#or viewing politics through the lens of fandom

[pleuvoire]

there is a tendency on this site and in other similar discourses to conflate political literacy with, like, lit major literacy in a way that kind of gets on my nerves. endless posts along the lines of “if you can’t even be bothered to read for themes and motifs then how do you expect to understand propaganda in the news media?” and like, not only does this fall into the issue described in the last post where it is assumed that a certain level of education is automatically conducive to good politics when reality shows that is very much not the case, but it also just feels like… a bad understanding of the skillset required to analyze news media for propaganda and stuff vs the skillset required to talk about how grief is the predominant theme of a story. sure there’s some overlap but to treat them as so closely linked feels symptomatic of this idealistic view of Learning as some kind of hallowed fount of knowledge rather than an infinite series of different specialized skillsets and how these play out in the real world (this mindset also lends itself to other kinds of rancid takes)

[artbyblastweave]

🔥 Textually "political" superheroes, ala Green Arrow being a leftist and Flash being a conservative, Bastion being cancelled, etc.

Rapid-firing your specific examples- half the fun of Green Arrow is the tension between his leftism and his absurdly privileged status as a billionaire superhero. I wasn't actually aware Flash is a quote-unquote conservative- I'm assuming this came up in that godawful comic that tried to map out how the League would vote in the 08 election- but honestly this is kind of a "he's a white midwestern cop" moment, I feel like the politics associated with his job are always a little bit of an elephant in the room for the Flash Fandom. Bastion is his own post I've been meaning to make for a while, but the short version is that Bastion is a really, really funny dark comedy beat, if you choose to apply that lens.

Circling back to the Flash specifically, though- I get the sense these days that big-two superheroes are rarely characterized as meaningfully politically conservative, in the quotidian manner in which many, many real life people are. I certainly get why they shy away from that, I'm not saying that I want them to pick a couple leaguers who seem like The Type and have them start flying Gadsden flags, I'm just saying it has a certain impact on the verisimilitude of the setting when nobody on these teams has the generically shitty politics of that coworker you roll your eyes at or the Uncle you dread seeing at Thanksgiving. I think it was Memecucker that had a post a couple years ago about how you probably couldn't get away with anything analogous to that thing they once did where Hal Jordan was expressly racist as a character flaw that he had to overcome- you probably aren't gonna get an A-lister who's transphobic and has to be taught the error of their ways, for example. I'm not entirely certain how true that is- pretty true in my reading experience, but then again, there are a lot of comics, so maybe someone took a swing at that hornets nest and I just missed it and I've been talking out my ass for about 800 words.

(I did hear rumblings that they tried to do like, a coming-out-to-tepidly-accepting-parents metaphor with Franklin being a mutant during the Krakoa thing? I don't recall people talking about that beat in a positve light, which makes sense. "Have you tried not being a mutant" has always been a fraught analogy no matter which group is being referenced.)

Anyway my final takeaway is that indie cape things, by virtue of not having to keep everyone in their casts sympathetic and marketable in perpetuity, generally have way more leeway to depict superhero communities with a much wider spread of (potentially horrific) personal politics. Bastion being an example of that- if he showed up in Marvel or DC, he'd be, like, a bit character who shows up in a two-shot issue to get demolished or shown-up by Actual Superheroes (tm) but in Worm? Nope. There's no decades-long protagonist like Spider-Man or Batman through whose lens we view this setting by default. Bastion's as much a superhero as anyone else we've met, he's exactly as real, weighted exactly as much as the rest of them. And he sucks.

[zahri-melitor]

Thinking more about Tom King; I do wonder how much of how he’s viewed on tumblr is a result of the following two facts:-

The majority of the DC comics fandom on tumblr does not have personal memories of 2001

The majority of the DC comics fandom on tumblr is not prepared to give government security or intelligence the time of day as having a necessary purpose

It sounds a bit ‘you don’t know what you’re missing’ but fundamentally I think part of the problem is that you’re (generally) too young to appreciate many of King’s fundamental storytelling elements, because you’re too young to remember or care about the topics he keeps going back to interrogate.

And this is something that comes up in conversations I have with friends who are school teachers and university lecturers all the time, because September 11 for the majority of their students has now moved from category 1 here to category 3:

Core ‘where were you’ memory (people born early 90s or before)

Foundation of their childhood status quo (mid 90s to mid 2000s; maybe as late as 2007-2008)

History (late 2000s onwards)

They’re the ones at the forefront of talking about this with their students, and it’s moved from ‘default background for undergraduates’ now into ‘history that has an effect on the present’. They’re now too young to have soaked in the exhaustingly omnipresent US patriotism of the culture of the 2000s. And so the reaction of current students as a cohort to things heavily based or reflective on this period is fundamentally different to someone who lived through it.

A similar, earlier comparison would be writers who frame everything through the lens of the Cold War as an analogy for their writing. I’m a category 2 for the fall of the USSR, and I grew up with that dividing line; there was a lot of media made in the 90s that still premised the Soviets as existing into the future (very early 90s stuff that hadn’t been fixed in time) or that frantically had had a word find-replace for “Soviet” to “Russian” but the general attitude hadn’t changed (good comics example here is go read any of KGBeast’s appearances around Knightfall in DC comics; they’re really struggling with what to do about him). There was also even more media that still wanted to hammer Cold War themes but invented new fake countries to overlay it onto and to discuss as being the background of proxy wars, so they had the out of ‘this isn’t a real place, it’s Markovia/Kaznia/Pan Balgravia or Qurac/Kahndaq/Bialya’.

Many of these got further use for decades up until the present, partly because Central Asia has remained a hotspot for conflict for decades as a result of the fallout of the Cold War proxy conflicts, and partly because shoving extra expy states into Europe means you can play with the politics without having to be exact.

Because to me, this is what I see King doing to the present. And why it sticks out is that most people aren’t harping on the themes constantly anymore like they were 20 years ago. But for King it’s a well he keeps going back to because he was so heavily involved in it and didn’t really get the chance to start processing it until he left the CIA around 2010 and started working his feelings out in stories.

Because yes, at this point he’s beating a dead horse, but there are also incredibly successful writers of military thrillers who are STILL writing veiled ‘it’s the Soviets’ or ‘it’s the Arab Terrorists’ plots and selling. There’s clearly an audience for it. The audience just is an aging one.

And as someone who does remember the period, some of his work is extremely ‘oh god I remember’ and some of it is genuinely well thought through analogies interrogating the topic. Media and storytelling are frequently in conversation with the world and with themes the writer cares about. And I think we can all tell how large some of this loomed in Tom King’s life.

[positivelybeastly]

Back Home!

It's good to be back. Will endeavour to use tonight and tomorrow to be a little more active and pretend that this is still something approximating a roleplay blog.

Also, minor rant under the cut.

I get so incredibly tired of the mainstream fandom's engagement with Hank as a character. It's literally just such basic bitch shit. There's so little attempt to actually engage with what he is beyond the surface.

He's either a cuddly doctor who exists as five lines in a hurt/comfort fic, or he's fucking Satan himself because people's memories don't go back before 2019, and it makes me wonder sometimes why I bother trying to talk to people outside of my small, curated sphere here, because the majority of fandom will see one panel on Twitter, or Reddit, and form a fuckass opinion based on it, and then I have to act like it's somehow worth engaging with.

Where's the exploration of Hank as a trans metaphor? Where's the examination of Hank as a lens through which to view changing politics and the popular conceptualisation of intellectuals? Where's the thesis on why Hank is a sex symbol on the Avengers but he's a mopey bastard on the X-Men? Where's the discourse that actually bothers to question what Abigail represents on his narrative journey, and why they worked as a couple, and why she's important?

I just get so tired of the mainstream X-Men fandom sometimes. It legitimately feels like they have a head full of fuckin' bricks, and all it takes is jangling some keys in front of them to get them excited.

The people I have following and interacting with me here, you guys? You guys, I can have an actual conversation with, and I appreciate you more and more and more every time I dip my toe into Twitter and Reddit.

Rant over. Thanks for sticking with me. 💙

[the-far-bright-center]

Re: Obitine and Anidala

I originally wrote this in response to @marvelstars' excellent post on the subject, but I wanted to share it again because it's one of many topics in which I have a differing view from the prevailing fandom perspective.

Above all, it truly drives me nuts how the fandom pits these two relationships against each other. I'm a die-hard Anidala shipper and when I first watched TCW, I was DELIGHTED by the Obitine ship. I saw nothing about it that made me think it was supposed to be viewed as somehow 'better' or more 'ideal' than Anidala. I only ever saw it as a relationship that was more suited to Obi-Wan's character and personality. Not to mention that Padme and Satine are presented as friends who get along well and go on adventures together to right political wrongs, much in the same vein that Anakin and Obi-Wan go on their many military exploits together. The story sets them up as two couples who, in an a more ideal timeline, would be besties who go on double dates together. In my opinion, fandom's insistence on viewing them through the lens of 'which one is a 'morally better couple' is completely missing the point. Personally, I see them as two sides of the same coin.

Since @marvelstars' post was specifically about these two couples as they relate to the idea of commitment to the Jedi Order, I also focused on that angle. Imo, the way Obitine's relationship panned out made sense for their characters and context. Just like Anidala's makes sense for theirs. Obi-Wan and Satine met each other as young adults and had a whole year 'on the run' together before having to say their farewells, whereas Anakin and Padme first meet as children, then re-meet and fall in love over a short span of time, and then suddenly their world is at war and they are facing imminent, possibly indefinite, separation. That's why they marry while still remaining in their respective Jedi and Senator roles, because they feel it might be their only chance to have anything resembling the family they both long for. They understand that they might not survive the war. Whereas Obi-Wan and Satine had first met when Satine's world was already enmeshed in civil war, and then they parted once peace was reestablished and their lives were no longer in immediate danger. And when they meet again during the Clone Wars, it's a wholly different scenario and things have drastically changed (she is the head of a neutral system, he is already established as a general in a war she is opposed to). They are also older, in their 30s, while Anakin and Padme embody the headstrong impetuosity and passion of young love. So it's not as though Obi-Wan and Satine are going to drop everything and enter a committed relationship/marriage in that context in the same way Anakin and Padme do in theirs (when, notably, Anakin is still a padawan and about to be sent to the frontlines to fight in a war for the first time).

