#the true discourse

[sharpjay217]

New Wels post, with context.

[ajaxgb]

@punkitt-is-here Well somebody had to.

[torglives]

to say my piece: firstly, fuck iskall.

secondly, its very easy to tell by the outpouring of hate comments on many of the hermits' recent videos (after his response) that he reached a target of young, impressionable fans. not only that, but also a darker side of the hermitcraft fandom that i like to ignore.

as much as i love hermitcraft, its "golden" status that its gotten from remaining "unpolitical" and "drama-free" has perpetuated a very ugly-hearted group of fans who cant find solace in the more openly left-wing smp communities. so they turn to hermitcraft, where they can hide a little more easily. and this has been a group of people slowly cultivating numbers for years now, and there's enough of them that docm77's gay beacon, or the number of pride mcc participants (and queer hermits) can't ward off.

these people have always been the ones brushing concerns in the community under the rug, the "this isn't the place for politics," and "i watch hermitcraft to get AWAY from that stuff." types. they are never going to believe the women that were harassed over the male creator they've latched onto as someone who's "for them" and "un-cancelable." these people have been waiting for this opportunity. and you'll see them say "hermitcraft is over," and "they can't come back from this," but none of that is true. they're the only ones who believe that.

and as awful as all of this is, the hate and the VERY thinly veiled misogyny-- there is a bright-side in weeding those people out. "i don't think i'll be able to watch hermitcraft after this" good fucking riddance.

iskall knew what he was doing by bringing his shit response video to his youtube audience. instead of the reddit, instead of twitter, but to a space that HE moderates. the space with the highest concentration of people who he know will defend him.

my only hope is that the hermits double down on this, and that they have the backbone to make it clear that these people are not welcome in the community. and neither is iskall. and that the larger chunk of us continue to support the victims, and uplift what they have to say. i can't imagine how this must feel for them.

[astrowarr]

every life series season has a villain, but not in the way you might think. it's always a symbol of some kind. it's not a person, but a concept, an ideal, an overarching force. that is, in every season except wild life

third life had circumstance. everything was new and hard to grasp, and no one knew what to do. the villain of third life was the world itself; think of the animal extinction, for example.

last life had brutality. both physically and mentally. it was rife with betrayal and isolation; reds had to abandon teams, and the boogeyman mechanic's paranoia forced everyone apart.

double life had love. love, and the fate it tangled itself in. it was a complex villain, but love killed them again and again, and rewarded the single person who didn't give in to it.

limited life had time. the passage of time itself was the enemy and everything was driven by that. they clawed their way to every last second, and time ate them all in the end.

secret life had the secret keeper. unyielding, unrelenting, unmoving, all-knowing. when the secret keeper forced them to do awful things, no one disobeyed, but hated it all the same.

wild life has grian. grian is representative of every wild card the world plays. he runs the command, and stops it at the end of the day. he is transparent about that. he accepts bribes for information, and unabashedly uses his knowledge to his advantage. he is Other. the players treat him the exact way they did the secret keeper; he's not a player like them this season, he's a symbol, and one of every awful thing that's happened to them at that

which is to say, wild life's villain is a symbol and an overarching force. it's just, for the first time, simultaneously a person, too. everyone else is realizing that too and are pointing their blades at grian, slowly but surely. it is SO fascinating

[metamodernisms]

dream resurfacing on the internet again via twitter post where he says the r slur is like seeing a roach float up to the surface of your soup after you thought you flushed it down the toilet

[knifearo]

"asexual discourse" is so funny cause dude that's not discourse and it's never been discourse. it's not an argument and it's not a conversation bitches are just yelling at us unprompted and then making up people to get mad at 😭

[artist-issues]

I'm so tired of people saying that the Prince from Snow White is a creep for kissing Snow White when he thought she was dead.

People act as if he put his tongue down her throat while she looks like a regular corpse.

Maybe I'm just more comfortable with death because of my upbringing.

There's a European tradition that you would kiss dead people goodbye. You would also wait with a dying person because dying alone was one of the most horrible ways to die.

In Poland, you would spend three days with the dead body of your relative in the house so family and friends have time to say goodbyes. We even have pictures of family members in coffins, so we could remember them.

Yeah, it's a very post-modern, historically, culturally-small-minded way to look at it.

Specifically in this movie (which is a fairy tale's fairy tale) people just...totally ignore the scene where The Prince is introduced.

Seriously and truthfully, BECAUSE the Prince only takes action in three scenes of the movie, you HAVE to take all three of them very very seriously. Because thats all there is to know about him. That's how fairy tales work: lots of information hiding under very brief, simple snippets of information. It's called nuance.

Anyway.

The Prince kisses Snow White as a culmination of their promised love for each other.

