#rant to get it off my chest

[roguelov]

Genuinely why would Lila not be happy in a relationship with Diego???

THAT MAN WANTED TO BE A HERO, HE WANTED TO BE NUMBER ONE, HE WAS A FUCKING VIGILANTE FOR FUCKS SAKE HE KNEW THAT NORMAL LIFE SUCKED AND WANTED TO DO MORE!!!

AND YOURE TELLING ME LILA DIDNT THINK TO TALK WITH HIM ABOUT THAT SHIT?????? THAT MAN WOULD HAVE SAID ‘YES MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE GO WRECK HAVOC ILL PICK UP THE KIDS TODAY AND DONT FORGET NEXT WEEKEND ITS MY TURN TO GO PUNCH SOME PEOPLE’

DIEGO WOULD HAVE UNDERSTOOD “BOOKCLUB” AND HAVE SUPPORTED IT 110%

[1960z]

genuinely baffled whenever I see someone try to claim maya fey is badly written as if she’s not one of the most empathetic depictions of a 17-19 year old girl I’ve ever seen

[queermediaismypassion]

hey so the ship doesn't fucking change in any way depending on who you think tops or bottoms in the bedroom. also some people switch! stop being so WEIRD about what gay people do in the bedroom.

i am so sick and tired of seeing people argue about ship names because of the stupid fucking practice of putting the top's name first. i'm talking people using harco instead of drarry cause they see harry as The Top (to use a ship most people know as example)

YOU'RE FUCKING WEIRD !!

the ship name should be determined by whatever the fuck sounds best. i've seen people trying to push for using "neuvithesley" over wriolette "because wrio is the bottom". i don't give a fuck what you prefer when you read about them, wriolette is just objectively a better name.

i've seen actual ship wars between people who ship the same two characters but think the top/bottom dynamic is so important that it changes the ship. just goes to show how many mlm shippers simply fetishize gay men and don't give a fuck about the actual relationship aspect.

what people prefer in bed is not necessarily reflected in their behavior in everyday life. not all gay couples have a sub/dom dynamic. some people like to switch it up. y'all seriously need to work on your stereotypes surrounding queer relationships.

not what this post is really about but side note: people also tend to feminize the percieved bottom so much. sometimes it gets to the point where it ends up looking like a straight relationship and it just smells a lot like lowkey homophobia with a whiff of internalized misogyny.

i don't necessarily think this is on purpose/done with malicious intent, but do better.

sorry this was very mlm heavy but femslash readers/writers are usually a lot less weird about this..

[firefistacesfreckles]

i'd read several people saying that this chapter sucked and that the end was bullshit so i was a little scared at what had happened but...

i literally don't understand how someone could be upset by this...?? i feel like this outcome has been heavily implied throughout the entire arc. like, just a few chapters ago, bonney used a technique very similar to one of luffy's. are we reading the same manga? lol

and from a storytelling standpoint, it's just so poetic. both of bonney's parents suffered and ultimately died (we still need confirmation on kuma, tho) at the hands of the WG. she, herself, fell terminally ill because of saturn's human experimentation. she carried a lot of unresolved trauma, and now that she's met luffy, she's starting to overcome it all. kuma told her that nika would free her, and it's happening!! how could anyone complain about this?

and to say that this undermines luffy's journey and efforts to awaken his df... please. we still don't know if she's gonna have a quarter of luffy's power if anything at all. stop assuming things just off of one panel. time will tell. for now, i very much like this concept, and i'm excited to see what oda will do with this in the future. he's never disappointed me, so far, when it comes to the story. i don't see why he would now.

[remuspenus]

also I hate people implying that Patton somehow changed Janus or is the first side Janus actually cares about and is friends with. as if Janus’s love for the other dark sides isn't deeply important to the story as a whole. The fact that Janus’s role as Thomas self care/preservation leads him to care about EVERY aspect of Thomas, including the most unloved parts of himself, the parts that Thomas was desperate to deny and accept. Thomas wasn't ready to accept them yet, but Janus WAS. It's so obvious that the reason Patton and Janus get along is because of the deep care they have towards Thomas and the rest of the sides, not because Patton changed Janus to be more caring or something

[o3o-lapd-o3o]

i like to imagine that as soon as the words "someone arrived today, they said they're taking you away" left calypso's mouth, odysseus "sat at the beach every day for 7 years crying for his wife & son" of ithaca immediately jumped up wiped his tears away

then swiftly (without a glance at calypso), walked over to a bush/foliage near the beach and grabbed all the stuff he had been accumulating for 7 years during his prison stay, ready for the day he can leave this place.

