#not saying you can’t criticize or be fandom critical btw

[thebestusernamepossible]

Fandom is so tiring sometimes. Like girl(gn) not everything you dislike has to be for some moral reason! And you trying to justify disliking/liking something harmless by basing it in morality is not good for your or anyones mental health. Please stop doing that. It gives reason for my intrusive thoughts to say I’m bad for disagreeing with you even if I know logically your point is fucking stupid. Like it’s FANDOM, it’s not that serious. Chill out. A person is not morally wrong for not having the same favorite book in a series as you.

[a-bit-too-critical]

I-Is Ayylmao trying to suck up to the critical community now???

(Don’t harass Ayylmao of course please!!! I just saw this and freaking died laughing, I knew I had to call him out on this crap)

Literally saw that profile picture and thought “why the fuck are you even here-“

YOU ARE THE ONE MAKING THE YOUTUBE SHORTS YOU IDIOT 😭

I’ve seen bro make the same short over and over about how “did you know that Alastor died being mistaken for a deer???? Vivzie said this at timestamp 4:20:00 in a livestream 10 years ago!!! W O W!!!!!!!

This so far genuinely just feels like someone sarcastically poking fun at him I can’t actually believe he wrote this 100% seriously himself 😭

“They’re just going to be put on blast by the fandom”

Bro added the twitter part to save himself cause like

Calling the V@lAngel situation “silly” is freaking insane, and this is just the first example I could find 😭

Didn’t screenshot but he recited Viv’s tweet about how “Val isn’t real ahah you can like evil characters lmaoooo”, said the drama was silly, and then said people shouldn’t harass Joel for voicing a character.

That’s… that’s not the issue??? We’re not mad that he voices Val, we’re mad that bro tagged it as V@langel and Viv went right up there to say that Val isn’t real and to stop being mad :/

Obviously I don’t support anyone who directly harassed or went after Joel but criticizing him is totally fine. And guess what? Ayylmao framed us all as harassers and put us on blast so the fandom could yell at us in the comments :////

Don’t have much to say about this part, no issue with it but it’s so insane coming from Ayylmao who laughs and deep dives into every freaking sex joke 😭

This was all from the comments of Flazefire’s video btw, I mostly agree with the vid up until where he denies the Viv wage allegations briefly, like even if the accusor’s accusations weren’t true that doesn’t mean the countless people who backed them up are just insignificant and clearly been proven wrong :/

The Erin frost situation too, like there’s not much evidence but others have come out and evidence hasn’t really been refuted

[directdogman]

(Sorry if I have bad English, I'm from Spain.)

I'm super hyperfixated on the original managers, so I have 2 questions.

1. In Dialtown, Tango/Terrence says no one called him Tango before. Assuming that in the DSaF universe he also liked that nickname, did any of the other original managers call him Tango or not?

2. A headcanon I've seen in the DSaF fandom is that Abel hated everyone BUT the real Scott Cawthon, and that Scott was the only one that tolerated Abel (some ppl even ship them). Is that close to canon? Or the og Scott Cawthon also hated Abel? I really want to know what they thought about each other.

Btw, I really love your games, I've played the DSaF trilogy many times, and the Dialtown demo (I haven't played the full version of Dialtown yet, but I've seen gameplays and I'll buy it for my birthday), thank you for making 4 incredible games <3

I don't answer many DSaF questions these days, but this one's interesting so here goes:

1)Tango's nickname is a DT invention as far as I remember. If he preferred the name in DSaF's universe, Harry would've used it for sure, given how much he liked Terrence and since he's literally using a name he doesn't believe is really 'his' because it makes him feel better. He of all people would understand.

2)Yeah, that's a pretty good way of stating it, but there's a little more nuance to it that explains a little bit more about Abel/Joe's rift.

Basically, the original Scott Cawthon was a unifying figure. He got on with every single one of the original managers and they all thought the world of him. The Phone Guy process was started in an attempt to recreate him by Abel (and the other managers at first) and you gotta consider why they'd all want to do that. He was the glue that held the group together, the only manager liked by everyone else there without exception, someone who could defuse tension and resolve conflicts amicably.

It's true that he had the most patience for Abel and never badmouthed Abel to the other managers and even defended him earnestly, knowing Abel the best of the other managers and knowing some of Abel's early life and where he came from, while the others were more willing to honestly discuss Abel's short fuse and occasionally mean nature (even Terrence to some extent!) This led Abel to develop more of a bond with him than the other managers and somewhat distrust the others.

While Abel was essentially Scott's number 2, as time went on, Joe became more and more integral to the running of their budding company, since he was a skilled accountant and managed to balance the books despite Scott's somewhat reckless spending at times (he was overgenerous to the point where it sometimes led to financial trouble for the company, a stark contrast to what Freddy's became later.) Since Joe was so blunt (and Abel's biggest critic), Abel was incredibly jealous and insecure that if the trend continued, Joe would supplant him.

This also explains why Abel was so willing to toss his other managers into the 'machine' when each of them suffered accidents. Ultimately, it wasn't just sheer cowardice, it was him trying to recreate the past - to recreate the one person who seemingly saw him as anything other than a vampire. Someone who actually wanted him around. Of course, no two snowflakes are ever exactly the same. Abel was a poor replacement as the owner of the company, Joe was barely able to keep things afloat amidst a messy and chaotic expansion and Harry wound up presiding over the company's demise.

There's a pretty widespread narrative theme in DSaF of damaged people trying to recreate something they've lost - Dave trying to turn Jack into the new Henry, Jake and his family, Harry and his former identity, the Kennedy family reuniting.

“Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you can!”

But, the fact is, you can't recreate the past. The only way forward is to pick up the pieces and build something new.

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #6158:

I noticed some people think you share close minded views on what people like because you don't automatically praise and validate the thing they like. which let’s be real that’s code word for “don’t disagree with me don’t have your own opinion.” I don’t like certain characters I have a right to dislike them and disagree. Don’t like it? Too bad get over it. People these days are so afraid of being disagreed with. If you post on the internet everything you say or like will be disagreed with that’s life deal with it. I will not keep my opinions to myself because some people can’t handle something they like being criticized. It’s the fnaf fandom btw that I had this experience in.

[ifyouknowmenahyoudontt]

MORE OF ME COMPLAINING ABOUT THE FANDOM

- i’ve seen so many ppl consider andromeda and sirius leaving from their family as an act of love for their muggle born partners. i don’t really like that ESP for sirius. it really downplays their morals and what they fought for.

