#there are many a critique to be had about the show

[m1dnightbarbie]

i think people need to be better about separating adaptations from their source material🧍‍♀️

[celtrist]

I really want to see a more fucked up version of Charlie in canon. Like, okay, I am a die-hard for sweet bubbly girls in media. But I always see how some people make Charlie actually, oh I dunno... demonic? And it's so refreshing for her type of character. I could honestly see her having low empathy (and we kinda see this with how she handled Angel's situation or even Vaggie's nervousness about taking control on an activity). An exploration of that trait (if it was intended) would be interesting to see for a protagonist, especially when her main goal is about helping others. I would love to see her actually have a level of difficulty in understanding others' feelings from the other residents, sinners, and even her father.

But give her a fucked up side. Not a "she gets more power when she's angey uwu", but a "oh, she's a little fucked in the head". It would give so much to her character that she just doesn't have.

@/murmurmurena (don't wanna bother them so slash there we go) has some fun ideas with Charlie. I highly encourage people to check their stuff out! So many fun dark ideas with her character while also still keeping to her canon personality pretty well! Personally, I think Charlie being a bit more naive to her own messed up traits would work best but her also being aware of these traits can make for some interesting character for her.

THIS FIC, "A Game Between You and I". RIGHT HERE WITH THE FIRST CHAPTER. A bit of spoil for the fic here: but I love how they handled Charlie’s absolute ignorance as to why the idea of Russian roulette is horrifying to Angel Dust. It doesn't feel like her being intentionally malicious or aware that she's the odd man out here. This is also a pretty old fic going by only the pilot, but the point still stands that it was such a fun take for her character!

Charlie is one of my favorite characters in the show in part of the POTENTIAL she could have as being the most bubbly sweetheart character while also being the most messed up character in the show. I can't say I have strong confidence with the show's writing and fully expect them to stick with Charlie being the "nice girl but oh no, don't get her angry or she gets scarwy". Which isn't bad for a character mind you, there's just so much more potential to Charlie outside of that trope, especially when you get into the theories of her either being a doll, Roo's biological daughter, or what have you. And for the MAIN CHARACTER of the show, it would be not only interesting but also bring the spotlight back to her.

There's really no question that the side characters steal the show, particularly all the male characters. If I'm honest, Charlie does not feel like she gets a lot of love from the show itself when she's supposed to be the main character. She feels far more flat compared to the rest of the characters (again, the male cast in this "female-lead" show has more depth than most of the female cast currently. I wouldn't be pointing this tidbit concerning the genders of characters if it weren't for the fact Viv defended Helluva's lack of development with their female cast by saying "Hazbin is a female-lead show and Helluva is a male-lead" and Hazbin ended up with it not feeling female lead (to me) and the male cast just completely stealing the show. I don't normally care about gender stuff, especially since I do personally lean interest towards male characters. But using one show as a defense for poor development of the female characters, and then that show not really holding up with no very interesting well-developed feeling female characters irritates me. It's just very clear that these shows don't seem to care much about the female cast :/)

If you like how Charlie is written that's totally fine. PERSONALLY, I just think they're missing so much opportunity with her character by just making her the standard female character type. I honestly don't have a lot of faith they'll actually do something with Charlie's character though. She's a pretty static character in S1 being the same from start to end. Not changing or learning anything to create any development. What does the end of season Charlie do that start of season Charlie wouldn't do? Fight back? Because we see with the pilot (which is the “first episode”) that Charlie does fight people if pushed like with Katie Killjoy and even Valentino. Static characters can work in media depending on the show or their role. But Charlie is the MC of a show about “bettering one's self”. So to have her as a static with not a lot of strong dilemmas for herself (like we see with Angel Husk Al and even Vox) seems silly. Plus, considering Hazbin is telling a whole story and it's not a fun episodic thing, characters are expected to grow on some level. Or else, what was the point of their hero's journey?