As mentioned above, when I was watching TCW I never thought that the purpose of showing both of these relationships in contrasting-parallel to one another was somehow to demonstrate that one was more 'sacrificial' for remaining in the Order and giving up the relationship while the other was more 'selfish' for trying to have both at the same time. Rather, what I feel the story is actually saying is something completely different. It's important to remember that both of these relationships involve a Jedi and the political leader to whom he had originally been assigned as a bodyguard. What is the significance of that? Well, I would argue it's more than just a romantic trope. When I watch Lucas-era Star Wars, I'm always aware that the characters have both an immediate role in-story as well as a symbolic function. Satine, a pacifist, can be seen to represent Peace. Padme, as a Senator, stands for Justice and the rights of the people. And what is it that Obi-Wan says to Luke all those years later? That the Jedi were 'the guardians of Peace and Justice in the old Republic'. This strikes me as hugely significant. Especially if we understand that the Jedi Order had lost its way as of the Prequels-era. While the fandom focuses on which couple is 'better' because of how their relationship affects each Jedi's respective commitment to the Order, I see it from a completely different angle. My understanding is that the Jedi's TRUE purpose (in relation to their role within the Republic) was actually to dedicate their lives to protecting Peace and Justice and those who truly upheld these ideals in the galaxy. Obi-Wan and Anakin's actual callings in life should have been to protect Satine and Padme, whom they loved. Whether this manifested in a more chivalric, courtly love scenario or an outright marriage is immaterial. Rather, what matters is that being a Jedi and dedicating their lives to these women due to their love for them was not incompatible with their role as protectors and defenders of the galaxy, but was in fact the truest expression of it. The so-called 'commitment' to the Order itself was never truly the point, and that's the tragedy of the Prequels-era. Because it was the Order that had by this point forbidden love and family, and which had embroiled Obi-Wan and Anakin and the rest of the Jedi in a war that went against their own principles. A war that, it could be argued, ultimately lead to the deaths of both Satine and Padme, and with them Peace and Justice—the very values that the Jedi were supposed to protect and serve.

[mashedcontroller]

I'm feeling spicy, time to list everything I think BH outclassed 03 on. And by that, prepare yourself for the most backhanded, hyper specific or wildly vague, and strings-attached compliments you've heard in your fucking life. But actually, the reason I'm doing this is because I think 03 is better than BH in every way that matters. The majority of common points people give BH over 03 typically come down to attempts to make subjective taste sound objective since a lot of shit is really just a difference in priorities and/or genre rather than an objective flaw in the other show.

And, to be clear, 03 is the better show. It has a really strong thematic core and just says a lot of shit that I rarely see other stuff have the gall to say. 03 tackles heavy topics and tackles them well. It left me with a lot to think about, even years after my first viewing. It's a political piece of art that remains relevant 20 years after the fact. On some levels, it was designed to do this. 03 is a character drama that deconstructs a lot of the elements that make up the shonen genre, and it also very clearly had something to say. 03 has very few weak points and has some of the strongest moments I've seen from any piece of media that I've interacted with. I think a lot of its bad reputation comes from people failing to engage with the show on its own terms. I can only speculate on what's going through other people's heads, but expecting it to act as supplementary material for BH is a fundamentally wrong assumption to make about the show. These two shows are trying to accomplish very different things, so judging 03 on its ability to be BH is a boldfaced stupid lens to view the show through.

BH, however, is still a well-made show. Like, I'm more than happy to shit on it, but BH is by no means a bad anime. It's just not as ambitious as people claim it to be. And if it really is one of the best things Shonun has to offer, then that says pretty mediocre things about the genre imo. It's far from a bad show. I think it accomplishes the role of "fun action series" really well, but it also has gaping flaws the moment you decide to engage with the work critically. That's not necessarily an issue that I'll take with its fanbase. The show's got a lot of elements that make it good for cultivating one. Stuff like large casts, likeable characters, emphasizing its worldbuilding, prioritizing action over character work, etc. are all traits that are great for cultivating fandom, and they're all traits that BH has that 03 revokes. But yeah, BH does fall apart once you look at it critically. My biggest issues with it come down to the fact that the show baits you into thinking that it's deeper than it actually is. So, I'll take the bait and look for the deeper stuff and then find nothing, which is where my negative perception of the show comes from, which isn't helped by how common it is for people to take the bait without really looking.

So, yeah, in short, I have a mountain of good things to say about 03. It's an incredible piece of art with so much shit to look into. In my opinion, you're doing the show a disservice to watch it and not put serious analytical thought into what you're consuming. Meanwhile I have a lot of mixed opinions about BH. It's a great show to watch, it's just a terrible show to consume critically. This isn't even me calling people who prefer BH dumb or anything. The show's are just so fundamentally different from one-another that your preference truly does just come down to a mix of personal tastes and how you prefer to interact with media, especially if you're a more casual viewer of either/both shows. The part that makes me angry is how disrespected 03 is in the majority of FMA circles.

The animation and sound design of Roy's snap is really fucking good in BH.

While 03 may have an overall better art direction and visuals than BH, I do really like how juicy the BH animators and sound designers made Roy's fire attack. The fire itself is just so fucking juicy and satisfying. The BH team did a really good job at making that attack iconic. There's no "but actually" here. The BH team just fucking nailed this one aspect.

In general, BH has better special effects than 03. This is absolutely a difference in available technology at the time each show was animated. And while I do have respect for special effects animation; it's often the difference between animations looking really stiff vs getting across their intended atmospheres, especially in the realm of video games. Using a human body as an analogy, the special effects are more like the hair than the skin, fat, muscle, nerves, or bones. Both important but somewhat expendable.

BH's alchemy is much more logically consistent than 03's.

So, there are a lot of reasons for this difference. The two main ones are the BH and 03 can barely if even be considered the same genre of anime. BH is a fun fights-heavy action series with some intrigue plot, while 03 is a really critical deconstruction the genre BH embraces that's more of a character drama with a heavily knit thematic core than anything else.

And their commitments to their genres translate to each show's relationship with alchemy. In 03, Alchemy's rules are much more metaphoric than literal. Equivalent Exchange is the shit because it's representative of the philosophy that Edward clings to; that life is fundamentally fair, that there is some universal justification for everything that happens. And 03 is about tearing that belief into itty bitty pieces. In fact, we learn that Equivalent Exchange isn't even true. Everything about Alchemy in 03 is bound by the magic's metaphorical meaning. Thus, when it comes to fights, characters really just need to be able to loosely justify how their alchemy functions for the audience to go "oh ok." And, in 03, alchemy is fundamentally powered by taking the life force of something and using that energy to do something else. So, you get stuff like the ability to extract alchemical energy from plants in order to amplify your alchemy much later, Edward being able to turn his automail into a gun, Dante's alchemic dragon thing, Scar's arm being the Philosopher's Stone, etc. The point is that you're sort of meant to accept that "yeah thats a thing that can happen." In other words, the fights exist purely for spectacle and the logic behind them is low priority at best. So, the way 03 frames it's combat is that it has to establish rules that exist within their own space and work with those rules. So, it can't circumvent stuff like "Roy can't use his gloves if they're wet" because there's no reason to and giving a talk about how H2O has Oxygen in it would have been horribly distracting in the one scene where Roy does get fucking soaked. Especially since him being crafty in a fight is sold by him just using Havoc's matches + Armstrongs rocks to make frag bombs. Tldr, the way 03 is structured allows if not flat out encourages characters to bullshit during fights. I think the fast and loose usage of alchemy's principles in the earlier parts of the show also make the later parts of the show, where those principals turn out to be false, feel more believable.

Meanwhile, BH's alchemy is operating on a much more literal framework, so the writing has more room and necessity for creative and engaging combat sequences. In a way, the fights in BH are puzzles and alchemy is the tools the characters are given to solve those puzzles, so the fights become engaging because you want to see how the characters solve the puzzles. It's very gamey. That said, I do have to say that I dislike how the homunculi are fit into this system. Their lose condition is having their stones exhausted, which just translates into "they have more HP." Which is very bullshit. The homunculi in BH die when the story tells them to, at least, that's how their lose condition makes it feel.

Both shows heavily rely on the usage of gimmicks to make their fights interesting. For example, Roy uses exclusively fire, which he creates by snapping. Like, I really like how Roy's combat gimmick gets explored in this fight specifically.

I like how Ed ducks into a crowd in an attempt to dissuade him, and Roy's like "you think I care about collateral damage lmao." I like how Ed thinks he won the fight by slicing Roy's glove, but then Roy just ruins his day by revealing that he has two hands and therefore another glove. I really like how Roy's not taking this very seriously and Ed only wins because of Roy getting a flashback. This fight is just an excellent display of character for both of them and I love it.

Anyways, there are a lot of other character gimmicks. Honestly, 03 is so much better with its character gimmicks during fights than BH is. Like, I could list a ton of cool moments where the character gimmicks get played with. And part of how it does this is that every character plays by their own rules. No character will ever break their own rules, but the universal rules governing what is and isn't acceptable for a fight isn't very consistent. This does fit into 03s themes about how there is no universal truth. But yeah, that's how 03 structures its fights and why characters will sometimes just blatantly ignore the laws of alchemy.