- why is regulus the forth marauder? where tf did peter go

- if i see one more piece of content that makes sirius leaving the house of black about regulus im going to lose it. “ b-b-but how could he leave his baby brother🥺” that little baby brother was apart of a supremacist terrorist cult let’s be for real

-making characters like lily or remus in ships with those deatheaters assholes is WILD.

-andromeda is everything you want regulus to be give this girl the credit she deserves

-fanon regulus is cringe as hell. you all just took over characters story’s to make it his. he sucked.

-the moment someone brings up that a new ship/hdcs don’t make sense and ppl say “nothing is the hp universe makes sense” i lose a year off my life. let’s use our little heads and figure out that even in a fantastical world. things.can.still.make.sense.with.the.plotline.

- some of the regulus/evan/barty and whatever ways fans are like the WHINIEST fandom i have ever seen. can’t take any (valid btw) criticism on their weird little fetishes and act like they’re being oppressed when people don’t like the same thing as them. not all of you guys obv but a LOT

- “if you don’t like it just scroll” no? some things are objectively wrong and bad and should be discussed grow up

-this fandom is turning into a booktok porn addiction fandom

-a fandom is a place of discussion. people not liking fictional characters and talking about it is not going to kill you

-james’s character got dumbed down so BADLY by all the jegulus nonsense like james being kind of a simp in canon was because his love for LILY was pure and strong. they have a whole ass prophecy.

-making every character queer isn’t doing what you think it’s doing. and frankly idgaf if you make this character queer if that character is a horrible person. doesn’t make them more likable or interesting.

-there is a deep rooted issue of misogyny in this fandom.

-saying that jegulus is not going against lily as a character is not true. fanon regulus is literally lily but like racist. jegulus is literally jily.

-lily evans can love james potter and still be a strong character these two are not linked at all

-dorlene/jily/wolfstar where the sanest ships in the fandom. maybe add rose killer on there cus frankly since it doesn’t change much the characters or storyline it’s okay

-remember when regulus was ace? why did that get completely forgotten

-some of the fancasts did irreparable damage to people’s brains. because hot doesn’t mean better person

-james potter would punch most of the people you ship him with

- jegulus fics where harry is there kid and lily is a surrgate/barely in the pic is CRAZY

-mary is so sexualized? like why

- sirius was canonically better looking than regulus lol

-the black family can be explored so much more besides just the regulus glaze

-REGULUS BARELY CONTRIBUTED TO VOLDMORT BEING DEFEATEDDDDS PLEASE

- some of the new sapphic ships are actually good. nobleflower is very interesting.

[lily-alphonse]

So I finally finished watching ATLA (the animated series) all the way through, for the first time. Here's my final reaction post! You can see the others at the first tag listed below (#lily's atla reactions)

I had always known it was a good show from what little I saw of it. Im not a big TV watcher because a lot of it gets too intense for me. I can’t separate reality from fiction and get so stressed I would actually die watching something like Game of Thrones lol. So I’ve started going through series from my childhood and of course I was going to start with this classic.

(Im cutting this in case you are like me and took forever to watch this and dont want spoilers)

I unsurprisingly love this series. My boy Zuko stays on top, I love his emo ass. Uncle Iroh is a close second, I know, based lol. I was very pleasantly surprised by the Earth King, an unexpected little side character fave that I latched onto and WILL be writing for.

Honorable mention also to Appa. I adore Appa. His episode broke me. Absolutely broke my heart to see him lose his trust in people, and then when Suki found him OH MY GOD 😭 I was so relieved. (Which, btw, did not expect her to be such a big part of the series that was nice)

Speaking of animals though, the hardest I cried was for Roku dying with his dragon. When the dragon just jumped back in to the flames to die with his master I fucking lost it bro. It reminded me of how Aang and Appa nearly died together, and how Aang’s instinct with his dying breath was to protect them BOTH in that ball of ice BRO I SOBBED ALOUD.

Oh as far as characters I also have to mention the explodey eye guy. I love action and he was SO menacing I was always on the edge of my seat when he was around.

In general I love the scenery, I love pretty scenery and colors and I was so well fed. I am worried that if I continue on to LOK I won't like it as much, considering the time jump to the industrial era. I'm a renaissance faire girlie lol.

I love the heavy messages they didn't shy away from. I think the show probably helped conceptualize a lot of really heavy subjects for kids, and I'm grateful to it for that. How revenge hurts everyone, how mistakes don't define you, how grief works.

I love the friendship and found family, the Zuko adventures episodes were probably my favorite. I can see where everyone is coming from with their various Zuko ships, I'm hearing all of you. If I had to choose one, though, I might actually be pro Zuko/Aang? Which is kind of wild and unexpected because Aang isn't my favorite, but I honestly felt like their characters complemented each other the best. It's funny because I share Zukka art all the time and the only fic Ive read was a Zukka fic lol. They're hot together what can I say? I do like Sokka and Suki together though! I think the show really did them justice as a couple.

There were a couple of really cool moments in the ending. Toph falling onto the metal door and metalbending herself armor? SO badass. And Sokka's boomerang coming in clutch again. I love clever moments in action like that.

Overall, unfortunately... I did not love the ending. I wish I had more of a reaction for you, but I found myself being too critical in it, and that is not how I want to contribute to the fandom. I recognize it is a kid's show and I am an adult, and probably wouldn't have anything to say that hasn't been hammered into the ground over the years since it aired.

I loved the show, expect to see an Earth King fic from me someday (and maybe other ships? who knows). I might watch Gravity Falls next since I can't handle adult television lol. We shall seeeee

[writing-for-life]

Nuance in (The Sandman) Fandom

Send me asks about everything Sandman-related!

I thought a lot over the past few days, partly prompted by discourse on here, partly due to a couple of “interesting” asks and messages I received (the type you don’t answer). I *think* they might have been prompted by engaging in discourse on topics like anti-blackness/racism, misogyny/sexism, TERF characters etc in The Sandman.

Fandoms are always getting super sensitive if someone shines a critical lens on their favourite works, authors and characters. So to make this clear (in case it isn’t already obvious from my brain-rot blog):

I love The Sandman. I love Neil Gaiman. I have an extremely soft spot for Dream (and Desire btw, who deserves a lot more character analysis than just being summed up as “villainous, sexy bitch”. One day, perhaps ;)).

