against his chest :)

the only "interior" rez cared to put any effort in designing is taffys mouth and jaw structure, since it'd be visible whenever taffy would open his mouth for emoting. it looks like a generically simple mouth with no detail past the color red and 2 curved blocks on the top and bottom to represent his molars connected to his "main" teeth. it also doesn't go anywhere and is just a small pocket, so he can't actually eat anything as itd have nowhere to go

since someone else brought it up first NOT ME I'll relay my own thoughts of the subject of taffys Lower body parts. Tommy Taffy was designed by something who wanted him to successfully blend in with humanity while also being remarkable enough in a fun friendly way (whether he succeeded is another story lol) and thus designed him with everything important he believed made up a human being. rez also admits to originally believing sex and violence were the predominate human traits due to his first experiences with humanity being very early stages of life and civilization. so yeah, he probably wouldve designed him with all the knowledge and exterior parts of a normal male human being, why would he suddenly decide to cut corners on his dream's own physical lower body? (now whether or not EVERY subsequent layer had all the bits and bobs is debatable and subjective but this is purely a personal and subjective post anyway lol!) also he gave him a goddamn tongue, guys. come on

taffy could very well be a reality bending divine being IF he thought he was able to. taffy operates under strict mental parameters carried from rezs influence to not be able to pass certain self-imposed limits on his own power. its mentioned in the book he could go up to like 66 thousand copies of himself like his real name meaning (66358 deadnaming lol) but I think at his current level he could build even more layers or just copies of himself or even create something else entirely new if he just knew he was capable of it. like father like son

some words about how his layers work: in the book rez describes it as each layer being a different tweak or change to the original base layer, so this can sort of be equated as like a code base on github or something idk im not a coder. except since he never actually overwrote anything, every "bug" and "deprecated feature" never actually got fixed or removed with each update, just pushed to a metaphorical backburner. so the modern taffy would basically be running a constant rng game to decide how he would react to stimuli from his environment, which can hopefully better explain his emotions switching at the drop of a hat and his bipolarity. sorry this was like confusing af lol

^ also all his layers probably think just a liiittle differently from eachother, each one isnt just a perfect carbon copy. seeing how in the book he could theoretically go up to sixty thousand present copies, it can be assumed each summoned layer is either a compound of every layer minus the latest layer additions or, what i believe, a "division" of several layers. like, say he had three manifestations active, each one with a divided ratio of the total sixy thousand, so theyd only have around twenty thousand changes picked at random. theoretically, one of his manifestations could have a very low amount of "early" builds and lack most of the violent/sexual tendencies and instead be a relatively decent guy. what are the chances of something like that happening though haha

he has a perfect hivemind relationship with his other current manifested layers, and he's able to perfectly tune in to every manifestation with precise focus. he doesn't really think about this tho as it's another one of those self-imposed limits to not acknowledge just how powerful his mind really is. this could also be why he's so irritated when someone points out or acknowledges another one of his layers

I don't actually think he works like this but itd be funny to imagine his thoughts are just all his 60000 layers yelling at each other like in slay the princess. mental fortitude of a god to be able to function with that shit

he's capable of instantly remanifesfing himself. he sometimes doesn't for reasons I'll talk about later (threat) but he IS able to "shed" and dismiss his current form for a new one if his gets, say, dirty bitten scratched stabbed lost russian roulette and/or set on fire. he just appears back either in front of a house if he plans on making an entrance or back inside if he knows no one will see him, depending on the severity and reason for why he had to remanifest. just like imagine if some kid accidentally got apple juice all over his stupid khakis and he was like "🤗 no biggie!" while internally fuming and he just disappears into some shadowy corner and comes back in the middle of the night sitting on the couch all clean and ominous

he can be a master at virtually any skill or talent if he knows enough about it. like what's that? youre interested in woodworking? wow, taffys actually a master woodworker and a whiz with a whittler! you've been getting into opera singing lately? lucky, taffy has an incredible range and can be your theater partner! he'll help you :) (whether you want him to or not)

he does actually have a really nice voice and is naturally good at singing tho. someone else mentioned this but he rlly would be putting a kid to bed and have to come up with some shit on the spot to sing them to sleep. he probably would have an insane range too cus lack of real vocal cords and all his sounds coming from an unknown eldritch source of power in the sky

he can purr. that is all

i KNOW his chest be rumbling from his goofy laughing and it's so nice to lay on. mask off

he used to really look up to rez and admire him as a creator, at least until he began to actually "exist" as more and more layers were added and he could feel the dissatisfaction and maybe even hatred from rez for things that were actually rezs fault but taffy would later assume were his own shortcomings. this got even worse once rez discovered he was out and about on earth and tried stopping him, driving a wedge between them that would eventually escalate into full on hate and spite fueled rivalry (mostly on taffys part). he does still have some deepseated respect and reliance on rez tho

highkey fantasizes about someone breaking into one of the houses in his care. it would likely rarely if ever happen cus of the effects he has on a neighborhoods aura and it probably really drives outsiders away but maybe during an early taffy "infestation" someone could attempt to rob his current family. he has a power fantasy where he'd violently protect his home by making an example out of whatever misfortunate schmuck decided to break into the wrong house and rip into him, proving he's strong and capable of protecting his territory. no lasting physical trauma on his own beneficiaries needed! (no but like imagine you just broke the lock on some upper middle class house. you walk in past the foyer and into the living room and sitting on the couch in the dark room is some tall lanky figure staring at you with piercing blue lights and a wide white grin. he lets out a quiet chuckle. ur not dying quickly nor painlessly)

he is unfathomably dramatic. I'm talking insane drama queen levels and passion for theatrics. will always be dedicated to the bit. his body just got thrown off a cliff by his current family and they think he's gone for good? give them a couple weeks. let them think they won. all for the spectacular and horrific entrance busting down the door he'll make on his return. need to make an example out of some poor parent who's just disrespected him for the last time? he won't just punch them, no, hes about to splay their corpse on the shingles and make the kids help. he does NOT have to do allat but he does. for the bit

he's actually incredibly intolerant towards child abuse from parents and will very quickly nip it in the bud at the source i.e separate heads from necks if what he's seen is bad enough. he only ever really snaps on a family himself if they go against him, and punishment without reason would be enough for him to fully takeover for the abusive parents in question

