#ofc they are entitled to their own opinion but in my opinion their opinion is wrong

[arsene-ee]

Omg, actually a shit take 🩷

yes, you are right in the end it's just people smashing their dolls together, the issue however comes in when you consider that Wyll cannot be interpreted as anything other than black (I know that Karlach and Minthara are PoC coded but racists will obviously interpret them as white) and is the origin character with the least amount of content surrounding him.

...not that I assume you would know that since I assume Astarion is one of your favourite characters considering the essay you wrote defending his racism while simultaneously invalidating the feelings of what I assume is a romani person because they haven't played the game AnD kNoW nOtHiNg AbOuT iT. (I wouldn't want to play a game either if I was a minority and a character that was activley racist towards my culture was praised and everyone's babygirl, hell I wouldn't want to interact with that fandom in the first place) (Also this is not hate towards Astarion fans in general this is hate towards a certain flavour of Astation fans)

Wyll is already considered 'boring' and people usually just put him in the time out corner in camp and never interact with him again, some would even entirely skip him if they didn't find Karlach so hard to find or really had the hots for Mizora.

Wyll only has a handful of romance content, the dance scene being one of them, which perfectly fits his character. Now I don't care what you do in your private game that you do not post or talk about in any way shape or form. I care about when you post it because then it's not your private Dollhouse anymore and you're open of criticsim (?).

If it becomes normalized to just modelswap that scene for another character it might erase Wyll from his own romance scene, although this might just be me overthinking it because I was raised with the "what if everyone started doing this" mindset, I still want to acknowledge that the modelswap just because you like another character more than Wyll is a real shitty thing to do and might contribute to the erasure of PoC characters (especially since Larian just ignores Wyll entirely as seen with the last Patch, they really gave Wyll a patch that broke him even more than he already was)

It just sucks how little Wyll is acknowledged in the fandom and then to see people replace him in the like 3 scences he really got going for him sucks even more because that means he's getting pushed out of the frame even more.

[sunflowervoltwentyeight]

do you think theyre still together? they spend so mcuh time apart :(

Yeah I do think they're still together. And yeah they do spend a lot of time apart. I think people need to understand that your idea of a relationship is not everyone's idea of a relationship, if that makes sense. Harry and Louis are in a very unique situation where they've gone from working together/being together every single day to having separate careers that demand them to be in a million different places all on top of the fact that they are not publicly together. I think it probably took them quite a while after 1d to figure out what works for them and I think it's completely possible that they did take some time apart after the band. They had a lot to figure out both personally and professionally.

I think over the years they've probably worked to realize what's important to them personally as individuals, as artists, and as partners and they have probably come to terms with the fact that there may be times where the don't see each other for weeks or months at a time. And that's okay. That might not be what many view as a "normal" relationship which is why I think people tend to get worked up. But every relationship is unique and like I said their situation is also unique.

Harry's mentioned reading books such as the Course of Love by Alain de Botton which is essentially about learning and exploring how love can be maintained in long term relationships. I think making their relationship work in whatever capacity they can is extremely important to them and something they've consistently put a lot of thought and effort into.

During a show last year when Harry asked a fan "Are you kind to each other? Do you love each other? Do you look after each other? Do you protect each others solitude? Are you friends to each other? Through thick and thin?" To me, those things all seem like things Harry (and Louis) highly value in their relationship. And the thing that stuck out to me, of course, was "do you protect each other's solitude?" which I assume he gets from the Rilke quote "the highest form of love is to be the protector of another person's solitude." I think this really goes hand in hand with the fact that they do require time apart, time alone etc. for themselves career wise and personally. I also believe they are both incredibly supportive of each other's careers which means understanding and respecting everything (time, travel, publicity etc.) that they have to put into their careers.

So all of this is to say yes, I do think they're still together. And yes, you're correct, they do spend a lot of time apart and that's okay. Their relationship isn't going to look like your "average" relationship.

[azuneekun]

i come check ur blog everytime my friends slander shane to my face. its a type of shane palette cleanser. ur the only mf who gets me

Im glad you can feel some sort of sanctuary in my blog bcz shane fans r always going through the fucking trenches in this fandom

[nartml]

"I don't like wolfstar—"

"Sasusaku are my otp—"

"THW was the perfect ending—"

"Hisoka is so hot—"

"TPW was exploitative and incredibly harmful—"

"Coho is such a great writer—"

"Taylor Swift could write Shakespeare but Shakespeare couldn't write folklore—"

"Opinions can't be wrong—"

"[insert every other horrendous take I've ever heard]"

Shhhh shh shhhh, nobody asked for your irrelevant thoughts go away

[lesbianturtle]

the block button is actually so good for my mental health solely to stop seeing bad takes about media i enjoy

[kizzyedgelll]

someone reblogged my carol post saying they didn't like the movie bc it's too "shallow". like. lmao who asked?

