#no bias in this opinion whatsoever. :)

[bastillia]

Need your thoughts on the Mando finale! The biggest plot twist for me honestly was Mando’s first name….apparently not being Din? Other than that the lack of a Boba cameo and face reveal broke my heart.

Yeah, I’d say that was probably the biggest plot twist for me too, mostly because there uh. wasn’t much else in the way of twists 😭 I guess “Din” is more like a title? Something that designates him as a foundling? Anyways yeah definitely a surprise there!

I’ll start with what I liked: the directing. Super visually interesting finale despite the lack of narrative substance, Rick Famuyiwa is goated. The aerial battle between the mandos and the troopers was by far my favorite part.

Everything else about the episode was mid at best and flat out bad at worst in my opinion. The dialogue felt stiff and unnatural as usual. My least favorite part was that Moff Gideon got completely shafted. Total fucking waste of a character. I mean HOW do you go from season 1 Gideon to THAT. Looney tunes ass villain. Combined with the lack of stakes throughout the season there was just no shot at me taking him seriously any more. He even had beskar power armor on and I was not afraid of his corny ass at all. This is no discredit to Giancarlo Esposito’s acting btw. It’s 100% the fault of lazy writing.

I honestly don’t have much to say about the rest of the episode. It was like the narrative equivalent of pushing rope. I guess I wasn’t necessarily disappointed per se by the lack of payoff at the end, bc there wasn’t much of anything to pay off. The villain made a villain speech and then “died” villainously. The heroes said hero things and then survived heroically. Little tension beats set up throughout the season never came back to haunt us. We got a feel good moment with Mando and Groguito at the end. There was a Dave Filoni cameo. We did it. We won the Star War. All is well

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Fanon gripe: it always bothers me when people have Emmet lose to the protag when he's using his own pokemon. Dude is a professional battle facility head with undoubtedly very high level pokemon when they're not being forced to be level 50 for the subway. The protag is a kid with way less battle experience and their pokemon are definitely leveled well below his. Even if you go with the theory that they're the gen 4 protag with all their memories, beating one megalomaniac, his goons, and the championship isn't anywhere near the same experience level. He shouldn't be losing that kind of match up, especially not so soundly. And he definitely shouldn't be losing to Volo of all people, which I've also seen a number of times. Do you know how hard he is to beat even when your pokemon are the exact same level as his? Very hard! Especially if you go in blind as to what pokemon he has, what moves they know, and how he tends to use them. Yeah, you can beat him on the subway, especially if you have good type match ups, but if your level 70 pokemon are going against his maxed EV trained level 90-100 pokemon, there's just no contest. He kicks major ass, and I just think people should let him.

YES! GOD! YES! spoken like someone who's actually done the battle subway, anon, lmao. you have no idea how happy it made me to see this in my inbox. my brand. my life's mission.

protagonists tend to have plot armor when it comes to battles but like. cmon. he's been doing this almost every day, for hours a day, against people who'd already run the gauntlet of the preceding subway battles, for years. he lives and breathes this shit. if he's doing a battle just to test someone's abilities that's one thing, there i could see the argument for him playing down a bit, but if it's a serious fight? there's almost nobody alive who could beat him. certainly not volo who by his own admission isn't in sync with most of his team.

it's part of a broader thing that grates on me and why i pass on most fics these days bc they just. won't let him be competent, period. or a responsible adult but that's a bigger gripe, lol

cowards. COWARDS, I SAY. LET HIM KICK ASS.

[willthespy]

SHORT SOLANGELO ANALYSIS FROM MY NOTES APP

(except it’s mostly in response to fandom)

Honestly, I’ve heard some reasons why people hate Solangelo. And don’t get me wrong; I don’t care that you don’t like a ship, but some of you are ignorant (and biased) and trying to find reasons to hate it.

One i’ve seen is that «they have no shared interests» etc, etc. Since when was that an issue? It wasn’t an issue with any other ship, so why is that an issue with the one canon/main mlm ship we have. And even if that wasn’t said with homophobic intentions, which it definitely doesn’t have to be, it still is odd that it is fine with your ship to have them not share common interests, but when it’s the ‘same case’ with Solangelo or some other canon ship it’s not?

Besides, nobody said they didn’t have any shared interests and nobody said they need to have shared interests. «Nico doesn’t like Star Wars. He hated it.» Oh, sweet gods. He watched all those movies for a reason, first of all. You’re saying he doesn’t like Will even after doing all that??? You’re using that as reasoning??? And even if he didn’t like it at all (gods forbid someone has an opinion not based around/biased by their relationship) that is okay. Especially for neurodivergent people I’ll say that it is okay to be in relationships and still have different interests than your significant other. Same interests ≠ madly in love whatsoever.

In fact, from a sociological/psychological/WHATEVER perspective, a lot of neurodivergent people tend to prefer it if someone doesn’t have the same interests. Yes, this depends per person, but that’s something I’ve noticed happens a lot.

The «they hate each other» argument is used, referring to their banter, and I love (read: hate) how those same people still like Percabeth. Like, okay, now give me the real reasons you don’t like it, without grasping for fake ones that don’t actually match up with your idea of a relationship. The bias is biasing.

I think the most important part of Solangelo is the fact that they can let their guards down around one another. They always have those walls up around others - though in different ways - and they don’t always have to be like that in front of each other. They’re also there to protect and care for the other, much unlike the fanon idea where Will often only cares for Nico. They aren’t there to fix one another, they’re there for each other.

Note that they still both have some walls up in TSATS! That doesn’t make their relationship any less real, but I think that is also very much to be expected from characters who have actively had to deal with trauma. And even then, even without knowing everything, they still care and are there for each other, no matter how frustrating it may be to be out of the know.

