#no matter what you think of the victim

[reasoncourt]

idk who needs to hear this but you can hate taylor swift without siding with the ai porn guys. disliking her isn’t an act of misogyny but ai porn of her is an act of misogyny despite her whiteness and wealth and power. like this is fr my problem with most ppl who hate her - they just abandon all of their principles when it comes to her. like we do realise she can suck and also not deserve nonconsenual porn made of her right?

[oceanwithouthermoon]

imo everyone who insists that saikis life was perfect and he was a spoiled brat complaining about nothing are just purposefully ignoring and misinterpreting the whole manga simply because they like other characters better and want to make up scenarios to make their fav seem like a precious little victim in every situation

its hard to explain but i see it happen a lot with specifically people who have dedicated accounts for other characters and constantly misattribute every issue to "saikis such a baby, my character has it way worse!" "saiki hurt my babys feelings once so i hate him!" "saikis such a spoiled brat, my baby has a way shittier life and never complains about it!" "saiki hurt my poor precious fav once so hes an abusive monster!"

and said "shittier life" that they "never complain" about is either the persons headcanons (literally made up) or... the character DOES complain about it and the person takes those words at FACE VALUE but ignores everything else, including things that actually HAPPEN right in front of our eyes

[satisaranea]

so anyway when anyone holds the belief that the career kids were evil and were natural born killers you are equally dehumanizing them like the systems of training they were put in. you are adultifying children who were brainwashed and forced to learn the ways of slaughter for sake of glory. we could talk about their parallels to war also, but the main thing here are these are children taught that in order to appease their district they must kill ruthlessly and without second regard for anyone else in th equation. their win and their path of success only, even if in the end they're still cannon fodder like all other victors. like how many time does it have to be said that the careers are VICTIMS. not villains like they're portrayed as by the narrative.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

people forget that c!tommy literally was trying to save c!jack's life after he dropped him into the lava which is fucking frustrating not bc c!tommy doing a manslaughter suddenly makes him way more innocent- it’s fucked he did it even if he wasn’t Intending to kill c!jack, this isn’t doing an uwu baby defence thing. but it’s just way more interesting. bc like, c!tommy was so fucked up at that point he genuinely seemed to think causing serious bodily harm to someone wasn’t a big deal if he saved their life afterwards and even when c!Jack did die (which c!tommy did try and stop, like, you can watch his perspective he tries to throw c!Jack stuff to help him he’s just got shitty aim) he still sees it more as something to laugh off than something horrific and traumatic. and that’s a big part of why c!Jack despises c!tommy for it, right? bc not only did he hurt him he tried to act like they were still buddy buddy. and c!jack reasonably assumed that was, like, malicious. like c!tommy was Intentionally fucking with him. but in actuality c!tommy's idea of reality was so warped at that point he genuinely didn’t fully grasp how fucked up it is to hurt your friends for no reason bc that was the mindset he had to adapt to survive in exile. which isn’t to Excuse it at all, it’s an extremely fucked up thing he did no matter what, but the fact c!tommy Wasn’t trying to kill c!jack is kind of like. a big part of why it’s so fucked up. bc he was basically recreating his own abuse onto others while remaining completely oblivious to the fact (something he also does while working with c!techno, this is a Consistent thing he does and something not enough people talk about.)

[statementlou]

I am gonna say something crazy so please don’t get angry at me. I think among all of this that is happening right now, people should leave Liam alone and i am not saying this as some crazy ass defender who believes that “boys are innocent 😣”. I am saying this because i agree with people saying that Liam is lost. He is distressed and I believe he reads all this shit that is said about him and goes back to his old addictions, which will lead only to more destruction and we are here talking not even about him, but about people AROUND HIM. Think about it for a second before you try to ease you stress and life anger by keeping on talking about him on social media. If his coping mechanism that he picked up since 1d days (that he talked about) is drinking as an answer to all stress and shit that has been happening, then if goes back to drinking every time he is distress and probably online stuff is part of it, then he will keep on hurting more people around him. And if we are really wanna be on “side of the victims” then Ignoring his person for some time will be a better option than keeping hate on him.