Anyways, in BH, the rules are much less person-by-person and are more like "Alchemists can do XYZ," "Homunculi can do ABC," "Alkahestrists can do UWV," "Chimeras can do RST," etc. So, everyone has similar rules that they have to play by. Which also makes it so much more jarring when someone blatantly breaks those rules. Like, when Edward gets impaled and uses alchemy to not die, it's super jarring because that breaks the laws of human frailty and it doesn't really make sense. It's even worse when Edward fucks with Pride's Stone. Compare that to some of the blatant bullshitting in 03, like where Edward uses concrete to turn his broken automail into a gun. He shouldn't be able to decide when the shots are fired and where's the ammo coming from? But part of the reason it isn't jarring is because him turning his automail into a gun isn't a big deal or even particularly important to the scene he does that in. Or take bullshitting that is more relevant, like Alphonse performing a successful human transmutation. At this point, it's been clearly established that Alchemy's laws aren't true. So, Alphonse breaking them doesn't break audience suspense. Instead, the fundamental logic behind it actually working is tied to the story's central themes.

But yeah, BH's alchemy is a bit more logically consistent than 03's, but there's a very good reason for 03's alchemy to have some logical inconsistencies, which results in BH being much worse at breaking its own rules than 03 is.

A lot of the characters are just easier to get behind and digest in BH.

The entire point of 03 is that these characters are nazis and morally grey as fuck. Meanwhile, the characters in BH are primarily meant to be fun characters that you could comfortably fantasize about being or being friends with. The characters in BH are much simpler than in 03 and the show tends to gloss over their war crimes. Even when it addresses them, there's a billion asterisks and variations of "they're still the good guys." Compared to 03, where everyone is just messy and fucked up.

For example, BH Roy is easier to root for than 03 Roy, but that's because BH Roy is a fundamentally different type of character than 03 Roy. BH Roy is firmly a protagonist while with 03 Roy, he's much more antagonistic and complex. He doesn't solidly fit into the categorization of protagonist or antagonist because he's a bit of both.

And to be clear, I'm not calling the characters in BH simplistic in a derogatory way. A major benefit to simplicity is that you know who to root for and don't have to do a ton of heavy thinking to enjoy the story. That said, I don't think this style of character is necessarily appropriate for a story where the majority of the protagonists committed racial genocide and serve in the military for a fascist dictatorship. BH's characterization would've been a lot better if the story wasn't also trying to cover ridiculously heavy topics.

I've been using Roy as my go-to example since he's the only character to be one of my favorites in both shows, but I think the character who benefits the most from this point is Izumi. In BH, she's iconic. She's a slapstick oriented character who's just a joy to have on screen. In 03, her character writing gives me a lot of mixed messages. She's still very slap stick, but it's just weird in 03 since a lot of similar stuff gets unpacked, but Izumi being outright physically abusive to the Elrics at times just isn't. She's also much softer in 03; most characters are. And I'm mostly just left confused on how to feel about her. She has some great scenes, especially with Wrath, but the character feels a bit disjointed. In BH, she really benefits from being a nonparticipant in Ishval. The writing doesn't have to worry about her being sympathetic in spite of her committing genocide, so she gets to be divorced from the massive fuck up that was that section of the story.

BH has a larger cast than 03. Also, a lot of BH exclusive characters are more likeable than the 03 exclusive characters.

There's a lot of things to unpack here.

So, first thing that's kinda an obvious point is that BH prioritizes making its characters easily likeable to the detriment of its larger themes, 03 makes its characters likeable in service of those themes. So, it's a lot easier to get behind BH Mustang than 03 Mustang because Mustang's warcrimes just aren't that important in BH while they're the most important part of the character in 03. A lot of a character's likeability in BH hinges on the audience's ability to simply ignore the Ishval subplot, which was already a poorly handled subplot. While in 03, their likeability is intentionally contrasted with their war crimes to make a point. That's the primary reason why the characters in BH are more likeable than in 03.

And this also extends to the casts that are either version exclusive or unrecognizable between the two. Kimbly is a perfect example. In BH, he's designed primarily as a fun and bombastic antagonist who blows shit up because it's fun. They also made him extremely fashionable. Meanwhile, in 03 he's genuinely fucked up and views the lives of people as little more than tools to use to further his own goals, which is made interesting by Kimbly not being a top dog (like most villains running with that mindset are). He's at the bottom of the food chain and yet he still thrives under that mindset. BH Kimbly is the more fun character, but that's because BH Kimbly and 03 Kimbly are fundamentally different types of antagonist.

A lot of this comes down to tone. 03 is a much more somber show than BH. Unlike BH, it takes the premise of "child soldier works for a fascist government that partook in genocide a few years back because he wants to fix a mistake that made him and his brother permanently disabled" as a sign that the story is meant to be dark and a little fucked up. Meanwhile, BH tends to gloss over the fucked up shit in favor of selling the power-fantasy aspect of the story. This just results in BH's characters being a lot more fun. The surface level shit is the only thing that really matters to them when looking at BH since the deeper shit is simply shit and not really worth calling attention to.

The cast sizes also exist to further both show's individual goals. BH being about action and badass people being badass benefits from a larger cast because you get to see more flavors of badassery. It lets fights cycle between different styles of combat, which helps keep things interesting. 03 is a character drama. This benefits from having a smaller cast because it allows the show to spend more time unpacking a handful of characters.

There are a lot more badass female characters in BH compared to 03

I'll give BH a "you did the bare minimum" award for being an action show with female characters who are not just eye candy. That doesn't make the show revolutionary. It just says bad things about the genre that this isn't considered the bare minimum. But yeah, in both shows, most of the female characters are subordinate to their male peers. Hawkeye is defined as Roy's henchman. Winry is defined as Ed's love interest/childhood friend, Izumi is defined as Ed's mentor. In some aspects, this is fine. Like, the main characters are Edward and Alphonse, they don't need to draw attention away from them in favor of their own bullshit. But how badass a character is doesn't exactly translate into whether they're feminist.

Like, again, the reason you see more badass female characters in BH than 03 is the same reason you see more badass characters in BH than 03; BH is an action show, 03 is a character drama with some amount of action on the side. They're both guilty of employing sexist tropes. BH tends mix those tropes with badassery, while 03 tends to mix those tropes with character nuance. Doesn't change the existence of the tropes. It's sort of just something that you gotta accept about either show. That doesn't mean that its female characters don't have good moments in either show. Just that they're working from a sexist baseline. Neither show is particularly feminist, but they're also far from the worst offenders out there.

There are a few characters where I prefer their BH incarnations over their 03 versions.

The reason someone might prefer one version's character over another is a bit more nuanced than just which character was written better. The vast majority of overlapping characters fulfill different narrative niches in each story. For example, comparing 03 Lust and BH Lust has always felt disingenuous to me because while it's true that 03 Lust is the more compelling character, a major reason for that fact is that BH Lust was never designed with being compelling in mind. A more apt comparison would be 03 Lust to BH Greed, as those two characters do share the same niche of being an antagonist that makes the audience question the nature of the homunculi and eventually splits off from them. I'd also say that BH Lust and 03 Greed fulfill similar narrative niches as being a minor antagonist that establishes exactly what the main villains are all about and who's death is used as a tool by the authors to reveal exactly what the protagonist slaying them is all about. That's why BH Lust's death and 03 Greed's Deaths are both pointed to as highlighting points in their respective series. They both execute on their niches quite well.

This also accounts for the primary reason why someone may like a character in one show but dislike them in another. BH Mustang fulfills the niche of a secondary protagonist. In 03, he fulfills the role of a pseudo-antagonist / morally ambiguous major character. I happen to really like both versions of Mustang, but it's for very different reasons. In BH, I just think he's funny and has a lot of good banter. That's more or less exactly what he's meant to accomplish there. You're supposed to go "haha funny" and/or "haha awesome" with this guy. BH Mustang falls apart when you critically analyze him because the Ishval plot was mishandled, but his surface level traits are so good that I can just be like "I saw nothing." Meanwhile, 03 Mustang is a character who you sort of have to engage with critically to get the most out of. He's a complicated character and his relationship with the audience isn't a static variable. And there's merit to both approaches of character writing. There's as much value to a character where it's not worth overanalyzing them as there is to a character who doesn't really come into their own until you pull out the tweezers.

So, in case anyone's curious, which characters do I prefer their BH incarnations to over their 03 incarnations? Well, I prefer Barry the Chopper and Izumi Curtis in BH vs their 03 counterparts. Like I said, there's a lot more nuance than "this character was written better in one anime than the other" when regarding personal preferences. So, the reason I prefer BH Izumi over 03 Izumi is that I thought BH Izumi was funny and cool while I just got a lot of mixed messages about 03 Izumi. So, in this case, I think BH Izumi fulfilled her narrative purpose really well, while I have much more mixed opinions on 03 Izumi. As for Barry, it's a similar case where I thought he was really funny in BH, while I think he fell short as a more serious antagonist in 03. In Izumi's case, the failings I have for her in 03 are that I don't think her treatment of the Elrics is put under the same scrutiny that every other character is given. Like, in BH, her being physically violent towards them is played off for comedy. It's the same case in 03, but it doesn't work as well in this context because 03 is the show that turned the short jokes into an important metaphor, so it's really weird that Izumi's slapstick wasn't given the same treatment. And I found that really off-putting. Meanwhile, my main issue with BH Izumi is that the stuff around her failed human transmutation was extremely underexplored, which doesn't stick out as much as the slapstick issue in 03 because Izumi is ultimately a minor character in BH while she takes the mantle of a more major character in 03. Though, personal bias is a huge factor in why I prefer BH Izumi over 03 Izumi, since her specific plot about being unable to bear children just happens to be so alien to my personal life, as someone who's both never had a failed pregnancy, has zero interest in bearing children, and would happily make a magic "goodbye pussy" circle. It's not that this type of conflict can't still be compelling to someone like me, but it's going to require more narrative work than a conflict that I can more closely relate to. Hence, why it's personal bias. Meanwhile, in the case of Barry the Chopper, my preference towards BH's version is a fair bit less subjectively biased. He just fits really awkwardly into the role 03 tries to assign him. The issue is that he jumps back and forth between trying to be fucked up and scary to being a comedic antagonist, which just undermines both aspects of him.