They’re also not «complete opposites». In TSATS we literally read that they have more similarities than meets the eye (which can be read as the light-darkness symbolism.) They balance each other out and they’re ALLOWED to argue. Did you guys know that? It’s important to me that you know that.

Did you know characters/people can argue and then solve the situation/argument using healthy communication? Shocking, I know.

I do think the start of Solangelo wasn’t smoothly written whatsoever. Will was kind of used as a puppet and obviously put there ‘for Nico.’ Do I think Will should get more character separate from his relationship/his father? Yes. Do I think he has no character at all? No. But also… It’s a children’s book. You can’t expect the best written character in history from a book written for middle schoolers.

They wouldn’t be the first canon ship with a bad start, so I’m not too fed up about that. If I would ask for anything, I’d like a book/short story about Will as a character (his backstory/just anything) or just a story in which they grow more in their relationship and as separate characters (though not broken up).

My point mostly is this; if you really don’t like it, you don’t have to interact or read or do anything, really. (Yay!) Don’t use the Solangelo tag for your hatred. Especially not if it’s an unproblematic ship.

[engelgabriel]

RANT i’ve been thinking about

ZD is such a thought provoking and self reflecting film and it sucks that most people view it from only one perspective or preconceived bias of what is taboo / “morally incorrect” in media. it has significantly larger meaning than just the “school shooter” movie. it’s hypocritical of people who are interested in, for example, slashers to criticize a fictional movie and or it fans because of the content material. lots of people find comfort or interest probably because of the deeper messages and emotions behind it, and relating to cal or andre because of (in my opinion) well representation of REALISTIC mental illness instead of “socially correct” mental illness isn’t bad. self-destructive and harmful behavior, even though it is negative, is unfortunately a major part of struggling with mental illness. OBVIOUSLY what they did is wrong; in no way does the movie try to make them out to be guilt free and their mental illness is not an excuse. however i dont think its crazy whatsoever for people to enjoy it because a significantly large amount of people in this fanbase are mentally unstable (no offense guys…) and i don’t think anyone should be painted as a bad person because you vent or even just cope with violent/dark media instead of harming yourself and or others irl. “art is meant to comfort the disturbed 🤓” OR WHATEVER.. putting emotion towards fiction in general helps me personally and methinks it is a great movie besides its cinematography and whateva… ok DONE

[monamoeighth]

A list of social/psychological "tricks" I have used to ease myself into new experiences and relationships

A short one!

Compliment people behind their back. It helps to avoid conflict and be well-liked.

Listen to people how they want you to listen. It strengthens the bond and eases people into honesty. If you feel that a person is more comfortable when you don't input advice or opinions into their venting, then simply do not do it unless you are prompted! If it's the complete opposite, then act accordingly! Everyone loves a good listener, and they will be more willing to listen to you too if you are one.

Shove yourself into the mood you want. It is not hard and quite obvious, but most overlook this skill because they forget they are in control of their own brain. We associate emotions and states of mind with what I call mood-prompts, such as certain objects, colors, musics, tastes, textures, etc. --- so simply look out for those mood-prompts! E.g., f you'd love to feel cozy the evening after a tiring and angering day, then walk yourself out of your exhaustion and anger by interacting with everything you associate with coziness: warm baths, cleaned hair, hot drinks, soft blankets... really, stop overlooking the connection between your feelings and your senses!

Compliment others for the traits you want from them and they will exhibit them more. Self-fulfilling prophecies are no joke! Be consistent with it throughout interactions, but never pushy, or the spell might break. And, if you were wondering, yes: this works when you do it on yourself too.

Know that you have an impact bias that leads you to self-handicap, and know how to act against it. You are prone to believe that the impact and duration of your future emotions will be greater than they will actually be, so you keep yourself in dire situations (isolation, procrastination, self-deprecation that leads to poor performances, etc.) that do not benefit your future self whatsoever. Additionally, you know you'll use those dire situations to justify your failure, and so the cycle continues. Just trust yourself, your learning skills, and your coping mechanisms!

[thegreatyin]

Elaborate on your beef with Typhon

it is Extremely Petty and Extremely Personal

tldr, it's a combination of a bunch of factors:

i do not enjoy what ive seen of her kit and think it's actively boring. we do not need a 27th bosskiller. we peaked with ebenholz. we can be more creative than that. why does she need to deal so much damage and track things across the map. who let her do that

i do not enjoy her design, like, from a personal standpoint. this is just extremely messy and cluttered and bad and does not feel at all like an arknights character. this feels like if you described how ak characters dressed to a blind man and told him to go off designing one. why are her thighs out. why does she have a giant incomprehensible bow. why do her horns look like headbands instead of actual horns which exist in this world completely normally and without issue. she's just a visual mess and i cannot tell apart any part of her aside from blurring together in my mind as visual garbage. she feels like she's trying too hard to appeal to a crowd i am very much neither a part of nor member of

especially extremely pettily: i do not like lm7's arknights stuff in general. they're clearly very talented and this isn't meant to be a jab at them as a person but i really don't think they make any of their operators work. they all have the exact same moe blushing squinted face and it's both extremely jarring and extremely hard to take seriously. why is ceobe giving me bedroom eyes when she's basically an escaped looney toons character. i, personally, Do Not Enjoy It and it's an entirely subjective opinion that stops me from liking typhon even more than i already kinda didn't

arguably equally as petty, i don't like that she's basically the star of is4 in the same vein as phantom and mizuki are for their own modes? there's tons of already existing characters you could make a sami arc around. mallagan is literally right there. why do we have to get a new purple girl just for this when there's tons of operators with stories just waiting to be expanded on. im expecting some kind of explanation for this in her event when it hits global but for now it's just really bothersome to me

finally, most petty of all: her skin fucking sucks im sorry

this is mid as hell. worse than mid. this just sucks. this is the exact same visual noise i feel when i look at her base art but in full force. it's bad and very samey palette-wise when you compare it to her og form and i don't like it and i already don't like typhon so that bias certainly doesn't help. i don't like a perfectly good opportunity for mallagan to get some much-needed love with an l2d upset by some big breasted purple girl who released like yesterday comparative to is4 going live