I just don’t want more people to be hurt by him and i am almost 90% sure that Liam lurks on socials to see what people talk about him. And let’s be honest, bad or good, nobody reacts well on online hate and again, i think it’s better for people to not cause Liam to go back to drinking (if he didn’t already) so he would go and hurt more people, because people under influence are unpredictable and completely unaware of their actions which makes them more dangerous. And Liam will become more agressive and more dangerous if he will not sober up completely . He has to stop drinking at ALL to calm down. He needs some proper therapy and have to cut off alcohol and any kind of addiction that he has (god fucking knows) from his life. I felt like Teardrops was a sign of finally taking a good turn, but i guess addictions are way more harder to beat ( never been addicted, thankfully, but had people around me who had been :) )

ok well first of yes, Liam does lurk on socials and check what people are saying about him and take to to heart: he has told us so, his sister has said so, and Maya has said so. Liam's sister has, like you, asked people to take on responsibility for his mental health by doing or not doing certain things online (this was a while back, not just now); Maya on the other hand has asked that people not enable his abusive behaviors by ignoring or excusing them, and has told us that he not only expects fans to do that but uses it as a way of avoiding taking responsibility for his actions and as a threat. No matter what any of those people say, it is neither our job nor possible for us to fix him by posting or not posting certain things! But in a way that feels different to me from any other celebrities or public figures, the relationship between the fans and the 1D guys has always been incredibly two way and reciprocal, and I do think it matters how we use the incredible power of this fandom. We've done great useful things with it in the past, and a lot of pretty silly things, and have also done things that have had profound and lasting impacts on the guys' actual lives that continue to effect them to this day, some good and some... not. We actually do have impact on their lives for better and worse. So while there is nothing we could post or not post that will cure Liam's mental health issues, also I agree, it doesn't NOT matter what we post. If nothing else, it matters because WE spend our time in this fandom and WE are impacted, and acting like the things we've found out are in any way okay (which ignoring them also would be) is unacceptable and as I said here, harms other fans. But on top of that we have been SPECIFICALLY ASKED by a victim of abuse to do something: she has asked that we stop enabling Liam's behavior by posting and not posting certain things online. So will talking about it hurt Liam, and if so should we not do that? It might distress Liam to have people tell him what he's done and is doing is not okay! That's very likely. And obviously I don't like people telling him to kill himself or posting revenge porn because those are NEVER acceptable things to do; but Liam's distress is actually less important in this situation than holding Liam accountable for his actions is. I worry about the possible impacts of that too, I think we have all pictured the worst case scenarios. But the thing is that what you are suggesting is to try to figure out how we can act to prevent an abuser from being abusive or from hurting themselves, how to do things that will keep them calm and fix them; this ISN'T POSSIBLE in any kind of real way, and the idea that is a troubling symptom of clinical codependency. It IS however important and necessary for people who care about them to tell abusers that their behavior is not okay, and that we will not look the other way when they fuck up! tldr: No abuser or addict has ever changed because things simply got easier and so they no longer "needed" to lash out or to medicate; but people have been encouraged to change by people whose good opinion they want telling them their behavior is unacceptable.

[sideprince]

I've seen the same post a hundred times now. Sometimes it's a few days old, sometimes it's from years ago, but it's always the same. Some anti posts about how they don't understand how anyone can like Snape because he was so awful, and then there's a long reply that goes something like, "imagine this happens to you, and then this, and then this" to describe Snape's experience. Sometimes there's some James Potter hate thrown in.

Look. You can go through describing a character's entire experience but you don't really need to. Here's the thing that antis don't understand:

For all her faults (and they're big, bigoted ones) Rowling understood a really integral part of the human experience and conveyed it through Snape. Everyone needs love and to feel accepted. It's that simple. Snape became a Death Eater to seek acceptance (Rowling has confirmed this, though I can't remember the source - whoever wants to add it please do), because it was the only way he could find any.

Snape's understanding of morality, like everyone's, is subjective. Some readers understand this and some don't. When faced against a morality that says there is good and bad in the world, everyone makes choices based on their personal experience. Context is everything. Someone who experiences pain and suffering will not see the person inflicting it on them as moral. That's it. 'How can this person be good when they caused me so much suffering?' = human psychology. Most of the people who think 'I'm a bad person and deserve this' have been gaslit and abused into thinking so, because it's not a natural reaction - it's one that has to often be socialized into someone at a young age, exactly because it's not natural. Everyone is the hero of their own story; no one sees themselves as a villain, because they see the valid aspects of their own perspective.