Like, the antagonist for this scene, should end up looking completely alien to the version of Barry the Chopper seen in BH, but that version of Barry is played relatively similar to BH Barry in Lab 5, resulting in the 03 Barry being inconsistent.

And for every character where I prefer their BH version, there are plenty more characters where I prefer their 03 versions. And a lot of that will come down to personal preference.

Armstrong's a great example of a character who on a surface level isn't that far off between 03 and BH, but he just works so much better in 03 than in BH because of the different character niches he fulfills in both shows. In 03, he's a minor character, while in BH, he's a major character. So, in 03, he's not particularly developed. He's mainly a funny guy who has a few shots where he's sad over Ishbal, and then he ends up supporting Mustang in overthrowing the government, which he mostly does in a comedic fashion. That's a pretty apt description for both his 03 and BH incarnations, but I only take issue with his performance in BH. The reason for this is that he's a more important character in BH, so I expect the show to disclose more information about him, which doesn't happen. Like, in BH, I want to know more about how his refusal to fight in Ishval affected him, his relationships, his status, etc. But BH only addresses that through off-handed scenes where Olivier calls him a pussy, which don't really go anywhere. Meanwhile, in 03, first of all, Armstrong did kill people in Ishbal, so the massive question of "how did his time in Ishbal affect him" can be supplemented by other characters confronting similar questions. Thus, the minor amounts of information we are given about Armstrong alongside information we see from other characters who were soldiers in Ishbal like Marcoh and Mustang are more than enough to get across the general picture. Secondly, we actually do get hints at how Armstrong's goofier attitude and kinder disposition impact his career. Mainly during the raid in Dublith where Envy disguised as Bradly says "this is why you never get a promotion." As a minor character in 03, he's allowed to have the nuances of his character be heavily carried by implication. But I can't really give a major character like BH Armstrong that same affordance, especially when those hints are barely given. It doesn't help that Armstrong's backstory in BH very heavily leaned into the story's insistence that the soldiers didn't mean it when they slaughtered Ishval.

Edward is more of a Badass in BH than 03

Ngl, I'm cheating a little with this point because it's like "I agree with this point but I also couldn't give less of a shit about it." Which, that response is, at least, 85% personal preference coming into the equation. I'm not going to say that badass characters never resonate with me, but it's really uncommon because the badass character has to be someone I personally can somewhat relate to, which is a rare flavor of character in popular media. My own experiences with the two characters are that I find BH Edward to be kinda boring as a character while 03 Edward is the most interesting character in the show (as he should be given everything I said about what 03 is trying to accomplish). But it's a lot of the same stuff my general thesis has been; BH Ed is more badass than 03 Ed because BH Ed was written to be a badass while 03 Ed was written to be a compelling character.

The actual reason I wanted to bring up this point is because it's a common enough point I've seen people make when comparing the two shows and I find this point rather bothersome. Maybe that's because I take issue with consistently seeing a rather mediocre character being placed on a pedestal over one of the best protagonists I've ever seen. But it's also more the explanations that bug me than anything. Like, I cannot take anyone seriously who uses calling a character "whiny" as a critique. Maybe it's because you're looking for an action hero who can shrug off shit that would normally be traumatizing, in which case, you're in the wrong genre. Maybe you take some issue with characters being emotional in a vulnerable sort of way. 03 features a lot of characters displaying emotions in a dysfunctional sort of way. Characters are allowed to hurt in a way that doesn't fuel anything other than more hurt. Characters will repress their feelings and that will bite them in the ass. Characters are allowed to be depressed, not in a "waiting for the heroic do shit speech" sort of way but in the genuine "existing is painful, no energy, depression" kinda way.

And this is the point that rubs me the wrong way about the majority of complaints thrown at 03 Ed. It's not that wallowing in your own misery makes for good entertainment, but it's an important part of 03's themes and its point. I can also, just, relate more to this unproductive sense of pain. I have depression, that is what depression looks and feels like. It's unproductive, it's painful, it can't be fixed by someone just walking up to you and giving a dramatic speech. And that's why the way 03 expresses hurt resonates with me in a way that BH's just doesn't. It's low octane, and that's the point. That's what makes it good.

BH's Ending is a lot more Straight-Forwards than 03's Ending

I think that's the best way I can put it without saying something I flat out disagree with. BH, in general, is much more straight-forwards than 03, and the endings of both show embody that. BH is, ultimately, a fun show where the heroes have to take a bunch of twists and turns to come out victorious. Meanwhile, 03 is an extremely messy show about characters being put in fucked up situations and no one coming out of it unscathed. It's about decisions that will haunt you for the rest of your life. It's about situations where the right answer is the one you least want to accept. It's a show about how the people will create doctrines to shield themselves from the truth. And it's a show about human selfishness. The endings of both shows are exactly how their shows should have ended. BH was never going to have a bad ending and 03 was never going to have a completely satisfactory ending. If 03 had a happy ending, the show would've been worse off for it.

So, yeah, BH's ending is a lot more straight-forward. It's a happy ending where everyone gets what they want more or less. Narrative knots are tied. All that shit. I personally thought the ending was nothing special. Like, it's another happy ending. I can't fault people for enjoying it for that, but it's not the type of thing that's going to stand out in my brain.

Meanwhile, 03's ending does a lot of nontraditional things. There's arguably multiple major plot twists that come out of nowhere and are more of a "fuck you" to the audience than anything else. The protagonists end the series arguably off worse than where they started. Wrath and Gluttony are still alive and haven't had their arcs concluded in any satisfying way. There's no guarantee that the setting or the characters in it will continue to be okay after the series ends. And that's okay. The ending of 03 is very messy because it's meant to be messy because the point that the show is making is that the world is neither straightforward nor fair, which is why you gotta keep doing the best you can to improve it. That's why the ending is uplifting. Even though Edward's in arguably the worst position he's been in throughout the series, having literally lost everything, he hasn't given up, so you, the viewer, shouldn't give up either. Life doesn't end until it ends, so you should live.

And yeah, the ways that 03's and BH's ending function are fundamentally different. I can totally see why one ending would pass someone by. Like I already said, I didn't feel anything watching BH's ending but 03's ending felt very significant to me, and I could totally understand the inverse being true for some people.

Conclusion

People give BH too much credit and shit too much on 03. Like, 03 is just the better show. It's just that 03 isn't designed to be a comfortable watch in the same way BH is. You're meant to leave BH feeling good, you're meant to leave 03 with a lot to think about. If 03 makes you uncomfortable, that's a feature, not a bug. Many of the fan advertised strengths and weaknesses of each show is really just differences in genre.

And while I've repeatedly conveyed that 03 is the better show, that's not because BH is bad; 03 is just really fucking good. It's like comparing Elden Ring to Dark Souls 1; sure they're made by the same developers and have a lot of surface level similarities, but they're so fundamentally different experiences that viewing them through the same lens isn't fair to either. There are a lot of things that BH does well, and there are a lot of things that 03 does well. But it's not fair to say "BH does X thing better than 03 therefore it's better" (or the occasions where the inverse claim is made) because both shows are trying to paint very different pictures, to the point where I don't consider them to be parts of the same genre. There may be similar components, but the way those components are used is very different from one-another. Comparing the two shows makes for interesting analysis, but it's bad for the purposes of actually criticizing either show.

[thecoolerliauditore]

Hello! I've seen a mutual reblog your posts for a while, and everything I've seen you say about Flower Husbands having a bad taste associated with it is something I've felt since 3rd Life, and although I am on anon, I wanted to connect your thoughts with mine.

I'm one of those people who made posts about toxic flower husbands in the past, but I privated them after rapidly receiving tense, uncomfortable response from others who found those posts (despite me not using the flower husbands tag, placing it under a Keep Reading, and very clearly saying I would discuss toxicity). Even with those warnings, within the hour I was facing multiple angry people telling me they hated the interpretation and that it was unfair, etc.

Current me regrets that I caved in and hid those posts, but I felt so overwhelmed that it seemed easy and safe to shut my mouth, no longer gushing over how much I enjoyed them as a way to explore relationship toxicity. In my other fandoms I regularly and openly discuss toxicity, so it was such a shock to see it pushed against in a new fandom and I think that's why I caved so fast. I felt like I'd stumbled across a place with new social norms or that I'd genuinely said something super politically incorrect, and I haven't posted about them since.

I looked through some of your posts and I've seen other anons tell you the same thing about feeling like flower husbands came across as toxic, but holding their tongues to avoid upsetting people. It's a very unfortunate situation, especially since the toxicity is so interesting to explore.

Really, I wanted to say that I've enjoyed reading your thoughts. It makes me feel hopeful that views might be changing. Not in an "I want flower husbands shippers to have a hard time" way (I wish no ill) but in a "Hey, maybe I can find my people out there and maybe I can write posts or fics that will be well-received this time."

I really liked the comment from the anon who said "It's rare to be able to get stories where people have problems and break up and move on to new relationships and grow from them." I absolutely feel that way and these are my favorite relationships to study. Seeing it play out in canon is such a rare and beautiful thing, and it's something I was very excited to write about before I fell into a nervous spiral thanks to the pushback my mere analysis post got, let alone an actual fic. I hope someday soon, I can write something beautifully toxic for them that I'm proud of.

Thank you for your posts, which are very interesting and informative. For those of us like the past me who wanted to avoid stepping on toes, certain relationships in this fandom can be tricky. I'm someone who liked to brainstorm about Scott and Pearl being arranged in marriage due to the soulmate bond, only to immediately be bombarded with comments that it was inappropriate and I should change the story (or that I needed to explicitly tell readers that Scott felt no attraction towards Pearl)... the usual rhetoric. How interesting that I don't get comments about sexuality when I write aroace characters in arranged marriages (and boy, isn't that a whole convo in itself?)

