#people are defending this constantly

[izzyshandz]

It's easy to feel like you've been abandoned by all you've believed in.

[pirateshelly]

I think that "Armand as a character is an exercise in still caring and having empathy for people who aren't made kinder/wiser/gentler etc by the trauma and abuse they experience and if you have to pretend he didn't do the awful things he's done in order to still care about him you're missing the point" and "wanting to defend him because large chunks of the fan base are overly willing to wildly exaggerate his worst qualities (or invent entirely new bad qualities that aren't even a thing in canon!) in order to downplay Lestat's equally egregious crimes and make him look more heroic and romantic by comparison, in a way that is often subtly or overtly racist" are perspectives that can and should coexist

[altschmerzes]

i just. really wish people would realize it's possible to reblog a post about platonic relationships and expressing an appreciation for them or defending their legitimacy and capacity for depth and complexity and intimacy etc without feeling the need to talk in the tags about how much they love romance also or how much they also think 'a secret third thing' is great. like. you don't need to do that. in fact, please DON'T do that.

[svtskneecaps]

see everyone worried and fretted and panicked and yet quesadilla island looked at pepito and went

[kqluckity]

i also genuinely don't understand the hatred for the tubbo hole? not only because no one has a problem with felps' square, but also because the two people who hate it the most have done so much worse AT SPAWN, while tubbo chose a bunch of chunks no one was using, asked permission for it and then went on with his plan? also he keeps telling people that everyone will be able to access it and take things from it, that is very much a thing he wants to do? there are bigger things to complain about on the islan

[reel-fear]

Genuinely so curious who Mike thinks is gonna be buying The Cage or the new DCTL GN bc with the way he tweets as far as he's concerned, it's not gonna be:

The queer people he has actively admitted he will never show any representation of in the games.

2. The POC he has actively fought against representing in his franchise. [Who he also mocked for thinking they would be represented in his franchise]

3. The Bendy fandom which has always been concerned with topics of diversity esp in the sense of queer people since its creation. Who he has responded to really poorly esp in regards to the GN.

4. The fans who critique him. [He blocked me for doing so lol]

5. His fans in general who he tweets about like this currently. [He's being vague about why people were mad at him or sent him 'nasty messages' because if you actually looked into why you'd see he was in the wrong. Either way, a very hateful way to speak abt ur own fanbase.]

Reminder while Mike is trash talking his fans he has always treated them rather poorly. The fans who won the fanart contest for Chapter 5 never got their posters actually in game due to it being rushed. Not only was chapter 5 a big slap to the face story wise, but it was literally so rushed he couldn't be bothered to add in the art his fans gave him for his game FOR FREE. [Meatly blames this on a crazy timeline, reminder him and Mike are the literal ceos of this company. The proposal of future updates here is also pretty cruel considering Mike nowadays happily admits he corrupted Chapter 5's source code and therefore literally can't update it At All currently. Because he is a moron]

At least they got to be in Boris and the dark survival, and by that I mean that was the Only game they got to be in so far, isn't that just treating your fans like you love them? Shoving their hard work into a spin off game almost nobody has played or addresses much. [Hell, who knows if with the Lone Wolf rebrand they'll even stay there. In which case they'll be in None of the games, only in the credits of BATIM]

6. The Bendy fans who just generally disagree with him on stuff. Like the new ink demon design where there is literally a public poll showing people generally prefer the old one.

7. The Bendy fans who can see he is actively lying to them. To their fucking faces.

He says this has always been the case, but screenshots and links to tweets regarding the books being canon prove it was not. Does he really think bendy fans are stupid or something? [Unless he's admitting here he lied to Kress when he told her the books were canon which sounds worse!]

8. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of giving money to a guy who laid off tons of employees then afterwards thought it was a great idea to express his anti-union views! Also brag about how good of an employer he was, according to his employees, he was not!

