#they say that making a separate account is 'white people shit'

[herawell]

.

[hipsterfireshaman]

y’all we need to fucking talk about how deep the lore for Love and Deep Space goes. I’m literally crying after reading all three of Zayne’s Anecdotes back to back.

Spoilers for those Anecdotes: A Pure White Heart, Never-Ending Winter, and Still in Dark

A Pure White Heart is the account of an intern who temporarily gets to work under Dr. Zayne.

This is for sure set in the timeline/lifetime/whatever that we (MC) play in; Zayne is a renowned and respected doctor, with a cold exterior that makes it hard for people to see the utmost care and dedication he has for everyone. The pedestal he’s placed on as a top surgeon as well as his demeanor isolates him from everyone around him, and it takes a while and genuine effort for people to understand him.

(never mind how sad I got when everyone in the operation room was talking about a type of strange dish, Zayne pipes up with a joke, and everyone just froze—silent and unsure if Zayne was scolding them or something. Poor guy. I’ve got chronic RBF so i felt way too seen by this anecdote)

Never-Ending Winter is also most definitely set in our timeline with the Zayne we know. This anecdote sheds way more light on the Mt. Eternal Incident in the Arctic we as the MC heard about on our trip there.

I’m unsure just how much time has passed since this Incident to where we were in the timeline of going there for our reasons, just that Never-Ending Winter took place before the start of our story in Love and Deep Space.

Y’all the writing for these anecdotes is batshit, and I say this before even getting to the third anecdote. The dark shit that happened on Mt. Eternal rivals that of mainstream analog horror and modern creepypasta.

It was tragic af too, and all it really does after answering some questions I didn’t know I had about Mt. Eternal and the Incident, is give me more questions about what Zayne is doing back there after all this time. The end cutscene after where the story leaves off in chapter 8 shows him doing something over the ice in the Arctic, no doubt being the unfinished business he had planned when we parted ways. Is he excavating William???? because OHHHH BOYYY. Zayne was the source of William’s corruption? Which leads into the third anecdote and what it tells us about Abominations.

The third Anecdote, Still in Dark, is n u t s. Similar to the Little Mermaid-esque timeline/“Myth”/AU/whatever that Raphael has going on, this doesn’t seem to be set within our current reality/timeline/whatever(it’s so hard to say, with constant overlapping with others and questions left unanswered). Linkon City seems to be a thing of the past, and the way of life for everyone has changed in to something a little more post-apocalyptic.

Zayne is a serial killer who is hunted by a detective!!!!! LET THAT SINK IN. WHAT THE HELL. On top of that, he’s not killing people in cold blood like what the detective initially believes, but hunting down people that are turning into Abominations, a sort of precursor to Wanderers that may or may not be the cause of frequent exposure to Protocores. (source: the mother of Georgie that reached out to Zayne in fear of her fate after watching her coworkers change for the worst. We have to learn in the hardest of ways that it might not just be due to exposure to Protocores— that it might be contagious. Poor Georgie.)

On top of everything else going on, higher ups seem to actually be aware of this situation!!! ITS A GOVERNMENT COVERUP. THIS IS WHAT I MEAN WHEN I SAY IT RIVALS THE WRITING OF ANALOG HORROR MASTERPIECES AND CREEPYPASTAS.

Again, Linkon City seems to be something of the past—this Zayne seems to be connected through it through space and time through his dreams of a separate reality or timeline with MC. If this is actually the same timeline, and instead just way later down the line with some reincarnation shenanigans or something, something bad happened to Linkon City. The Abomination outbreak is reminiscent of the Mt Eternal incident and what happened with Zayne and William. Zayne was the source of William’s infection. Just what the fuck happened up in that mountain??? Not to mention the fact that in our current place in the timeline, Zayne is back there, POSSIBLY excavating William. What if he’s the one setting off the apocalyptic events that make Linkon City a place of the past tense? Chillsssss.

It doesn’t even stop there with the web of connections; something happens with Zayne at 27. The MC in Zayne’s dreams notices something is off with him. She (we) can tell it’s not Our Zayne. Maybe I’m just thinking of the worst case scenario, but what if it parallel’s Georgie’s fate. What if Our Zayne is the dream of the monster—the abomination, and it wakes up on that special day. And This Zayne is reliving it through time and space because it’s all just one big circle.

Beyond the Anecdotes and the current story, the Jasmine Flower that has a little cameo in Still in Dark is incredibly significant. It’s seems to function as a countdown in Still in Dark. To what? Who knows. Zayne turning into an abomination leading to the death of MC? A Future Diary’s-esque countdown to Love and Death?

But it stems (ha) from Zayne’s Myth: Tower of Secrets. I’m not sure when this takes place in the big ol’ timeline or whatever, but it’s seemingly the most detached. I’m only about 59% through it, but the fact that it’s in a very different time/universe/reality is clear from early on. Zayne is literally a cursed wizard in a tower and it’s giving Magic-High Fantasy instead of the usual Science Fiction-Spacepunk the usual story is.

I could go on for hours. Sorry if this seems like the ramblings of a madwoman. This has been the most consumed by an otome game I’ve been since Mystic Messenger and its cathartic and All Coming Full Circle for me. I don’t have anyone else to talk to about these things so here I am, shouting into the void.

[gilgil-machine]

Character ask game: 2, 25, and/or 8 for Gilgamesh?

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

I have a lot of things that I love about Gilgamesh.

Him being a total tsundere. Like I just can't look at him without a goofy smile on my face when he acts like this. He's just so adorable when he's like this.

Like just look at this dude, he's literally sweating😆 It's okay, Gil, we know.

His love for manga and video games and that that he also sometimes makes references from those pieces of media as well. Like this dude is just my spirit animal😅

He's a competitive idiot. Like you can make him do the most dumbest shit by just saying "What's wrong, chicken? Scared?" and he would do anything to prove his point.

Him talking nonstop about things that excite him, dear to him or he's just passionate about while looking all proud and smug. Really love when he does this.

Him being a soft and gentle soul. It's quite a rare thing but it happens and it's the sweetest and most beautiful shit you'll ever see.

Like he got so mesmerized by nature that he decided to make a small poem but when he realizes that it came out not good he decided to make another one. It's just so CUTECUTECUTE🙈💕

And I just love him being a goofy goober in general😆

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

I really hate when people mischaracterize him and twisting the whole information about him. And sometimes it makes me think that people read VN and watch anime with their asses and not eyes.

