#my critiques of the show are more diversity and also some other stuff

[what-shitfuckery-is-this-ew]

A Critique of Riordan's: Neurodivergency

tldr: Rick made ADHD and dyslexia superpowers in the books which fit the time he wrote the books, but it's not accepted now cause it diminishes neurodivergent struggle. At the same time he made autism coded characters the 'annoying' ones and had a very racist thing of having the only neurotypical be Frank.

He tried to fix it in the show. It worked for about 3 seconds.

TW: Ableism, Autism speaks mention, r slur, anti-schizo stuff.

This paragraph is useless so don't read if you don't want to: Sitting in my drafts are 3 different 'A critique of Riordan's' posts i made as i tried to redo my full critique of the Riordanverse with a little more positive feedback and a little less Rick Riordan is the devil spawn. I have decided to not do it in order because because i watched the show and i noticed some things which were iffy and others which were great. So yeah neurodivergency first. Enjoy and think Critically.

Books

Research and Diversity

The books were written in the early 2000s for Rick's son who has ADHD and dyslexia

As a result, it takes on a very "your ADHD and dyslexia is a superpower" message which were popular during the time, but we recognise now has delegitimised neurodivergent struggles

Also as a result, the books were very focused on his son's symptoms, and represented ADHD as a monolith which quickly turned into stereotypes (e.g jumpy, impatient and fast reflexes becoming the connecting feature of half-bloods)

It got so unresearched that at one point he said:

He also talks about coffee in a similar way, despite sugar and coffee not making us more hyperactive and instead making us sleepy. Unless all the scientists and people with ADHD are wrong i really don't know this works.

and also said this: "Leo was extremely ADHD even by demigod standards" Like what

But the worst part about the PJO books was that the neurodivergency was limited to the first book. Percy's ADHD and dyslexia magically vanish and honestly it's only really brought back up in HOO every now and then (not very well might i add)

Ways he could have improved:

He could have given other characters, like Annabeth, more diverse symptoms of ADHD. It wasn't that hard, For Annabeth recognise that she as a 'gifted kid' is more likely to have undiagnosed and so have to face the issues related to being undiagnosed and/or being both a gifted kid and having ADHD, and then also give her more symptoms common to girls like being really chatty or frequently daydreaming.

Continuing having ADHD (and dyslexia) as constant parts of the novels rather than throwaway lines. Build it into the characters actions and persona rather than add it on like an accessory

Research. Never stop researching. Always reach out to people with the disorders and ask them to help. Writing is nothing without research.

Get sensitivity readers

Grammar

This is really minor, but he keeps say ____ was ADHD, and like gramattically that's a no. I am not a disorder i am a person with a disorder . Note for autism, the prefered grammer is Autistic person (aka turn into adjective and describe, something we can't do with ADHD)

Nico and Leo

Making Leo and Nico the 2 characters who were annoying and unlikeable (to everyone else not to fans) was really weird cause these 2 characters were the autistic coded ones.

NOTE: I did see a post explaining it better in the past, and i will link it when/if i find it again.

Tyson and the R Slur

I genuinely think he tried to make the r-slur scene show that it was bad, but the way Percy reacted to it wasn't quite right. Especially for childrens books these things need to be really clear. So it was good to make a bad bully character who was hated say it, but he could have made it better by skipping Percy saying "He’s not r*tarded" and go straight to "I had to try really, really hard not to punch Sloan the face."

The scene was ok, it could have been better, but again these were written in the 2000s, we have to acknowledge that.

Percy and School

Now this is interesting because this is more recent. Percy tried really hard in school and was smart, it was part of his characterisation. But he never did well in school, because that's how his disability affected him (especially since it was the American school system which we all know is shit and even more shit for people with learning disabilities).

The problem stems from TSATS, where Percy is made out to skip school, and not try at all (feeds into people with ADHD do bad cause they don't try/are lazy)

credits to @aroaceleovaldez

Racism: Frank Zhang

Frank Zhang the only Asian member of the 7 has no form of neurodivergency, despite the rest of them all having. It must be a just coincidence that there's a stereotype that asians are really smart and good at maths and the fact that the rest of the Romans have dyscalculia/s.

It's not weird at all that the character instead has lactose intolerance, which is really common in East Asia unlike dyslexia, ADHD or dyscalculia, which has such a low rate of diagnosis because there is a large stigma behind the disorders and because white people don't think Asians can have learning disabilities/s. No not weird at all that the dude is described with symptoms of dyspraxia but Rick refuses to recognise he is not neurotypical/s

I'm stepping out of sarcasm speak to remind you that Asians with learning disabilities are significantly less likely to get diagnosed with anything because:

because their parents won't let them until they have no other choice (glares at my parents) because there's a massive stigma behind intellectual/learning/development disorders in these communities

When we do try to get diagnosed our claims are diminished because of racist stereotypes and the belief that booksmarts/giftedness = no learning disability. It means most psychologists and psychiatrists (who are usually white) think that all Asians are smart so they don't ever have any form of neurodivergency and we're left to struggle.

Schizo Rep

Octavian. Villain. Schizo. Again.

Do i even need to explain this?

Show

Not actually a specific disorder - Percy just has a learning disability

Interestly Percy's dyslexia is just never talked about, And even his ADHD is never mentioned by name. He's got a random learning disorder which isn't specified. At first i assumed it was still ADHD cause the books, but watching more, you realise they aren't actually focusing on what learning disorder he has and what he has to deal with as a result of that. It's just a generic learning disorder.

Which is weird because learning disorders are all different and we all face different things, even with the same disorder. So placing all learning disorders in the same group? not good. Don't know what i expected from disney, but it wasn't this.

Autism Speaks

So the show tried to acknowledge that Percy was constantly told he was special and heroic when he really wanted to have help for his issues and for people to recognise that he has problems and those are bad. It also represented less stereotypical adhd symptoms (though whether that's because the disorder is no longer adhd or whether they wanted more inattentive symptoms to be present, we'll never know)

but then it went ahead and used a broken puzzle metaphor for his neurodivergency?

Puzzle piece metaphors when talking about any form of neurodivergency are a no go because the creators of the metaphor literally want Autistic people dead.

I DON'T GIVE A SHIT THAT HE DOESN'T HAVE AUTISM, WE ARE NOT ALLIES TO THE AUTISM COMMUNITY IF WE USE THE LANGUAGE AUTISM SPEAKS CREATED

Not only that but a broken puzzle is not a good way to represent us anyways because NEURODIVERGENTS AREN'T BROKEN.

[johannestevans]

do you know of any accounts around that center more uhhhh diverse understandings of gender? or just being trans? it some times feels like when i cast a wider net or just look out of accounts I'm familiar with, i suddenly don't exist? and not to be dramatic but that over some time it's beginning to isolate me from my trans identity.

LIKE I'll leave accounts i feel comfortable and seen in and just a little taste of what ill see is;

hurtful generalization that can only be true if your white/perisex/abled/nt.

Critic of a demographic of trans people YOU fit into that would only apply if you were white/perisex/abled/nt.

Angry post that make it clear that op only manages to talk to white/perisex/nt people.

trans meme; hope your white/perisex/abled/nt.