[alevens]

zolu is maybe one of the easiest ships i've ever liked. they're dating, except when they're not, they're best friends even when they're kissing and they're still captain and first mate when they aren't. they hold hands, they hug. they have sex. they don't.

Luffy can hold Zoro's katanas and Zoro can hold Luffy's strawhat and no one bats an eye. one says "You're so cool!" and the other says "You're strong" and it's just another way to say "I see you, this is why I follow you/this is why I trust you". it's not seeing each other for a long time and still knowing how the other's steps sound like against wood and sand. the captain runs and the first mate follows. it's always "Zoro and the others" and "Where's Luffy?"

if they're just friends, if they're something more, if they don't have a label for it, at its core, it's just about how they get each other. they understand how the other's mind works. however you view them, it doesn't erase they fact that they love each other in a way they don't love other people.

[die-rosastrasse]

I love you bad art, I love you amateur art, I love you self learning, I love you cheap art supplies, I love you journals, I love you crafts, I love you art available for everyone, I love you second hand art and objects, I love you free museums, I love you handmade gifts, I love you childish drawings, I love you art that nobody ever saw except for the artist, I love you taking time to learn a skill, I love you art history, I love you free tutorials, I love you art as a school subject, I love you things that took a long time to make, I love you art studies that are considered useless, I love you the human need to create and change the world around you to be more beautiful and more meaningful.

I hate you AI art, I hate you generated content, I hate you singe-use images, I hate you mindless consumption, I hate you stealing from artists, I hate you reposting without sources, I hate you lying about using AI, I hate you pretending like art is something unachievable and reserved only for the chosen ones.

Make art!! Make "bad" art that is actually special because you took the time to make it. Make art for yourself that you show no one. Make art for others that they'll cherish forever. See how your whole world changes, see how you start noticing beautiful and inspiring things all around you. Make things with love and devotion. Fuck AI.

[puppetwoman17]

Honestly, I don’t know what I want the relationship with Cap and Billy to be.

Because I get why some people want them to be wholly separate beings. It just makes sense that Marvel is completely nonhuman. That he’s just magic given form.

But I don’t entirely like that conclusion. To me, it takes away the fact that billy is responsible for all those lives saved. That he is the one sacrificing his time and putting his life on the line. That he is the one getting all this trauma. Making them separate takes that all away for me.

But there’s also the issue that new52 dc doesn’t do that right either. When Cap and Billy ARE the same, Cap acts like a stupid kid, an overgrown child. I mean that’s not it completely. I have an entire separate issue with how New52 handles Billy’s personality and lore, but we can’t get into that rn or this rant will go on forever.

And the thing is DC DOES know how to handle Cap and Billy being the same(or not the same, but like Cap is Billy with…more. He’s Billy, but he’s also magic itself. Like a fusion of sorts. He has memories and some of his personality, but he doesn’t act like an idiot).

I mean, look at JL Unlimited. Despite Cap still acting somewhat childish, it never goes overboard. He’s even admired by his fellow Leaguers. Hell, BATMAN says the League needs him because of how sunny he is! And sure, while there’s some childishness in the YJ cartoon, it’s not cringy(at least to me, because when you see what they did to him in JL:Throne of Atlantis…)

There’s that one other movie with Superman and Batman that I can’t remember the name of, where some heroes are going after Superman for a reason I ALSO can’t remember. Cap is one of them, and he never once acts like a stupid kid. He, like those other heroes, doesn’t have the whole picture, and that’s why he’s attacking Supes.

Thwre is a way to have Cap and Billy be the same entity, have the same memories, but also be somewhat different. There is a way to make sure that Billy is shown to be responsible for the lives he saves. There is a way to give Cap respect in this universe because it has been done before. New52 needs to work on that or we’ll have this issue forever🙄.