When people hating him for just the sake of hating and treating him like he's the only terrible character in the series. It's just so frustrating and tiring to see him always being dragged through the dirt without any reason. I mean sure he did some terrible things (that I judge him for and hold him accountable for) but also Nasu did his best to show everyone that he's more than just arrogant asshole. He has a great story and deep character that is worthy to have a chance to be learned about in my opinion.

And when people separate archer Gilgamesh and caster Gilgamesh (also I've seen how people were separating archer Gil and treating each version like some alter ego and in that moment my whole being just left the chat completely from the sheer stupidity that I've read). Like there's a lot of proofs and moments that show us that archer and caster Gil is one and the same person and it just makes me furious when people separate them and treating caster Gil like pure saint and archer Gil like pure evil which is completely wrong and stupid in my opinion and it feels like people just tearing his character apart and making him being incomplete with such actions.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

In the beginning it was quite neutral I would say. I mean, he caught me with his unique design and his abilities (like the dude just shoots swords, the 13 year old me was baffled to no end😆) also I loved his design in UBW (that leather jacket and white shirt mmm sexy 🫦🫦🫦). But after a few years I got back into fate, read CCC, Hollow Ataraxia and obviously the original source the Epic of Gilgamesh, I fell in love with the guy completely and he's not letting me go ever since and honestly I don't mind and I'm happy that I found a character like Gilgamesh.

[thosearentcrimes]

Read Bring No Clothes by Charlie Porter. If I followed the rule "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything", that would have been the only sentence in the review. Well, really, it wouldn't have existed, implicature is still a form of speech. For a while it didn't exist, since I read this book some time back now, but not out of moral concern, but rather simply because I'm not allowed to use the computers at work for personal shit anymore, and that's where I wrote these. So I finally got around to buying a new e-book reader instead, expect more reviews shortly, written from home this time. But I digress.

Bring No Clothes is a truly awful book about the fashion of the Bloomsbury group. I struggle to think of any redeeming features. It is shorter than the hardback makes it seem, but this is simply false advertising, and not a virtue. It chooses to give each chapter heading its very own entire page to sit on, to blow the letters up to an absurd size with liberal line spacing in the style of a panicking high school student, to pepper the book with black and white photos of dresses remarkable for their color. The hardcover copy I read pretends to have 340 A5 pages, and I would be surprised if it got to 100 with reasonable formatting. In truth it is a nothing but a handful of hastily concatenated half-written filler articles and a couple of unpublishable magazine features stuck between two hard covers for no apparent reason, an unfilmed script for a "video essay" (read: summary) that would be too long to watch and too short to say anything.

It is really quite literally a series of magazine articles. Charlie Porter is a fashion journalist, and his work on the book speaks to his total inability to adjust his writing style to the medium, the astonishingly poor standards in fashion journalism, and the seeming absence of any editing whatsoever on the part of the publisher. Though possibly it was edited, and earlier drafts were even worse. Somehow. There is no coherent theme to the book, no throughline connecting the individual chapters. There are entire chapters that are obviously unnecessary and poorly conceived, which would presumably have been removed if not for the desperate need to pretend the book is so much longer than it really is. Lastly, for some reason image descriptions are done in-line rather than through captions. Is this common in fashion journalism? It sucks to read, in any case.

The writing is shit. It's so unbelievably bad. Borderline unreadable, the structural issues with the book as a whole are reproduced even at the level of individual sentences. Porter's chief flaw is that he is preposterously self-absorbed. He is either unable or unwilling to separate his own impressions and delusions from reality. He spends substantial sections of most chapters writing about the personal experience of researching and writing the book, and plenty of other insufferable personal trivia besides. To pull that trick off without boring the reader takes extraordinary talent, personal charisma, and varied and interesting life experiences, none of which Porter seems to have. Not an amazing range of vocabulary on display either, and somehow I doubt this was a deliberate effort to keep the reading difficulty down. The miserable structure, constant pointless personal asides, and general inability to express what few ideas Porter may or may not have render the book a truly tedious slog.

When reading a non-fiction book, I would like to be able to pick out something I learned about the topic, some basic point of interest. It is impossible in this book, which contains nothing but boring accounts of relationships between seemingly insufferable people. Porter's narration does bring his protagonists to life in places, with some help from direct quotes. Unfortunately, they are brought to life as some of the most annoying egotists you've ever met in your life, which admittedly seems quite plausible for British upper class twits (well, mostly twits). Still, I don't put too much stock in that characterization, as it could very easily be projection by the blatantly self-absorbed author.

I generally try to recommend books to sorts of people who I think would like them, whether or not I was a fan myself. I suspect I am a poor judge of appeal, ultimately, but I try nonetheless. I think nobody should read this book, ever, for any reason. It is not that the book is evil. Reading evil has merit. The book is just bad. There are people who would like it, probably. Those people, in particular, should not read the book, as I suspect it would inhibit their development. Everyone involved in the production and distribution of the book should feel shame proportional to their degree of responsibility for what they have inflicted on the world in general, and on me in particular.

[more-better-words]

You already know I'd like more lore about Karveth and Monica please! 🩵🩷

★ - sad headcanon

☠ - angry/violent headcanon

✿ - Sex headcanon

♦ - quirks/hobbies headcanon

☯ - likes/dislikes headcanon

▼ - childhood headcanon

♒ - cooking/food headcanon

Oooo, two for the price of one! 😁

★ - sad headcanon

K - Even though he's very proud of his Romulan War service on Endeavour, it was still a very lonely time for him, being the only non-human aboard. And his first few years of official Starfleet service weren't much better in that regard. Suffice it to say, by the time he met Monica, our poor boy was very touch starved. 😢

M- She was firm in her conviction to remain on Mars during the war, but it was a choice that separated her not only from her parents, but many friends as well. She was almost to the point of giving up and going to Earth after all when she got the job at Mo's.

☠ - angry/violent headcanon

K - He will lose his shit if he thinks Monica is in physical danger. And an Andorian with lost shit is not a problem you want to have.

(The only reason he allowed himself to be separated from her during the White Sky incident was because Trip was there)

M - She is generally a very easygoing person who tries to take other perspectives into account, but she has zero patience for meanness or intolerance. If you can't be civil, neither can she.

♦ - quirks/hobbies headcanon

K - Do not leave him alone with a technical manual, he WILL make notes on every single page (He has annotated the entirety of the official Starfleet warp maintenance manual. For fun).

M - She loves to draw and is far better at it than she gives herself credit for (though she's getting better about that). She keeps meaning to take up knitting, but never does. (When she does, it will actually an Andorian technique 😁)

☯ - likes/dislikes headcanon

K - He developed a love for human martial arts movies, especially the wuxia genre while he was serving on Endeavour. (He also secretly enjoyed Trip's old movie musicals, but he will never admit this)

M - She's unnerved by transporter technology and refuses to try it.