I like to imagine there has to have been a least one set of kids who deemed him more tolerable than their real parents because they were just that bad (I plan on working on a little something with this premise in the future, highkey suck at writing tho so don't expect much)

he'd be surprisingly good at comforting someone if you just let him. he knows all the methods to handle panic attacks and best ways to hold someone to calm you down from night terrors and such

he thoroughly appreciates the senses and thinks humans take them for granted. he believes all senses are wondrous (the quiet sneeze of a baby, the warmth of a family pet choosing his lap to lay on in the middle of the night cus he hasn't moved and won't move for hours, the indulgent aroma of a tired husband's baking brownies wafting through the house, and ofc the sight of a child's small smile at some funny thought or another when they thought he wasn't looking. he'd enjoy tasting things too if he didn't think he was wasting it since he'd have to throw it away later) he's a sucker for it all

this dumbass probably really only does have one item in his wardrobe. poor sod and his stupid Hi! shirt hes emotionally dependant on. still dont have to draw him in tho. if he does branch out he would make sure to keep the Hi! in there somewhere, be it one of those name stickers or a on button pinned to his lapel

anyway not a hc but a potential fixit fic idea for the book ending if anyone wants it: "killing" rez didnt actually work. something went wrong, maybe a subconscious reeling that forced him to collapse and go dark, but he never actually died. (you cant kill a god that easy.) thus, taffy remains, albeit incredibly beaten and roughed up. something changed him that night, though. whether it was witnessing what he thought was the death of his precious creator, the showdown with one of his favorite wards, his own horrific "death", or something else entirely removed, he woke up in that housefire different. more appreciative of life and with a new understanding of his own morality (or lack thereof). he would leave and go to rez's own already-mending mass and theyd abscond.. somewhere. anywhere other than here with the memories literally burning behind them and dripping blue fluid. then theyd experience found family and love for the first time and finally bond as father and son and live happily ever after the end WIN

sorry and thanks for reading this if you got this far. stay winning taffy fans and led fans

[dollivication]

dolly!! i was thinking…. who in dmc would be prone to turn into an incel? in my opinion i totally think itd be v LMAOOO but idk i wanna know ur thoughts…. ur always so smart >:3

NAWNIE YOU ARE ONTO SOMETHING!…. analysis mode activ8ed…. sorry for the rant aaa..

so. somehow,, somehow. SOMEHOW. vergil. without really fucking TRYING managed to not only capture the interest of a woman, but also knocked her up. and then he was gone like the wind LMFAO??.. & im thinking that because vergil is so focused on bettering his abilities, on gaining more power (kinda why dmc5 happened)—as much as he might crave romance or someone to simply touch him with warmth deep down inside—just doesn’t have time for that anymore. he’s not a friendly person, and i’m pretty sure he himself is aware of this, so he doesn’t put in the effort to change or put himself out there in hopes of attracting someone because there’s really no point to it. for vergil, time is always ticking, just waiting for the right moment to strike with yet another tragedy. getting laid is most likely the last thing on his mind because he’s got other stuff to worry about, and likely has a low sex drive. overall 12% incel rate methinks.

now lets get the obvious knocked out of the way… nero has kyrie. their relationship is the healthiest one shown on screen, and even if it’s a little odd acknowledging the fact they’re technically step siblings, at least they’re not BLOOD related so LOLS it could be worse. he’s getting kisses and hugs and cuddles on the daily and living a good life with a sweet girl. helps orphans also! he’s also laik.. the most normal compared to the sparda twins and v. has the most valid reactions to crazy shit (i.e frustration, cursing, etc..)…but also because he’s like the most sane, he’s definitely got the occasional need to cum. it’s not a terribly high sex drive but it’s not as low as vergil’s either. considerably moderate, and is probably to be more focused on his gig of devil hunting and taking care of the orphans with kyrie. 15% incel rate methinks—still pretty low.

and here comes dante. look.. that’s.. a flirty man if i’ve ever seen one, a little pervy, but not a complete degenerate. yanno what i mean? like, sure he shamelessly looks at adult mags out in the open, even has some pages of nearly naked women on the wall of the Devil May Cry, but he’s never touched any woman inappropriately. in dmc3, the most he did was get super close to lady and get up all in her face, did try to shoot his shot with her, but when she clearly wasn’t having it he immediately backed off. theyre chill now, and hasn’t exactly shown any flirtatious behavior towards her anymore (not that i’ve seen..),, and in dmc5, he could’ve had the chance to get touchy with trish when he saved her as she was nude, but instead he exhibited nothing but real concern for her wellbeing. (maybe that’s because she looks like his mom, and they’ve been good friends for some time, that it’s a natural reaction. but you’d expect an incel to disregard this and take it as a chance to explore anyway.) so dante’s clearly got morals and some dignity and can control himself. regarding his libido, i’m pretty sure he’s hornier than nero and vergil. if dante sees a pretty person, he won’t be afraid to make his interest known. he’s got a lot on his plate too, and since he doesn’t smoke and isnt a full blown alcoholic, he most likely vents any stress by jerking off. for him there’s probably nothing better than a proper orgasm for temporary relief. he is aware of the disaster that follows him and is too afraid to engage romantically because of it, but i imagine he does want a little something more than his hand and does often crave a relationship.. 33% incel rate

v.. you’re right about him LOL. imagine and put yourself in v’s shoes: a constant desire to be loved which stemmed your former self, endless want for security, new to this world and have no clue how it really works or know what’s taboo and what isn’t with only a few memories to guide you along the way (which don’t really guide you at all, but instead taunt you with the traumas and experiences your former self has undergone, and provide insight about the kind of person you were) but now your own person with a conscience and liberty? curiosity is bound to find you, and there will probably be a lack of understanding of boundaries with others. e.g, if trish hadn’t explicitly stated that she wasn’t eva, v probably would’ve clung to her thinking she was his beloved mother (or at least recognized her as someone he cherished deeply.)… v is probably more prone to developing obsessions that can be unhealthy, and since hes got a human body (he IS the embodiment of vergil’s humanity)—he’s obviously going to have human desires that would be pretty strong. i reckon he wouldn’t know how to deal with himself and would be restless to understand these needs, so he may come off a little too forward to others when asking for assistance. that would undeniably freak people the fuck out and push them away from him even if it’s not intentional on his part. (nero had even questioned v’s motives himself, and v is naturally just.. mysterious yet straightforward at the same. it’s safe to assume others are put off by v’s demeanor too.) 40% incel rate.

soooo… vergil is least likely, followed by nero, then dante, and v is most likely to be prone. methinks anyway :3

[furiousgoldfish]

How do I decide a career field?

I mean my entire self esteem, self worth and self confidence is destroyed. I hate myself. I don’t think I’m capable of doing anything. I like art, even though it’s very hard for me to do I’m pushing myself to explore as much as I can. I am thinking of going into data analysis but it’s so overwhelmingly scary for me.

I have an MD, but i can’t pursue it because of my mental health issues.

Okay so I might not be the best person to talk about this, because I figured out that career just isn't important to me when I'm just trying to survive, so I don't think any field is worth chasing or putting effort into, for me at least! Job is just something that gives you the means to get survival resources and that is it.

Otherwise I really relate to what you're saying, I also don't feel like I'd be good at any field, don't feel like I'm made for anything and can't see myself doing anything specialized seriously. It's also very difficult to choose a field when you've never gotten to try bunch of things, never had experience doing stuff and you don't really know what you'd enjoy, what you like, or at least what doesn't feel too stressful, overwhelming and impossible.