[shewolf-sinclair]

no i love this. i’m taking ap research and for a while was looking into doing a media analysis project on jason todd and how he exists as social commentary. an essay i plan to write later anyways but without the college board guidelines.

when you think about he exists to critique everything batman stands for.

he comes from NOTHING. he has had to work for everything he has.

bruce is as old money as it gets. he was raised with the world at his fingertips.

jason fights for the general wellbeing of gotham. but deep down he fights for the kids like them. to show them they too can be something. to protect them. the unprotected, often situationally the weakest, the young, the innocent, and the poor. He fights so they don’t have to grow up with crime as their only possibility of a living. so they have options.

it’s not that bruce inherently doesn’t care. but. he has subconscious bias. he fights in crime alley because he hates crime. but he’s not thinking about what his presence might mean to the residents besides taking down bad guys. And he’s more concerned with bigger things like mobs and gangs and big bads than the small things. At least he is by the time he takes Jason in. He’s not just batman either. he’s bruce. he holds immense power as a citizen. he has the ability to improve the conditions in crime alley that pushes those people towards crime in the first place.

jason as RH goes into being a crimelord strictly to dismantle that system (from the inside). Because who cares if petty theft continues he’s keeping the drugs and predators away from the kids. because this generation may be fucked but he can keep the next one from making the same mistakes. and he’ll help this one where he can, too. he’s anti batman because he’s mad at batman, but also because of where his priorities as a vigilante and political figure lie.

batman works with the police. he comes when they call him. if you don’t think that provides bias as to who he helps you’re insane. the police in canon are corrupt, in such a way they mirror the real systemic problems we have in real life, although DC doesn’t always get as graphic within it’s PD and often tries to show them as accessories to heroism (again racist in many ways) this automatically puts batman fighting to save the middle and upper class more often than those in crime alley. and the white residents of gotham more often than the poc.

I know a lot of people don’t like the live action titans show. and while I love it dearly I’m not here to argue about what it did or didn’t get right or do well. I just want to mention l a specific scene in Jason’s s3 arc that ties back to the point of this thread; specifically 3x05 “Lazurus” which stands as one of my favorite episodes of television to this day.

In looking for the exact scene I want to reference I came across Molly’s (jason’s childhood friend) character wiki:

In said scene Jason and Molly meet and discover the whereabouts of a missing kid, to which Molly remarks “He’s poor and brown so the cops don’t give a shit” and while Jason at first says batman will handle it, he very quickly — and after Molly comments on batman’s classism — rushes into trying to take action. The following scene is them confronting the suspected kidnapper and Jason kicking his ass. Maybe even better Jason’s FIRST act as red-hood was saving the kid.

Later in the season he goes on several times to separate himself from scarecrow, reasoning that he didn’t agree to be redhood for senseless violence but because he wanted a better gotham, and wanted the opportunity to take down crime from the inside.

the last thing want to discuss is the kill/no kill rule.

in general redhood doesn’t go on random killing sprees. It is almost always killing predators and abusers, as a way of keeping them away from their victims and saving potential future victims. Because Jason knows locking them up in Arkham or other similar solutions tends not to work. Jason doesn’t kill because he likes it, or is okay with it. It’s a means of necessity. Him having a high kill count is direct commentary on the vigilante/anti-hero trope and on morality and what makes a mean to an end, on what draws the line. His very existence as Red Hood is the same thing as asking “What if you cut a rapists dick off? Or otherwise maim them? What if you commit murder in an act of self defense or one of immediate defense of another?” It’s like when cops shoot a suspect because it’s the only foreseeable way to prevent them from harming people in the immediate future. It’s not arguing that murder is moral. It’s arguing which is less moral; killing them, or allowing them to continue causing harm; knowing you had a chance to stop it. Mind you we are discussing ethics, not legality, as 90% of the vigilante work is illegal.

Batman however refuses to kill, even in the case if the Joker — who murders countless people for fun, including Jason. Batman continues unreliable ways of keeping them off them the streets, with no effort to make them any more reliable. and again is has nothing to do with worrying about the law- he breaks the law constantly.

And this has always been there stark difference, why Jason fights so hard against crime AND a against Batman, and while even after reconciliation they still have a strained relationship.

My opinion on the Latino Jason Todd headcanon

While I do understand ppl's criticism of the latino Jason todd headcanon and how its kind of racist to make the kid with parents with drug problems as the latino one, to me its more of a reclamation BECAUSE of DC's racism.

Read any 80s/90s batman issue that covers gang violence and drugs, most if not ALL of the criminals are poc; black people and latinos visibly make up the majority in the poorer neighbourhoods in Gotham. Aside from the caricaturist way they r drawn/speak, its not THAT weird cause its a reflection of irl big cities where immigrants and marginalised ppl are often forced to live in such situations, (like most of my dominican family lives in the bronx... it aint racist to say dominicans tend to flock there), BUT...the weird part is when the second a sympathetic character comes from that area, he's white and has a name thats "too fancy for the streets".