▼ - childhood headcanon

K - He comes from a part of Andoria that is temperate enough (by Andorian standards) that most people live on the surface. Ulata Province is very proud of its maritime history, and Karveth grew up on stories of his sea-faring ancestors.

M - She was an only child, and Utopia Colony did not have a large population of kids when she was young, so most of the people she spent time with as a child were much older. She actually credits this for why she gets along so well with kids now, because she knows how important it is to a child to be taken seriously by an adult.

♒ - cooking/food headcanon

K - He is actually a very competent cook when he has the opportunity, and now that he's in a more domestic arrangement, he's finally trying his hand at cooking more often.

M - She tries very hard to be open-minded about food, and is willing to try anything once. She was secretly afraid she wouldn't like Andorian food, and was very relieved when she (mostly) did.

✿ - Sex headcanon

(Answering elsewhere because tumblr sucks)

[alagaesia-headcanons]

There's something inherently ugly about how you ship Murtagh with Orrin. It's one thing to not like the main ship for a beloved character as set up by the author - valid - but it's another to push half of said ship away to force in your fave pasty white boy. You can write meta after meta after meta all you want about how poor Orrin is done dirty, or how that meanie Nasuada hurt him, or how the books don't put your fave background character on a pedestal, but all your writing amounts to is the fact that you've imprinted on Orrin and are now using him as a vessel for your original character. In your writing, he's not a character from the series anymore - he's your OC wearing Orrin's face and bearing Orrin's name. Which, it isn't bad to expand upon a sidelines character. But it's the way you turn around and spew how fandom fave Murtagh is in love with your OC that really shows the truth and the rot festering in you. You can cry and bemoan the romantic love Paolini has written between Murtagh and Nasuada, but your essay won't amount to jack shit if you're just going to turn around and replace Nasuada with your OC and suddenly sing it's praise.

Before you start decrying all of this, ask yourself: why are you so desperate to discredit canon's romance? It's one thing to think they should both remain single after the trauma they experienced throughout the series - fair take. But then why are you so eager to prop up your own ship? Is "Orrin" inherently more worthy of of Murtagh's love? Or is Nasuada simply not worthy, but instead in the way, in your eyes? You can wish all you want for people to love your writing, but that doesn't hide the rotten foundation of your ship: sidelining Nasuada to uplift your white fave and wanting him to have all that she does. No amount of rambling meta about how they're a "good ship" and they would work will ever cover up your inherent biases and -ism's that your poor sad white boy's ship is built upon.

For the love of god.

Anon, let me just say this to you directly- block me. It's that easy. Sending something like this instead is an embarrassment. But since you've already said your piece, I'll go ahead and say mine.

Let me first bring up what you oddly wouldn't directly accuse me of (maybe even you knew what a blatant straw man it is), that being racism. I'm not going to make light of this. Racism in fandom is a real issue, and separating a ship with a character of color to ship white characters can be a symptom of that. I have never turned a blind eye to this and I make a continual effort to remain conscious of it because it's incredibly important to me that I'm not contributing to this kind of prejudice in fandom.

This pairing started years ago when I thought of a crack ship polycule with all three of them. Over time as I considered that, the idea of shipping Murtagh and Orrin developed into a distinct concept which I found more intriguing than shipping Murtagh and Nasuada. At that point, I made an active decision to examine my interest and determine if it was grounded in the way canon presents the individual qualities and dynamics of these specific characters, independent of the broad groups any of them fall into, or if it lacked any such basis in canon and only stemmed from an unconscious bias of mine. And if I didn't find any substantial elements of canon that supported the idea, I intended to put it away and work through my bias.

So I looked, and I found I could fully explain the reasons the ship appealed to me through the details in the books. I never made some public announcement about taking this issue into full consideration because it shouldn't be performative. Holding myself accountable is a basic personal responsibility which I take seriously, not something to make me look better. But it’s always felt meaningful to simply convey that I care about putting thought and reason into my ideas and my preference for my ship isn’t baseless. I’ve done that, but it seems I should be more direct here.

So let me lay out my thought process. Why am I not interested in shipping Murtagh and Nasuada? The things that deter me personally are both emotional and logistical issues. The major emotional issue to me is how disparate their priorities are. Murtagh prioritizes protecting loved ones, which causes issues when he accepts and complies with awful acts while trying to defend them. Nasuada prioritizes the good of her cause, which causes issues when she dismisses another person’s wellbeing when it’s in the way of her goals. Murtagh’s character arc is about learning the best thing he can do for his loved ones might be accepting their willingness to make sacrifices, suggesting he becomes aware of his issue and would try to correct that going forward. However, Nasuada still doesn’t seem aware of her issue after the war, given her policy about magicians and her minimal concern for Roran, so that still presents an underlying problem that would badly exacerbate their serious trauma until it’s addressed.

None of that is a moral judgment on anything. Both of them could cause any number of other issues; it’s just stating where they stand. And I still think they could be written in a way that stays true to their characters while working through those issues so that they stay together. I think it’d be exceptionally challenging, and it still might not be to my own taste, but it has that potential. But there are also logistical issues. Nasuada is queen in Uru’baen. I genuinely feel like this is so meaningful to her character, a very fitting culmination of her aspirations, and if she were to take substantial spans away from her throne, it would be a disservice to how she was written. That said, with the way I characterize Murtagh, I really don’t feel that he would want to openly settle in a place defined by politics and power struggles. I feel like it would be very unfulfilling for him and Thorn, especially in the city of his tumultuous childhood and their tortuous enslavement. So given the dissatisfaction if Nasuada left the rule she wants and deserves and the discontent of Murtagh living in Uru’baen, I struggle to imagine them as more than a distant, intermittent relation.

So that’s why I personally don’t enjoy shipping them. Of course, it’s subjective, but I feel like it’s also fair, and you seem to suggest that you do too. So let’s move on. So now the question is if a potential relationship with Orrin would present the same or equivalent issues that I overlook just because he's a white man.

Naturally, this is subjective too, but I say no. Of course there are still possible emotional issues between them (if there were none it’d be boring), but they’re different. Given the way specific way Orrin grieves for his friends and struggles to have faith in their cause when he sees the risk of his people being killed, I believe he is also more focused on looking after individuals than pursuing a cause. I feel like that lays a smoother groundwork with Murtagh, who has been hurt by people who dismissed his wellbeing, and that reduces a lot of underlying pain between them. Orrin’s other struggles, like defeatism, fear, and hopelessness, as well as yearning for recognition and autonomy, align with Murtagh’s experience more in a way that makes their emotional issues more interesting to engage with.