It's incredibly impressive that you have a MD, that alone signifies great endurance, persistence and intelligence on your part, and it's awful that mental health issues prevent you from doing anything related to it (I feel the same tho, my degree is in the closet, never seen or used at all lol)

I think the best way to decide is to talk to people who work in various fields and ask them what their day-to-day work is like, and figure out where you see yourself, where you fall in easily, or at least what seems doable, not too stressful, not overwhelming. What doesn't make you hate yourself. I'm just doing cleaning but I couldn't be more pleased because it's very obvious when I've done well and it's so low stakes that pretty much nothing can go wrong. Nobody ever complains either. In fact yesterday I got a text message from a client saying I did amazing, I mean that kind of stuff is ideal to my mental state.

I think we're raised to believe that our career needs to be something very significant, something that creates a place for us in the world, the proof that we're useful to society and that we made something out of ourselves! We need to show off our success and our identity needs to be tied to what we do. And we need to be good at it and make a difference in the world with it.

Well in the current capitalistic climate, this is bullshit. The only socially useful jobs are the ones which get no recognition, no social acceptance, no praise, no acknowledgment, in fact you're looked down upon if you just do manual jobs that are incredibly necessary to keep the society going.

The jobs where you can reach high success and high paycheck - are the ones that make rich people richer, and that is not what I'm about. I mean it's not what anyone really wants to do, but it's the only thing that is considered successful and admirable, and I hate it, don't want to participate in it, makes me want to run away from capitalism.

And also it's a myth that you need to be really good at your job because people do bad jobs constantly and get paid and they don't feel bad at all, lots are bad on purpose and use their jobs to do evil, and get away with it, so there's no pressure to be perfect at your job. If it gets done thats all that matters.

So if you can find anything that just fulfills the purpose of getting your survival resources to you, go for it. If you feel like data analysis is what makes you pleased and happy, go for that. If art makes you feel good, you can do that too! You don't have to have only one job, you can change jobs multiple times during your life, it doesn't need to define who you are, you are not here to serve the society, you're here to survive and you can do your job for yourself only. It's supposed to serve you, not the other way around. You don't exist only to do your job. You exist to be safe, and happy, and fulfilled, and safe. A job is supposed to do this for you, and it doesn't matter which one, as long as you're not being tormented by stress and fear, it's fine.

So what I'm trying to say, the world should not pressure you into making a quick decision, you should take your time trying out stuff and finding what works for you, and what doesn't make you feel awful about yourself. And also if it helps, everyone has a sort of a low confidence when only starting! Everyone is bad at everything when they're starting. Confidence will come with experience, when you see yourself getting better at something trough the years, you will get a chance to gather some faith in yourself and know you're doing well. You can follow any interest you have, regardless of how well or bad you're at it, as long as it can secure you some income. It's okay to be bad at first too because everyone is kinda bad at first.

Also, I've seen some people incredibly confident in their work while doing an awful job at it, it was pretty scary. Like they were doing active harm to society and didn't understand how anything actually worked but boasted about how capable they are because they were picking up a high paycheck. When I think there's people like that, and then others are worried about not being good at anything, it makes me stunned. I truly believe that no matter what you do, you'll never do as much harm as some high-paid people out there.

I hope you don't have a horrible time deciding anon! It's a difficult spot in life for anyone, so don't worry if it takes a bit of time or if you choose something and then quit, it just brings you a step closer to what you actually like doing, and it's a good thing to try things out and pick out the one that works best for you.

[blockgamepirate]

(that post was so banger it finally made me register an alt) Honestly, you are so correct about L'Manberg

I remember regularly lurking around mcytblr and reading analysis and I think I only saw coherent L'Manberg nationalism analysis from, like, Xephyr and a c!Dream blogger/fan. Which is crazy in retrospect, because the ease with which most of the fandom leaned into fictional country hardcore patriotism was/is kinda insane

And the ensuing anti Doomsday stance -- like we all know that terrorism is bad and shit, but absolute refusal to acknowledge that maybe Doomsday trio and co were not punished by the narrative for having done that was because they were right was. sure something!

omg that's very flattering thank you :D

By Xephyr I assume you mean @considermygenderminecrafted ? Because yes, xe has some of the best L'Manburg critique out there, as well as some of the best c!Wilbur critique, everybody should absolutely check it out immediately (altho frustratingly, I just tried to find some of their posts as an example but Tumblr's search function is still absolute garbage (Xeph, do you have some of your great posts at hand and if so, can you just link some of them in the reblogs or something?))

And yes. There are valid criticisms that can be made of the Doomsday Trio's tactics (which even Techno himself sort of acknowledged later), but at the end of the day, they were on the right side of history

(Well Dream's character less so, but I can't even be bothered to try to analyse him at this point because none of his plans make sense to me)

Also nobody ever seems to acknowledge that Doomsday Trio were acting in self-defence, since L'Manburg had already gone after both Techno and Phil, and was at the time trying to kill Dream as well, although he kinda beat them to the punch (possibly because he already knew they were planning to kill him? idk, I'm not sure if that was ever confirmed or not)

But yeah, the argument about them needing to be punished by the narrative was always absurd to me, and it just betrays the fandom's belief that L'Manburg was supposed to be objectively good, despite all the evidence that it very much was not, not even to its own citizens! And possibly also the unquestioned assumption of "state good, anarchy bad"

Meanwhile the actual narrative repeatedly shows that L'Manburg always ends up becoming toxic, corrupt and ultimately oppressive, even under the Good President, while on the other hand the anarchist commune eventually turns into a sanctuary for all sorts of people who need a safe place to stay (even arguably the aforementioned former Good President when he needs somewhere to hide his son from kidnappers)

And yeah, this is why I did get pretty heated about some of the debates at the time, and I kinda still do, because in the process of assuming that L'Manburg was always the good guys, they ended up repeatedly justifying just absolutely horrific state violence as well as excusing early L'Manburg's xenophobia (as comedic as it initially was), which unfortunately mirrors a lot of real world authoritarianism and xenophobia

To be fair a lot of this was probably also protagonist-centric morality, since most of these people also saw the L'Manburg side as the main characters, but then again what is nationalism if not a form of protagonist-centric morality where you see your own country as the protagonist of the world lol

I might actually need to make a proper post now since multiple people have shown interest, unfortunately I'm also very lazy and kinda made my main points in that low effort post already

Which would mean that it would actually have to be a high effort post to justify its existence

[melrosing]

As your not a big fan of fantasy books in general. What drew you into loving asoiaf? What got you hooked?

