#seeing the whole thing as black & white ''good guys vs bad guys'' does more harm than good

[scarycranegame]

hot take: everyone whos mad at chappell roan for still loving her conservative family and friends in missouri did not pay close enough attention to the lyrics of pink pony club

[doctorguilty]

There's something to be said about like people's black and white perception of good guys vs bad guys fiction that easily overlaps with peoples real life perception of good and bad?

Like undyne is genuinely a good example of that because people hold her to like who she was at the end of the game, which is like important in the sense of like the acceptance of growth but it's not good to just dismiss everything that happened up until that point and see it like, "undyne was always a good guy the whole time we just didn't know it yet" like no, that's not what went down at all, she was an enemy for a good portion of the start and had she succeeded in carrying out her orders to kill the human the story would have ended there, so then what of her? Is she still a good guy but the story was wrong? Or she's a good guy but the person who gave her the orders was wrong, and therefore the blood is on his hands and not hers? Her goodness is retroactively the same from beginning to end? Even if the events changed and the story ended differently?

These questions don't have yes or no answers because that's just not how things work, which brings me to what I say a lot about real life and how people categorize other people into "good" and "bad" as though they're astrology signs you're just born under you can't change, because it's super comfortable to be like, well if this good person makes a mistake it doesn't change the fact they're otherwise good and would never intentionally hurt anyone, and therefore they cannot be held accountable for harm done, and then if a bad person does anything good, it doesnt matter because they can never be redeemed, you can't undo the things that make you bad, you are undeserving of things, etc

I was gonna type more but my fingers are getting too chilly feel free to run with this (gesturing to anyone in the audience)

[lord-rosenth0rne]

Long Rant ahead. Scott Cawthon debacle.

I hate the whole black and white outlook on life. This 'for or against' crap is going to destroy everyone and everything. Those who follow a black or white mindset tend to not know what they are talking about considering if they did, they'd know that very rarely, situations are black and white. It's void of critical thinking and common sense. It can be defeated by not jumping on the bandwagon, stepping back, and taking in the situation.

-Sexuality is not black and white.

-Gender is not black and white.

-Mental illnesses are not black and white.

-Religion is not black and white.

-Relationships are not black and white.

-Intentions are not always black and white.

What the hell makes anyone think anything political IS?

Take Scott Cawthon for example. How he is as a person vs. the whole donation thing does not add up unless you realize he did not donate for the reasons the majority of Twitter and some here on Tumblr think. It doesn't take a detective to connect the dots. Were making those donations wrong? Personally, I think donations to any political party are wrong and people do it regardless, but for the sake of the argument, no. Candidates should win with their policies, not for who uses the most money. Policies are another thing that's never black and white either. It would be fun to see how far each candidate could get on a set amount, but I digress.

Note: tl:dr: READ IT before commenting. We'd all be in a better position if people didn't comment on shit they didn't read. "Oh I didn't read BUT-" Get out of here with that. I believe if you do not read someone's stance on a subject, you don't have a leg to stand on in a conversation and just like the sound of your voice.

Scott Cawthon is a straight white male who is Christian and a Republican. Apparently, people have it in their heads that he cannot be a good person because of it. However, he is not a bigot nor does he hate the LGBTQ+ community as he has LGBTQ+ people on his team. He would not openly hire them if he was a bigot. He also has a history of donating to pro-LGBTQ+ charities (I've already seen people try to dismiss this because of the Republican donations and they're also very wrong in doing so. It's the biggest "I STILL WANNA BE SALTY" I've ever seen. Yeah, people have a right to be angry and upset, but they do not have a right to throw out evidence).

Putting that together should tell you what his intent was with those donations. He doesn't agree with the anti-LGBTQ+ crap, but he saw something else that held potential. He votes for economic well-being first and foremost which isn't bad for any of us. Imagine believing if you vote/donate to a candidate that you back everything about them 100%. We'd all be in trouble in that case since you are no different every four years, supporting one thing your favorite candidate believes but ignoring the rest. Oh, they could be for LGBTQ+, anti-segregation, and women's rights, but they could also be for something that could hurt you or your family in other ways and you either ignore it or don't realize it. Most people aren't very well informed on candidates anyway. There's no such thing as a good politician or a perfect one. You'll suffer one way or another for backing a candidate 100%.

Also, for those who say "donating to people who want me dead", stop being dramatic. If someone wants you dead, you would be dead already. They will not wait for laws to be passed for the ability to kill you. Considering murder carries some serious consequences in our society, they would not care for laws in general if they're willing to commit murder. It's like stricter gun control only affecting the law-abiding: If someone wants a gun bad enough, they'll ignore laws to get it. As for any laws, laws can always be appealed with enough pushback from our communities. Protesting wouldn't be used if it did nothing.

And those calling Scott a coward for retiring, if you were smart, you would too with these circumstances. His family has been harassed and threatened with harm by deranged people. He has a pregnant wife who is being directly targeted. For her sake and the rest of his family's sake, he's pulling out of the spotlight in order for all of this to blow over and the disgusting behavior to disappear. To continue to be in the spotlight would encourage those with harmful intent to follow through with it. You would either be stupid or arrogant to stay.

You can sit there and disagree until you're blue in the face. It doesn't negate the facts at hand. People talk about acceptance and being tolerant but the moment something comes up that they don't like, they toss it all away and go feral. No empathy. No understanding. No thinking for themselves. They just jump on the mob mentality bandwagon and bolt with it. Maybe later they'd see the error of their ways but by then it's too late.

I didn't play FNAF but I did enjoy watching people play it. I've watched interactions between Scott and other people and I know he isn't a bad guy, just someone with opinions I do not agree with but I don't agree with a lot of people. "Misguided", a word many people who are defending Scott like to use, isn't the case. He had reasons for his donations whether you like it or not. There are the worst people out there who haven't been called out properly on their shit yet everyone decided that this was enough to dogpile him. It's actually kinda gross, considering Trump is no longer president AND the donation wasn't recent.

I'm honestly surprised no one has questioned the intent of the person who leaked old news, especially since Trump is no longer in office. I do not believe them to be some innocent party who 'happened' across this VERY PUBLIC information. I think it was being held onto for a slow news day and a way to get a lot of clicks for their article. They most likely got what they wanted the first time considering they doubled down for a second article to fuel the fire while also knowing Scott's family was being targeted. I don't support people who start blatant witch hunts either. There was no reason for this to go as far as it did and no excuse for the harassment. You can still be angry and upset with him but you are not allowed to send death threats and harass them.

Congrats, Twitter. I deleted my account after this debacle. Should have deleted it a long time ago with how toxic it's been but I forgot I even had one. Kotaku, you're also put on a "do not visit" list with Chick-Fil-A and Burger King.

If I went into the political and personal background of every creator I liked and boycotted them over it, I would have nothing, and neither would you. There's got to be a time you have to separate the art from the artist or you're going to have nothing.

If you want to be angry and upset with him, you do have a right to be. If you don't want to support his projects, whether he comes out of retirement or not, more power to you. If you want to just leave the fandom, no one's forcing you to stay. But don't approach this with a black and white mindset and think that's how it has to be. That's not true. It will never be true. Few things in life are black and white and you're better off making informed decisions after weighing the situation.

[i-will-physically-fight-you]

The History Behind Unsympathetic/Sympathetic and My Personal Views on It

I’ve been in the fandom since 2018. I watched Can Lying Be Good? and I was desperate to find Deceit fic because heck, he was such a cool new character! But I was dissatisfied to find, time and time again, all the fics depicted him as a manipulative, abusive piece of garbage who was evil for the sake of being evil and no shred of good in his snakey heart. 

And look. I’ve been in fandoms since 2012. This fandom isn’t the first fandom to take a character and depict them that way. At that point in time, it seemed like Deceit was a villain (or at least an antagonist) and I was fine with reading villain Deceit. I just wanted more nuanced, multi-faceted Deceit. A Deceit who thought he was the good guy. A Deceit who did the wrong things for the right reasons. A Deceit who was a bad guy, sure, but human. I wrote the fic I could not find anywhere else in the fandom. So as funny as the fact that I rarely write Janus now, he’s the whole reason I ended up in this fandom. 

Shortly after the video aired, there was concerns over triggering content involved with this depiction of Deceit. Vice versa, there was also concerns about the depictions of Deceit in a softer, redeemed light. As some people found this to be uncomfortable for their own reasons. Simply tagging any and all Deceit content with just the character tag wouldn’t work. There needed to be a separate tag.

 I was never been involved with the fandom pre-Deceit, but I must say it’s really fascinating to see how his introduction to the series greatly impacted the sociology of the fandom to this day. Because this gave birth to the sympathetic tag and would later bring about the unsympathetic tag.

Yes, sympathetic, because largely the fandom view was that this character was an irredeemable villain and so the character tag acted as the unofficial “unsympathetic” tag.

 Keep in mind until SVS we didn’t get any substantial on-screen time w/ Deceit. We also didn’t really get much glimpse of what his personality was like before then, because the majority of Can Lying Be Good he was acting as Patton. That’s a LITERAL YEAR where the fandom had to guess at what Deceit was like.

Now fandoms, like I mentioned before, easily fall into a black and white morality when comes how they interact and perceive characters regardless of canon. Either a character is an abusive monster unworthy of redemption or they’re a soft cinnamon roll who can do no wrong. This occurred with Deceit.

For the longest time, there were two popular depictions of Deceit. An irredeemable abusive monster and a fluffy scaly boi who can’t help always speaking in lies (thus what he speaks is always reverse of what he really means) and could do no wrong. It was dark times for those who reveled in morally-grey Deceit, who could not find fics who weren’t these two extremes.

Which I’m not saying either popular depiction was bad. The beauty of fandom is that everyone is free to create and interact with however they like. it just seemed to me to be wildly different from the little we had seen of Deceit. 

Somewhere down the lines, the “unsympathetic” tag was born. I’d like to believe it was sometime before SVS but I could be wrong. Again--Deceit was the catalyst for this. It was argued that using the character tag for the placebo “unsympathetic” tag caused those who liked the character to be made feel bad for liking the character. 

But there still needed to be a tag for those who found abusive/manipulative depictions of him triggering, right? So the unsympathetic tag was born.

Definitely after SVS was the first instance I remember the unsympathetic tag was used for a character other than Deceit (A shocker I know!!). Some people found Patton’s behavior in the episode to be manipulative. Art/fic depicting him to be this way was created. And since, the unsympathetic tag was a concept that already existed in the fandom, it made logical sense to start using that for Patton. 

And eventually, of course, this spiraled into using it for the other sides. Any fic/art depicting a side to be on the same levels of fanon Can-Lying-Be-Good Deceit was given this tag.

When Remus was introduced w/ DWIT, the fandom reacted rather differently. There was a huge show of acceptance & support for him, in a way that Deceit didn’t receive in CLBG. He was given the “cutesy cinnamonroll” treatment, with people calling him a trash goblin and adopting him. Of course, there was the opposite effect happening as well. With art/fic depicting him as a ruthless monster. 

And there was still people who found the character uncomfortable/unsettling, myself included (it’s taken awhile but I’ve warmed up to his character). So a new tag, different from unsympathetic/sympathetic, was born. The “DukeDontLook” tag. This tag has fallen largely out of use, for similar reasons as the character tag for Deceit being used as a placebo for unsympathetic Deceit.

However, I think the latest episode illustrates a valid point in all of this; although the “unsympathetic/sympathetic” tags were born out of good intentions, it does not change the fact that in some ways, they’ve been more detrimental than good. Pushy is pushy, as dear Janus would say. It forces the fandom to view content through a narrow black-and-white lens. 

Whereas the series has shown, it’s much more complex than that. These characters are more than just the good sides (”Light” Sides) vs bad sides (”Dark” Sides) of Thomas. They’re part of a human’s personality and humans? They’re flawed beings. They’re not wholly good or wholly bad. Same goes for a singular human trait. The world is grey. Janus can be right sometimes, just like Patton can be wrong sometimes. And there’s nothing erroneous with that.

But! That does not change the unsympathetic tag served a purpose for a reason. And that the reason? To help those find characters depicted that way upsetting. So how can we help those who need it? 

In my opinion, “unsympathetic” tag should be replaced with “villain” tag (Ex. “villain logan”) if the character is a clear antagonist. If it’s a fic, even include that in the warnings/author’s note. If it’s more complex than using that label, elaborate. (Ex. “This character will do something that some might find to be triggering”)

TLDR: The Unsympathetic/Sympathetic tags started out of good intentions, but I believe it has caused more harm than good. It’d be best to replace “unsympathetic” with “villain” as those who wish not seeing a character portrayed in that light can then block those tags.

[dropintomanga]

Demon Slayer and My Hero Academia - 2 Sides of the Same Coin?

Whenever you hear about Koyoharu Gotoge’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, you tend to hear about the records the series has smashed in Japan since the anime adaptation aired. From taking over entire top 20 Oricon manga charts to being one of Japan’s most highly grossed movies ever to influencing political campaigns, Demon Slayer is a once-in-a-lifetime hit that captivated an entire nation. (Oh, and Gotoge is the 1st mangaka ever selected for the Time 100 Next list)

However, outside of Japan, Demon Slayer isn’t as popular as one of its other Shonen Jump brethren, Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia. Demon Slayer still sells well and fans love the series over here in The United States, but manga sales charts are filled with more My Hero Academia volumes than Demon Slayer volumes.

I’ve been thinking about both series’ popularity in the context of the East versus West dynamic.

As cultural experts will tell you, Western principles are built on a sense of individualism. You deserve the freedom to choose your own path. You can make it on your own. No one should get in the way of what you want. Eastern principles are all about collectivism. Make sacrifices for the prosperity of the group. Don’t do anything that hurts other people around you. The world doesn’t revolve around you.

When I think about My Hero Academia, it makes sense that Western fans love it a bit/lot more than Demon Slayer. We all want to be heroes of our story. We want to be more than who we are. It’s about youth who are focusing on their own growth and getting away from their comfort zones to find new opportunities to become stronger.

Demon Slayer isn’t about being a hero. It’s about a guy who wanted to make his demon sister human again. He’s not interested in being the absolute best to save the world. While saving Japan ends up being a consequence of his actions, family is what’s important to main lead Tanjiro Kamado. Also, superheroes aren’t nearly as popular in Japan compared to here (with the exception of Spider-Man). 

There was a book I read, Amaia Arrazola’s Tokyo Travel Sketchbook, that briefly discussed the Japanese conventional idea about family. Post-WWII, Japan promoted the idea that it was going to take women to stay home and take care of the home life while the men went out to be the breadwinners. Japan had to, since it had to take everyone together to rebuild the country. However, after the real estate bubble of the 1980s’ was burst, the idea of family being the center really fell apart as Japanese men lost their status as breadwinners due to jobs being finite and gone.

I also remember reading about the history of Western influence in Japan. There’s been a bunch of debate about whether Japan truly embraced Western ideals. To be fair, a lot of voices that claim Western influence being high in non-Western countries tend to be Westerners themselves. Japanese voices on Western ideals may have been been misunderstood in the first place. Demon Slayer takes place during a time of transition where modernity was growing in Japan, while My Hero Academia uses the Western love of comic book superheroes as its basis for its story.