With logistical issues, obviously Orrin is also a king. But I don’t find that presents the same issues either. I interpret that Orrin didn’t want to be king and isn’t content in that role. When the matter of Murtagh’s desire to avoid being openly tied to Surda’s seat of power arises, I find a much more interesting and balanced potential story where Orrin also hopes to leave his crown and they support each other in their search for a home that they can both make their own. The discrepancies I personally find so bothersome between Murtagh and Nasuada don’t come up with Murtagh and Orrin, so I enjoy their ship more. It’s just about my interpretation of compatibility. That is the crux of my thought process. No one has to agree with it, but I believe it stands as a fair assessment.

You insist that I ask myself why I prefer one ship over another. I've done that. I've already been doing that the entire time and will continue to do so. You keep whining that I make a lot of meta analysis about aspects of the characters and how I feel like they would or wouldn't mesh together, and yeah. That's the whole fucking point. In the same way I just did, those posts explore and articulate the concrete reasons one ship appeals to me and one doesn't. For years I've diligently asked myself why I'm drawn to Murtagh/Orrin more than Murtagh/Nasuada and I'm fully secure and confident in my answer that it's the emotional and narrative possibilities they have that appeal to me more. If I was given all the details of these characters, stripped of any names, descriptions, genders, ect. I know I would still really love this ship.

And that's not even to say that it's somehow "better" (it's just different in a way that suits my taste), or that Murtagh and Nasuada's relationship must be meaningless or non-existent if it's not romantic. In my story where I ship him and Orrin, he and Nasuada go through struggles, but as they grow, they're able to reconcile and learn to better support each other and their relationship ends in a much better place.

(Also, if you're talking about my “essay” that Murtagh's true name doesn't change because he fell for Nasuada, that's irrelevant to shipping them. The series could end with them getting married and they could be my all time otp, and it'd still be true that falling in love didn't change his true name. It's just a separate part of his character arc.)

For another thing, Murtagh and Nasuada are NOT a canon ship, and that does matter. For example, it has very different implications to change an interracial ship that is happily married in canon. In the IC, it is canon that they're attracted to each other, but nothing beyond that. (And I've never even discredited that! In fact, I've said their attraction is well written and in character. It's included in my story; I didn't overwrite it.) They're never in a relationship and there's no set up that implies romance is inevitable for their stories. You yourself acknowledge that there are very valid reasons to interpret that a romantic relationship wouldn't work between them!!! So if it's fine to not ship Murtagh and Nasuada as a couple, why is it suddenly heinous to imagine Murtagh with someone else?

It’s not. Your claims are far more baseless and distasteful. Why do you act like Nasuada couldn’t possibly be respected or worthy without Murtagh’s affection? Why do you act like pointing out her mistakes condemns her entirely, as if she’s not allowed to have any flaws? Why do you think a relationship with Murtagh is equivalent to all that Nasuada has? I won’t make your kind of moral accusations about a stranger, but I will simply say that I find that very objectionable. I love Nasuada for being such a unique, flawed, and fascinating character who is so much more than all that. And if you made such a volatile, deplorable, inappropriate response simply to the idea that Murtagh- a fictional character- could love someone else, you might need to take a step back. You’re being cruel.

(Also, I don’t feel like going through the whole “u just made orrin into an oc” shit tbh. This is long enough. I take care to draw my characterization from canon, but y’all can read my stuff and decide for yourself if you’d like. Although, saying I imprinted on him is the funniest part of this ludicrous message. You know what, yeah. I’ve tricked you all. You thought this blog was being run by a human being? WRONG. Baby duckling.)

[toburnup]

I don’t understand why people care enough to negatively comment on work because they don’t like a character…

I don’t like some characters that my friends reblog and I just scroll past like a normal person, I’m not going to dictate or judge what people like and I can’t stand the way people say “oh I block people who like *insert character they dislike*” like it’s so petty and strange… I like all your work I think you’re a great writer do I ship all the same people as you? Nope but does it bother me? Not at all. There is no letting people have fun in this fandom I swear to god!

i find it very odd. it's especially easy to avoid on tumblr, so i don't understand people's reactions (also, sorry, i accidentally wrote a whole essay here)

i'm not sure if it's because so many people in the ST fandom are newer to fandom in general, or it's just how things are now (i'm afraid it's this one), but i find that a surprising amount of people see any interest in a character as like... symbolic of someone's personal morals and values. and this is especially rampant among steddie shippers which is unfortunate. i block a ton of people on twitter because they say "hellcheer dni" and then i see passive aggressive messages on discord about how i blocked them. is this because people make the media they consume their whole ID? or people trying to play activist? (i've said it before on here but my activism isn't an online activity for me, it's my work and it's my personal life, and i'm intentional about separating these. i don't share much about my life on here on purpose).

billy anti's are actually scary at times. i personally don't see the logic of harassing real people in the name of fictional characters (and this is a generalization, but most of the time it's white shippers pulling that shit which just feels performative at best). this isn't billy-related, but joseph quinn fans bullied a jquinn fan account (run by a woc) off of twitter because she wasn't retweeting social justice-related posts. lmao. people really see sj rt's as the be-all and end-all of Being a Good Person. like people have lives outside of fandom and they can't see that.

LONG STORY SHORT, i know that posting my hellcheer and metalsandwich fic is going to make some people hate me or whatever, but i'm really tired of feeling like i can only openly like and enjoy steddie in order to have value here. if people are going to stop reading what i write, or blacklist me or whatever, i'll make my peace with that. and let's be real, who's really the one losing out in that scenario? because it's not me.

[ca-suffit]

Ok so i don't think that the other anon was wrong to ask about the use of the word "gremlin". despite it being from the books, there are plenty of people from the audience who have never read them (and probably never will) and still see the image of a brown man with dark skin tone being referred to in that way. it's very understandable that not everyone who watches the show is going to be comfortable with that.

there's also a way for fans to clarify this, without being rude and invalidating the concerns from other viewers as us "making things up to be angry about". it's easy to see why people, especially poc in this fandom don't enjoy interacting with gatekeepers who deny racism when at least three major characters (louis, claudia, armand) have been adapted as poc. you can not separate their life experiences from how their race is perceived in america or europe. some of you are going to have a hard time in this fandom if you think you can just sidestep or brush these type of conversations under the rug.

thank u for this ask. it's unbelievably hostile in this fandom and it's so much worse when u have an account that focuses solely on race within the story and this fandom's racism. every fandom has racism issues but this one is *fucking awful* for some rly specific reasons. I saw what it did before having an account but having one and being on this end of it is worse. part of what used to get sent to me was asking why I don't contribute more than just "whining." who wants to do anything here tbh?? I'm surprised anyone's even here. I already know a huge majority of the fandom is not in the tags and it's exactly bcuz of this shit. we had a lot of v antiblack harassment campaigns roll thru here too. this fandom fucking sucks.