[byunbaekhyunie]

baekhyun is colorist so..

if you wanna bring up the unsavory jokes he’s made at the expense of jongin some 9 years ago be my guest. I personally don’t feel like I have the reigning authority to judge the personal relationship of two ppl I’ve never met. I obviously don’t condone the stupid things he’s said but outside of that, I’ve never once heard of him treating ppl differently, or making any sort of comment regarding anyone’s skin tone whether it be in his personal life, with his staff, or with the fans

[stillherebutwhytho]

Please don't flame me for my personal opinion, I'm more than open to having a nice discussion about this!

Anywho, critical community, I PERSONALLY do not think Stolas is a rapist.

Let me elaborate. First of all I am Pro Sex Work. Anyone who decides (of their own volition) that they want to sell their bodies then they should be allowed to. Here's the tough part, if you think this you cannot villanize the people who PAY for sex work.

Blitz came in to steal Stolas' book. It's an item that holds significance to BOTH PARTIES. When he got caught Stolas ofc got the wrong impression, and instead of maybe bailing out, or doing anything else which let's be real HE COULD HAVE, he decides to fall into the role and sexes up stolas. Stolas then OFFERS BLITZ to do the equivalent of sex work in return for the book. Let me be clear here, yes the book is important to IMP for their work, but there was never a time Blitz was ENTITLED TO IT. ITS NOT HIS. Blitz decides to accept sex work for the book on his own free will.

Some people might bring up power imbalance, but let's be real has it ever been shown (at least before the scary rescue at DORKS) that Blitz was ever scared/intimidated of stolas. And on top of that it's been shown that Stolas WILL let Blitz keep the book if he doesn't perform his sex work.

Nothing about this screams rape to me. Just Blitz is uncomfortable. Yes stolas is sexually agressive with his comments. But did we ever hear Blitz say "Hey could we keep the dirty talk to the bedroom?" "I don't like that at all can you stop?" No we don't. Stolas probably thinks is a green flag since he says these things and Blitz still comes every full moon. If anything Blitz is also out there being sexually ageessive with OTHER PEOPLE in the same way.

Let me be clear once more, I genuinely believe and agree with most points criticals make about the show. The writing is shit and the characters are even more shit. But to go as far to call Stolas a rapist is a bit much I believe.

Again I'm willing to hear anyone's counterpoint with open ears and mind, feel free to discuss with me!

[idkiwasntsupposedtobebackhere]

my unpopular gilmore girls opinions (like actually):

-i don’t mind lane’s husband zach. like i think he was kind of a moron but he stepped up to the plate and was consistantly there for lane. why do people want lane to pine for dave 10 years later like he was her one and only soulmate instead of a really cool guy who was a really cool guy bc he wasn’t on the show long enough to get a villain arc. i think the problem with lane’s storyline is that she didn’t get to go out on an adventure, not that she settled down with zach instead of dave. i would have been pissed if she got pregnant and stayed in SH for life even if it was with dave.

-i don’t think everything that went wrong with luke and jess was jess’ fault and that he only had himself to blame for getting kicked out. like luke taking jess in no questions asked was a really great gesture but he didn’t know what he was doing from that point on. him doing a nice thing doesn’t mean he’s somehow abow getting slightly critisised for handling a lot of things wrong. like i do think a 17-18 yo is entitled to a place to stay without conditions and despite screwing things up and luke needed to either fully be that person or not at all

-i often hear ”rory said no to logan’s proposal just to be his mistress later, she should have just said yes”, which… no, it’s ok to want something at 32 that you didn’t want at 22 (disclaimer: it’s not ok to sleep with someone else’s fiancee). i even hear a lot of people say rory should have said yes to logan even without bringing up AYITL and i really don’t understand why this is the general opinion. and i’m not saying this because i’m team jess over logan, i wouldn’t have wanted jess and rory to get married at 22 either. we’ve known since season 1 that rory has dreams and plans to travel and when logan proposed and they presented it as kind of a 50/50 thing i was baffled because ofc it’s a no. also if someone tells you ”either we get married or we break up”, always break up!!!

-luke and lorelai… are not compat- i mean initially they were cute, but just on a fundamental level- i mean… ok actually i’m not brave enough to go there, maybe in the next post. all i’m saying is that i rooted for them as much as the next guy and that they probably wouldn’t have been truly content if they never gave a relationship a go and they’d probably always be jealous of the other’s romantic relationships a little bit BUT that they’re too different (both personality wise and in handling stuff in general) to actually create a life together. they work in the diner setting but seeing each other 24/7 and agreeing on day to day decisions? idk. oops, looks like i went there anyways. also i’m not saying i don’t like them together, in fact they’re together in every single gilmore girls universe i have in my head but yk