Scott and Pearl are a very interesting duo that I won't delve into here, but I've enjoyed reading your posts about their dynamic as well.

I want to end my comment by rotating one of your other remarks: "I love that we essentially watch them both have to live on after their mutually life-changing marriage." To me, that right there is prime fic exploration and character study material, and I think it's very cool to view Scott and Jimmy through the lens of pulling apart and picking up their splintered pieces.

Once more, thank you for speaking up about your thoughts about Flower Husbands and Scott/Pearl, signed by the past me who was scared to do so once upon a time. I'll probably lurk in the fandom fringes for a while longer until I'm ready to return and stand firm in my toxic interpretations, but until then, it's awesome to know I'm not the only one who sees them through a very specific lens.

Goddamn man. Sorry I don't like getting sappy and shit but like. Goddamn okay this ask kinda hit me like a truck that my posts made someone's day a bit brighter or whatever and that's. Really cool. Really cool that that happened. I read this ask and then had to stare at a wall.

Saying this is the stuff I post for isn't true because I post for no discernable reason whatsoever and I'm endlessly confused at people following this blog. But I really have been more open about my thoughts on the series recently and a big part of that was because I used to fish around for people who were okay with certain things through essentially communicating in symbols. And I hate policing fandom stuff alot alot. So I kind of decided to stop being a hypocrite and stop policing myself too.

Idk I think part of me might've hoped someone like fandom newbie me would happen upon my blog and see that it's Okay, Actually to post about FH as an abuse narrative or Scott/Pearl as a ship or Joel/Jimmy as a ship or Lizzie as comphet or literally any other thing that's deemed too illegal for the maintags and see that not only will everyone not hate you theres actually others who see the same things and are just as passionate.

I think my breaking point was just. Seeing my mutuals get blasted by complete strangers for completely harmless stuff? The Joel/Jimmy kiss in RL and the Joelshipping war that ensued from it comes to mind.

There was this one post I really liked that was like. A social group that makes you feel scared to say the wrong thing constantly isn't a group that loves you. And that's so true.

Idk I just like. I don't post because I hope people agree with me (although I do like it when I'm correct and God and whatever), I post because I hope someone can look at this and see it as a sign they can also post their bad takes and not fear divine retribution.

Anyway if it makes you feel any more hopeful -- things ARE actually changing culturally, at least from what I can tell. Someone mentioned majormoon in the tags of my art that wasn't even shipping the other day, and while the Scott tag itself is still very attached to his wholesomeness, I actually found the sheer number of people being open about reading Scott as toxic at the start of WL quite surprising?? It seems like the Pearl and Ranchers fans especially are very keen to pick him apart, as are the Ethubs fans for some unknown reason I haven't quite figured out yet. It's not quite hit the stage of that discussion being about Scott himself but it's very much acknowledged now when it comes to other narratives.

It's not all just weirdos with rambling text posts like me btw!! My buddy Tubby of the Tarchia variety made a really awesome music video that got fairly popular depicting Jimmy's abuse, albeit in a mostly symbolic way but still fairly blunt with its message imo.

i have also absolutely seen toxic FH in fics, and would be really curious about reading some of the ones I've seen get complained about in the Scott tag lol.

Scott/Pearl fics are a little rarer and especially so ones that arent plastered with PLATONIC THIS IS PLATONIC all over them but I think it's saying something that they semi recently got runners up in a Scott ship bracket (losing to FH ironically enough) and the mod actually removed the "QPR" specificity after a few rounds. That being said you can still find very shippy fics of them if you know where to look.

Anyway, obviously no pressure eitherway, just giving you the run down of what the view looks like from here. Whoa I made someone's day a bit better. Messing me up.

No stress obviously but I would LOVE to read that arranged marriage AU btw, it's more or less what DL was to me thematics wise. (I've pondered something very similar before but it's more or less just a collection of tropes I like. LL is represented by them being childhood friends)

[aeternallis]

Your recent post reminded me of what has been bothering me for a while about the portrayal of the Kimchay dynamic in the fandom. I love reading fic about these two, but in most fics nowadays I cannot even recognize the characters I came to know and love when I watched the show. It’s like they bear the name of Kim and Chay but act nothing like them😅 People are of course allowed to write characters any way they want (after all, it’s not that serious, fandom is supposed to be fun:D), but I think this is the first time I’m in a fandom where the fanon characterization has overthrown the canon characterization so completely. The prevalence of submissive!Kim and Dom!Chay just throws me off, when the characters are nothing like that in the show (actually it’s quite the opposite lol). When the show aired and until around mid-2023 the majority of fic etc. portrayed Kimchay pretty accurately with only the odd mischaracterizatiok here and there, but after that? It’s like the fandom collectively decided to throw canon out the window XD.

These days I’m just living by the ”don’t like,don’t read” philosophy, which unfortunately means I have to clock out of 80% of Kimchay fic lol. I see something like ”Kim whimpered” and am like ”nope, he would not” and then yeet myself out:D

Hello, thank you for your message!

Meh. The idea of fanon characterization overthrowing canon though isn’t unique to the KPTS fandom, yknow? I feel like most fandoms face that inevitability as we get further away from the date of original release. Having said that however, I would actually disagree with you, nonnie. XD Politely, of course!

It’s just that…I’m not necessarily sure fanon characterization has overthrown canon completely, or if it’s more along the lines that those who like the fanon characterization just tend to be a lot louder, especially on this site. It’s harder to discern people’s true opinions on here, not necessarily for lack of communication, but more along the lines of iffy communication due to knee-jerk reactions, imo. And again, that’s not just the KPTS / Kimchay fandom in general, I feel like that’s how it is for most fandoms that have some community over here that’s still alive and kicking.

In any fandom, there will always be people who take certain opinions a lot more personally over others due to their own emotional attachments over the fictional characters in question, and that just inevitably makes communication (as in, actual discussion and engagement)…not worth it. At least, not to me, haha!

Fandom is supposed to be fun, but let's be real nonnie, for a lot of people, it's more than just fun: for a lot of us, it's an escape from our day-to-day lives, a place to engage freely in a piece of media that we otherwise wouldn't have in RL.

Furthermore, canon vs fanon in terms of what that means to an English-speaking majority fandom community and as it relates to a non-western piece of media is…honestly, all kinds of landmines to talk about, if you know what I mean. A lot (not all, of course, but a significant chunk of them) of fanon specific to KPTS and Kimchay are due to ignorance of the cultural context, as well as certain ideas gaining traction, because of the western lens it’s viewed through.

Not to mention, the cringe habit of mixing up actors and their characters, but that’s a different conversation all together.  

At the end of the day, I say be the change you want to be, nonnie~ If you don’t like fanon, say it loud and proud! I’m ngl, I certainly don’t!

All opinions in regards to any and all fictional characters ought to exist equally on this hellsite, and that should be the end of it! :3  

[horizon-verizon]

TG be like “we don’t care about bloodlines, nobody won the war, but Aemond’s bastard founded House Whent, the Stark children are Aemond’s descendants via Catelyn’s mother, and Daenaera should be replaced by Jaehaera and become the Blackfyres’ ancestor.”

You don’t get to spew endless vitriol about children born outside of marriage and write how they shouldn’t have any rights, and then claim that Jaehaera should be Daemon Blackfyre’s grandmother.

You don’t get to say the most misogynistic, heinous and disgusting things about women having sex outside marriage and call them “sluts”, “whores”, “spoiled” and then claim that Jaehaera should be Elaena’s and Daena’s mother.

And imagine if Jaehaera was Daena’s mother, Daena must DEEPLY despise her if she admired Daemon and named her son after the man who traumatized her mother, ordered the murder of her twin brother, and drove Daena’s grandmother to madness & suicide. (To be clear, I FULLY support Blood & Cheese, they were just anti-monarchists working class men trying to feed their children #team smallfolk).

Absolutely yes to all of this. Unless it was dry sarcasm, I don't know about the very last sentence. Pretty sure it was, but just in case for others: Lower classed men don't have to sell out their morals or integrity by murdering under-10s (not that 10 and ups aren't kids but we should understand what I mean) and to feed their families. If they are at war, the same holds true that killing children is a heinous act.

Even if they are the psychologically degraded and fearful, Unsullied would never/most likely never choose to participate in much of the violence they have been forced into doing--while being dehumanized since literal childhood--such things if their very lives and body parts weren't on the line from the moment they were socially objectified through chattel slavery. The Unsullied are a part of a systematic institution of politics and official kidnappings of children for the express purpose of protecting slavers' interests and the slavers broke them down into being on their fear instinct for years, again, since childhood. They were forced to kill animals they raised themselves until they killed actual slave infants or be subjected to inhumane murders themselves.

Blood was a freaking goldcloak who beat a woman to death. Overall, Blood and Cheese were not chattel slaves. They were not under terrible duress to accept this mission, and they went out of their ways to become assassins. Essentially, they had some level of choice and they decided to use non-discriminating murder for hire as their profession, or make it a part of their "skill set".

Anyway, the double standards many in both the asoiaf and hotd fandoms towards some motivations of villains versus morally grey or morally positive characters is astounding. This series was made to be read by the American public, and I mean though I'm sure GRRM doesn't care if black/Hindi/trans people read and enjoy his books (might even be grateful for it for his liberal views) and like most places in the world where Europeans fucked people shit up to placed racial and EU class hierarchies/ideologies make for idiot bigots with strong double standards. and tbh, GRRM sorta still encourages it by giving up his material to incompetent, bigoted, condescending writers, not really going in through his story in a more feminist and anti-SA lens, AND not clearing shit up against racists, misogynists, etc strategically.