When I think about Demon Slayer and My Hero Academia’s popularities in different parts of the world, it’s perhaps the Western vs. Eastern view of how striving for new opportunities often means loss of community. In My Hero Academia, we do see the psychological effects of bad family influence due to the relentless pursuit of status in a modern world. I saw this mostly early on with Shoto Todoroki (this is being explored even further with the rest of his family as of this writing) and much later in the series with Tomura Shigaraki’s past being revealed.

I noticed that a lot of things are blamed on bad parenting (especially in Western culture). A lot of psychological help does suggest that the family has a big role in influencing a child’s development. However, are they to blame for everything? Outside factors, like social inequality, do play a role. Endeavor, the father of Shoto and top 2 hero at the time, had to deal with so much perceived inequality (i.e. being compared to All Might) that it drove him to abuse his own family. When Deku told Shoto that that his power was his alone regardless of his upbringing, Shoto saw that he was in a place of equality since he was in a supporting environment among his peers compared to his dad. He’s started to understand how life experiences with other people and circumstances can change someone for better or worse as he reluctantly re-connects with Endeavor (who’s trying to redeem himself). 

With Demon Slayer, there’s the infamous Spider Family arc, where the villain, Rui, created a fake family in order to fill a void in their life as a demon. Rui ends up abusing their “family” to drive their superiority. They killed their parents at a young age while they were still human due to a fear of not being loved by them. The whole point of the arc was that everyone deserves some kind of loving family in their life. It’s hard to get through life by yourself even when you’re an independent spirit. I do feel though that certain relationships with family members/friends should be cut off if they are abusive like the case with Rui’s. There’s even more stories similar to this with the rest of the Twelve Moon demons (especially another family-related one with the arc that will be featured in Season 2 of the anime, which I might discuss later this year).

My Hero Academia is about moving forward with some reflection. Strive to be a hero of your life. Don’t think of the consequences as long as you’re saving innocent lives. Demon Slayer is also about moving forward, but remembering that there are points in your life where you need authentic connection and that bad people are still human beings who just feel disconnected from the world.

It also feels like both series address the issue of what connection-seeking traditions to pass on to newer generations that feel family/friendship seem lacking today. In My Hero Academia, there’s All for One’s desires to have successors to pass on his Quirk to even if they are dangerous. In Demon Slayer, there’s Kagaya Ubuyashiki, leader of the Demon Slayer Corps, who wanted to end his family’s curse and realizing over time that demons who wanted to fight back (like Tanjiro’s sister, Nezuko) against Muzan Kibutsuji should live. As someone who’s a Chinese-American, I've thought about what I could pass on as my culture has millennia of history and it does feel like age-old traditions/rituals are being passed over for materialistic convenience. 

I do think it comes down to whether we pass on values or beliefs. Beliefs are basically “What’s good? What’s bad? This is real to me even if it’s not to anyone else!” There’s way too much emphasis on them. Beliefs tend to be very binary because people are often more than just their beliefs. Values are just abstract rules to everyday life and don’t involve personal beliefs. I feel like not enough emphasis is focused on values. For example, things like compassion and respect are values, not beliefs. I had to embrace what values I had to finally grow as a person because some of the beliefs I held to in my mind were hurting me. 

Demon Slayer leans more toward appreciating values (usually ones that appeal to the Japanese mindset) due to Tanjiro’s personality, although My Hero Academia is a mix of appreciating both beliefs and values. While I do wish that “values > beliefs”, My Hero Academia does have some good insight on how beliefs can shape/warp values for both sides. 

Both series take a look at the tension between family and the self in their own ways. It’s much more so with Demon Slayer due to how much the concept of family was important in the growth of Japan in the past. I think we can agree that while there are cultural differences in handling it, the idea of family is lost on both sides of the world. American and Japanese cultures aren’t very tolerate of “gray zones” (i.e. illegal immigrants who have families, sex workers who have families, etc.) and want life to be more black or white. That’s why many fans who don’t feel accepted for who they are look to other outlets for some kind of family that will accept them.

Healthy families of all kinds lead to stronger communities that in turn lead to a better world for everyone. I sometimes feel that modernity does family no favors. It’s fine to grow, but constant growth without self-reflection becomes harmful. Plus, family always comes back to affect you one way or another. You can’t ever fully get away from family as they’re the starting point to everyone’s life. 

The only thing I can say is accept that your family/community, good and/or bad, is a part of your identity when you have conflicting thoughts and then take it from there. Denying that is just like trying to hide all your problems instead of dealing with them. It never ends well.

Blood is thicker than water and as both Demon Slayer and My Hero Academia show, when it’s shed, it can lead to disastrous consequences - both individually and collectively.

[the-kazoo-kid]

The Two Types of Goblincore

I’ll begin by saying that I’m a Jewish archaeologist, and one of my main areas of study is the pogroms of Eastern Europe during the beginning of the 20th century. This affects the way I think of goblincore in two major ways:

Goblins were used as a negative caricature of Jews to tother them and incite negative feelings and violence among non-news

I have been accused of only wanting to be an archaeologist so that I can dig up and hoard shiny things

I spend a lot of my time looking at images like this one. It’s an antisemetic political cartoon from 1898. 

Look at the crown, the long, hooked nose, and most importantly the clawed, webbed hands. His hands envelope the world, symbolizing the perceived universal greed of the Jew.

This stereotype of the greedy Jew didn’t originate in the 19th century either. It goes all the way back to the Middle Ages when Jews in Europe were banned from occupations other than banking. 

So now let’s talk about goblins in popular culture. First and foremost in my mind are J.K Rowling’s goblins who are portrayed as greedy, hoarding and-- you guessed it-- in charge of the money and treasure.

There are even physical similarities between J.K. Rowling’s goblins and the political cartoon above. Note the hooked nose and the hands. 

I was about eight when I read the first Harry Potter book. I remember bringing it to a synagogue event where one of the adults remarked about how uncomfortable the goblins made them. Before I was allowed to watch the movie my mother sat me down and explained what was problematic with those goblins and why.

Next up: LOTR

He has the crown and the hands, although not the nose, and while he bares less direct resemblance to that cartoon, this is still an example of antisemitism. This is a placeholder character for a Jew that is disgusting, hoarding wealth, and a direct antagonist to the main characters. 

Everquest 2:

(I found another image where this character was specifically labeled The Goblin Banker but tumblr wouldn’t allow me to upload it for whatever reason.) This goblin is so other that it’s not even recognizable as a person, and in fact in the game they’re classed as a Mob Race. Yikes. Additionally, Wikipedia describes them as “attempting to - unsuccessfully - forge gold coins, and yet they have no intention spending any of this money, they simply wish to 'have' it.” This goes along with a lot of the greed aspect of goblins and their obsession with hoarding.

So what do we do?

First, I want to say that just because these pieces of media (or any others) have these problematic aspects doesn’t mean that you have to stop consuming and enjoying them. If we never read books or watched movies or played games that were problematic we would back ourselves into a corner where nothing was permitted.

The important thing is to educate yourself to the point where you can recognize the negative caricature/stereotype in something that you come across, and to not create any new media containing the stereotype. 

But what if you really like goblins?

The good news is that this is the first, older kind of goblincore, but it’s not the only one out there. There’s a new wave happening that emphasizes the positive things without including the negative ones. These next examples are technically called trolls in their respective universes, but they really get the vibe that I’m going for.

Boxtrolls:

See? Shiny treasure thing, delight, and no malice. Admittedly the trolls in this movie are some funny looking creatures, but they don’t come across as perpetuating the negative Jewish stereotype to me.

Frozen:

Cute little guys made of stone and moss. They live peacefully, and when they encounter the protagonists they have a nice musical number and then dispense some wise advice. No greed, no bad intentions. Good for them.

(Again, these examples are both technically trolls but I think the idea comes through, especially since they’re so far from the large, lumbering brutes that are trolls in say... Harry Potter or LOTR.)

Now I’m going to hand this conversation over to @goblinblogging who is a Jew working on reclaiming and reworking the idea of what a goblin is and what a goblin does.

-Reid

Now, I know learning that something you’re doing could be problematic is scary! I also know that a ton of people have abandoned goblincore just because they learned of these stereotypes. 

However, you don’t have to abandon something you love! What you need to do is educate yourself and learn about why these things are harmful and learn what you can do to make sure you aren’t doing something harmful yourself! 

Let's start off with how this stereotype came around (Or at least, one way it originated.) In the book Knockers, Knackers, and Ghosts: Immigrant Folklore in the Western Mines, the author goes into detail about how European origins say the goblins of the mines were the ghosts of dead Jews, sentenced (in properly medieval anti-Jewish fashion) to perpetual restlessness for their supposed role in the crucifixion of Jesus. Which is where the “Goblins live in caves and mines” came from! 

So this explains that the ghosts of Jews became goblins because they were being punished for killing jesus. Already a pretty rough start! Now for common goblin appearances that are nothing but antisemitism in disguise. First, and most obvious, large, hooked, warted noses. I don’t really feel like I have to go into much detail about this one. Anyone who took history class in middle and high school should know about Hitler’s propaganda against jews and the depictions of their bulbous noses, often covered in warts. This caricature directly translates over to goblins having their predominant warted noses. Second, Let’s have a look at green skin. Hitler in particular loved to depict jews with green skin, or at the very least, in very green light so it turned their skin green. 

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Notice the green tint, the evil sneer, hooked nose, and pointed ears in this one! All very reminiscent of traits we commonly see in goblins. 

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 This last one is a movie poster “Suss the Jew” produced by Terra Film at the behest of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and considered one of the most antisemitic films of all time. Notice the green skin! 

 Next is horns and teeth. Hitler in particular would depict jews with devil’s horns hidden under their Kippah (also referred to in Yiddish as a yarmulke, or less frequently as a koppel.) He’d also just depict them outright as demons. 

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This one is Ukranian. Translated means “Satan has taken off his mask” Notice how “satan” has huge teeth and horns, red skin, with the star of David carved into his forehead. Also notice how his jewish mask has a large nose.

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This one is from Russia (1919), a caricature of Leon Trotsky, who was viewed as a symbol of Jewish Bolshevism. Notice the red skin and pointed ears. Also notice how he’s sitting above the people down below (who are sitting on skeletons and bones) symbolizing the Jew’s greed, which we’ll get into later.

And then there’s this one, where you can see (white) people inside of the Jew’s mouth, you can also see horrendously sharp teeth crushing them. Also pay attention to the large nose and pointed ears. I just remembered that I forgot to cover another very important anti-jewish facial feature, which is that many jews in propaganda have dark beady eyes and drooping eyelids. These are things you can see for yourself in the images above!

Next, we’re moving on to greed. This one in particular hits me close to home. I’ve heard the phrase “Jewing me out of my money” too many times to count. Or alternately, “Don’t be a Jew” when the other person doesn’t think that I’m giving them enough of what they want. (Could be money, could even be sweets. The first time I heard this phrase I was a little kid and I had a bag of skittles. I wanted to share with everyone but I still wanted to have enough for me to eat myself. I was passing out handfuls when my friend’s older brother (he was a teen) didn’t like how much I gave him. He said to me, “Come on, don’t be a Jew, give me some more skittles”. I didn’t understand and when I asked my mom what it meant later she was horrified.) Jews, and their caricatures, have almost always been viewed as greedy and power hungry. As @whalefromwales said above me, Jews in Europe used to be banned from any job besides banking. 

We also have images like this from WWII: 

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Anyone who has taken any class where the Holocaust was talked about should be able to recognize this image, The Eternal Jew. He has money in one hand, which is reached out to demand more - he’s also looking at the money, and a whip in his other hand. In his arm, he holds the whole country of Germany.

Image source

There is also this one. A jew, tinged with red, weighs a man’s life against a large pile of money. Notice also how he’s looking at the money - not the man. 

And this one should also be easy to recognize. It reads “The Jews - A People of Contagion!” A city burns in the background as a jewish man sits atop a pile of bones counting his money. Notice the bulbous, hooked, nose, black eyes with drooping eyelids, and large hands! Hitler depicted jews this way (and as goblins) in order to segregate us. “Us VS Them”. “We are the Good Human Beings and Jews are monsters!” in order to make it easy for him to begin committing the atrocities that he did! It never happened overnight, there were key stepping stones that built up to concentration camps. One of those was “Jews aren’t really people, so it’s okay that we’re doing this to them. We’re doing it to save us, the Good Christian Germans.”  

So what does all of this mean? Well, first and foremost, it means that you have to be careful how you depict your goblins. How? When drawing your goblinsonas or goblin ocs, stay away from drawing them with huge, hooked, and warted noses, don’t make their skin green or red (personally, I prefer grey skin for goblins.) If your goblin has sharp teeth, don’t make them huge and obvious. Because modern goblins are fair folk, it’s difficult to depict them without pointed ears, but try not to exaggerate the proportions.  

Behavior: Stop with the “greedy little goblin” thing. That DIRECTLY comes from jewish stereotypes. Your Goblins are allowed to collect shiny things they find, but don’t make them greedy about it! Have your goblin share what they collect, make it a community effort. Sharing the things you love is way better than being miserly anyhow, and sharing more represents what we as goblins should want in our community! Also, be careful with your goblins being terrors. Yes, there are usually evil beings in every single race (whether mythological or real) but just be really really careful. Hitler loved to depict jews eating the Good Germans(™) or terrorizing communities. So even if your goblin is an evil one, be really really careful and be sure to educate yourself first so you’re not just perpetuating the same tired shit that Hitler did.Collecting coins. 

Now, this has been a huge topic of discourse lately. Coins are shiney! I understand why people would want to collect them. Hell, I have some awesome 50 cent pieces and gold dollars in my collection. You just can't depict  yourself or your goblin character collecting only coins and being very greedy with them. That’s literally doing nothing but echoing the same propaganda that Hitler used against us. Collect them all you want, but if I see “Greedy little goblin hoarding coins all for themselves” I swear I’m gonna hit the fan. To clarify, you can absolutely show off you coin collection in the goblin tags, just be careful how you frame it. “I’m really interested in history, so I collect old coins because I think they’re neat” is waaaaaay different then “Horrible littel crecher is greedy for shiney monies” (That last quote is something I’ve SEEN in the tags, luckily op was just completely unaware of why that was so wrong and they removed the caption after they were educated.) 

 So please, enjoy being into goblincore. Enjoy the culture and the fantasy. Goblincore is about appreciating the things about us that may be depicted as “weird” or “ugly”. Goblincore is a safe haven for neurodivergent people (I’m Autistic!) and also Trans and other LGBTQIA+ people! It’s a culture for appreciating nature, collecting things that may not be seen as normal, and sharing these things with other people. It’s a culture where you shouldn’t be ashamed to be who you are or afraid to get dirty. Goblincore is a support network for the weirder folks where we strive to uplift one another. Goblincore is wonderful and I’ve been so impressed at how welcoming everyone is! Especially on tumblr! Before the discourse happened, I was sure that goblincore was one of the kindest communities on tumblr. However, I understand why the discourse happened, and goyim in the goblincore tag really did need to be educated, but that doesn’t mean you have to leave! So be sure to educate yourself and be aware of how your actions could negatively affect folks. Listen to other Jewish people and be mindful of what they say. Some Jews are very uncomfortable with goblincore, and for very good reason! And I do not claim to speak for all Jews with this post. 