Obviously, Jason was created to look like the old robin, so I can't say that the whole "diamond in the rough" situation was purposely a tad bit racist, but its still a lil weird (especially with bruce's comment).

If Jason were a part of the overwhelming demographic in his area, the good-kid-in-a-bad-area trope has less connotations. DC is currently trying to fix this trope is by making crime alley whiter, which isn't bad but they could've just yk... humanised the non-white residents.

I also feel like the messed up way Jason was treated post-death is what makes him so relatable to latino readers. His tragic story of dying while trying to save his only living relative is turned into a lesson for newer vigilantes. Jason's particular disdain for abusers on a few occasions was twisted (by both writers and characters) into him always being dumb, reckless, cocky, angry and disobedient, always violent, never having been able to get over his upbringing. None of those things were true (he was a normal level of reckless and cocky like every other robin, not more), but its an easier narrative to digest compared to how it was in reality; a kid who worked so hard and loved even harder, died to save a woman who couldn't care less about his existence. He was an emotional AND smart kid who wanted so bad to help others get better but was remembered as too emotional (in a bad way).

THIS is the reality for many latino diasporas in day to day life; Theres no question that Latino culture is passionate and emotive, but people from other cultures assume that it is followed by instead of logical. both can coexist. emotion does not mean u have no logic. Emotions can be irrational but they aren't inherently that way, and I wouldn't say that the moments where Jason lashed out as a teenager were irrational (in og runs, not rewrites post red hood), they were mostly done to protect someone (going crazy on abusers, disobeying batman to save sheila, that time he got into a fight at school to defend his friend).

A lot of euro-centric culture is OBSESSED with the idea that rationality is separate from feelings and emotions, but not crying at a funeral doesn't mean you're better than those who do. Emotions are the basis of human ethics and morals, they define the way we interact as a collective and ignoring them does not mean they are not there. Theres no winner to a contest of who can feel the less. And the way Jason's emotions are treated (pre-rh, hes definitely unhinged afterwards lol) is so in line with how white culture tends to punish those who aren't ashamed to feel.

I TOTES UNDERSTAND that some ppl who headcanon Jason as latino are doing it for the complete opposite of reasons, like "oh here some angry emotional guy with druggie parents, haha must be latino". Its weird. I dont like it. And its only brought up so he can swear in spanish in some rlly bad text post where his emotions are getting out. But to me there's so much potential for metanarrative and commentary on how latinos are treated in media that can be exemplified through the way his character is treated. Being latino would add SO MUCH DEPTH to his character and his dynamic with the others.

[james-stark-the-writer]

sometimes the way you people talk about Riverdale really makes me feel like you guys are anti-art lmao

[crybabydraws]

I'm a fan of Hazbin Hotel, but man does it have writing problems. I watched episode 5 and 6 yesterday and I think that if they did episode 3 differently it could've made episode 5 make more sense. Let me explain.

**Spoilers from here on, so if you haven't seen it and you wanna watch it yourself first then don't continue.**

Ngl guys. Episode 3 was a mess. I won't go into all the details, but I was just disappointed. To sum my thoughts up, I think Vaggie's arc should've been about her learning to trust people, they shouldn't have revealed who killed the angel; Camilla being the angel killer is kind of boring imo; and I don't care about the emotional ballad because I have no reason to care about Camilla or Vaggie's low point because it comes out of nowhere.

Now we're gonna talk about Charlie and Alastor in episode 5 because honestly what is going on??? Alastor hates Lucifer the second he walks in the door and immediately starts trying to act like he and Charlie have like a father/daughter dynamic and he's suddenly really protective of her even though this dynamic/type of relationship between the two has never been established before??? And I don't think he's just doing it to piss of Lucifer either. Like he's way protective over Charlie all of a sudden and judging by the song Alastor and Lucifer sing together, he's like maybe jealous of him or sees him as a threat??? Idk, guys, it's weird and I have no idea what the fuck is going on or why here. They barely have any screen time together and none of the interactions they have up until this point implies a more developed relationship than when he first started with the hotel. There could be a reason that we don't know yet especially with the connection between Lillith and Alastor that has been drawn before, but that does not expain this weird dynamic with Charlie that hasn't been established. This is my biggest qualm with episode 5. So how could episode 3 have changed this?

