#not only is this one of my biggest pet peeves

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

You know I like to think of myself as a pretty open-minded person. Fanfiction, in my opinion, has always been about exploring whatever you find interesting within your fandom. You're allowed to write about anything that you want and if someone doesn't like it then they don't have to read it. But let me tell you, this mindset has been severely tested by some of the Quaritch content I've seen. I'm totally fine with fics that portray him as a villain and person at the same time because even bad guys brush their teeth and all that, but guys. He is not a good person. I want people exploring him as a villain, not as some redeemable or misunderstood person. That's not what anyone working on the movie intended for him. The way he destroyed Hometree without a second thought? The way he obeys a horrible corporation mindlessly? The way he rubbed Neteyam's death in Jake's face? The way he had literally no problem killing and hurting those around him in order to find Jake and his family? The deaths of hundreds of people both na'vi and human rest on his shoulders! You don't get to justify that with "oh, well he's just misunderstood".

I try and find the good in everyone but I just can't see anything good in this man. Anyone who causes the type of pain he caused and feels no guilt (or even worse: thinks that they're justified in their acts of hatred or that the other party are the people deserving of punishment) has no good in them. And that's okay! People are allowed to acknowledge a good bad guy, and I think Quaritch is pretty interesting as far as bad guys go and there is a lot of fic potential for that very focal point. But that's it. There is no excuse for his actions and no redemption in his future and the day karma finally catches up with him (again) will be the best day in movie history.

I am very curious as to what fandoms you've been a part of before if this is the first time you've seen this phenomenon. By that, I mean the phenomenon of a fandom excusing the actions of a (typically white and male) villain. I find it to be pretty common. To me, it's one of the scariest things in media and fandom today. I've made a ton of posts about it, but I like to call it the Darth Vader trope. The idea that one good act or one scene of past trauma can wipe a slate clean, with no regard for the systematic harm caused, no reparations, and no work done to actually change and evolve as a character. I find it to be a really dangerous thing to show. The idea that so many people can rally around these actions just being swept under the rug, that they will get mad at you for even reminding them they occurred, is really terrifying to me. Media does not exist in a vacuum, and if so many people are that eager to move past genocide in fiction? It is for parallel reasons so many do in real life.

Trauma is not an excuse, it is an explanation. Change is a long process, and with serious, real world issues such as the ones Quaritch represents, time and effort are owed to the marginalized groups affected. If Avatar is really supposed to be a movie inspired by the beauty of indigenous cultures and the horror of what happened and is still happening to them, then I think fans excusing Quaritch are really doing something quite disgusting in ignoring that.

(If you want to spend as much time freaked out by genocide as I do, Genocide Watch is the place for you! They don't have the US on alert rn, but they fucking should! Also they're a lOT Pro-Israel in their alert on that, but there aren't many places to keep up on current genocides sorry).

[superkirbylover]

peppino and noise character studies

in this essay i will explain why i am the only one to understand these characters

[idolomantises]

I always feel like the worst kind of character redemptions (other than redemptions where a character immediately redeems themselves after one conversation) are ones where the villain is betrayed and so they switch sides, and it's treated like they've become a better person.

[badnewswhatsleft]

absolutely fucking huge win for me: finally found a full clean copy of the sing-off 2014 holiday special that patrick was a judge on😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

this was such a grail for ages. i'm literally so happy.

look at him yapping about a cappella.

[alhaithamcore]

ok but i am so TIRED of some of y’all reducing kaveh to just “sad broke babygirl who lives with alhaitham” when he is literally one of the top geniuses in sumeru AND one of the most famous (and brilliant) scholars from kshahrewar

“a genius nigh-unparalleled in the last few decades” “engraved his name into the history of the akademiya”

LET IT SINK IN

also alhaitham literally considers kaveh his equal and thinks of him as “an excellent mirror” so idk where y’all are getting the idea that haitham thinks kaveh is beneath him academically.. 🤨

[persephozee]

i mentioned this in another post's tags but sometimes I feel like the only AOT fan on the planet who understands that the end of the Rumbling didn't suddenly fix everything and it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows after

ESPECIALLY FOR THE WARRIORS

all of them have SEVERE PTSD on top of grieving a majority of their comrades and their childhood home

furthermore, Reiner and Pieck haven't even seen Annie in 4 years and there's so much to address there

and there's this disconnect between Pieck and the other 2 because Reiner and Annie got sent to Paradis 5 years prior to Pieck so they have no understanding of what the other experienced

i really hope Reiner gets to heal his relationships with the others

i really hope Annie learns empathy

but i especially hope that Pieck gets to actually express her true feelings for once instead of keeping it all together because she's the older sister in a way

[astrobydalia]

I wish

everyone that reposts pac readings without disclosing which pile they chose

a very pleasant day

[adriancatrin]

i don’t remember which but there’s some iconic fic in our fandom that used the word ‘auspicious’ in a double-speak kinda way and now no one here knows what that word means IM SORRY i just have to say it. if something is auspicious it means it’s GOOD. an auspicious thing is the opposite of suspicious. it gives a POSITIVE outlook

[ethereal-w0lf]

I just got the funniest thought…

What was the sessions between Melanie or therapist like?

Like did she tell the truth???

Did she lie??

If she told the truth how would that go??

One of my favorite things is when a character who sees a therapist have their therapy notes appear on screen, and I want to read Melanie’s old notes. Pre eyepocalypse and especially post eye severing.

[chaoticbug]

rewatching 911 and its absolutely insane that chimney and christopher interact one on one before eddie and chimney interact one on one

[jinouchibhue]

do yall not "yes and" your friend's headcanons and whatnot? Even, no, especially ones you don't even really particularly see or whatever??? I feel like that's basic Fandom 101 but I could be wrong.

[thatgirl4815]

You most certainly are gonna die if you keep taking your eyes off the road!

[gothsuguru]

i love muting people on twitter some of you bitches are very dumb

[emilyelizabethfowl]

.

that feeling when you're scrolling through ao3 and you find a fic that sounds promising, and you click on it expecting specific character interactions from the tags (in this case Zuko and Toph) and the writing's really good, and the prologue's interesting and offers good set-up for the premise... but then in the second chapter the author randomly introduces an oc for no reason. literally no reason. and stucks her to zuko like a clamp-leech. and you hope for a while that maybe it's toph in disguise but no. it's a literal stranger that just HAS to stay with Zuko for ten chapters. and when she FINALLY fucks off, the writer promises she'll be back in another ten or so chapters 💀

[storyowls]

Thinking about that one post earlier about how folks can't handle hairy women (and hairy men) and YEAH. As a hairy woman, yeah, a lot of folks get fucking weird about me!

[chaseprice]

every time an american website stops me from accessing it bc im outside of the us i cannot help but yell out loud to myself oh fucking get over yourself