#ranting about a movie only I seem to like because it is problematic but also a lot of fun and well made | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

julietasgf · 1 year ago

Note

Juli

I'M BACK (I never left, it just took me a while to respond because I need to think about my answers otherwise I'll ramble on ad infinitum and college beats me eh). I love talking to you so I hope it's not a problem I'll keep asking you stuff about these fascinating characters (The Plinth) and any other topics because I love your ideas and your takes.

About your reply on AO3, I can promise that I will start doing my own HCs on Strabo and Ma and you will be the first person I will show it to when I have written it. I must also say that I agree with you: while ships and romantic relationships are amazing to explore, platonic and familial relationships are just as interesting and deserve to have their fics and hc and analysis within the fandom. (Can we talk about the potential of Lysistrata as a possible friend of Sejanus in canon?)

Before I start with my rant of the movie (it's finally here, another day we will continue with the many other things like the war in Two, First Quarter Quell, etc jsjsjfjs) I come to pass you the link of the fic I mentioned and also to recommend you a new series of fics that recently appeared centered on Baby Sejanus during the war (please tell me what do you think!!!)

1. Bullets Over Two

It is being update I must warn but what is there is for now, is very good!

2. All I Long for is Home (Little Sejanus series)

I really thought it was magical when they sent the link on discord for this series. It has everything we love: Baby Sejanus, studied the dynamics of the Plinth and their experiences during the war!

Speaking of the Plinth. I think its function is both ways: they are clearly the immigrant experience and the difficulties of forced assimilation of coming from another country as identity crises but also USA is a very large nation and as you say, the culture shock within its own territory is enormous and continues to reproduce these dynamics of discrimination.

Ah yes I send you a big hug for the mockery. People really can be cruel. I don't get it, to me it seems like such a nice way to call mothers. 🥺

In my case I'm from the capital but my father is not, he came from a state and has told me a couple of truly traumatic experiences about the problem of fitting in. Ah

But well. The time has come for the rant.

First I would like to clarify that I loved the movie. Great cast, great direction, costumes and cinematography. The soundtrack is a fucking work of art. Iconic enough that I will forgive them for not adapting the snowjanus song from the book. I also think Coriolanus and Lucy Gray had more than satisfying and well done arcs.

In fact there were some changes to the story they made in the movie that seem to me to be great additions or reinterpretations of the text (Example. making Felix the president's son, killing him and having Dr. Gaul use his death to interrupt Reaper's act of direct rebellion -another change that as you can see I am into it-, Tigris serving with that line "You look like your father, Coriolanus", etc).

I don't have a problem with any of that. My big conflict comes down to their portrayal of the Plinth and the Academy students (I'm mostly talking about Clemensia but I didn't limit myself to her). As I said before the absence of the Plinth (Ma and Strabo) seems problematic to me, because they will be the worst crime of Coriolanus. They are the proof of how many limits he is willing to cross to get to power while being the force that is able to allow him to fulfill those ambitions. It's fucked up and very necessary to show in order to understand Snow.

I understand that the time was probably here what contributed to the fact that we only got to see them in a small cameo but gosh I think one scene. One little scene they could have given us. Besides it wouldn't have been a waste, because a lot of information about the Snow's we found out in relation to the Plinth.

What can I say?, I just feel sad every day that we don't have the scene of Coriolanus and Strabo talking in the movie. It's such a short but intense conversation.

With Sejanus my biggest complaint is that because the involvement of his family and family history is almost nonexistent, viewers of the film alone don't know a lot of much needed facts about who he is to see his nuances and there were changes that worked against reflecting his character as well as his situation.

The most extreme example that we have discussed before is the Sandwiches scene. In the movie, the credit is taken away from Sejanus, who was the only one to be concerned about the welfare of the tributes in the book. He was the first to try to approach them not to put on a show like Coriolanus but to try to offer them dignified treatment.

That Sejanus brought so much food. That he did not give up even though at the beginning no tribute wanted to approach and in the end his thing with Marcus will not be settled are actions that speak a lot about who he is. Since such actions don't take place in the film, it leaves an incomplete understanding of the character (which leads people in tiktok to have the worst takes on him in the world).

But this doesn't just happen with poorly executed scenes, it's present even in well done scenes like Sejanus responding to Arachne's bad comments. While it's a scene I adored and establishes well that Sejanus and his fellow academy members live in very different worlds, I don't think it quite captures Sejanus' situation well.

Although inferred, in reality outside of disagreements of opinion there is little in the film that if you don't know the context of the book, tells you very clearly that Sejanus has been harassed and bullied by his classmates for over a decade and the true extent of the hostility of the environment to him.

Which in part doesn't quite capture the reason for his desperation. Equally influential is that Sejanus begins with a higher pitch of protest in the films rather than the escalating spiral he faces in the book.

Now about the Sandwiches scene, I think we can all agree that it is made to make Coriolanus look much better than he acted in that particular situation and ultimately impacts along with other subtle changes in his behavior to make the character a more gentle and selfless version than his book counterpart.

And as you rightly said Juli, Sejanus is not the only character who is prevented from showing his virtues to 100, to favor the image of Coriolanus. This happens in fact with all the students of the academy. Especially with Clemensia.

I wanted to talk about Lysistrata but I feel the same problem with her as with the Plinth: they are practically nonexistent, and it is striking that the other character who genuinely showed concern for her tribute, sought to give him a humane treatment and was not particularly in favor of the games, was almost eliminated.

But I'll go with Festus. Who like other characters in TBOSAS - THG is a greyscale. He'll say wild and clearly poorly thought out things like suggesting the use of capital punishment and brute force to get more people to watch the games but he's also a kid who mourns the death of Arachne, the twins, eats at all hours, is funny, and told Clemensia she was cruel for not wanting to send food to her tribute. And he had a kind of connection with Coral.

According to Coriolanus he was also one of the few people who liked Sejanus more than the average student at the academy. Which says something about his persona, but more importantly in Coryo's own words.

Festus was his best friend and I was quite surprised at the kind of focus they gave him in the movie because not only is there more focus on his flaws but his moments with Coriolanus are more sparse. You wouldn't think they were friends. Again I'm not 100% complaining about that alteration and I can understand where it comes from (it was to give more focus on snowjanus "friendship") but here we have a character who to a lesser extent is reduced to being a mentor who doesn't treat his tribute with gentleness unlike Coriolanus and who seems to not be his friend. Just his classmate.

Which brings us to Clemensia. Who I think is worthy of a place in the "I was close to Coriolanus Snow and he ruined my life" club. I think people underestimate the weight of Coriolanus' actions when he decides to put himself first. When he decides to put her aside to ensure his own survival.

Clemmie is one of Snow's closest friends. And their relationship is the least complex compared to other important relationships in Coryo's life. Which I think is something that promotes the strength of their bond, as Dovecote is genuinely just a friend that Coriolanus spends time with.

It's not as wearing and multi-layered as his love hate Sejanus. Like the conflicts Lucy Gray stirs up and it's nowhere near as torturous as his relationship with Tigris. Coriolanus genuinely cares for her and they seem to understand each other well but this is what I think makes her the first victim.

I can't really say that Coriolanus will act badly in the whole situation. It was Gaul at the end of the day who did most of the damage; demanding that rehearsal from them even when Arachne died, lying to Clemensia to send a message to Snow.... But it is the turning point. Because Coriolanus is faced with a crossroads, what happens with Clemensia forces him to acknowledge what he has always known.

The Capitol does not care about protecting its people. The Capitol is cruel and oppressive. The Capitol subjugates them. He can't rely on institutions or adults to protect him.

And I can't blame him for his reaction, but it is his reaction that makes him complicit. He decides not to protest, not to argue, not to tell and not even to try to take care or to know about Clemensia once she disappears. He does it to ensure his own survival. To take care of his family in theory and other things but it is that point of fall where the debate opens up within him as to why his actions and what he is willing to leave behind in order to survive.

He runs away from her, unable to face the horror of his own inability to act or do anything else for Clemensia and while he awkwardly apologizes, for leaving his friend behind, it was this event that marks this point of who else he is capable of leaving alone as soon as they "become a threat" to his interests.

So I don't understand for the life, why they didn't shoot the scene of her in the hospital with snake scales? Clemensia and Coriolanus' arc IS VITAL. And removing it was a huge mistake, not only that, but changing Clemmie's attitude to make it look like she "deserved" what dr. Gaul did. It was honestly the worst decision. It just doesn't make sense. And I mean that in all seriousness. They didn't even complete her story *scream*.

But well, who I am to complain... On a happier note our beautiful LATAM AU. 🤭 Of course, Sejanus is the one who fights with Strabo every time there is a family reunion. His cousins try to eat at the speed of light before Sejanus starts saying things against the pigs politics who exploit people and Strabo tells him he's a dumb anarchist and stop questioning everything and then they start yelling at each other and have to take the kids somewhere else 😭😭😭

By the way it would be funny if Sejanus, is disinherits by his dad every christmas and he's like "I don't even care about your dirty money" but Coriolanus DOES CARE so he scolds him every time he says that and tries to talk some sense into him although the odds are also very high that he tried to convince Strabo to make him his heir instesd of Sejanus by chatting with him in the yard JAJSJSJSJSIS

Arg Coryo is good because Tigris has an album and a copy of that album with pictures of him dressed as a chick for a dance and other horrors. AND SIIII YOU UNDERSTAND VESTA IS THAT MOTHER WHO CAN DANCE EVERYTHING.

Rip Coryo and his two left feet. He let himself be led but was a very embarrassing companion for someone like Vesta who moves with grace. Sejanus offers to give him lessons so he doesn't make a fool of himself again at parties jsjsjshs

GOD IS CANON. LGB WOULD DEFINITELY GIVE HIM A NASTY POLITICAL CAMPAIGN SHIRT to (make fun of him). Also she has permanently threatened Coriolanus that if he is ever an unacceptable jerk again, she will funar him on social media 💀

STRABO IS THAT KIND OF DAD JSJSJS HE LOVES TELENOVELAS HE JUST REFUSES TO ADMIT IT BUT IT'S SO OBVIOUS. Imagine Sejanus and Coryo discussing telenovela villains and someone gets a fact wrong and Strabo is like "but this actually happened..." and saying he knows because Vesta told him but everyone knows that in his office he watches telenovelas in secret LMAO

About the daddy issues. This the scene

This is getting long already but I think daily about Coriolanus and Strabo's talk and then that time Coriolanus realizes he's acting like Strabo with Sejanus. Damn. I just know that if we would have had a snowjanus + strabo encounter. THAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED I SWEAR JSKSLS

😭😭

Coryo: Don't yell Mr. Plinth at Sejanus he is just trying to help...