TLDR; i think typhon is badly designed and boring and i do not like her or her weirdly emphasized tits and moe eyes. that's not to say either are strictly bad, they just do not appeal to me whatsoever and i will be skipping her banner unless her event story COMPLETELY wows me with her lore

[kobitoshiningneedle]

My fandom hot take is: Ace Attorney has legal corruption as a theme and no idea what it's doing with it. It starts as a pretty straightforward "the legal system is unfair and slated towards the defence, prosecutors care about nothing but guilty verdicts and routinely forge evidence, you are the underdog attorney performing miracles" before retconning that the two major prosecutors implied to have forged evidence didn't do it on purpose after all, instead pinning it on higher officials, which at once widens the scope of the universe and makes the corruption run much deeper, but also somewhat "exonerates" the prosecutors of their more blatant wrongdoings (although not of all of them). And then after that, it makes two defence attorneys, including our heroes, into forgers, which itself is never retconned. And then there's this whole impersonating officers thing and it just goes completely sideways. It makes no sense. It's fascinating.

A really interesting question! The thematic inconsistency in Ace Attorney is really palpable, despite having some of the most comprehensive stories, so I'm with you on this one

Strongly agree | Agree | Neutral | Disagree | Strongly disagree

There are many, many Doylist reasons as to why the theme of corruption gets thrown from one side to the other, but saying that "Well yeah DD is kinda shit without nuance because it wasn't written by Takumi" would be a low-hanging fruit in terms of criticism. So I will try to compile my scattered thoughts about this topic here with another approach.

Seems like as a series Ace Attorney has this "protagonist biased" fault. We are rooting for Phoenix when he tricks Furio Tigre with the bottle. And we are supposed to be mad at Edgeworth for coaching Bellboy to deliberately misinform the court. And considering that, we can't even say that the series tried to imply the "defense attorney always good, prosecutor always bad" type of mindset - despite being first and foremost a game with a necessary element of satisfaction of defeating a malicious foe - because in the very first game there's Robert Hammond. And some time later we see Klavier Gavin. Apollo was a protagonist, so presenting the bloody ace was never called out. Meanwhile Edgeworth has entire drama around him handling SL-9. So that's why in my opinion this is exactly protagonist bias, when you win a game against Edgeworth and prove that this pink suit indeed tried to coach Bellboy to give a false testimony you get a portion of serotonin. The same serotonin runs through your brain when this sleazy new lawyer character gets caught.

But when you think about the grander scope, the things start getting sketchy.

In my opinion, it all can boil down to one sentiment, that again stems from the essence of this series - it's a game, and a story with black-while morals (yes, even games like Apollo Justice are pretty clear cut about who's in the right and who is not in my opinion). So it's a given that the protagonist will do things for the good of others. And the antagonists (which are often the prosecutors) will hinder that objective. So it's much more understandable that Phoenix will use tricks when he was trying to corner a loan shark who manipulated many people, or when he tried to bring the man who ruined his career and lives of others to justice. And with Edgeworth in SL-9 and Manfred in IS-7 is more like a flashback material, a foundation that have its story being built upon. SL-9 was a past case that doesn't quite have this urgency of saving a friend. And Manfred tried to put an innocent man in the jail anyway. I don't really like both of these (in my opinion) retcons, because they make the things unnecessarily complicated and REALLY rob Miles and Mandfred from their agency in some capacity whatsoever - but your writeup makes me think that my distaste could be precisely because these plot points have some serious implications which makes the inherent story structure of AA to bite more than it could chew. Anyway "you can use some tricks if it's helping people" is a pretty concise message that may encapsulate this conundrum...

...which is understandable in a game and a heroic, but an utter rubbish if we detach ourselves from the protagonists' POV. Like, even Edgeworth was truly believing he's doing the right thing in his early career. Besides even the "helping other people" part is fluctuating between different representatives of one profession. Phoenix is called out by Edgeworth in 2-4 becuse defense attorneys aren't heroes and they just make sure everyone is tried fairly. But only 4 games later we got a character who represents this message - Raymond Shie Eddie Fender. I probably derailed your ask beyong possible, but this too, is an argument of how inconsistent the series in its priorities.

I hope there is at least one comprehensive thought about this matter, because this issue is something that could be explored and discussed from very different perspectives... And here I mused about how and why these inconsistencies work, but all in all, I agree that there's no clear-cut stance in the series about what is corrupt and what is not even within one writer team's works

[sophieinwonderland]

Greetings Sophie!

Now, prefacing this: this is not to hate or whatever, just wanna have a true same level discussion for interest.

But I don't think tulpas and non-traumagenic systems are the same as traumagenic systems. What I mean by this is: When I did my research, DID and OSDD was described as when contant stress and trauma happens to young children and barriers in the midn are created, separating areas of the brain, wich individually develop into different personalities. So it's not something that you can do on will.

Now, it also says that for it to be the mental disorder it cannot have a religious or social context, it has to cause some distress to the people, and is not something counciouss.

So therefore Tulpamancy and non-traumagenic are not DID and OSDD. BUT, I do believe it may be something else, another sort of plurality that is not well researched maybe? Possiblly they are influenced by other things.