-jess wasn’t the best boyfriend but a lot of their issues was rory subconsciously comparing what jess did with what dean would have done and their relationship was never going to work with such a fresh breakup hanging over them like that. the issue of jess not calling rory and making a plan and rory being mad that she had to sit around and wait for him to do it for example is not jess being malicious, it’s just them genuinely having different expectations and ideas of what a relationship is which could have been solved with a) some communication and b) dean and lorelai not breathing down their necks and preying on their downfall

-i think lorelai could stand to butt out of rory’s life and be a bit nicer to her step-nephew but i’m always gonna back her when it comes to her parents. i have no patience for the ”richard and emily weren’t that bad”-crowd. i’m tired of hearing ”lorelai is pissed because she gets thousands of dollars in exchange for a free meal, is she stoopid?” when it’s so much deeper than that. her sacrificing her own boundries for the sake of rory’s education is actually quite admirable (would emily swallow her pride and values and do something like that?). bc now i actually love emily as a character and enjoy her more than the gilmore girls sometimes. and as an audience we can obviously see that she cares about lorelai. but it’s emily’s responsibility to actually make lorelai feel that. because even tho emily thinks she did what was best for lorelai, it clearly did not make lorelai feel loved, because it was all according to what emily herself wanted.

-i don’t think this is that unpopular but i’ve heard many different takes on this. if lorelai wanted to be overdramatic about rory fracturing her wrist that is within her right, her kid was in the hospital after all and that is scary. however, where she was absolutely just objectively in the wrong is where she went ballistic at luke who’s supposed to be her best friend when he got the tiniest bit concerned over his nephew’s whereabouts after he had also been in that car accident. her screaming at him that he had more of an obligation to herself and her kid than the kid he’s literally in responsible for? this is just one of those situations where i feel like she wasn’t being an adult. it would have been understandable for like lane to barge into luke’s and yell jess’ name and scream that he should never have been allowed in this town but lorelai is 33.

part 2 soon?

[brightlypainted]

I went completely bananas and wrote a full analysis of Joker Out and JO fandom stuff and situation... idk

Hi baby boos!

I’ve seen some confusion regarding JO’s latest announcements and social media activity (or lack thereof) so I've tried to analyze the current situation with a critical eye 🤓

I don't use Tumblr much so you're probably more familiar with my Twitter but I got suggested to post this here for easier reading (and... better audience in general 👀)

Long rant under the cut:

Before I begin I must point out that these are my opinions and theories. I have no idea how JO’s communication and management is being organized right now, I’m just making assumptions based on my perception as a fan 🤷‍♀️

(also I’m a communication graduate but my studies and current job cover this sector only tangentially so I may not know how some/most of this works…)

Let’s start with comparing last year’s situation to the current one: one year ago the boys were riding high on the wave of enthusiasm, having had a successful ESC (despite the ending placement) and having gained a lot of attention as fan favorite competitors ✨

A very high % of the growing fanbase, esp the international one, was coming directly or tangentially through ESC and how do you maintain that attention once the contest is over? you increase your social media presence and you start planning international concerts. which they did!

This constant exposure to content made the fandom flourish: we were all witnessing how easily people from everywhere could join and already feel at the very center of attention, both because JO’s communication was being very active and successful and also thanks to fanmade organizations like JokerOutSubs, group chats, old time Slovenian fans sharing juicy pre-ESC content, etc. I'll be grateful forever

We had a past year that could be divided into 2 halves in terms of communication: it all went extremely well until more or less the end of 2023 (last tour dates in Spain) and then started gradually becoming very odd and chaotic all through 2024 until last month’s complete draught

We know that they mostly tend to manage their online presence on their own, so ofc during breaks and during very busy times is harder for them to find good content to share. They had also been very clear about needing time off their phones all through the London era and the album recording in Hamburg, so that didn’t come as a surprise for fans 🤷‍♀️

But having very sensible, personal reasons to quit/decrease social media presence has unfortunately no meaning in communication, where the laws are very simple: once you stop sharing, you stop existing

I don’t want to criticize their choices, because they are entitled to their privacy and offline time. I’m just pointing out that this very long, hiccup-y period probably could have been avoided with better management and with the presence of a smm/pre-planned sm communication 🙃

It also unfortunately happened concurrently to the new ESC season, which was bound to “organically” erode part of the fandom anyway, and to an EU tour that, although successful, has still highlighted a lazy/bad management and yet again a communication that made little to no sense at times (es. the whole campaign that subtly asked people to go to more than one concert, which clearly made fans with less financial and logistical possibilities feel ‘lacking’ and ‘inferior’) 🙄

In their defense, the tour was to establish a fanbase more than gaining more fans and exposure, so pushing for getting more of a loyal than an occasional fanbase wasn’t completely wrong an idea… it just backfired

And it did because the greatest part of their international fanbase is made of very young people who aren’t financially independent and whose interests are bound to be fleeting and shifting ESPECIALLY when they aren’t constantly met with content production/consumption