I can read The Sandman and just get lost in the story, even after decades and many rereads. 

But I can also view it through a critical lens—these things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Not critical enough or too critical?

As fans, we can get trapped in certain thinking patterns, like:

“My blorbo can do no wrong”-syndrome 

“Characters with flaws are inherently problematic and imply authorial endorsement of those actions” 

“Characterisation and problematic subtext are one and the same” (aka overanalysing and looking for problems where there are none is the death of every story, but failing to see problematic patterns where they are clearly visible is a problem, too).

Don't say anything bad about my favourite character

I think this doesn’t need much further exploration. It’s not my personal way of looking at stories through permanently rose-tinted glasses (I always feel it stalls my experience, but my experience is not everyone else's). Some people prefer that type of escapism, and I’m good with that (although the downside is of course that by not willing to engage with issues, we can unwillingly perpetuate them). Live and let live, ship and let sail. But please, for the love of god: Don’t insult people via their inboxes or messages just because their opinions and preferences don’t align with yours. I’m not going to sugarcoat it or phrase it “nicely”: It’s infantile (and a form of bullying btw), end of.

How can you even like a character who's so horrible? And that author must be equally horrible, too

We have to separate flawed characters, even those who are written to be really problematic, from real-life endorsement of these actions. 

Author, narrator and character are three fundamentally different things, and don’t overlap as much as some people seem to think. 

We can write vile, despicable characters to make a point (for me, Thessaly was always a prime example for this, and I explained why here). We probably hate them as we write them. I don’t know what else to say, but this facet of writing seems to get more and more lost on people, and it’s a worry. Crying for sanitised characterisation is one step away from censorship. We explore what is problematic about people and humanity through story. That’s how we process and learn. It’s nothing new, but it becomes impossible if we can’t write flawed and even disgusting characters. 

Face value…

Since I’m mostly in The Sandman fandom, I often read that its ending is hopeless, and that’s supposedly the entire message. 

It is agonisingly sad, yes. But is it truly hopeless? I personally see it as quite the opposite, but of course that’s my opinion, coloured by my life experiences.

I also get that show-only fans often haven’t read the comics, or at least not the whole arc. And as such, their outlook from what they’ve seen so far (and choose to focus on) has to be different by default. I also understand that many people are quite new to the comics, even if they have read them in their entirety. I’ve sat with them for 30 years, and I still find new things on every reread (and I read it more times than anyone should 🙈), and I still don’t feel like I’ve understood it all. Perhaps because I still haven’t fully understood myself (and it’s unlikely I ever will). If there’s one thing The Sandman isn’t, it’s one-dimensional and easy to grasp in its whole depth.

I just wrote a ginormous meta on it, if you’re interested, it’s here:

Subtext, (not so) glorious subtext

This is where it gets complicated:

We shouldn’t mix up characterisation and story subtext. Overanalysing every line to death will always make us find something that’s “problematic”, when it really isn’t in the wider context of the story.

Zooming in is NOT always a good thing. Sometimes, we actually need to zoom out. 

But subtext *can be* (accidentally) problematic. Even in stories we love. And none of this negates what I previously wrote.

Stories have real-life implications of sorts, and we need to be able to talk about it. That’s where those slightly flabbergasting, hostile inbox messages come in, and I want to expand on that "topic of contention" a bit:

Neil himself confirmed that the Endless basically warp reality, and that this is why, after Dream’s failed relationship with Nada, many black women in his vicinity suffer terrible fates (Ruby and Carla in particular). And that this spell is only broken when he dies, and that it is the reason why Gwen doesn’t suffer the same fate. And said Gwen then gets used as a plot device to basically absolve Hob (who canonically really is a problematic character, whether show-only fans like it or not) from his slaver past. Once again, very clearly: No one is making this up. Neil confirmed it (for the comics, and that was over 20 years ago. It remains to be seen if his stance has changed as we move into that arc in the TV show).

I don't think it is correct to imply that Dream as a character is racist (I've read that, too) because he logically can’t be. He holds *all* the collective unconscious. He is also, strictly speaking, not white. He is everything and nothing, and he shows up in many different ethnicities throughout the whole arc, depending on who looks at him. But Neil played with a subtext here (reality warping due to a bad relationship which then affects everyone with similar physical traits) that will read very differently to a black person than it reads to a white person, and we have to understand why that is an *extremely* slippery slope.

Plus, we are supposed to see Hob, who *was* a racist at some point (you can’t not be if you’re a slave-trader—it’s impossible by default) as redeemed. And yes, he *does* regret deeply, good for him (and if I were saying this aloud, you would hear the sarcasm in my voice, because it is indeed all about him. We are to sympathise/empathise with him and his character growth while there isn’t much mention of the people he maltreated). But also: it was a black woman who basically forgave him (with dialogue that personally makes me cringe). And that black woman who offers forgiveness is not truly a black woman—she is a character written by a white man. And as much as author and character are not the same (see above), there is an inherent sensitivity in that power imbalance that we can't brush under the carpet.

I don’t think Neil is racist. Probably quite the opposite, and I can even see that his intentions were good from a storytelling point of view. BUT intention and impact are two fundamentally different things, and telling the story this way (comic version) betrays blindspots only white people have. Just like women have blindspots when they tell stories about men, and men have blindspots when they tell stories about women (and there are a few of those in The Sandman, too). And and and…

As storytellers, we can’t always speak from lived experience. It’s impossible. And that also means we occasionally make mistakes that look bad in hindsight, even if our intentions were good.

I guess the proof is in the pudding: What do we do when people who *have* that lived experience tell us it looks bad? If they inform us why it is hurtful, plays into old stereotypes etc?

Are we willing to listen and yield (both are the foundations of allyship btw), or are we insisting that our viewpoint as someone *without* lived experience is right? That lived experience extends to all lived experiences (sex/gender, sexual orientation, age...), and from all we’ve heard from Neil so far, it seems important to him to rewrite what he sees differently today. Whether they’ll always get it right for the show—we’ll see. At the moment, it looks a lot better than in the comics, and certain issues are already being handled with a lot more sensitivity, but a few problems remain.

Pushing back on criticism that comes from people with lived experience is problematic—I’d encourage us to think about what it looks like if a white majority in the fandom is basically saying that the opinions of POC are essentially “overreactions” (and yes, that happened).