5 minutes later:

Strabo: But don't give him the order yelling,young Snow, you should know Sejanus is sensible...

3 minutes later:

*both of them yell at Sejanus*

Sejanus: This is normal yes :)

Oh. I forgot my song.

1. New song sejarcus certified and yes it's an accurate portrayal of Strabo's father. Its crazy.

2. European Mexican warning: but I need you to see the video of Rosalia - millionaria + Dio$ nos libre del dinero. It's two songs that share one video and there's something there about Coriolanus and Sejanus and their relationship with money. Ehh

Now I will shut up for the moment.

HIII!!! I absolutely understand and 0 judgements bc I'll spend hours just writing a single answer bc time is needed (specially bc I'm a tad bit slow thinking in english 😭) also, good luck with college!! and aaaaaa I love talking to you, this is really sweet, feel free to ask or say anything, I'll be more than happy 🥹

YESSSSS PLS I'm now anxious to hear your thoughts, can't wait for them!!! I stand by the fact that ships are lovely, but there's a big lack of exploration for platonic dynamics and it's painful (and I say that as a platonic bairdplinth truther, snow can go to hell, let these two bond and be such an iconic duo). and yessssss I love lysistrata sm :( every single time her character appeared, all I could think was "omg why couldn't sejanus get closer to her instead of getting close to coriolanus?". there's just so much POTENTIAL here

YESSSS HERE COMES THE (DESERVED) RANT!! but about the fics: thank you sooooo much for sending the links!!! I bookmarked the first to read later, but the second, I've read the first work of the series when it was posted and it's SO GOOD <333 it's genuinely one of my favorite works that I've read recently, and I love how the author wrote bby sejanus' perspective regarding the war

yessss!! I'm not an usa expert (bc, well, I never lived there), but I've seen some interesting takes from people who are from there, but more specifically, are from the appalachian region; and these people were talking about how there's this whole view of people from that region being "uneducated" and other things (and how important it is that D12 is located in this region; I'm not sure if in the movie lucy gray have an appalachian accent because I SUCK at recognizing accents in english except for the texan one, but I know that when suzanne collins read a passage of the book out loud, someone pointed out that she gave lucy gray an appalachian accent).

(this also hits harder when there's a passage in the book where sejanus says him and lucy gray are very alike regarding this, not being able to fit in anywhere, except she had talent 💔)

thank you, this is really kind 🫶 some people will just be ignorant for no reason, just for the joy of being ignorant. and I'm sorry about the things your father went through :(

but okay, let's go to talk about the movie:

absolutely agree!! the movie is GOOD. straight up good. and as an adaptation, there are a few things I think they actually did better than the book:

the whole game, in general. I think the rythm got much more dynamic than it is in the book. I understand the book's purpose, but as a reader, it's slow. the changes made it more interesting and it worked in movie-form a lot.

the whole scene with reaper and the panem flag not only is gorgeous and strong and impactful, but it's so well-adapted, I just- I was really at a loss of words, because it IS much better than the book, imo.

wovey dying from the snakes instead of lucy gray poisoning her. it was an impactful scene that made me feel hopeless and horrible watching. even though the book is brutal, this death specifically made the movie much more brutal to me. that was a child begging to go home.

as you said, making felix being the one who got killed during the bombs. it just made more sense and it was gaul's perfect excuse. and it also makes us question more things: is it one child's life worth the life of 24 children?

but when it comes to coriolanus... oh boi. I have thoughts.

(before we get into it, it's worth saying tom blyth did an amazing job with the text he got; the forest scene was TERRIFYING, it made me genuinely scared and tense when watching it at the theater. plus, he has this constant look that just unsettles you. it makes you sense that there's something wrong with this boy, even though you can't really put your finger on what exactly. if there's such a thing as a perfect actor for coriolanus, that's tom blyth, no doubt.)

now, this is a feeling I personally have: the movie is an action dystopian movie. it would obviously want to appeal to this public, including people who never read the book in first place. so, to appeal more to the general hollywood public, they adapter coriolanus' character to be more of an underdog who goes through some sort of corruption arc. he's not an indocrinated, bigoted boy who thinks himself to be superior, who grows more and more power hungry, and this leads him to do things that are more and more horrible. in the movie, he's an ambitious boy, yes, but who goes through traumatic things and famine, and who, in the end, chooses himself in order to survive.

now, let's say the writers want to change this character to make him more appealing to the big public; after all, who would like watching someone like coriolanus thinking the things he think, specially about district people? and the way they seemed to do it was by not changing the core story, but omitting and toning down elements that make coriolanus seem much worse.

the plinths are definitely the most problematic of these characters who got omitted or toned down. the end in the film is not near as impactful as in the book. he killed their child. their only son. and then he comes back and acts as if he did nothing. he knew how much sejanus' mom loved him, then he kills her son and proceeds to call that boy's mom MA. he was SO sick for that. stealing someone's life is already bad, but there's so many layers that the more you look into it, the worst it gets. it's essential to understand that atp of the story, there's no turning back, because he isn't able to feel remorse anymore. he just doesn't care, and this is extremely important to know that THIS is the snow we know in the future. this is the snow that do horrible things to children, that mercilessly kills his opponents. that's how far he's willing to go.

I agree with you regarding the time, specially because the movie was already very long, but they could've given us one scene. at least one. if they inserted, for example, ma plinth going to talk to coriolanus abt sejanus being missing, I think it would already add a great impact (of course the scene of sejanus' death screaming for his ma is heartbreaking by itself, but when you know the context, when you see how close they were in the book, it's just MUCH WORSE, MY GOD). or in the end, a little scene with coriolanus and strabo talking abt coriolanus being their heir would already do a lot for the storytelling (I also think that was left a bit ambiguous in the movie).

(I also adore that scene of strabo and coriolanus, it gives us a lot of insight and I would've adored to have it adapted 💔)

sejanus in the book is a complex character that has a lot of nuances, and that's why I like him so much. when you look through coriolanus' lens, you won't really understand how depressing his situation is. coriolanus just looks to the fact that sejanus have money and is financially privileged, but mostly ignores the fact that the capitol is hostile to the plinths (coriolanus himself is hostile to the plinths! he doesn't say it aloud bc, well, he's coriolanus, but it's still there in his narration, and the way he talks about them), and sejanus was relentlessly bullied through his whole childhood growing up. he had no friend and not really a support network besides his ma. he was utterly alone in an environment that hated him, hated where he came from, hated his family. and he still turned out kind. and we see this in details through the book; the sandwich scene is the most significant, as you said, and it PAINS me that they cut it out, bc reading it, it was when it was clear to me that what coriolanus says about sejanus is not really reliable. sejanus brought food not only to marcus, he brought food to ALL the tributes. he wanted ALL of them to have something to eat. and he really didn't need to do it.

another thing that was poorly executed was that they basically got rid of the fact that he was suicidal. in the movie, it seemed like a naive kid thinking dying on that arena would be a good act of protest (which wouldn't be at all, as we all know it wouldn't be broadcasted). in the book, the whole thing regarding it being a form of protest is more secondary, because that boy was straight up trying to kill himself, and if it actually ended as some sort of protest, then it would be just a side thing. sejanus was in so much pain that he really thought that the only way he could make up to marcus was by dying, and then, after this whole thing, (if I remember right, but I may be remembering wrong) he had to be on sedatives because of how stressful and traumatic the situation was. and sejanus says AGAIN later in the book that he was planning to kill himself. it makes the whole rebel plan have much more sense, because OF COURSE sejanus wouldn't care it's dangerous, he doesn't seem to care about his life at all, he would know the risks and do it anyway, while in the movie it just seemed impulsive and (again) naive. and talking about the rebel plan, this is such a tiny details but it drives me insane how they changed the fact that in the book, he KNEW about the guns and he GOT THEM PURPOSELY, and this actually changes a lot how the public can view his character.

and as you said, all these changes lead to people on tiktok having the WORST takes on him, and I can't even judge them 100%, bc in the movie (imo) they DID make him much more spoiled and naive than he is in the book 😭

to wrap up my thoughts regarding sejanus because I talk too much: sejanus' arc is not one easy to the general estadounidense audience relate to unless you went through some similar experience, but when you did go through some similar experience, it hits HARD. and the book worked this very well, where in the movie, I swear some people I know that never read the book didn't even remember that he was district. it was very poorly worked, they toned down his character a lot, and it just doesn't sit right with me.

but now, let's talk about the academy students:

one thing that I find interesting in tbosas is that even though coriolanus is the worse, we can't really blame it on being from the capitol, because we DO see characters from the capitol who have the ability of being selfless and have empathy. and that makes you realize that, yeah, even though coriolanus is a product of his environment... it's still not justifiable, because we see good kids at the academy who aren't bigoted like him.

lysistrata is the BIGGEST of these examples. even though we see coriolanus being nice to lucy gray, we also read his thoughts and he mostly sees her as a possession, a thing to be possessed, not a human being. he barely sees her as equal. and we have lysistrata, who forms a genuine bond with jessup. there's a scene that I find really remarkable in the book. one of the academy students (I'm not really sure who, but I think it was hilarius) comments, in response to lysistrata saying jessup is a protector, that jessup is almost like "a loyal dog". and lysistrata immediately says that no, not like a dog. like a human being. like a protector. and lysistrata was born and raised in the capitol, she probably never got any contact with the districts, her family for sure have a lot of money for her to study in the academy... and she sees jessup as human. not as a possession, but as human. and they got almost completely rid of her character, and it really did make it seem like coriolanus was the only capitol-born kid who wasn't particularly cruel or xenophobic (when it's quite the contrary lol).