"Everyone had THAT phase :)"(White supremacist/Terf)

"Oh well Black trans wome-!!!!") ["Boy i sure hope this isn't tokenization!!!!"] [*clicks Through to profile*] [*op proceeds never mentions a black trans person again*][*cat looking at camera from green text meme**tokenizing*]

and i bring up intersex and disabled ppl but I only have to deal with being a Black trans person, and not to give the game away(of what this ask really is) i guess but like thats SOOOO worrying, it implies either that 1) there are not enough POC/intersex/disabled/neurodivergent trans ppl to meaningfully incorporate into the theory/jokes/positivity or 2) The greater online trans community does not think their perspective is meaningful in the first place.

(and then to actually give the game away) This IS lowkey a Whine post, but also i enjoy your blog 1) anything you wanna add? and 2) the posts on trans ppl you interact with make me feel seen not only in marginalizations that affect me but also those that affect people i have made community with.

p.s. this is long srry, i woke up downed the last of some radioactively blue drink than sat down to write this ask

I feel you! It sucks so fucking hard I think when like... you're intellectually aware that a lot of these perspectives - perspectives that just are the norm and the reality for so many people - just aren't taken into account by a lot of "mainstream" accounts, and that that's largely to do with whiteness as a culture (as in: a desire to sublimate and dominate any outsider culture or minority, either rendering it a commodity or rendering it invisible) and white supremacy, and all of the other bigotries that fold into that white-centric and anglo-centric view.

I don't know that I have a huge number of recs in terms of individual accounts - obviously I love @thewarmvoid, Salem always brings so much nuance and consideration to everything Salem does, whilst at the same time fucking battling off constant lynch mobs and bullshit; I don't know if fae're on Tumblr, but Anonsee Maytrix has a lot of class analyses and posts on Twitter and BlueSky; @spacelazarwolf posts a lot of different Jewish trans perspectives, and obviously I'm speaking from my own perspective of Jewish transmasculinity, but I find that a lot of different Jewish understandings of transness and gender stand out to me as critiquing a lot of the status quo around gender and sex; Idris at @bijoumikhawal is a long-time mutual of mine and they always not just have the best fucking analysis and takes of faer own but also curate such interesting and in-depth analysis from different perspectives and bloggers, from a huge variety of cultures and perspectives, especially from Egypt and other North African countries and regions; @xoxoviva posts a lot of great stuff, especially like, good meta on different shows and comics; @mamapluto posts and brings in a lot of Native American and different indigenous perspectives that I always love and appreciate seeing on my dash.

I unfortunately have a terrible memory for usernames and names, so whenever people ask me for recs like this I have a few people off the top of my head, and then I'm basically just left linking the people who are most recently in my notifs where I go, "oh, yeah, this person rocks", but I think that's because over time I've followed such a huge variety of people and I really enjoy connecting with different people and seeing such wildly different perspectives on one thing or other, whether that's in the analysis they post themselves, or just the people and communities they follow and are connected with, and what they then share on their own blogs.

I hope there are a few recs in here that suit what you're looking for and bring a bit more joy onto your timeline and a sense of being seen and reflected, Anon!

[demdems]

sorry for being a little hater while watching the new natlan trailer and coughing up blood everywhere, that was a bit dramatic of me

mind the blood tho, we're still talking

a very not cohesive list of grievences i have with natlan [and genshin], I'm writing as i go so if its too long the rest is under read more

I mean truth be told i opened youtube, saw the trailer first thing, noticed the thumbnail, and kinda just immediately knew it was joever

we can start w the archon i guess [I'm assuming the red haired lady is the archon by using context clues] uh ive seen people argue that its fine/makes sense that she's white since the assumption that's been made is that she's based on himeko from hi3 but uh like, himeko murata is japanese, she's not white, if the name didn't make that obvious [this is similarly why i don't like the argument that nahida being white is fine due to her being based on theresa hi3, theresa is a clone of a white german woman im not sure why mhy based the archon of a nation based on swana cultures on her but i digress] i think its at least good that she beat the conquistador allegations, left a bad taste in my mouth when that was being speculated

The confirmation of names means people have been honing in on the cultures natlan is taking inspiration from, ive seen a lot. i made my best guess when talking with a friend but i believe theres polynesian, west african, indigenous american [mexico and central america? specifically based on the name citlali] [[feel free to correct me on anything]] honestly wasn't expecting much based on sumeru

Tbh i have like zero energy to hate on the natlan debut cast cuz i already did it w a friend but I'll do it anyways, its a lifestyle

the argument of, why look for dark skin rep in a game made by a company who's colorist [either by choice or due to pressure from the government since genshin has incredibly insane cultural impact in China], is legit since its like me looking for clothes at the soup store and getting upset

But genuinely even if mhy had a vision with genshin and wanted to show a diverse world in its game, its kinda weak to be almost so blatantly colorist outside their playable characters. I don't think that making npcs dark skinned and playable characters light skinned is a good look, especially when it's the second time that that the human enemies of the region for the most part are darker skinned than the characters used to fight them

And i don't like how parts of the community jumps on people who critique genshin for this. Like, if its a non issue to you why get upset with people yk. Plus never speaking up on stuff is bad like fine, the multi billion dollar company won't listen to you, but id like to think that other people would learn from this to some degree and understand why people get upset. And idk maybe its overstepping and silly but id like to thing that outrage reaches people who can see that yea maybe there's people who Will listen to the stories you wanna tell but idk

I just don't like that people are making it okay to just be racist and colorist like, that's just gonna eventually bounce back and then great everyones seeing how mad ur getting over someone wanting a character w a skin tone darker than #FFFFFF, i cant vocalize my thoughts right tho but you get me ig

aeugh anyways on the characters specifically, the darkest skinned character in the trailer looks almost gray thats not great, and then the girls w darker skin tones [there's so few men in genshin lately] are dressed very much not at all which is a reoccurrence, sumeru dressed its darker skinned characters in not a lot clothing which like if you've ever been to a country that's hot and sunny, people don't dress in swimwear they dress in pants and sleeved shirts because hi sun damage exists and too much exposure is unhealthy and people tend to get used to the climate

Also a lot of animal themed characters this time, do correct me if I'm wrong but i kinda see an overuse in the women of color in genshin being animal themed but if im looking too much into it then uh idk maybe genshin should release a catboy

The modern theming in the outfits isn't egregious but i think too much streetwear might bog down the overall look, like latin america cultures just by themselves have amazing fashion and god id kill to see something like a dancer based on mexico's traditional dances since those are the prettiest dresses, like modernizing is fine [i believe i saw somewhere that chongyun's outfit is based on chinese streetwear and i think it fits great in with the more traditional outfits in liyue] but stuff like the hoodies around the waist and the weird half shorts half pants of one of the characters kinda weakens the overall vision [but I'm not well versed in fashion so I'm not sure what direction wouldve been best for natlan to take to both respect the fashion of the cultures inspo is taken from and also fit in with genshins vibes overall]

Natlan the region itself is the best thing of the trailer tbh, it's very nice looking and yea there isn't a yellow orange filter over it like this were american tv or something, and the music is great i think the one part of the team who does good is the music

Personal expectations, i just hope the characters are good, like i hope good personality saves these guys and my soul while i play the natlan quest getting flashbanged everywhere i look

wegh, drip marketing Monday, and 5.0 in like 7 weeks, let's get this bread gamers

[somelosercritiques]

Helluva boss episode eight review‼️‼️

(I skipped seven because I decided I want to start with episodes I haven't watched yet)

The positive stuff

The voice acting was amazing if there's one that they'll get right it's everything that has to do with the voice work

There were actually some funny parts in the episode

Vortex is literally like one of four genuinely good characters in this entire franchise he just seems like a dude that would actually be cool to hang with

Finally, 40% of that song bee sung was good and the visuals were amazing

The negative stuff

Dear God where do I start with this one tbh 😭

Ok so I'll get one thing that confuses me about this entire world out of the way. This is less of a criticism or nitpick but more of a genuine question.