It’s complicated. The Sandman was written in a different time, and I think we have to distinguish between things that weren’t really problematic at the time but have aged poorly (again, Thessaly springs to mind, and I have lived experience as a queer person during that time, so I can see it in context while at the same time acknowledging that I would make changes to bring it to the present day), and things that were always a problem due to blindspots. They were a problem in 1990, and if they don’t get changed, they are still a problem today.

This fandom is generally so much more open and nicer than others I know. But that doesn’t mean it’s infallible, because it’s full of humans. 

Nuance is sorely needed, in both story interpretation and interaction between said humans.

[louisisalarrie]

there’s quite the convo that was going on on twitter today, which is super interesting to me, because it’s brought up often and usually from newer members to the fandom, particularly solos. we’ve been talking about this for years. so… idk, let’s talk.

this convo is of the gist that Larries made Harry and louis stop interacting due to our interest in them being together. we, apparently, are the ones who made either mgmt, or Harry and Louis themselves, entirely separate and go from best friends to absolutely nothing. and when I say absolutely nothing, like… they were so distanced it was ridiculous.

but here’s the thing… if you weren’t around at the time (there’s no issue with that btw!), ziam was the second biggest ship after larry. A bunch of Larries shipped ziam, and a lot of larry antis shipped ziam, as well as ziam having their own following regardless of larry. And yes, I was there, so im fully aware ziam wasn’t as big as Larry, but they were definitely a close second as far as “ships” go. there was also narry, zarry, lilo, and all the others, but larry and ziam dominated.

But… funnily enough, ziam weren’t separating due to a large speculation of them being in a relationship. it was printed and posted in multiple formats that zayn had said in an interview he told Liam to kiss him and he did (early days, yes), and they really gave off relationship vibes for a long time there, but they were still close and interacting very lovingly throughout the entirety of 1d. and regardless of your stance on ziam, they were clearly very close.

The thing with this is, is that gay rumours can be harmful to a fanbase with a demographic of young women, who the idea is to make the band desirable for women to be with to keep them interested etc., we’re all aware of that, but why wasn’t ziam separated? why weren’t all the boys asked to be super straight with each other? why was it so intense with larry?

Because if you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t hide anything. ziam still were carrying on in front of our faces while larry went through a multitude of stunts (that antis and now some solos also believed were stunts), and were so strictly kept apart that it was blindingly obvious something was going on. To make it seem the most real, you’d have all the boys being laddy bro pals with one another. but it was specifically larry who were extremely drastically pushed apart. of course there was no public “fight” printed to give us a reason as to why they became so far apart (that would signal an end to the band and worry etc.) to make sense of it, but they just were forced in their own lanes. anyone with two eyes can see that, and you could easily tell if they hated each other or not. but the small moments they did interact, showed us otherwise.

anyway, it’s very important to note that ziam did not stop being ziam regardless of the rumours, but larry did stop being larry drastically. they’re not homophobes, they weren’t scared of encouraging the rumours (AIMH and all the playful tweets and interactions), but they were clearly separated when larry kept being talked about further down the track. and if you can’t see that, well you may need to reevaluate and use some critical thinking. it’s happened before 1d too, it’s not rocket science.

anyway, sorry for the rant. it’s just frustrating when I see this convo when we’ve had it over and over again. so, for all the newer larries,if you haven’t already, take this into consideration as one of the very biggest pieces of larry evidence we have. because, well, it is. it may seem insignificant as it’s not a “moment”, but rather it’s a long and ongoing piece of evidence that there was something to hide, so they hid it. and they still do.

[destinygoldenstar]

It’s honestly very crazy that a garbage Hollywood trailer makes so many people apologize to Minecraft Story Mode.

My experience with MCSM was that I was gifted the show by my dad as a teenager the same year the news came that Telltale went bankrupt. (It was the summer, so a couple of months before that)

I got a lot more into it than I was expecting. It had its problems, sure, but I was incredibly immersed with its story and atmosphere. Later on it became one of my obsessions once I finished the two games. It was the first fandom on the internet I ever became a part of. It was also the first time I ever outright became a shipper over a ship that wasn’t canon. (Jetra is my OTP to this day)

But in terms of real life, I never really felt confident talking to people about it. That’s because this was around the same time the hate train for MCSM started to arise. Then it became “Pure Fact” quote on quote that the games were these terrible things.

Now in my opinion and from my experience this started when some popular Let’s Players bashed the games. And even then I can’t blame them for simply having an opinion. But it’s because of their influence that their audiences take their opinions as gospel. (That should not be how that works)

From there every time I brought it up I would get cyberbullied for liking the games. And this was true for a lot of people who did like the games as well. We were all getting cyberbullied into joining the popular crowd and that we were wrong.

“Everyone else is saying it’s bad, therefore it must be true”

And then every time MCSM popped up in my feeds, my heart would sink and I would feel sick. Weird part was, while I did become far more critical of the games as a result of the trend… I NEVER found it in myself to outright hate it.

Like I said, the games have problems. They are by no means perfect games, and some of my critiques of it still hold up. (Not all of them though, ones I do wish I could take back) it was talking about THESE games that even spawned my hobby of writing essays of stuff I like.

So… that’s a sad origin story for how AnalyzGolden came to be. Now you know.

I’ve since drifted away from MCSM, simply because I was older and getting into new stuff. I talk about other stuff on this blog, like The Amazing Digital Circus, Ninjago, Total Drama, and quite recently Disventure Camp. And more. I also try to advertise my own stories to failing results cause no one cares.

So to see, after all these years, people like me finally being VALIDATED for our soured opinion on something… it just warms my heart so much.

I became more critical because of the trend of “MCSM sucks”. And now that that’s growing to not be the case, and I became more exposed to some crazy and wild fandom takes on other media that boggle my mind, that I’ve stepped more away from being negative and made choices to be in my corner and simply “Enjoy Something. Because I enjoy it.”

Oh I’m still a critical cynical bitch. And I do talk about my own critiques and problems if I personally have a problem with it and how the writing or whatever was handled. But I guess I’m more willing to hear the story itself out and what it’s trying to do before I jump to conclusions.

I cringe at my old emotionally impulsive self. And I hate having regression episodes of reverting back to my awful teenager self. But I can say that through experiences, I have to thank that for the person I am now, even if it sucked.

So… thank you MCSM. And thank you Hollywood for making a trailer/movie so awful that it made people such as myself finally feel heard and validated.