we barely see festus in the movie, and when we see, it's just him being kind of a prick (and I don't really understand why focusing on him being a prick specifically; there were other academy characters who would've served this purpose well; why, of all the academy students, pick right the one that was not hostile to sejanus? it genuinely got me confused, like, why, leave him alone 😭). I can absolutely see why they didn't focus on festus and coriolanus' screentime, and I'm also okay with it, but what bothers me is that changing him into just another academy student who's pretty much cold to his tribute removes the nuance of the story (in the book, we see plenty of academy students bonding with their tributes and feeling bad when they die, we see they are indocrinated privileged kids but who can still learn to be better and do better and unlearn all their bigotry; while in the movie, it sounds more like, academy students = bad, coriolanus = good).

clemensia DOES deserve her own small seat at the "coriolanus snow ruined my life" table alongside with sejanus, lucy gray and tigris 😭 I think she's very much forgotten when we talk about the people coriolanus hurt

coriolanus did clemensia so wrong.... of course it's not as bad or complex as he did to lucy gray, but as the book progresses, coriolanus goes down a spiral where the stuff he does to people around him get more and more and more cruel and more nasty and more unjustifiable. clemensia was when that spiral started. he calls her by a nickname, they pretty much grew up together and saw each other around a lot. she probably trusted him. she's a friend, just a friend, not a possession or someone he's straight up jealous of; as you say, it's not as important as the other 3 most important relationships we see in the book (coriolanus and lgb, sejanus and tigris), but it's still a relationship, and if anything, the most innocent and pure one. and also, clemensia DOES have her moments of goodness!!! unlike coriolanus, she's against betting on tributes, and she thinks watching the games is gruesome. of course, compared to all of his victims, clemensia isn't the worst; after all, if anything, dr. gaul is the one to have more guilt here. but he was still wrong for how he reacted to it (she was his friend!!! and he didn't say a thing!!! he puts his survival first and the person he cared about in second), and each victim he makes, the reasons and the motives get less and less justifiable. but overall, I can't really add more thoughts regarding clemensia, because you were pretty much on point, and I agree with EVERYTHING. everything, really.

and also, talking about the movie and how they made her arc incomplete: it really annoys me how they make it implied that she died ("caught a flu" and stuff), but we don't see a funeral, we don't see her friends grieving, we don't see nothing. I don't remember if we even saw her during the games, srsly; I genuinely can't remember, and if she wasn't there, who the hell mentored reaper? they just left him without a mentor and that's it? I can't really remember a case like that in the book, as all the mentors that died also had their tributes dying, so... yeah, clemensia deserved much better, they did her so wrong by making it seem like she deserved it and took profit from coriolanus' work (when in the book, she was actually mad that he wrote the essay because arachne JUST DIED and he's there writing an essay). again, small details, small things, minor characters that are really important to understand how FUCKED UP coriolanus is even to the capitol standards, and they got completely toned down or just changed to make him better and more of an antihero ig.

(in general, loved your thoughts, they were very well put and I basically agree with everything, it should be kind of a requirement to read the book before watching the movie because I can't stand some takes I see on twitter and on tiktok, specially regarding lgb and sejanus; LEAVE THEM ALONEEEEE)

LATAM AU my beloved <33 STRABO CALLING SEJANUS AN ANARCHIST, I'M SCREAMING because this is actually so on character 😭 the plinth family having to start the christmas dinner much before midnight because if they wait for it, they KNOW there'll be no vibe for it because sejanus and strabo are already at each other's throats. ma tried to ban alcohol once, because she thought that if strabo was sober then he would be more mature and not yell with sejanus, but it's no use because sober or not, him and sejanus WILL fight over politics (and it's even worse when it's election year, poor ma is so tired, SHE JUST WANTS A FUN NIGHT not a civil war inside her own house)

PLSSSSSSS every single year strabo going "I'm NOT going to leave my money to you, I don't know who I'm going to leave it, BUT IT'S NOT YOU", and when sejanus talks back, coriolanus is there next to him "babe <3 don't do that <3 I wanna be rich <3 if you don't, that's up to you <3 but I want that good life <3" but the thought of coriolanus trying to convince strabo to make him his heir is also too funny 😭 because strabo would be there slandering sejanus, but when coriolanus tries to slander sejanus too, strabo immediately glares at him and is like "who said you can talk about my son like that? 🤨"

coriolanus being so embarassed because vesta knows how to dance tango while he does not 😭 and imagine it being like on a party, it was the first time sejanus was introducing him to his parents, and coriolanus wanted so bad to make a good impression, just to make a fool of himself in the worst way possible. sejanus thinks it's cute tho when coriolanus goes to him having to put his pride aside to ask sejanus to teach him how to dance (because sejanus is vesta's son, he KNOWS how to dance too, I just know it).

lucy gray having a whole album on her phone just of pics to post online and expose coriolanus if he dares to be a prick again, I know that's right, if he doesn't want to behave by his will, then it'll be by force ☝️ and plus she's supported by tigris

HIM TRYING TO HIDE IT BUT ATP EVERYONE KNOWS IT 😭 and when he talks to sejanus and coriolanus abt it, the conversation lasts long, and he knows a lot of tiny details (because that man is an insane observer, he'll catch the tiniest details and actually guess the finale much before), and then coriolanus stops and goes... "wait, mr. plinth, how do you know all of these stuff?" and he tries to justify it and say that vesta told him, but these are TOO SPECIFIC details, vesta didn't tell him that

okay, so, I watched the scene, and I'M CACKLINGKSKSKSDKKSDKSDKDS I just KNOW that if we got a scene of these three characters together, it would go pretty much like that 😭 it's even more funnier if this is an au (a modern setting), and sejanus takes coriolanus to meet his father, and just then when he puts coriolanus and strabo side to side he realizes that these two are actually TOO alike and he starts to reconsider most of his life choices

EUROPEAN MEXICAN TRIGGER WARNING (I'll never NOT laugh at it, that's historical reparation 😭) but I watched the clip, and YESSSSS you're so right!!!! and again, coriolanus and sejanus serving as a foil to each other and being on opposite ends (specially because in sejanus' case, that money comes from selling guns that kills people and children, that's blood money, and the lyrics just fit him so well)

but anyway, it was amazing hearing your thoughts, hope to see you soon buddie <3 take care!!

#tbosas #tbosas movie #coriolanus snow #president snow #sejanus plinth #clemensia dovecote #lysistrata vickers #ask #my silly little thoughts #this was long welp

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brittanagirlcrush · 2 years ago

Text

I need to rant

So, feel free to totally ignore this but if I don't get this out I will continue obsessing and that's not getting me anywhere.

I'm a writer. Whether I'm good or not is up for debate - I think I am. I write stories I like to read and my grammar/spelling/mechanics are usually pretty good. I've had (mostly) positive feedback on my stories.

I have absolutely ZERO problem if you have a piece of constructive criticism for me. Something doesn't make sense? Something is problematic? I screwed up on the timeline? Cool, let me know. You have suggestions on what I could have done differently? Cool. I'm not saying I'll take these suggestions but I am 100% okay hearing them.

I end up ranting about non-constructive criticism. People who guest comment stuff that doesn't contribute to my growth as a writer or my understanding of a mistake I may have made.

Case in point:

Recently, someone commented about my handling of Santana's ED. Now, I left all of that intentionally vague (like, so vague I probably could have gotten away with not putting a TW for ED but I did so "just in case") for several reasons:

1) I'm not 100% behind the idea that Santana had an ED. I know that's not the prevailing opinion of the fandom but I am more of the opinion that Santana was body conscious (or self-conscious) but not to the point of an ED. I think, and this is simply my opinion, that the fandom locked onto Naya's ED and took whatever was in canon to bolster the opinion that Santana also had one. Yes, there is canonical evidence that Santana had an ED but there is also canonical evidence that she didn't.

B) I have some of my own issues with food and weight so I really didn't want to research and delve into ED. It was one (rather short) scene and I will never mention it again in any of my fics.

HOWEVER,

The person who commented was polite and articulate and I appreciated their criticism.

My only intent was Santana going from too thin/scrawny from poor diet and too much/the wrong kind of exercise to being healthy from eating a healthier diet and exercising more moderately. Thus, the change in her appearance. Working with a counselor was her way of working through all of Sue's brainwashing.

I just felt that Santana would have been self-conscious about gaining weight, not necessarily because of an ED, simply because of who she is and how she was raised.

So, if that commenter is reading this, thank you.

Now, onto the reason for this rant.

If you don't like a song, cool, I get that. Not everyone is going to like every song. Telling me it's a terrible song and seems like my song choices were self-indulgent; not helpful.

Also, Santana sang "She's Mine" ... a country song from 1987 ... I don't think "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" ...

a number one hit for Bryan Adams (for 16 weeks) in 1991, was featured in the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,

Oh, wait ... it was also released by Brandy in 1998 on her album Never Say Never (which also featured The Boy Is Mine with Monica - you remember that song, right? Santana and Mercedes sang it together in Season 1) ...

is really that much of a stretch to think Santana MAY know that song.

Whether it's a terrible song or not is debatable.

For the record; most of my song choices end up being totally random.

Saying my writing is "ableist" ... not helpful. I had to look up ableist. Then I had to re-read my fic. And I still have no idea what that comment meant. How was it ableist?

Onto the comment that kind of made me scratch my head:

"The dialog (especially from brittany) reads like a tumblr rant and not at all like natural human speech"

It was a review for The Spaces In Between. I re-read my fic and, I am unsure if the person meant ALL of the dialogue or just Brittany's rant in the last chapter. I will be the first to admit that sometimes I get the voices wrong. But I thought I did okay with TSIB.

If it's just Brittany's rant in the last chapter, then it was exactly what I wanted it to be. A rant. A word vomiting rant of epic proportions. Because Brittany was pissed. Look at her face in IKAG. She was angry and Brittany (oddly, much like myself) doesn't get angry. She gets annoyed or irritated, vents it quickly ("I do love you. Obviously you don't love you as much as I do or you would put on this shirt and dance with me!") and lets it go.