I also appreciate your last comment, although I have to say to it that this fandom pushes off conversations about race all the time. nalyra_dreaming and virginiaisforvampires and a whole group of accounts ppl talk to much more than this one are always giving ppl excuses for why noticing race isn't important. it is the norm here. ppl buy into it more too bcuz it's fans of color saying it as well, not just white fans. the show has not been helping this lately either by not commenting on the racial aspects of the plot anymore, making it v easy for fans to further say "these ppl who talk about this all the time are delusional, don't listen to them, they're the *real* racists!"

anyway. all of that being said. I have pdfs of all the books and I searched the word "gremlin" and couldn't find it in any of them. it's not a rly important thing or anything but since u mentioned it IS in the books, do u remember an actual source? I'm just curious and asking genuinely. maybe it was a related short story, article, or fb post?

I do have familiarity myself with the fandom from before the show and I made no connection to this either, it's been news to me that his nickname was "gremlin." I'm not doubting that, btw, I'm just saying that even for ppl around before I don't think it's even known outside some specific circles. but ya. either way, gatekeeping and mocking ppl who ask questions, especially questions that aim to be aware of potential racial issues, is not helping anything.

[earth-to-stardust]

So I recently read this fantastic meta post about the implications of Dally's physical appearance and it really got me thinking about the missed opportunity the movie had when it comes further showcasing one of the book's themes: feeling like an outsider even amongst the people that you love.

All the love to Matt Dillon (I don't think I would be able to appreciate Dally's character as much as I do if not for his portrayal) but Dally's book design really reveals a lot about who he is and what kind of role he's going to play in the story:

If I had to pick the real character of the gang, it would be Dallas Winston—Dally. I used to like to draw his picture when he was in a dangerous mood, for then I could get his personality down in a few lines. He had an elfish face, with high cheekbones and a pointed chin, small, sharp animal teeth, and ears like a lynx. His hair was almost white it was so blond, and he didn't like haircuts, or hair oil either, so it fell over his forehead in wisps and kicked out in the back in tufts and curled behind his ears and along the nape of his neck. His eyes were blue, blazing ice, cold with a hatred of the whole world. Dally had spent three years on the wild side of New York and had been arrested at the age of ten. He was tougher than the rest of us—tougher, colder, meaner. The shade of difference that separates a greaser from a hood wasn't present in Dally. He was as wild as the boys in the downtown outfits, like Tim Shepard's gang

Compared to the other members of the gang receive exposition-like descriptions from Ponyboy in Chapter 1, Dally's physical appearance is emphasized over everything else in his description. Ponyboy goes into a lot of detail about the way that his hair is styled and how blue his eyes are—his face is 'elfish' and his ears are 'like a lynx'. He gets only four sentences about his backstory and current space that he takes up in the greaser-sphere vs in-depth accounts of Steve and Two-Bit's place in the gang and their relationships with everyone else in Ponyboy's life. While you could make the argument that Dally receives this kind of treatment from Ponyboy because he's not from Tulsa like the rest of the gang and could be considered a fairy recent member as opposed to everyone else, I find it interesting that his relationship with Johnny wasn't mentioned at all, which Ponyboy has a lot to say about when the three of them go to the drive-in.

This leads all me to my point: Dally was positioned as an outsider from the very beginning, from both Ponyboy and the narrative. He was an out-of-towner, a greaser meaner and more violent than most of the greasers in Tulsa, with white-blonde hair and piercing blue eyes that no one on his side of town really had. He's from New York and has seen some shit™. He's the one that Ponyboy and Johnny go to after Johnny kills Bob and he loses the will to live after the one person who didn't make him feel like an outsider dies. Whereas everyone in the gang as a somewhat muted color pallet (in terms of hair color and eye color)—Dally kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. Combined with the St. Christopher necklace and skull ring that he wears (heavy on the St. Christopher necklace because it links him and Ponyboy in terms of religion/religious beliefs and their outsider status; I have a lot to say about this later on pls bear with me), I think it would've brought home this critical theme.

So yeah, I think that Dally should've been a true blonde haired-blue eyed menace like he was in the book but also God Bless Matt Dillon

[theteasetwrites]

So you don't think Daryl was a bad person for killing innocent families and children at The Sanctuary just because he wanted Negan dead? I don't think a good person does that. I'm not sure there are any GOOD people left in the twd universe

my friend, i’m a daryl dixon x reader fanfiction account. ofc i do not think daryl is a bad person. i would suck the soul out of that man.

but anyway, yeah everyone in the walking dead universe has to work with their own moral compass that is largely affected by the way the world is in this post-apocalyptic landscape.

and of course all of the characters are going to do morally wrong things for the sake of survival. every character has done bad things.

i never said i excuse daryl’s actions. i don’t think it was a good idea and i think he was being irrational. i don’t think he is a bad person because of it. i don’t think any of the main characters (besides the villains) are bad people. they are people who mostly mind their own business and try not to get in the way of other communities UNLESS they pose a threat to their community.

that’s what separates them from literally every bad group/villain they’ve come across. i don’t think they’re saints or whatever but i also think that they are not bad guys. they are trying to rebuild the world so that human beings can beat out the walkers. that is their main objective.

daryl does make morally questionable decisions, but the world they live in goes by different rules: there are no rules.

additionally, we need to understand daryl’s state of mind during that time. now i am not saying this excuses his rash decisions, but i am saying that daryl was particularly brutal against the saviors because of multiple factors:

he felt guilty for denise’s death, and thus wanted to avenge her

he felt guilty for glenn’s death, and thus wanted to avenge him

he was humiliated, tortured, and brutalized by the saviors (which also likely could’ve reminded him of past traumas if we really want to analyze it)

he had seen negan’s evil FIRSTHAND. he knew the kind of shit that man did. he watched negan burn half a man’s face off. he probably even saw more sick shit while he was being held at the sanctuary.

again, i am not trying to say these things excuse it, but it puts into perspective daryl’s frame of mind during seasons 7-8.

so no i do not think daryl is a bad person. i also don’t think the twd world operates in terms of black and white anyway, which is what makes it so compelling to watch. i mean some people are just plain BAD, but there is still a nuance to most things.

daryl has also done many many good things so let’s not forget that.