(Oh and btw, you guys don’t need to follow the trend of loving MCSM either. This doesn’t need to turn into the complete opposite thing. The lesson here is that you are allowed to like and dislike MCSM, and anything really, and trends should not sour your take on it. You can still not like the games if that’s your honest opinion.)

[mediumgayitalian]

I know I’ve been liking all your works on here but I just have to say I LOVE ALL OF THEM SO MUCH <333 they’re just so silly and goofy /pos

Out of curiosity, have you done your take on the “3 days in the infirmary” yet? And if not, do you ever plan to?

THANKS!

thank you teehee silly and goofy is my specialty. and thank you SO MUCH for asking bc the thing is that i’ve been trying?? like i have three drafts barely started right now and i can’t tell which one, if any, are promising. would y’all mind telling me (honestly, i promise i can handle criticism when i ask for it) might be something you would read, and if not, what you like/dislike? thank you in advance!! and they’re rough drafts so please forgive any poor formatting or grammar/spelling. words like /this/ mean they’re italicized btw.

okay, the first one. the idea here is less three days in the infirmary and more pining nico post the three days in the infirmary, but he keeps thinking back to it. here is one such moment:

please let me know what works/doesnt et cetera!!!

okay next one. this one is more classic, it’s literally the three days in the infirmary except whoops nico was exhausted as shit and slept through them entirely and now will is making him stay another three for observation. and they fall in love obviously. featuring in william-andrew-never-shuts-up-for-even-three-seconds solace bc i love him.

i think this one is the most promising tbh but i could be wrong. mostly i just love motormouth will. lmk what u think!!

okay and the last and possibly most iffy one. this one is actually the thing that yanked me full force back into this fandom, creatively, bc the idea wormed itself into my brain and i couldn’t get it out.

i haven’t worked on it in like a month and a half bc i’m nervous people will despise it, but the general idea is that nico gets to the infirmary and will has an open crush on him, like he doesn’t say it but even nico is not that oblivious, and nico has to face, for the first time, someone who is not even slightly ashamed about their sexuality. it’s less of a solangelo fic and more of a nico fic tbh.

i ditched it bc i don’t think anyone will read it, but if you would, tell me please! i’m an attention whore and very motivated when i know i’m getting attention lol.

anyways! please tell me your thoughts! reblog or comments are great, but if you’re shy my anon asks are open :D my DMs too!!!

[call-me-chips]

TIS I, RANDOM JEFF!! I HAVE RETURNED TO BESTOW RANDOM QUESTIONS UPON THEE!!!

this time i’m gonna do one question per fandom in your pinned post >:3

Who’s your favorite villain? Would you want to encounter them randomly in an alleyway? (Bnha/Mha)

What blood demon art would you want to have? (Kny)

Who’s your favorite member of the Forger family? (Spy x Family)

Who’s your favorite character from Brooklyn Nine-Nine? (B99) [I haven’t watched this so i can’t give a better question srry 😭]

Would you survive in the circus? Who would you get along with best? (Tadc)

Which animatronic do you find critically underrated by the fanbase? (Fnaf)

Who would win in a fight, Alastor or Stolas? Why? Also who’s your favorite IMP member?

decided not to do all fandoms rn cause i want some for later.

ENJOY!!! I’LL BE BACK SOON!

WHY HELLO, RANDOM JEFF!!! :DD

1, Mr. Compress. And ima say I wouldn't want to come across him in an alleyway just because he's a villain who has killed many a time. That being said, he's probably one of the best lov members to find in an alleyway, cuz he likely wouldn't kill without reason, unlike someone like Dabi or Shiggy

2. I am sadly not well knowing of kny, so I don't know my answer to this one. Tis one of those fandoms where I really enjoy the characters and plot and things, but I haven't gotten around to actually watching it yet, sorry (I should probably just remove it from my fandom list lol)

3. Hmmmm tis a hard one... ima say Anya :3

4. Holt (Rest in piece, king 😔)

5. I probably wouldn't survive tbh. I'd have a panic attack right out the gate and abstract. I'd say I'd probably get along best with Ragatha (Tho I'm not sure how much she'd like me lol)

6. Not terribly invested in this fandom, but I do like Bonnie. Not quite sure if he's underrated tho

7. Alastor. I say this cuz, although both have incredibly strong powers, Stolas doesn't often use his to fight, whereas Alastor practically made a living off of killing powerful overlords. As for my fav IMP member... hmmm tis another tough one. Maybe Moxxie?? Either one of the Ms

And thank you ever so much, Random Jeff!! I hope to continue these little interactions for as long as possible >:]

I might go and tweak my fandom list tho

I do have one question for the almighty Random Jeff: Are you currently following me?

Totally not trying to figure out who you are btw...

[ardentpoop]

genuinely interested bc i love critical thoughts on Dean and John, why do u think John is better than him?

I agree Sam is the best, but as of right now, I believe John is worse, gimme ur thoughts <3

I think most people have such a narrow idea of abuse that john registers as More Abusive than dean bc of the show’s (offscreen, retroactive) imagery of him devolving into drunken rages etc. which btw - as if dean doesn’t have plenty of onscreen drunken rages. 😅 overall tho most of the harm john inflicted on his sons was done via his unpredictable absences - and in sam’s case by cutting him off when he refused to live the life john thought he should live. (“you walk out that door don’t you ever come back” from john when sam leaves to go to stanford and from dean when they clash after sam’s forced detox.)

could very well be that if john had lived past s1 he would’ve made things worse - but he also could’ve made things a lot better tbh, by rerouting some of the tension btwn his sons. bc dean goes off the fucking rails after john dies. the reason I say s1 dean is the only version of dean I wholeheartedly sympathize with is that the red flags pop up in s2 immediately after john’s death and he only gets worse and worse from there.

like who do you think did more damage to sam - john with whom sam would argue constantly bc he knew he was wrong abt what was “best” for sam, who died before the worst events of sam’s life could transpire? or dean who develops an insanely long track record of lying to sam “for his own good” and making decisions for him without his consent (which sometimes involves literally punching his lights out to incapacitate him) and questioning his judgement at every major junction and calling him a “freak” and meaning it and showing him that everyone else in their life agrees that dean’s right to do all of it. john was sam’s unreliable father but dean is sam’s literal life partner and he makes their already nightmarish existence worse by refusing to extend a modicum of the trust compassion and understanding to sam that sam unconditionally extends to dean.