You can write essays on how vulnerable people needing acceptance is what cults and fascists exploit to recruit vulnerable people, or on how the standard anti's un-nuanced reading of Snape both ignores canon and displays a disturbing lack of empathy or compassion, but at its core it just boils down to context. From Snape's perspective he experienced cruelty, therefore the people inflicting it must be cruel. Again, it's that simple. He was a person, like any other, except he was fictional so he wasn't even real. On the flip side is James Potter, who, for all his faults, didn't get to live long enough to get a chance to change and grow unlike Snape, and I think the Snapedom also needs to acknowledge that.

They're fictional characters representing things an author wants to say, not sports teams, not martyrs, and not all good or all bad emblems that define your identity depending on how you feel about them. It's depressing how much time is wasted arguing with bullies and trolls whether from the Marauders fandom or just random antis. I literally can't find more than three blogs to follow without this argument coming across my feed daily. I know the Snapedom is Not OK™ and that's kind why we're all here, and I know that my take is super unpopular but like Snape, I don't care what others think: this fandom has been having the exact same argument for years and nothing has changed. There's fanart and meta and fic and so much content out there appreciating this character, you're not going to change an anti's mind who's deliberately trolling in the tags, so why are you trying? What are you getting out of it? What does it give you? It's exhausting just scrolling past it.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

excuse me i need to Muse on something for a moment

so in Wally's secret 'vinyl' audios, specifically the last few (if we're listening to em in chronological order), obviously he starts to sound more strained/distressed. his breathing is more labored, like it's taking all of his energy to make contact.

but the audio that really caught my attention was the "But i still can't see" one. cause he just said he has more eyes than he did before. he knows We draw them a lot, and it's thanks to that that he can see. but he still can't see?

so my question is: where is Wally physically? cause although he can (assumedly) see the WHRP goings on, he can see through the eyes We draw, that could all be on a, uh... more Intangible level of sight. like the spiral pit is forming an eye, and then there's the eye on the ceiling in the secret Staff Only section - could Wally be in the pit, that space between his reality and Ours, "watching" through the eyes? but unable to actually see with due to the pit being pitch black nothingness? is he somewhere else? is he stuck? he can see, but he can't... see.

(or is he trying to explain an abstract concept - he's not actually viewing anything, but he can sense it. like how he knows We're there, even if he can't see or hear Us. but he just doesn't have the words to describe it other than using physical senses - see, hear, look.)

and him saying "...that I can see. But it is still... I can't..." but it's still what, Wally? dark? something else that he doesn't have the words to describe, so he just says that he can't see?

i know that in the Livestream Trivia Document (compiled by @/the neighborhoodwatch) there was something said about Wally being in a box. my first thought reading that was "oh, so he's in storage? the physical puppet, i mean?" which would make sense - show's over, there's no more use for him. pack 'em up and put him away. but that paired with the "can't see" audio makes both seem a lil... connected.

Wally can't see > he's likely somewhere dark > the inside of closed boxes are dark > Wally's in a box. (or maybe the Neighborhood is the box? it's a stretch, i know, but the map is a box. television sets are often set up in "boxes". maybe it's less of a physical storage box and more of a 'boxed in' sort of thing...)

one question i've had since the Start of my interest in this incredible project is: how is Wally communicating? how has he connected to the site? how does he connect to our reality? the pit almost definitely has something to do with it - most likely acting as a bridge, or the deteriorating of the barrier between our two 'worlds' - but if Wally is in a box and Not the pit or even just in the puppet's reality... how is he reaching us beyond just seeing through the eyes he's given?

or is he in their reality, and he can contact through the pit or something, but he can't actually see the other side? Our side? he knows it's there - that We're there - but none of it is visible to him. maybe his apparent disassociation in the 14 bug audios is a demonstration of him contacting Us. we can see through him, but it's a one way street.

and speaking of the pit - i just had a thought. his whole thing with Us letting him in, opening... the pit on the neighborhood map is getting bigger and clearer. but the presumed Other Side, the one on the Staff Only ceiling, is small. it's the size of a ceiling panel. it seems to me that Wally is chipping away at his side of the pit or 'portal', trying to reach Our reality, but he needs Us to do the same thing on the other side. the QA can hear him calling, but there's no phone on their (Our) side of the pit. how do We call back???

there's a fundamental barrier & lack of understanding between Wally and the QA/Us. he's trying. he wants to be let in, but what does that mean, really? let him in where? open what? he's desperate. he wants us to understand. he's trying so so hard Without the right tools to clearly communicate what he wants. he can't see Us, We can see him, both know the other is there, but there's no way to connect. and the attempts are hurting all parties involved, however unintentionally

[bonefall]

Is there a cat in cannon who got a good death who you think didn't deserve it? Especially if they committed crimes?