Episode 3 has Charlie entrust Vaggie with doing trust exercises, but Vaggie is not a very trusting person in general. She doesn't trust most of the people in the hotel even; especially Alastor. Since Vaggie is supposed to be running the trust exercises, Charlie doesn't really have anything to do except watch her, but what if she was somewhere else? You know what the ultimate trust exercise would be for Vaggie's character? The one person she holds dear accompanying an incredibly powerful and terrifying demon overlord on his day out with just the two of them. Vaggie's plot with the hotel gang would be her spying on Alastor and Charlie. She'd force the hotel gang to help her.

Now to focus more on the Alastor issue, Charlie asks Alastor if she can join him on his day out since she fully trusts that Vaggie can handle doing some trust exercises with the rest of the gang. At first Alastor says no and explains that he's got a very important meeting to attend today, but then Charlie shows him her power to turn into a tiny snake and tells him that no one will even notice that it's her (her dad could do it so why not her?) She also adds that if the people he's meeting with have anymore information about the extermination that it's important for her to know. Alastor caves and they head off. They have some banter on the way until Zestial shows up and talks with Alastor. Charlie is hiding in one of Alastor's jacket pockets (or maybe even just chilling on his shoulder since she's disguised as a snake.) until they get to the meeting with the other overlords.

After said meeting, we don't get to know who killed the angel. That whole scene with Zestial and Camilla is scrapped for this as well as the song. The meeting makes her realize just how dire the situation is with the knowledge that angels can be killed and that demons can kill them. Not only that, but the Vs, who control many parts of the media of hell, now know that and could release the information at anytime and start a violent revolt or even a war before she can prove that there doesn't need to be one. She feels scared and almost defeated after this, but Alastor comforts her saying he doesn't think redemption is possible, but if anyone can prove him and the rest of the worlds wrong, it's Charlie. Maybe they even sing a song together. Maybe she even talks about the troubles she has with her dad with him, hence why he doesn't like him immediately in episode 5.

After this moment, Vaggie, who has been spying on them almost the whole time, realizes that maybe she should be more trusting of people. Charlie finds her and the gang spying on them and concludes that Vaggie needs to do some trust exercises. The whole ordeal has brought everyone in the group closer together. They go back to the hotel where Charlie has Vaggie do the trust fall from the beginning of the episode. Vaggie, with baited breath and eyes closed, falls backwards. When she lands she thinks it must've been Charlie that caught her, but when she opens her eyes she's been caught by everyone arms including Alastor's. The only one who didn't catch her was Charlie who had her eyes closed the whole time trusting her friends to catch her.

They laugh about it and have some silly banter. Alastor watching them all laughing, looks at Charlie. She's still clearly shaken by the meeting. He gives Charlie a smile and reassuring hand on the shoulder looks to the gang all laughing together and says, "See, dear? You're already starting to prove me wrong." (or something like that) Charlie grins back at him and hugs him tightly as he begrudgingly, but also kind of not begrudgingly, lets her hug him and doesn't push her away. She lets go and joins the group followed by Alastor. The episode ends.

TL;DR: Allowing Alastor and Charlie to bond in episode 3 would've really helped episode 5 imo andd episode 3 had a perfect set up for that to happen. I still think even with this little fix you'd have to build up this dynamic more for it to really work tbh, but it's possible. Anyways, there's my little ramble. I do wanna know what y'all think of it, so if you have thoughts lemme know.

[death-himself]

ok don't get me wrong, i love the disney+ show and while I haven't enjoyed all of the changes, I have liked or at least understood a majority of them

but i'm so sad that all of the changes pretty much cut out how purely childish and twelve the trio were in the book

like i understand the changes, they do make the plot feel less like the series of coincidences I'm beginning to see the book as

but i miss them going to aunty em's because they were just kids who wanted something unhealthy to eat and staying in the lotus because they just wanted a bit of fun

i get it makes sense for annabeth and grover to figure out aunty em is medusa and the lotus casino is related to the lotus flowers but I'm so sad it meant sacrificing them being dumbass little kids

[pinksilvace]

.

[neofelis----nebulosa]

one thing i will never understand is why the general consensus is that kfp 3 is by far the worst in the trilogy. not that i particularly care whether or not other people like the pieces of media i like as much as i do but i literally just dont get where its coming from. like normally when i see criticism of pieces of media i personally like i can understand where people are coming from but with kfp 3 i just dont get it. like the things people critique it for i either straight up find not to be true at all or were just as true for the previous movies. like im convinced at this point that i watched a different movie than everyone else.