I’m sorry but dean’s literally a monster lol no other character in this show makes my stomach turn more frequently than he does. and like I’ve said - there is immense narrative value to that and this show and these characters wouldn’t be the same if the dynamic wasn’t this badly unbalanced… but ppl are so allergic to confronting it. it doesn’t mean you can’t like dean as a character! believe it or not there are things abt him that I find very compelling. it’s just that I want to scream until I’m blue in the face when the fandom or the narrative trots out its romanticized version of him.

[tachiguin]

If you were Kafka, what would you change in BSD

Sorry, this question has been sitting in my inbox for a very long time. I think it’s kinda hard for me to answer this question, because to a certain degree I’m tempted to say “I wouldn’t change anything at all”. Like, for all that I criticize media like Bungou Stray Dogs for various things, I also think that the media we consume shouldn’t be required to be so perfect that there’s nothing to criticize. If anything, criticism is a major part of what drives discussion in fandoms. Moreover, as much as I may feel “Kafka Asagiri shouldn’t have done X”, I’m not really inclined to want to change X about the series? Maybe it’s just because I approach it from the mindset of a reader, not an author, but I think that its OK for me to disapprove of certain aspects of a series, and still not want anything to change about it. Like, if I was given full control to change anything I wanted, it probably wouldn’t be the same Bungou Stray Dogs at all, starting with Mushitarou’s awful hairstyle, BTW. Honestly I might just kill the guy off if it was up to me, I don’t really like looking at his face……. but I digress!

Having said that, I still do think certain aspects of the series could be changed to better appeal to myself. But again, I don’t want anyone to think that my opinion is more “correct” than what Kafka Asagiri himself decided for the series. This is literally just my personal thoughts on the matter, just like how if it was up to me Oguri Mushitarou and his slimy hair would not exist in Bungou Stray Dogs, even though, objectively, he’s fine and well written and nothing really needs to change about him, except I really want him to sue his plastic surgeon, and his hairdresser, like hello? Way to make a guy look unrecognizable, I guess.

Sorry, I’ll stop trashing on poor Mushitarou. I’m serious though.

The two major changes I’d make are the role of female characters in the series, and also the way that the concepts of self-sacrifice and “honorable suicide” are presented. I think these aspects are the biggest gripes I have with the story, but I also think that, especially in regards to the latter, the series wouldn’t necessarily be the same, or even “better”, if it was changed.

I’ve never really made a post going in depth about how I feel in regards to BSD’s female cast, but I’ve mentioned before that I think the fandom really underrates most, if not all, women in Bungou Stray Dogs. But in retrospect, I can’t really blame it all on the fandom’s general misogyny; the way that Asagiri portrays women in his story doesn’t really do anything to discourage the lack of appreciation for his female cast. The thing is that she’s almost always the side chick. She’s an accessory to hang off of his arm. She’s motivated solely by him, whether that be his goals, or just because she—and it’s never really explained why—is deeply and hopelessly in love with him. Who is this “she”? Who am I talking about, in particular? Literally every female character, barring maybe Yosano, might fit the descriptions I gave above. That’s how bad Kafka Asagiri is at giving his female characters agency.

It’s okay to have a character with a plotline that’s intertwined with another character. It’s okay to have a character that’s motivated by external forces. It’s okay to have a supporting character who doesn’t really do much except move the plot forward. It’s starts to become annoying when all of these characters are women, while their male counterparts get the better end of the deal.

Sometimes I hear people say that Kafka Asagiri is good at writing women, and I think, in response, that shounen anime has truly brought our standards down, six feet under the dirt where every interesting female character to exist in animanga is buried. Yes… Asagiri doesn’t shy away from writing female characters who can fight, and even, gasp! Fight well, but this is literally the bare minimum, especially for a magical setting that takes place in the modern age. Asagiri can create female characters with interesting traits and a lot of potential, then subsequently assign all of her traits to serve a male character’s narrative, while actively sabotaging any potential she had by utilizing her as a plot device.

And maybe I would be less annoyed if it went both ways. Kyouka has saved Atsushi quite a handful of times, why doesn’t he worship the ground she walks on and dedicate his entire life to helping her fulfill her goals? Actually, on this topic, the reason why is because Kyouka doesn’t have any substantial goals outside of being Atsushi’s sidekick for life. Now, I absolutely adore Kyouka and Atsushi’s relationship, found family is still my favorite troupe ever, but it’s noticeable that while Atsushi’s search for self-esteem and a so-called “reason to live” is the literal narrative core of the series, Kyouka, who had found herself struggling with a similar internal conflict, is by comparison, almost never explored further. When was the last time the story checked back up on Lucy, and how she’s feeling? Yeah, she’s in a better place now, but isn’t she still haunted by her years at the orphanage, under the Guild’s thumb, being treated like a pawn on the chessboard, just as so many male characters have been shown to feel in wake of their own traumatic experiences? Doesn’t she struggle to find a new purpose in life, now that she’s no longer stuck doing someone else’s bidding just to survive?

We only ever see a brief glimpse into the thoughts and feelings of BSD’s female cast, before the door slams shut, and they’re relegated to some background role where it doesn’t really matter how she feels, she just wants to help the guy who saved her life, that’s all we really need to know before we can start advancing the plot again. Well, I want to know more. 

It would also be great to have more female characters who are motivated by something other than her desire to help or hurt another—oftentimes male—character. How come he’s allowed to delusionally seek world domination, and she isn’t? How come he’s allowed to desperately want to save everyone in spite of a cruel reality, and she isn’t? How come he’s allowed to be motivated almost solely by his selfish need for the validation of another, and she isn’t?

Which brings me to another avenue to consider: characters like Akutagawa and Rampo are shown to be fanatically devoted to another character, to the point that Dazai or Fukuzawa could say “Jump,” and they’d be in the air even before asking “How high?”. But here’s the thing: Akutagawa’s devotion is entirely self-centric, and it’s examined as such. He doesn’t selflessly want to help Dazai, no questions asked, he craves the peace of mind that Dazai’s affirmation would bring about, and consequently does anything he can to gain that validation. Not only that, but it’s portrayed as unhealthy and a problem when Akutagawa blindly does whatever Dazai asks of him, but somehow, this doesn’t apply to Louisa and Fitzgerald, Teruko and Fukuchi? Hmmmmmm!

Simply put, there’s a double standard here, and I’d like it to change, because BSD really does have a female cast with a lot of potential, if only Asagiri cared to utilize it.