[mecachrome]

loll thank u for confirming it to me re:kpoppie fan past!!! i think i remember it was you (?) who said aomething about landoscar coworkerisms and i was like EXACTLY! this is what makes them interesting to me. i get people who don’t really like 814 bc on the surface they are just teammates who have content together thus easier to ship but at the same time, that’s the beauty in them isn’t it <33 and lando’s comment about being contractually obligated to hang out together was Romance to me actually bc >coworkership.

alsooo once again i would just like 2 say i love your metas/analysis cause i think yours is such a fun pov to read from!! not sure if this is bcs of our commonality in fandom history but it’s truly like, a different perspective than if you were like on the 1d > f1 rpf pipeline or just a general sports rpf background. i’m not sure what makes kpop so unique in this ejduksdj maybe perhaps bcs we spend so much time dissecting idolsona and manufactured content or whatever 🙂 anyways! love your work and your gifs 💘💘💘 u are a godsend for the fandom!!

yesss anon coworkershipping is literally so important and real 2 me!!! ofc people are entitled to their own opinions and preferences and i will never force my silly little ships onto anyone but admittedly i am 100% the type of guy who thinks that sometimes Things that aren't romance are romance and sometimes Things that aren't sex are sex. so that's a me problem HKLSDFH

i think the ability to be self-aware about your coworkerisms and find humor in it or even show fondness for it is really sweet... like to me it's meaningful that oscar followed lando's career for so long and clearly rates him and just sincerely objectively LOVES being his teammate and is satisfied with that alone because again "i'll have you in whichever way you'll have me" is lesbianism to some. it's also interesting when they're regarded as a pr bait ship especially considering how much mclaren like... Don't bait them to us that much anymore and how simple and stripped bare the content they post nowadays is? i think there's just a general conflation of [shares hobbies off-track] + [likes each other as people] in that regard...

fandom history is definitely so interesting, i've been in 132402382834 fandoms so i reflect on this a lot !!! i got into hockey like 10 years ago so i think just wrt like, the sporting aspect of f1 then i view it through that lens primarily (and hockey is a sport that's a lot just like... less Sympathetic to individual athletes because it's very explicitly about systems which i think is why i'm less like. parasocially invested in flop careers halsdfh), but when it comes to the celebrity consumption and sheer global influence of f1 then there are genuinely a lot of parallels to k-pop, which adds an interesting dimension. the thing about many other sports/esports/etc. fandoms is that not all of them have the same tenuous 4th wall + measure of exclusivity that f1's genz marketability propels itself off, which i think is where this accusation of 1d/k-popification comes from because it's a less familiar space in quite a few sports. but there's a lot of nuance there of course...

so random but i actually had this discussion with someone earlier where i was like my "type" in k-pop is always pathetic gayboys with horrible personalities alsfdkhalksdfh but in sports i like really adjusted normie boring straightguys (my 2 favorite hockey players are also very much Polite Cats who have cute nicknames hehe :3c) so it's interesting how despite certain fandom similarities there are many cultural nuances that influence our investment.

also idk if you're familiar with bbb but i thought i'd share the hockey version my friend made of it :') it's all quite interesting to me because hockey is like, MUCH more accessible as a fandom product just because of how many players major sports leagues have and the fact that it's not as successful in north america as any other league save mls (lol) (actually idk if this is still true with messi we might fr be flops now), so you can spend $20 to go to a game in some markets and see your favorite player up close during warmups whereas that... is not possible in f1. there's just a lot of considerations for how personas are built up & managed and the space f1 occupies in that analysis !!!!!!!! but i don't want to talk your ear off too much aklsdfhldfh thank you so much for your kind words! 🥺💕

[loveotomization]

For the past 10 years of my life as a Mikan enjoyer, I've been daydreaming about writing a series of essays examining Mikan's fall scenes through a lens of both satire and in-universe character motivation. Finally got off my butt and did it.

Presenting:

Mikan vs. Fanservice

Part 1: A Doyalist look at satire of fanservice in SDR2

(warning: contains images of anime girls in skimpy clothes)

This is a part of my larger Mikan fansite, Sad Nurse.

Essay can also be read under the cut!

(Please don't go picking a fight with me over cartoon people. I'm old and tired. I probably won't respond.)

I’d like to start off by saying that analysis will deal almost exclusively with Mikan’s portrayal in the SDR2 game, rather than the DR3 anime or any manga adaptation. Being a different medium, and produced a few years after the game, I believe that the writing and art could at times have different intentions than the games.

I personally find the writing choices for Mikan’s character absolutely fascinating, to the point that it invites both Doyalist and Watsonian exploration of what makes her function.  (simply put, Kodaka’s writing and Mikan’s in-universe motivations work in concert, rather than at odds)

I’m writing this series of essays in response to the constant, not to mention surprising, confusion I’ve seen surrounding Mikan’s character over the past ten years. Mikan is a very unique character, and her motivations are difficult to find perfectly mirrored in another existing character (not to say that I have consumed every piece of media ever, but I have yet to run across another character like her). Either way, I’m hoping to challenge some incorrect views or at the very least have the chance to say my piece after so many years.

Now, of course, I am not Kodaka nor have I met him personally. I have, however, been in the fandom for longer than the average DR fan, not to mention being somewhat older, so I may have different experiences with media than some other fans.  

Now that I have all of that out of way, I’d like to begin with what I personally believe was Kodaka’s primary intention in creating the scenes where Mikan falls over-

Satire.

Dictionary.com defines satire as:

‘The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.’

So just what is the ‘stupidity or vice’ that Kodaka is satirizing?

Fanservice.

(and perhaps the dojikko archetype, but we’ll visit that in another article)

I feel as if the term fanservice has become skewed as of late, as terms often do with passing decades. Back in the early days of English-speaking online anime fandom, fanservice was most often used to mean a scene or piece of artwork that was literally intended to be sexually appealing to the (usually straight male) viewer. At the same time, these scenes would do nothing to further the plot or add to the characterization of the woman in the scene.

These are images of Faye from Cowboy Bebop. I choose her because she exists in a sci-fi action canon that contains a well-written story and characters, as opposed to a pure fanservice series that is only created to showcase women’s bodies for an assumed male gaze.

While it can be argued that the way Faye dresses can make a statement about her personality, it is also clear to the viewer that her outfit is intended to be sexy not just in-universe, but for the viewer as well.

Let’s consider these pictures.

Faye’s top leaves little to the imagination, showing much of her cleavage, which is of course something that many female-attracted people find to be a turn on. You’ll also notice that her booty shorts are unzipped in front, inches from her privates. While I am neutral on the topic of fanservice, characterization and story-wise, there is no reason for the creators to dress her this revealing other than for viewers' pleasure. The adjustments to her costume in the live action prove that she can still be a strong and attractive woman without letting it all hang out.

The same goes for her cocktail dress. There is no vital in-universe need for jiggle physics.

(Disclaimer: This is not a critique of Cowboy Bebop. I think it’s a brilliant show. These images are here solely to juxtapose true fanservice with Mikan’s suggestive pose scenes)

Now, let’s take a look at some characters you’re more familiar with. These are from a collab with a mobile game called Sengoku… something. I’ve never heard of it, and I’m not sure what the actual characters from it look like. That said, let’s look at Mikan and Chiaki in these images.

These images are stand-alone, rather than being scenes from DR canon. In that case, they say nothing about the personality of characters in question, or the story they are from. These images serve no other purpose than to titillate the viewer. The outfits are clearly drawn in ways specifically to highlight their chests and other areas.

So what does this have to do with Mikan’s scenes in SDR2?

I firmly believe that Kodaka is doing three things with the following scenes: satirizing fanservice, satirizing the dojikko character type, and showing quite a bit of Mikan’s character at the same time. I find this pretty clever writing, and the reason I felt compelled to write this series of essays. We know that Kodaka likes satire and parody. Please just take a look at the entire DR series. Even the major themes underlying the games as a whole, such as reality TV culture and the pressures placed on Japanese youth, are largely satire. So why wouldn't smaller moments of satire be present in these same games as well?

These are the scenes in which Mikan falls over on purpose in order to diffuse tense moments, and shift the focus back onto herself by using her sexuality (I’ll go into this topic in depth at another time). As I said, these scenes show us a great deal about the personality of the character, making them immediately more valuable than simple fanservice scenes.

Take a look at her pose, and how she is dressed. Compare it to the ninja costumes above. They show quite a bit of skin, and the poses highlight their breasts and thighs.

In SDR2, Mikan is fully clothed in a reasonably well covering outfit (I once saw someone on Tumblr say that her skirt was drawn too short, and sometimes I feel like we’re one step away from visible ankles becoming scandalous again lol). Her chest is covered. There is the tiniest little peep of plain white panties in one of these images, but that’s about it. I can assure you that these scenes are not very sexy to the average female-attracted person. They are over the top, and clearly present a parody of the sort of scene truly meant to be sexy. Now, of course, literally anything can be a turn on to someone out there, but I’m talking about on average, of course.

Does this mean that Kodaka is against fanservice? I’m sure that’s not the case. However, it is possible to satirize things that you enjoy as well. In fact, I encourage creatives to critique tropes that they personally enjoy. I personally think that it’s a good way to challenge your own point of view and to not take yourself too seriously.

Satire can be shocking, or bring on feelings of discomfort. It is not always intended to be funny. Spending ten years of my life in the DR fandom, it’s always been strange to me that depictions of sexuality--even when they show very little or are used to further characterization--are more shocking to the general viewer base than the actual murders themselves, but that is likely a larger discussion for another day. Back to my point however, is that even if you do feel disgust or discomfort at Mikan’s scenes, they do elicit an emotion in the viewer, which is a large part of the point of art in the first place. In short, you have every right to feel discomfort at these scenes, but I do think that understanding the meaning and value behind them can help deepen enjoyment of the game, or at the very least of Mikan’s character.

Upcoming- A look at the dojikko archetype, followed by a Watsonian look into Mikan’s own motivations in the conscious use of her sexuality.