Tho, I admit, as far as I believe some tulpas and endos, I have a hard time believing all of them, this is more a personal bias.

Also, I think the DID OSDD comunity, and the tulpa endo comunity, should be separate, as one is a community for trauma survivors and such, and the other is a social/cultural/religious thing (as far as I understood).

Just wanted to share my ideias and opnions, and tought this may be a good place to havr someone to argument with me, the only eay to understand is to talk to someone from the other side, yeah?

^^

— love, ♤

I think you need to define what you mean when you say you think the communities need to be separate?

Do you mean that you want there to be subcommunities that are exclusively for CDD systems, and others that are exclusively for non-CDD systems. Because as that goes, so do I! And this already exists!

There are CDD spaces that are exclusive to CDD systems. And then there are tulpa spaces that are for tulpa systems. I believe there are also still Daemonism servers as well, though I'm not certain on that.

If that's all you mean, then congrats! This is already true, has been for a long time, and nobody wants to change it. I have no interest in going into CDD communities myself, and I don't think other non-CDD systems do either! This is a non-issue.

But if you mean that you want a complete separation, as in there should be no mixed/inclusive communities whatsoever, that's obviously not going to happen. It's not even a realistic goal you could ever make headway on. I mean, many of the largest names in the inclusive community are traumagenic DID systems. The coiners of the term endogenic are a diagnosed traumagenic DID system. The founders of The Plural Association are another traumagenic DID system.

The inclusive community is, regardless of origins, bound together by shared common interests and goals for plurals of all kinds.

An Issue of Mixed Origin Systems

Overall, while I don't think non-CDD systems should be in CDD-exclusive spaces, there is another wrinkle I need to talk about, which is how there are a number of mixed origin systems who fall between worlds, including many diagnosed with these disorders.

As it stands now, due to anti-endos in CDD spaces, mixed origin systems aren't welcome in spaces that should help people with their disorder.

This is a huge travesty, and I firmly believe that these spaces need to be restructured to support mixed origin CDD systems.

In my opinion, running a space for trauma survivors and people with mental disorders, but then denying access to those space to people with those disorders and trauma just because they might also have tulpas or spiritual headmates, or were plural before their trauma, is nothing short of pure evil.

And in the case of spiritual systems, is a clear example of religious discrimination.

Below the cut are corrections that are beside the point by still important.

Pedantry on diagnoses

Overall, you're right about the requirements for a disorder and this is irrelevant to the main point, but given how misinformation spreads, I wanted to add a couple corrections.

DID can involve spiritual/religious contexts: This is covered in the DSM-5, where it lays out situations where possession may be an example of DID. DID cannot be a NORMAL part of a cultural or religious practice. In other words, if it's normal to be possessed within specific rituals but not outside of them in a certain culture, and a spiritual medium suddenly starts finding themselves being possessed in ways that are outside of their control and distressing, then this can be diagnosed as a disorder.

DID requires distress OR impairment: In the DSM, the criteria requires distress or impairment in important areas of functioning, not just distress. Someone may not be distressed by their disorder, but can still be impaired by it. Someone can also be distressed by a disorder, but not impaired. While these will often happen together, either is cause for diagnosis. Additionally, in the ICD-11, only impairment is taken into account.

[libertineangel]

i've been thinking a lot abt this idea online that punk and goth are mainly about leftist political beliefs.

The main arguments are punk has always been politically left & all punk scenes have leftist politics. I think (and it looks like u agree that) these are bad arguments due to the fact that it's ahistorical to suggest punk has always been politically left and it doesn't reflect a lot of scenes politics although i wish it did

I would be interested to hear your opinion on 'punk is about political belief' and if you think being a leftist is a necessary condition to being punk. Have you heard any better arguments for it? Do you also think this emphasis online on political belief is a good way of gatekeeping scenes or do you think it makes ppl who are online naïve to how safe punk scenes actually are?

I think that your initial assessment is right and that it's a load of bollocks haha, it's a thoroughly rose-tinted idealistic view of subculture that's not only ahistorical but actively detrimental to attempts to examine and challenge the unsavoury elements of the scene, we don't learn anything and don't actually put up a real fight if we just decide to No True Scotsman away all the shit we don't like.

I can, to an extent, understand how this view came about - for one, these are music-based subcultures but with venues closing all over, the music industry being extremely unwilling to give anything outside the mainstream a chance and the death of alternative music magazines it's harder to actually find & get involved in the scene compared to, say, the days of John Peel, so these people's experience of the subculture is largely online, with all the sample bias that comes with who's likely to also be in that online space. There's also a plain wishful thinking element which I can find sympathy for, subculture is in general for those who don't fit in and want to feel comfortable in a community of fellow outcasts, so of course the frustrated leftist teenagers are gonna want their newfound social home to feel like they've always belonged there and be reticent to acknowledge that it really is not and never has been as good & pleasant as they want to believe.

Understandable as I do find this disposition though, as mentioned it is indeed wrong. Political belief is by no means a prerequisite to being punk, the entire reason Nazi Punks Fuck Off was written is because the Nazi Punks in question really are punks, it is a music-based subculture above all else and plenty of the music has no political content whatsoever, the online conception of punk as an outspoken leftist DIY scene in entirety speaks to the Anglophone internet's USAmerican cultural hegemony because it conflates the entire subculture with the 80s Epitaph & Dischord scenes specifically. As to whether the idea is helpful, yeah I'm inclined to think not for exactly the reason you've given, it might be good for keeping the online spaces well-moderated (provided people can pick up on dogwhistles, which considering many of these people are white USAmerican left social democrats I wouldn't bet on) but if any of these kids actually go to any gigs, especially of any classic bands, they could well be in for a very unpleasant awakening when they find out there's people who've been punks for longer than they've been alive and think the scene's their last bastion against political correctness and gender nonsense.