How the hell(lol) does time work in hell? Is there like a day night cycle? Are there hell timezones?? Is there a hell sun and moon??? How does time work in different rings???? Why do I keep increasing the question marks with each question I ask?????

But in all seriousness I just realized that there's time in hell so that's kinda weird to me

Ok now time for the actual critiques

I'll start with that God awful cotton candy song. Now to be honest I've never really liked Kesha. I don't hate her but she won't be on any of my playlists. I think she didn't technically sing the song but it's a Kesha song. Remember how I said I liked 40% of the song? Well that's because the chorus literally ruins the other 60%. It's so shitty and repetitive. Like saying two words over and over again is cocomelon levels of songwriting. Normally the chorus is the best part of a song but nope not here 💀

Bee as a character is very confusing in my opinion. Like when blitz was drinking himself to death why did she look sad?? She is the literal embodiment of gluttony. Like this part is genuinely annoying me the most why does she even care that he's getting black out drunk at a literal party? Is that not the point of those? And he has someone that could take him back home if needed so she should be even less worried. In my opinion it would've made more sense for tex to be the only one who cared about him.

Another thing that kind of annoys me is how much of an asshole loona is being for no reason. Bee showed her nothing but kindness and even was worried about her father but then she starts getting defensive for no reason?? Like girl you do realize you're lowkey picking a fight with a SIN.

Oh yeah and that girl that was bothering loona in the beginning of the episode was pretty much the average vivziepop female character. Bitchy and sassy for no reason and also did we mention she's skinny and white coded.

Luckily the last part of the episode was the funniest. When blitz starts breaking down on the couch I'm pretty sure everyone reading this had the exact same reaction as me LOL

Final thoughts

In all this episode was a waste of time and a strange diversion from the previous episode. The fact that this is a season finale is an insult to not only the fans but also all the episodes that came before it. This is more like an extra that should've been a short (like five minutes long). It would've worked much better. Or how about a better idea? Continue the plotline started last episode. This episode was a horrible way to introduce one of the most important figures in hell. 😭

Tbh I'm kinda dreading the next episode because I heard it was horrible and when the show started to decline but that's for tomorrows me to deal with

[cosmos-dot-semicolon]

An unhealthy basis for enjoying media

Rewatching one of my favourite video essayists' take on Avatar, and how a lot of people seem to be so emotionally invested in it to a almost religious degree. I have little investment in that show beyond its representation, but it kind of got me thinking about the times I've done the same with my favourite media. Luckily with smaller fandoms and hence with a far less toxic feedback loop, but still.

The main point she brings up is that people remember the show for what it represented, as a big, mature turning point for cartoons rather than the actually good themes about friendship and diversity in it. And I think that actually extends to worse fandom obsessions generally.

Something like Steven Universe can't be a show with legitimately great episodes next to some really terrible ideas we don't talk about. It has to be the most beautiful thing ever that will bring true art and social justice to the world.

...This probably goes for like half of left-wing YouTube and adventure fantasy shows now I'm typing it out, actually. She covers those a lot.

I don't have a point to make on those media, though. Their fandoms just reminded me of the past hyperfixations I've had that turned unhealthy: how it always ended up with deifying them into the greatest thing that ever existed in my mind, how I felt the need to vitriolically defend them against any differing takes because they were my personality.

They were a reprieve from the worst times of my life. But in retrospect that's not completely a good thing - I was using them to cope, but also avoid thinking about my issues at all.

The one I feel comfortable namedropping is the most recent one on Ninjago. I kinda just brushed it off as a result of academic pressure, but as I was reading more critique on it (and since was in therapy at that time), it eventually clicked that I'd been using it as a vector to escape thinking about my relationship with being Asian.

But it doesn't only happen from flawed media. My other major example was a game that is damn near perfect in its execution, but my interactions with it - absolutely mining it for as many ideas as I could, and spending all my time on it were just the only way I could think of to escape the crushing changes happening in my life at that point. It also lead to me having really weird headcanons and intrusive thoughts about it and not acting as considerately as I should've been around my friends at the time, both IRL and in the fandom.

I think you can almost always tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy attachments though. It just requires one moment of clarity and a bit of introspection away from the media in question.

My main advice would be... well, first consider therapy if you know you've dealt with a lot of stuff in your life. But barring that, my advice is that no one piece of art can capture the entire human experience, or even your personal entire experience. Or beliefs. Or fantasies. You should not rely on them as such.

Have multiple, varied things you like going into a hyperfixation, so you can draw on them if you need. It'll probably feel less immediately rewarding, but it stops you from feeling that you're eating yourself months in and being the living incarnation of the Boss Baby Problem.

It'll also feel more fun if you're a creator, because you can get some really original ideas by pulling totally different media together.

[fioras-resolve]

Style Savvy (2008) Notes

-(quoting from my discord) i have downloaded a game i never thought i would, and the fact i never thought i would play it is why i decided i should play it. i've heard that style savvy is pretty good, particularly on the comments sections for trailers for similar game Fashion Dreamer saying "Bring Style Savvy back!!!" so like, okay. style savvy is one of those games i remember having an aversion to when i was a kid. this was long before i realized i was trans because i was fucking 7, and you know, among a lot of boys there's an urge to make fun of "girly" things. and i did! i even bullied someone about it, which i'm obviously not proud of. but it's like, alright, now in the year of our fave 2024, i am an adult, i am a woman, i am a decent person, and i am a game designer who wants to understand this medium better. and there's this whole Other Side of gaming that i've just never experienced, and i wanna change that here.

-I am struck by the mundane beauty of women's fashion, but also, GOD this game is 2000s.

-There's just something so beautiful about exploring fashion, and being able to put a smile on someone's face by showing them the perfect outfit for them. I think the original is let down a bit nowadays by fashion standards changing, but there's also a charm to that, I think. Fashion Dreamer kept with the trends and focused on being an influencer, but these days there's plenty of critique of influencer culture even within the fashion world. Being a clerk at a boutique is just a completely different fantasy, and I kind of love it.

-I really like the characterization of each of the customers. You see their name, budget, a little blurb for them, and their general look, and they give some dialogue explaining what they need. That little blurb can be stuff like "A politician who dresses for success" or "A trendsetter, who doesn't realize it." It's really cool, and it feels like I have a personal connection with these people. I could SO imagine this being extended to a more diverse cast and modern standards, like. Imagine helping a newly hatched trans woman find her style. That would be amazing, and it would be an opportunity for people like me to explore that.