Let’s also not forget that having completely shifted their attention to international waters at the expense of the Slovenian/regional fanbase has been very risky. We still can’t tell if the gamble was successful or not

It’s never a good idea to ignore/neglect your hardcore supporters, the very people that helped you raise to your current standards. it’s true they are the most loyal, but they are also very easily the ones that could feel more betrayed

I also think it’s very risky trying to shift the fans’ content consumption out of social media and into a (controlled, easier to manage, ofc) site like Openstage for two main reasons: as said before, complete disappearance from socials means communicational suicide and until now, the “dedicated content” directed toward fans on the site has been… too bland and generic (sorry)(they can learn how to improve that)

Openstage has other very interesting uses tho, firstly the early access to ticket sales and secondly the tracking of international fan presence, which was pretty clearly the main goal and reason why they opened the site in the first place... so it’s not ex ante a bad communication choice, just (until now) one that has yet to show its potential and usefulness

So what now? I think it’s time they make a few considerations and sensible choices to maintain what’s currently the status quo and in order to tackle festival season in the best way

They need to keep their international presence by opening their fanbase to a new kind of fans: festivals bring exposure to bands from a very specific type of fanbase, more interested in music than in contents. If they manage to capture the interest of Sziget people, for example, they could gather a new type of international fanbase less interested in the “social media” content consumption and more in the “I wanna see these guys play again, somewhere else, maybe a show of their own” way

(which, to be completely fair, could be the best choice to cure their current crazy/shifting/confusing fanbase state, giving them more peace of mind, more privacy and a more “normal” rock band experience than the one they had in the past year… that we can all agree has been pretty bad at times)

I personally think this summer season must go in the quantity direction (gaining more new fans) and at the same time in the quality direction (less shows, bigger stages) and this is why some of you are disappointed in seeing so little shows compared to last year or to the SYS tour... I get it

Many of us, me included, won’t be seeing JO live for the whole summer season, and I’m aware that is disappointing, but I hope this analysis has helped you put things into perspective and consider maybe one of the possible reasons why this next phase for Joker Out is being organized this way

I’m still hoping they’ll find a good compromise with their social media communication, because right now I really feel that being the main issue with the gradual but constant drop in traction (please boys hire a smm. i adore jan’s sad edits and the unhinged video and stories like the next person but serious work has to be done too)

Ending the rant on a note of hope: I wish to see you all enjoy the summer and the content to come and I hope for the boys to have a successful, fun season full of new experiences, new music, new people, fresh ideas for the future. I’m honestly very excited for what’s to come! 🌻

[emmitaaa4]

Addressing some fandom BS inconsistencies

Gwyn was shadow mommy, Az was shadow daddy, they were gonna have shadow babies with her extra super pliable bones.

I audibly chocked when I read this @nikethestatue (btw everything said in this post was on point). No but seriously this is how they sound, too many of them insisting that there is nothing wrong with basing the likelihood of a ship on who has the more suitable uterus to be with a man... cause supposedly they're just picking up on the hints SJM wrote for them? She likes babies for HEAs so ofc children are the end all be all of a relationship, plus there's absolutely no way that she could ever write an adoption plot SJM is literally adopted and has done it in other series. Selective reading strikes again.

A minimum amount of critical thinking would tell you that 1) the infamous *magical uterus change* scene was about nessian (& feysand), not about any ship; 2) if SJM had written Nesta changing Elain's uterus, it would have given too much away, not to mention 3) how disturbing/violating it would have been for Nesta to change her sister's reproductive anatomy WITHOUT HER CONSENT?! None of it makes sense narratively; my girl Nes would never, especially given the trauma they both suffered from having their bodily autonomy--and so much more--ripped away by the Cauldron.

This argument is so trivialized that I see it every other day on reddit/tiktok/*insert media app*, and yet elriels are the toxic side of the fandom? The ones whom people are allowed to insult, to ridicule for theories all made in good fun, the women that are villainized over a difference of opinion? Don't get me wrong, there's assholes on both sides and people keep calling one another variations of delulu (and the nastier personal attacks). But by painting this fandom-wide villain there is such a lack of accountability for the plethora of harmful talking points spread by other portions of the fandom. (I've been silently reading the anti-elain & anti-elriel tags for like a year, and I'm on tiktok. Yes, I have self-destructive tendencies).

Anyways.