[randomthefox]

The ironic thing about the Archie Adventure adaptation is that its one of the few times they actually HAD to play the game! Sega mandated that the comic actually be an advertisement again, but then didn't actually provide anything for Penders and Bollers to work off of. They were only able to do as much as they did thanks to Spaz, who had already decided to import the game, played through it while taking notes, and rough translated the script before sharing it with the team. This led to improv issues like Tikal having a different design at first, the Black Emerald, Station Square being a hidden city, the Felidae, Gamma not dying, and the servers being seven Chao, but hey, at least they did what they could to represent the story of the game.

It's so funny to me whenever people bring this up as a way of trying to criticize SEGA. "omg they expected Archie to adapt the games, but didn't even provide them with a free copy of the game for free!"

Like wow, yeah, they expected the comic titled Sonic The Hedgehog to actually resemble the video game Sonic The Hedgehog? That thing they were probably assuming the comic was already doing the entire time anyway?

I mean if I was SEGA, I would have figured that the creators behind the comic were ALREADY buying and playing the games? Because they're making a fucking Sonic comic? So when I ask them directly to do that for Sonic Adventure, my thinking would be that I'm asking them to do something that they were already going to do anyway, but just coordinate with the official marketing release schedule in the process.

But when talking about Archie people always bring that up as if it's some kind of unreasonable unfair oppressive demand from SEGA. And all that does from where I'm sitting is expose their bias aka they hate the video games and hate SEGA and are shameless mindless Archie Snapes who's opinion has absolutely no fucking merit whatsoever.

It's also a completely ridiculous story because they could have just said no. Like, what was SEGA gonna do? Cancel the licensing agreement? Nothing was stopping them from just not doing it. Why are they acting like SEGA had a gun to Ken Penders underage lover's head threatening to pull the trigger unless they did the comic storyline?

It's just so funny to me because every time people bring up that incredibly bias anecdote as a transparent attempt to slander SEGA/Sonic Team and rustle up sympathy for the poor widdle Archie writers, my reacting is always "wow, the writers of Archie were a bunch of fucking douchebags." Like I'm sorry but how do you hear that story and come away from it NOT thinking that the Archie comic writers aren't a bunch of spoiled fucking brats?

News flash dickheads, SONIC DOESN'T FUCKING BELONG TO YOU. This comic exists AT ALL by the good grace of the people who ACTUALLY OWN the property you're writing for. The fact that said owners were hoping for a bit of cross media promotional marketing for their flagship game for their brand new hardware that they sunk a LOT of money into (look up that story about the SEGA executive who basically killed himself to get the Dreamcast out the door if you want to cry) is PRETTY FUCKING REASONABLE from where I'm sitting especially considering THAT'S WHAT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING WITH THIS STUPID FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT COMIC IN THE GOD DAMN FIRST PLACE!

Holy FUCK I fucking hate Archie Sonic and I hate everyone who fucking likes that piece of shit comic even more.

[can-of-w0rmz]

idk about you but I love getting my opinions on one of the titans of English literature from a barely post-pubescent 20-something child on tumblr, a website famous for having users with great reading comprehension, critical thinking and no impulse whatsoever to fall into purity culture nonsense at the drop of a hat. I also love the English courts of law, and anti-sodomy laws, and I immediately and uncritically trust them when they accuse a gay man of being a pedophile. There is nothing wrong, childish or immature about this and I don't need to grow up

PURITY CULTURE??? PURITY CULTURE?????? Oh my bad folks I didn’t realise grooming 16 year old boys as a 30-something year old man was just rebelling against purity culture. And for your information, I’ve done plenty of research into anti-sodomy laws at the time of Wilde’s trials, and I’ve also read multiple sources of shorthand translations of the proceedings of the trials themselves, and anyone with two brain cells could tell that the way Wilde spoke wasn’t the way an innocent man would speak, and the evidence compiled against him was overwhelming, regardless of any bias the court may have had. True, the bias in question is fair to bring up and discuss, but it doesn’t negate his extremely likely guilt. It’s extremely unlikely that the man was innocent, from the evidence itself to Wilde’s tone during his “defence”.

Some sources:

The Trial of Oscar Wilde: From the Shorthand Reports (1906)

“In 1895, the playwright and wit Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was prosecuted for 'acts of gross indecency' with other men. Parts of his trial were covered in newspapers of the day, but because of British censorship laws, this fuller account was not published in English until 1906.”

–The British Library official website (bl.uk)

famous-trials.com, compiled by Professor Douglas O’Linder from UMKC School of Law, mostly aligning with the shorthand translations of the testimonies from the prior source referenced yet with a few details not included in the 1906 publication to my knowledge.

https://www.famous-trials.com/wilde/327-home

Of course, everything has drawbacks, everything has a grain of salt, not everything is fullproof, there’s room for argument everywhere and of course the two sources I linked there aren’t fully enough for a big picture, and context of the time, surrounding impact, further accounts etc should all be looked into — however, in weighing up the evidence and legitimacy of sources and conflating information on all sides, personally I’m ridiculously extremely confident that Wilde was guilty, and I think the fact that this isn’t really widespread historical information is ridiculous.

You’re right, you shouldn’t take things you see on Tumblr as full proof undisputed fact. You’re right, Tumblr is a hellhole a lot of the time for misinformation and bad literary comprehension and analysis. But that doesn’t mean anything you see anywhere is objectively wrong, and you should do a small molecule of proper research and critical thinking from seeing those posts before spouting bullshit.