So in summary; Mike is an awful person who has not learned anything from the awful things he did. I will not be purchasing The Cage because, combined with this and his absolute refusal to take any kind of critique or see any differing interpretation of his franchise, I have no reason to think my problems with the franchise will ever be addressed or fixed. I probably will pirate The Cage along with any future Bendy Products [Including the movie] and will do my best to avoid giving it any kind of monetary support. Unless this changes any time soon, I can't see myself making anymore positive Bendy posts soon.

Mike has just managed to make it so hard to speak positively or optimistically of this franchise when he's so willing to broadcast how little he cares about it or its fans. I'm at the point where I refuse to pull any of my punches with my problems with it. What's the point of trying to play nice with my critique when either way the people creating it don't care?

So with this post, I want to invite anyone who feels similarly about the franchise to tell me, make a post or send an ask talking about how all of this makes you feel. It may not change how things are, but genuinely seeing other people share my feelings of anger makes me feel better. It feels nice to see when other people share our same concerns and worries. I'd also love to know if anyone else thinks they'll be avoiding purchasing Bendy products over this.

I'm not forcing anyone to participate in it nor trying to say anyone who doesn't supports mike but genuinely maybe if we can collectively decide to boycott things like the movie, graphic novel and The Cage... It might at least make the bendy devs acknowledge how much they have destroyed their own fandom's faith and trust in them.

The way Mike tweets about his actions like he had no control over why people were mad at him at least proves to me he takes NONE of it back nor regrets it. If you didn't know about his actions and only went off his tweets, you would be led to believe Mike has been needlessly picked apart by fans over things he couldn't control [or in his own words, had his words twisted and taken out of context]. That is not how you speak about your actions if you have actually learned better from them.

anyway, that has been my bendy dev callout post. This is an open invitation to anyone feeling similarly upset about the way the franchise is going to talk about it. It's genuinely nice to see how people feel about this and the more we talk about the more it's likely the bendy devs are forced to address our concerns. I don't think they will but hey, that's why I'm not gonna support them with my money anymore nor am I gonna be nice to them in any content I make critiquing Bendy. I mean I'm also basically making this post just in case anyone asks me Why I feel this way towards to bendy devs/as a way to respond to anyone who thinks I am too harsh in my critique in the future.

As always, it seems the best part of Bendy isn't actually anything about canon but about what the fan's are creating with the ideas Bendy failed to do anything interesting with.

Also the books, the books slap.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

I have all of these extended thoughts on my head about the amazing way themes and character relationships are handled in Iruma-kun and the inclusion of queerness and the handling of the coming of age narrative in this shonen manga/anime

And every time all that comes out when I'm reccing it is "You should watch/read it"

Do it. Go watch/read Mairimashita! Iruma-kun/Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun

Please.

[rojekte]

seeing people's takes about the whole watcher situation is just a bit.... mind-boggling.

i think the apology they posted was good in the sense that they admitted to fucking up and walked back on their decision, and i think the model they've settled on now is a lot more reasonable (having content be released earlier for those who choose to subscribe), but like.... that doesn't mean that no one should've ever been mad at them in the first place???

like seriously, why does it seem like people are looking at a "good" apology and thinking "huh! they sure did apologize well! i guess that means that it was ridiculous for people to be mad in the first place! no one should have ever complained!!". if no one complained, they wouldnt have walked back their decision! they would've kept going with their dumb completely paywalled option!

and thats not even getting into the fact that their financial woes seem to come from completely mismanaging their money - hiring people when they can not afford to and spending more money on "high quality productions" when they cant afford to.... these are core issues that im not sure will be completely fixed by this? but idk.

also, this situation i think has really helped my own self come to terms with the fact that i do not enjoy many aspects of their content. i sorta already knew that considering i can not remember the last ghost files video i watched because i find that shit incredibly boring and overproduced, and even things like too many spirits have become a chore to watch bc they decided to extend the Not That Funny drink making portion when i just wanna hear some funny spooky stories.