I never understood either how people ever actually thought (or well still think) that gwynriel would happen BEFORE elucien?? It makes no sense logically, narratively, or in terms of characterization & the arc she's set up for Elain, Azriel, and Lucien. Yet it took one controversial bonus chapter for people to decenter Elain in her own story, that is make her choice of romantic partner--which SJM spent 3+ books setting up--Azriel's. It took one bonus chapter that soo many readers are still unaware of, to brush Elain off as a "sexual object" Az is using to distract himself until his therapist-extraordinaire Gwyn comes in and heals him all up. Because ofc she will: she's badass and not the "passive and weak and boring" Eplain (aka "Plant" or "brain dead gardener"), she fits the YA archetype of the spunky warrior-girl so she can handle his darkness, and SJM supposedly spent time fleshing her out because she wrote her as a LI for Azriel; she's made for him, she is what he needs to grow (I actually enjoyed Gwyn's character btw, just pointing out how silly it all sounds). “Next book is a love triangle between Elain/Az/Gwyn” “Elain will turn evil or is secretly evil”. So you're telling me that SJM would pit Elain & Gwyn against each other in a love triangle over a man... all because of a necklace that was not even mentioned once in the actual books? Please, let's be logical for a second.

All this because instead of reading the bonus chapter in the context of the books, some people are reading the books in the context of the bonus chapter. Which now that I think of it is probably why so many people mischaracterize Az the way they do--because yes we know enough of his character to know half of the stuff the fandom diagnoses him with is questionable. Azriel? Entitled incel x fuckboy hybrid (gotta be the first of his kind, minute slay ig)? Interesting tell me more. No joke I saw a semi-popular post on here where a gwynriel said they read the bonus WITHOUT HAVING READ ANY OF THE BOOKS. I'm sorry, ship wars are silly and believe it or not idc who ppl ship, but it makes it hard to take some of the things they say seriously.

All this to say that the fandom isn't even debating the right thing. If you consider everything SJM has said in her interviews:

(she's been planting seeds for Nesta & Elain's book since acomaf; she knows who she is writing the first 2 books about + is keeping things open for the 3rd one--with 5 different ship options--which automatically rules out "Elain will close the series"; she said she's doing research for Elain's book in the ACOFAS bonus & there's seeds for future bookS in acofas; all she said recently about her beloved *heroines* and the themes of fate/true love/choice she finds *very* interesting & wants to discuss)

and if you also consider all she's written in the actual books (elain's characterization + the overarching plot in general & how she fits into it), then it's pretty evident that Elain's book is next.

The question then would be who is the MMC / 2nd PoV in her book, aka would acotar 5 be an elucien or an elriel story? Because logically, gwynriel was always a consequence of elucien. I honestly do not understand how people don't see that.

Oh and they always think they're gagging elriels with the "obviously Azriel is the next MC" as if elriels aren't saying the same thing? And we're the ones twisting info and not making sense. It's just funny at this point.

---sidenote: I realize that this post generalizes some things, and I just wanted to say that I have interacted with lovely eluciens / people on either side of this headache of a ship war. My hard limit is Elain haters though... back off I say 🤺 BACK OFF 🤺

---sidenote 2: I would have written this as a reblog except im not entirely sure how tumblr works and I get no visibility from them rip.

[whetstonefires]

I think a part of the reason I feel so connected to JGY and XY is that I, too, think everyone is lying about what a good person they are. Sure, there may be a few genuinely good people, but those are in the minority and never claim the title.

I don't know about never; some people are pretty straightforward.

And in some ways the whole point of the concept of 'a good person' is that the feeling of losing the right to consider yourself one can impose instinctive recoil from doing wrong, in situations where you don't have the leisure of working your way through an ethics diagram and choosing the logically moral path before reacting to a situation. It has practical utility.

But that system can backfire pretty horribly too, in a lot of ways. It can be hijacked by definitions of 'good' that actually make you recoil from ethical acts because they're deviant. It can lead to disappearing up your own ass lmao.

And definitely the threshold for 'talking about how you're a good person' enough that it makes you suspect as either a) a liar or b) someone who values that self-image over objective reality and other people's wellbeing is. Not very high.

Jin Guangyao, ironically, is one of those people who's so performatively A Good Person in his public life that in retrospect it looks like a red flag. Which knowing this about himself in an ongoing fashion ofc just reinforces his own cynicism about everyone else lmao.

Even Lan Xichen, who I think he may see as a genuinely good person, he also sees as an easy mark who will reliably choose what is comfortable over what is 'right,' if you just structure the scenario to make that an easy choice that's easy for him to justify.

Xue Yang's bitterness is in many ways more exciting than Jin Guangyao's because he has a way more unusual relationship to reality, but it does share a lot of notes.

The role of deception in his psychology fascinates me because as far as I can tell he's as instinctively straightforward a person as Lan Wangji, albeit along quite different lines involving a total lack of impulse control, but has adopted 'deceit' as a weapon against the wicked world in the same way he has adopted 'murder.'

But when he feels someone is not merely lying but papering over bad behavior with principles they are not living up to he is livid.

People claiming to be better than him because they're 'good' when 'good' is a construct of privilege, is the underlying idea he's not equipped to articulate. Except he takes that and applies it to 'hitting me to interrupt my random murder of some guy who happened to be within arm's reach when I wanted to hurt someone.'