And for your information, I’m both queer and Irish myself and shockingly the fact that one of the major idealised queer figures for my country is a rich 19th-century-Narcissus pedophile creep, and nobody says jack shit about it, makes me pretty fucking pissed! Surprisingly!

“Purity culture” catch yourself on lad what in the fresh fuck are you on about. I’m in the age range for the wee boys Wilde fucked, surprisingly if I heard one of my friends was meeting with and having sex with some rich fuck old enough to be their da I’d be pretty fucking concerned I’d be calling cps bro 💀🙏

[morlock-holmes]

One last thought on White Fragility:

DiAngelo does something which is endemic in left-wing circles these days, which is to conflate various different kinds of racism. Here are some different types that she brings up:

Interpersonal malice, e.g. someone on the street calls you by a racial slur;

Interpersonal malice backed up by institutional authority e.g. when the cop arresting you calls you by a racial slur;

Unintentional racism, e.g. you feel like you tend to cross talk with everyone but your black coworker feels like you are constantly interrupting them;

Systemic racism, e.g. all of your grandparents lived in segregation and mine were WASPs, which effected our parents economic opportunities and in turn our own. Or you grew up on a reservation and your home didn't have electricity or running water, stuff like that.

In practice, though she never really directly admits this, DiAngelo deals pretty much entirely with point three, unintentional racism. Points one and two are not best dealt with by diversity consultants; obviously the perpetrators aren't likely to listen and also that stuff is illegal in an employment or government context, so presumably if DiAngelo finds out she brings in Johnny Law to restore order, as is good and proper.

As much as she brings up systemic racism, her overt belief is that it will sort of... take care of itself once we all have the right attitude towards unconscious interpersonal racism.

What she does do is use the emotional reactions towards other kinds of racism to justify a certain emotional response to unconscious interpersonal racism.

So like she has this really embarrassing section in White Fragility on "White women's tears" and the way that the emotionality of white women was used to rile up lynch mobs to kill men like Emmit Till.

But like, come on, the fact that Sherri from accounting got a little too emotional about George Floyd is not an indication that she's going to bring in a lynch mob after her own coworkers.

I found myself thinking the same thing she overtly says about her white diversity trainees: you should realize that this is not an indication of danger.

A lot of this stuff is just irritating. I'm not discounting irritation; it should be dealt with. But if your white coworker crying a bunch about a tragic death seems to portend a lynch mob, that's not realistic. Or if it is realistic, you don't need to complain about the tears, you have way bigger fish to fry.

And this led me to the thought that, if I understand what DiAngelo does (Honestly she doesn't explain it very clearly) she's operating in a context where she's mostly talking to employees, *all* of whom, regardless of race, are actually facing the exact same dangers.

Whether you are a minority worker trying to call out what you feel is (possibly unconscious) bias, or a white worker defending a statement or behavior that is being called biased, or just literally anybody trying to express a genuine, honest opinion on race, you face the following dangers:

Being seen as a trouble-maker in a way that stalls your career;

Being fired (Thanks at-will employment!);

Being fired AND blacklisted;

Having other participants out you on social media in a way that pressures your business to do any of the things above;

I see no reason whatsoever to think that these dangers are, in terms of the country as a whole, more likely to fall on one race than another. I think an individual job might push them more onto people of one race or another but it might not even be clear to employees of a given company what the line is and who is more at risk.

More importantly: There aren't really any good defenses against these dangers, except two:

Be so well connected and valuable to the company that they are inclined to cover for you;

Or two,

Keep your head down, engage as little as possible, don't rock the boat.

And say... DiAngelo sure runs into a lot of people who aren't excited to engage with her.

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

Do you think the books could have had a Nikolina endgame ?

I don’t think it was possible in the sense that it was ever actually in the cards as a canon endgame. I feel pretty strongly that LB was decided on Malina from book one. And she’s said before that Nikolai was initially supposed to die in S&S, so he was only conceived of as a side character. Which makes it unlikely, in my opinion, that she ever sincerely considered him being elevated to an endgame love interest.

That being said, I think narratively, with all the existing scenes in the books, that it would have been really easy to have them be endgame. I say this obviously with some bias because while I heavily multiship, Nikolina is my favorite Alina ship. It is endgame in my heart and uh… in the show right now I guess! And while, of course, it is an entirely different ship and dynamic, the KoS duology, centering a Zoyalai endgame, with Zoya kind of awkwardly jammed into an Alina-esque role of grumpy rags to riches protagonist with suddenly discovered unique powers that have her lauded as a saint, does point to that being a solid conceptual trajectory?

Anyway yeah while I ship a lot of things, I don’t necessarily think they’re all narratively suited to being an endgame ship without major reworking of what canon is about. But I honestly think Nikolina would’ve been an improvement. Because on the one hand, the biggest issue with the R&R ending is Alina ending up exactly where she started, feeling like she’s being punished for attempting any growth at all. On the other, if the two major love interests represent “rule monstrously, give into power” vs “don’t rule at all, abandon everything and regress to the safe cage of your childhood” then Nikolai represents a good middle ground of “rule, but try your best; see what happens”

I like the way it would answer the question of the inherent corruptive quality of power, and the Darkling’s insistence that Alina will turn out just like him, almost with a question? Like Alina and Nikolai both have morally ambiguous sides, in the trilogy they’re both a little frightened by what they might be capable of in the name of the greater good.