anyway i guess my ultimate point here is: im glad they acknowledged they fucked up, but i also am not sure how interested i am in their content anymore in the first place. oh well

[gamblegun]

So fucking tired of going on random people's blogs and seeing not just blatant, but self-congratulating transphobia. Even when I take a break from the current discourse, I can't escape it. I was just scrolling through someone's blog and saw a "transandrobros fear being emasculated, which is why they're raging transmisogynists". Blocking tags doesn't help, because even seeing the phrase "transandrodorks" or whatever is enough to let me know that this person is bigoted towards transmascs and I should feel deeply disappointed in them for buying into second hand hearsay. I honestly just can't trust anyone to be normal anymore.

[td-brick]

I talked about this a while ago (I think) but it annoys me when people use the stupid "well if the roles were revered/if Sierra was a guy you wouldn't defend her" strawman when talking about Sierra and her relationship to Cody as if Sierra as a character would even exist if she was a guy. Her writing and how she acts is entirely driven by misogyny and the people who wrote her seeing women as more neurotic or whatever than men. And this document (which is really good and you should read) goes more in depth about how a lot of her writing and her being depicted as eager/perverted is racist as well but. yeah. And you can recognize this about her without "defending" her or whatever. Yeah she was creepy and weird but MANY other characters in td are and they don't have nearly as much discourse surrounding them as she does.

Anyways I digress... going off my first point I feel like people forget how much misogyny (and racism in sierra's case, what with her being a woc) affects how characters are perceived and written in things. Sierra's character would not be what it was if she was a white guy. You can write flawed female characters who might have traits similar to sierra without being misogynistic and its actually bad if all your female characters are 100% perfect angels because that's misogynistic in its own right. but like there are still stereotypes you have to be aware of and if someone is misogynistic and writing a female character their misogyny will show through in her writing, like sierra. Watching world tour/all stars it feels like they're not giving her any of her own charm or positive traits, it's only attached to other characters (namely cody) and when she exists on her own (barely) she's just doing stuff to make you hate her.

And in and of itself the fact that her character is literally ONLY attached to cody (or cameron in all stars) is misogynistic. She is clearly a really strong person on her own, especially in total drama. like physically she's super strong and agile, she has a good understanding of the contestants already because of watching TWO seasons of the show many times and she probably knows a lot about how the game itself works, etc. Clearly she's also good at finding information about people so she would probably know how to use certain contestants traits to her own gain (to form alliances and otherwise). But for some reason they never really elaborate on that and especially in world tour just attach her at the hip to a random guy who she drags super far through the competition without ever getting any character development of her own and its so UGHHH. And I wouldn't even have a problem with her being a huge fan of Cody in specific (although I do wish they would focus on her being a td superfan as a whole more) if they just handled it better. which they don't. and the shit with Cameron in all stars is just dumb as fuck I'm sorry I don't think I even need to elaborate on that

[puppyeared]

guy who only asks questions if they feel insightful enough to be worth asking and only hangs out if there is smth to do together <- deeply uncomfortable of the idea of wasting someones time

[sukibenders]

"Penelope has insecurities!" As an excuse for her harming others because of those said insecurities falls very flat when it puts the character's, who live during a time of few options especially if you were a women, at risk. And even with her insecurities, her lashing out and hurting people should be held in the same regard as how some view Cressida, who didn't get the luxury of a view into her home life until s3, unlike Penelope, and while it still has people calling out this behavior, although rightfully so, it often still includes denying that Penelope needs to take accountability as well.

[weepycat]

the full email is posted here but this paragraph from rachel corrie's last email to her mother in 2003 before she was killed by an israeli bulldozer is absolutely fucking harrowing over 20 years later.

I look forward to seeing more and more people willing to resist the direction the world is moving in: a direction where our personal experiences are irrelevant, that we are defective, that our communities are not important, that we are powerless, that the future is determined, and that the highest level of humanity is expressed through what we choose to buy at the mall.