Tom the Wifebeater and his redemption death. No question. It's not even close.

Not only do I reject to the "redemption death" on the grounds of it being Tom the Wifebeater who is bullying others until his dying breath, even taunting Thunder about Turtle Tail is dead and the kits must be very torn up about it, but I reject "redemption through death" entirely. I don't like it in stories. It's a theme I deeply object to.

And again it's fucking wild that every time a character is a father, even if they are a wifebeater or a child abuser, the writers think that it bestows a glimmer of goodness into them which every abused child is forced to appreciate and cry about. Breezepelt, Thunder, Tallstar, Tom's children, all of them forced to reconcile and admit how much they wuv their papa.

Abusive dads in WC regularly get redemption deaths, too. Clear Sky dies saving his grandchild, Sandgorse died saving a rando in a tunnel, Tom the Wifebeater saving his daughter.

But Tom the Wifebeater is the worst example of it. Hands down.

[heartslobbf]

i dont knowww there’s just something about how both nanami and touga’s warnings to utena about entering the duel called revolution are essentially ‘you can’t trust end of the world or anthy’. and theyre both genuinely well intentioned about that because they do both care about utena’s wellbeing, even if someone (touga) is too misogynistic to go about that in a Normal way. but then you have juri, and all juri does when talking to utena about whether or not she’ll enter the final duel is ask ‘what are you going to do with anthy?’ and ‘you love her, don’t you?’ like. none of the stuco ever really recognise anthy’s personhood, none of them care about her, they dislike her. but juri sees how much utena feels for anthy and she says actually, maybe the way that you feel about her is important. and she tells her to do something about that (also!! anthy and shiori parallels, huge significance for juri’s character post-ruka etc etc). what im saying here is that juri is the only character other than utena to understand, or attempt to understand, what anthy means to utena, and why that relationship is important. there is no someday together without juri and that just makes me absolutely bonkers

[sasukeless]

while there’s an obvious distinction when sasuke tries to kill everyone else vs when he tries to kill naruto due to sasuke stating over an over that killing naruto is not something he wants to do but something he believes a necessity. i think using the “sasuke tried to kill x” to say ships like ss are bad is just a weak argument because yes, sasuke did tried to kill other people and it’s water under the bridge. and yes, she also tried to kill him.

i personally think people latch to that reason because it’s the only way they can put the blame over their relationship being bad on sasuke. otherwise they would have to admit that sasuke never owned her anything so rejecting her or calling her annoying when she’s being insensitive does not make him evil. and the reason why the ship is bad is perhaps is the fact that she keeps pursuing a relationship with him despite him clearly not returning her feelings

[transmascutena]

thinking about how akio sees his younger self in utena and wondering if there's any fondness there. doesn't change the horror of what he does to her obviously but i do wonder

[tetrakarn]

okay now that i'm safely at home i can go feral over the confession images

as devastating on every possible level the "shallow emotions" part is i'm a little obsessed with the fact that ivan specifically thanks till for being the "victim" of his emotions

ivan doesn't apologize for subjecting till to the ways he tried to express his affection in their youth that irritated till and potentially pushed him away

he isn't sorry about harboring this love for him that went unnoticed and unreciprocated and ultimately wound up becoming a source of trauma and hurt for the both of them

he says thank you for being the person those feelings ended up focusing on. thanking him for being the person he fell in love with in a horrible world that wouldn't teach them what love is or show it to either of them, the only taste of it ivan would ever experience

it was messy and imperfect; it left him with regrets. he should have been kinder. should have shown his love in gentler ways. a lifetime of things he could have done differently, but it's too late. he doesn't believe till will think twice about him once he's gone, that his death won't leave a mark on him, but just in case he does. on the off chance till thinks of him again someday. he's grateful that, out of everyone in the universe, everything aligned perfectly to make till the person he loved until the very end

[icannotgetoverbirds]

I am no longer consumed by bloodlust!