Which isn't like philosophically perfect, but the underlying problem he's actually reacting to is that he understands the social contract as a lie that has never protected him but seeks to control him, while protecting rich men it has no power to control.

Which it is fair to be mad about, but then his feeling is that since that's the nature of the world and all people, he is entitled to amass for himself the power to inflict hurt without consequences as much as he possibly can, and to use it against the vulnerable for fun, and no one is entitled to interfere.

Which brings him to a place where he is violently angry at anyone talking about trying to treat other people well as a value, because either they're a hypocrite and a liar or they threaten his entire system of rationalization for why he can be The Worst and still In The Right.

'Everyone is equally bad, actually' is like, an understandable take for anyone who's had cause to become embittered. Everyone is free to make whatever philosophical peace they can with the world and by and large there's no ethical weight to any such opinion, in itself.

But it's an ideological crutch people tend to wind up leaning on very heavily when they can't or don't want to take responsibility for their own behavior.

Which is an approach that Xue Yang, Jin Guangyao, and Su She all share, and which not only is shitty of them, it...traps them in a wheel of doubling down on their own worst impulses because rather than going 'that was bad and I shouldn't do it again' they've repeatedly invested all this energy into making what they did actually the correct thing, according to their interpretation of the context. Which means they're more likely to do it again.

(I think this is how Jin Guangyao became a serial killer, for example. He followed a doing-a-murder-impulse and then internally doubled down on how he had nothing to be ashamed of, so he was more likely to do it again, every time.

Wei Wuxian's strain of self-righteousness about his revenge was less...thorough than Jin Guangyao's, because he had the benefit of going after people on the opposite side of a war from him while Meng Yao's first known murder plot was against a shitty boss. But it probably didn't help him not try to solve army-shaped problems with mass murder, even after that stopped being allowed.)

If any of them had just like, zero moral sensibilities they would have created very different problems, and very possibly fewer of them. It's making a central goal of your operations 'self-vindication in your own internal narrative, created retroactively via reframing' rather than 'figuring out what I think I should do and trying to do that' that traps them in the self-reinforcing murder pissbaby vortex.

So if you look at it one way, these three villains are themselves perfect examples of how pursuit of the 'feeling of being good' (or at least 'not the bad guy') can make you worse.

Notably Wei Wuxian was also extremely sensitive to hypocrisy in his youth; it was the only part of Madam Yu's behavior he was ever shown objecting to. But he's sufficiently mellow and cynical from regret and burnout by the 'present' timespan after his resurrection to just get disgusted and alienated about it, rather than outraged.

He wasn't even all that mad at Xue Yang, though honestly that may be partly because he stopped entirely characterizing him as a person at some point during their interaction. Like, there's no point being angry at someone whose moral sensibilities operate exclusively on the plane of 'is this unfair to me' for manipulating and destroying people who were good to him, and then getting obsessed with his own self-pity about it. This is not a person who understands how not to be, metaphorically speaking, a cannibal.

And Wei Wuxian did know better and still got roughly the same result, so what business does he have getting angry?

Anyway yeah those two villains are both delightfully relatable if you sit down and put their perspectives together; they are clearly operating with the same basic suite of human needs and emotions as everybody else, without that being in itself particularly exculpatory, which is honestly refreshing. They've just got the most fantastically toxic interpersonal habits that knowing them counts as some level of Suffering A Curse.

Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang do both stand as scathing rebukes of the society that created them. But within the narrative, wherein they're people, the fact is that each of them had agency and one of the things they chose to do with it was develop rationales for why they were the most special little guy and everything was someone else's fault.

And their moral nihilisms, while also grounded in serious trauma, ping me as emotional masturbation of this variety.

[inluvwcaitvi]

not to be that guy but i deadass find it strange when ppl dislike/hate vi 💀

like, ofc everyone is entitled to their own opinion… and my opinion is that it’s kinda strange 🤷

[loving-n0t-heyting]

When I went to the hospital after my botched hanging in college, my stay actually extended across two psych wards within the same institution: the third floor (where I was admitted first), and the second (where they transferred me for a while before eventually releasing me). The former was for the really severe cases (the homicidals, the suicidals, the dangerously psychotic), while the latter was divided into the half for “chemical dependence” and the half for extremely sad college students. In my case, they sort of graduated me from the third to the second as an intermediary step before release once they thought I was no longer an imminent threat to myself

As you can probably infer, the limitations on yr personal freedom on the third floor were a lot more severe: it was the one with the strap down bed in the isolation chamber, no access to yr own clothes, everything locked down, no razors or worthwhile pens/pencils. On the second, the atmosphere was friendlier, they let you visit the cafeteria for meals and take supervised walks on the grounds, and there were a few more little indulgences in what you could keep and use. And ofc you saw less use of physical restraints etc