[titleknown]

Why is the response to any critique of a kids show "just watch adult shows 4head". Kids deserve good and diverse (story-wise, not just race/gender) media that's actually been thought through. If I say that Steven Universe/Gravity Falls/whatever else has some issues it's not because those are the only shows I've ever watched, it's because I think that maybe we should strive to make good TV that's aimed at all ages.

[In response to this post]

Well, my view of the long and short of it on a macro level is that they're mad at the stagnation of taste under late capitalism, especially if they're into nitche stuff that's starved for funding and social capital while other peoples' stuff has a thriving fandom/scene, and think that being mean on the internet can change it.

Like, while I often chide @afloweroutofstone for engaging in this behavior, an old article of his ironically made the excellent point that the reason so much of our politics centers around meaningless culture war shit that doesn't materially change anything is because we feel so disconnected from the process of influencing our society via political action due to neoliberalism and a gridlocked government with systems designed to basically say No to doing anything good that we feel like all we can do is this ineffectual individualistic pressuring of others via market action.

And, while he was talking about on a larger scale, I think this also applies to the micro scale of what art gets to exist/be produced too.

Like, in the US government arts funding (especially for the sorts of stuff people on here like) is basically dead, the monetary base for indie work online shrunk a lot when the '08 crash basically made the working class broke, and most the most consistent means of funding art isa small monopoly of mercenarial nightmare-megacorps.

People who like things that're nitche and drowned out by the things the megacorps are pushing feel at the mercy of the market and its tastes, with no real workable avenue for changing society in a way that their art is allowed to exist and thrive, or even their ways of enjoying art due to the way social cycles influence fan cultures and how a lot of people have been burned by that (But that's for its own post).

Either way, they feel as if there's no option except that ineffective "change consumer demand to change what megacorps do" mindset, even though it's clear from basic observation that doesn't work for a sour shit.

From my observation, it seems like they feel like their only option is to try and drag culture back to an earlier stage, before the "nerds" "ruined it" by infantilizing it by making their vapid art considered socially acceptable, or so the narrative goes, and want to do this by bullying hard enough they're gone from public life or have modified their behaviors to be "acceptable," IE creating the sort of world they want to live in.

That isn't going to work to change shit, but it sure is going to make a lot of people double down on their bad habits or else feel even more isolated and alone, but as I have observed, people prefer bad solutions to no solutions.

But so far nobody's doing shit at scale to remedy the iactual core problem, IE "We as audience/creators feel as if we have no control over the material factors behind the creation of art in our society," or even stating it as a problem of that, and that sucks!

IDK, I'm rambling at this point, but... in all my observation it really does seem like a mean, sad attempt to exert some tiny amount of control over the means of artistic production via the logics of consumer activism in this hellworld...

[triple--a--threat]

so about voltron

idk where this post is gonna go, but i have thoughts and feelings about this show and needed to get them out. so. rambley post it is.

i dont think it's new information for anyone that voltron and its fandom suck major ass, unless you've been living under a rock, and in that case, get back under that rock sweetie. this show sucks a fuckton and this rambling will be nothing more than critique and bashing. anyways

at the end of season 2 shiro was going to die in the original "plan" as far as we know. we were gonna get a heroic sacrifice and the team would go back to its 1984 setup with allura piloting the blue lion. except of course the machinations of the universe are beyond us so shiro did not in fact. die. he was the most popular character and his merch sold the most, so he couldn't possibly die this early on. who else would've made dreamworks their pure gold bars?

so as daddy dreamworks demanded, the writers delivered and un-unalived shiro, completely disregarding their original flimsy shambling excuse of a plan in exchange for among the worst plotlines i have ever seen anywhere. possibly the worst that exist in all of television ever. we got 4 seasons (well really 2) of completely directionless, contrieved, contradictory, and mind-numbing bullshit. stuff happens because someone wanted it to. 2 eps later something very contradictory happens because someone else wanted it to. i cannot stress this enough it feels like the writters were split into factions each of whom had very different ideas about literally everything in this fucking show. some of the dialogue actually feels like someone just wrote down the arguments and fighting going down in the writer's room. shit was made up along the way as the show went on for far longer than it had the right to, and for each and every fucking plotline the writers were divided and kept on shooting themselves (and the others too don't forget) in the foot for the sliver of chance that their story will be canon. just completely backstabbing each other for the sake of it and no regard for what is actually happening. it would be hilarious if it hadn't destroyed my sanity. and for a bit of a personal opinion, a liitle ymmv, none of the writers had any good ideas actually. even ignoring the nonsense opposite fuckery happening, none of the plotlines were good lmao. please end this and me oh god.

as a result we got a completely wish-washy, flip-flopping, self-contradictory, reductive mess of a show which never had any good original ideas or story much less a fucking plot or even a plan in some direction. the writers had no goal except to get their plot on the paper disjoint from everything else with jackshit regard to the overarching storyline. well if there was anything resembling an overarching storyline in the first place.

ig i'll talking specifically about the some of the worst offenders in the "the writers never thought of anything" situation - the allura racism arc, the clone shiro arc, and fucking lotor. oh my fucking god motherfucking lotor. holy shit they fucked him up.

i dunno where to begin with the allura racism arc except for the fact that it was DUMB. completely out of the blue and so fucking forced. for a princess of a diplomatic people she sure is fuckin racist for no fucking reason. even if she doesn't trust any and all galra (ig they didn't have unity in diversity activities in altea), she has no reason to not trust keith. like. my guy what. he proved himself as a paladin of voltron and has directly and indirectly saved her ass. why is she racist oh my god. and why doesn't coran hold any animosity towards the galra? he also lost his homeworld (and alfor)? and he lived on altea for far longer? ig women are emotional or smth. man. i also liked (absolutely despised) the the fact that it kinda took a #notallgalra turn and i was jesting about it and then they actually said that in the fucking show. hey allura not all galra are bad. hey allura stop being a bitch. and then the writers forgot about it btw and made allura racist again 2 seasons later. hmm. wut. also they never checked their own internalised racism or whatever as *points to zethrid's design*. lmao. WAIT also the conflation of racism with speciesism. yknow. using anti speciesism messages as anti racism messages. classic white person living in california moment.

alright the clone shiro arc. because its the keith and shiro show and we can't loose half of our money milking cow. and we shan't make them explicitly gay. only allude to it and sprinkle in family brother stuff so nobody actually thinks they're gay. that would be blasphemous. we shall continue with our pseudo-incest for the rest of the show and give shiro a last minute husband so they don't haul our ass for gaybaiting and burying our gays because we somehow managed to do both of them. anyways where was i. oh right shiro died but they had to bring him back blah blah but they made a clone of him for? reasons? while the real shiro is in the subconscious of the black lion or smth for unexplained reasons. i have absolutely no idea why they did that. they have a carbon copy of shiro in terms of everything - personality, fighting capabilities, homoerotic scenes with keith - for jackshit reasons while they could have the actual real shiro running around but i guess not. the clone is the exact same as the real guy until he isn't. because. we need more drama in this over extended bullshit show i guess??? clearly we don't have enough stuff going on we must make it more exhausting and confusing to watch. also clone shiro is as good and noble as normal shiro until he got a headache and now he's evil at the flick of a switch and retains none of his previous personality and is therefore irredeemably evil and nothing can be done to save him. he's bad and evil and must be forgotten. they never mention him again later on except for a throwaway comment on how evil he was except he wasn't evil guys you're not gonna fool anyone. oh and btw the real shiro's soul or whatever got supplanted in the clone's body because idk man where his original body went and he retained all the memories of his clone self because isn't that convenient. fuck everything. also this arc culminates in the best episode of this show despite everything wrong with the events leading up to it and the way they handle lotor in this episode. more on him later. it's literally among my favourites now 10/10 would watch again it was so fucking good. kill me. i.