now that I'm invested in asoiaf I do genuinely like the fantasy elements of the story, but the stuff that really pulled me in was the human drama and political intrigue etc. I love the character work, almost all of the POVs feel fully realised and subvert typical tropes in really interesting ways (imo). I like the inter-generational drama (the reasons I like succession are v similar to the reasons I like the Lannisters), like if I want to understand Jaime and Cersei and Tyrion I can look to Tywin, and if I want to understand Tywin I can look to Tytos, and if I was to understand Tytos I can look to Gerold, like it's a russian doll of intergenerational trauma what more could a girl want.

and on that note I really like the scope! GRRM obviously feels this need to account for all details minor and major, so that even with everything that's already on the page there's room to extrapolate so much more. i mean here I am writing who knows how many words about a fake 20-episode long robert's rebellion tv series lol like this all happened before the series even starts and yet I hardly need to make anything up bc there is so much to draw on just based on all the random little details we've got here and there from characters reflecting on the same events from different angles, and trying to piece together portraits of the people who died based on the recollections of those on the page who remember them..... it is so fun)

and yeah usually I prefer to read about that kind of thing on a smaller scale but the drama that plays out in AGOT is so engaging that upon initiation I didn't find it so much of a chore to keep track of all the various houses and lands etc in order to understand the full implications of each thing that happened - it felt like it was worth the effort. generally it's the 'keeping track' of it all that I find grating about fantasy bc I really want to just get on with the story rather than keep on top of a hundred magic systems and sub-species of pixie.

and obvs asoiaf is low fantasy rather than high fantasy, i.e. there aren't intricate systems to the magic and or complicated genus for each of the creatures, so that made it feel a lot more accessible for me as someone who just isn't very interested in those kinds of details. Dany's magic is made up as she goes along, it's never explained, and that's the same for pretty much all the fantastical elements - it's very show don't tell. and even though when you count it all up there are quite a lot of fantastical features and subplots, taken together with the rest of the story it's more like.... seasonings I wouldn't usually choose but ended up liking just fine in this overall dish lol

and finally asoiaf just really appealed to me from a fannish perspective! I really hate when you're trying to dig deeper with a work and you quickly start to realise that the writer(s) just weren't thinking that hard. it feels like striking concrete with a spade, like it's a one-sided conversation rather than something both the writer and the reader are participating in. I think some fans are perfectly fine with that and good for them - who cares if the author built the work to sustain your analysis if you're just having fun doing it - but for me it's a complete killjoy, I end up v frustrated and like the work isn't worth my time

so here's GRRM who is so fixated on the finer details that he's churned out a history book like 700 pages long and a bunch of short stories and also another history book just to add a bit more texture to the main story. and I don't have to worry about network input or co-writers or actors' intentions or whatever other external conflict or influence cos for better or worse it's all his story. and that just suits me better lol, it's one guy and his shitty computer, and me reading the shit he wrote with it. pure and simple living in the moment no phones in sight

also jaime and brienne are everything to me xo

[familyabolisher]

I'm very curious about any more in depth thoughts you have on It Came From The Closet! It's been on my radar and I'd been planning to check it out soon as my next read, and this is the first opinion I've seen on it that isn't part of what feels like marketing reviews almost. Is it the analysis of the horror movies and themes that feels off or the way the essays are written? I'm a huge horror fan and I've definitely seen a...few queer horror takes that felt either like reaches or just "off" to me, but it's always hard to put my finger on it

i’ve only read the first few essays so it’s entirely possible that the volume will improve from here on out (though i … haven’t gotten my hopes up), but my impression so far is that it’s a series of schlocky, surface-level analyses providing a veneer of pop talking points around “horror” and “queerness” over what are often frankly uninteresting personal essays. v little insight and v little desire to bring anything new to the table; frankly, v little interest in the films they purport to be writing on beyond shallow rhetorical vehicles for personal reflection. my patience for The Personal Essay is vvv low at the best of times, but like, i can appreciate a work from which i can glean some compelling insights and articulate a thoughtful response. and, god, none of these pieces have crossed that hurdle so far.

like, if it’s not a long string of appeals to buzzwords like “queerbaiting” and “bury your gays” or v poorly substantiated appeals to "subversion" then it's incorrectly defined “reparative reading” or one writer citing that stupid mary oliver soft animal of your body whatever line out of literally nowhere. it’s just not insightful or imaginative. at its worst it does just read like an annoying tumblr post circa 2017. carmen maria machado writes an essay on jennifer’s body as articulating something essential to her bisexuality such that efforts to talk about the way in which it marketed itself via appealing to the homophobic cultural currency of teen lesbian eroticism somehow constitutes “gatekeeping.” this is not compelling or original critical writing, people.

almost every essay seems to fall back on the same base claim: that what makes horror horrifying relies on a currency of alterity which discursively constructs the “other” and that queer people can & will identify with the “other”—the monster in the horror film—in order to make sense of themselves & overturn the hegemony that the film may well seek to affirm. cool, awesome—this is not new analysis. i would not expect this kind of thing to be churned out in a book published in 2022; we know this already. i worry that overleaning into this idea of a “reclamation” of sorts a) risks forfeiting the language we have available to us to actually talk about the sort of bigotry which can fuel these kinds of stories; how many people talk about le fanu’s carmilla as a stunning depiction of erotic lesbian vampires and lose sight of its having been a v homophobic, colonialist text in their doing so?; and b) neglects the tradition of horror within alterity; horror being made not out of a conservative ethos that we seek to critically remould into a kind of limp simulacrum of a “radical” one, but one born out of a desire to tell a story against heteronormative social imaginaries in the first place. it’s all well and good to identify with regan from the exorcist and cite your poor understanding of reparative readings (not a critical framework i subscribe to anyway, but like, at least get it right?) in doing so, but do we have to keep limiting our discourse to this back-and-forth about whether or not we can salvage obviously homophobic/misogynistic/ableist/racist stories forever? lol. i watched Hellraiser for the first time the other day and that was queer horror that could be met with on far more compelling terms than whatever all this is.

[loser-female]

A couple of notes on resumes, employment, job interviews from an actual employed person

(true in Western Europe, IT related)

I might be unpopular but DO NOT LIE on the things you know. Especially if you are doing a particular job like mine, you will look like an idiot and lose a potential job you could have gotten if you were honest.

But! Send the resumes even if you miss some of the requirements. I send mine at 70%. It works. This is how I got my actual job. This is why lying is useless - you don't need to. Just stick to what you know, show interest in learning something new and it will go your way.

(True for IT might be for other professions) a lot of the times you're not being judged for the things you know but how you reach to the knowledge and how you climb the mirror when answering a question. "I don't know but I would do this" is what they want to hear (granted that the reasoning behind is correct).

I got my job after the worst interview I've ever done - I even ended up crying afterwards. But while I answered wrong I showed that I use my brain when in trouble. This is what my manager wanted to see.

Only include hobbies if you can use the skills on the job, otherwise you're just wasting space. I like reading (=analysis), I like writing (=I can bullshit my way in a report), I play soccer in my free time (I'm a team worker).