[acetechne]

Greetings, I'm obsessed with your blog, especially your IAmMathewian content. You have a really good artstyle and you capture the characters very well. Would you be open to making headcanons for various characters? No pressure, of course.

howdy! and thank you, I'm flattered :)

i have been part of iamp for fiiiiiiiifteeeeeeeen yeeeeeears (screech), I did art and voice acting for IAMP Back In The Day and I've at least gotten better at one of those; I also run @project-canada which was an attempted reboot I helped out with but now it's just kind of a general repository for fanworks so I try to check the tags once in a while so people can see others who still make stuff in the fandom.

There are a lot of headcanon type posts on my main blog @allbeendonebefore since I've been around for a long time. If I remember to tag them its usually under iamp headcanon on there. Again, grain of salt, etc. that not everything about IAMP aged well, there are things I've changed my mind about as I've grown as a person and travelled and listened, and there are things that I like to focus on that aren't everyone's cup of tea and that's fine.

going to ramble a little bit, so headcanons fall into one of the following:

1. based on lived experience (i have lived in 3 provinces and 1 territory and have family who have spent time in those places at different times; I have travelled to/through four more provinces on top of that). I am happy to contribute info to those places and explain my perspectives and biases with those because I'm One of the Idiots Who Lives There.

2. based on history (I am not a capital H Historian but my degrees come out of the history and classics department and I am currently doing local history as my Job, I was the person who made the rough timelines of characters' histories when the Project Canada reboot was active because I felt like the only person who had the stamina to do that for every character.

3. based on things that make me angry (or things that are funny!) on the news (some people find it hard to distinguish what is and isn't stereotypes/satire if they're not keeping up with me so the usual disclaimer that I Don't Make Characters Reflect My Actual Views All The Time and there's a difference between "this is how the character is in my mind" and "this is me using blorbo as shorthand for taking out my frustration at the State of Things because i live in a province where the governing party thinks starting Literal Actual Tire Fires is good policy." It's one of those things of "if you are unsure just ask" and I will explain, but I think its usually obvious when I am doing salty political comics vs "this is how I legitimately think the characters would interact", its just striking that balance gets hard sometimes.

4. stuff I hear from other people based on their own experiences or just like. reading and listening a lot.

oh and stuff that other people tell me and i go sure that tracks why not.

Yeah, I'm down to talk about whatever/more specific things whenever, I'm just also very particular about some things and I like it when headcanons are based on something a little bit tangible before I fold them into whatever the hell I'm doing at the time. I also tend to disappoint people because I tend not to approach things from the lens of shipping so... even if it appears its usually in a weird and Stupid way that is for max comedy and not max romance so there's that.

I do also do a lot of side stuff with my own city ocs on @battle-of-alberta because i like the granularity and nuance of municipal stuff to sort of poke holes in the whole flattening national/provincial stereotypes thing. yeah.

again i can talk about this stuff all day but uh i realize I tend to ramble incoherently so I'll cut myself off there. Thanks again, enjoy your exploration, drop me a line if you like etc etc. peace.

[esther-dot]

Half Jonsa here! Thank you Esther for your lovely reply! I hope to follow your blog until TWOW comes out too.

Well, I won't take up too much of your time, but to elaborate on my position, I would say it's overall because I take much more of a Dune influence in reading ASOIAF's themes and character work. Much of the story feels like a response to Dune almost more than LOTR beyond aesthetics-- I would almost moreso say that GRRM's criticism of kingship is more rooted in Paul and Leto II's stories than anything to do with Aragorn. This is just to give you a bit more of a picture of my approach, rather than get into the nitty gritty. I also saw another anon on someone else's blog point out Paul's parallels with Dany (where, topical to the colonising of her story, is very much in line with Paul's manipulation of the Fremen-- so I think this is likely to be critical, just maybe not in the usual fashion of modern postcolonial readings) but I feel that Paul's journey parallels many, many of the cast in different ways. You can pretty much see Catelyn-Robb as a direct response to Jessica-Paul. (Again, on the Dany-Paul Dothraki-Fremen note, I do think GRRM is less successful at giving complexity to the Dothraki, but nevertheless I do think we are meant to view it through a critical lens of personality cult-- this is what I mean about it not being postcolonial, but using colonial and conqueror aesthetics for an investigation of power and personality).

I said I was going to not take up too much of your time... to put it short, I have a much darker reading of the series-- not grimdark, pain for the sake of pain, but I do think there is a real meditation on the meaning of hope in the presence of cynical reality (which is a reality I'm not so sure is realistic, but it's there). I don't totally agree with GRRM's storytelling ethos and I find the series more interesting to talk about because of peoples' response to it as opposed to an actual discrete storytelling unit.

When it comes to Jonsa itself-- there are plenty of writings on its Romantic influence (cappymightwrite, you're a star), and without TWOW it's hard to say, but I think that its potential for a torturous Gothic romance which doesn't end in marriage is too high on the books for me. I'm particularly thinking of Paul's inability to marry for love-- his political marriage with Irulan is what gives him the universe on a platter. I know, I know, it's not fair to Sansa and I hate it, and it's not fair to Jon either, but I don't think that's the story he's telling. I don't think it is fundamentally about fairness, but that sometimes there are poetic answers to fairness, and maybe some justification which comes after the fact in songs and stories. I really don't want to write a treatise in your inbox, but when I say 'half a Jonsa' really I am trying to describe I don't think it's endgame, and that a lot of the theories/ethos which goes along with it are not what I entirely agree with.

Which is to say that yes, I do think Bran as God Emperor like Leto II (despite magic being 'evil', or potentially amoral, in my books) is a real possibility. It happened in the show, sure, but they didn't fully investigate the ramifications (and the specific commentary GRRM has on kingship--- specifically feudalism-- and what it means to make it 'work' with the tools of the fantasy genre). I think powderpowderblue might recognise my message because I've sent one before about Bran separately (sorry powder). I think there is a deeper contrast between Dany's magic and Bran's magic--- what sort of power gives you the capacity to rule, and how that compromises your humanity, or equally doesn't-- with Bran's own response to Dany's nukes. Bran and Dany have the potential to be even bigger foils than Jon and Dany, honestly.

You're totally right that there's a lot of room for different people in the Jonsa fandom, and I would say that by in large Jonsas are the most interesting (I say this with some impartiality, just because ASOIAF is not my main obsession) because they entertain the most different perspectives, even when they become committed to certain theories here and there. I think where I personally feel a bit reserved about it is because I think ASOIAF is less grim than Redditors think it is (and they miss the mark thematically) but I think it's much more grim than Tumblr by in large thinks it is (which is where I think the 'dark' love story of Rhaegar/Lyanna really shows. It absolutely is not a simple matter. That the great love story of the series is tragic and motivated by self-absorbed and egotistical prophecy, and involves just a wolf girl dealt the fallout? That says something really major about the storytelling's beliefs. I also don't think that Jonsa can be a straightforward poetic redemption of this). I'm just speaking generally; I'm even including non-Jonsas here. As a demonstration, I don't think Brienne is the complete thesis statement-- I think she is a suggestive antithesis, but not ultimate synthesis. I see her 'No chance and no choice' quote used as justification for ASOIAF's ultimate resolution (that heroism will be outright rewarded even when it's costly), but I disagree. I think there's a reason it happens in AFFC and not the later books (and more specifically, that she has been tied to Jaime-- not for mere chaste/courtly romance (this is also why I don't think it will be consummated), not to disillusion her, but to create a more complicated thematic synthesis).

This really got too long. Please feel free to not reply in longform or not reply at all... very therapeutic for me though hahahahahha!!!!! <3 <3 <3

P.S. Don't worry I love Sansa and Jon, separately and together. Part of the argument for Jonsa, I feel, is that they're such strong, Romantic characters separately who can bring out the most interesting personality from each other-- to recontextualise their previous characterisation. Imo the literary incentive here is really clear.

Don't be scared! I always encourage people to offer their opinions even if they’re unpopular.

@cappymightwrite is wonderful! I love her Jon as a Byronic hero metas, and I've really enjoyed @powderpowderblue's thoughts too! It's hard to resist the urge to be reactionary / go to extremes because of the incentives in fandom to do so, but I really appreciate the nuanced takes.

I did not read Dune, but years ago I read Hebert's essay on writing it, Dune Genesis , and I remember feeling a lot of dread because I was definitely getting some ASOIAF-y vibes from his ideas.

I agree with this, "there is a real meditation on the meaning of hope in the presence of cynical reality" and I think that is why Sansa stands out so much to me. The contrast of her beliefs with the world that wants to crush them. Even at her most cynical, she still is herself, kind, compassionate, she's such a joy.

I completely agree about Dany and Bran being foils! I've either answered or lost in my drafts something about that. I kinda think Dany works as a foil to each of the Starks in a different way.

"I think it's much more grim than Tumblr by in large thinks it is" I think I agree here. I would have gone more with...steeped in a deep sadness. Its only natural to be drawn to conflict as a writer, that's what drives action/plot, but Martin is particularly drawn to it imo. The pain and grief he writes into our POVs...it's all very moving, makes the happy moments that much brighter, but I definitely get the impression that's what he's drawn to. That doesn't at all mean there aren't good endings in store for some of our favs, but I don't think he'll make anything easy.

"That the great love story of the series is tragic and motivated by self-absorbed and egotistical prophecy, and involves just a wolf girl dealt the fallout? That says something really major about the storytelling's beliefs. I also don't think that Jonsa can be a straightforward poetic redemption of this" -- So, this is what I've been going around in circles on. Each time I answer an ask about Rhaegar I get a handful more because we all hate him but we all disagree on what Martin is doing with him. I think how Martin wrote Cat and Ned, one of the few healthy romantic relationships we get, indicates the extent of his interest in conflict/pain, so it seems inevitable that every relationship --Jonsa too-- would have that. I do think we're due for a romance that is more reward than pain which makes me hope though.