again, i don't know where to begin with lotor - such an interesting character who got the short end of the stick. the worst victim of the writers' squabbles. i genuinely liked him a lot and then. such a shame. well there are other characters- oh no. there aren't any other even remotely interesting characters. not good, no no, no one is good in this show, but just fun to watch.

he starts off as an antagonist to team voltron but he's not actually a threat. he maybe wants to use them to further his goals but really he isn't the villain per se. which sucks because there aren't any villains in the show now cause the previous main villain is out of commission for who knows how long. and then whoops lotor has to kill one of his generals and then the other generals betray him and now i guess he's with voltron now. sure why not. interesting turn of events. at least it isn't boring. i'm having fun can't you see. then he kills the previous villain (who is his father did i mention that) in episode two of season five. yes s05e02. i dont know any more than you do. and now it sucks even more cause theres literally no fucking villain rn. then he and allura start working on quintessence or whatever because she learns that he is half altean and btw do you remember she is racist. now since he is not 100% galra (bad people) but half galra half altean (good people. her people) she smooches him and stuff and. also btw all this fuckery is happening alongside the climax of clone shiro arc. yeah this show may suck. whatever evil shiro who wasnt evil is defeated and lotors really helped team voltron and the galra empire is going to stop conquering worlds and the show is going to end on a mid note. well.

EXCEPT SIKE BITCH LOTOR IS PURE CRAZY EVIL FUCK YOU FOR EVER ROOTING FOR HIM. FUCK HIS WHOLE CHARACTER BEING ALL "IM NOT MY FATHER" AND THEN AT THE END 180ING MAKING HIM JUST LIKE HIS FATHER. FUCK EVERYTHING FUCK THIS SHOW YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SOMEWHAT GOOD. WELL FUCK YOU IT AINT EVEN SOMEWHAT GOOD.

i. im just so disappointed in his character and the plot twist for the sake of twist that i cant even express how disappointed i am except for shouting through the use of all caps. one final fuck this show

[phoenixlionme]

If you disagree with me, fine. But do not insult me in any shape or form. You want your opinions respected, then respect mine.

I wanted to give my personal two cents on both sides of the argument regarding the whole "woke" media. Personally, I feel both sides take it too far. And below I will give my reasons. But first I want to educate that the term "woke" was coined by the Black community to have other people in said community be aware of social injustices; it was supposed to be about vigilance. And somehow it got turned into an insult (mainly by the more conservative groups, even politicians), with many not being able to define it and thinking it's the end of all humanity. Look, humans have more important and urgent things to deal with than stupid culture wars and it be nice if said politicians got that but they don't. And that's the end of that, now I will begin my thoughts.

Anti: Just because something has diversity in it doesn't mean it's "woke". And (like I stated in the above paragraph) I don't think you can even honestly define it. Most people in these groups take things out of context in some moments to make your point. And I strongly believe that it's just performative outrage meant to get clicks so you can get money. You get bent out of shape if you see very brief political stuff (i.e., BLM) if that said stuff is opposite to your liking. You claim not to be bigoted but your content is mainly dragging down or outage porn over women, minorities, and the LGBT. You call the other side sensitive but look at your actions. Not to mention, you cherrypick any shows/movies that did fail with this "woke" content in order to provide "evidence". Getting some type of sick glee at watching it fail. You make some valid critiques over the problems with race bending and gender swapping but proceed to attack the creators and actors for essentially a fictional piece of work. Also, quit being an asshole to someone who genuinely states how seeing someone on screen who looks like them made them feel seen; it's not about them saying they relate to someone only because of surface level feature. It's about seeing someone who is like them in some way (race, sexuality, gender, etc.) who isn't made into a joke, criminal, sacrificial lamb, or diversity checklist. They are happy to see someone who looks like them in a role that they often don't see them in, and are written with respect and nuance. You don't get it, fine but don't be an asshole.

Pro: Diversity can't be the ONLY reason to watch a show and/or movie. There has to be good storytelling, characterization, plot, pacing, etc. to draw the audience in. Also, raceswaps and genderbends are (in my opinion) not great diversity examples. While I won't mind a few selections it's mainly for the former and still very limited. People of underrepresented groups should get original stories. And while it's okay to discuss social injustices in the work, you gotta do your research on it and not just hearsay from Twitter. You have to be careful and thorough thought into these moments and let it happen organically. And bragging to audiences about how inclusive you are makes you look performative especially when you start canceling actual good shows with great diversity. Also if you want to empower certain groups then given them actual stories from a variety of genres where they are fleshed out and given a personality. If they just show up mention their sexuality, race, and/or gender in some way with nothing else about them as a character it comes across as pandering.

Middle: Diversity and good stories EXIST. The Owl House, Arcane, Carmen Sandiego 2019, The Old Guard, Disney's original Mulan, Black Panther, ATLA/TLOK, Never Have I Ever,Everything Everywhere All At Once, Power Rangers, Steven Universe, The Dragon Prince, Star Trek, Harley Quinn TV series, Into the Spiderverse, Craig of the Creek, Dead End Paranormal Park, Brooklyn 99, Love Simon/Love Victor, Amphibia, Captain Planet, Dreamwork's She-Ra, Fullmetal Alchemsist, Paper Girls, Moana, DuckTales 2017, etc. They aren't mutually exclusive.

To summarize: Good storytelling can have diverse casts, people from underrepresented groups should get original stories instead of rehashed movies/series, fans are free to critique artwork and can offer valid criticisms but there are some "fans" who will behind the term "woke" to hide how they genuinely don't like a story simply because of their own bigotry (and might be profiting off of outrage porn). Everyone's entitled to their opinion but no entitled to be bullying, mean-spirited assholes.

[biblioflyer]

I think one weird point is your analysis is when you cite other eras and cultures having jumbled mythology stories and then say humans are cheesy…. Perhaps humans are diverse and there has been and will be a minority(?) population who are not cheesy and who are tired of ALL that shit. If I were in Ancient Rome I would be bitterly complaining about the fake histories and lack of interest in the exact cut and dry truth and what it tells us instead of entertaining (and obscuring) fictions. Especially when those fictions were being taken as history by many and tended to teach specific ideologies that weren’t even been seen as being driven in by those story-vehicles. I have always hated and will always be tired of cheese. Don’t feel like it’s the position of a lesser mind who needs to change it’s just a different feeling.

This is a fair observation. I get the exhaustion with motifs and devices that feel contrived or played out. This was my experience of mid-2000s “edgy” works like Battlestar Galáctica or Heroes. These are definitely two shows that had me grinding my teeth by their third seasons because I felt like what I was given wasn’t what I signed up for. What I enjoyed at the beginning felt increasingly distant.