First scene he's in, he falls in love with her because of her obvious purity and he overhears her longing for someone to love her. Then she runs away because she's not sure of him, and doesn't know him. But he sings his part of the song, which is all about how he has just one heart to give, one devotion to spend, and he's choosing to give it and spend it on her if she'll have him.

And she will have him. How do we know? She sends a kiss to him on the dove. That's how the exchange ends; that's how she responds, and that's why he leaves satisfied. It's their engagement scene. They're promising their hearts to each other.

Fast-forward, the Queen messes up what might have been the natural follow-through of that engagement which is marriage by trying to kill Snow White, she's living in the woods, but she won't forget the Prince and wholeheartedly believes he'll come find her.

And the very next thing we hear about him is that he keeps his promise. He's got one heart, one love, one devotion, and it's promised to Snow White, and he will not stop searching for her. When he finds her, he's returning her kiss from their engagement scene. He thinks she's dead, but he has to finish his quest anyway. This is him, trying to keep his promise even if she's dead; he's trying to fulfill the exchange they had when they saw each other last.

It's ridiculous to assume that she needed to be awake and alive to give permission for him to kiss her; it's ignorant of the whole relationship, symbolic and literal, between these two fairy tale characters. She already sent him her kiss and her heart; he already promised to claim it; he's fulfilling the promise in that scene.

Crazy postmodern people, don't know how to take in a story. Not everything gets to have your socio-cultural lens imposed upon it.

[kitkat-the-muffin]

NOBODY DELETE YOUR DSMP ANIMATICS OR FANSONGS

THOSE THINGS ARE HISTORICAL FACT NOW

EVERYONE WHO PLAYED A DEFINED ANTAGONIST IN THAT SERIES WAS SECRETLY EVIL IRL

Not Technoblade tho he was a hero (and more of an anti-hero character anyway)

WE MUST PRESERVE THE SACRED DOCUMENTS AND PREACH AGAINST THE TYRANNY OF THOSE WHO HAVE BETRAYED US

[rollercoasterwords]

truly mskingbean89 is stronger than me because if thousands of people were saying something i wrote had been written by taylor swift i would end it all 😀

[ranahan]

I’ve had a number of posts on my dash lately going “but did you know Jaster Mereel was a merc who killed people.” I’m more amused than annoyed, but I think this reads enough like a rant that I’m making this its own post rather than a reply to someone else’s. That being said…

Yes. I did in fact know this about one my favourite characters.

How is this any different than the faction of the fandom who simp after Darth Maul? Are they are unaware that Maul is a bad guy? Does it lessen their enjoyment of the character, or could it be that it’s an essential part of their enjoyment even?

Personally, the thing that makes this character intriguing to me is precisely the dichotomy between how he’s portrayed in the comics and also described as a honourable and pious person. There’s a pretty big gap between the reality or mercenary work and honour as we know it on Earth. So that raises all kinds of interesting questions: how would that even work? Or perhaps: what does that tell us about Mandalorian morality? And I find stories (and fanfics) that explore these questions compelling.

Similarly, the story where Jaster Mereel with his mercenary morals rules, is a more entertaining story to me than the story where Satine Kryze and her pacifism rules. Under whose rule would I rather live in real life? Kryze’s, of course. But this is not real life. Mandalore is a fictional place. Absolutely no one is hurt, if they are ruled by a bad guy.

Mandalore’s entire purpose as a fictional place is to create stories and do what stores do, whether that’s entertain, educate, engage or provoke readers. And I happen to think that stories with conflict are more entertaining. The story where Palpatine rules is a better story than the story where Bail Organa rules.

tldr: it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Mereel is a fictional character, not a real person, so I score my enjoyment and what’s “good” by the metric of what makes a good story, not what I would like to happen in real life. Is Mereel a good person? Debatable. Is he a good character? To me, yes.

I feel like the fans who treat fictional characters like real people, are always going to be disappointed by the segment of fandom who don’t.

Not to say Mereel and Palpatine or Darth Maul are comparable (Mereel is more of a morally grey character whereas Palpatine and Maul are portrayed as simply evil). These are just exaggerated examples to illustrate my point. I’m similarly giving Kryze’s rule a generous interpretation to show my point does not depend on the relative morality of the characters.

[swordscleric]

I'm only halfway through the second phase of Predathos (which, to be clear is an incredible vibe for a bossfight, love a good head & hands/multitarget-same-entity boss) but I cannot shake the feeling of disappointment and just dissatisfaction I have had with this campaign that definitely started with Dusk/Yu, got followed up handily with the first Delilah/Sun Tree fight and then has been unfortunately reinforced with every discussion surrounding the Prime Deities since Hearthdell. This campaign is fascinating to pick apart, I have been really enjoying pulling apart why it isn't working compared to C1 or C2. But as much as I'm having fun dissecting where the worldbuilding has led to the current weaknesses in the gods' argument or reading other people's incisive commentary on the lack of personalities on the Ruby Vanguard's end, the "girlfailure" nonsense, etc etc, man do I wish this campaign was better than it is.