[leezuhh]

it feels like the population of people online who understand that sometimes people watch stuff that is not technically "good" simply because they enjoy it is getting smaller all the time

[diningpageantry]

drinking hateraide tonight. unfortunately, that hateraide is manifesting directly into my aggressive and growing need to make longform video essays on YouTube.

[emeryleewho]

I used to work for a trade book reviewer where I got paid to review people's books, and one of the rules of that review company is one that I think is just super useful to media analysis as a whole, and that is, we were told never to critique media for what it didn't do but only for what it did.

So, for instance, I couldn't say "this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". I instead had to say, "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

I think this is really important because a lot of "critiques" people give, if subverted to address what the book does instead of what it doesn't do, actually read pretty nonsensical. For instance, "none of the characters were unique" becomes "all of the characters read like other characters that exist in other media", which like... okay? That's not really a critique. It's just how fiction works. Or "none of the characters were likeable" becomes "all of the characters, at some point or another, did things that I found disagreeable or annoying" which is literally how every book works?

It also keeps you from holding a book to a standard it never sought to meet. "The world building in this book simply wasn't complex enough" becomes "The world building in this book was very simple", which, yes, good, that can actually be a good thing. Many books aspire to this. It's not actually a negative critique. Or "The stakes weren't very high and the climax didn't really offer any major plot twists or turns" becomes "The stakes were low and and the ending was quite predictable", which, if this is a cute romcom is exactly what I'm looking for.

Not to mention, I think this really helps to deconstruct a lot of the biases we carry into fiction. Characters not having strong agency isn't inherently bad. Characters who react to their surroundings can make a good story, so saying "the characters didn't have enough agency" is kind of weak, but when you flip it to say "the characters acted misaligned from their characterization" we can now see that the *real* problem here isn't that they lacked agency but that this lack of agency is inconsistent with the type of character that they are. a character this strong-willed *should* have more agency even if a weak-willed character might not.

So it's just a really simple way of framing the way I critique books that I think has really helped to show the difference between "this book is bad" and "this book didn't meet my personal preferences", but also, as someone talking about books, I think it helps give other people a clearer idea of what the book actually looks like so they can decide for themselves if it's worth their time.

Update: This is literally just a thought exercise to help you be more intentional with how you critique media. I'm not enforcing this as some divine rule that must be followed any time you have an opinion on fiction, and I'm definitely not saying that you have to structure every single sentence in a review to contain zero negative phrases. I'm just saying that I repurposed a rule we had at that specific reviewer to be a helpful tool to check myself when writing critiques now. If you don't want to use the tool, literally no one (especially not me) can or wants to force you to use it. As with all advice, it is a totally reasonable and normal thing to not have use for every piece of it that exists from random strangers on the internet. Use it to whatever extent it helps you or not at all.

[orionsangel86]

There is a phenomenon happening on Tumblr right now which may be a product of the Twitter exodus or maybe its just modern fandom mentality vehemently rejecting the old, but you guys have GOT to stop being so damn MEAN about fandom.

There are posts circulating on Tumblr right now hating on so many aspects of fandom. Yeah we all know the incorrect quotes format can be cringe and most of the time its the same quotes used for every fandom ever reducing the characters to stereotypes. Yes we know most fandoms scramble to ship the two basic white guys over all the other characters. Yes we know your blorbo probably Does Not Fucking Say That. Yes we know A/B/O is weird AF (especially now its breached containment and found its way into mainstream hetero erotica). Yes we know SuperWhoLock was ridiculous and attempts to make modern shows into a new SuperWhoLock have got old fast.

But do you have to constantly drag these things all the time? Why is it suddenly cool and popular to ridicule and criticise and hate on peoples fun?

Let people be cringe

Let people play in the fandom sandbox

Let people have their fun

Not everything has to be an intellectual critique and it doesn't make you a better person to constantly shit on fandom ON THE FANDOM WEBSITE

Fandoms can be problematic, toxic, and infuriating at times. But all the negativity isn't making things better. Yeah okay some aspects of fandom can be annoying, but must we have so many call out posts go viral on here specifically for hating on parts of fandom culture? Yet people wonder why fandom creators are quitting and there isnt as much art and interaction on here as there used to be.