But the more I reflected on my time there, the clearer it became how much more tolerable the third floor was. One difference was pretty straightforward: while you had to attend a certain amount of group therapy there in order to graduate down a floor, they didn’t force you to attend any particular sessions, and didn’t bug you if you wanted to spend yr time in yr room reading instead. On the second, you were obliged to attend every single ludicrous session every day, on pain of being stripped on yr right to eat in the cafeteria downstairs.* (Ofc you might say, Well that’s still an improvement bc upstairs you could not eat ANY meals in the cafeteria; this response totally fails to understand how stigma and isolation practically function)

But this merely points the way to the real difference between the two. The third floor had a sort of manifest, monomaniacal teleology, and every deprivation of yr personal freedoms served to optimise for this variable: the function of the floor was to keep you from injuring yourself or others. Everything else followed, in bloodlessly paperclip maximising fashion, from this basic goal. And while I could not and cannot agree to this optimising heteronomy of the ward’s institutional will, I could at least understand it, to an extent even respect it

The aims of the second floor, by contrast, were very nebulous. This went along with the staff clearly enjoying a higher opinion of themselves, and all the condescension to go along with that. The pretence of individual respect and affirmation suffused all the minor privileges with a vague sense of indebtedness, though ofc the staff would never put it that way. They would say, instead, that respect is mutual and trust is built interpersonally, meaning that their letting me eat shitty fake eggs straight from the basement dining hall once a day entitled them to my simpering perpetual deference. Where one storey above they sensibly anticipated fear in accord with conditional threats, here they expected gratitude in response to tenuous privileges

When I explained this to my gf, she replied that a lot of my stranger political impulses could probably be described metonymically as attempts at moving from the second floor back to the third. Which is pretty perceptive tbh

[garmaballs]

Do you ever get in a bad mood or feel bad whenever you have your favourite character or piece of media be critiqued? Even though you know everyone’s entitled to their own opinion ofc- but sometimes when you see it it makes you feel like “you’re wrong” for liking that and maybe you have “a bad taste” or something and it really just brings u down…

yeah. u get me anon. my opinions are never rlly set in stone and im influenced vvvvvvvery easily so its so painful when someones like "booooo harumi" or "booooo ur opinion is WRONG" or js "booooooo ninjago" in general. like okay. ill stop liking it whatever i didnt even like it that much since u think its weird !!!!!

[raayllum]

im new to the fandom, so I miss a lot of the discourse (helped ofc by the fact you're kinda the only dp blog I follow), so everytime you mention the s4 backlash I'm like....how in the world could people hate that season or rayllum in it? It doesn't compute for me!

The last ship I was particularly engaged with, has a lot of similarities with rayllum. They were best friends, life partners before they were ever /romantic/ life partners. And they went through a /lot/ of trauma, miscommunication, and being on opposite sides of the same fight, etc etc.

the difference to rayllum was that they never rlly gave each other the grace they need. They also never talked on screen, but unlike rayllum it wasn't because it was the best option for them, it's just that the writers didn't want to include it ever - to the point that when they finally did an episode addressing it, it landed...very flat? Because it was about six seasons in, addressing things as far back as the second season, that they'd apparently never spoken to each other about before (they were tragically engaged when this happened).

Rayllum GENERALLY but especially in s4 have a really special place in my heart, because they feel very realistically messy - but it doesn't feel like it's there so there's some drama to keep audiences hooked. It feels authentic, and is one of those rare cases where it strengthens their relationship. I definitely could buy that rayllum would survive anything that hit their relationship by the end of s3, but getting to actually SEE that and see how much they're willing to work through out of love and respect for each other? Fantastic.

(also like it's such good character development....i am with u in the s4 defense squad. is there a squad? If there is I'm in it)

First off welcome to the fandom and I hope you're having a good time!!

The fact that my blog is mostly discourse free cause while I tag accordingly (fandom nonsense and dragons gets salty for potential blacklisting purposes) I always worry I can dip too far into that on occasion (I do my best not to unless being called out by name, and even then mostly do my best to ignore stuff), but there's not too much discourse within TDP in general — at least not in the Rayllum corner, luckily.

I think that's why the S4 backlash really surprised and threw me for a loop, because my partner and I finished the season at like 7AM on release day and while different than expected, we loved it and thought it was great from the start. Then we went online and people in the fandom who I'd largely always agreed with were having a really hard time with the season and it was disheartening at least to not have many people to talk to about why 1) S4 is TDP's thematically strongest season thus far and that's still true, 2) it's Ezran's best season imo, and 3) it does a lot of things really really well in really interesting ways.

I always try to never come down Too Hard on the s4 backlash just because people are of course entitled to their feelings/opinions then as well as now (even if some people's tunes have definitely changed), but a lot of it did feel sometimes short sighted if not immature.