I am trying to reclaim the word goblin for use by any person who wants the label. I no longer want these fantasy creatures associated with such a beautiful and vibrant culture of people. Goblins are very interesting as a fantasy race, but the negative stereotypes do nothing but hurt real life Jewish people. Which is why I’m hoping that folks will read this post and realize what behaviors and depictions of goblins are wrong and harmful. Also, tag your goblincore appropriately! Again, many Jewish people are uncomfortable with goblincore because of antisemitism that has happened in their past. I’ve been compared to a goblin many times! So keep your goblincore in just the goblincore tags. There are many overlaps between goblincore and other micro communities on tumblr (Such as crowcore, cottagecore, naturecore, and vulture culture) but be mindful of what you’re putting in those tags. Most vulture culture people hate us goblins cuz we put pictures of dirt or “I’m just a smol crecher” in their tags, and I don’t blame them! Vulture culture is only for the remains of dead animals, and dead animal remains should be the only things added to those tags. So fellow goblins, I’m going to end this post with a sincere thank you for reading, be mindful of your actions, and most of all, HAVE FUN with goblincore! 

Here is where you should be able to read Knockers, Knackers, and Ghosts for free if you want.

TLDR: This is what we, as Jewish people, mean when we say that goblins are based off of negative stereotypes of jews. This is also why some jews get really upset at goblincore, however, there are many ways to participate in goblincore without using harmful stereotypes! So please, use this post to educate yourself so you can both be good goblins and good Jewish allies.

- @goblinblogging

[alaffy]

Iron Man

I’m kind of (slowly) go back through the MCU and just wanted to record some of my thoughts on the movies and tv shows.

I thought the first few minutes of Iron Man was the perfect way to introduce Tony.  Just through those few scenes we are able to see exactly who he was before he was captured, and it’s done quickly enough that we can get right to the plot of the movie.  

Of course, Rhodey is played by Terrance Howard in this film.  And Howard is a fine actor and plays the character well.  That being said, I do feel that Don Cheadle works better in this part.  Rhodey is supposed to be this character that is trying to reign in Tony.  Of the two actors, Howard just seems like he’s more likely to join in.  I think that’s because Howard looks much younger than he actually is (in real life he’s four years young then Downey, but in the movie, he looks several years younger).  Anyway, this is just personal preference more than anything else.

I honestly forgot Colson was in this movie.  I thought he was introduced in the second one.  Also, I forgot the group that captured Tony is the Ten Rings.  I wonder what references (if any) will be made in Shang-Chi.  It’s too bad we didn’t get more of an Iron Man vs. Ten Rings conflict in the MCU.

Pepper Potts is an example of how a character can be used as a damsel in distress without making her that type of character.  Pepper Potts is smart, independent, and brave.  She has just as much personality as Tony.  She is not there just to be rescued.  Now, she finds herself in some moments where she does need to be rescued (one of which she ends up saving herself), but it’s not because of some sort of weakness.  She is literally trying to do the right thing, but the events around her change so rapidly that she ends up in situations she needs help to get out of. For example, when she goes with SHIELD to arrest Stane, there is no reason for her to expect him to show up in a giant armor suit.  But he does, and suddenly she finds herself in danger. And Tony comes to her rescue.

And speaking of Stane (as well as Tony)…so, one thing Marvel has does quite often is make the villain an evil businessman.  All three Iron Man movies, both Ant-Man movies, and the second Spiderman movie, all businessman who are “Evil” for “reasons” usually greed.  And in these cases these villains are usually one dimensional and kind of meh.  Stane, while he definitely doesn’t rank up with the better Marvel villains, is the one time I think this works.  The whole point of Iron Man is that Tony Stark, a weapons dealer, believes what he’s doing is for the good of mankind.  That he’s helping the good guys.  Tony then gets one hell of a wakeup call in that the world is not that black and white.  And that his weapons are doing just as much harm, if not more, than good.  So, Tony realizes that he needs to take back control of his company (because it’s clear he doesn’t know everything that’s going on in there) and the first step to that is to stop weapon’s manufacturing.  So if Tony, the hero, is a businessman saying that his company needs to “do better,” then it does make sense (in the first movie) that the villain is going to be his opposite (in other words, a business man who is a war profiteer).  And it absolutely would make sense that the profiteer would be from Starks own company, because they definitely wouldn’t want Stark Industries to change.  But I don’t think it was something that needed to be repeated in all three movies, or at least find a way to make it different. Because each time Marvel has done the evil businessman, it has felt like we’re rehashing Iron Man 1. Although I do question why Stane, who plays the part of the concerned father figure to Tony while trying to quietly usurp him, would tell Tony he locked him out of the company in front of all those press people?  Seems a bit of a risk.

I think the first Iron Man works really well.  It’s very much a strong debut of several characters. And it absolutely starts the journey that we will see Tony go through over the different movies.

[kazeofthemagun]

Kaze - Character Tropes

[A thing I compiled for fun for my portrayal of Kaze and all my headcanons. There is so much stuff on TVTropes that I may keep adding as I go. He does have a page on it but it's lackluster for my taste XD but here it is.]

[Putting all this crap under a read more cuz that is long.]

Purpose-Driven Immortality / Regenerative Immortality - as long as the prophecy holds and Chaos still exists, Kaze cannot die. When his body is killed, he comes back through regeneration, centered on the Magun.

Soul Jar - the Magun, specifically, his heart that had been transplanted into it and bound him to the Gun Dragon sealed in the Demon Weapon. The vial is warded by very potent magic - supposedly, only another Unlimited has the power to break it.

Touched by Vorlons - granted immortality by Bahamut, the Gun Dragon, upon being accepted as Magun's prophecized perfect wielder - Unlimited.

Cybernetic Mythical Beast - the Gun Dragon and how he came to be - made from the slain Bahamut's corpse and infused with tech, animated by his still-living soul. As such, all Summon Spirits that come from the Gun Dragon and his Magun are also biomechanical in nature.

Dracolich - Gun Dragon is technically undead, while also reinforced with machinery to create a "perfect Weapon". He's forged from parts of his own corpse, bones showing through such as the arms, legs, exposed spine.

Draconic Abomination - Gun Dragon.

Dragons are Divine - Gun Dragon as the Windarian God of Destruction - the title gets passed on to Kaze as his chosen and vessel. Also War God.

BFG - Magun is fucking massive.

Bling-Bling-Bang! - Magun seems to be made of gold, but is really composed of an unidentified alien metal. Shiny tho.

He Who Hunts Monsters - fanatical levels of obsession with hunting everything Chaotic. (His title of choice being literally the Hunter of Chaos, Hunter for friends.) Definitely partially a personal vendetta - his whole world was devoured and his own mind was ripped nigh to shreds - but also a purpose felt strongly through the connection with Magun/Gun Dragon, a Demon Weapon forged specifically to combat Chaos that activates only at its scent, pre-repaired verse. Almost leads to a Van Helsing Hate Crime against Ai and Yu - luckily, Kaze is not that merciless and spares the kids for wanting to live as humans and not demons. All in all, Kaze/Gun Dragon are a cosmic force that opposes Chaos till the end of time. Also Married To The Job.

Collateral Damage - piss him off and you're gonna go. Alongside everything in approximately a 5 mile radius of where you're standing. (Thankfully he learns more restraint with time, attempting to minimize casualties where possible. Still, if ending Chaos requires sacrifices.. so be it.) Probably also Inferred Holo//caust in FFU. He had blown up huge chunks of land to end his foes. Likely killed people or at least animals :/

The Stoic - His personality archetype.

Weak to Magic - Blue Elenium, a special type of water magic that corrupts Soil. As an extension, Kaze is harmed more by water magic in general, seeing as the energy messes with Soil flow.

Trauma Button - having his hand held/touched suddenly. It brings painful memories of his sister, Aura, who died holding his hand. Under Chaos' influence, it was one of the only memories Kaze still had of her, rendering the trigger particularly intense and sending him into dissociative episodes. Furthermore, a fear of Gaudian flowers - the blue phantom flowers that herald the arrival of Chaos. Suffers from visions and nightmares of a very gory nature that involve said flowers.

Shell-Shocked Veteran - of the War with Chaos.

Loners are Freaks - he is an introvert born to a society that abhors weakness as disgraceful and sinful. Has trouble connecting with people - but he also (mostly) doesn't need to. Due to the nature of his quest, accepts his fate as the one who will never fit in anymore. "I am the monster who hunts monsters so that you may sleep at night human. It is a thankless job."

Beware the Quiet Ones - his silence precedes a storm. When he speaks, his words boom as thunder - be they a roar or a whisper. This man wastes no words.

Aloof Ally - self-explanatory.

Tranquil Fury - most of the time. Also, Rage Breaking Point applies when facing Kumo mid-show. Except Kumo promptly wrecks him, without much effort involved. It is only later (After-series) that Kaze recovers most of his power and sanity, and gains equal footing to his rival.

Firing One-Handed - can only do so this way. Only has one hand 99% of the time, the other is bound to the Magun and is reformed only to fire it.

Guns vs Swords - him and Kumo - Demon Gunman vs Demon Swordsman. Gun Dragon vs Sword Dragons.

Hand Cannon - Magun, to a lesser degree Orthrus.

I call it "Vera" - with Orthrus, named after the patron shepherd dog spirit of the sun's blood-haired children.

Improbable Aiming Skills - especially with the Gun Demon sight.

Overheating - the Magun when too many summonings are performed too quickly. As an extension of it, Kaze himself. May result in a death via Spontaneous Human Combustion.

Sawed-off Shotgun - Orthrus, double barreled.

Sniper Pistol - Orthrus.

Trigger Happy - self-explanatory.

Ancestral Weapon - the Magun, passed down the line of the Windarian summoner prodigies.

Made of Indestructium - the Magun, which cannot be broken by anyone short of another Unlimited.

Living Weapon - the Magun. Also, Legendary Weapon.

Shapeshifter Weapon - the Magun, a part of Kaze's body - gauntlet, windmill, gun. Replaces his right arm.

Only the Chosen May Wield - the Magun.

They Call Him "Sword" - except, gun. Kaze views himself as more of a weapon than a person at times. Makes sense, considering he is one - his true body is the Magun, which houses his heart, binds his soul and consciousness, and serves as the core from which his regenerative immortalitysets to work.

Nemesis Weapon - Kaze's Magun to Kumo's Maken. While forged for the same purpose, they govern conflicting energies. Also, Sword vs Gun.

Weapon Wields You - the Magun to Kaze with its funky laser-guided teleportation, always going after Chaos. Oh, Chaos' signature is underneath the ocean? Too bad.

Equippable Ally - Kaze, after reducing himself to the Magun and having Kumo and Lisa wield him to bring out the Gun Dragon.

Human Weapon - Kaze, literally.

Become Your Weapon - Kaze with the Magun.

This is a Drill - the Magun's Soil engine that activates Soil through spiral motion. Combined with a wholeass windmill.

Spectacular Spinning - the Magun's windmill. Plainly put, Spin to Deflect Stuff. Also, Blow You Away applies due to the Tornado Move.

Deadly Rotary Fan - the Magun's windmill used offensively.

Swirling Dust - Soil Spiral on the winds generated by the Magun.

Transformation Is A Free Action - seems to be the case in the series. May not be the case always.

Mechanical Lifeforms - Gun Dragon and all its summons.

Badass Cape - of course.

When Things Spin, Science Happens - the Magun's spinning shenanigans empower Soil.

Stock Footage - the summonings. He is become budget, Destroyer of Chaos. Also Transformation Sequence. Guy has a routine.

Running Gag - his spontaneous appearances, seemingly from nowhere.

Emergency Transformation - soul reforged into a Soil bullet, summoning himself as the Gun Dragon.

Elemental Powers - all the summon spirits.

Soul Power - Soil.

Soul-Powered Engine - the Magun/Gun Dragon.

Merger of Souls - Kaze with all of Magun's leftover Soil, as well as Bahamut's soul that animates Gun Dragon. Also Many Spirits Inside Of One - Endless White as the confluence of all the colors.

Emphatic Weapon - the Magun has a mind of its own, considering it is a vessel for the Gun Dragon.

Shoot the Hostage Taker - with Soljashy. Goddammit, Lisa.

Theme Music Power Up - Demon Gun Dissolve and Demon Gun Shot.

Black Blood - Kaze's blood, corrupted by the Magun's smoke. His earring, made of his own red blood mixed with tree sap, is a reminder of when he was still fully human. Technically also Machine Blood - it serves as a coolant for Magun and catalyst for Soil. Furthermore, My Blood Runs Hot - whenever Magun malfunctions. May be dangerous, as already mentioned.

Important Haircut - Kaze wears his hair long specifically as a "fuck you" to Windarian folk beliefs related to the blood hair curse.

Dark-Skinned Redhead - self-explanatory.

Death Glare - his usual go-to method of communication.

Icy Blue Eyes - a cold stare.

Eyes Do Not Belong There - Gun Dragon, with four eyes on the chest and one on the belly in addition to the four already on its head, also, many other summons, such as Phoenix or Raiden.

Glowing Eyes of Doom - Kaze's special Gun Demon crosshairs eyes, for when the time comes to be particularly scary.

True Sight - Kaze is capable of seeing through most basic illusions due to an extremely sharp spirit sense. Can see certain types of ghosts. Also Supernatural Sensitivity.

Cool Shades - wears a dark lens over his left eye to minimize distraction via Orthtus' muzzle flash. Also, Sunglasses At Night.

Megane - lol.

Lean And Mean - also lol.

Jerkass - he is. Sometimes Jerk With A Heart Of Gold.

Facial Markings - the wave on his nose and the solar marks under his eye.

Power Tattoo - the Embrace (Gun Dragon's claws upon the shoulders.)

Fingerless Gloves - wears an archery glove that covers the pointing finger and thumb only.

Eccentric Artist - also outside of battle. Primarily a poet, draws sometimes.

Being Tortured Makes You Evil - by Chaos, after being possessed. Returned to being good-aligned after some time.

Brainwashed And Crazy - by Chaos, to obsessively hunt Kumo. Now recovered. Also Mind Rape.

Laser-Guided Amnesia - his memory loss and subsequent insane pursuit of Kumo mid-show.

Curse - according to his people's folklore, the unusual color of his hair.

Stress-Induced Mental Voices - happens a lot, bothin hallucinations and the Soil speaking.

Heroic Willpower - to stand strong against Chaos.

Dark and Troubled Past - everything about him. Everything. Also Born Unlucky - cursed from the start.

Sole Survivor - of Windaria's fall.

Last of His Kind - last Windarian.

Meaningful Name - Black Wind.

Rite Of Passage Name Change - from the nickname "Wolf" to his current name, as granted by his clan.

Driven to Madness - first somewhat by his pursuit of power, then more so by Chaos.

No Medication For Me - good luck getting him to medicate for his issues. Chances are it would not work anyway due to his altered nature.

There Are No Therapists - on Windaria.

Good Thing You Can Heal - gets injured or killed multiple times during his quest. Good thing he's immortal, right?