If you see another negative post shitting on aspects of fandom cross your dash, maybe think before you reblog it. Maybe ask yourself if that post may be hurtful to a mutual? Perhaps youve got a mutual who writers A/B/O or CharacterxReader fanfiction who doesnt wanna see your reblog of the callout post stating reader×character fanfic is gross, or perhaps your mutual creates fun text posts applying quotes to their fave characters and youve just reblogged a 90k+ note post calling them cringy and overdone.

Just THINK please. Its not necessary. We've got to be KINDER to each other. Please don't let this place become like Twitter. Twitter was a toxic cesspool where no one had anything worthwhile to add to the discussion, no one created, everyone was just screaming angry rants into the void. Dont let tumblr become like that, because it will be the death of this place. And where will you go to find fanart and gifsets of your blorbos then?

[txttletale]

sorry if you have answered a question like this before, but what do you think of critiques from liberals/other leftists whether they be calling themselves socialist, communist, or anarchist, on the "disastrous/genocidal" effect of a "glorious revolution" on populations like children, the elderly, and the disabled? would any revolutionary action necessitate destruction of infrastructure? what kind of conversations are being had among communists about protecting these vulnerable populations? i see a lot of stuff about not wanting to watch kids die in hospitals just for a power vacuum that could go the wrong way and stuff like that and i agree with wanting to protect these populations especially, but something about the conversation in general seems off to me, since kids are already dying all over the world because of the lack of access to healthcare because of things like usimperialism or the insane costs even for people living in the us and the supply chain is already showing many cracks because of climate change and capitalism, with no global "violent revolution" to speak of. am i missing something crucial here? what can i say to my fellow disabled friends who have these concerns, partially born from dealing with ableism in leftist spaces? -- thank you, a baby communist

i mean first of all yes, it is disingenuous to pretend that the most vulnerable people are not dying constantly under capitalism. secondly, revolutions do not usually involve blowing up hospitals and care homes for no reason.

but most crucially of all this entire argument relies on a childish view of revolution inspired by the most tedious reactionary propaganda--an understanding gained from shen yun and anastasia. communist revolutions (like any revolution!) don't happen in times of unremarkable peace and prosperity--they necessarily happen in times of mass discontent and instability, because that's when large segments of the population become radicalised!

genuinely, the best antidote to all these silly liberal ideas about revolution is to read about the history of real revolutions, socialist or otherwise. actual historical knowledge trumps mind palace hystericizing every time. i recommend walter rodney's the russian revolution: a view from the third world.

[raven-cincaide]

Boyfriend! Megumi’s worst enemy wasn’t cute boys trying to whisk you away or party girls who urged a naive little you into (fun) trouble - even if there was plenty of that for him to worry about as well. No, his worst enemy was gifting you a gift.

Boyfriend! Megumi has pried himself on being a smart gift giver. Bragged how easy giving gifts came to him: he always gave his friends what they needed to make their lives easier, better, and more practical. A gimmicky pair of slippers to Yuji after Goto stole his favourite ones; a handheld portable sewing machine for Nobera after she (again!) threw a fit over the tiniest of holes in her newly bought trademark sweater, a posh grinding stone for Maki and a half-joking visit to a fancy Sushi restaurant for Inumaki-senpai after which he expanded his vocabulary with half a dozen new sushi-related words! Yet when it came to you, he was stooped.

Boyfriend! Megumi hated that he was so uncertain about what to get You. Something practical felt too cheap, like he reduced your place in his life to ‘just friends’; jewellery felt thoughtless and impersonal. All those pretty skincare and make-up sets bore the same thoughtless touch while also posing the risk of you taking his gift as a critique. On the other hand, clothes felt too personal and posed the risk of making the entire interaction awkward if he guessed your size, style, and design wrong. Damnit. 

Boyfriend! Megumi pushed aside several neatly wrapped boxes, making them tumble off his bed to be forgotten on his for-once-messy floor. His attention turned to the remaining similar boxes of different shapes and sizes, all individually wrapped in various papers, with only bows and rosettes to tell them apart. What about a spa weekend? Everyone liked those things, right? Or a date night? Or maybe... 

Boyfriend! Megumi barely noticed his dorm room door creek open and your soft padding of plush socks against his wooden floors. He barely hid a smile as you snuck up in front of him and waved your hand in his face. As if he wouldn’t notice you. Then, in the middle of your wave, you noticed all the gifts that littered his bed, 

"Ohh! Are we wrapping gifts? Is that why you called me? But it looks like you’re already done-" 

"-Pick a number", Megumi cut you off, not looking at you. 