I’ve also been incredibly annoyed by certain aspects of how Disney Plus has handled action sequences featuring “minion” type enemies in Star Wars and the way that beskar seems to magnetically attract blaster bolts. It has often felt like a rail shooter on trivial difficulty spliced onto a mostly interesting plot.

So I get it. I wouldn’t be as interested in the weeds of world building if I didn’t think there was something rich to be gained from taking this stuff seriously. I keep referencing “The Drumhead” a lot because I think it really shows what Trek is capable of when it pushes itself. Yet that’s also not all Star Trek is. It mixes and matches itself with a lot of other genres and frequently the outcome is a very Whovian loose approach to continuity and a fair bit of mirth.

Part of looking at Trek as a sort of modern oral storytelling tradition is my own way of accepting the artificiality of it. Trek has been a very meaningful part of my life from my earliest memories and I’m not without some very strong opinions about what is and isn’t “good” Star Trek, they just happen to be more oriented towards themes and the setting’s moral assumptions than whether the fan service is over the top or there are obvious continuity errors or oversights. I recognize these things but I don’t experience them as particularly irksome. Usually.

While I love many properties that take themselves deadly seriously, The Expanse for instance, I just realize it’s only one storytelling style that Trek engages with. After spending many a year griping about canon on Spacebattles and Stardestroyer.net, I got to a place where I found no joy in the hot take. I still love a well crafted head canon to “fix” a blunder, but now I take a look at continuity violations and cheese and ask myself whether it serves a purpose or if there was a better, more consistent and less cringe way to go about things.

Having said that, if I’m not mistaken my next rewatch is what I consider to be the worst episode of Picard season one, maybe the whole series. So I have limits although I make it a point of pride to hold my opinions loosely. I want to reevaluate Picard because I suspect and have found much that appeals to the serious, contemplative fan in me that I think is tragically and frequently lost in the fandom civil wars.

But if I have failed to make it clear, I think Star Trek belongs to both the Memory Alpha contributors and the people who unironically like the Abrams films. I have no beef with serious fans who prefer the crunchy side of sci-fi as long as we can have a mutual understanding that this setting contains multitudes and there’s a very important line between rendering critique of an entertainment property and treating each other unkindly for liking different thing.

When I tease the archetype of the reactionary fan or the person who too literally wants it to be a documentary of the future, this is really directed at a type of person who is not reflective about their own preferences and feels the need to be abusive to other fans or otherwise tend to get rather hyperbolic beyond any sense of proportionality. If that doesn’t sound like you, then we are part of the same rowdy team.

[chewwytwee]

Just saw a post that was upset about queer representation in popular media because it's useless. It's useless because even though you can see very tolerant media that contains really explicit queer stuff, you can still find a lot of very blatant and often violent queerphobia. And it's just such bullshit to point out a very real thing, and then use it to just bash on queer representation which isn't at all responsible for producing the problem, NOR is queer representation unique in experiencing this problem. It's silly to level the same point at other forms of representation. Like the same cable providers that will sponsor Steven Universe and Craig of the Creek and many other shows who have very racially diverse casts, will also carry Fox News, which actively platforms people who advocate for violence against racial minorities, but that doesn't mean that the racial representation is useless because the issue isn't representations uselessness. The problem isn't representations failure to do anything, and it's solution shouldn't be critiquing the representation that all ready exists in an effort to paint it as pointless. The issue is that modern political spaces are tolerant of incredibly extreme far right beliefs. The same people who speak on Fox News created an entire culture of "fairness" and "neutral debate" where EVERY belief (including fascist ones) gets a seat at the table, and if you refuse to hear someone out you're SUPPRESSING them and you're the real problem. That culture is of course flawed, and those are valid critiques to level at it because that culture is the issue. The issue isn't the creative teams behind childrens media (and creative teams in many other spaces) who fight INCREDIBLY hard to get representation on-screen in front of thousands to millions of people being ineffective in eliminating violent bigotry in America (which probably wasn't even their goal in fighting for more representation in the first place), it's the illusion of fairness and tolerance created by intolerant people to let their intolerant beliefs exist in the public space. Like, yes, you are pointing out something real and terrible when you mention that people like Tucker Carlson and Ron Desantis and Josh Hawley and so many other Conservative politicians and speakers have the platforms they do despite how tolerant other areas of society are. I absolutely agree, It IS ridiculous that my college can fly queer flags all over the campus yet me and other students STILL get hate crimed for being queer, yes it IS ridiculous that despite how tolerant some people are and some things are, it feels as if things are getting worse in other areas. But that isn't something that should then lead to bashing on the efforts of people making things better. It's so frustrating seeing good things happen only for everyone to roll their eyes about how it hasn't ended bigotry yet even though it's "so good". Like sometimes things can just be a source of happiness and hope and it doesn't have to be the end of bigotry as we know it. It's good that there is queer rep on TV. It's good that, even though it took me until middle school to learn what a gay person was, my younger cousins in elementary know what a NONBINARY person is. Things are getting better, and the bigots (as well as their speech) who do still exist aren't the FAILURES of people trying to make things good better, but are intentional and systemic problems that require much more active solutions than getting marginalized people on TV. Representation can exist, AND we can can have conversations about how to deal with speech. They can co-exist.

[crazynerdandproud]

I don’t understand people saying that something they don’t like about the show is the fact that they spend so much time in the present with the rest of the team. Like, the rest of the team is great! I haven’t actually watched the og Quantum Leap because after like 5 minutes I decided I didn’t like the vibes and also the period typical sexism. After seeing how much people loved the original show though (and especially after learning that demons and stuff are like, a thing that is there in the og show) I think I’m going to start watching it during the midseason break. Also, just with how prevalent Sam Beckett and Al are to the underlying plot and stuff, along with the respect everyone has for them, I think I should give the show a try.

One of the things I love about the 2022 show is the diversity and the fact that there is actually some nice representation out there. I really like being able to see not just Ben and Addison, but the entire team working on figuring stuff out. Also, Ian Wright is easily my favorite character and I love them. Also, their autistic coding and the casual fact that they are poly is great. I don’t live in an arepa where you can really be poly without judgement and a lot of other stuff and this is just a casual fact about them, like the fact that their hair is blonde, and I love that. I mean, I know we don’t actually see Ian with a partner(s) or anything like that, but it has nothing to do with the plot really so I’m cool with it.

Also, Ian is the only one on the team thinking about the potential paradoxes? Like hello, listen to them please. And also don’t put some guy who has done nothing wrong under surveillance and start digging into his life just because he might do something in the future that could be bad. But no, it’s like there’s plenty of reasons why that maybe isn’t the best idea. Sorry, this got kind of rambly, I just really love Quantum Leap and Ben and the rest of the team. Like, my biggest critique is the angle some of the writers are trying to pull, pushing the agenda that you should forgive people who have been abusive or just really shitty to you in the past and give them a secondd chance, implying that the pressure to do that is on the child, not like the parent is the one who caused the problem in the first place.

However I do get the reason girl who was supposedly possessed said she forgave her mom and uncle. I mean, she obviously would need therapy even if that hadn’t happened and the environment she was raised in, the things she was taught to believe? She’s only 18 and forgiving them was really the only option she would’ve been able to reasonably consider. Also, it was clear that her forgiving her mother actually dealt more of a blow to her than if she hadn’t. Anywho, yeah, I’ve got lots of Thoughts™️ on that Halloween episode.