There are so many avenues of improvement -

Matt telling everyone to prep and write characters for this campaign instead of a C2-esque character-focused campaign.

Matt working religious organisations into the world properly.

The cast engaging with Marquet as a genuine location rather than set-dressing.

Otohan, Ozo and the rest of the Vanguard having more than "*insert snappy line here*" for their personalities.

No Delilah.

Bell's Hells having an iota of curiosity for anything outside of their own selves, including but not limited to: the gods, religious worship, the Elemental Titans and why they were sundered, how the people of Exandria feel about the gods, Vasselheim and its role in suppressing information about Predathos, Ludinus Da'Leth's plan and how it would still break the world if they did it in his place

I don't know why all of this fell into place in the way that it did, but it did. We can endlessly speculate why - the cast resting on their laurels after C2, not having enough time between the animated shows and Daggerheart and Candela Obscura and, and, and - but at the end of the day I really do hope that whatever form the final campaign wrap-up takes, they burn the damn questions asking the cast "what if the world was made of pudding and this character and this character kissed?" and instead pick questions that get them to introspect for a potential Campaign 4. Otherwise I don't know what will happen, but it sure as hell won't be Mighty Nein part 2: Issylra Boogaloo.

[milquetoad]

i think my problem with ashton is that the potential they have to grow as a character is contingent on being confronted on their biases and shortcomings, and that is simply not happening due to rp and campaign arc decisions, so they have just entrenched themselves in their little bubble of nihilism and self-centeredness in a way that feels like it’s holding the entire story back

[xanderscollection]

"Growing up is realising a (random ship) you loved is actually weird and bad"

Yeah? Is it? Great, I love it even more. The worse it is the Better.

[princesstarfire1234]

TLDR: I fucking despise ship art and fanfics that infantilize Orion Pax / Optimus Prime

Okay so I just wanna put my thoughts out here right now because I've not seen many people talk about it and it honestly bothers me a lot...

So, it's no secret that I ship MegOp and stuff right? I like and have reblogged a bunch of art of them before and I will keep doing so, but something about how this place (or more certain parts of the fandom) portray the ship gives me major icks and I fucking hate it so much

Detailed thoughts under cut ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Case in point, a massive part of the TFP fanbase likes to ship Orion and Megatronus and I get that, I get why people like shipping those two but it's the WAY they do it. A lot, not all, but most of the fanart surrounding Orion Pax and Megatronus is him being like the smaller and more submissive one of the relationship which fine, whatever, but most people just end up drawing him REALLY small like ik he's shorter than Megs who was a gladiator and all that and he was an archivist but jesus christ... Aside the size which is weird and all but it's really all about the rampant infantilization of the guy. When they remove all agency from the character and act like Orion is gonna fucking combust the moment someone confronts him or tries to fight him like no... I've not read Exodus but I don't think Orion being a nerdy book guy is gonna make him THAT soft, this is still the same mech who became PRIME like cmon

I don't know the exact words for it other than "infantilization" but like y'know what I mean right?? I'm not gonna name blogs but there's this one AU on here where Orion is blind and it has this cutesy artstyle which is fine but I vividly remember reading a comic on that AU where some thugs confront Orion and he's all like sobbing and shit and has to be saved by someone and it's... so you made him disabled and also a crybaby and absolutely incapable of anything??? Does that NOT give you an ick of sorts or seem weird??? God I don't even know anymore because I've seen many people seem to like that so I'm just scared I'm the weird one and wrong for this lmfao... Maybe there's smthn im not getting, you tell me

Anyways this post is getting real long, but this kind of "infantilization" also applies to certain fanarts of TFA MegOp, I always thought the ship was bordering on kind of strange (since TFA Optimus is like the equivalent of some 20-something college dropout and Megatron is implied to have been doing the war stuff way way way back like Ratchet's time) but I won't get into that, I just don't ship that certain brand of the characters myself, but it's fine, do what you want with it. Just know that I have seen art of those two where they treat TFA Optimus as this sort of incapable cutesy uwu boy (aaaghh)

So yeah.... hahahaha stop infantilizing characters and taking a ship where they're both grown ass big men and like straight up turning the other one into some weird ass incapable version of the character that lacks any and all agency and honestly bordering on being really icky as fuck, thank you, idc if you make Optimus the bottom or whatever, that's not what I mean, cya ✌️

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

fans: catra got called out by double trouble! she was held accountable for her actions!

meanwhile double trouble's “call out”:

blames catra for being abused by shadow weaver

states that adora left catra when that wasn't true

doesn't mention entrapta but instead mentions hordak?? like catra “betraying” her boss is worse than her sending her friend to certain death???

doesn't mention angella or glimmer

doesn't address how catra abused adora

doesn't mention the thousands of innocent people catra has killed or injured

implies that catra never wanted to do any of this, when all of her actions say otherwise

[artist-issues]

I love the comments and defense of the original Snow White but some people are not taking the defensive position that I would take, all things considered.