Boyfriend! Megumi tried not to jump out of his skin from the nerves or too obviously chew the inside of his cheek as you stared at him with those huge owl-like eyes, as you processed his words. 

“ehhhh? Okay.. 3, I guess?” you sounded uncertain, almost afraid, as if trying to guess what kind of psychological game or scare tactic he was playing. Or what were you supposed to do with the neatly wrapped flat box he placed in your hands? Your tense shoulders and half-bent knees conveyed that you expected the box to turn into a jump scare at any second. 

Boyfriend! Megumi made a mental note to kick Yuji’s ass for showing you Human EarthWorm three. He better not think about showing you the fifth one, lest you become too scared of your own damned shadow. 

Boyfriend! Megumi makes a motion for you to open the gift.

“Is it.. for me?” you asked, and he has to bite back a sarcastic reply. Instead, he merely nodded. He waited with batted breath as you slowly unravelled a signed copy of the newly released book in your favourite series, silently praying that you haven’t bought it yet. When you squealed in delight and jumped on his neck, Megumi knew you hadn't and breathed a sigh of relief. He quickly wrapped his arms around your waist and held you close. He felt like he had aged five years trying to pick a gift for you. 

Boyfriend! Megumi felt proud of himself as you thanked him for the millionth time. “You’re welcome,” he said, kissing your forehead. “You can have another one later,” he added before he could stop himself. 

You pause mid-cheer as the penny drops: “ Wait? If this is gift 3, then are there more gifts? How many more?” 

“Later” Boyfriend! Megumi responded with a hint of a playful smile on his lips. The kind that said that you might just have to work a little bit for those other gifts… 

[letteredlettered]

Went to a panel about slash fanfic at a con. Moderator said, "Welcome to the panel about erotica." The words "slash" and "erotica" were used interchangeably throughout. Panel was great.

There was a Q&A at the end so I raised my hand and said these terms seemed conflated. Moderator explained she'd run this panel for 10 years and it started out being about slash but drifted into erotica and she never changed the name. (She also said she was glad I brought it up and would keep it in mind for the future of the panel.) The guy on the panel who writes original m/f erotica said that slash and what he writes are basically the same thing. I said I had no complaints about the name of the panel or the panelists, I was just curious about what slash meant to them, and whether slash by necessity had to include sex scenes to be considered slash.

Two panelists answered that slash was romance between men but usually had sex. Eventually one of them did make clear that slash didn't have to have sex but that it was what they wanted to read. Another panelist said that to them slash really just meant dude romance but people wouldn't read their fic unless there was sex so they felt they had to put sex scenes in.

Person came up to me after the panel. Said they felt I didn't get my question answered. Then they explained that since the 70s, 'slash' has been used to mean m slash m romance, meaning explicit and sexual. Then they said it sounded like what I wanted to ask about was shipping. They explained to me that shipping is just wanting the characters to be together but slash meant sex. They explained that since the invention of AO3, people had begun to use the ampersand to mean the fic had two characters who were friends and that the slash was used to denote ships, but even though that punctuation just meant romance, the word "slash" in the last twenty years had become synonymous with explicit fic. I explained I had been in fandom longer than twenty years and this was not necessarily my experience. They said, "Bye!"

Though they seemed confused as to whether what they personally defined as slash had been mainstream since the 70s or since the last twenty years (the person was 24), they were well-meaning. The panel was great. I'd recommend it to anyone, though I'm not stating the name of the con here because I don't want anyone involved to feel this is really a critique of the panel itself. The moderator in particular was superb.

I think that this conversation just brought up a whole lot of feelings for me. I think it bothers me that people still think that all fanfic is smutty, that all slash requires porn, and that all fic must have porn in order to be read. I am familiar with this conflation and feel perfectly fine going to a panel that I think is about slash fic and finding out it's about erotic lit, some of which is fanfic. After all, I like both, and I recognize that fandom mushes these things together and teasing them out into separate strands isn't something everyone--or possibly even most fans--have any interest in. I recognize that I am pedantic to a degree that most people find uninteresting.

I have a little bit more of a problem with the idea that slash is "basically the same" as het, but this was said by only one of the panelists. If your panel is actually about straight up erotica and not slash, then the problem is just the name of the panel.

What I found the most frustrating, however, is that whenever I have this conversation, I feel like the default assumption most of my interlocutors begin AND end with is this: smut is why we're here. And I just don't understand that. Away Childish Things has 44,800 kudos, and it has no smut in it. My next most kudosed fic has almost 15,000 kudos and tons of smut. My next most kudosed fic has almost 14,000 kudos and it doesn't even have a kiss.