However, long fuses can still be lit. Brittany spent a good portion of Season 3 not talking to anyone but Santana (she even mentions it in Promasaurus). She was pissed and she bottled it up. For Santana. Because Santana needed her. But when those long fuses get lit they will, at some point, explode. The wrong thing, said by the wrong person, at the exact wrong moment and BOOM.

It's not supposed to be coherent and "natural human speech". It's not something Brittany does - Santana does insulting rants - Brittany doesn't. So, when it happens, it's not "natural"; it's angry and messy and very un-Brittany-like. (People are always surprised when I "go off" IRL because "that's just not like you").

Oddly, this "rant" isn't angry. It's annoyed. If you don't like my writing, don't read it. I (mostly) write for me but I know there are seven or ten people out there who enjoy my stuff so I write for them as well. If you have something constructive to say, I'm glad to hear it. If your only goal is to tear me (or, really, any fic writer) down for the sole purpose of upsetting me - I gotta wonder - who hurt you?

Ok. Now that I've vented my spleen about this nonsense, I can get back to my "real" writing.

Chasing the Dream isn't going to write itself (sadly).

#writing #personal rant #i'm over it

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kellyvela · 3 months ago

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Why would you want Sophie to be on the Harry Potter series making money for a transphobe? Rowling owns the rights, she makes money on anything Potter related.

Child/young actors and unknown actors who need the gig I won't judge but known actors who can get other jobs I will definitely judge if they work on the Potter series.

John Lithgow is an example, he doesn't need the work/money and he's going to be playing Dumbledore. What makes it worse is that he played a trans character years ago and still talks about it and how people from the trans community spoke to him about playing a trans character who wasn't the joke but a proper character. Now he's lining the pockets of a transphobe showing he's a hypocrite.

Rowling was adamant that only British actors be cast for the movies and that an American actor has been cast as Dumbledore for the TV series shows they're having trouble getting British actors for the roles. Rowling could have changed her mind about casting as it's been a long time since they cast the movies but Rowling would want British actors that's obvious.

Rowling has also started attacking asexual people now so her hate is spreading. She attacks trans people, women of colour and asexual people, her prejudice won't end there, I have no doubt in the future at some point she'll show herself as being even more repugnant.

I will harshly judge any known actors who identify in any way as queer if they take a role on the Potter series and I'm guessing a lot of other people will as well. Sophie has shared she's bisexual, if she took a role on the Potter series and made money for a transphobe then I would be very disappointed in her.

Sorry if this seems like a rant but I will genuinely be so disappointed if any actors I like take on roles on the Potter series.

Well, I mentioned it because it's been years of seeing Sophie as Lily Evans/Potter fancasted in edits, gifs, fanfics, popular posts and viral tweets, etc.

I never read the Harry Potter books, I just saw the last movie because I went to the cinema with friends that were super fans of the saga.

I know the author is problematic, so despite my thoughtless comment, is probable that Sophie would never consider working in that project.

I get that actors/artists can disappoint you, and sometimes is hard to separate the art from the artist; but it is possible, if not, I would have never read/watched/appreciated half the books/movies/any work of art I've known and enjoyed. Even if it always leaves me feeling a little sad when I remember the disappointing things such actors/artists have done.

You can rant all you want, your feelings are valid.

#anon asks

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mysticdragon3md3 · 5 months ago

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Randomly ranted about Maison Ikkoku for no reason.

The other day, I saw a comment say that Rumiko Takahashi advocates grooming, and my indignation has been festering in my brain. I tried to ignore it, but I can't anymore. So I'm going to rant a little.

1) Including something in your artwork is not always an advocation of it. There are lots of movies about serial killers, which I'm sure the writers and directors didn't intend to advocate for serial killing. Even while those movies often have moments where those serial killer characters make good points or seem to have some kind of angle of wisdom, they are still ultimately shown to be wrong. Even Takahashi's short story "Laughing Target", though it included an arranged marriage between first cousins, the only character in that story who insisted that such incest was "love" was the antagonist who was a literal monster in a horror story. That was pretty clearly a dismissal of problematic relationships as anything that could be good.

And even the most obvious series by Rumiko Takahashi, which might be accused of grooming, Maison Ikkoku, if you actually take the WHOLE work into consideration---NO, IT'S NOT ADVOCATING FOR GROOMING. Yes, the deuteragonist Kyoko Otonashi is predominantly defined by her being the widow of a man that she met as her high school teacher, and their love is often given this glossy sheen of "perfection". Even the protagonist, Yusaku Godai, often describes Kyoko's late husband as "perfect". But let's look at those cherry-picked elements in context, please.

Godai describes how Soichiro Otonashi will always be "perfect in Kyoko's eyes". "They were married for only 6 months, before he died. Not long enough for her to learn about any of his flaws. He will always be perfect to her." Godai often repeats these thoughts, during lamentations where he feels he will never be able to compete for Kyoko's affections or even get her notice, because there is a perfect standard of husband that she has permanently frozen in her mind. How can he compete with that? That is the primary emotional conflict at the premise of Maison Ikkoku. Of course from GODAI'S PERSPECTIVE, he's going to go on and on about how perfect of a relationship that Kyoko and Soichiro had. Because he is lamenting how he can't compete! He is self-defeatist. That's also why the Maison Ikkoku residents expect him to fail his exams and believe they are doing a kindness by intentionally messing up his study sessions, so he can blame them when he "inevitably" fails his exams. Godai starts as this self-doubting, defeatist type of character---not obvious on the surface, but a constant insecurity that time makes more clear that he is struggling with. Or maybe…that's not it. It's better to say that rather than being self-defeatist, he is struggling AGAINST accepting being self-defeatist. Throughout Godai's life, he is often facing external circumstances that seem hopeless, and the Ikkoku residents encourage him to just accept that he is hopeless, and aim for lower goals in life. But, no. Godai aims to try his college entrance exams again, he tries to court Kyoko, he tries to get a good job, earn his teaching credentials, etc. Even when he was working what some may regard as a disreputable job, working at a strip club, he still grasps any scrap of opportunity it may afford him. He takes the job there as a babysitter for all the strippers' children. He earns valuable experience with children, that he can use towards his future teaching jobs. Godai is always scraping for any bit of hope through hopeless situations, while resisting everything telling him that all his efforts are moot. The point again being, that courting a woman who only knew her husband long enough to never see his flaws, for him to forever be a perfect image in her mind, seems like an insurmountable romantic rival to overcome. THAT's the point of the series repeatedly calling Soichiro Otonashi a perfect husband and Kyoko's relationship with him as "perfect". It's not because it's perfect, it's not because the situation of a high school teacher falling in love with his high schoolgirl student and marrying her is somehow "ideal", but because GODAI is afraid that it will always seem perfect to Kyoko…and how will our hero be able to compete with that?

The other big perspective to consider is Kyoko's. I suspect that writing Soichiro Otonashi as Kyoko's former high school teacher---as opposed to a suitor she dated after she became a legal adult---is probably to play on the trope and common real life occurrence of teenage girls getting crushes on older men. It's juvenile, but it is a common daydream of many girls during their teenage years. And what an impossible fantasy it is, for someone's teenage crush, especially a target as impossible as their older teacher, to actually return her affections? I don't believe Maison Ikkoku was trying to say that relationships between adult teachers and teenage schoolgirls is "right" or "good". I think Takahashi was saying that this is a seemingly impossible fantasy, in a realistic setting, especially for a time in human life, where emotions are so intense and intensely new. It's just a step down from the romance trope of "regular girl catches the eye of celebrity boy", but more realistic. The combination of all these improbably things, are a recipe for a romantic rival for Godai, to seem impossible to defeat, but for him to show his character (as one of the 2 protagonists) by not being deterred anyway. But it is also a recipe for Kyoko, as the other protagonist, to confront her own issues of guilt, if she ever considered remarrying. She has to confront the idea of moving on with her life. Not that Kyoko couldn't move on with her life as a single woman (contrary to her mother's outdated mindset), but she very clearly is tying her self down to this idea of loyalty to her dead husband. Even her father-in-law reminds her to move on with her life, not necessarily by remarriage, but by not staying too fixated on the dead. For goodness sake, her idea of moving on after her husband's death, was to go work for his father, as the manager of one of his family's boarding houses. Every move she makes, every opportunity in her life, every decision and choice, she eventually brings it back to questioning if she is being disloyal to Soichiro's memory. Near the end of the series, after she's made a lot of progress against her fixation on the past, during a moment when her old fear of disloyalty to Soichiro resurfaces, the image of him from her dream calls her an idiot for denying herself new happinesses that she can see herself having with Godai, just to hang onto Soichiro's memory. Her image of Soichiro himself, calls her an idiot for fixating on him, instead of moving on. The series didn't portray Kyoko's "perfect relationship" as a taboo grooming of "teacher/student" as an advocation of such a relationship dynamic. It was to play on common teenage fantasies, because when fantasies come true, it's a recipe for an insurmountable rival for any future love interests (or situations) that try to supersede or replace them.

Let's not forget, the relationship dynamic that Takahashi is trying to advocate for is Godai/Kyoko. This is THEIR story. A story of 2 people of roughly the same age. Both adults. A mature woman who learns to confront her past and personal stagnancies that she was dressing up as Strength. A man trying to become a proper adult, and achieve his dreams, despite hopeless odds. And when they finally got together, the big admirable revelation of their relationship, was how Kyoko realized that if Soichiro really loved her, then he would have wished for her to be happy, and how Godai determined that Kyoko's love for her dead husband was a part of her, and how he loved all of her, including her love for her late husband. That's why the latter portion of the Maison Ikkoku series includes Godai visiting Soichiro's grave, respecting him, and respecting Kyoko's love for him. The ideal relationship being advocated for by Takahashi's writing, is one where the guy stops "competing" with a past loved one, stops fixating on romantic rivalry, and being insecure about his ability to impress the woman he loves, and starts focusing more on caring for her, her happiness, and respecting all the parts of who she is, including her love for her late husband. THAT'S what Maison Ikkoku advocates.

The point of Maison Ikkoku is NOT to idealize grooming. That's the LAST thing that series could ever be about.

(Tangent: Maison Ikkoku is why I love reading Inuyasha/Kikyo as a dark extension of ideas from Soichiro/Kyoko. Like "what if the late loved one DIDN'T want you to ever move on from them?")