[dinosaursatemymom]

St characters ranked by me

even though nobody asked

Lucas Sinclair

Max Mayfield

Erica Sinclair

El/Jane Hopper

Steve Harrington

Will Byers

Robin Buckley

Joyce Byers

Jonathon Byers

Hopper

Murray

Mike wheeler

Dustin Henderson

Argyle

Nancy Wheeler

The entire town of Hawkins

Eddie Munson

Vecna/Henry/001

Billy Hargrove

1- do I even need to explain myself? Lucas solos, end of story, but in all seriousness this guy is just such a good person, whenever he screws up he always takes accountability and apologizes. Lucas is a green flag and good character.

2- Max is a good character, and I wish that her depression has been explored more. I think most of her sarcasm is a defense mechanism and closing off as a trauma response, which I relate to a lot as closing off is also my defense mechanism.

3-Erica is a great character, she's funny, shes nice when she needs to be and it's clear she really does care about her brother. She's wayy too young to be dealing with all the upside down stuff though.

4- El is great, and I would love to see her again her independence and more of a sense of self.

5- Steve is a good guy, he makes mistakes(like a lot) but he tries to make up for them(cleaning off the spray paint, and helping with the camera for example) I definitely think that his whole thing with Nancy this season was weird, but tbh I think the duffers just don't know what to do with him anymore. Cause he was supposed to die, like more than once. All in all I like him as a character.

6- Will is a good character I just think he needs to stop being sidelined so much, which has already been proven to come to fruition in s5.

7- Robin is also a good character who needs more screentime. I would like to see more of who she is separated from Steve.

8- Joyce is good mom, she loves her kids and really tries to help them.

9- Jonathon was a bitch for most of s1, which can be written of as trauma response. He's a great big brother. I would love to see him owning up to his mistakes better, and being honest with nancy. I'll say that the whole taking pictures thing was creepy and he should've apologized to more than just Nancy.

10- I like him, although he makes mistakes, as we all do, but he doesn't really own up to all of them. And in certain moments he was an asshole, but all in all I like him for the most part.

11- Murray is Murray. He's the chaotic neutral. He's not a matchmaker, he's just sick of everyone's bullshit.

12- I have a lot to say about Mike, but as of right now this is where he stays. Because unless he gets confirmed get with IH he's just a little shit.

13- Dustin is funny and nice, but he's also a cocky little asshole a lot of the time. He is the exact type of person I would be friends with in real life though. 😅

14- I like argyle, but he is definitely not fleshed out enough. I need him fleshed out more in the next season.

15- I don't like her very much, shes kinda just a rich entitled white girl. She strung Steve along in s2, she told Jonathon he was pulling the Oliver twist routine and barely apologized. She got all smug when Jonathan apologized. She can't take accountability for her actions well, and that just ticks me off.

16- I don't know much about them but yk.

17- I don't like eddie. I don't get why people like Eddie, he's a greasy twenty year old who basically bullies high schoolers for not being freaks enough. He also sells drugs to minors as a twenty year old. He was kinda at fault for the whole basketball dnd game thing, he acts like having any other interests is wrong and tbh he just feels like the semi-attractive white guy to ship with other semi-attractive white guy. I was sorta indifferent to him at first but then the fandom kept adding him into everything where he absolutely did not need to be. Like, no, he's not gonna come back to life and mentor Will who's gonna come out to him.

18- do I need to explain this? Really? He's evil

19- racist, sexist, greasy, abuser, likely homophobic. Just a shit person let's be real.

Okay that's it this is all my opinion though, please don't hate.

[realultimatepower]

my friend @marchperi tagged me in one of those "what's your last X" posts, which is the first time anyone has ever tagged me across two accounts on here, so here we go.

Lockscreen

The Vault-Tec-esque style has always been dependable for me. Shit, I gotta plug this thing in.

Last Song Listened To

I was originally gonna say that I couldn't remember and that it was just some song off Yacht Rock Radio on SiriusXM (don't judge me, I'm white, you may as well ask me to stop breathing before I stop listening to Steely Dan) BUT I actually just finished watching the latest episode of The Penguin, and they played a song by SWANS over the end credits, so I'll put that here.

Last Photo I Took

This picture has a story attached to it that I don't feel comfortable sharing because it ended an argument that I still have some lingering frustrations over. Whatever.

Last Movie I Watched

Rewatched this for family movie night yesterday. First time I've seen it again since I was a kid. I liked it a normal amount back then, and I like it the same amount now even if some of my thoughts about it have changed as a result of being slightly more analytical about the movies I watch. I think my only gripe with it is how the romance between Kim & Edward is a little bit too easy. It's not rushed, it just seems to fall in place just because rather than any actual connection between the two. Maybe there's some commentary about how Edward represents a world unlike either of the ones Kim currently inhabits (the 90s rebellion of her generation against the 50s sensibilities of her neighborhood) and that's tempting to her, but idk. I usually write up these letterboxd reviews for the stuff I watch (no, I won't share my account on here) but since I got up for a few minutes to cook my dinner, I didn't wanna write up my thoughts based on a partial rewatch. I'll probably refer back to this post later, though.

Closest Thing to My Left

The remote to my ceiling fan. Lame, but that's the closest thing to me. I'm being fully honest with this.

Last Meme I Saved/Screenshot

This shitty little squirreljak, because the topic of that republican who adopted a wild squirrel came up in the politics channel of this server I'm in, and there's this other guy in the server who posts this pic so often that it's become an inside joke. My opinion on "Peanut"? I think this is a stupid thing for people to rally around, but that's the point. The right is always playing these dudebro games about not taking anything seriously so when anyone calls them out on it the Leftists trying to treat it that way end up looking even sillier. That said, I saw that tweet from some pundit about Trump "winning 48 states if he [puts on a squirrel suit]" and thought it was some gaga about securing the furry vote because I hadn't heard about the Peanut debacle prior to seeing it, and since I doubt that's what the guy intended when he made the post it makes it so I'm laughing at him instead of him laughing at me. All-in-all, I really hope the next time I hear about Trump after he loses in 2 days is about him dying, and then I'll never hear about him again.

Most Embarrassing Song You Have Saved

I don't have a Spotify because I can listen to music on youtube for free with Ublock (or on SiriusXM through my parents' account), but I do keep a playlist on youtube so I pulled the song for this prompt from on there. It took some searching, because i've got over 800 songs spread out over 3 separate playlists that while others may find me to be embarrassing to have in there, I feel no shame over because that's simply the person I was at the time and most of it is still objectively enjoyable (things like a PSG AMV set to the song Danger Days or a Mother Mother song I liked long before they became hip to dunk on). But, I eventually found a song that I thought was funny at the time, but now I think if people knew I ever liked it they'd think I was an actual fan of his.