It almost makes me glad we don’t have a Shazam/Captain Marvel tv show because gods know what they might do to him. I’m telling you, we have had the “child gets given tremendous responsibility and fucks up” schtik over and over and over for the past century and probably more. It’s been done. So many times.

Cap was a beloved hero in the 1940s and pre-52 BECAUSE he didn’t adhere to that. Because the writers made sure we knew he was capable of being responsible and a hard worker, and not an idiot, all while being like 10. And in recent years it has STILL been done.

It is possible. Just do it right!

[sailoryooons]

I am going to say something that has really been bothering me that not everyone may agree with, which is totally okay, everyone is entirely valid to disagree with me: There is a fast fashion problem in fandom, specifically fanfiction.

Disclaimer: This conversation is not about broadly writing the same tropes, genres, and ideas. I am not talking about people writing fics with similar themes or the same name. I am specifically talking about people writing fics that are very obviously heavily influenced by other fics. This is not me talking about: I wrote __ character as enemies to lovers vampires and so did this person so they stole. Please do not trivialize this conversation with instances that are very obviously not what I'm talking about.

As someone who exists in the fanfiction space, I want to express what I have seen specifically in this space in my own experience, my mutuals experiences, and random experiences I have seen on my dash.

Recently, it seems like there is a reoccurring theme of writers (often new writers) taking "inspiration" from fanfics that they love and value and essentially creating their own version of that story to the point it is bordering on plagiarism. I say bordering on plagiarism because while people may not be copying line for line or entire scenes in order, you can tell that it is a re-arranged duplicate of another story.

I am not talking about writing similar tropes and dynamics. No one owns a trope or a dynamic. I am specifically talking about people taking the plots, scenes, concept and core of fanfics and recreating it and changing some plot elements or placing it in a different alternate universe and calling it their own, when at the heart of that fanfic, it is taken from someone else's creation.

This to me, reads like people who read a work, fall in love with it, but think 'this is easy to do, I can do this myself' and they end up making a replica of a fic that you can tell is a replica of another fic, despite adding some changes. Nine times out of ten, these inspired fics lack the obvious thought and heart the original writer put into it.

Which, begs the question: How is this different than fanfic writers taking inspiration from media (i.e. published books, movies, music, shows)? Because fanfiction is meant to replicate a specific something from published media. It is not meant to duplicate an already established fanfiction contribution.

I know that the nuance between that line is very ambiguous and it brings up the discourse on 'should there be fanfiction of fanfiction' - to which my response is it is, generally, pretty obvious what the difference between being inspired by a fic and copying a fic are.

In the last few months, I have lost count of how many times I or mutuals have a) discovered someone has been writing a story based off of their fic 2) have been asked to use an already written work to make their own or 3) already have started writing works modeled after an already written work and in hindsight asked the author if they could keep doing so (this third instance almost always happens after someone accuses them of stealing another work).

This feels like the fast fashion industry. Someone finds a story that is popular (whatever that means to the individual), takes all of the elements they think makes the story works, rearranges it, posts it as their own and and says they were 'inspired' (if they credit the original story at all).

This is why so many works that readers are coming across feel like they are the same thing. It is the same A + B + C = D over and over and over again, because people are outright just taking what they think works from other stories and using it.

Again - I am not talking about people who come across a trope, AU, genre or dynamic they like and add something similar to their story. I am talking about the people who are very intentionally and obviously writing the same exact fic with their own 'twist' (whatever that means).

Why is this a problem (beyond the fact that it's essentially roundabout plagiarism)? You're taking the heart, soul, and creativity someone poured into something and posting it on your own and robbing it of the originality, the essence, and the intention behind it. You cannot replicate a writer's feelings and obvious emotions that they have poured into the original work, and it shows. And it is gutting to the original authors who are finding remixes of their work across the fanfiction space.

Please consider whether or not you are inspired by a story or if you are redoing it in your own image. If you find yourself worried enough about your story that you feel like you have to publicly credit someone to avoid scrutiny, perhaps the question needs to be asked of whether you're just redoing what someone else already wrote.

Please do not confuse inspiration and recreation. 9 out of 10 authors will love that they inspired you to write, but would not love to find that you wrote a fic inspired by them that is a rearranged or hollowed-out version of the fic they wrote.