#no 2nd drafts we die like men lol #rumicsekai #ranting #please ignore my idiocy #venting #relationship dynamics #story analysis #character analysis

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getsillyyyy · 1 year ago

Text

Redoing this because I don't like my first one

Hello! You can call me pinkz, pinky, or Benny! My favorite activities are drawing, listening to music, roleplaying, and staring at my wall(/j)

I absolutely LOVE talking about my ocs because they are just so silly! My favorite ocs right ATM probably has to be Randy and or noodles!

I love when people info dump on their ocs and let me info dump about mine! It makes me SO happy and I will be kicking my feet and giggling the entire time

If someone's oc is rotting in my brain for long enough I'll draw them 🥱

I'm a yapper if you couldn't tell ‼️ I won't shut up about something unless I run out of things to say to it (which is why I over explain things) I also have ADD/ADHD

I'm always up for anything unless it's actually fucking weird- you know what I'm talking about!

Favorite movies:

House of 1000 corpses

The fnaf movie(it's fnaf)

Shows:

Rick and morty

American dad

Super jail

Occasionally Steven Universe

Games:

Fnaf

Minecraft

Roblox

Animal jam

Fandoms:

Creepy pasta (I've been in this one the longest and I don't plan to leave any time soon! Most of my ocs are based on here but they do hop fandoms. After some stuff happened none of them are considered creepy pastas)

Slender verse(my favorite is everymanhybrid‼️I need to finish it, I'm only in like 9 (?) episodes- idk I need to go look)

Super jail(my favorite character has to be Alice! I don't mention this one a lot 🥱)

Sally face(this is a fandom I keep getting pulled back into. I've had more.. Questionable experiences in this one back in 2021-2022

Bands I enjoy listening to that I can remember by name is ICP and Slipknot! Other than that it's pretty scattered. I'll listen to anything that isn't jazz/classical music or sad music (only one song but it's because in my eyes it's good and doesn't seem that sad)

DNI LIST ‼️

people who infantilize characters. (Seriously, you're annoying if you do this. One of my ocs were infantilized A lot by other people because they had arm sleeves and couldn't talk properly. There's no reason to do this to people with disabilities man. He was raised by an animal cult, HE'S NOT GOING TO SPEAK PROPER ENGLISH AND BE A FUNCTIONAL MEMBER IN SOCIETY. It's gotten so bad I made it cannon he's babied and she HATES it. I'm ranting 😭 mb, (summary) It's just really annoying and makes me want to pull my hair out)

Zionist

Ablest

People scared of women with body hair, emos, or scene (I'm not changing my characters because you don't like it :3 I didn't ask for your advice so respectively keep it to yourself)

Homophobes

Transphobes

pedos(blocked.)

Zoophiles(BLOCKED)

people into Alfred's play house. (I heard it's a bad fandom with a lot of romanticized SA, I don't want those type of people interacting with me or my content.)

Ect!

That should be all for my little introduction post. Bye bye!!

Anyone else who is problematic!

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oh-my-damn · 2 years ago

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So sorry about the long ask im about to submit! I know you may not post because your asks are getting repetitive but i just need to rant. I just want to thank you so much for unpacking how unhealthy all of this bullshit is, hopefully it opens some eyes to how problematic every aspect of this situation has been thus far! I sent in a long ask to Maddy earlier this morning (more like a novel ranting about this lol) but it sounds like assholes are harassing and bullying her again so asks are understandably off right now and mine may have been lost in what sounds like a mountain of hate that is wrongfully being sent her way.

I'm just so soured on Chris at the moment it's even ruined his characters for me unfortunately (hopefully that's not permanent lol). This all just has such predatory undertones in my opinion. Especially the video from yesterday, and the seemingly very intentional power imbalance, it's all very questionable to me. In that chin video in particular he seemed very mean spirited and almost malicious if that makes sense, almost like he wanted to humiliate her. And like you said in a previous post and I touched on I'm my ask to Maddy, everything we've been told has been a lie to sell a narrative, it's all so disingenuous now. The whole I grew up around women, I'm a feminist, looking back it's such bullshit. The whole copy and paste milestones and moments from woman to woman proves that too. To my mind, there's only two conclusions to draw from that, either you think women are all the same and are not in fact complex human beings with their own desires and interests and so you copy and paste! Or you don't like or care enough about women as people to even consider their interests and all that matters is what you want to do and so you copy and paste. Either way its gross to me. Real or pr doesn't matter to me anymore, I'm staying for the implosion because I've sunk enough time into this for it to feel like a waste to bow out now. Either way I don't think I'll ever look at him the same way again.

The chin video - I can't watch that video with grimacing. The way he pans off and bursts out laughing at the end really does it for me. She is unaware of what exactly is going on, seemingly, and doesn't know what it looks like. To me, her laugh sounds more awkward and hesitant but she's going along with it because he's laughing and thinks it's funny. But then when she says "I don't know what to say" and he pans off, his laugh sounds almost mocking, more like he's laughing at her than with her.

And I think that's the point for me with those two videos. He's not posting her saying or doing something funny on purpose. He's not posting a video of her in a cute moment, for example, getting ready for her movie premiere and he captures her humming along and he thinks it's adorable, he's not capturing a genuine sweet moment that happened organically between them. All of the videos he posts are things done to capture a video (scare, chin, mario), almost setting her up like a little fucking doll to make content on her expense, BUT those last two, they were not filmed because she's funny.

They were because she was doing something not purposely funny that he finds funny at her expense. Even the end of the mario video, if you watch it back, you can tell he actually isn't the one filming. Someone else is.

At the end of it, there's a another mans chuckle, and if you listen carefully (I was wearing headphones) when she loses the game and covers her face, you can HEAR Chris turning in the direction of the person filming and laughing at her, to him, where this third person then chuckles in response before ending the video.

To the naked eye, the videos may seem endearing and them "having a good time" but a lot of it is also him laughing at her for looking stupid or making a mistake, like not being able to play mario, a video we know she doesn't like (probably because she thinks its embarrassing, in some way. We all know how it can feel when people are watching you do something and you fail at it. If you feel completely safe, it's not scary, but if some part of you wants to impress said individual, it can be terribly embarrassing).

That's not endearing, it is not cute, and especially not with everything else taken into account, like the fact that he holds all the power in their relationship, and right now, he also holds all the power in how she is portrayed to the world, because she doesn't have any social media herself. So all the GP knows about this girl is what he's putting out there.

The feminism point is spot on. I remember in Jenny's book, she mentioned how her "head exploded" because he wouldn't stop talking and that he would care so much about the issues he couldn't accept any situation where he wasn't right about it. So in translation: if she told him something about what it's like to be a woman, he would argue with that and try to mansplain what it's like to be a woman and why all men should be feminists. It's talking about feminism in a healthy way turned on it's head because the conversation still ends up being about the man and what a great man he is, for being a feminist. I've experienced it before and her words rang so true to me, I could picture it immediately.

I'm the same regarding bowing out. Right now I also just want to be able to offer a space for all of you who send me asks (more than I can keep up with) while still trying to keep some semblance of the fandom I used to love. So I still adore his characters, I don't want to cut ties with them, and in some parts I still like the Chris we used to know because a small part of me still hopes it wasn't all a ruse, that some parts of that were the real him, and that right now he's having a meltdown because of turning 40 and not being at the point in his career and life he had hoped he'd be. Desperate men do desperate things.

It's not an excuse though, and I hope people remember that regarding this whole con thing; it's another desperate move on his end. He's losing control and he absolutely hates it.

#mandy answers #chris evans #alba baptista #valentines day #video #chin #mario #con #comic con

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hopeymchope · 2 years ago

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I’m talking about it being considered “problematic” Sense people already seem so be shitting on it on Twitter.

Note: This is a follow-up to this ask.

Oh. I never paid much attention to that.

The main reason people seem to think it's "problematic" is usually because of Chihiro not being canonically and undeniably trans... which is so fundamentally misguided and dumb to me that it feels like a misinformation campaign. It's the Fox News of bad takes.

Although I don't begrudge anyone their right to support/boycott media of their choosing, I also find the entire notion of "not supporting anything problematic" to be both exhausting and impossible.

Rant Time:

See, a few years back I watched this long documentary about how some popular movies were made in a way that was very bad for the local actors' union. It was enlightening and disheartening, of course, but it had a bigger point: It ended with the thesis that once you become an adult, you have the responsibility to be mindful about the media you consume, always researching them so that you never support any immoral decisions, damaging content, or bad people.

To which I say: Fuck. That.

Every major piece of media requires massive corporations to produce. Every movie or video game or TV show takes hundreds, sometimes even a THOUSAND people or more to create. And I'm supposed to be held responsible for supporting or not supporting every decision, every aspect of the content, every person involved? I'm supposed to only buy a ticket to a movie if I want to support some mega-conglomerate? (Spoiler: I will *never* want that.) This notion is not only literally impossible, it's also a guarantee that I should never watch or play or read ANYTHING EVER. You are probably supporting a bad thing if you consume ANYTHING, because so many people are involved and so many choices are made along the way there.

Like... there was probably a violent criminal who worked on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood for a while. It ran long enough and saw enough rotation of side staff that it's statistically likely to be true. It's damn near certain. But I'm not gonna be held responsible for whether some loathesome bit-part actor on that show gets a residual handed to his family in the form of pennies years later. The overall vibe/message you're supporting is obviously NOT one of such negativity, so there's no foul to me there. You get what I'm saying?

I believe we should take joy and immersion where we find it, and if I'm being real, a huge chunk of what I enjoy in media is likely "problematic" to others. I tend to enjoy being challenged in very specific ways that would probably be uncomfortable for other people. They don't need to consume what I do anymore than I need to stop doing so for their sake. To each their own!

And yeah, maybe sometimes there's a larger force at play. Maybe sometimes you feel compelled to take a big, symbolic stand because the cause at the heart of that stand - the "problematic" thing perpetrated by the content in question - is just too great, or PERCEIVED to be too great. And that's your right -- I always encourage people to do what seems like the right thing to them, sure. Boycott anything branded with the Wizarding World if you want - that makes sense, I get what you're saying!