While you might not be in search of besties, really make some effort to be civil and cordial to the people around you. Even if they are annoying, but shutting everyone off as I keep seeing as an advice how to be a "girlboss" is not it. (I said annoying, if there is bullying, discrimination and a terrible environment that's another thing)

In Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, the author noted that the creative being put in a bad environment performs less and worse than the least innovative person in a good environment. Furthermore, he also explains that if you stay in a job because you think you can change the environment you will be proven wrong. Do what you want with this information.

Show some personality. I've been told multiple times that people remember me after I meet them because I'm myself. I'm not pretending to be someone else, even though I'm not the most likeable person (I'm a GNC nerd and I have a strong personality and I have no problem in showing it). Guess who gets called at the end of the day.

You should practice how to answer basic and difficult questions. You should.

Also HR is not your friend, as in, they're not being paid to listen to your personal problems. They don't care and it only shows you have no boundaries in the workplace (which would be true and you should work on keeping your mouth shut). With personal problems I mean disclosing diagnosis (unless you're legally disabled or you're being asked due to some affirmative action law), sources of stress, low income (like,this will just mean you will be underpaid)... Same with demands.

Also there are some things your employer should not be asking for privacy reasons. This is different for every country and you should check it out. If someone asks you if you are planning to be pregnant you will be discriminated against.

That's what I can remember lol. Yes, I've had to deal with people advising to tell their employers about their ADHD and autism - in my country this is just asking to be discriminated against, but I've been told that in other places this would be the right thing to do because they are considered legally disabilities (what's legally considered a disability varies by country) and there is some affirmative actions going on.

On the specifics on how to make something out of your interest in IT I'm writing another post. That being said, take everything with a grain of salt. I'm only one person living probably in a different place than you do.

[genericpuff]

Same anon as before talking about writing stuff and worrying about if people will find it (but not the same anon as the other asks before that) - I think many people who are budding writers and artists have these concerns and bring them to you because you A). Are a creator yourself so you know what you're talking about in a verified sense and B). Idk about other anons but some of us (like me) take your reasoning (and critique) in regard to writing seriously because of your experience and how you analyze stuff such as LO.

I think at least some of us (again I can't speak for everyone nor can I or should I) wants to make sure they're not making mistakes such as the ones RS does in writing.

Also I might just take you up on your offer of Zelda fanfic - I do so love LoZ 😅.

ugh god, am I y'all's role model now or smthing? why would you do that to yourself (ㆆ_ㆆ)

okay but jokes aside, obviously people can't help who they look up to and I'm not gonna be a dick if y'all look up to my work and what I do here, just remember also that you're not obligated to agree with everything I say or take it to heart, you also shouldn't take my analysis of LO and how it's written/drawn personally because so much of that analysis is within the VERY specific definitions in which LO exists, definitions that don't really apply to many other webtoons on the platform. If there's anything I say or criticize LO for that speaks to you and your own work on a certain level, try not to take it as a direct personal attack towards you and more just like... if the things I'm saying about LO feel like they apply to your work, take it as advice for improving your own craft.

Or don't! You can literally ignore me and do what you were gonna do anyways. I literally cannot take that away from you and you absolutely shouldn't let me. I have no real power over anyone here, that's what I mean when I say I'm just a guy participating in their hyperfixation so don't feel like you gotta take me too seriously lmao

Also, yeah, okay, I'm a webcomic creator myself, but to put myself on the cross for once - I've never succeeded at this gig. Rekindled is the most consistent audience I've had in years, I think the last time my work was in a banner rotation was in 2015 (and it wasn't on WT), and I somehow make something like $20/month off Patreon. I've had small victories along the way, it hasn't been all bad, but this isn't my living and chances are low I'll ever find mass success with it. Everything I said about not taking my opinion too seriously because I'm just a random Internet guy applies to people like Rachel as well, while I criticize her work on the basis of it being a commercial product that should know better and I DEFINITELY harp on her for a lot of shit, at the end of the day she's in no way obligated to pay even a second of attention to me because she's made way more money in webcomics in the last 2-3 years than I could ever dream of making in the 10 years I've been doing this, that's something I can't take away from her and that was never the goal when it came to discussing her work. All I have to show for my own efforts is experience and rhetoric, and a few odd readers who have been around so long I wonder why they even still follow me LOL I am your typical "can never live up to the success of those who they criticize" chronically online shitposter. I don't think I should have to be on Rachel's level to be able to discuss her work, mind you, that's half the function of an audience to begin with, but it's not like I have any real legitimacy in this industry that you should worry about what I have to say. It's not like I'm capable of robbing Rachel of her awards or the money she's made lol

And by all means, go ahead and look for my fanfiction stuff, but I'm not providing any eye bleach because I wrote it when I was like, 13 years old, so search at your own risk lmao

(and if you do find it, no you didn't （︶^︶）/hj)

[carchaseonacarchase]

𝙲𝙰𝚁𝙲𝙷𝙰𝚂𝙴 𝙷𝙴𝙰𝙳𝙲𝙰𝙽𝙾𝙽𝚂!

k so i wanted to create some headcanons for our favourite unpopular ship lol, enjoy :3

carmen carries old pictures of them of their time together as detectives, well hided on the bottom of her luggage bag, but she'll never admit it

chase does the same

carmen has huge many skills, the languages, mathematics, analysis of art and science, she's good with technology, an almost photographic memory and also has the talent to frustrate chase with the low effort

chase considers himself a self-controlled man (at least when carmen sandiego is not around)

carmen absolutely loves competition and chase enjoys so much teasing her even with the littlest thing

phoenix (chase's falcon) actually dislikes carmen, way more when she's crossing the 4.99 meter chase's security perimeter, the bird is their anti shipper no. 1

always in the mood for a playful mockery, in the rooftop of a building, on the polar artic circle or in the middle of the desert

chaotic alliance

more chaotic enmity

chase prefers do the field work by himself, and as a special agent, he works alone, just to make sure that no one will interrupt if something else happens between them

every time they accidentally touch they try to stay close as long as possible, even if it's just seconds

chase likes to enclose carmen in every chance he has, for her side, sometimes carmen is slower on purpose just to have him over her and enjoy the view

they love whispering passive aggressive words to each other

carmen is great for stealing monuments but better stealing kisses ^^

chase would never admit, but he loves when carmen visits him at night at ACME just to "make fun of his incompetence to bring her to justice" he knows she's actually here because she misses him

during this night visits he offers her a drink then sit together and chat; forgetting about the law business and just sharing a nice moment as friends

carmen likes to steal things like his wallet, watch, or anything else, just as an excuse to see him again, chase secretly finds it adorable

she can ask chase to random reunions with her and he'll just go, no questions, same for her

if it doesn't break the law, chase hardly can say no to her

sometimes the tension is too much to hold and they just need it, so, when chase reports "she's out of reach" actually means that they had a quick encounter (the lipstick stains on his skin is something he has been learnt well to hide over the years)

he would give her some seconds ahead, he thinks he will reach her anyways (we all know he won't)

when she lows the guard, chase is faster than her and kisses her, after that he let her go with a smile in her blushed and confused face, as a little revenge to all the times she did the same to him

they have been good friends for a long time, even if they are not longer on the same side, the respect and love remains between them

"i'm marrying her to make sure she won't steal anything else for life duh"

so, what do you think? let me know ^^ if you want me to write more headcanons give me ideas to do and I will work on it :3

[beevean]

The post SOTN stories (except OOE and maybe PoR) have the nasty issue of wanting to look more story driven but without putting in the effort

Yeah sure the characters talk more, we have an official timeline detailing canon down to a t, but the actual story beats were almost always the same just presented in a bit of a different light

Oh no the good guy has turned bad except not really he was being controlled!