The fanfic space wants and needs more writers, but it does not need people unwilling to create their own art, instead taking bits and pieces from others and calling it a success.

Also adding: This problem also directly contributes to 'smaller' writers or more niche (often queer and bipoc) stories not getting the hype, readership, or recognition they deserve. On more than one occasion I've seen stories that had explicitly queer or bipoc characters taken and turned into heteronormative or white-presenting stories.

Note: This 1000% goes for actual visual art as well, including gifs etc. in fandom but I'm not well-versed there and thus, did not include it.

[debatablyspicydurian]

I know the full arsenal update is out and hype for that but I just found the gutterman's poem in 7-2 and I HAVE to type about it because its night where I am and I cant wake up my friends to rant about Ultrakill.

Anyway, absolutely indescribable how we have the thoughts of a machine just laid bear in a secret for the first and maybe last time. The fact that a machine made for merciless slaughter could not only feel sadness for the person powering it but also WRITE a POEM? A machine made art??? The knowledge that they understand how cruel it is to make a human a blood battery, recognize it as torture, but also feel gratitude for the life they've been given?? It was known that machines had a sense of aesthetic from Swordsmachine and Mindflayer's entries but. Goddamn. The gutterman refers to the human as their mother and it states it CRIED when it crushed her skull as it hoped it would redeem its life.

Also the excerpt, "I know I know you would hate me so, and mother of me, I do too." Does this mean the Gutterman hated itself as much as the human? Did it hate the human instead along with the feelings of love and gratitude? Probably the former. Gutterman angst is so in.

V2's mannerisms and Swordsmachine's data entry are intresting, but a gutterman's eulogy for its prisoner and its attempt at redemption is another level. Actual machine thought process recorded!! Sapient lifeform that knows only war and death! The fact that the gutterman crushing the human's skull seemed to be out of mercy. Ough.

Noone has to interact I havent proof read this I am just RANTING this is CRAZY HAKITA HOW COULD YOU AND THE TEAM DO THIS

[the-bad-batch-baroness]

Crying, screaming, and throwing up over baby clones that got abandoned by their brothers 😭

[maerhiya]

in regards to the constant dismissal of his aroace identity, i hate it when alastor 'fans' say and use the excuse: "he's fictional, he won't get offended."

like, you're right, but it can and will offend us.

when you see yourself being represented on screen, of course you'd feel enthusiastic about it — representation allows individuals to see themselves reflected in the media they consume, validating their identities and experiences. but when so many people take that representation and decide to disregard and discard it, it is so fucking frustrating. we finally have another character to be part of the tiny amount of representation we have, but then people don't even care about how much it means to us? like yeah, alastor won't get offended because he's not real, but it frustrates and annoys us. do you realize that it's also technically invalidating the aroace community? that you're invalidating our feelings? imagine feeling like you're finally being seen because your orientation is finally being represented in media, and people just decide to blatantly ignore, discard, and invalidate it.

media has such a powerful influence on real life, representation being a prevalent factor of it. there are numerous posts that dictate how people went to watch a movie/show or read a book just because a character depicts their identity in it — obviously, being represented is an incredibly uplifting and validating experience.

which is why seeing an aroace character in a popular show is so meaningful to us because we live in a world where romance and sex are literally everywhere and prioritized above all else. (and it's pretty obvious that alastor's on the repulsed end of the spectrum, but even if he wasn't, at least make an effort to acknowledge his sexuality instead of continuing to portray him as allo; aroace folks can be in relationships but it's not going to be the same thing with allos' experiences.)

any and every representation matters, but why does that seem to stop at people under the aroace spectrum? like y'all can't even let us appreciate the scraps of representation we have. we barely have any, so are we really that dramatic for being upset at how people easily disregard and dismiss our identities that are being depicted on screen just like that? is it truly wrong of us to want to defend and maintain the little representation we have?

[lagosbratzdoll]

Ryan did a bunch of interviews recently that I've been reading and I have some thoughts. You can find the interviews here and here.

There's a lot of terrible stuff in it but I don't have the time or inclination to bother with all that. I'm going to be focusing on two things he said in the interviews.

Starting with this from the House of the Dragon podcast which I've linked above.