***

In regards to Thing I'd Want To Change #2, I remember tag-dumping about this awhile back, but it somewhat bothers me that in order to pass the Detective Agency’s entrance exam, Atsushi and Kyouka were required to put their lives on the line to save another (even though, in Atsushi’s case, it was all staged). This might not have been a problem for me if the Detective Agency weren’t the good guys in this—or even if it was emphasized in some other manner that it’s OK to save yourself first, like c’mon, that’s just common sense, they teach you such in elementary school during a fire drill. But unfortunately, not only was Kyouka’s feelings on the matter never expanded on, Atsushi continues to believe that he needs to save people to deserve to live.

However, I do think that there’s still room for development here. Bungou Stray Dogs is not a completed work, so who’s to say that Atsushi won’t have a different outlook on life by the final chapter? Moreover, I think that in the situation where Atsushi first reached this conclusion (on the subway with Yosano and Kaji), Atsushi was probably in a worse mindset prior. For him, he felt that he wanted to live, but that he didn’t deserve to, so therefore, in order to justify his own existence, he grasped a “reason to live”, a motivation to not simply give up and perish right then and there, alongside a train full of innocent people. It was a very “in the moment” kind of thing, that would serve as a foundation for later developments. Again, I think it’s fine that this is his way of thinking now, but someone genuinely needs to tell this boy that it’s not a matter of “reasons” or whether he deserves to or not, living is just something we do without really thinking about it, so its okay if that he lives in that kind of unapologetic manner.

Still, the Detective Agency’s exam is kind of harsh, yet I don’t think it’s necessarily something I would do away with completely, as much as I would reframe it to better fit the message I would want to send. The thing is that working at a superpowered organization that regularly gets into scuffles with the local mafia is in no way safe, and your life insurance probably won’t cover it when you get magically killed and dumped in the river. So it is understandable if a minimum requirement for becoming a member is that you’re okay with getting caught in life or death situations on a semi-frequent basis. It may also be a desired trait that you’d be willing to rescue civilian lives at little benefit to yourself, though not necessarily always in the context of self-sacrifice. Sure, it’s a crazy way of interviewing for these attributes, but it’s not like people don’t lie on their resume, and also, the Detective Agency was established early on to be full of crazy people. You must be this bugfuck insane to join, if you fail the vibe check you die, sorry!

In all seriousness, I think the concept of living, and in particular, having a reason to live, are a major part of Bungou Stray Dog’s themes, and changing it to suit my own opinions better would probably drastically uproot whatever message Asagiri wanted to send, whatever feelings and opinions of his own that he injected into the characters of Atsushi, Dazai, Kyouka, and the like. Even if I myself do not fully agree with the narrative, I still think its okay to have media that tells a different feeling, shares a different experience, and presents a different opinion.

Anyway, this got really long, sorry I was too lazy to include many embedded pictures to break up the text walls. If you read this far to the end then I appreciate and love you dearly, hopefully I made some degree of sense and didn’t just sound like I was rambling out of my ass.

[fttwts]

what're your opinions on popular ft ships? you can talk about any you like i'm just curious which ones you like and which ones you don't. specifically laxus and gray tho 👀

inspired by your post about erik / kinana !!

If by popular you mean the big 4 then I don’t like any one of those sorry 💀

I shortly summarized why i don’t like Jerza a while back

Gajevy is kinda boring and it developed forcefully and out of nowhere, one day Gajeel was hanging the team shadow gear to a tree and the next day Levy had already forgiven him and was crushing on him like girl stand up

+ I hate how Levy’s character went from being important in the earlier seasons and actually having a personality to being reduced to a love interest once Mashima decided to pair her up with Gajeel for some reason

As for Nalu, it’s not like i don’t like them, I just can’t see them as more than friends. This may be a little petty but i think the two main protagonists of a manga about friendship shouldn’t end up together in the end. Kinda crushes the whole point lmao

And then there’s Gruvia man…

They could’ve handled it way better if they just put in the effort. Instead, we got the obsessed stalker trope… and apparently everyone’s ok with that. Sigh.

“It’s canon now” i don’t care, being canon doesn’t make something immune to criticism and saying that Gruvia is all straight up bad writing is common sense i fear

Juvia’s character’s only purpose is to be in love with Gray. No other personality trait whatsoever. Take her out of the story and nothing would really change except for some of the ‘comic relief’

Mashima literally had to force Gray’s personality into doing a 180 in 100yq for him to start liking Juvia

Since you asked which ships I like, I suppose you mean the popular ones and not the rarepairs, I have way too many of those lmao.

My favorite ‘popular’ ship with Gray is Graylu; I like Gratsu too but not that much for it to be one of my favorites

I have a soft spot for Nali since i’m a sucker for the childhood friend trope

I also like Lolu a lot

You asked for Laxus too, but I don’t like any of the popular ships involving him. I don’t see the point in Miraxus even existing except for the amount of heteronormativity in this fandom, and Fraxus doesn’t really do it for me. They’re cute tho

A bunch of the ‘crack’ ships I like can be seen in some of my posts lmao

Btw i’m not shading on anyone who likes the big 4 or any other ship i mentioned, this is just my opinion and everyone can ship whatever they want :)

[bestworstcase]

Quick question: When and how did you start realizing that fandom tends to be hostile or anti-analysis? Was it just something that happened overtime?

i mean. have you ever made a textually-supported point contradicted by popular fanon? people seethe

but it’s also just sort of baked into what fandom is. the whole concept of ‘headcanon’ is inherently antitextual—things held to be true irrespective of the text—and the whole point of fanworks is to engage transformatively with the text. fandom is explicitly not a community oriented around textual analysis, and while analytical readings can (and do) support and enrich transformative works, they are also just not what fandom is about.

so within fandom receptivity to textual analysis is generally lukewarm and varies widely depending on how closely it happens to align with the fanon, and in my experience fandom has a particular difficulty parsing character analysis outside the blorbo framework (ie liking / disliking / personally identifying with a character).

there is in particular a tendency for analytical readings to get parsed in fandom spaces as critical of the story or the characters being discussed; for example i’ve had explicitly positive character analysis of mine (as in, posts where i directly state my appreciation for or enjoyment of the thing i’m talking about) get reblogged and tagged ‘anti-whatever’ because the thing i’m talking about is, like, a character flaw. or something bad that a character did that caused conflict in the narrative.