[rosalinabloom]

People want complex female characters but then can't handle Lois Lane in MAWS.

[fromtheseventhhell]

Interesting how the Trident incident is the only moment where people question Joffrey's capacity for cruelty. He is almost universally considered one of the worst asoiaf characters, with no redeemable qualities. No one ever attempts to justify his actions when he abuses Sansa, orders Ned's executions, or any of his other many acts of violence. It's only this moment, a moment meant to introduce us to his cruel nature, that people seem to believe him to be a rational character with limits. It's honestly laughable. It's evident that the people who think like this are just biased against Arya; the majority of these arguments are centered not around Joffrey's violence, but Arya's actions to defend Mycah. People seem to truly believe that the better option would have been to let Joffrey "have his fun" and torment Mycah.

Debating how badly Joffrey would've hurt Mycah misses the entire point of the moment. Joffrey attacks Mycah because he's lowborn, he finds amusement in tormenting others, and he knows he can get away with it. He was quick to pull his sword and draw blood and, from what we know of his character, he undoubtedly would've taken it further. Arya stands up to him because she thinks that Mycah is worth defending which is significant considering she is the only one to do so. She is also the only character who mourns him and is affected by his senseless death, even books later (Ned is affected by his death but I wouldn't say he mourns him, although it is a moment that influences his feelings towards the Lannisters and Robert). Even if, which is a very big if, Joffery hadn't intended to go any further he had already crossed a line by attacking Mycah. The only alternative would be that Arya simply sits by and watches Joffrey further injure Mycah...and that's somehow the "better" option?

The people coming to the conclusion that Arya was the one who escalated the situation (and that it's somehow not Joffrey pulling his sword on an innocent boy) are coming from the perspective of the classist society that they live in. Joffrey attacking a lowborn boy wasn't an issue worth action, but harming a prince is "wrong". Mycah being attacked, and later murdered, is seen as inconsequential to the other characters (and readers) because he is lowborn. That's the thing though. You aren't supposed to look at this situation where a young boy is murdered for no reason and think that the only one who defended should've behaved differently. This moment is a criticism of the classist society these characters live in. It is significant that Arya is markedly less classist than a majority of other characters and cares when no one else does.

Further, if Arya were truly in the wrong for her actions then Joffrey wouldn't have needed to lie about what happened. From the very existence of the "trial" and Arya being given the chance to tell her version of events, we know that there wouldn't be any punishment if the truth of the situation had been told from the very beginning. The only reason there was an issue is because Joffrey decided to attack Mycah, and then later lie about what happened. Arya is not responsible for Joffrey's cruelty, Cersei's enabling, or Robert's subsequent apathy. The fact that people can't seem to comprehend this is maddening. I've never seen people have the same attitude towards Sansa for speaking up for Dontos, even though it incurred Joffrey's wrath and would've escalated had Sandor not spoken up. Why are Sansa's actions brave and kind, but Arya's are seen as stupid and reckless? What happened to not blaming young characters for the actions of others?

This is one of those things where the fandom decides for themselves that they know the story being told, without actually looking at how it's written. They would rather debate on (baseless) hypotheticals than look at why George presented the story to us the way he did. It takes an insane amount of misinterpretation to decide that Arya's actions are the reason for Mycah's death and misses a, rather large, point being made by the author. Notably, none of these people can ever provide evidence from the book to support their insistence that Joffrey would've simply left Mycah alone. You would think that since that's the basis of their argument and they're so adamant that their analysis is correct, they would be able to support their reasoning. It's almost as though the books don't support their interpretations...

[secrettastemakerland]

i know that we're (not necessarily all cause i'm sure not) all hating on colin's apology but he truly wasn't the man he was last season!!! every time someone was talking about penelope (in front of her face or otherwise) he confronted them!!! he even yelled at his own sister to get it together!!! bc he isn't the man he was last season!!!