But for me? I prefer to focus on the BIG stuff. The stuff that is obviously rooted in and doing nothing but pushing horrible causes. For example: I would never want someone to support Matt Walsh's bullshit "documentary" about how trans people are fake because he's a horrible human being who makes money off horrible human beings by creating horribly wrong, hateful things. That's an EASY decision. I would never watch or want to hang with someone who watches Newsmax, because they are liars who are attempting to engender hatred and fear to divide us. EASY decision. Some stuff, you can tell from 10 miles away that it's just there to spread and support hate. It serves no other purpose. That's the shit you can and should very easily avoid giving a dime to.

But like, if you watch horror movies, are you supporting the idea that violence/murder is entertaining? Sounds problematic! NAH. I don't buy that. Miss me with that shit.

#asks #anon #rambling #personal morality #danganronpa

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yesimwriting · 4 years ago

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hiii, this might seem weird but do u have any head cannons for when the reader is pregnant and how the Darkling would react?

a/n love this concept,, it's not weird at all!! i feel like there's so much here!! also i leave for college this month and im lowkey starting to freak out so ive been watching star wars movies for comfort 😭and now i have half a mind to write for them, especially the prequels (cough, cough,, anakin) 😭 😭 that should tell you where i am mentally

anyways lets get into the headcanons:))

- okay so like most of my headcanons, this is probably going to be all over the place bc i feel like so many different things could change how he would react. Like if the darkling x reader have been trying to get pregnant, or an unplanned pregnancy with someone he really likes, i also think whether or not the reader is a grisha affects his reaction too

- in general though, i think he'd lowkey have a breeding kink he'd def find something about the thought of you having his child really attractive bc for one thing, he wouldn't have to worry about being left alone and now he has an excuse to be a real 'protector'.

- also if youve read my other headcanons i am 100000% convinced that he has this thing where if he really likes someone he needs them to need him (let's all remember the whole 'i will strip you of everything you know and love speech until I'm your only shelter' speech he gave to Alina)

- also i kinda want to write a fic or blurb series or something that's just the darkling being super toxic in super thoughtful ways LMAO if that makes sense, like he's being super sweet but it's to make sure the reader is dependent on him

- and he def wants to be the protector to give himself some sense of assurance bc he's so desperate to not be alone anymore and bc the reader is the only person he has/loves, he wants to feel in control and like he's the less attached one

- okay,, let's get back to the pregnancy thing, anyways, your pregnancy is most definitely activating all of those senses and this was meant to be a sub plot but it kind of became it's own thing lol

- so lets get to the actual pregnancy reaction

if you two have been trying to get pregnant:

- when you tell him, he kind of like, pauses bc it's not every day that he gets surprised so it takes him a moment to register that he's experiencing shock lol, so he tenses and goes islent

- and then after he realizes that he's surprised and that it's bc of a good thing, he manages to relax

- meanwhile you're kind of freaking out bc he got so quiet?? you start to wonder if he's regretting ever wanting a child with you? and you're like two seconds away from a downspiral and then he...

- he touches your cheek and looks at you in a way you've never seen him look at anyone,, not even you

- the look is so warm and strong and full of fierce admiration that you feel foolish for ever thinking he didn't want this. And then he says something about how you're carrying his child and how he didn't realize he could adore you more and then he kisses you and it's all :)) warm:)

- he doesn't want anyone to know that he's expecting a child as long as possible bc of how many enemies he has and how he has to worry about you enough when people just know that you're his 'lover' (a title you never really liked, but one he tells you is necessary to make sure no one realizes the extent of his attachment)

- if you really want to tell your mother or someone of that relation, he won't be mad about it, but he just needs to know

- Genya is the only exception bc the darkling basically instructs her to look out for you,, but when you tell her she's like oh?? you guys just found out?

- miss girl most definitely noticed like a day and a half ago after you cried bc she couldn't find you ice cream the other night 😭and she just assumed you knew but weren't ready to tell anyone

- okay so this what i think is his most problematic expecting father trait would be. So i just ranted about how important secrecy would be to him but he's also the most overprotective person in the entire world,, like he was bad before but once he knows your with child?? yeah, if a man asks you about the weather, he's done for

- he's next to you in a second, ordering either you or the man to do some asinine task

- if you get mad about this (rightfully so) or even just point out how nothing is wrong and you having a casual conversation with a man who isn't even looking at you sexually won't hurt you or the baby, he'll lose rationality

- it depends on how much you push, but it'd be super easy to make him super possessive bc like i said, being bonded by a child has made him so much more intense (and he was pretty intense before)

- and if you push too much he'll lowkey forget about how cautious he's trying to be with you and pin you against the nearest wall and say something along the lines of 'are you already forgetting you're mine? that i own you, body and soul--is my child growing in you not enough of a reminder? because i'll give you another one if you need it.' (AH--i want to write a whole fic based on this line)

- also if the reader is grisha, especially if she's a sun summoner/special grisha like him, he def talks about the power that they've created and how proud he already is and how he can't wait to train together and be the most powerful family in the world

- not everything is perfectly happy though, bc now he feels more pressure to complete his plan and establish the world he wants his child to be born into

- so sometimes when he's working extra hard or is extra aggressive for no reason, you have to work at calming him down and reminding him that the best thing he can do for his child is be there for them (and the child's mother,, lol)

- sometimes he'll respond by actually listening to you and trying to make up for his absence or his aggression by being extra soft until you finally forgive him

- you never last that long, it's hard to be mad at him when he's coddling you and whispering such sweet things about he's so happy to have you and your future child

- overall, his first reaction is to swell with emotion, which he isn't used to, and so he becomes super protective but also extra lovey and you know that his overreactions are just him trying to show that he cares about you and your future child more than anything

If the pregnancy was unplanned:

- the initial reaction is pretty similar, only his state of shock lasts longer

- like i said at the beginning, he's not used to being surprised and an accidental pregnancy is so much more surprising than a planned pregnancy

- this really sucks for you bc he's not exactly known for his patience so you just kinda sit there and genuinely wonder if you're going to be a single mom or if you're going to want to deletus the fetus or something

- but then he takes a step towards you and you see how he's looking at you and you just know that that fierceness has to mean something good

- and at this point you're scared and nervous and feel so alone so tears are pricking at your eyes,, so he wipes his thumb across your cheek to wipe away tears you won't let spill

- he then whispers something really sweet about how you two are now together forever, as you should be

- it's really relieving bc you felt so alone and uncertain and he's such a smooth speaker that by the end of the night, you feel like this is a good thing

- if youre still hesitant/weighing your options, he's not above trying to (gently) manipulate you into thinking that what he wants may be the only way

- by that,, i don't mean outright tricking you bc he means everything he says, but he def is pushing the keeping the baby agenda,, especially if you're a grisha,, and even more so if you're a grisha with similar power levels to him

- he won't get angry at first bc he's not so out of touch that he's unaware of how shocking a pregnancy is to a woman who wasn't planning one,, but his patience is limited and if you fight it too much he will get mad and yell

- but unless you really don't want to have a child, it won't get to that bc he makes the idea of having a baby with him sound so perfect?? like you genuinely don't understand how he did that

- he chases away all of your worries and assures you that youre not alone and that even though it isn't planned he wouldn't rather anyone else carry his child

- the initial conversation would probably end in you two sleeping together again bc he finds the fact that you're carrying his child so attractive and bc being aware of the pregnancy makes him more possessive

- it's also a good way to fight any of your doubts

- speaking of being possessive though,, i feel like he could be a little more possessive/protective of a reader who didn't plan on getting pregnant bc your relationship has been less established

- no one sees you as anything to him and he doesn't want to start rumors now bc it's important to him that his enemies don't find out about you or his future child so he doesn't want that to change

- but he almost forgets about all of those reasons each time he sees a man get a little too close,, especially if that guy is flirty

- it takes all of his will power to not just go 'she's mine and if i wasn't worried about the stress that witnessing something violent would cause our unborn child, you'd be dead already, but if you're not gone by the time i turn around, i'll forget about caution'

- lots of close calls ngl!! at one point youre like 'if it bothers you so much, maybe you should tell someone??' and he's like 'no,, maybe,, shut up' and then you raise one eyebrow and he just closes his mouth and is like 'i mean,, i'll kiss you to shut you up, haha--dont be mad'

- youre the one that's pregnant but sometimes you think he might be the one experiencing the mood swings i swear 😭

- so your little theory gets tested,, he's not the type to gossip with his besties and be like 'guess who's officially my girlfriend, i knocked her up but it's not like it sounds--'

- so he's like ig you can tell genya

- once again genya is like ?? yall thought you were keeping that secret? couldn't be me

- but having it a little out in the open helps ease him just enough that youre actually capable of consoling him when he becomes jealous

- still though,, he's quick to go into possessive/pregnancy kink sex

- youre most def not mad about it,, unless pregnancy has you particularly sore

- he's normally pretty understanding about that and def doesn't mind pulling his weight in the bedroom when he needs

- honestly he'd be really good at being a source of calmness at the beginning, but as time goes on he becomes more and more worried about finishing his plans bc he didn't expect to have a child right now

- so he'd be more adamant about working/becoming more tense and would be more difficult to console if it was an accidental pregnancy

- when you call him out on it--or on anything while your pregnant--it's frustrating for you both bc the number one thing everyone knows is stress is bad for baby, so he's trying to keep you calm without backing down

- these argument always end with one of you clinging to the other,, and then the more angrier of the two just like shuts up, rolls their eyes, and lets go of the argument...at least for now

- the main difference between an accidental and intentional pregnancy would probably be how you perceive him,, bc an intentional pregnancy means youve talked about things but since you havent talked about anything your shocked about how soft he becomes ??

#headcanons #headcanon #darkling x reader #the darkling x reader #the darking x you #aleksander morozova x reader #general kirigan x you #general kirigan imagine #grishaverse imagine #grishaverse #shadow and bone #shadow and bone x reader #aleksander morovoza x reader #aleksander morozova imagine

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qqueenofhades · 4 years ago

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Hi. I’m curious. What did you mean by “women who read fiction might get Bad Ideas!!!” has just reached its latest and stupidest form via tumblr purity culture.? I haven’t seen any of this but I’m new to tumblr.