I mean, asking the question “since when is it bad to wish for love?” is one thing, but then sometimes people follow it up with, “and that’s not all she wanted! That’s not her main goal!”

Okay I appreciate you but yes it was. Let’s just call it like it is. And then don’t back down. Hear me out.

The first thing you learn about Snow-White is from that pretty opening-fairy-tale-book page, where it points out two characters: the wicked and vain stepmother who is afraid of Snow White and dresses her in rags to cover up her beauty, and uses her as a scullery maid—and Snow White herself, who is…well, used as a scullery maid.

Treated as a servant, and actively hated by the only family she has. And she’s a child. She hasn’t been alive very long to experience anything other than hatred and jealousy toward herself.

She’s even talking to birds, and the fact that they’re clustered around her from beginning to end of that opening scene indicates that they’re very comfortable with her and she talks to them all the time—because they’re the only positive interaction she gets to have.

That’s the situation that Snow White is in. But the first thing you learn about who she is and what she wants comes when she wishes in the well. And what’s she wishing for?

Love. The one she loves. A specific, male figure, who will say nice things to her and find her. She wants him to come quick. Why?

How silly. How vapid and shallow of her. How weak and one-dimensional. Please, goodness, can’t someone update her to have some depth?

NO. She is a young woman who is not given any love and is treated like a horrible nuisance who must be covered up in dirt and rags. She has no friends except birds, who can’t talk back. She is actively hated by the closest person to her.

It’s a miracle she even knows the word “love” and has the strength of character to believe in it after the situation she’s grown up in.

The song very specifically says “I’m wishing…for the one I love…to find me…today. I’m hoping…and I’m dreaming of…the nice things…he’ll say.”

She wants to be loved because she isn’t loved. Geez, she wants someone to say nice things to her. She wants to give her own love because she doesn’t have anything but courtyard doves to befriend. Of course it’s her goal. Of course it’s her wish. What wish or goal could be higher? And what wish or goal could be more natural for a character in her situation?

And even more than that, what could be stronger than believing that it will happen? This character who’s been unloved and mistreated by everyone takes a Prince at his word when he says he’ll give her that love. He promises it, and she believes him.

She has every opportunity and right to be bitter, hardened, anti-social, self-absorbed (pre-Huntsman and Dwarfs, she could very easily believe that nobody else is going to watch out for her except herself) and jaded. But instead she has this pure faith, which it takes a lot to maintain when everything has been ripped away from you. She could’ve been totally swamped by doubt and bitterness.

I mean, she could worry that the Prince won’t be able to convince her Stepmother to let him marry her.

Then when she gets chased into the woods for her life, she could fret that the Prince wouldn’t know how to find her.

Heck, she could just forget about him, give up, and say, “this is my life now, I’m living with these seven dwarfs and we’ll take care of each other, I guess that’s the most I can hope for.”

But no. She has faith in his promise, and hangs on to her dream, and sings, with total assurance, “Someday My Prince Will Come.” I mean, she won’t even let a moment of panic in the woods go by without reprimanding herself for losing that faith, for a second.

Can any of you say the same? Can any of you imagine being that kind of person: the kind of person who unashamedly wants to love and be loved in return, and when everything is stripped away and every chance at that taken from you, you hang on and believe anyway? You stay positive and even joyful anyway? For love?

Come on. Defend that. Yes, her goal was “just” to be loved. And to love in return. The fear of having her life taken from her, the necessity (not the desire for) freedoms from that, was just an obstacle in the way of being loved. And this isn’t a movie about Snow White’s natural reaction to abuse. It’s about her strength of faith in love in SPITE of that abuse. The spotlight is on her strength, not her weakness, but it’s strength of faith in love.

Anyway.

If you believe that it’s good and fine for a girl’s whole goal and fondest dream is to be loved, then don’t stand with one foot in that camp and another in the camp that says “girls want more than just love.” No, what? Love is the best thing a girl can want. I’m not talking about “romance.” I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about pure, self-sacrificial, kind love. It’s the best thing they can want, and Snow White is one of the only characters who does want it unashamedly, uncomplicated.

Just defend that. Don’t try to argue that the “Someday My Prince Will Come” Princess isn’t wholeheartedly after love. Makes it look like you don’t believe that’s as wonderful as it is.