I'm not talking about kudos to show off how many I have, or because I think kudos make a point about quality of a fic. They have nothing to do with quality. But they do have to do with popularity, and the truth is, sex doesn't sell. It's something else. It's not good writing. It's not a great plot. It's not in-character characterization. IT'S SOMETHING ELSE. What is it?

I've had people say to me, "Well, you're lettered; it works differently for you." DOES IT??? Maybe they meant that because enough people know me as fic author, people will read my fic anyway, but let me tell you, it's always been this way for me, long before my fic was really popular. The ones with smut did not get more praise and attention. The ones that PEOPLE LIKED got more praise and attention. Do people like fic that has smut in it more than fic without smut? Some of the time! Does there have to be smut for people to like it? NO.

Have I had people tell me they didn't want to read something I wrote because it didn't have smut? YES. But the point I'm trying to make is, there are people who want to read fic that doesn't have smut in it. THEY are your audience for the fic you want to write that doesn't have smut in it. Fic does not have to have smut to be fic; it doesn't have to have smut to be read.

I think part of the reason I get so upset about it is that slash as we know it today didn't just emerge because some people weren't getting to read smut and they wanted to. It emerged because women and queer people and other marginalized communities were not getting to see what they wanted to in mainstream media. They weren't getting sex scenes, but they also weren't getting queer content, they weren't getting stories about sensitive men that defied patriarchal stereotypes of male toxicity; they weren't getting stories about disabled folks and people of color and folks who are into kink and folks who have different lifestyles. To reduce fanfic to porn is to remove the rich history of why it exists and who it exists for.

I asked earlier what makes a fic popular, and to me, it's exactly this. It's when you read a thing and you feel, "this is really satisfying to my id in a way that I am not getting from mainstream media." And sometimes what is satisfying to your id is very horny anal sex. Other times what is satisfying to your id is Bucky Barnes getting a blanket and facing his trauma. Sometimes it's Harry Potter being trans. Sometimes it's Naruto and Sasuke getting to just hold hands as the sun sets. I have no idea who those two people are but boy howdy do I know they just fucking need to hold hands.

But the other reason I get so upset about it is I'm so fucking tired of reading a great fic that devolves into mediocre mechanical porn that is there due to the collective brainwashing that states that this is the ONLY reason ALL of us are here.

Discuss.

[askshivanulegacy]

SO MUCH THIS.

Imagine watching the live action first, before ever seeing the cartoon. THAT'S the consideration it deserves.

If you're sitting there asking "why didn't they include this," or "why didn't they do that," that is backwards thinking. If you want those elements, they exist; go watch the cartoon.

So many of the elements people aren't seeing ARE actually in the show, but in different forms. And most of the elements that they're crying about are honestly chump change. Are you missing some outfit or some event from one cartoon episode?

That's ... one cartoon episode. It's insignificant. You're not going to get every single episode, let alone every single moment from every episode.

A lot of the other things people are crying about are due to the first season being a first season. There's so much more that can happen in later seasons. If you didn't see something happen by the end of season 1, try season 2 or season 3.

I'm totally on board with the complaint about no filler shows, but that's a chronic problem. If that's your complaint in the year of 2024, then you have a long line of shows to resolve that on before you ever get to the Avatar. It was made in an environment where filler isn't a thing, so ... even more reason why all your favorite cartoon nonsense is gone. But that's not a fault of the Avatar. Go make movies and TV shows with your life and change the environment back for the rest of us.

The season gets a lot better the further you get in it. It's just a different way of telling the same story. It still feels like the Avatar. There's nothing especially bad about it that's not also "bad" about many other TV shows.

The live action Avatar slaps.

Sure, some things are a little different, but adaptions always are. Going in thinking it was going to be a 1:1 of the cartoon is either silly or bad faith. I implore you to remember that you first watched the original ATLA when you were a kid, and therefore may have rose-colored glasses on regarding its pitfalls.

The new ATLA is a genuine good time and the actors are great. The stakes feel real, and it's so cool seeing this setting brought to life.

The naysayers are just the vocal minority. Even Rotten Tomatoes says the show is dang good. So give it a chance. Go in with an open mind. If you start episode 1 with the primary intent to pick it apart before it's even begun, I think maybe you missed the point of the original, no?