Most Problematic Movie You Still Watch for Nostalgia

Originally I was gonna edit this to be the most problematic film I feel nostalgic for, because I don't actually rewatch movies that often when there's so many that I haven't seen yet and time is a precious commodity, BUT there actually is a somewhat problematic feature that I do rewatch at least once a year.

Well, "problematic" in the sense that soooo many fans of the original absolutely despise this remake and Matthew Broderick for "butchering" the role of Harold Hill. I still haven't seen the original to compare it against yet, but I have a feeling I'm still gonna prefer this one simply because I love the hokey mid-2000s acting in it as much as I do the musical performances. If you think this is a copout, just ask any theater major you still have contact with their opinions.

I don't know if there's usually a limit to how many people you can tag for this, so I'll pick 5: @visonoda @emosighcrylaugh @st4rm41d @theinsanewombat @thepleasuregoblin

[artzychic27]

Death Note AU - Where is the Justice except it's about the corruptness of Mayor Bourgeois, and how Ladybug and Cat Noir aren't doing their jobs to properly punish those who cause akumatizations. I can see Miss Mendeliev being the teacher and the Science Kids being his fellow classmates in the song.

Mme. Mendeleiv: Now, if you’ll turn your pages to- *A crash is heard outside* Uh, okay! Everyone, you know the drill. Stay calm and stay inside while Ladybug and Chat Noir handle things.

Simon: Sure, teach. Sure, we let them handle things like they’ve been handling things for half a year now.

Mme. Mendeleiv: Simon-

Simon: No! No, I’m gonna say it. I truly thought things would be different with superheroes. Especially two that are close to our age, but now? Things seem to be worse!

Cosette: Hell yeah! Akuma victims are treated like pariahs, and what have those two done to stop it? Not only that, but they don’t do shit about the people who maliciously cause Akumatizations.

Ismael: Know what? They’re right. Bob Roth, Chloé, the mayor, Bustier, and every other bastard like them! Ladybug and Chat Noir say they’ll defend us, but I still don’t feel safe. I don’t feel safe expressing my emotions or getting mad at people who piss me off becuase it’ll just come back to bite me in the ass.

Mme. Mendeleiv: Listen, class. While those are well meaning arguments, I… Our current system is what it is. We have law and justice, but… But sometimes… It doesn’t always work out in everyone’s favor.

Marc: … Wouldn’t you argue that law and Justice are two completely separate things?

Mme. Mendeleiv: … I suppose. They’re certainly two sides of the same coin.

Marc: Really? It seems more like we’re binding two separate things together.

Mme. Mendeleiv: Well, then… What are your thoughts on the heroes and our current justice system?

Marc: … Where is the justice

When the guilty all go free?

Why don't we lock them up

And throw away the key?

Mme. Mendeleiv: I see a young man's anger burning in your eyes

Marc: What you see is my impatience

With your noble compromise

Show me what's right about

The wrongs that we allow

Citizens need to feel

Protected here and now

This whole damn system's broken way beyond repair

“Heroes” don’t know law and order

Don’t know good or treating us fair

Mme. Mendeleiv: Laws are made for everyone

Most are treated all the same

Marc: Till a rich man’s tricks can fix the blame

What about the victims

Waiting for some justice?

How can the heroes turn away and say

To not get upset next time?

Science Kids: Do they see the families

Hiding in their houses?

Marc: All of them afraid to walk the streets at night

Worried they’ll be in an Akuma’s sights

Tell me, where is the justice?

If there's any justice?

Mme. Mendeleiv: Your simple arguments

Have all been made before

The world's not black and white

The choice not "either-or"

Marc: Perhaps it's time

We drain the color from it then

Till we're back to seeing black and white

And wrong and right again

Mme. Mendeleiv: Overwrought pronouncements

Won't improve the paradigm

Marc: Till blue bloods cutting deals becomes a crime

Science Kids: Let a so-called hero

Choose who’s ally or foe

Marc: And only hold us accountable

When we get Akumatized!

Science Kids: Let the rich and famous

Get away with murder

Marc: Every time Hawkmoth

Strikes and we’re scarred for life

No one cares for our strife

Tell me where is the justice?

If there's any justice

Science Kids: Tell me where

Marc: Where is the justice?

Science Kids: Tell me where

Marc: For all the victims

Science Kids: Tell me where

Marc: Where is the justice?

What good is law that won’t

Punish those who make it?

Cosette: The heroes keep

Promising salvation all day long!

We look to them with hope

But it seems we were wrong!

Jean: They keep condoning loopholes

For the laws to fall between!

They should let some good old-fashioned pay-back

Grease the wheels of the machine!

Marc: Isn't everybody sick to death of all this stuff?!

Can't we all stand up and say enough?!

Mme. Mendeleiv: Have I taught you nothing?

Have you lost perspective?

You'd bend the law until it breaks

And tell yourself it's right

Marc: Do they see the families

Hiding in their houses?

All of them afraid to walk the streets at night

Worried they’ll be in an Akuma’s sights…

We must give them their justice!

Science Kids: Where is the justice?!

Marc: We owe them some justice!

Science Kids: Where is the justice?…

Where is the justice?

Mme. Mendeleiv: … *Sighs* Let’s continue the lesson.

[meaningtotellyou]

This is sort of a hard one for me bc on the one hand totally agree she sucks. And also I think people contain multitudes so I can see why Taylor would hold to her friendship even despite her political views if she was a very welcoming and helpful friend to her last year in a new and potentially scary environment. I also think there’s inherent privilege in being able to separate those two things. However this is where the nuance comes in for me bc we know through research the best way to change minds is through personal relationships. So we can’t all just cut out every person who has distasteful political leanings (or what that says further about them). We need to some people to keep to those relationships and talk about what’s important to them and why and why that means they’re voting differently. That to me is sort of like using your white cis privilege bc I certainly dont think poc and lgbtqia+ should have to do it. But I do think it needs to be done. Otherwise people stay in their little insular worlds full of hate and things don’t change they just get passed to the next generation. I think Taylor’s made it obvious where her political leanings lie and also she’s explicitly said she thinks trump is shit. So personally I’m gonna keep disliking bm and hope Taylor manages to talk some sense in her at least politically. But I think it’s fine for fans to feel whatever they want about it. Sort of same w Matty issue like feel how you want; judge her for the company she keeps; acknowledge it’s her life, her relationships and mistakes etc. and you can still like her music and even her without liking or defending everything she does. Great artists don’t have to be great people. Most of them aren’t to be fair lol

i just feel like voting for someone like trump goes behind politics and it’s more of a moral debate and a moral mirror. trump is beyond politics. he wants horrible things done to people who don’t look like him, think like him, or have his bank account. he’s a sick individual and i don’t like the idea of taylor being sacrificed in hopes of MAYBE making brittany people that people deserve rights

[obsidianstrawberrymilk]

1 3 13 for that ask game!!