I Can Still Fight! - frequently, especially when Kumo is somehow involved.

Organ Dodge - his heart is no longer in his chest.

Wound That Will Not Heal - still feels a type of phantom pain where his heart once was - the surgery scar is the only scar that refuses to heal.

An Arm And A Leg - the Magun essentially removed his right arm below the elbow.

Arm Cannon - the Magun.

Artificial Limbs - the Magun, replacing Kaze's right arm.

Handicapped Badass - despite possessing only one hand (when Magun not thawed).

Don't You Dare Pity Me! - Kaze and most of the Wind Warriors' culture in general.

All Are Equal In Death - as Soil.

Anti-Hero - also Pragmatic Hero.

The Cynic - self-explanatory.

Badass Creed - “From the Glory of Death, for the Glory of Life.”

Battle Cry - “Soil is my power!” Also Catchphrase and Calling Your Attacks.

Pre-Asskicking One-Liner - sometimes. "What is the matter with the Magun? Why won't you use it?"

Giving Someone the Pointer Finger - “The Soil Charge Triad to use on you has been decided!”

Big Brother Instinct - around Aura.

Parental Abandonment - never knew his parents, grew up on the streets as an orphan.

Summon Magic - Soil-Adherents train in Soil summonings - the Magun allows Kaze control over all summons, except ones of Mist.

Summoning Ritual - the Soil Charge Triad.

Offscreen Teleportation - played for comedic value. Is actually Soil Spiral teleportation, though.

Forced Sleep - induced by Kumo, causing Kaze to slumber for twelve years. Sleep, bitch!

Mage Marksman - self-explanatory.

Warrior Poet - "The gilding of a blood indomitable... True Sanguine."

Religion is Magic - the Soil poetry is sacred to Windarian summoners.

Dark Messiah - as the Dark Unlimited, Hunter of Chaos.

Duelling Messiahs - him and Kumo, who fits the light end of the spectrum. But will Makenshi's purity serve him? Hmm...

In Love With Your Carnage - You can kill efficiently and potentially kick his ass? Hot. Also Power is Sexy.

Magitek - the Magun and all its summons.

Human Alien - Windarians, Kaze's species. Also Proud Warrior Race.

Martyrdom Culture - the Missionary caste Soil-martyring for the Adherents.

[prince-of-elsinore]

On Gunslingers, the "March of Progress," and Leaving a Legacy

An analysis of themes in Supernatural Season 12

In a previous post rambling about season 12, I stumbled onto the idea of American Hunters vs. the British Men of Letters as a classic Western set-up: the lone gunslinger who lives by his wits, skill, grit, and personal moral code, vs. the advance of "civilization" colonizing and "taming" the West, effectively pushing out the gunslinger and making him obsolete. The land becomes a more inhabitable place (for white settlers), but with the comforts and safety of civil society come society's norms and mores, which leave no space for the shades of gray in which the vigilante gunslinger operates. If we take the BMOL mission at face value, they are attempting the same sort of colonization of "wild" (monster-infested) America. Britain is "civilized" (monster-free) thanks to the BMOL, whereas in the US, lone operator hunters (gunslingers) rove the country, sometimes saving people, but not all the people, and always operating according to their personal judgment, faulty as it may be (see Gordon, Roy and Walt, Martin, to name a few). Leaving aside the question of whether the BMOL's goal of ridding the country of monsters is realistic (the US in not an island like Britain), their aim, if achieved, would undoubtedly make the US a safer country for its human residents.

(I'm aware that this analogy is problematic for equating monsters with native inhabitants who must be wiped out or assimilated, and humans with white colonizers. This is an implication that the show itself makes. This post isn't about the problematic and ethically inconsistent portrayal of monsters in Supernatural, though, which is a huge topic in and of itself, so I acknowledge that it is an issue, but one I don't aim to address here.)

What the US would lose if the BMOL succeeded is the "rugged individualism" of the hunter ethos, and the nuances that their personal codes allow--a second chance for the psychic Magdas and werewolf Claire Novaks of the world. The show, of course, wants us to side with the hunters, the good ol' fashioned gunslingers. It makes it easy (too easy) for us to do by presenting the BMOL as caricaturish villains with a cruelly rigid code. This has the effect of aligning the audience against the "march of progress" (just as many Westerns implicitly do--therein lies the genre's subversive potential).

Let's take a closer look at 12x14 "The Raid" in this light. The Alpha vampire has been drawn out of retirement by the BMOL's meddling:

Alpha: I'm old. I like living quietly. You've been making my life awfully noisy lately. You've killed so many of my children. I've seen your work. In England, I didn't get involved because, well, it's England. But America, yes. America is my home. And it's time that you get off my lawn.

Clearly, America holds a privileged position in monsters' minds, or at least in this particular very, very old monster's mind. It is still the "Wild West," and it is "home" for monsters. No reason is given for this; it's safe to say it's a purely ideological impulse on the part of the show.

This exchange between Sam and the Alpha follows:

Sam: My family and I, we kill vamps when they get out of line. And you've let us. Alpha: I have many children, Sam. What's one, two, here or there? Sam: Exactly. So? Let my mom and me go. We'll walk away, go back to the way things were, to the way things are supposed to be. Hunters and vampires, cops and robbers, a fair fight.

"Cowboys and Indians" could just as easily fill in for "cops and robbers" there--in fact, the obvious absence of that analogy is a ringing silence. The show is skirting dangerously close around the edges of its uncomfortable premise.

What I want to draw attention to, though, is Sam's assertion that this is a "fair fight." What he's proposing is a return to the status quo, where some people, by default, will die. Of course, Sam is bluffing--he does plan to kill the Alpha here and now, hardly "fighting fair" (hm, just as European settlers made so many underhanded deals with Native Americans)--and at the end of the episode he does team up with the BMOL. By the end of the season, though, with the hunters uniting to drive out the British invaders, this is precisely the status quo the Americans are fighting for: one where many people who don't deserve will die at the hands of monsters, but perhaps a few others will live whom the BMOL would have killed. The protracted struggle between humans and monsters is thereby positioned as a sort of natural symbiosis, part of the circle of life. This allows for the perpetuation of the mythic "Wild West," which is necessary for the very existence of the show, and especially for the hunters to be seen as the "good guys." The show convinces us to reject "civilization" and embrace vigilantism as better than the alternative. It's impossible to pinpoint this ideology as exclusively conservative or progressive; it has implications in either direction. The world of hunters and monsters was never a perfect metaphor, after all, but one thing is clear in season 12: hunters are the heroes.

This brings me to another central theme of the season: legacy. After season 11, it seems that the show wanted to "correct course." Season 11 is entirely about Sam and Dean cleaning up a mess (the Darkness) they directly caused, after all, and after that narrowly-averted apocalypse, it's fair to ask the question, "do Sam and Dean really do more good than harm"? Season 12 gives us a resounding "yes," over and over again. The message is that hunting, for all its hardships and messiness, is worth it.

In 12x06 "Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox" (which I've written about previously) we get a taste of the sort of legacy Sam and Dean are making for themselves. It might come as a surprise, after seeing hunters hunt down Sam and Dean in previous seasons (Gordon and Kubrick in season 2, Roy and Walt in season 5), that other hunters now welcome Sam and Dean in their midsts and even revere them. One might rightfully ask, what would they do if they knew Sam and Dean and their codependency nearly caused another apocalypse not too long ago? Inconsistencies aside, it's apparent that Sam and Dean are appreciated as something like heroes in their own world. In the episode, they share this exchange:

Sam: Did you know people tell stories about us? Dean: Yeah. Apparently we’re a little bit legendary. Sam: Yeah, but, I mean, so was Asa. Then a hunt went bad, and he ended up hanging from a tree, alone in the woods.

Sam still wonders, characteristically, if the heroism is worth it. But in 12x09 "First Blood," he's the one with this iconic line:

SAM: We’re the guys that save the world.

This is a statement of identity, in response to the question "who are you?" Sam might as well say, "we're the heroes."

In 12x11 "Regarding Dean," Dean has his moment to affirm that their line of work is worth its toll. Talking about the curse that made Dean lose his memory, Sam makes this comment:

Sam: Some of the things we've done, we've had this weight for... forever. And seeing it gone, uh, you looked happy. Dean: Huh. Well, look, was it nice to drop our baggage? Yeah, maybe. Hell, probably. But it wasn't just the crap that got lost. I mean, it was everything. It was us, it was what we do, you know? All of it. So... that's what being happy looks like? I think I'll pass.

Again, Dean is making a statement of identity. The Winchesters are what they do, and what they do is the right thing, and that is worth giving up happiness for.

One common complaint about season 12 is that it heroizes Sam and Dean too much. They were never meant to be the Big Damn Heroes, the "guys who save the world," as if it's a day job--they're meant to be the underdogs, the messy humans doing their best, sometimes failing, but rising to the occasion when it counts most, despite the terrible costs. Perhaps this is true, and perhaps this season does go overboard in trying to smooth over the messy cracks in the heroic facade. The show could have done better than to make the heroes and villains so black and white, certainly. Perhaps the show does lose some of its identity in erasing the moral ambiguities that always made it so intriguing.

There are moments, however, that are still thematically resonant with the show as a whole--more understated moments that remember the bigger picture. One such moment is when legacy is explicitly addressed in 12x18 "The Memory Remains":

Dean: What do you think our legacy's gonna be? When we're gone, I mean, after all the stuff we've done, you think folks will remember us? You know, like, a hundred years from now? Sam: No. Dean: Oh, that's nice. Sam: Well, I mean... Guys like us, we're not exactly the type of people they write about in history books, you know? Dean: Mm. Sam: But the people we saved, they're our legacy. And they'll remember us and then I guess... We'll eventually fade away, too. That's fine, because we left the world better than we found it, you know.

This exchange presents Sam and Dean's heroism on a human scale. They're not the guys that save the whole world--even if they did do that, a few times. They're the guys that save individual human lives, time and again. That's who they are, and it's what matters most. Sam's right: in the world of Supernatural, few people 100 years on will know the names of Sam and Dean Winchester. Perhaps a few hunter stories will still be passed around, and maybe a new resident of the bunker will piece together some old information. But everyone that the Winchesters saved will remember them for the rest of their lives, and those very lives they get to live are the Winchesters' legacy. Once those people pass away, Sam and Dean will fade from memory, but for them, it was never about being remembered; it was always about doing good--a common aim to which they are equally committed, at this point. Sam and Dean's greatest redemption has never been in saving the world (often from problems they themselves caused), but in saving people, and this holds true to the very end of the show.

[sometimes-love-is-enough]

do you have any spicy hot takes you wanna drop 👀👀?? i will drop one as well, i think that everyone got carried away with the whole sympathetic and unsympathetic stuff -💫

okay so i read the first sentence and i was like ‘fuck yes time to talk about the sympathetic/unsympathetic thing’ and then i read the rest of it and yeah okay so we’re on the same page here. i have a feeling this is going to get extensive so if you don’t want to hear me complaining about stuff that you may or may not like don’t go reading under the cut. Also it's not going to be very coherent

disclaimer: i am not trying to police the fandom or trying to tell anyone that they can’t write stuff. i do my best to stay in my lane and read/consume content that i want to. these are just. feelings i have.

so on the one hand i sort of understand where the whole concept sprung from. it’s hard to write interesting longform stories without a villain of some sort, it’s not as if there’s all that many characters in the first place, and sometimes using the Dragon Witch doesn’t quite cut it. and honestly if you take away the whole ‘they’re all part of the same person’ thing it would’ve been pretty easy to assume that Deceit was the bad guy when he first showed up. he went the whole ‘ominous smirking, evil laughter’ route because he’s a dramatic little bastard, and some people were like 'my son, I love him' and others went 'evil man! Evil! He's planning bad things' and on a purely mechanical level having tags that distinguish people who think a character is good vs people who think a character is evil is a good thing, it helps you distinguish content you want to look at from the content that you don't!

HOWEVER. I think the idea of characters being 'sympathetic' or 'unsympathetic' in the way that this fandom uses those terms is innately flawed. It's black-and-white thinking and it veers close to the whole puritan thing that tumblr is so fond of. And in most cases 'unsympathetic' is just an excuse to write characters as toxic, abusive, and just downright cruel without having to explain yourself. Which is. Hm. And also just lazy writing.

This bit might be tmi but: Patton actually used to be my favorite Sanders Sides character. But back when i initially got into the fandom, I hadn't quite worked out how to filter the content I looked through yet, and I just kept seeing this... constant stream of stuff involving him being abusive to the others in a way that was hm how shall i say this. Uncomfortably familiar. especially with a lot of religious guilt themes. It's not anyone's fault, precisely, but it did tinge a lot of my fandom experience, and it maaaay be why i'm not great at writing him. Doesn't matter. The point is... There wasn't a point. I'm just still bitter about that and wanted to mention it. Maybe i'm angrier about this than i thought i was. Let's not talk about that. Let's move on with this discussion.

You'll notice that i used Janus as an example up there at the top. I can't be sure (and actually it grimly fascinates me so if anybody who's been around here longer than I have has any info on this send it over, I'd love to know) but I think that Deceit's appearance in CLBG may have marked the beginning of this whole unsympathetic/sympathetic split in the fandom. It seems a safe enough bet, anyway, especially since the earliest example I can find of any fic being tagged 'unsympathetic' in the AO3 archive is from 4th February 2018, literally the day after CLBG went up. (damn, guys, moving fast). 

The first occurrences of the 'sympathetic' tag crop up about a month later. Tumblr is impossible to search so I don't know if there was any discussion about terms, or if it was just a kind of snowball effect with people seeing the tags and tagging their own fics as appropriate (and this is a fascinating phenomena in itself!) but either way - i have absolutely no idea what happened to make people go from 'we're divided on whether this character who presents himself a villain is actually doing bad and detrimental things to the other sides/thomas/the world as a whole/innocent puppies' to 'hang on what if the other sides were kicking puppies also?'

So now this has turned from a rant about terminology into me being genuinely curious about this whole thing. I will put the rant on pause while I go scour AO3 to see when the first occurrences of the tags popped up. Please hold.

Okay. I'm going to ignore the unsympathetic tags for anyone who's not a side because i don't hate myself nearly that much (but uh for the record. There is a part of this fandom that thinks the LITERAL CONCEPT OF SLEEP IS EVIL and i'm not sure if i should be impressed or horrified. What? What???)

All of these numbers are up-to-date as of 17/06/2020, which is when I'm posting this. I'm probably not going to update that, so keep that in mind if you're reading this in the future.

In order of chronological appearance:

Unsympathetic Janus ('Deceit' at the time, of course) - first appears 12 March 2018, 191 works Unsympathetic Roman - first appears 10 February 2019, 102 works Unsympathetic Logan - first appears 24 June 2019, 59 works Unsympathetic Patton - first appears 2 July 2019, 228 works Unsympathetic Remus - first appears 17 July, 2019, 121 works Unsympathetic Virgil - first appears 31 July 2019, 71 works

...I genuinely don't know what I expected.

The fandom was much slower to spark with Unsympathetic Remus content after he first showed up, which is kind of interesting. Unless they just didn't bother to tag it? Like, I'm working with the assumption that everyone's tagging all of their content, which might not always be the case

I thought there'd be so much more Janus and Remus-tagged fics than there actually are.