Oh no the local Belmont is unavailable!

Oh no my wife died and this gives me motivation to do the things I do!

The actual stories, when you go beyond the interesting ideas and premises, were pretty damn paper thin and CoD is the worst offender of this because 90% of the backstory is secluded to 2 pretty obscure mangas that are so different in general writing style when compared to the game itself that I find it pretty much impossible to connect the two, if not downright dishonest to, say, call Hector a compelling character beyond his general idea because the manga did this and that while the game itself aka the main material

It would be like Sega releasing a Mephiles centered side manga that miraculously does a great job with him, but with there being such a huge disconnect between the 2 medias and their respective interpretations can you really make a generalizing judgement on the character which includes his secondary yet superior iteration? Or isn't it better to just consider them 2 different versions of the character that, while officially canon to each other, might as well be two different versions of the same character?

You really come into my house to stab me like this :P

I agree that the stories in the games are paper thin, and rely on clichés. There is a lot of work that you have to put in when it comes to interpreting characters and finding parallels. Sara is maybe the most blatant example of this: I see how her fans go insane over the idea of her becoming unhinged with hatred when stuck in the VK, forced to kill demons for a millenium and feeding on their dark force, holding a grudge over Mathias/Dracula. Which is great! What an interesting idea, the holy weapon being powered by a woman's rage, herself being the driving force of the Belmont who cursed his descendants to hunt the night for the rest of time! But then in canon she's just the girl you have to save and then the girl who died to make Leon angry - somehow she's both the Damsel in Distress and the Dead Motivational Wife. So yeah. There is a shitton of potential for analysis, but canon only gives you the barest hints. And if you're here only to play as the badass protagonist and don't really want to put in the work, yeah the plots are weak at best and annoying at worst.

As for CoD... I half agree. I can't say that the mangas don't count only because they are separate, but I wish they were more easily available, because without them, the story in the game doesn't have the proper emotional impact. Both LoI and CoD are so obviously rushed and low-budget for their scope, and I guess the mangas were the easiest solution to include stuff the devs couldn't in the game proper (I still believe Joachim was meant to be much more than a mere boss). LoI is even worse because its prequel is pretty much lost, which shows why these mangas should have been preserved better.

I don't really understand what you mean with the writing style being too disconnected. I think the worst part of the mangas (aside from their obscurity lol) is that, while they overlap in the general sequence of events, they're obviously written by two different people and so the shades of the characters' personalities are different. Was Isaac a smug BDSM king with one hell of an inferiority complex? Or was he more levelheaded and proper before losing his mind? You decide which version is your favorite one, because we don't know which version is "more" canon. You can mix and match if you want, but again, that's you putting in the work.

And well, I am super biased but I do see a connection between the Hector of both mangas and the one from the game ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ both of them, especially the PtR one, flow nicely into what we see on screen. I just wish the game was a little clearer on how Hector is normally vs. the effect that the Curse has on him. I can infere that his real personality is how politely he speaks to Julia... but was it intended, or am I once again working for the writing?

[catdemontraphouse]

Note: referenced a post by @thedarkestcrow several times which I think is a really interesting one. Can’t seem to paste in the link🤨🙄 it was an ask answer about Sebastian’s contract

Hey also if anyone can tell me how to do “read more”on mobile… please tell me 😂🤦‍♀️

Just some character uh, idk analysis/hypothesis??

The more I think about it, the more I reckon Sebastian’s problem is that he has an unfortunate mother hen syndrome which he either isn’t fully aware of OR, more likely, is aware of but actively tries to deny. This is of course going off the assumption there is no governing body for demons like there is for reapers since we’ve never seen anything like that? And that Sebastian’s contract is something he made up for himself with no actual consequences outside his own judgement.

Sebastian goes above and beyond to critique and perfect the conduct of other people who are under his authority. His contract (which I won’t even get into atm lol) only states the following stipulations as far as I recall:

Yet he goes out of his way to not just keep OCiel alive but to rear him as he sees fit. He tries to feed him balanced meals and regulate his sugar intake, he demands the child brush his teeth well, instructs him diligently in various academic subjects etc.

Some of this you could argue is for the sake of the mission, i.e. making OCiel as versatile and cultured as possible in order to maintain social connections necessary for revenge. But I kind of have to wonder, is it even necessary? Like is that degree of adhering to societal expectations really required to reach the end goal? I mean maybe I’m wrong here but I feel like there’s other cheaper, quicker ways they could investigate who’s behind the cult than making alliances with other nobility and whatnot. 🤷‍♀️ Sebastian seems to spend more time teaching OCiel dancing or Latin than bloodily interrogating suspicious people who might be connected to the cult.

Same could be said for how Sebastian treats the servants. He praises them when they manage to or at least make good efforts at upholding high standards of etiquette and efficiency in their roles as housekeepers, even though he knows that isn’t really what they’re useful for. They were hired to be bodyguards in essence. I get that they want housekeepers around to make it look “normal” so people won’t question the Phantomhive household but I just find Sebastian’s dedication to molding them into proper servants a little more intense than is probably necessary? Could be he is just tired of doing everything alone but also this guy built a wholeass mansion in a night alone with magic. He could magically clean the whole house alone if he really wanted to, probably? Or maybe he’s running low on MP from not eating lol. Idk I’m just saying he seems to almost enjoy being a teacher even if his students piss him off.

He tells Will he’s “tired of messily sampling every dish available to him” and how that’s his reason for basically starving himself. I guess it would be like… idk a farmer raising a single giant pumpkin and waiting to eat that instead of growing lots of crops and eating regularly? An obsession with cultivation at the expense of well-being.

At one point the reaper says this about Sebastian compared to other demons:

This suggest you don’t *need* to make a contract to eat a soul, which would mean Sebastian’s suffering is self-inflicted. Because he’s obsessed with rearing and tending to things.

He says he enjoys “playing butler” and what that behavior translates to in Sebastian’s day-to-day life is essentially being a care giver. He enjoys raising and caring for things weaker than himself.