The canon ending solves this by basically… removing the opportunity for corruption. This is true of Alina losing her powers and retreating to her childhood home, and honestly kind of true in KoS for Nikolai too where, firstly he seems to have completely lost any moral ambiguity whatsoever, but then he also abdicates the throne. And I don’t know I find that somewhat simplistic and boring! I enjoy the idealistic and hopeful but somewhat uneasy resolution of them both remaining in power, having decided to change things in Ravka for the better, and to maintain their morality basically through deliberate effort and compassion— with no firm guarantee that they will be successful on any of those counts.

I also just really enjoyed how they connected over shared trauma, and how they always got along and were fairly kind to each other? So an ending that focuses on them picking up the pieces together and being fairly uncertain about the future but willing to try their best, would’ve been very poignant and sweet to me!

[leam1983]

On Weirdo Opinions

Referencing @spider-xan's post:

"Oscar Wilde did not invent gay literature, and neither did fucking Bram Stoker, and Dorian Gray is not the blueprint for all queer media ever, and Carmilla is not one of the oldest queer texts in the world and literary history, I think the gothic lit fandom is just insanely racist and Eurocentric and thinks only Victorian literature by white men is important or exists."

Huh. Color me surprised. I grew up being told that the Romantic movement and its tangents like early Gothic horror or the rise of Dandy culture were parts of the modern era's codification of queer identity, but certainly not that they made a monolith. Telling me other cultures and other gender identities have their own roots for their approach to queer culture is one of those affirmations that makes me say "Well, duh - welcome to Anthropology 101".

Gothic Lit, in my experience, has a fandom that's comprised either of young readers or of people that have a strong bias towards the aesthetic tenets of the same time period - especially in the West. I wouldn't describe them as racist, so much as very narrow in their focus of what is and isn't Gothic Lit - which is typical of any fandom, really. If all that comes to mind is Matthew Gregory Lewis' The Monk, you'll forget Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho - and as I've seen in some cases, that Radcliffe was, in fact, Anne Radcliffe.

Being part of any culture whatsoever means having blinders on, being choosy on some level. Reducing that to racism is a dangerous shortcut. Ignorance can be patched up, and then you realize that what looked like racism actually was just a lack of proper exposure. Actual racism looks at any value-added proposition in this respect and goes "Nope, I don't need to re-evaluate my worldviews in light of the new data I've been offered".

[lil-oreo-crumbles]

Hey, got any thoughts about Seth?

Oh, do I ever!!

Seth is an incredibly fascinating, dominant, and looming presence in the Magic Book of Spells with the potential to be one of the most intriguing characters in the entirely of SVTFOE… that was tragically underutilized, slapped in the face, and is who I believe to be the source of the biggest missed potential in the entirety of canon.

But I do not trust the writers at all to have handled him in the show proper.

The Septarians are notoriously treated like absolute dirt. Any and all of the Septarians we meet have either been humiliated, turned into a joke, villainized beyond any humanity, and overall treated awfully. They’re portrayed as this unfeeling, violent, monster species with no (biological? cultural?) ability to forgive or forget the countless atrocities the Mewmans committed against innocent people. GEEZ, It’s not like the Septarians have enhanced longevity and experience time differently than almost EVERY OTHER SPECIES ON MEWNI with most of them FIRST HAND experiencing the atrocities other species of monsters and ESPECIALLY Mewmans see as “bygone eras of the past!!”

And even with the book alone, Seth is also lumped into this stereotype, and may be one of the worst offenders. Globgor can’t stand him and has intense bias against him (I know he talked about “Septarians” but my god we all know he means Seth to some degree. Seth is very clearly a prominent figure if not the leader of the Septarians and he’s pictured/alluded to twice in Eclipsa’s chapter), bitch Crescenta smeared his name into the DIRT in a rigged election campaign and destroyed his reputation, and Comet refused to take him seriously whatsoever (but then again it’s Comet so what are we really expecting??). He was even on the Magic High Commission’s radar, labeled as an “extremist” (which just about anything is labeled “extreme” in the MHC’s eyes so they’re not reliable narrators). He’s spat upon and repeatedly villainized. He gets no breaks or even a glimpse of humanity and everyone in the fandom after the book came out was hyping him up as this huge villain.

So, yeah, I don’t think the show would have bothered to give him any humanity or depth if he was introduced in the show proper and would have made egregiously worse the show’s already bad problem of making monsters, the historically marginalized and colonized group of people, the bad guys. (Seriously, Meteora wasn’t a “real” threat until she was revealed to be half monster. That makes me frustrated.)

I love Seth. I think he would’ve had amazing potential if put in the right hands. There’s so much to do with him and I’m mostly glad he’s been left alone so fans can interpret him in any way they want.

Now… what are my opinions and headcanons about him? What’s the story I’ve concocted?

Thankfully Seth is a character I can talk about without worrying about AU spoilers… mostly (thank god).

In my mind, Seth is someone who actually didn’t see the Great Monster Massacre first hand, hatching about 200 years afterwards (due to my timeline and how I’ve designed Septarian aging). But that doesn’t mean whatsoever that he hasn’t seen the atrocities of Mewmans. In fact, he’s been put in several situations where— while not Moe levels of genocide— he has seen the cruelest and most inhumane levels of Mewman aggression against monsters. He’s a victim of it first hand and spent 80+ years through torture after being ripped away from his homeland before finally uprising against it with his sister (oh yeah he has a sister in my AU)

He is someone who wholeheartedly earned the respect and adoration of his people. He was a leader that they wanted, not because of blood or any ties to the throne he had. (He’s by blood the Prince of Septarsis, but by the time he came back to Septarsis not many people remembered him since he had changed so much). He completely changed the governmental system and put Septarsis into its golden age.