It does not surprise me that Patton has the most in this category. It makes me sad but it doesn't surprise me. Why are you guys so intent on making him evil

And on the opposite side of the sympathy spectrum (similarly chronological):

Sympathetic Janus - first appears 7 March 2018, 1920 works Sympathetic Remus - first appears 2 July 2019, 965 works Sympathetic Patton - first appears 31 July 2019, 71 works Sympathetic Virgil - first appears 1 August 2019, 69 works (nice) Sympathetic Logan - first appears 8 August 2019, 41 works Sympathetic Roman - first appears 20 August, 56 works

It's actually wild that 'Sympathetic [Janus]' seems to have appeared several days between Unsympathetic Jan made any appearance.

There were several Remus fics that were backtagged to before DWIT was released. I ignored them because it was throwing this off a bit. there may be other problems to this effect in any of the other stats, but i’m too lazy to go back and check those all one-by-one

Sympathetic tags in general seem to be used as, hm, there's a word here i can't quite think of. Basically, 'Sympathetic' seems to be the default setting for characters like Virgil, Patton, Roman, Logan (the 'Light Sides', although i take issue with that terms as well. This isn't the time for that, though. Statistics!!) which 'Unsympathetic' used to be the default for Janus and Remus. That's become slightly more elastic of late, though. Basically if you're using the Sympathetic tag for anyone who's not a 'Dark Side' you're usually doing it to make a point of something. e.g. if you have other sides who aren't usually unsympathetic as such and you're trying to clarify that yes, these specific ones are Okay. Or if you're just being thorough. Anyway that's why LAMP seem to have less works tagged as Symp than the other two.

All the sympathetic tags for non-Janus characters seem to have sprung up in quick succession over a short period of months! I have no idea what this means but it's strange and cool to look at

If you're wondering about the discrepancy between this information and my earlier note that the first appearance of 'unsympathetic' as an AO3 tag was the day after CLBG came out - that fic in question had a general 'unsympathetic dark sides' tag, no specific tags mentioned.

Okay statistics segue over. The only point of that apart from scientific curiosity was to try to puzzle out where the fuck this all stemmed from. I still have no answers.

I need you all to understand that 'Sympathetic' no longer looks like a real word to me.

So. Remember how i mentioned how this fandom managed to make unsympathetic!Remy/Sleep a thing? Yeah. That baffles me. I haven't seen unsympathetic Dr Picani anywhere yet but I know it's only a matter of time and that lowkey horrifies me. But that's not really the most baffling thing because, uh

Well. earlier this week I accidentally stumbled into a corner of tumblr that's dedicated to unsympathetic character Thomas content. If you're a fan of that, i'd advise you to click away from this post now because i'm about to get very angry about that and i don't want to make you upset. Thank you.

What the fuck. literally all of the posts in this corner of tumblr are about c!thomas abusing the sides and being a terrible person??? ??????? ????? WHAT? can we just take a step back and. WHY? WHY are you doing this? Are we watching the same show? from a psychological standpoint, that's self-abuse and self-harm and i suppose it might be interesting if you explored it as such but APPARENTLY NO. apparently that's not what this is about. This is just about writing about someone being abusive to other people for the sake of it. there were so many posts about him 'abusing the sides by telling them they're not real people' and. OKAY so a) he wouldn't do that b) THEY AREN'T. THEY LITERALLY AREN'T REAL PEOPLE WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

[deep breath]

so actually i think that kind of leads me back to the point of this whole thing.  I had a point, what? It surprises me too, don't worry. The point is (roughly) that writing characters as 'unsympathetic' isn't something that i have an objection to at all. Everybody has the capacity to be cruel! Nobody's perfect!! But with the sympathetic/un labels it seems to enforce this strict dichotomy of good vs bad. Either Logan is an abusive monster OR he's a perfect angel. Guys. That's not how it works. And it's not INTERESTING if you do that sort of thing because then you've got people being unnecessarily cruel and evil for the sake of it. They turn into 2-dimensional caricatures that only exist to be bad people. 

People make mistakes! I write about characters making mistakes all the time! Janus and Remus pulling the whole trolley problem thing in Pick A Side definitely wasn't a great thing for them to do, but I didn't tag them as unsympathetic at the time and i have no plan to do so because i don't want to write them as two-dimensional caricatures who are only capable of one of two settings on the morality meter.  (same goes for the next chapter, whenever that comes up but... let’s talk about that when i post it, maybe)That's boring. If you're going to take characters and make them into antagonists just because you can't think of anyone else to fit the role, and you're doing it by stripping away everything that makes them Them, then you might as well just stuff a paper bag with straw and cast a scarecrow as the villain instead because buddy. You're making a strawman. That's what you're doing. You can't have Patton without kindness and well-meaningness, just as you can't have Patton without the mistakes caused by those two things. Same goes for the other sides and their flaws and strengths.

And then there's the other thing that's definitely more specific to this fandom, which I think was best summarized with something i said in the comments section of Pick A Side with len at like ten minutes past midnight that one time:

(...) and not necessarily related to anything you said, but - this fandom is kind of unique in that... there's no actual bad guys or villains. (at least that's how i perceive it.) The Real Villain Is Your Poor Mental Health. people are always like 'unsympathetic deceit' or 'unsympathetic patton' and point to different points in the videos as evidence, ('i give you permission to think those thoughts' patton's being controlling - that's abuse) but like. it's all the same guy. he's giving himself permission. he's doing it to himself. imagine if we tagged other fandom characters with like 'Unsympathetic Harry Potter' when he was being mean or critical to himself. wild.

 So yeah. In conclusion: obviously people should write what they like. If they see characters one way and they want to write about them being two-dimensional monsters that's fine. I kind of wish you'd put more thought into it and make it at least interesting if you're going to do that sort of thing, but you do you i guess.

That being said. If I see any more unsympathetic!Patton content I will start crying. i want to love Goofy Dad Man the same way i used to 

[achieveandhunt]

live typing extra life 2019

part 2

warning: this was a mistake and i’m in the grapes

this starts right at Facilities vs AH. link to first post

let’s fuck some shit up babEY

oh what the fuck they’re playing a prerecorded video

last year was a fuckin doozy, nobody forget that

“legends of the under achiever” i didn’t know someone wrote my biography

why do i hear geoff screaming “FIVE FUCKIN FOUR” in my head, like in the legends of the hidden temple minecraft videos

jeremy looks. so dead inside on this fine november evening

ryan buzzing while they’re trying to explain the rules

my video quality went down so much that i thought i was watching someone playing roblox for a second

ryan “salty mother fucker” haywood has made a lovely appearance. he’s my favorite

michael and lindsay looking so domestic makes me so happy,, they’re my parents

someone donated under the name “ryan goes feral” uh??? yeah? you say that like it’s a bad thing??

oH FUCK MICHAEL GO DRIVE WIN PLEASE

jeremy HAS BROKEN OUT THE GLASSES SHIT’S SERIOUS

NO THEY’RE LOSING GOD DAMMIT

ʳʸᵃⁿ ᶦⁿ ᵗʰᵉ ᵇᵃᶜᵏᵍʳᵒᵘⁿᵈ, ᵠᵘᶦᵉᵗˡʸ: ʰᵉˡᵖ

JEREMY IT’S TIME TO TEST OUT THAT NONEXISTENT GAG REFLEX AND SWALLOW THE OPPONENT’S CONTROLLER

oh nvm they’re winning again lmao

OH FUCK thEYRE LOSING

oh nvm

OH FUCK

oh nvm they unplugged his contoller lol

OH FUCKING TH EY LOST MICHAEL JONES MY HEART IS BROKEN

the amount of people watching has gone up from 32k to 40k in the past fifteen minutes

michael “hurry up you dumb cunts” jones

“oh don’t worry about destroying our cabinet, it’s essentially matchsticks”

“how are you feeling john? are you ready for this?” “MM M M Mmm mM”

TEAM NICE DYNAMITE IS NEXT AND IM READY FOR PERMANENTLY RINGING EARS FROM ALL THE LEET DONATIONS

oH god here we go

“hopefully they haven’t been saving them all day” oh honey. you’ve got a big storm coming

if xavier slaps gavin i think gav might go up in a puff of smoke

i did the math, they went up 45k+ within five minutes of team nice dynamite showing up on stream

GAVIN AND MICHAEL ARE GOING TO DIE

THERE’S GONNA BE A MOONBALL SIZED HOLE IN GAVIN’S CHEST

ryan and lindsay both donating a grand during this segment... so good

the day gavin free successfully gets a tattoo is the day i drop dead

lindsay saying she didn’t want the TND tattoo on michael but she agreed because gav is michael’s boi :((( 

i’m too sleep deprived for this i might cry

oh god michael’s punching the floor

i’m too sober for this

EIGHTY EIGHT LEET DONATIONS IN TWENTY MINUTES HOLY FUCJKIGN SHIT YOU GUYS ARE GONNA BE THROWING MOONBALLS FOR FUCKIN SIX YEARS

on a sentimental note- i love how much collective love we have for gav and michael,, they deserve it all

milk boarded has some not-so-great connotations attached to it

gavin “the bullshit bitch” free

a mark nutt reference?? in my 2019 extra life????

this just in: sarah is going to obliterate gavin

oh. oh my god. that was the sound of a wet fish smacking a wall

why is jeremy the liquor goblin walking like a crab that has a bird attached to its back??? see: flapping arms

that beer and milk concoction... gag

“drink that milk yard”

“YOU GOT MY TOES MILKY”

no. nO MICHAEL NO YOUR INTESTINES NOO

michael “the milk’s in my brain” jones

“stop pouring it on people!” “iT’S HARD DICKHEAD”

lindsay is now. taking a milk shower

*caiti brings a small roll of paper towels* *gavin gently places a single paper towel on the massive puddle of milk*

no LINDSAY NO THINK OF THE CHILDREN

gavin: this has gotten way out of hand. she’s... she’s swimming in an inch of milk! everyone knows you should swim in at least two!!

the fajita seasoning will solve everythinG everyone calm down

fiona: yeah this is my first extra life. jack: and what were you expecting? fiona: this. exactly this.

ah yes. the bunny suits have arrived and michael is ready to tackle gavin

aaaand here comes the AH fanfic. it can only get worse from here so buckle up fuckos

“holy fuckeroni”

“re-reanimated trevor”

michael is so fucking smashed and god i wish that was me

“cum-ductor”

fiona “this is a white man” nova

“bone-ating” *leet donation* *leet donation* 

“ready set blow” made me genuinely bust a lung laughing

aaaand michael’s licking the floor which is to be expected

jeremy “i’m gonna actually harm you” dooley

IF ONE MORE PERSON BRINGS UP RANCH IM GOING TO WALK TO AUSTIN AND PROJECTILE VOMIT ON THE OFF TOPIC SET

no JEREMY NO YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE I THOUGHT YOU WOULDN’T DO THIS GET OFF THE F  L O O R

don’t get close ups on jeremy’s tongue. don’t do that to me. i don’t want nightmares

“fuck root” “let’s just fucking fuck”

1 2 3 CONSENT

michael has gone full gerkie

alfredo’s look when larry is reading the part about trevor choking him is how i feel about everything that’s happened in the past twenty minutes

almost 300k in less than an hour 

fiona saying “i don’t want this” overlaying michael humping a trash can

“TAKE THE TACO CHAD”

aaaand michael’s in the trash can

nO why is there a triangle is this a POETRY READING ALL OF A SUDDEN

oh thank god it’s over

OH FUCK THERE’S A N EPILOGUE

aaand trevor’s dead again. poor treyco

DUSK BOYS DUSK BOYS DUSK BOYS EVERYONE PUT A CUP IN YOUR PANTS

people singing along... what goes on

why am i downloading this fuckin song asap

jeremy turning his phone flashlight on and waving it like he’s at a concert god dammit i love these people so much

those are my BOYS

oh my gosh they’re still singing the song. why is my heart so happy from this i need to get slapped

“come on you’ve never been waterboarded before gavin?”

everyone standing in a circle shining their flashlights at gavin

someone surprise them and instead of a moonball just yeet a whole gallon of milk at them

actually, on second thought, no

OH god GavIN Is GOING to Die 

gavin “i forgot to breathe” free

several milk explosions

gavin “my brain is cold” free

michael has milk dripping from his ears

i’m about to pass out i don’t know what’s happening

michael is in the grapes right now man

how many moonballs? oh, only 107. :)

i’m not writing this part- you guys have to watch the moonball segment yourself, if you didn’t watch it live!

team nice dynamite finishes up with over 300k!! holy shit, that’s so cool! this community is awesome

werewolf is up next!

xavier is such a gentleman can we keep him

alfredo: *chooses to kill miles* trevor in the audience: *silently freaking out*

xavier is about ruin another man on stream

miles has no self preservation instinct

barbara is now smelling fiona

this just in: i love alfredo and 100% would have done the same thing

trevor running up to film alfredo getting smacked. what an icon

alfredo SCREAMING oh my god i felt it in my soul

the high-five of the backs in solidarity of intense pain

miles choosing alfredo is so fucking good

and also, i feel so bad 

his heart might shoot out of his asshole this time guys

oh NOOO HE’s so bruised :(((( fredo nooo :((

oh my god it’s gotten to the usual point in the stream where you start to question whether someone is going to die this time

rip blaine but at least i think he can take the hit

he can but ouch it still hurts me 

barbara “i’m participating in the game” dunkleman

yo miles might win this game

the crowd when someone needs to shoot barb: TREVOR TREVOR TREVOR! trevor, with the strength of a thousand suns: N O

people are now chanting about shooting an unprotected trevor. the man already died once this stream god dammit

alfredo is about to throw hands for fiona

that’s a big F in the chat for miles, but his loss is well deserved

xavier’s hands could serve as a defibrillator

alfredo showed jeremy his chest and jeremy shied away as if he was looking at the sun

 --- i’m taking another break to finish an assignment---

i’m barely alive and it’s ready set show time 

oh god please no more shock collars

i’m so fucking tiiiiredd please take thge res t of this post  wigth  a grain of salt lbecasue i can hardly type at this ponitn 

“do you want to control the shock collars” “will there be repercussions” “no” “fuck yeah i’ll do it then”

“smother the children. steal the baby” “DONT STEAL THE BABY TREVOR”

lunging forward “s c a r e  t h e  b a b y” “OKAY I’M PASSING THIS ONE”

“you can’t bake popcorn????” jeremy hits the floor

alec and matt clearly = dream team

oh thasnk god the shock collars are on their arms now i was stressed out for chris earlier

this stream does not promote recreational nyquil usage 

i don’t even know how to explain the pure insanity of what ready set show has become

alec has become this whole segment

i would write more but i have no thoughts because my brain doesn’t work

larry “makes people fuck other people besides their wife” insert last name that my brain can’t come up with

anyways. marbles

oh. no marbles

i’ve blacked out idk what happened during backwardz compatible

i mean i was awake but does that really mean anything at this point

SPPOKU PSOOKY SPPOKKKY SPOOOKY !!! FUCL YEAH 

cole is so good during this segment

oh so many 1337s right away 

the real scariest thing during the segment: being genuine

oH my god the scream being pitched up. i have fucking dogs outside of my house now

i don’t fuck w/ ghosts no thank you

“aba-jail” wow if u guys weren’t gonna get haunted before you will now

okay i’m about to pass out i have to take a nap

oH fucking I SLEPT until thirty minutes before the en d  fuck

conclusion: this community is incredible and raised an unimaginable amount of money for charity. the fact that rooster teeth does this every year is awesome, and honestly, it makes me feel hopeful in times when things aren’t so great. so yeah! for the kids & stuff 

[buddiebeginz]

So there’s this article that’s going around bashing the Reylo fandom as a response to Katie McCort’s article on ‘Systemic Hatred of Women’. Normally I would link back to whatever it is I’m referencing so people can draw their own conclusions but I refuse to post the link to the first article mostly because it’s just a nicely worded hate piece against Reylo and our fandom and it doesn’t need more attention from me. I’m sure you can find it if you look around the antis are sharing it. I’m still going to respond to some of it though because it’s a lot of the same things I see going around about our fandom and I want to address some of them.