We see a similar behavior when it comes to cats. The main difference here I think is that cats dont seem to be considered demon food as far as we can tell. He doesn’t ever try to write off or hide his love of cats. Keep that in mind for later.

He also mentions that there are pets in his world but he basically indicates that he finds them ugly and unappealing. So having affection for other beings doesn’t seem to be an unusual thing for his species per say? It’s just what they find cute is very different from Sebastian.

There is no discussion of the demonic world other than this, Sebastian never returns there or mentions having friends or something akin to family there etc. He never spends time with other demons in the manga canon even though this panel kind of implies they have some sort of world or society? He seems oddly divorced from his own kind, doesn’t he? Or is that just me that thinks so idk

I think ultimately Sebastian finds what is, for his own kind, considered probably ugly and stupid livestock somehow endearing and cannot really cope with that. He is probably considered weird or creepy by members of his own species, and while he’s aptly aware of that he can’t help but be amused by humans and want to impress them. He doesn’t just fulfill the contract he goes out of his way to do it in a fashion that makes humans go “oh wow.” It’s not for the sake of impressing other demons!! They’re not watching. He doesn’t associate with other demons, ever. Only reapers, who I might add were once human dunno if that matters tho. He wants humans to *like him* he goes out of his way to charm humans that will do nothing for him except satiate his own ego and attention span.

But he eats them to survive. And also as a demon, he isn’t supposed to grow attached to humans. So he’s battling with this cognitive dissonance constantly, I theorize. Like he kills and eats people but at the same time, he likes raising them like pets? He loves teaching them things and is proud when he cultivates a human that really stands out among other humans. I have reason to believe he is an outcast in his own society and part of him is pained by that? Idk it’s all speculation but I’m fuckin autistic and stuff so I have to write essays about it.

I can’t find the damn video but there was this one VA live reading of a hypothetical scene where OCiel is dead after Sebastian ate him and he’s still going thru the motions of celebrating the kids birthday like… WTF? This man ate his pet and realized it was a mistake major wtf moment

Sebastian is like one of those Karens that breeds exotic cats and gets competitive at CFA shows…my human is a prime specimen give me an award

[a-bit-predictable]

making a new post to reply to this comment because i ended up with a lot more to say beyond the, by intention, limited scope of the original one (link), which was about caitlyn's action that scene in 2x03 paralleling to vi's in 1x03. and i didn't want it to go to waste in the replies lol.

so yeah, this mess of a ramble goes out to all my fellow caitlyn analysis enthusiasts who care about nuance!

first, regarding the subject matter of my original post that this reply references:

i genuinely don't see how cait's incident of hitting vi was framed as any less terrible than vi's hitting powder??? to me it was an obvious, intentional, direct parallel - down to the top-down shots of powder & vi from those scenes being literally framed exactly the same way. if we're talking about the reactions following the incidents, even vi's guilt through the entire show was focused on abandoning her little sister, not the hit itself. and with drastically different circumstances surrounding each incident by two very different characters, how caitlyn & vi handle/show their guilt is practically incomparable. i'm not sure what other sort of "framing" is at play here.

i also don't see how the age difference would make vi forget what that low moment felt like or make it more excusable/forgivable (teenagers are still people and growing up doesn't mean we can magically expect or demand perfect emotional control)... nor do i see how having privilege either negates or invalidates unprecedented levels of grief in a person's life. you cannot quantify pain. emotion is still emotion and it's relative to your own lived experience and no one else's, no matter your social or economic background. privilege is not at play when caitlyn acts out against a perceived, personal betrayal by vi and an accusation that she is exactly like her enemy. it of course IS at play throughout her revenge mission before and after that moment (see later paragraphs). and it's EXTREMELY unfortunate and awful that she used that power getting directly involved leading a strike team mission when she was already in a very unhealthy state of mind going in, all of which only further exacerbated that hatred and twisted perspective. but it's STILL worth making an effort to understand (not excuse, that's a completely different word) the reasons she was invested in the first place: (1) guilt she didn't take the shot which she already had motivation to take and would have prevented her mother's death moments later; and (2) a deeply ingrained sense of responsibility to her city to deliver "justice" and give them a sense of safety from what they deem to be terrorism (keyword: deem).

as for her other actions against zaunites, i specifically did not mention them in the original post because of their weight and because i wanted to exclusively address one specific action that involved interpersonal conflict with another character. but since we're here now:

speaking strictly about the grey and nothing else for a moment, i struggle not to feel like people are overstating the strike team's use of it. it was, literally, a morally grey tactic and an unfair advantage, but it was also calculated and strategic and used by a group of 5 people targeting specific dangerous locations with chem baron/shimmer gang activity (a fictitious extreme, i'm not equating this to irl gangs) while extracting leads from them to find jinx. even in 2x02, they used it at an abandoned arcade on an abandoned street (that vi knew well) with almost no one around. they did NOT just go around willingly targeting uninvolved civilians in populated areas with it. yeah, the 2x03 opening montage was all fast-paced action and meant to set a dark tone, but what is and isn't depicted in it still matters.

all of these details align with caitlyn's intended 3 goals stated at the end of 2x01, where she pushes for the strike team as a lesser evil compared to the full scale invasion everyone else wanted, something in which "innocents will be caught in the crossfire," her own quote in 2x01. there is also no indication or depiction afterwards, in the 2x04 montage or otherwise, of her using the grey on civilians throughout the period of martial law (which involved other forms of brutality that are still fucked up and i shouldn't need to further bloat this post with). the grey only ever makes a return in localized use on the battlefield in 2x09 - again, not civilians, but soldiers of an imperialist nation.

all of that being said, caitlyn IS complex and she's NOT at all innocent. calculated or not, she makes a lot of harmful decisions and moral sacrifices in pursuit of personal vengeance, leading to actions that (unlike the other comic-book-type villainy in this show) heavily resemble issues that hit close to home in the real world and evoke real, valid emotion. but at the end of the day we're talking about a fictional character written with a deeper purpose and message about letting go of the cycle of hatred. despite her guilt not being VISCERALLY obvious via outward on-screen emotion like some people wanted (that's not the type of person she is), she's still shown in both dialogue and actions to understand and regret her ("our") crimes, post-time-skip from 2x04 and beyond. and sure, yes, she deserves to spend the rest of her life atoning and working her privilege to do good. both her speech and final scene with vi at the end of 2x09 indicate that intention, just in a non-literal, literary way (because this is a work of fiction and not a court room).

to be crystal clear, and i am NOT one of the people unwilling to "admit that the character has done terrible things." i hate that shit too. but i am also not interested in tunnelvision-ing bad actions or ignoring the nuance of caitlyn's underlying nature, motivations, and intentions for the sake of virtue signaling when her character is a great lesson on how quickly good intentions and heart can become corrupted. the problem i have is when people just don't care to look closer or dig deeper into a carefully constructed character and would rather tie her up in a neat little villainous bow with the worst labels and accusations and try to guilt people over it...

because of course that's way easier than acknowledging what is clearly novels' worth of layered complexity, and it feels better to hate a character in totality from some moral high-ground than to feel conflicted about them, right?