Now this is what may get me in trouble, but stick with me… I don’t think the reputation he’s acquired is completely unfounded. YES the Mewmans and MHC are incredibly biased and we can’t take what they say at face value, but some stereotypes have some truth to them. It’s way overexaggerated, but Seth is someone who I see as extremely trigger happy in his youth.

While a great leader and delegate, he can be incredibly rash and actively seeks violence against Mewmankind. Never Solaria or Moe levels of genocide… but if Mewmans happened to disappear one day he’d be over the moon. This makes him a fun foil for Toffee’s mother in my AU, Mylanie, who’s someone who strives to end the conflict and seek lasting peace.

In the early days he was active in battle and loved fighting against his adversaries. In fact, I find the idea of Seth being the one to kill Solaria— specifically beheading her with his own hands— fascinating and I LOVE IT. He’s not afraid to get messy when protecting monsters or his homeland, and the stories about his violence is NOT unfounded. If anyone is perpetuating ideas about Septarian stereotypes, it’s our buddy Seth.

But here’s the important distinction, he is not going out of his way hurting innocent people. He’s not this bloodthirsty monster who’s trying to commit genocide, he’s not Solaria, he’s just someone who sees violence as the answer and thinks peace is a waste of time.

It wasn’t until the election that his priorities changed and he actually calmed down.

The smear campaign was a huge blow. It really got him to think and consider how his actions were affecting monsters as a whole but especially his own people. He knows how much influence he has over how his people are perceived… and that’s when he pulled back. He was still active, don’t get me wrong, and got along diplomatically with the few surviving monster civilizations, but he took a lot less of a role than he used to. He started thinking critically and cleverly instead of resorting to violence first and foremost. Peace with Mewmans was still firmly off the table though and is still that way to this day.

When Comet sent the invitation, he genuinely planned to ignore it. He had no intention of going to the banquet— as last time he played along with Mewman rules he got screwed— but did allow Toffee to be a representative after Toffee offered to go in his place.

Under one condition: No harm was to come to the Queen

And we see how that went…

I’d gladly go into his relationship/dynamic with Toffee but this post is long enough :). Maybe in another post!!

His “death” was a stunt to fully get him out of any Mewman drama, and he was especially glad he perpetuated that lie because of how pissed he was at Toffee after Comet’s death. He’s alive and well and still in charge of Septarsis, he’s just out of the public eye because everyone thinks he’s dead (except close allies).

Overall I see him as someone who was essentially what his reputation said he was until he got a huge ego blow and actually matured enough to stop being so trigger happy. He was always a great leader over Septarsis and did whatever it took to protect his people, but he had some growing up to do as well.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. My AU goes into him a lot deeper and really fleshes him out. He’s a four dimensional character with layers and depth to him. While he seems like a Mewman hating “radical” on the surface, he’s humanized and he has layers and reasonings for his beliefs and actions.

I just love Seth. A lot. He’s so silly. He’s so fascinating and I love that everyone has a different perspective of him.

Also he is Rasticore’s dad you can’t change my mind !!

Dude I could literally make a whole other post on him I love this character so much—

Anyways here’s Seth and his little sister Zarina I love them to bits <3

[dotthings]

In fact saying that The Winchesters respects the fans of the original is a completely valid reasonable opinion people have a right to say, as being fans of the original series, they are fans, and have a right to say that if they are pleased with The Winchesters.

Actually, Janet, people are allowed to say they like it and that it's very very good and they're moved by it and grateful for it and appreciate the thought and care and love being put into it and the producers and the wonderful cast and the writers and directors and how this has opened the door so much wider to different voices crafting episodes of an spn universe show and telling that story and centering marginalized characters who don't often get to be the main heroes.

In fact, Susan, it's a very sane clear-headed thing to do. To notice, to care, and appreciate.

Stans who have had their favorite's show fluffed in blatantly obvious and biased ways so loud the marketing gears are visible from space are not in a position to cry about bias just because someone is expressing their enjoyment of the universe expansion on an established IP.

The idea that spn fans are not allowed to have an opinion on TW unless they're ripping it to shreds is wank manufacturing absurdist theater. I'm not mad. You know what I am? I'm reading their pointless drama it for the giggles and now I'm going to speak my opinion.

Because I can.

"Criticism" is not a year and a half of non-stop hatred and trolling and angry screaming at a tv show merely existing to usher in a universe expansion that is doing all it can to fully live up to the idea that Supernatural Is For Everyone. "Criticism," Karen, is "the pacing was a bit slow this week and I wish we'd seen more of this thing I want, I loved the scenes with these other characters though and how about that gorgeous set design." "Criticism" is not a year and a half of non-stop hatred. "Criticism" is not attacking people just for writing an article that said something good about a thing they're enjoying.

People who actually love and respect a fictional universe they claim to love do not behave this way when presented with a universe expansion. If they don't care for the universe expansion, they might say why, but they don't do whatever this hot mess that's still ceaselessly raging is, and if the problems are not alleviated, if they have any self awareness whatsoever, they pack up and move on to something that is more welcoming to them.

No, in fact, this behavior is not "what fans do" it's what antis do, it's what people do when an entire fictional universe breaks for them and they no longer derive joy from it. This is what happens when an entitled subset of stans online who were under the actual, selfish delusion that an entire universe was only for them, should be only for them gets smacked in the face with reality. The og series was not only for them, they were only under the illusion it was, and they spent 15 seasons being angry because other fans besides their little subset dared to exist, now the universe expansion is not for them, and the light's finally dawning onto their narrow little minds.

Supernatural is for Everyone. And they're mad about it.

We've seen this song before in other fandoms. It's tired.

Yes, actually, this show about John and Mary and their found family circle of hunter friends fighting space insects has made me feel better.

Does that make you mad? That is not my problem.