There is this misconception that the Reylo fandom is almost exclusively made up of cis gendered, straight, white women and that’s just not true. We’re an incredibly diverse community made of various races, sexualities, genders, ages, etc. It’s clear that it’s easier for people who dislike us and the ship to dismiss us by saying well they’re all just a bunch of white women who want to ship the two main white presenting characters. They also mostly assume we’re teenagers so that’s another way they get to patronize us by acting like we’re simply a bunch of children who can’t make good choices even when it comes to which fictional characters to ship.

To that effect I think because many dismiss us all as a small (but loud) fraction of white women in the SW fandom it makes it easier to say we’re all racist. We as a fandom need to stop allowing this. This idea that our fandom as a whole is racist is false and in many cases is being used mainly as a weapon against us not to call out real instances of racism. People who don’t like us and our ship have just decided it’s okay to blanket our whole fandom as toxic and racist without real proof to back it up. Even those times when there have been people claiming to ship Reylo sending harassment and being racist they don’t represent our fandom. There’s a different between the actions of single individuals and an entire fandom using their collective power to hurt people and the Reylo fandom has never done that.

I also resent the idea that it’s our responsibility to find these people and deal with them. Is it important to call out problematic behavior when you see it? Of course. But we are not responsible for babysitting every corner of the internet looking for someone who has a Reylo icon and possibility sent out a racial slur. I’m genuinely confused why this responsibility falls on the shoulders of Reylo shippers to police our entire fandom but not on the SW fandom as a whole to do something about the many many problematic people calling themselves SW fans and sending hate. I don’t see people calling all SW fans racist because some chased Kelly Marie Tran off social media. I don’t see people calling all SW fans misogynistic with the amount of disparaging things that’s been said about Rey as a character and with how many didn’t even want a female protagonist for the ST. Or how TLJ was one of the most criticized in large part because it was more inclusive to female fans.

No apparently those are just trolls who don’t represent real SW fans. So why then does that logic not apply to the Reylo fandom? Maybe perhaps because it’s easier to try and get rid of a ship that the general SW fandom hates and silence it’s fandom by claiming it’s one of the worst things a person can be. Who is really going to want to be associated  with a ship or fandom if they think it’s racist right? I’ve seen new SW fans coming on tumblr asking about Reylo and the antis are quick to jump to them and tell them how toxic and racist it is (not to mention they claim it glorifies abuse against women which 🤦) filling these people’s heads with lies. I don’t care what people think of me I’m used to shipping the ships that everyone hates but I do care that people lie about us and our ship and don’t even give people the chance to make up their own minds.

As for the situation with JB which was also included in the anti Reylo article it’s clear the person who wrote this has a huge bias. Anyone who cares how people are treated would look at that situation and recognize JB was out of line, his actions caused real world harm to people. NO ONE is saying JB hasn’t been the target of racism from SW fans but to put ALL of that on the Reylo fandom is not only messed up it’s simply factually wrong. There are people who would never ship Reylo and who never wanted a leading black character in SW who have sent JB hate. The Reylo fandom just continues to be the easy target.

There’s a part of the article that talks about how some of the people who ship Reylo do so as a way to work through trauma in a fantasy that’s not possible in reality. They also say that one of the reasons people ship Reylo is about kink and bsdm which maybe these things play a factor (for some) but it’s not necessarily the main one. In the first place yeah Reylo is a fantasy not possible in reality it’s a soap opera in space. I recognize there are things that happen within their relationship that wouldn’t happen in real relationships but there’s also a lot about their ship that’s very much grounded in reality, which is a significant part of the reason people are drawn to them.

I’ve been through trauma myself and media has definitely helped with healing but I don’t look at Reylo as some fictional manifestation of reclaiming power that was stolen from me. I don’t look at Ben as some de facto stand in for my abuser and Reylo as some fairytale version of how things should have been. I don’t see Rey as someone who managed to get her “abuser” to change and then they lived happily ever after. I see two messy people who helped each other grow and change throughout the course of three movies. If anything I think Reylo helps me because I relate a lot to Ben. He’s shown me that it is possible to break free from the darkness and as person who has struggled with mental health problems my whole life it’s an incredibly important message. Rey and Ben together showed me it is possible to find someone who can understand you no matter what you’ve been through and no matter how alone you feel.

As for incorporating kink into Reylo many of us definitely do enjoy the smuttier side of fandom but I know for me that wouldn’t matter if I wasn’t emotionally invested in the ship. I think some assume the main reason we ship Reylo is because Adam is hot or Rey and Ben together is hot and it’s all simplified to being about sex but for the majority of us the ship is about so much more than that. I’m drawn to Ben and Rey because of the complexities of their stories both together and individuality. There’s this idea now that liking a character who does anything with questionable morals means you’re a bad person but I personally have never been drawn to the innocent characters. Both Rey and Ben are more grey not fully good or evil and I love that about them. More importantly I’m drawn to how much it’s clear they love each. Even in TFA they understood each other in ways no one else could because of their bond.

I feel like in order to get Reylo and especially Ben as a character you have to be willing to think deeper about the media you consume and some people only want surface level SW. On the surface it’s just bad guy Kylo Ren vs Rey but there is so much more going on than that if you look. I think people forget that fictional media is open for interpretation. Scenes like where Ben tells Rey “you’re nothing, but not to me” is one people have twisted to mean something manipulative when I don’t see it that way at all. To me Ben was trying to tell her he sees her. He sees that she came from nothing that she has no one like him (because he’s felt so abandoned by his family for so long) but she’s not nothing, to him she’s everything you can tell in how he literally begs her to stay with him. This is isn’t some example of me deliberately twisting facts to suit my narrative of what I want the characters to be this is simply that I see the scene differently than some one else might. I don’t get what’s wrong with that?

I know this got long and kind of rambly I just needed to vent. I just wish the hate would stop. If you don’t like Reylo don’t ship it. Learn to live and let live. Nothing we are doing is hurting anyone. We are shipping two adult characters because we see something positive here. I don’t get how something that’s about love something that brought so many people together can inspire such hate in others.

[allsortsofgeekery]

Patton Discourse

This is kinda discourse-y, but it’s been bothering me for a while, and I think I finally need to address it to get it off my chest.

I have been seeing a LOT of Patton hate recently. Like, a TON. And it seems to stem from two things:

1.) His behavior in SvS and Intrusive Thoughts, and

2.) People wanting to make Deceit a more sympathetic character.

Which is fine! I love Deceit, and sympathetic Deceit is great, and obviously people are allowed to interpret characters however they want, but I’m afraid that in putting so much sympathetic Deceit and unsympathetic Patton out there, we’re missing the whole point of the videos and their characters.

People have been putting a lot of unsympathetic/evil/abusive Patton content out recently, ever since SvS, but the amount has only increased since the new video.

I think it’s because two of Patton’s flaws are being brought to light, the facts that he always, without fail,

A.) puts others before Thomas, and

B.) has a very unbending moral code and sense of “right” and “wrong”.

Yes, these are two major character flaws, and so far, the first one has gone generally unaddressed. But here’s the thing: Patton was never perfect. He, like every other character in the series, has his own flaws. And just because these flaws are just now being brought to light doesn’t mean that he is bad or evil, it just means that...he’s flawed.

It is Patton’s job to distinguish from “right” and “wrong” and to encourage Thomas to do what is the “right” thing. Patton is literally Morality. Of course he’d be against lying to their friends, because that is the kind of thing that is implemented in the earliest stages of development.

Patton was doing his job, just like any other Side in that video.

To say that Patton is “evil” or “bad” because of these flaws is entirely missing the point of his character and the series as a whole.

Patton, up until now, has been painted as practically perfect, a genuinely kind, loving, silly, fun character. And he still is kind, loving, silly, and fun! Just because some of his flaws are being brought to light does not erase his good qualities, nor does it erase the character that we have grown to love.

The whole point of Patton’s current character arc is to show us as the audience that too much of any one mindset—even Patton’s—is harmful. This applies to all of the Sides, but Patton is the example that Thomas, Joan, and the team chose to make. The overarching theme of Sanders Sides is finding balance; too little of something can be harmful, but too much of it is detrimental, too. You need to achieve a healthy balance between every facet of your personality. We have been seeing this theme since practically the beginning of the series; we have seen this in “The Mind vs. The Heart”, “Growing Up”, “Accepting Anxiety: Parts 1 and 2”, “Why Do We Get Out of Bed in the Morning”, and in “Selfishness vs. Selflessness”.

Another thing that I’ve seen practically nobody acknowledging is the fact that Patton is actively trying to get better.

Patton apologized for being so strict at the end of Intrusive Thoughts, and promised that he’s going to try to improve. He said that he can’t promise that he’ll never make another mistake, but he’s going to try to avoid them for Thomas’s sake.

That is a HUGE character development moment for Patton that is being COMPLETELY overlooked in favor of just painting Patton as “the villain”. He is trying to get better.

The second thing I want to address is that people seem to be trying to make Deceit into a more sympathetic character by making Patton into a less sympathetic character, which bothers me. I love Deceit, and I love sympathetic Deceit, but not at the expense of Patton’s character development.

Making a character sympathetic doesn’t mean you have to make another character evil to do it.

I love Deceit as a morally gray character, not as an “uwu baby who did nothing wrong”, because that is not only missing the point of Patton’s character, but missing the point of Deceit’s character. Deceit is not an “innocent baby who did nothing wrong”, he is just as flawed as the rest of the Sides. Yes, Deceit is trying to help, and yes, he is misunderstood, but he is still flawed, and taking away his flaws to make him out to be perfect is just...unhealthy.

As is one of the current themes in Sanders Sides, life is not so black-and-white. Deceit is morally gray. That doesn’t mean he’s not sympathetic, because he definitely is, but he is morally gray. And making any character the distinct “bad guy” and another character the “good guy” is missing the point of that theme.

The final thing I want to address is that people seem to think that Patton “hates” the “Dark Sides”. This is simply not true.

Yes, it’s clear that there is some animosity between him and Deceit, but that is because they have directly opposing viewpoints on what is right for Thomas, not because Patton thinks Deceit is evil and bullied him for it.

Patton is still the kind, loving character that we’ve grown to love for the last three years.

Now, it is true that Patton is scared of Remus, but again, it’s not because he’s a “Dark Side” so much as he is just...very unsettling.

So how do we know for a fact that Patton doesn’t hate the “Dark Sides”?

Because Virgil is his best friend.

It is abundantly clear that Patton, as well as Roman and Logan, have known from the beginning of the series that Virgil used to be a “Dark Side”, but this doesn’t make Patton love Virgil any less.

People have been painting Patton as the thing that is keeping the “Dark” and “Light” Sides apart, a “barrier”, if you will. However, Patton was actually the first one to reach out and take Virgil under his wing when nobody else would. It was Patton who first noticed that Virgil was missing in “Accepting Anxiety: Part 1”, and it was he who told the others that it was necessary to have Virgil around.

Sure, Patton may not be the biggest fan of the other two, but it’s definitely not because of their “Dark Side-ed-ness”.

Overall, obviously, you are free to interpret characters however you want. However, I think it is important to note that

A.) just because a character has flaws doesn’t erase the character you know them to be, and

B.) making a character more sympathetic does not require a definitive villain, it requires introspection.

Finally, of course whatever portrayal of any character you see is totally valid and understandable. Patton is manipulative, to a certain extent, just as all of the Sides are. And if you are genuinely made uncomfortable by Patton, you are completely, 100% valid! This is just my two cents on Patton’s character, because hating on characters makes me generally uncomfortable, but if you dislike Patton or the way he’s been acting, you are well within your right to think that.

Thank you so much for reading!! :)

[crystalelemental]

To me, Edelgard vs Dimitri is the difference between gradualism and revolution. I dont hate Dimitri, but I think his beliefs are nonsense. To think that forcing your beliefs on others is just self-indulgence... sometimes, forcing your beliefs on others is the only way to save the people those others are hurting, imo. I think Claude is also right, of course. It's just that class inequality isn't really a main focus of his, but regional/racial inequality. Which is also very worth addressing.

There's a lot to this, and I'm gonna do my best at it.

I think it ties in a lot to that sense of "what are the limits of free speech?"  If someone is actively causing harm with their speech and beliefs, then is it acceptable to let them continue?  No, of course not.  Unconditional freedom will eventually lead to restrictions placed on the most vulnerable.  In a scenario like with the Church, they are fairly permissive.  People can sort their own shit out, as long as their shit sorting doesn't rock the boat too much.  Which, by inference, means that things like the Tragedy of Duscur and blood experiments taking place in the wake of the emperor's loss of power, were permissible.  They're allowed within the Church's framework.  The Church itself may not condone the actions of the seven noble houses, or of Faerghus' decimation of the Duscur people, but those in power didn't intervene and indirectly permit these atrocities.  Allowing that to continue is definitely the wrong course.

In terms of how each route handles it, I still think Claude is the most correct of the three.  But I'm going to go in reverse order.

Dimitri's absolutely the least interesting, and frankly, least correct of the bunch.  He's purely the status quo route.  Nothing at all is addressed in his route aside from the immediate conflict.  None of the context that addresses what happened is ever talked about, the route solely focuses on Dimitri and his trauma.  Which...is weird, considering how much trauma every other kid in the house should also have, but never really gets to express in the main story.  Particularly with Dedue, but that's a different talk for a different post.  Dimitri's route just doesn't actually address anything.  It's a powerful personal story, but for the world at large, his outcome is the worst.  Nothing with the church is addressed.  Nothing with the Agarthans is resolved.  Nothing changes, at all, aside from a very standard "good guy beat bad emperor" ending.  Which in any other game would be fine, but in this game stands out as the least compelling.

With Edelgard's route, I see what you're saying, and agree for the most part.  You can't let injustice keep happening, and sometimes you do have to push for change.  Taking it to war is the extreme route, but is Edelgard's inherent philosophy incorrect?  Well...no, not really.  The people of the church are generally all nice people.  I like Rhea, I love Seteth and Flayn, and a lot of the knights are interesting too.  But an institution that's going to sit back and allow tragedies to occur, solely because they're about not intervening beyond what directly challenges them?  That can't be allowed to stand as a power, and Rhea's made very clear that she's not about to let go of that control, unless it's passing the baton to someone else who would continue to hold that control (Byleth in pretty much every ending).  I think Edelgard's right in that the Church needs to be dismantled, or at least its control over Fodlan removed, but...I think Claude did it better.