and i think that really gets to the heart of the, like, cultural divide between transformative fandom and analytical engagement, because in fandom spaces if you say, for instance, “yang has a hot temper she works hard to keep in check” that is generally going to be understood as a value judgment (either a positive remark on her maturity and emotional discipline or a complaint about her expressions of anger) whereas in an analytical context it’s just an observation that needs to be evaluated in terms of whether the text supports it or not.

the consequence of that is that if i write analytically about the role of anger in yang’s character arc—which is a facet of her that i personally really enjoy and think is done quite well—and if that breaks containment and travels outside of my immediate circle of followers (who presumably follow me because they like reading my analysis and who obv know what i’m about) then odds are it’ll land in front of someone who goes “UGH not ANOTHER person picking on yang for bEiNg AnGrY, she’s got good reasons to be mad when she gets mad and also she doesn’t get mad NEARLY as often as these assholes think” (which is true) (yang almost never loses her temper and she’s very quick to check herself on those occasions; and when she chooses to let it out she’s always justified)—because anger is culturally perceived as bad and the social norm in most fan spaces is that you don’t write lengthy posts focused on a character’s flaws (or ‘flaws’) unless you just think they suck.

(<- this isn’t a hypothetical btw. like i’ve gotten blocked over my yangposting being interpreted in exactly this way grbfksj)

the funny part is that while my analysis intermittently makes people SPITTING MAD, the fanfic i write (which follows from my analysis!) doesn’t. i’m sure there’s plenty of people who don’t like my fanfic, but if i write a character in a way that contradicts the popular fanon what happens is folks will comment stuff like “this is such a cool unique take on this character” brfhkg. and that’s primarily why i think it’s a cultural thing, where textual analysis—with its strict grounding in textual evidence and dismissal of ideas that can’t be supported by the text—gets people’s hackles up bc it’s a) examining the text at an emotional remove and thus hard to parse in a social environment where the primary mode of engagement is driven by emotional attachment to specific characters, and b) often perceived as telling people their headcanons are wrong, which is rude.

(sometimes headcanons ARE wrong, in the sense of being textually refuted. that is the entire point of headcanon. i think the experience of fandom is much improved by keeping this in mind. analysis is never a threat to headcanon because headcanon is supposed to be transformative. equally, headcanon is irrelevant to analysis because analysis is strictly concerned with the text.)

more broadly i just find fandom culture to be interesting in and of itself. so in addition to participating in fandom directly i also lurk a lot and pay attention to cross-fandom phenomena (e.g. migratory sapphic and slash shippers) and read discussions about fandom and that sort of thing. and i think approaching fandom from that perspective, it’s sort of a what it says on the tin situation; fandom is transformative by definition, ‘fuck canon’ is an ubiquitous meme, fanon… exists at all as a concept and is widely celebrated as superior to canon, AUs are terrifically popular, “fix-it” fics are terrifically popular, etc etc.

so i don’t think my view here is even unusual necessarily except insofar as i articulate it in a very precise (and perhaps pedantic) way. like the average person in fandom is probably aware that playing in the sandbox is different from constructing a lego set and that people in the sandbox are, as a general rule, not all that keen to make sand castles in strict accordance with the lego instructions. because it’s sand. lmao

[autistic-ben-tennyson]

PoE: Actual Thoughts

This is going to be my last post regarding the discourse that I was responsible for starting. A lot of people probably think I hate the movie and am Lily Orchard 2.0 because of what those like spot-the-antisemitism claim. I’ll be leaving my actual opinions on it as well as the fandom and why I don’t love it as much as I used to. Contrary to what Zionists like Emperorsfoot claim, I can think for myself and have my own beliefs.

TPoE used to be one of my favorite movies. I wrote an essay back in 9th grade encouraging people to watch it because it had great music, great animation and an emotional story one could appreciate regardless of their religious beliefs. I still think it’s a good piece of filmmaking and has its place in theological and historical discussions. James Baxter worked on some of the animation sequences and would later create iconic moments from shows like Adventure Time and Steven Universe.

So what’s the problem? Well, the reason my opinion towards has soured is multifaceted. Being an anime fan has played a role in me seeing it as just another movie as opposed to the greatest animated film ever due to watching movies such as Spirited Away, Suzume or The End of Evangelion. Its fandom is another thing I dislike. Some say you can’t let fandom ruin something for you but if a majority of the people in a fandom are jerks, then it’s valid to not want to engage.

While it was wrong for me to call it “Zionist propaganda”, I have gotten anon hate from its stans including suicide bait. So many of the people in the notes of the post as well as the OP were either transphobic radtrads like griseldafury21, “vote blue no matter what” liberals like Short-wooloo or all the fandom Zionists like Prismatic-bell. YouTube comments are full of “anti woke” creationists using it to trash modern Hollywood, which is terrible but not for the reasons they claim. Liberal Zionists do use it to support their view of themselves as perpetual victims who can do no wrong. Killing people is okay as long as they’re oppressive in their eyes, whether Egyptian or Palestinian.

So maybe I do dislike it but not because I think it’s a bad movie or propaganda, but because it’s fandom has soured me towards it. One could certainly use its liberation message as a commentary on the oppression of Palestinians but that probably won’t get any support from the movie’s top fans. The behavior of the hardcore fans is what has turned me off to it, especially their concern trolling over gofundme scams. Same reason why I’ve been less enthusiastic towards Steven Universe. Still has a place in my heart and was a big factor in my anime obsession but the amount of fans who are racist milquetoast liberals has pushed me away from the fandom. I don’t single out Jews for being Zionists either. I would be disappointed if Rebecca Sugar supported Israel but I’d feel the same about Makoto Shinkai, Hideaki Anno or Dwayne McDuffie, if he was still alive, and others I admire. I judge people based on their actions and principles, not their religion or ethnicity.

So that’s what I actually think of the movie and it’s fans. Some of the songs like “When you believe” are pretty emotional and as someone with a complicated relationship with my brother, the conflict between Moses and Ramses does get a tear out of me, even if that’s not what happened in the Bible. I still have fondness for it, but many of its hardcore fans have ruined it and people’s lack of willingness to criticize any aspect is disappointing. Criticizing it or SU does not make someone Lily Orchard or Lindsay Ellis as people can develop their own opinions without influence. The Prince of Egypt is a great work of art in my opinion but it’s not above criticism and the way people use it as well as other “wholesome” media as a shield should be talked about more.