Oh man. You really want to get me into trouble on, like, my first day back, don’t you?

Pretty much all of this has been explained elsewhere by people much smarter than me, so this isn’t necessarily going to say anything new, but I’ll do my best to synthesize and summarize it. As ever, it comes with the caveat that it is my personal interpretation, and is not intended as the be-all, end-all. You’ll definitely run across it if you spend any time on Tumblr (or social media in general, including Twitter, and any other fandom-related spaces). This will get long.

In short: in the nineteenth century, when Gothic/romantic literature became popular and women were increasingly able to read these kinds of novels for fun, there was an attendant moral panic over whether they, with their weak female brains, would be able to distinguish fiction from reality, and that they might start making immoral or inappropriate choices in their real life as a result. Obviously, there was a huge sexist and misogynistic component to this, and it would be nice to write it off entirely as just hysterical Victorian pearl-clutching, but that feeds into the “lol people in the past were all much stupider than we are today” kind of historical fallacy that I often and vigorously shut down. (Honestly, I’m not sure how anyone can ever write the “omg medieval people believed such weird things about medicine!” nonsense again after what we’ve gone through with COVID, but that is a whole other rant.) The thinking ran that women shouldn’t read novels for fear of corrupting their impressionable brains, or if they had to read novels at all, they should only be the Right Ones: i.e., those that came with a side of heavy-handed and explicit moralizing so that they wouldn’t be tempted to transgress. Of course, books trying to hammer their readers over the head with their Moral Point aren’t often much fun to read, and that’s not the point of fiction anyway. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

Fast-forward to today, and the entire generation of young, otherwise well-meaning people who have come to believe that being a moral person involves only consuming the “right” kind of fictional content, and being outrageously mean to strangers on the internet who do not agree with that choice. There are a lot of factors contributing to this. First, the advent of social media and being subject to the judgment of people across the world at all times has made it imperative that you demonstrate the “right” opinions to fit in with your peer-group, and on fandom websites, that often falls into a twisted, hyper-critical, so-called “progressivism” that diligently knows all the social justice buzzwords, but has trouble applying them in nuance, context, and complicated real life. To some extent, this obviously is not a bad thing. People need to be critical of the media they engage with, to know what narratives the creator(s) are promoting, the tropes they are using, the conclusions that they are supporting, and to be able to recognize and push back against genuinely harmful content when it is produced – and this distinction is critical – by professional mainstream creators. Amateur, individual fan content is another kettle of fish. There is a difference between critiquing a professional creator (though social media has also made it incredibly easy to atrociously abuse them) and attacking your fellow fan and peer, who is on the exact same footing as you as a consumer of that content.

Obviously, again, this doesn’t mean that you can’t call out people who are engaging in actually toxic or abusive behavior, fans or otherwise. But certain segments of Tumblr culture have drained both those words (along with “gaslighting”) of almost all critical meaning, until they’re applied indiscriminately to “any fictional content that I don’t like, don’t agree with, or which doesn’t seem to model healthy behavior in real life” and “anyone who likes or engages with this content.” Somewhere along the line, a reactionary mindset has been formed in which the only fictional narratives or relationships are those which would be “acceptable” in real life, to which I say…. what? If I only wanted real life, I would watch the news and only read non-fiction. Once again, the underlying fear, even if it’s framed in different terms, is that the people (often women) enjoying this content can’t be trusted to tell the difference between fiction and reality, and if they like “problematic” fictional content, they will proceed to seek it out in their real life and personal relationships. And this is just… not true.

As I said above, critical media studies and thoughtful consumption of entertainment are both great things! There have been some great metas written on, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how it is increasingly relying on villains who have outwardly admirable motives (see: the Flag Smashers in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) who are then stigmatized by their anti-social, violent behavior and attacks on innocent people, which is bad even as the heroes also rely on violence to achieve their ends. This is a clever way to acknowledge social anxieties – to say that people who identify with the Flag Smashers are right, to an extent, but then the instant they cross the line into violence, they’re upsetting the status quo and need to be put down by the heroes. I watched TFATWS and obviously enjoyed it. I have gone on a Marvel re-watching binge recently as well. I like the MCU! I like the characters and the madcap sci-fi adventures! But I can also recognize it as a flawed piece of media that I don’t have to accept whole-cloth, and to be able to criticize some of the ancillary messages that come with it. It doesn’t have to be black and white.

When it comes to shipping, moreover, the toxic culture of “my ship is better than your ship because it’s Better in Real Life” ™ is both well-known and in my opinion, exhausting and pointless. As also noted, the whole point of fiction is that it allows us to create and experience realities that we don’t always want in real life. I certainly enjoy plenty of things in fiction that I would definitely not want in reality: apocalyptic space operas, violent adventures, and yes, garbage men. A large number of my ships over the years have been labeled “unhealthy” for one reason or another, presumably because they don’t adhere to the stereotype of the coffee-shop AU where there’s no tension and nobody ever makes mistakes or is allowed to have serious flaws. And I’m not even bagging on coffee-shop AUs! Some people want to remove characters from a violent situation and give them that fluff and release from the nonstop trauma that TV writers merrily inflict on them without ever thinking about the consequences. Fanfiction often focuses on the psychology and healing of characters who have been through too much, and since that’s something we can all relate to right now, it’s a very powerful exercise. As a transformative and interpretive tool, fanfic is pretty awesome.

The problem, again, comes when people think that fic/fandom can only be used in this way, and that going the other direction, and exploring darker or complicated or messy dynamics and relationships, is morally bad. As has been said before: shipping is not activism. You don’t get brownie points for only having “healthy” ships (and just my personal opinion as a queer person, these often tend to be heterosexual white ships engaging in notably heteronormative behavior) and only supporting behavior in fiction that you think is acceptable in real life. As we’ve said, there is a systematic problem in identifying what that is. Ironically, for people worried about Women Getting Ideas by confusing fiction and reality, they’re doing the same thing, and treating fiction like reality. Fiction is fiction. Nobody actually dies. Nobody actually gets hurt. These people are not real. We need to normalize the idea of characters as figments of a creator’s imagination, not actual people with their own agency. They exist as they are written, and by the choice of people whose motives can be scrutinized and questioned, but they themselves are not real. Nor do characters reflect the author’s personal views. Period.

This feeds into the fact that the internet, and fandom culture, is not intended as a “safe space” in the sense that no questionable or triggering content can ever be posted. Archive of Our Own, with its reams of scrupulous tagging and requests for you to explicitly click and confirm that you are of age to see M or E-rated content, is a constant target of the purity cultists for hosting fictional material that they see as “immoral.” But it repeatedly, unmistakably, directly asks you for your consent to see this material, and if you then act unfairly victimized, well… that’s on you. You agreed to look at this, and there are very few cases where you didn’t know what it entailed. Fandom involves adults creating contents for adults, and while teenagers and younger people can and do participate, they need to understand this fact, rather than expecting everything to be a PG Disney movie.

When I do write my “dark” ships with garbage men, moreover, they always involve a lot of the man being an idiot, being bluntly called out for an idiot, and learning healthier patterns of behavior, which is one of the fundamental patterns of romance novels. But they also involve an element of the woman realizing that societal standards are, in fact, bullshit, and she can go feral every so often, as a treat. But even if I wrote them another way, that would still be okay! There are plenty of ships and dynamics that I don’t care for and don’t express in my fic and fandom writing, but that doesn’t mean I seek out the people who do like them and reprimand them for it. I know plenty of people who use fiction, including dark fiction, in a cathartic way to process real-life trauma, and that’s exactly the role – one of them, at least – that fiction needs to be able to fulfill. It would be terribly boring and limited if we were only ever allowed to write about Real Life and nothing else. It needs to be complicated, dark, escapist, unreal, twisted, and whatever else. This means absolutely zilch about what the consumers of this fiction believe, act, or do in their real lives.

Once more, I do note the misogyny underlying this. Nobody, after all, seems to care what kind of books or fictional narratives men read, and there’s no reflection on whether this is teaching them unhealthy patterns of behavior, or whether it predicts how they’ll act in real life. (There was some of that with the “do video games cause mass shootings?”, but it was a straw man to distract from the actual issues of toxic masculinity and gun culture.) Certain kinds of fiction, especially historical fiction, romance novels, and fanfic, are intensely gendered and viewed as being “women’s fiction” and therefore hyper-criticized, while nobody’s asking if all the macho-man potboiler military-intrigue tough-guy stereotypical “men’s fiction” is teaching them bad things. So the panic about whether your average woman on the internet is reading dark fanfic with an Unhealthy Ship (zomgz) is, in my opinion, misguided at best, and actively destructive at worst.

#long post #anonymous #ask

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insanely-lovely-and-random · 3 years ago

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So this is my rant about Shallow Hal, I recently rewatched it because the song "Love Grows" is on the radio again (which also yay) and I've always loved the movie and I didn't even realise people found the movie problematic.

Ya know what I get that people find issues with things that came out years ago and some are valid but when people try to tell me I'm literally wrong for liking something, THAT I have a problem with.

Fats suits and fat jokes are a problem and the early 2000s were full of those jokes but honestly I have a much greater issue when I see them in current media than old because yeah they probably should know better now but I don't really want to talk about its problems I want to say why I love it.

The fact that Jack Black was a leading man on a romcom is fantastic, he's a very attractive man but lets not lie hes not Hollywood's version of one and I LOVE that they made a movie like that. I also like the fact that he starts off like the name says shallow, he's a dick at first and he goes through actual growth which is honestly amazing because usually when the main characters not conventionally attractive they make the character too nice and honestly boring this movie feels honest with his flaws.

Yes Gwyneth Paltrow is wearing a fatsuit and most of the movie she's just herself but this was 2001 how many movies since have actually had an overweight woman as the love interest? I mean actually overweight and not Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones? Cause I could count em on one hand.