In it, Ryan talks about why he decided to contrast the lives of Hugh Hammer and Ulf the White with the lives of the privileged Targaryens. It was fascinating to get a peek into his head.

Ryan reads a rapist and thinks "this is a person worth deepening. We need an in-depth exploration of what goes on in this rapists head. We need the audience to sympathise with them."

Which wouldn't be so bad on its face, there's always room to analyse a fictional rapist. The problem is that he then reads about a little Black girl who raised herself on a tiny island rising up to become a dragon rider on her own merit. A little girl whose Valyrian heritage is constantly debated and discounted. He reads that and decides that there's nothing worth exploring there. Her story isn't unique. She isn't unique. In fact, she's so common that while we adapt and humanise not one but two rapists, we're going to erase one Black girl and turn the other into everyone's punching bag.

Then I read his puff piece from Big Think.

This is a fascinating glimpse into his thought process. I read this and Ryan Condal's baffling decisions began to make a little more sense.

By his own admission, Ryan's ideal show is one where Black women are erased, flattened and ignored. He claims to write powerful women but we've not seen hide or hair of these women. In Ryan's show, nothing is ever deliberate and the women are largely passive participants in their own lives.

In Ryan's ideal show there's no room for a little black girl to claim a dragon with nothing but faith and her wits. In Ryan's ideal show we need all of the rapist men but the Black women are interchangeable AND replaceable.

In Ryan's ideal world, it is too much to ask that a Black girl be adored, have songs written about her and knights joust for her favour. In Ryan's ideal show, Black people aren't fully developed characters, they're props that he forgets about for episodes on end.

And that is why the show will continue to drop in ratings. When I saw the Nielsen numbers for the premiere, I laughed until I cried. The biggest streaming day ever for Max and they couldn't beat The Boys or Your Honour. The most recent numbers are even funnier.

But don't worry gang, House of the Dragon is doing great. It's now number three. It finally beat a four year old show! Everything is fine.

[gracieheartspedro]

i’m so sick of going on tik tok and seeing everyone fan casting *enter random pretty white actress* as ellie.

listen to me when I say this- the hbo show is an ADAPTATION. that does not equal having to be the copy and paste of the video game. if you want game ellie, play the fucking game or watch the gameplay on youtube.

bella ramsey does an AMAZING job as ellie. as a person who’s put hours and hours into the game, I truly believe bella captures ellie’s heart and intentions. they do an incredible job portraying a character who’s very complex and grows up in front of your eyes. just because this person does not “”look like ellie””” does not mean you get to bully them. I think bella resembles ashley johnson (the actress who they inspired ellie off of) and while they may not be a spitting image of ellie, they do an incredible job by acting exactly like ellie. the mannerisms. the facial expressions. hell even their voice! they aren’t even american and they capture the essence of ellie’s voice.

while they other actresses who have been fan casted are great actors, it doesn’t mean they can do all of those things. and if they can- cool, it doesn’t matter. bella has the role and they will continue to be ellie.

bullying someone for their looks is so beyond shallow and disrespectful. bring me one other good reason those actors deserve to be ellie over bella- without being related to looks.

i’m just so fucking sick of the tik toks. i’m sick of the hatred for bella. they deserve so much better.

[assiraphales]

I think one of the reasons I’ve taken a more hands off approach to being in the good omens fandom is because I genuinely can’t stand a large majority of the discourse. and I love discourse! but so much of it is based on fanon evidence, not canon evidence, and some of it is so borderline entitled. ‘it’s not enough!!!! azira and crowley kissing isn’t enough!!!!’ sorry two canonically non-binary entities being in canonical love isn’t good enough? ‘aziraphale was acting ooc!!!! why did he choose heaven’ I am sorry u don’t have enough media literacy to see the provided evidence where he’s clearly weighed down by THOUSANDS of years of religious devotion and trauma. ‘crowley is a little meow meow who did nothing wrong’ babe look me in the eyes. he’s at fault too. azira and crowley have a messy relationship riddled with miscommunication. one attempt at sharing his feelings doesn’t fix that. ‘it’s to angsty!! they should have ended up together’ for the love of god it’s a three part arc. of course there’s going to be angst. this isn’t a fanfic. stop acting like it’s a fanfic!!