There's so much about a Targ/Stark Jonsa kinda has to be part of that convo, and I've heard people suggest that Sansa, unlike her younger self and unlike Lyanna, may fall in love with Jon but this time she will resist it which is why she will escape tragedy in the end. I don't buy that, but there are multiple ways Jonsa could evolve the convo, so I certainly don't dismiss your view. I personally am not into tragic love stories, but once Martin gave an interview and said he was, so I take that into consideration.

Brienne is the complete thesis statement-- I think she is a suggestive antithesis, but not ultimate synthesis. I see her 'No chance and no choice' quote used as justification for ASOIAF's ultimate resolution (that heroism will be outright rewarded even when it's costly), but I disagree. I think there's a reason it happens in AFFC and not the later books (and more specifically, that she has been tied to Jaime-- not for mere chaste/courtly romance (this is also why I don't think it will be consummated), not to disillusion her, but to create a more complicated thematic synthesis --I'm gonna have to sit with this.

Part of the argument for Jonsa, I feel, is that they're such strong, Romantic characters separately who can bring out the most interesting personality from each other-- to recontextualise their previous characterisation. --Love that!

Thank you for taking the time to write all that, and I'm glad you found it therapeutic. Feel free to share more of your thoughts anytime! 💗

[wispstalk]

1, 10, 12

the character everyone gets wrong - DELPHINE. the delphine discourse lord help me. it's either she's a girlboss or she's the devil. i think the former is somewhat tongue-in-cheek most of the time but she's a fuckin fed. automatic DQ. plenty to say about the latter case but probably my least favorite take is that she's an idiot for assuming the return of the dragons has something to do with the Thalmor. is it really so irrational for a political operative to view this massive destabilizing event through the lens of a conflict she's been embedded in for decades

10. worst part of fanon - a lot of these asks are just making me appreciate the little corner of fandom i've curated for myself... i don't encounter too much stuff that makes me bristle. i'll rant about the dark brotherhood again tho. WHY are all these assassin OCs so well-adjusted. i think if i met someone who killed for money i'd pee my pants

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them - ok it's ulfric but hear me out. i actually think he's one of the more well-written characters in the game. a ruthless and savvy politician who treats even his allies with breathtaking arrogance, who turned on his teachers and used the Thu'um to create turmoil. of all the political actors in the game, Ulfric has something important in common with the LDB. I'd think no matter what faction (or not) they choose, they'd have that association hanging over their head wherever they go.

plenty of people do like Ulfric, and some for truly rotten reasons, but I'm speaking more to those who share my distaste for the ideology he represents. i don't intend to write around him for the sake of avoiding uncomfortable topics. His Thalmor dossier alone is so rich with material.... no way i'm leaving that on the table.

[paragonrobits]

ATLA fandom presents a point on how people feel compelled to be smartasses or constantly make snarky remarks even when its incredibly inappropriate, as you will note that a huge chunk of all ATLA fanbase jokes inevitably involve genuinely racist remarks at cultural hair styles (many of which have been actively repressed in real life), mocking the appearance of characters in ways that winds up being super racist (mocking Zuko’s s1 ponytail and ignoring comments to the effect of that being a Thai hairstyle), invoking outright racism-based tropes for shipping reasons whether out of ignorance or not caring, and hyperfixating on the Fire Nation with very obvious idolization of the luxury, political power and perceived glamour of the nation without acknowledging that it is a colonial empire that has this wealth from a century of conquest and subjugation

really when you get down to it there’s a lot of really just plain awful things said in the fandom, often by Big Name Fans, that spread like wildfire and when people point how how blatantly racist these are, the person who said it either doubles down or tries to backpedal when it would have been far easier to either do the research or just... not be a snarky smartass. That is an option, you know. You’re not obligated to constantly make obnoxious jokes about everyone and everything.

Much of this, I think, comes from the people making these jokes genuinely not understanding WHY it’s offensive. It doesn’t excuse that these things happen, nor how they mostly double down on it or refuse to listen to people who actually know the subject matter. But in brief if flows from two broad sources:

1st, people who watch ATLA and have a tendency to not engage with the world on its own terms. Neither internalizing the way the setting presents itself or trying to get any understanding of the real world cultures that inform the civilizations of the setting or the religious views that underpin the show’s themes, they instead view EVERYTHING strictly through a modernized lens. At its most harmless, this is where you get the ‘Zuko is a theater kid/Mai is a goth’ jokes. Harmless enough, though people often tend to take it too seriously.

It gets worse, though, when people EXCLUSIVELY look at the show and its characters through the lens of what’s familiar to them, and often that means an extremely westernized view. This is where you get people who don’t seem interesting in engaging with fiction on anything other than everything as high school dynamics or coffee shop slow burn romances, and refuse to understand how the outlooks of the characters can and should differ from their own; its where you get a lot of people treating Azula like an misunderstood popular girl, when the particulars of Dynastic power, politics and Ozai as a role model become apparent.

2nd, the aforementioned obsessions with constantly making snarky remarks and be clever smartasses about everything. This is an attitude that mixes badly with this setting, because the people who do this are CONSTANTLY making fun of cultural touchstones, clothing fashions and appearance traits, and it winds up being deeply racist or mocking people for not looking like Westernized fashion models.

This is the sort of thing where popular bloggers crack jokes about various Southern Water Tribe members being homophobic and try to make that a running gag without ever looking into the ways circumpolar indigenous people actually viewed gay orientations, and when backlash happens, they either double down on it and refuse to take it seriously, or backpedal too hard and pretend they hadn’t said something horrible that could have been avoided by treating things with a modicum of respect, and not constantly acting like this is a high school AU with different architecture.

[hplonesomeart]

I don’t get it, why do I struggle so much with being outspoken? Sharing my interests with others? Being HAPPY. I feel awful for doing nothing productive on my last day before school. I feel like I did nothing with myself and wasted my potential (even though I know it’s a lie). I don’t know if my mental health is improving. I don’t know if my self image is who I want to be anymore

Every time I think I’m able to reach out to others I start to get anxiety again. And I start to filter myself through the lens of every person who ever perceived me. Thinking I’m going to mess up and they’ll hate me. Thinking I’m not thoughtful or honest enough. Thinking I’ve been lying to them somehow by not sharing certain aspects of myself?

I don’t know why I’m scared of the unknown. I want to enjoy each day and not worry about the future. Or worry about failing school. Or disappointing others based on their expectations. I don’t want to be viewed as incompetent for not engaging with reality. Because I enjoy the comfort of fantasy and creativity, but have I trapped myself in escapism for too long? Is that why reality feels so bleak? Do I want to cry about it, or would it be pointless to?

What matters to me anymore? I’m feeling hopeless and I don’t even know why. I don’t want to accept the future, growing up, risking failure and risking being alone. I just want things to be simple again and not feel like I’m gonna ruin my life somehow. I don’t want responsibility, but I’m also tired of feeling lazy and fatigued and depressed. I want to contribute and achieve things in “the real world”, inspire people and give them laughter, but I’m afraid

What if I don’t do enough? What if living in America is just about working your life away to get money and live comfortably before you die? What if I’m too scared to achieve things and end up doing nothing with myself? Are the best of my years gone already? Is it all downhill from here as the people I love leave me and die?

I don’t even know how to be vulnerable. All I do is talk to myself, circling around the same issues over and over again. When the therapist asks “how have you been” I respond indifferently. I like to think I’ve gotten better at sharing things. But when push comes to shove, I prioritize others opinions over my own. I mold myself to be complacent and to be what they need me to be. I limit myself because I’m terribly self conscious. So I hide my thoughts, my interests, and whatever else seems personal to me

I give encouragement to others in the only way I know how…by showing up, being polite and listening, and forcing myself to be positive. When all I really want to do is be pessimistic and take everything as a joke. It gets tiring putting on this facade where my words feel forced and unauthentic. I know I’m doing the right thing by being nice and supportive…but when depression makes you emotionally numb it feels like your words are cheap. You don’t actually care. I’m just a spectator in my own life

Because you know what? It gets increasingly difficult to live carefree when your overly aware of your friends issues. And your family’s issues. And your own issues. And worldwide issues that have remained prevalent without any signs of change. And that’s the reality I have to deal with. I don’t want to deal with that shit. Maybe that’s why I enjoy fantasy, fandoms, fiction, escapism. Because none of that matters once you distance yourself. Once you loose the ability to care

But I’m scared of becoming bitter. Voicing my words and hearing how awfully petty they sound. Sharing publicly on the internet (and in person) a pessimistic side of me which I have always keep locked away. Actually being openly vulnerable and admitting “yeah I’m not doing so good”

I’ve always worried that if I spoke negatively, it would bring others down? Or it would be nonsensical and pointless in the grand scheme of things. Like why complain when you have a good life. It makes me seem self centered and bratty, thinking my issues are important to voice. There’s too much noise in this world already, especially on the internet. People don’t know how to shut up. There’s always controversial opinions and heated arguments, constant battles of conflict and restlessness. Sometimes it’s too much. And that’s why I keep silent, why I reblog things instead of post my own thoughts. Not only because vulnerability is hard for me, but also because I’m worried how my words will be used against me. Or that I’ll unintentionally draw unwanted attention. And I worry I’ve already shared too much and put myself at risk of being criticized, doxxed, and put in harms way. I don’t want to dump my issues on others. Making myself seem inconsiderate is the last thing I’d ever want

But truth is, I’ve kept too much inside. I’ve acted ‘fine’ for too long and I’m finally snapping. I can’t stay silent anymore, I can’t keep talking to myself. I need to share who I am, and that means sharing what I’m going through. No further sugar coating or concealing things vaguely. This is me right now, and I have no doubts things will improve in the future. I’ll get better mentally. But as of now, this is me. And there’s no shame in it