The fact that it ended the way it did I honestly think it was ahead of it's time. This and Shrek came out the same year and both have very touching endings with Shrek loving Fiona even with her being an Ogre and in this movie he comes to love Rosemary for the person she is and appearances really don't matter to him anymore. He loves an overweight woman and neither of them change to become more attractive by societies standards , that's fricking cool as hell!!! I don't know how many other movies I know that do that even today and let me say the fact that HE IS A MAN.

Before anyone gets angry at me what I mean is just think about how many movies have a woman loving a man who starts as a monster or scarred or considered ugly by the movies world. There's hundreds, recently we had Shape of Water where as nice twist yes the man remains a fish man and she loves him anyways. But movies where the man loves a woman who's considered unattractive? Far fewer and of those movies 9 outta 10 the womans just tall, clumsy, not a size 6 or something else completely ridiculous. She's almost never scarred or a frightening creature or genuinely over weight.

Beauty and the Beast has always confused me because the Beast is bad and can't see past an outer appearance but the solution isn't to have him fall for a woman with an ugly outer appearance it's to give him one and have a woman have to fall for him despite it.... but why?? Why should a woman have to learn to love him when it should clearly be him who has to learn that, I never got it but Shallow Hal did. Shallow Hal a movie from over two decades ago did that. It had a man learn that he is cruel, obnoxious and shallow and only by growing as person and saying a big old Fuck you to society's standards could he become incredibly happy with the woman he loves. Because Hal isn't the only bad guy in the movie, the whole world is. As shown by how embarrassed his friend is when he finds out Hals with Rosemary, so self concious just because of what other people would think?!

Hal changed by the end of the movie but people haven't changed a goddamn bit and that's sad. People seem to fat shame and look down on others more than ever and yes it has problems and it's just a goofy romcom from two decades ago but I swear to God I was genuinely changed by seeing it when I was 10. I felt empathy and shame for how I'd looked at other people who were bigger than me and it was thanks to this movie and so I still love it. Peace out ✌✌

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opinated-user · 3 years ago

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I started to doubt LO and her criticism when she released the video denouncing the word Queer as a slur. Not only did that seem like a bad take, but she then proceeded to call The Rocky Horror Picture Show "Trans Blackface". I mean, it's one thing to not like the movie, but I don't think she understood the cultural significance of that movie at all. Midnight showings of Rocky Horror are where a LOT of LGBTQ+ teens/young adults (especially in small towns) could hang out safely ever since the movie came out. I'm not sure if I was the only person that felt that way when LO shit all over it.

i remember that right after that LO had a thing for insisting that all activist of the past were idiots for calling themselves queer and nobody owed them any respect because they were all problematic. i won't deny that the queer people of the past were far from perfect. but not because they embraced the queer identity on a time where they were actually getting killed or abused by authorities for being themselves. the community as a whole was (and in many ways still is) deeply racist, classist and pushed for "respectability politics" for way too long to the point that they end up putting on the side the most vulnerable people, all the POC, sex workers, poor and trans people who only had themselves to stand on, only for their labor to later be actively erased or forgotten.

ironically enough, with her "queer is a slur and anyone who reclaims it is a idiot making it harder for normal people like me to get the things we need!" she's actually the modern representation of those people of the past who would have told Marsha P. Johnson to step down from the stage because she made them look bad. not helped by the fact that Marsha was an active member of the drag community and LO also ranted about how considering drag as part of the LBGT+ community was offensive.

i guess at this point it shouldn't be surprising that LO's ignorance extends even to her own community and the people responsible for her being able to marry her wife. i had forgotten about "trans blackface", something that feels like something that is particularly not black would come up with. the thing that stayed with me all this time was she comparing queer people proudly existing as themselves with a nazi yelling a racial slur on a public space... all of that was so utterly wrong on all the ways anything can be wrong.

#lily orchard

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raeynbowboi · 5 years ago

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How Kipo Makes Great Villains

I stayed up all night binging the second season of Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, and I’ll admit. Going into it, my expectations were a bit low. Season One had such a self-contained objective, I didn’t know what the show was going to do with itself with a second season. But the second season of Kipo blew me out of the water. So, now I’m going to rant about why Scarlemagne and Jamack are fantastic villains for Kipo to confront, and what Kipo teaches us about writing antagonists. Obviously, spoilers ahead, but if you’re caught up, prepare to gush over great villains. If you’re not, do yourself a favor and go away, experience the second season for yourself, and then come back and fangasm over how great it was.

JAMACK

Kipo’s first antagonist is a perfect character foil. That is to say, Jamack is the exact opposite of Kipo. When Jamack meets Kipo, they are in exact opposite situations. He’s in a group while she’s alone. Later, when Kipo finds friends and is no longer alone, Jamack is kicked out of his group, forcing him to survive on his own. Jamack is very focused on self-interest and self-preservation, belittling his underlings for minor mistakes. His outlook is cold, cynical, and jaded. On top of that, Jamack grew up in this crazy world where only the strong survive. He’s also a part of the Mob Frogs, which seem to be the only mute culture with internal hierarchy. Other groups have a leader, but only the Mob Frogs seem to have levels of rank within the organization, causing the Mob Frogs to be competitive, even among themselves. So it makes perfect sense why Jamack will stoop to pretty much anything to get what he wants. Because that’s the mentality that allows for upward mobility in Las Vista. Thus, when Kipo arrives and upends the status quo and proves Jamack’s way of living wrong, he lashes out. Initially seeing it as her stealing his life from him, Jamack begins to gradually change. Jamack is on a similar and reflected hero’s journey to Kipo, and as she grows, so too will he. It’s no surprise that Jamack will eventually become a genuine ally of Kipo, even if he’s still hiding behind a Tsundere mask.

SCARLEMAGNE

My god is this a fantastic villain. In the first season, he was genuinely creepy and intimidating, but in season 2, Hugo became incredibly sympathetic. As season 2 went on, I kept debating to myself who is more of the Zuko of this show: Jamack or Hugo. Scarlemagne serves the same narrative purpose as the Diamonds in Steven Universe, about how words and kindness can work through problems. But I think it’s done a little better here, since Hugo isn’t a world-destroying dictator. He’s done some damage, but nothing that was really lasting. His pheremones can wear off. The humans he’s enslaved can regain their freedom. So, Hugo’s actual damage as a villain is much smaller and thus much more forgivable than immortal galactic conquerors. Hugo shows this deeply in that he genuinely seems like he wants to make Kipo happy, but he’s been hurt for so long that he doesn’t understand how to. And this genuine care seems to come a lot more from his core personality, and not just Kipo making friendship speeches. Even Steven didn’t really change the minds of the Diamonds. He just kind of proved he was their sister/nephew, and they suddenly cared about what he had to say. With Hugo, it’s much easier to see that he’s not a monster, just a scared and confused man lashing out to maintain control in a barbaric world. It makes him a character who you don’t want to see succeed in his evil plans, but you don’t want to watch him fail and lose everything he's worked for. You simultaneously want to hug him, and also punch him. It’s that perfect balance that makes Scarlemagne so well-written. He’s officially on my list of top 10 tv cartoon villains. Also, it’s hysterical that Hugo is voiced by the live action Beast, and the second half of this season was honestly a better Beauty and the Beast story than the live action movie. Am I the only one who hears Dr. Animo from Ben 10 when Scarlemagne speaks though?

DR. EMILIA

Talk about bait and switch. I don’t know if it was their intention, but I assumed the woman in the bird mask was Song, Kipo’s mother. It was clear that she and her goons were wearing burrow jumpsuits, and as it seemed more and more like her mother wasn’t dead, so I assumed this had to be her. This was such a great misdirection. Assuming she’s the hero because of our opinions of Scarlemagne, it’s what gives this show such amazing rewatch potential as now you can go back and pay attention to her words and actions and realize what she’s genuinely like. But even on a character level, she’s a fantastic villain. Kipo is a master of Talk no Jutsu, a fan term from the Naruto fandom, as he had a knack for talking literally anyone into becoming his friend, even the ones actively trying to kill him. Steven Universe and Kipo seem to be the other two masters of this technique. But Dr. Emilia will likely be immune to this. She doesn’t strike me as the sit and talk things out type. Because there are times when words won’t stop people, but action will. Dr. Emilia is a villain Kipo can’t reason with, someone she can’t befriend with a good speech. But even on a philosophical level, Dr. Emilia is fantastic because while she’s clearly a villain, her goal isn’t inherently evil. She sees mutation as a bad thing and wants to restore mute DNA to their normal animal forms. Which is a large part of why humans need to live in burrows. She wants humans to not live in fear, and to restore animals to their genetic origins. At least in theory, it’s a benign enough goal. The problem comes when you consider that animal mutes have sentience. they can speak and express desires. Robbing them of that is akin to purposefully mentally disabling a group in order to be dominant over them, which adds to the great themes here because there’s a loose veil of animals as an enslaved species. Kept in cages or as pets, ruled over or hunted by man who views itself as the superior race, the same sort of thinking that white slave-owners used to rationalize their prejudice. Thus it’s also a loose allegory for Dr. Emilia wanting to return emancipated slaves back to their chains. This is why she’s such a good villain. At face value, her goal sounds sort of reasonable, but when you examine what she’s really doing, it’s incredibly dark and cruel. That level of detail and writing is amazing. Talk about a well-written villain. I’m sorry, I can’t stop gushing.

Kipo demonstrates three equally compelling types of villains, and handles all of them amazingly. Jamack is the hero’s villainous foil, on his own mirrored hero’s journey as hers. His situation is always an exact opposite of hers, as was his life experiences, which led to such a stark difference of ideas. Thus, why it takes her utterly alien character traits to kick start his character arc. Hugo is a beautifully flawed and tragic villain whose goal of bringing the mutes together under a single ruler is genuinely compelling, but you still don’t want him to succeed the wrong way. Yet, if he could achieve his goal in a less hostile and evil way, I doubt fans would be upset with him achieving this goal otherwise. It’s just his approach that’s problematic. Dr. Emilia seems reasonable enough on paper, but once you unpack what she’s really doing, you can read a really deep allegory for slavery and racial superiority into her character that really complicates the otherwise black-and-white opinion of her character. Each of these villains shows ways you can make a compelling antagonist, and if you read this without watching Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeats despite my spoiler warnings, do yourself a favor and watch it. You will not be disappointed.

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