Like soo many people are still mad that Rayla and Callum broke up in an offscreen graphic novel, when S4 would still be S4 regardless of whether TTM existed and like... if Rayla worrying that she failed (again) and went off on her own (again) to protect Callum was a big logical leap, then that person honestly just wasn't paying attention; there's not much else to say there. I also think it's just a strange choice to assume that Nothing Major would change the second you find out about a timeskip; like, almost everything else is status quo, Rayla being gone is the One Major Change and people couldn't handle that being a Surprise?

Like you said, conflict between a couple is not inherently a bad thing; it can be good and interesting, and this was always a relationship hurdle I think a lot of Rayllums (myself included) expected Rayla and Callum to have to tackle. Not liking how extreme or 'dramatic' it was (ie. season long arc > just a few episodes, or Rayla leaving > just trying to leave) is fair enough, but given that it's rooted in so much of Rayla's character, I'd much rather take a long way around approach that's in depth. I'm also just Glad and Grateful that the show is tackling it and treating it like the issue it is rather than sweeping things under the rug.

The fact that Callum's version of anger wasn't the one people wanted is another issue, but again — his anger went the way I'd always thought it might if he just went through enough trauma, and even if he had yelled at her, I don't think the season would've necessarily gone any different than it did other than them crying more early on. Which I've written and wouldn't have minded, but I also don't dislike the alternative route canon took — of course they were never going to get all variations out there, but Callum is cold as hell and being a bit of a jerk while also being valid and tempering himself because he doesn't want to hurt her anymore than she wants to hurt him (and Callum has always been very very bad at being/staying mad with Rayla or Ezran anyway).

I saw a lot of pushback against Rayllum being 'platonic' (which was annoying as an aromantic person lemme tell you, as though platonic is lesser), being "broken up for no reason" (Rayla being hyper-independent was not a secret and always going to be what threatened to rip them apart; they are also still Visibly and Repeatedly In Love with each other how is that broken up), or that they didn't get to have a Big Feelings Time in S4.

With that in mind, there's a lot that also matters in a relationship beyond just Open Communication, tbh. There's going to be times in life where you're not able to or unwilling to talk about certain things (given that S4 is maybe a week, I think that's reasonable; especially when Rayllum still haven't talked to each other about it as of s5 and no one I saw have an issue in S4 about it has complained about it there) and like... how do you treat each other when you're still mad or confused and haven't talked everything out? Do you still take care of each other, are you still doing your best to be considerate of each other (even if you're also not going to be perfect)? That shit matters just as much if not more as people able to sit down and hash things out.

I think the truth is a lot of the things that pissed people off about S4 would've been true even if the opposite things had happened:

N'than is flat and under developed unlike Ellis → N'than is more developed → why is N'than taking away from screentime for other characters?

The Sunfire plotline feels disconnected from the rest of the story (nvm that Viren's arc from 1x06 onwards doesn't affect any main character again until 3x04) → the Sunfire plot line has more connections to the main cast crammed in → more complaints about pacing and things feeling overly stuffed, as scenes already change from one to the next quite clearly

Callum and Rayla have a big talk sometime between 4x03-4x07 → this doesn't give Callum enough time to be angry / makes him seem unreasonable because he's admitted he was mostly worried but is still not fully letting her in despite her spilling her guts to him (and in what world would Rayla give excuses, again, when she knows he's the one hurting and taking priority in her mind)

S4's humor was bad because there were fart jokes (in one episode) → the crowlord's joke is so much worse than the fart jokes imo and is on par with the walnut joke in 1x06. also 1-2 scenes with jokes that didn't work for you out of 9 whole ass episodes is like. you're just a wuss i'm sorry

The Sunfire plot line is boring → will never not feel like "I just can't connect or be interested in politics and religious disagreements when it's mostly about Black people for Some Reason (racism)" to me tbh

There was no way to please everyone especially after a three year hiatus (because people think, For Some Reason, that how much time it takes for a story to come out should change how that story is written and it really, really doesn't) but yeah. The internet showed their asses and I was Not Impressed lmao

TLDR; a lot of the S4 backlash was "I'm mad this isn't happening now and I'm stressed out/worried that it won't be" as opposed to "this is only a problem if it never happens at all, but I have faith that it will," and I will love S4 forever. The Callum-Viren parallels being ramped up, the theme of duality and moving "doing terrible things for love" to the forefront with multiple characters (Rayla, Terry, Viren, Claudia), seeing Ezran step into his role as king, Callum's arc being shown > told, the set up for the possession plot line, Janaya's engagement and relationship development + Amaya and Janai's independent arcs? Chef's kiss. S4 is my best friend and its Rayllum dynamic is on par with S3 for me, and I am very grateful the fandom's attitude towards s4 and s4 Rayllum is a lot warmer / more reasonable now

When Callum says "unconditionally" in 5x01 and all their stuff in S5 we know and believe it because we've seen them fight and work so hard to come back from some pretty terrible brinks in imperfect ways, and I'll always love s4 for that. The most aspec Rayllum season by far