You mentioned that Claude's racial inequality wasn't the main focus.  And that's true.  But that's because, like he states, the story is taking place within Fodlan.  Fodlan is incredibly wrapped up in its own internal politics, and doesn't interact with the outside world in any capacity.  Hell, Claude even comments that the Church preaches against coexistence with other nations, likely so Rhea can keep Fodlan as a safe haven for the remnants of her family.  Outside interference could mean humans seek power again, and that could lead to harm for the few that remain of her people.  So it's understandable why Rhea's like this, but it's not the correct course of action.

I'm getting off-topic.  My point is, consider Claude's goal with opening the borders.  Free flow of goods, but also of ideas.  Of philosophy.  Almyra has its share of troubles, but also has things going well for it.  Claude believes that, if Almyra and Fodlan could make peace and communicate with one another, that they'd not only come to understand each other, but also the systems they live in.  Think about that.  For an isolationist territory like Fodlan, they'd have no means of grasping what could be different.  This is just how things are, you either continue to follow what's been done (Dimitri) or, as a radical with no outside reference of what's needed, go full on anarchy and decide the only thing to do is smash the whole system (Edelgard).  Claude offers a compromise that can avoid this binary choice.  Open your frame of reference.  The Almyrans don't have the Church.  They don't have strict doctrine.  Nor did the people of Duscur.  Yet they're societies, with some kind of power structure that, while it has problems, is working in other ways for them.  If the ideas are communicated freely between territories, perhaps the people of Fodlan can find that, hey, this other place is doing really well in this area, why aren't we doing that?  Instead of a pure "Smash the system" approach, there could have been a non-violent way to approach the problem, as Claude believes.  Better still, his solution, if it works, is one that helps expand the worldview of the populace.  If successful, it's not just expanding ideas about race relations, but about all sorts of issues, effectively allowing people to address every issue in due time.  His immediate concern isn't exactly the same as Edelgard's, but I feel like Claude's solution would eventually lead to a solution for Edelgard's problem, while Edelgard's solution would not do the same for Claude's.

For Edelgard to purely be in the right, I think what we'd need is the proof that the populace of Fodlan seeks that change, but the Church refuses.  That the Church is an active authoritarian structure itself.  But that also completely changes the context for Edelgard's character and actions, and I'd think for the worse.  That would create a simple black/white morality binary, and that's not what makes this game so good.  It's the fact that everyone has a point but also has their faults.  Dimitri's well-intentioned and thinks very carefully about the lives of his people, but that comes at the cost of ignoring pretty much every societal issue in Fodlan.  Edelgard recognizes society's problems and is willing to do whatever it takes to change them, but at the cost of instigating a war for the entire continent.  Claude's route seems the best on the outside, but I think his drawback is that his solution is based on a lot of faith.  There's no guarantee it will work.  People may not assimilate well, and exchange of ideas may not result in mutual improvement, but could become mutual digging in of heels that their way of life is better, and reinforcing the isolation.  Claude's route is correct in the moment, but long-term it's hard to say.  Edelgard's addresses the problem immediately, but...well, barring the ending cards (which I don't believe), would likely create equal problems with a central, unchecked locus of power for the entire continent once she dies.  Successors could easily unmake all her progress.

For me, I think Claude's the most correct in terms of context for this reason.  The Church does seek to keep Fodlan under control, but hasn't turned against the people's wishes just yet.  A non-violent approach is preferable in this situation.  If it didn't work, or if the Church tried to reinforce its authority by rejecting these changes, then Edlegard's route would have a bit more merit.  But I think setting up a situation in which she in the right, is only possible when the other sides aren't, which ruins the balance of morality the game is playing.  It's far more interesting to have the extreme approach pulled at this point in a societal change, because it raises that question of when a revolution is appropriate, and when is it something that’s just serving whoever’s going to inherit power in the aftermath?

[inbarfink]

I wrote a shorter jokey post about this before but here’s a more detailed explanation as to why I think Phoenix = Crowley and Miles = Aziraphale in Ace Attorney Good Omens AU

(For clarifications, I am mostly talking about Show Continuity, before the show was out I was like “Yeah OBVIOUSLY Crowley = Miles and Phoenix = Aziraphale who would think otherwise????”. After giving it some thoughts, I think with Book Continuity it can honestly go either way. Some of the elements I point out here are.... at the very least less-pronounced in the Book Continuity and can be said to ‘balance-out’ with some of the traits that point into more Crowley = Miles and Phoenix = Aziraphale, such as the Hebrew word for ‘Demon’ originally meaning..... basically a Celestial Prosecutor and Crowley presenting as the more well-off of the two and, like, owning a car. Both of which are unthinkable with Phoenix).

1. Aziraphale is the one of the two who dresses in weird outdated fashions. (And Miles even used to wear bowties as a child)

2. Crowley’s tactics when faced with life-threatning danger? Bluff, improvise, than *bluff some more*

Extremely Phoenix Energy, through that whole scene.

3. MilesEdgeworthDotJPEG

4. Can you imagine Miles Edgeworth - any version of Miles Edgeworth - slouching like that? I sure can’t. 

And yeah, I can think of.... at least one version of Phoenix Wright who would slouch like that. 

This Fucker Right Here. I’m gonna come back to it, but basically when I’m saying Crowley is Phoenix, I am very much thinking of THAT version of Phoenix. A Fallen Lawyer, if you will.

5. While both Miles and Phoenix, being lawyers - are fairly lawful trust-the-system people, Phoenix has always been the more chaotic one and more willing to bend the rules. He literally made Edgeworth ‘fill-in’ for him as a Defense Attorney once! He’s much more likely to come up with the Arrangement, like Crowley did. 

6. Damon Gant has Archangel Gabriel Energies

7. Crowley thought Aziraphale was dead, Phoenix thought Miles was dead (Although with Aziraphale it was 100% unintentional and just for a few hours, he didn’t fake his death for a year........ MILES)

8. Here’s basically What Show!Crowley Is All About: “All I ever wanted was to be good, I didn’t deserve to Fall From Grace like that. But if the Universe wants me to be the Bad Guy? Fuck it, I’ll be the Bad Guy. My Falling showed me that the System I used to serve is bad and full of holes and I might as well exploit it for all it’s worth and I’m gonna be a cool detached badass and I don’t care at all oh whooops looks like I still DO still care, A LOT” 

Which.... isn’t that much like any of Miles Edgeworth’s arcs. But DOES remind me of the arc of one Phoenix “HoboNick” Wright.

Crowley’s story of still being a Mess of self-loathing and doubts about being Fallen and the idea Aziraphale possibly helping him through that.... that checks out pretty well with the concept of Edgeworth helping Phoenix dealing with losing his badge. That’s what I think, at least.

9. And Aziraphale? Here’s Aziraphale’s story “I used to work inside this Perfection-Obsessed System and trust that it was Good and was only harming the Bad people because I had a very Black-and-White thinking of the world. I have someone who is very dear to my heart, but I constantly push away because my Black-and-White thinking painted him as my enemy- even when he was one of the only friends I had in this world. However, as my sense of right-and-wrong started to clash with the System, I realized that it’s Bad Actually. Now I prioritize Actually Doing the Right Thing even if it clashes with the System”.

Now there are some Differences, of course, but it checks out pretty well with Miles Edgeworth’s main character arc. Phoenix, in comparison, doesn’t really have that sort of relationship with the System. And Although he kinda fell into thinking about Prosecutors vs Defense Attorneys in a Black-and-White way during ‘Justice for All’, it’s not as..... iconic a Problem for him the way it is to Miles. Phoenix’s thinking was more of an immediate reaction to the grief of Miles’ fake ‘death’ and a Personal Emotional Issue, then it is an Ideological Problem, has it has been with Miles. (In a way, I see it paralleling Crowley whenever he’s like FINE YEAH I DON’T LIKE YOU EITHER ANGEL I AM GOING TO FLY OFF TO THE STARS ON MY OWN AND I WON’T EVER THINK ABOUT YOU). Phoenix was only really Like That for a year, Miles was stuck on that Prosecutors vs Defense Attorneys thing for four years, and hasn’t really fully shaken it off even post-character-development.

Yeah, put in “Clinging to flase ideas of rivalry against all common sense” as another Aziraphale\Miles comperison. Just imagine Crowley mentally responding to “I am an Angel, you are a Demon, we’re hereditary enemies!” with “(But you were filling in for my temptation qouta today!)” 

And it’s important to remember that in spite of Crowley’s “I’m gonna be a cool detached dude who doesn’t care about anything and absolutely isn’t constantly angsting about being Abandoned by God” facade, he is still the one who mostly engages and reaches out to Aziraphale and constatly considers him his ‘friend’, while AZIRAPHALE, in spite of being the cuddly-soft-Angel, is the one who’s doing most of the pushing-away. (While Crowley only pushes away when he feels betrayed and hurt by Aziraphale KINDA THE SAME AS WITH PHOENIX, who is also usually the one trying to reach out to the emotionally-closed-off Edgeworth - and only pushing him away when he’s feeling extremely hurt and betrayed like in AA2)

Okay, so in general, the idea of a Demons-and-Angels AU with Phoenix as an Angel and Miles as a Demon seems SUPER appealing. You know this sort of “Oh no I am Fallen but this beautiful Angel is like... metaphorically pulling me back up??? With his LOVE???” shit? That’s Good Overdramatic Romance Shit that’s PERFECT for Wrightworth (I mean, this is only SLIGHTLY more dramatic than how Miles talk about Phoenix in Actual Canon). 

But this isn’t really the Good Omens narrative. Like, the part of the whole point of Good Omens is that.... unlike being a ‘Demon Prosecutor’, being a Fallen Angel\Demon isn’t necessarily a mark of Bad Morality. No more bad than being a regular-non-Fallen-Angel is (Maybe it’s even a little better? Angels never really properly questioned the structure of Heaven, Hell in general is Bad - but there might be more Demons like Crowley who had legit questions about Heaven and God and ended up lumped in with Lucifer and Friends???). Yeah, Crowley learned to open up a bit, emotions-wise, and too be less cynical after being burned by both Heaven and Hell and that he can fight for Humanity... But in terms of *morality*? 

I think the more accurate way to look at Good Omens from that angle is that Crowley is pulling Aziraphale down, rather than Aziraphale pushing him up. And like....... that not being a Bad Thing. Crowley is the one who keeps asking the tough questions about Heaven and God that Aziraphale thinks about, but can’t dare to say it on his own.

Crowley is the one Aziraphale feels comfortable sharing the fact that he gave away his Flaming Sword to humanity (a fact that he has hidden from everyone else for 6000 years). Crowley is the reason Aziraphale realizes the conflict isn’t as Black and White as Heaven’s propoganda would have him believe, Crowley is the one who talked Aziraphale into trying to prevent the Apocalypse in the first place, that helped him see it as the more moral option. It’s his conflicting loyalty to both Heaven and Crowley that allowed Aziraphale to see Heaven for what it truly is. 

And if we ignore the general cultural context in which we assume Fallen Angel = Bad and Angel = Good.... This checks a lot better with Miles Edgeworth’s story arc of realizing Demon Prosecutoring was Bad and that the System he works in sometimes doesn’t give a crap about the Truth. 

[explodingcrenelation]

Tony Stark and the Messianic Archetype in Avengers: Endgame

* * * * * S P O I L E R S ahead for Avengers: Endgame * * * * *

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From a purely analytical standpoint, I don’t have anything against Tony’s character arc in Endgame culminating with his death. His last moments in the heat of battle weren’t rushed, poorly written, or unearned. If Tony Stark was going to die on screen, of course he’d do it like a goddamn badass—and he did.

At this point Marvel is telling a single story to millions upon millions of people and there’s no way they can craft a narrative to suit every single person. When I say Tony's death didn’t work for me, I do so knowing that Marvel wasn’t writing the story for me anyway. And I'm not trying to disparage the creative team's efforts and storytelling choices. They made a call. I don’t agree it was the right one.

For me, Tony’s death traps him inside a Messianic Archetype that doesn’t elevate his character in a wholly satisfying way and doesn’t fit the themes of the established, team-centric universe. In this essay I will…

…actually write a fucking 4000-word essay, so buckle up and read on if you’re in for the ride.

What Is the Messianic Archetype?

The Messianic Archetype is a messiah trope. It’s exactly what it sounds like—one person (usually (but not always) white, usually (but not always) male) who sacrifices themselves for the greater good. 

Here’s how TV Tropes puts it: 

In media, the Messianic Archetype is a character whose role in the story (but not necessarily personality) echoes that of Christ. They are portrayed as a savior, whether the thing they are saving is a person, a lot of people or the whole of humanity. They endure a sizable sacrifice as the means of bringing that salvation about for others, a fate they do not deserve up to and including death or a Fate Worse than Death. Other elements may be mixed and matched as required but the Messianic Archetype will include one or more of the following:

- The Chosen One. - True Companions who follow him. - Betrayal by one of those followers. - Persecution by nonbelievers. - Crucified Hero Shot (or other parallels to the Passion Play). - Figurative or literal resurrection. - A Second Coming. - The initials JC.

Some examples of Messianic Archetypes in popular narratives are: Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, Spock in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (or Kirk in Star Trek: Into Darkness), Harry Potter in The Deathly Hallows, Superman in Batman vs Superman, or Neo in the Matrix trilogy. The Doctor in Doctor Who is frequently and repeatedly presented as a messiah figure. Multiple incarnations of Sherlock also follow suit in multiple imaginings of the the Reichenbach Falls scenario. (I won’t go into details with any of these characters. I trust the Messianic Archetypes here are obvious to anyone familiar with these stories.) 

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe itself, we see Messianic Archetypes popping up all over the place—like daisies! Steve plays this part when he sacrifices himself in The First Avenger to stop Red Skull's plan to bomb several major American cities. His time in the ice is a kind of death from which he is subsequently “resurrected” in modern day New York. To a lesser extent, he also offers himself up as a sacrifice to save Bucky in The Winter Soldier. 

T’Challa follows this pattern in Black Panther when he’s betrayed by W’Kabi, defeated by Killmonger, and subsequently resurrected within the safety of M’Baku’s tribe. 

In the first Thor movie, Thor is betrayed by Loki, sacrifices himself to the Destroyer to protect his human friends, and he comes back from near-death with the return of Mjölnir, having proven himself worthy of the hammer. 

Carol Danvers destroys Mar-Vell’s engine in Captain Marvel to keep enemies from getting their hands on tech that could harm millions of innocent people. Her human life symbolically ends in the subsequent explosion, and she’s effectively reborn with superpowers.

Pepper Potts is betrayed by her former colleague Killian in Iron Man 3, selected as his “chosen one” for the Extremis injection, and she dies and is reborn from fire.

Yondu in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2—

Well, I could go on for a long time, but... you get the idea. 

The Messianic Archetype isn’t particularly new to popular media, let alone the MCU. 