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Omg megumi and Yuta are my favs after Inumaki LMAO (I’m Lowk salty that we did not get ANY lore exploration of Inumaki but maybe it’s better that way so he stays alive atp)

No the hating mainstream things to be “unique” is so eugh honestly like just because somethings mainstream doesn’t mean it’s basic…but exactly I’ve definitely lost the spark with jjk I think it just got too confusing? And I was losing the essence of the story and idk I know geges said before that that they’ve wanted to end jjk earlier but something about the editor saying no…? I feel like sometimes the lack of motivation kinda peeks through with how the story was done….which I get because writers block/art block and just burn out in general is so real I just wish circumstances were different lmao…

Also yeah the “jjk has the best female characters” ideation…hmm..it’s def better than the blatantly sexualized ones but at this point it kinda feels like a bare minimum/low standard thing that they ARENT sexualized like in most shounen content that makes people say this (i agree like wtf happened with yuki we barely saw her honestly?? Don’t get me started on tsumiki i was expecting them to take a route where maybe she’d actually wake up and play a more conscious role but what the hell was that)

NO LITERALLY im all for analysis and leaving some things open ended but idk in jjk it was just excessive that it turned into confusion like…the constant guessing and insane analysis that needed to be done to clarify things or try to parse things together is not my favorite…agreed that the story should not have to rely on deep level analysis to be understood!

Yeah I’ve definitely lost my emotional ties with jjk its just like well I got this far i might as well see how it ends

LMAO WIGGLY that made me think of a worm on a string but I see what you mean! One track soccer mind doesn’t give much room to explore lolll but it was executed very well hehe

LMAOO it’s the pipeline of shitting on side characters to loving them but I can’t with his hair cut…also don’t think he’s ugly like I guess he’s objectively relatively good looking? But yeah I never fully saw the appeal (it’s funny because I know a good amount of people who prefer him to Rin when I’m the opposite lol) and the Gojo aura LOL

THE ACCURACY IS INSANE the way I would have never known if you didn’t mention it (I don’t think I would’ve even noticed if I wrote it) the fact checking goes crazy LMAO but I love it honestly the research def gives the story more depth and feel to it rather than just a one shot/story that kinda just floats in the void of the universe or something…gives it ties to reality and an actual grounding in the world! (This was worded so badly lmao)

It’s always Karasu….I think it’s partially also because some manga scenes of him are a little goofy because they give him that smile that almost cuts across his entire face to give him that kinda evil looking smirk….and the anime style kinda striking that awkward balance of maintaining those features but not putting enough detail to go full asshole def makes it a little goofy LOL (but in art they put more effort into like the S2 trailer/teaser visual he looks great with all the shading)

And LMAOO IKR!!! I always think back to that I’m like KURONA WAS 4??? Bro wasn’t even on the field in the u20 match so I was Lowk a bit shocked haha, iirc Kiyora was also 5?? Like the discrepancy makes me laugh ik people probably developed during the second selection but the drastic change always gets me

Your tag with the arrow has me feeling idk why I found that so funny LOL

Also SHSHS drowsy allergy medicine is the worst…I hope you weren’t having a severe reaction or anything and also that you feel better soon!!!

-Karasu anon

there’s def a lot of areas where there could be more lore (rika’s character page is so odd??) just because of how many characters there are i think!! but i do feel like the story is wrapping up so some things might just be left as questions. or not, who knows!!

yeah there’s def a cycle of like thing gets popular -> everyone loves it -> it becomes so over saturated that people start hating on it to be different -> it becomes overhated -> in a few years everyone realizes it wasn’t that bad. the biggest problem w the “hating as a trend” is that it takes away from legitimate criticisms of the work, as fans will lump it into general hating for no reason.

besides just analyses being so important for even basic comprehension of the plot, i’ve noticed a lot of the storyline is dependent on random interviews gege has done. like nobara’s death only being confirmed because of an interview years after it was written is RIDICULOUS to me (even though i already thought she was dead tbh but there was enough speculation in the fandom that it obviously wasn’t clear enough in-story). things like interviews and character pages should give you fun additional information that can help you expand on a character (oh rin likes horror games!! karasu is scared of the water!! etc etc) but it shouldn’t be the MAIN source of KEY info on a character. idk i think a lot of people love what jjk could be at this point and not necessarily what it is.

YESS i honestly was not super pleased by the female characters in jjk!! they are cool, and they COULD be well written, but they aren’t. i think in terms of its contemporaries, demon slayer does female characters better than jjk (again, not saying they’re perfect because they aren’t, but, say, shinobu is a stronger character to me than even maki).

jjk is a sunk cost fallacy for me HAHA i’ve been into it for over 2.5 years now so i have to see how it ends but i don’t really care atp what happens 😭 i’m like an unbiased outsider…idk it’s sad i wish i could’ve stayed invested but i only even know leaks are dropping because my social media blows up whenever they do.

OMG i also think rin is better looking than sae but i find sae easier to write for some reason?? idk why 😫 like sae is canonically only interested in soccer at least rin likes horror stuff but honestly between the two of them it feels easier to separate sae from soccer than rin?? if only marginally so hahaha. sae occasionally expresses regret at only knowing abt soccer so i feel like he’d be more willing to open himself to new experiences if sufficiently prodded whereas rin is SO invested in soccer (because soccer = his relationship w his brother) that he doesn’t even seem like he could have a proper friendship w someone let alone an actual relationship 😔

it really is always karasu…i do think manga can get away w exaggerating certain features (ex karasu’s smirk) that anime can’t so they have to figure out a way to balance it — maybe it’s the static nature of manga vs the motion of anime?? although karasu hasn’t been smirking much in pxg vs bm 😕 give my boy his swag otoya back!! HAHA but i also think he was such a background character in that one scene of season one that they just didn’t gaf abt him. he’s looked really good in all of the s2 promotional material so i have faith he will be done well!!

KURONA AND KIYORA MY RANDOM AHH KINGS 🙏🏻 they came outta nowhere but they’re slaying atm…ig the hundred goal thing only tested a very specific aspect of playing soccer?? like shooting without anyone on you which doesn’t really translate to an actual game 🤔 like in bllk vs u20 they needed defenders and midfielders who wouldn’t necessarily score but were integral to the game 👆🏻 plus they didn’t all go in at the same time so better players like tabieitaken and shidou were ranked lower than randoms like tokimitsu probably just because they entered later 🤷🏻‍♀️

it wasn’t that bad!! i just got like overwhelmingly sleepy because i haven’t taken any in forever so i just crashed instead of staying up longer like i usually so haha. but i’m hoping to get the one shot out soon!! it’s pretty dumb but more karasu content is more karasu content 🤩

[mrnostalgic3]

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