[kukuandkookie]

Ah, so I read your tags and to answer your concerns…

Don’t worry; it’s mostly just because it’s Chinese! ;w;

And what I mean by that is that while Chinese donghua have grown exponentially since 2018, doing quite well for themselves in a short amount of time (including releasing a lot of really good series and growing in quality), a lot of Chinese stuff just remains severely underrated in the west.

There’s a few factors for this. One of the big ones is access, since (for donghua at least), the big streaming sites are Bilibili and Tencent, and it’s hard for western fans to learn how to navigate these websites. Plus most of the official merch is on Taobao, the fandoms are on Weibo/Lofter and so on, which are just more things to add to “confusing Chinese sites fans have never heard of before.”

Fortunately, many of these sites do also upload the episodes officially to YouTube—even if sometimes it’s just temporarily while the seasons are airing—which helps the accessibility issue, especially when they come with English subs. Like for example, Bilibili has their own YouTube channel for their donghua (which is where God Troubles Me goes before Netflix), Tencent has its own official overall channel as well as a donghua one, and Youku and iQiyi also have their own. They’ve all since also made English versions of their streaming sites for international viewers!

But even with all these strides, for people who’ve never heard of donghua, it’s rare they’ll ever stumble across them. That’s actually why most donghua that take off in popularity internationally can also be found on western streaming sites, such as the surprising growth of God Troubles Me’s popularity. I’ve personally been a fan since its first season so seeing its recent addition to Netflix be such a good thing for it makes me happy. ^^

And hey, despite its flaws, at least Netflix doesn’t erase the Chinese origins of donghua as much as say, Crunchyroll does, where it likes to pretend donghua such as All Saints Street is just 100% Japanese.

Especially since the other major reason for donghua being pretty underrated is that…well, people just tend to not like Chinese stuff (or even China itself) very much.

It kind of sucks, but most people pick up a donghua and get disgruntled it’s not Japanese anime, and then anime dude-bros often whine that they dislike Mandarin or view the Chinese VAs as “not as professional/emotive as Japanese VAs.” That, or they’re just straight-up sinophobic, which is an unfortunate thing that’s becoming more and more normalized in today’s society considering political tensions. Like even when some of the criticism is valid, China commonly gets misunderstood in the west and it leads to a lot of people having a surface-level interpretation of the country and its media.

Like man, the number of times I’ve seen people watch a donghua and then go, “Wait, this was made in China? And they allowed this?” if the story features a critique of power structures OR “Wait, this was made in China? And it’s actually good?” if it’s just a well-written/well-animated yet underrated show… It’s enough to make you roll your eyes, honestly.

But that’s all getting into slightly salty territory, so I’ll sum it up by saying: you really don’t have to worry. God Troubles Me never actually derails as a series, and a big factor for it having a tiny fandom in the west is just because it’s Chinese, which makes a lot of people unaware of it or unaware of its quality!

And I’ll cap this off, as per usual, with my donghua (and manhua) recommendations list, since it’s set up to help people discover the exciting and diverse world of donghua~ 💖

currently watching hanhua riji/god troubles me and am absolutely floored by the lack of fan content. my god. ao3 is a cold and empty hell im begging for fics please i cant add another writing project onto my pile-

regardless. its a silly show. its fun. id say go watch it but i havent finished it yet so im withholding judgement but looks good so far

[malkaleh]

I do really really want a biracial actor to play Elrond one day but I also love what they are doing with Elrond and his biracial identity in the show thank you for coming to my TED post. Like, I absolutely want to see where that goes! I would love to discuss! @isagrimorie @nocompromise-noregrets

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. im sorry, yall cant tell me RS is some peak of writing when she can't even keep a tone consistent in a single episode. one second its a horrific sequence of violence and abuse for shock value, then the next second theyre making slapstick "jokes" and making goofy expressions. its good to have moments of comedy and lighter episodes to break up the tension, but those tonal whiplashes cant be forced together in nearly every episode. it just gives away rachel doesn't know what she's doing.

2. IDK why RS sounds so angry in her break post? Yeah it's very obvious it was Webtoons making her to do it but them finally showing some care for their creators to not burn out isn't a bad thing? I doubt the writing will improve or the art will go back to its former standard once it comes back, its too late for that now and her former style has been gone since 2019, but having a break isn't a bad idea. I know she isn't used to actually being told what to do by Webtoons is right in this scenario.

From OP: So, from another webtoon creator on twitter, the Remarried Empress creator went on break and only got like 1/10 of their income when they came back. Other webtoon creators were also saying that while on break, their income is basically non-existent. This might not be the reason RS wouldn’t want a break but this is a pretty understandable reason, especially since it’ll affect her livelihood.

3. I don't think an asexually budded kid would have hades lusting after them, i think it would be bad in the fact hades clearly only sees family through biological means. the bad dynamic would be in he wouldnt accept the child because theyre not what he wants because theyre not from him physically. if that wasnt the case he would have doted after young thanatos like a prince since he would be the child he never had, not mistreat and abuse him like how hades actually treated him as a literal child.

4. it should also be pointed out stuff like PJO and Hades game almost entirely get critiqued because they actually implement being diverse and inclusive and even (gasp) have main characters and relationship be BIPOC and LGBTQ+, so it's usually pissy white kids hating on them, meanwhile LO critics are the exact opposite in being overwhelming BIPOC queer women and people calling out its main gross, status quo protecting choices and regrssive ideals. i'm just saying their critiques are not the same.

5. LMAOOOO guys what if the "dread queen" persephone we see isnt actually her, but the asexuality budded heir she makes for hades? like RS just puts all P's negative traits in this kid (Melinoe maybe? she is the goddess of nightmares) and has her be the dread bringer while P gets to stay the uwu precious bean queen, and its just a fake out of her "daughter" being confused for her because theyre clones of each other. the panel stays canon w/o actually developing P. thats my fan theory now.

6. tbh if LO started out with the more simple style there would still be art critique but not to such a degree now. we saw how much effort it used to have, so to see such a stark decline since then opens it up way more to criticism for it, because we do know what it once was, and it seems both pure laziness and burn out has caused it to entirely go away. even rs' non lo art now is all in the more current rushed style, so its safe to say that old style is just not coming back, sorry to say :(

7. i feel like a lot of the stans dont get that a lot of frustration at LO is the fact its a very subpar product, especially now, made by an entitled white woman who constantly whines about "haters" who gets everything handed to her for her mediocre work (which is often the work of her underpaid team), meanwhile many more talented, hardworking, and diverse creators (like her own co-workers) who are making so much better products are left in the dirt. How is that not frustrating?

8. I feel like the anon who likes Thanatos and Minthe being likeable and the anon talking about Persephone never being able to stand up for herself/ never being punished go well together.

Minthe and Thanatos do face consequences for their actions. Hermes doing more souls behind Hades back made Thaantos look worse on paper and Hades chewed his ass out for it. Thanatos went to Helios and was burned. We even see Thanatos get nervous when Daphne talks about a Persephone. He’s aware of his actions and what may happen.