[aesterblaster]

With it kind of being clear that Ness is BPD-coded, let's remember that he isn't meant to be a "villain" persay. Is he a bit annoying? Yes. Is he in an absolutely fucked up 'friendship' that he'd do anything for? Yes. Does that mean he's supposed to be some bad, dangerous person who will ruin Isagi's life and kill Kunigami or something? No. If anything he fits right in with all the other sentiments opponents have thrown Isagi's way and I think it's important to remember that as more stuff about his character comes out. Like don't act as if the author is demonizing people with BPD, if anything he's just another hormonal teenager in a story about hormonal teenagers playing soccer.

[dykedvonte]

I feel like THOSE parts of the mouthwashing fandom would absolutely explode finding out that stuff like blood Meridian has a goofy fandom too

I think it’s less that the fandom is goofy and more people think people goofin around or with the sensitive subject matter don’t get the themes or plot or just avoid thinking about it.

I know a lot of people do but like it’s a fandom. People are gonna do weird or crazy shit and I just think we should use the block button more than openly inciting harassment towards something you don’t like vs trying to bring awareness to genuine problems. There is overlap but sometimes what people are saying or how they are going about it is a little crazy.

Then again I’m not used to how people talk about things on sites like twitter or in very popular spaces so maybe this is like normal there.

[22degreehalo]

Something I find kind of frustrating in discussions of female characters is whole ardently a lot of people will commit to the, like, aesthetic? of wanting bad/messy/unjustified female characters. All 'I support women's wrongs <3' and dunking on people who can't 'handle' a woman who does one thing wrong ever and the like

But then, when they actually start talking about their favourite female character. they DO, in fact, think that everything they did was okay and justified. Like, yes, they admit that they were violent or lashed out, but then they'll write essays about how it was a totally normal and justified traumatic response and everyone in-universe and out should forgive them and how the male characters she hurt were actually the ones who did wrong first so she was just fighting against the patriarchal dystopia she lives in etc. etc.

and I just. do not think that that is actually the same thing!!!!!

For an example: Ashley The Coffin Of Andy And Leyley Graves. Since joining the fandom I've been continually startled by just how MANY people will assert, with vehement assurance, that Andrew is 'just as bad as Ashley', often with the explicit or implicit judgement that anyone who thinks otherwise is biased against women.

And... I actually do think I disagree!!!!! Insofar as 'good person' is a quantifiable thing, it's made pretty dang clear in the flashback that Andrew has a level of conscience that, back then at least, Ashley truly did not show. She actively wanted to hurt Nina, even if not kill her outright, and was much less upset when it ultimately happened. She's also the initiator of almost all the fucked-up stuff that happens in canon: the cannibalism, the cold-blooded murder, and even the incest.

And that's fucking awesome!!! Ashley is the driving force behind the narrative: the proactive, game-changing one, the one who's running the show for the two of them. By contrast, Andrew's involvement is almost entirely either passive or reactive; even when he does, for example, kill the other guard, you could argue that Ashley was the true motivator behind it, given that she's the reason they ended up in that situation in the first place AND she's the one who chose that hiding place. He just saw that her life was in danger and pulled a trigger.

That's a role that is almost always given to female characters: the guilt-ridden ones, the conscience, the passive enablers. Men are the ones who Act; women, usually, simply Are, exerting influence on the story merely by affecting those around them.

Ashley is, in my view, a worse person than Andrew: because it certainly seems that she would have had the level of conscience that she has even without an Andrew to manipulate, while Andrew would WITH CERTAINTY not have done even half the shit he pulls in the game if not for Ashley.

And that's why she's such a great female character. Because she's not just reacting to the patriarchy and exhibiting some inherently female reasonableness or moral ethics. She is the reason why the story is happening as it is - not because men are driven to act on her behalf, but because of her own personal fucked-up choices and quasi-intentional manipulation.

She has, in short, the vast majority of the agency of the story. And she uses it to be selfish and fucked up (evil) and fucked up (traumatised) and weird and goofy and vicious and incredibly fucking fun to watch, and I for one think that's fucking awesome.