Character everyone gets wrong - oh damn, lotta answers I could give for this. Mmm... actually, because I haven't seen a lot of people talk about this one: Aizawa Shouta/Eraserhead. Like... imo both fans and people who hate him don't actually write his character properly; fans mainly writer 'Dadzawa' and him being this super caring dude who like saves every kid ever when like... in canon he's an incredibly flawed person who often does more to harm his students than he does help and has a shit ton of trauma that prevents him from being the support they really need. Yet at the same time I think a lot of the hate for him tends to hyperfocus on his flaws and act like he only cares about like two students, when he does care a lot about them and does try and help his students; also, no one ever takes into account his role as a homeroom teacher; his job isn't to improve their skills in a specific area like an English or Gym teacher, it's to make sure they get things like good internships or opportunities, and to make sure they more or less stay on track. He does seem to try at least. A lot of Aizawa's flaws as a teacher are the same flaws all the adults in the series share due to the errors in writing, really. Idk, both the pro Aizawa and anti Aizawa stuff I've read just kinda rubs me the wrong way.

3) Worst take you've seen on tumblr - oh SHIT. This could be a whole separate post in and of itself. I could say "Itachi was actually the most super awesome cool genius ever and he was 100% right and Sasuke's a little bitch for not doing exactly what his flawless plan decided and also Fugaku Uchiha was abusive so he's the real hero", because I will eat the esophagus of the next person who says that. Or "Cass is actually so mean and scary so all the civilians like Jason more because he protects women and children specially and also she's so mean to him :(" because I am willing to commit first degree murder of this. I could also say "Dabi-Touya/Fuyumi/Shouto/Natsuo/fucking REI are the real Abusers and Endeavour never did anything wrong actually", or maybe "Ben was abusive towards poor uwu boy Klaus who did nothing wrong ever". And that's just sticking within fandom. There are probably worse takes out there, but I refuse to remember them atm.

13) Worst Blorboification - oh, this one's easy, fucking TIM DRAKE. Blorboification is fine but he's been blorboed so hard the Tim Drake fandom isn't even a fan of the actual fucking character by any measure, there's like nothing left there. I try reading Tim Drake fanfic and I'm hit by Sad Pathetic White Boy Who Is So Tormented By The Cruelty Of Those Around Him And Can Do Nothing But Cry like NO. THATS NOT HIM AT ALL. I'M GOING TO EAT SOMEONE'S LUNGS NEXT TIME I HAVE TO READ THIS.

[throwra3882]

Okay, so, this thought won't leave me alone, so I have decided to finally post it. Fair warning, the post is super long.

It's about Micah Bell from Red Dead Redemption 2.

I'm not new to the Red Dead Fandom. I've been playing the game solidly for nigh on 3 years now, and I adore it. I've played so much red dead that I can turn my map off and find my way around the world. I memorized where most of the hidden loot stashes, dinosaur bones, and rock carvings are. I hardly have to look at the treasure maps to know where my next destination is going to be.

My first playthrough, Micah was my least favorite character. I hated his guts. I had an excellent time during the epilogue and took too many screenshots of me posing next to his dead body.

My second playthrough, because I knew what was going to happen, I harassed him, watched him, and tried to see if there's any way you can change the outcome. On story missions together, I'd chuck dynamite at him.

And suddenly overnight he became my favorite character. I think it's because I love to root for a charismatic villain. I think it's because I was finally noticing little details about him and thinking, oh, that's neat. The creators put a lot of thought into this game. It kind of clicked in Guarma when Micah actually protected the camp instead of laying about doing nothing like he usually does.

So I went looking for content to see if there were other Micah enjoyers out there. I was not surprised to find there were! What I was surprised about was how controversial liking his character made someone.

I've been on tumblr for over a decade (not with an account, I lurked that whole time) and everyone who's been here that long knows two things.

You police yourself. You look at tags that interest you, you block tags you dislike (I'm a little sex repulsed, so I don't like looking at explicit art. Not that the artists aren't talented or that people can't enjoy it! But it's not my cup of tea so I tend to avoid that), and you generally stay in your area of interest.

Fandom and reality stay separate to an extent. Can you have merch of your favorite fandom? Pins and socks and jacket patches? For sure! Can you go to conventions and cosplay as your favorite character? Absolutely, you look fantastic! Can you go harass an actor because you don't like their character? No way! Doing that makes you a shitty person. (Jack Gleeson/Joffrey Baratheon comes to mind)

So I was surprised that so many people decided that liking Micah meant the person was racist or idolized his behavior, which is not what normal, healthy people think.

I am aware that Micah is the villain. I am aware that he is a problematic fave and is a racist, sexist, homophobic piece of shit. That's not why I like him. Racism, sexism, and homophobia in real life are bad. I would never like a person in real life who was like Micah. But I am fully aware that Red Dead Redemption 2 is a fictional world and Micah Bell III is a fictional character, and I am not going to now idolize racist, sexist, homophobic assholes because I saw it in a video game. That's like saying that playing video games makes you violent in real life, which is an issue that a lot of boomers had when video games became popular, saying it was going to make kids violent.

The reason I like Micah is because the game is about redemption, and I like to explore how Micah could possibly be redeemed. Honestly, he reminds me of a kid fresh out of high school who's still saying the same stuff his parents taught him, and who hasn't yet been to University to see that the world is not black and white and that people of color actually exist and are people, instead of racist caricatures explained by his parents because he grew up in a town without any diversity.

I wonder what could have happened if Micah had grown up in the Van Der Linde gang (he's only 3 years older than Arthur. Hosea and Dutch could have adopted him). Or if the gang didn't fall apart and they actually got to start a new life somewhere with the Blackwater money.

I think it's okay to explore that. What if he realized his racism and sexism and homophobia were bad? What if he wasn't so socially awkward and abrasive and actually got to know and like people? What if he took steps to try and make amends for his past behavior and became a better person? In a game about redemption, I don't think it's so far-fetched to want to imagine that.

In conclusion, block the things you don't want to see, and as long as you're able to separate fiction from reality, like whichever characters tickle your fancy.