This trope is deeply, almost subconsciously, woven into the fabric of popular western storytelling. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Tropes are tropes for a reason—they speak to us on a cultural and instinctual level. We want to hear these stories over and over, replay them in new ways and look at them from different angles precisely because there is something meaningful in the narrative. 

And Tony Stark's narrative is no exception. His repeated acts of self-sacrifice fit into the Messianic Archetype very, very well.

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Proof That Tony Stark Has a Heart

The MCU kicked off in 2008 with the first Iron Man movie and Tony Stark has ostensibly been the main character of the franchise from the beginning. 

The Iron Man movies establish early on that Tony has a savior complex to match the size of his ego. Our genius playboy billionaire philanthropist is a deeply flawed hero who started out his career as a maker of WMDs. He was widely known as “The Merchant of Death” before he saw the error of his ways. Tony understands he has done many Bad Things and he must atone for those Bad Things—with his life, if necessary.

“I shouldn’t be alive, unless it was for a reason. ... I finally know what I have to do and I know in my heart that it’s right.” —Tony Stark, Iron Man

The first Iron Man movie climaxes with Tony ordering Pepper to blow the Arc Reactor to stop Stane’s rampage, even though Tony might perish in the process. In Iron Man 2, Tony is actively dying from palladium poisoning, but he faces down Vanko (sans Iron Man suit) on the speedway of the Monaco Historic Grand Prix. In the first Avengers movie, we see Tony put his life on the line to get a nuclear weapon out of New York.

This is a repeated pattern for Tony, and like an addict, it’s one he struggles to break. Over and over Tony flings himself into the fray, believing he’s the one who makes the difference—he’s the willing sacrifice whose blood saves the world. 

Tony selects himself to be “the chosen one” because he sees himself as the one at fault for bringing evil into the world. 

“We create our own demons. Who said that? What does that even mean? Doesn’t matter, I said it cause he said it. ...So why am I telling you this? Because I had just created demons, and I didn’t even know it.” —Tony Stark, Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 shows us just how deeply responsible Tony feels for the wrongs of the world. Because he made naive (and selfish) mistakes when he was young, Tony blames himself for creating villains that plague the earth now. 

We see this best in the aftermath of the destruction of Tony’s mansion in Malibu. 

“Pepper, it’s me. I’ve got a lot of apologies to make and not a lot of time. So first off, I’m so sorry I put you in harm’s way. That was selfish and stupid and it won’t happen again. ...And I’m sorry in advance because I can’t come home yet. I need to find this guy. You got to stay safe. That’s all I know.” —Tony Stark, Iron Man 3

Yes, Tony absolutely provoked the Mandarin, a known terrorist, and the result is the complete annihilation of Tony’s home. Tony accepts responsibility for the destruction as though he was the one who shot the missiles himself. He goes so far as to volunteer himself for a solo mission to find the Mandarin without even bothering to contact SHIELD or the Avengers for help. He made this mess, he’s going to clean it up. All the while he suffers through crippling anxiety and panic attacks, demonstrating that the burden he’s put on his own shoulders is, in fact, too much for him to handle by himself. Still, Tony denies himself the comforts of home and family until he can atone for his wrongdoings.

Miraculously, Iron Man 3 gives Tony a respite when the tables are turned and, for once, Tony is the one ultimately saved by Pepper. After her rescue (pun intended), Tony gives up the armor, commits to having the shrapnel taken out of his chest, and he starts rebuilding the literal ruins of his life—both physical and metaphorical.

The respite doesn’t last, of course, because recovery doesn’t go in a straight line—oh, and also the franchise isn’t over and the MCU kinda needs Iron Man. And so Tony slides back into familiar, self-destructive patterns. 

"Few years ago, I almost lost [Pepper], so I trashed all my suits. Then, we had to muck up Hydra. And then Ultron. My fault. And then, and then, and then. I never stopped. 'Cause the truth is, I don't wanna stop.” —Tony Stark, Civil War

Tony taking on the mantle of the Messianic Archetype once more in Endgame falls perfectly in line with his established need to compulsively and perpetually atone for his sins. As a perfectionist who needs to assuage his guilt for his ongoing (and perceived) failures, Tony simply can’t stop himself from offering up his life in penance. Statistically it was bound to catch up with him, and in Endgame it does.

And not only does Tony give his life in true Messianic fashion, we are “treated” to a hyper-realistic and painfully extended sequence where his life drains out of him as his loved ones gather to witness him gasping out his last breath. (Thanks for that, by the way, Marvel. I’ll put this scene with the dead baby bunnies my childhood cat used to bring home as gifts. How thoughtful.)

Maybe the reason for the intensity of Tony’s death scene is to make the audience believe his death is the Real Thing, not some comic-book-superhero-movie trickery that he’ll be back from in a few minutes’ time. Perhaps it’s the only way to ensure we commit to the emotional depth of the moment. Perhaps the filmmakers see it as an homage to RDJ’s acting talent and commitment to the role. Regardless of the rationale behind the camera’s unflinching gaze, Tony’s excruciating death hammers home the brutal and lonely reality of the Messianic Archetype: it’s cruel to put the fate of the world on one person’s shoulders. 

But Tony embraces that end. He throws himself into the machinery of fate, convinced he’s the cog that will make it all work. 

And he does make it work. 

So why is that a problem?

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The Team-Oriented Universe

The problem with Tony doubling (tripling? quadrupling?) down on the Messianic Archetype at the apex of the franchise is that the MCU is an ensemble, team-oriented universe. 

“You think you're the only superhero in the world? Mr. Stark, you've become part of a bigger universe, you just don't know it yet." —Nick Fury, Iron Man

Fury tells us from the get-go that Tony isn’t the be-all-end-all of the MCU. It’s possible for Tony—for them all—to become something greater than the sum of their parts. 

“There was an idea, Stark knows this, called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more.” —Nick Fury, Avengers

The entire first Avengers movie is dedicated to establishing this premise, to getting these knuckleheads to work together because, alone, they’re too wrapped up in their own bullshit to adequately deal with the forces that threaten the planet. Things don’t start to go right for them until they set aside their personal issues and act as a unit. 

As we all know, our team passes the test and they establish an important principle of the MCU: teamwork is powerful and it’s more effective than working solo. 

True, Tony’s self-sacrifice in the context of the Battle of New York helps save the day; but it’s only one part of a coordinated effort. Tony chucking the nuke into space would have been pointless without the added efforts of Steve to coordinate civilian safety, Hawkeye to relay enemy movements, Thor to separate Loki from the scepter, Natasha to close the portal, and Hulk to subdue Loki and ultimately catch Tony as he fell from the wormhole. The team achieved a better outcome together than they each could have achieved separately. 

But even in the shared afterglow of winning the Battle of New York, the individual members of the team struggle to perfect their dynamic. New challenges present themselves. There’s always room for the team to grow and become stronger together as the franchise progresses. That’s the whole point. 

Tony, for his part, waffles back and forth between his desire to be the savior mechanic (to fix everything by himself) and his desire to work cooperatively with his found-family of superheroes for the common good. This internal conflict plays out over the course of the franchise as Tony takes on the Mandarin by himself in Iron Man 3. The issue then escalates in Age of Ultron when Tony convinces Bruce to help him create Ultron, unbeknownst to the rest of the team. Murder-bot problems and team drama ensue. Tony’s cycle of guilt perpetuates itself in the wake of the disaster in Sokovia, which prompts Tony to adopt the Sokovia Accords. He submits himself and the team to UN governance in Civil War. More team drama ensues.

The logical progression of this escalating team conflict should have involved Tony confronting his deep-seated compulsion to destroy himself for the sake of others. This is exactly the problem Pepper keeps trying to point out to him—his Messianic tendencies have started to cause more problems than they solve. 

“There is nothing except this. ... There's the next mission, and nothing else.” —Tony Stark, Iron Man

Tony has struggled from the beginning to find the right balance between personal sacrifice and sharing team effort. 

Pepper frequently tries to remind Tony that he doesn’t live alone in the world, he can’t do it all by himself. And there are people who want him to live. 

“You’re all I have, too, you know.” —Pepper Potts, Iron Man

Imagine how emotionally satisfying it would have been to see Tony outgrow his need for sacrificial penance and internalize a better lesson: that the savior can be saved, the burden can be shared, and life can go on. 

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A Better Ending for Tony

The MCU had the perfect opportunity to give us an ending that would be happier for Tony and a better fit for a team-centric universe. 

In Guardians of the Galaxy we see Peter Quill and his team survive the power of an Infinity Stone by working together to share the burden of its energy. 

Peter Quill is the son of a Celestial—he’s basically immortal up until the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. That’s why he and his team could hold the stone without any ill effects. 

Also, they only had to channel the power of one stone. Not six. 

That’s a fair point. 

But by the time Tony had all of the Infinity Stones in Endgame, the battlefield was chock full of all kinds of superheroes. Wanda and Carol by themselves are  embodiments of two of the Infinity Stones. Hulk had managed to bear all of the stones by himself earlier in the movie. Steve, T’challa, and Bucky are enhanced super soldiers. Thor, Valkyrie, and the other Asgardians might not be Celestials, but they are gods—and there were a lot of them on that field.

And we’re supposed to believe none of these characters could offer any help to Tony whatsoever? None of them could hold Tony’s hand for a single minute to save his life?

There are plenty of arguments that could be made: Tony was too fast, no one knew what was happening, or everyone else was occupied in battle. But at the end of the day, it’s a choice the creative team made. Tony died because they wanted him to die. 

And not much would have to change to save his life. 

Imagine this: Tony gets the stones from Thanos and, in true Messianic Archetype fashion, he commits to making the snap, fully expecting it means his death—but then Pepper is there and Pepper has always been the one asking Tony to stop offering up his life to pay for some imaginary debt he thinks he owes. He hesitates, and it’s just long enough for Carol and Wanda swoop in, putting their hands on him and taking the brunt of the energy. Thor and Steve and Bruce and Clint pile on. Peter Parker links up, too, and on and on until the entire rest of the team, all across the battlefield, are in contact with each other and alight with power, channeling the energy of the six stones, keeping Thanos and his monsters at bay. 

Tony can still have his ultra-badass “I am Iron Man” moment as he stands at the center of this surging and fluxing cosmic energy—but this time he does it with support. There are people who care about him (and each other) on all sides. And there are so many of them. Tony isn’t the only one who matters, he’s just the lynch pin that holds it all together. 

Tony is Iron Man. 

More importantly? Together they’re all the Avengers. 

*SNAP*

The universe is set right.

Maybe Tony doesn’t escape entirely unscathed. Maybe he loses his arm as suggested by this post. Maybe the others all leave with their own scars, too. But Tony’s alive and he’s finally, deeply aware of what it means to transcend the limits of personal sacrifice and share the hero’s burden with others. 

He knows now exactly what the Avengers are capable of. Oh, and by the way? That protective shield he wanted around the world in Age of Ultron? Here they all are. All these wonderful, powerful people are going to protect the Earth. And you know what? They don’t need Tony Stark’s myopic self-sacrifice to do it. 

Tony finally feels like he’s done enough—and maybe now he believes there are other heroes out there who can do better than he can. Anyway, he gets to go home to Morgan and Pepper and he finds that it’s not so hard for him to let the new kids do the tough jobs now. He happily goes back to his role as “consultant” for the Avengers, he’s a mad inventor helping change the world for the better, and he also gets to have the long adventure of being a husband and a dad. He doesn’t have to choose one identity over the other—he’s Iron Man. He can redefine what the job means whenever he wants to.

(Also, he finds a way to rescue Nat because she didn’t deserve to be fridged like that. Just saying.)

This ending, or any number of variations like it, would have allowed Tony to finally show real growth at the end of his character arc, instead of succumbing to the same old self-destructive pattern we've seen from him time and time again. And it would have reinforced the theme of teamwork and its power to elevate all those who participate. 

Maybe it’s cheesy, but you know what? It’s the ending I wanted. I know I’m not alone. 

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Tony’s Not Really Dead, You Say? 

“There’s no need to be upset about Tony’s death,” some might say. “Tony’s gonna come back!” 

Resurrection is a huge part of the Messianic Archetype—and it might be that the filmmakers do intend to bring Tony back in some later movie. It might be they simply want Tony’s death in Endgame to sit a little while longer so it has a greater impact. (Gotta push for that best picture Oscar, right? The Oscars hate superhero movies, but they do love a sad ending.)

While I’m wishing for things, maybe Marvel will also release the multiple alternate endings they filmed for Endgame, essentially creating a “choose your own adventure.” Maybe we’ll all be able to pick the ending we like best and forget the rest exist. 

But I can’t make a judgement based on what might be, I can only say how I feel based on what we were given in the theater—for all intents and purposes, that’s the official story Marvel wants to share. 

The Endgame narrative insists there’s only one possible path to victory against Thanos. The “one possible path” is basically the equivalent of the creative team saying, “Don’t @ me.” There certainly must have been an impossible number of endings they could have put on film. Tony’s death is the one they picked. 

So, sorry for @ing you, Marvel, I guess, but there’s just one more point I want to make...

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A Personal Note

RDJ acted the hell out of Tony's final scene. He acted the hell out of the whole franchise. Tony's death was powerful and intensely moving. I wanted to ugly cry in the lobby after the movie was over, and I was upset for days after. 

So. Good job, Marvel. You got in some surprises and you wrung out some feelings from viewers like me. Now that the movie’s taken the world by storm, the surprises will play themselves out. So, I guess the big question is: Will audiences want to revisit this adventure and the feelings you ultimately left them with? 

For me? My reluctant answer is: no. I don’t want to see Infinity War or Endgame again. Not really. Not in their entirety. I didn’t mind the slog through Infinity War in 2018 because I thought, Hey, maybe this is leading to an ultimately happy and satisfying conclusion for these characters I care about so much. And, to be fair—right up until the last 15 minutes of Endgame, I was ready to say, “All’s forgiven.” 

There’s this thing in storytelling called “payoff.” It’s when you deliver a satisfying resolution or fulfillment to your audience after they commit to your narrative journey. Payoff can be extraordinarily subjective, so, again, I acknowledge that there’s no way to please everyone. 

For me, there’s no reward in the resolution of Endgame that makes the slog to its conclusion worth it. Tony’s ending is so needlessly sacrificial, so unnecessarily brutal, that it erases much of the enjoyment I otherwise had in watching the entire rest of the film. 

Don’t get me wrong. I like sad movies and scary movies in their own context. I like them when I can choose them and know that’s what I'm getting myself into. Sometimes I want the catharsis of being utterly terrified or brought to tears. Sometimes we need stories to give us the chance to feel deep and scary emotions in a safe environment. That’s an important function of creative work.

And, I mean, truly, Endgame gave us some great acting, great effects. Amazing talent. Really fun and creative moments. I’m not trying to disparage all the work that went into its making. 

But I feel like someone took me in a limo to a high-class restaurant to eat caviar and watch sad arthouse theater when all I really wanted was to go into town with my friends for some ice cream and a fun movie. 

I didn’t need rainbow-colored sprinkles on my ending, but something a bit sweeter would have been nice. So, well done, Marvel. But also—no, thank you. 

As it stands, Endgame was too bitter for my taste.