Minthe is also aware of her faults actions etc. after she slaps hades she says she needs to apologize, she knows what she did was wrong to Persephone when she sees it on the camera and freaks out. She even wonders why Persephone hasn’t ratted her out yet until it’s used as black mail. Minthe apologizes to hades right before she knows they’re gonna fight about the break up. She even sulks after her fight with Thetis but doesn’t blame anyone else but herself. I’m excluding when Hades fires her because Hades brought her as an employee first into his life girlfriend second and treated her as disposable and tried to smooth things over by just throwing money at her(I’ll pay for your schooling if you never try to bring up the fact I dumped you for a 19 year old, no hard feelings right?;)

But Persephone the worst she is aware is that she’s bad at her job that she doesn’t even do any more. Persephone is just a cloud in the sky not aware of her own actions but that’s fine since they have no consequences and if there’s almost consequences don’t worry hades will throw money at the problem.

I wouldn’t say Minthe and Thanatos are likeable because they face consequences but they’re more rounded out characters with flaws, power in their narrative, overcoming and hiding faults. 

9. Persephone telling Hades she will explain to him why torturing mortals is wrong and why Elysium is needed is basically "I can fix him" narration. Change my mind

10. That’s it too bc other than Hers and Persephone (which really isn’t a “mentor” relationship and has some rather gross things about it considering Hera only cares about her for Hades’ sake) there’s no genuinely good female relationships of any sort. Daphne and the nymphs are just said “to be like sisters” to Persephone but we see no actual proof of this. There’s no good mother and daughter relationships with Demeter, Métis, Leto, even Hera to her own children. The only decent mother relationship is towards Rhea and her SON Hades. Minthe and Thetis were horribly toxic with Thetis especially taking advantage of Minthe. Artemis and Persephone aren’t friends at all, Persephone is instead closer to a guy who had her kidnapped and basically forced her to admit she was SA’d to him! Hera only likes Echo because she’s ��one of the good ones” and it’s a gross repeat of HxP being a boss lusting after their worker, but it’s a #diversity win because it’s between two women? I suppose the only “ok” female relationship is Athena and Hestia, but that also comes with the fact they’re the only confirmed LGBTQ+ rep used to oppress the poor straight couple, are still hyper gendered in their designs, and from Rachel’s own mouth is deeply ace-phobic and a horrible depiction of actual gay relationships. For something claiming to be about women and female empowerment, it fails on every front to even show women as anything other than props for the mens’ consumption and benefit. 

[sockhatingsapphic]

my thoughts on buddie as "toxic shipping"

i recently read a post that discussed "toxic shipping" of mlm ships by straight women and their main/first example was buddie so i wanna talk about that. i won't be linking that post because i don't want people to hate on the op and clog their notes unnecessarily.

more thoughts and correct capitalization under the cut:

However, I do want to say that people often assume that the main shippers of mlm couples are cishet women and that is very often not true. I can't say this definitively, of course, and I've heard horror stories of middle-aged cishet white women who literally write mlm fanfiction but aren't cool with real life gay people (especially lesbians). However, as a (cis, white) lesbian I have many other queer friends who enjoy mlm fanfiction.

Okay, now more specifically with Buddie. I don't remember the exact points in this critique, but I'm going to try to focus on the ones I do remember. Hopefully, if that op finds this, they won't think I'm completely twisting their words. The first thing I want to say is that I don't know if the op has watched the show or just interacted with the fanbase. Either way, I have done both and want to add some insight.

Firstly, a big problem with non-canon mlm shipping is when fans hate on the real female love interests in the source material. Buddie fans definitely do this, but I want to give a bit of defense, centering three of the most important female love interests of both Buck and Eddie.

Abby Clark (Buck)

I don't have beef with Abby as a person or a character, but she very much hurt Buck and the way she left was a bit of an asshole move. I haven't seen a lot of criticism of her other than that and I think criticizing that is fair.

2. Ana Flores (Eddie)

Ana does get an unreasonable amount of hate, but it's still not that much from my POV? Most of what I've seen of Ana hate is just fanfiction where she is extremely OOC, and she doesn't show up enough on-screen for the audience to truly know her character. I think people mostly use her as a plot device, which is unfair but also kinda what happens to her in canon too. I also want to mention racism in connection with people hating Ana, as I am sure it (both consciously and unconsciously) affects how she is perceived, but as a white woman who has not done a lot of research I'm going to leave it there for other people to dig deeper into.

3. Taylor Kelly (Buck)

Oh Taylor Kelly. She is a much more active character than Ana, and even more than Abby simply because she's been in more seasons. Taylor has a very dynamic character on the show, and she gets a lot of that "canon female love interest of half of an mlm ship" hate. But also, Taylor Kelly fucking sucks! In canon, her and Buck have finally broken up, so I don't see a problem in saying that they were not right for each other, plus she did a bunch of really shitty stuff to the firehouse. She was literally introduced in an episode where she filmed the 118 while they were non-consensually drugged! And left after an episode where she made a promise to Buck about keeping their privacy and then immediately broke that promise for her job. Okay, I don't want to make this just a Taylor Kelly hate post, so that's all I'm gonna say about her. I understand that she has her own motivations and trauma but she's still done a lot of bad things and I am glad Buck broke up with her.

OKAY DONE WITH THAT

The other main point that the op had was that it's shitty to call a ship queerbaiting if there are already queer people/couples in the show, and representation of other diverse peoples (paraphrasing, please don't attack them). This is... kinda obviously not true? I mean, one of the best (worst for the audience) examples of queerbaiting is Sterek, which comes from a show with a Latin lead and at least a few queer side characters. Another good example is Supernatural, which does not have any main characters of color or queer characters (as far as I remember, and I'm not including Castiel because he was queer for like 5 seconds before dying), but has several POC and queer side characters, including some recurring characters like Charlie (and others, idk i don't watch spn sorry).

"But Zoe, those are different! 9-1-1 has main characters that are queer and POC!" This is true, but the importance of their queerness and/or race is rarely touched upon. Think about it: Hen and Karen get about 2 episodes per season that actually focuses on them and their relationship, and one of the first ones is literally Hen cheating. Not really fantastic representation. Also, like, queer people often flock together, so having more than one queer main character is not "unrealistic" or whatever the problem is.

Lastly, I want to talk about Buddie itself.

I don't really think it can be called full queerbaiting, because I think that has to go beyond the screen and include promotional footage (like Sterek) and cons (like Destiel), which I haven't seen any of. However, I am fairly new to the fandom, and only found out Oliver Stark is British like two months ago. So maybe there have been outside hints that could make Buddie queerbait if it doesn't become canon. Either way, there's definitely something there, and I don't appreciate the way outsiders have gaslit fandoms for several years into thinking they've just "put on shipping goggles" or something like that.

We all saw Eddie's entrance to the show, right? When "What A Man" starts playing as Buck slow-mo turns around to see Eddie half-naked? I don't think this ship is the end-all be-all of TV romance, but it's definitely got a lot of hints in there that were purposeful by the actors, directors, editors, and crew. If not queerbaiting, they have definitely participated in some queer-coding/romance-coding of this couple and we are not insane for noticing that.

ANYWAY

that's it, and I hope I didn't accidentally co-opt a discussion of a deeper topic, but I want other shippers (god I hate that word it sounds so juvenile) to know that we're not insane or seeing things no one else does.

thanks for reading and also all the fish!