#thinking a character is evil and hating them is valid but at least understand WHY they are like that

[beanghostprincess]

I gotta say it bothers me an insane amount when people refer to the Vinsmoke Brothers as "grown-ups" and say they were old enough to know what they were doing during WCI. Because despite agreeing on the fact that yes, they are abusers and Sanji has all the right in the world to not forgive them, the thought of them being irredeemable, especially emphasizing their age... Feels wrong.

People seem to think that once you turn 18 you're all grown-up and aware of your own actions, but when you've been manipulated and used and abused since the day you were born, no you are not. Abuse stops your normal growth and understanding of your surroundings and the development of a personality. And I am not saying they didn't know any better or justifying shit because they are awful people and there's no excuse for what they did to Sanji. But their whole story is about how they didn't grow up at all and are used as machines, and about how Sanji grew up too fast.

Sanji knew what torture was at the age of 8 but his brothers don't know what actual love is being 21. And I think both situations are extremely fucked up.

Referring to somebody (especially somebody who has grown up in a toxic environment) as mature and an adult (as an excuse to say they are aware of what they're doing completely) when they're 21 is just so wild to me because first, the didn't have a chance to grow up at all, and second, it's just 21 how the hell is 21 that old for you? People justifying the actions of teenagers but suddenly deeming people in their early twenties as "old enough to know better" is stupid. You don't turn 18 and suddenly become aware of good and bad out of nowhere. They were clearly caged and trapped in that cycle of abuse and didn't grow up at all.

Neither Sanji nor the viewers have to forgive the Vinsmoke brothers for their behavior at all, but you can admit somebody is redeemable and had a shitty life and they're the way they are because of their abuse without actually justifying their actions or forgiving them. Yes, fuck the Vinsmoke brothers. They're horrible people. Sanji should hate them and if the story ever makes him forgive them I will be extremely furious, I would despise that. But acting as if they were inherently evil and being +18 made them mature and emotionally aware all of a sudden is just not understanding their characters in the slightest.

[killcodesashes]

[QUICK RANT ABOUT QUEER REPRESENTATION IN TSAMS/TSBS SHOWS]

[As a genderfluid aroace person myself.]

TSAMS

Uh. I don't like it. Aroace Moon? Cool. Absolutely valid, we love him for that. Wasn't adressed much except in a few episodes which are pretty good, I liked the one where he rejects Foxy a lot!

But recently- g e e z. I understand wanting to bait people in with ships people want! Specifically KidsCove. Same in tmgafs! But the problem is that they do it not just to tease/mess around with the viewers in good fun, they genuinely seem to hate the shippers and actually want to make fun of them? Not just with kidscove but with any other ship that isn't canon. They don't even want to confirm Sun's sexuality, just constantly making it a gag that he has a bisexual flag in his room. Which as a queer person? It's just annoying. Just really annoying ? Please all we want is a confirmation or something? We want queer characters we can actually relate to. And we don't really get that :( Then New Moon came along and said it was possible he wasn't aroace. . . And then they never mentioned it again. So why mention it in the first place ? I don't think I would've minded it if he had just changed how much attraction he felt but was STILL aroace/on the aroace spectrum. As long as it was actually clarified. But they seemed eager to rush to his evil era so they didn't bother to close to any lose ends before hand, though I guess being aroace might've just not been as relevant.

On a bit of a side note- Ruin feels very gay coded. Very gay. There is no way he's straight T.T he's a villain but he's a zesty man and we absolutely adore him for that!!

That was probably an accident, though. Every theatre kid seems gay! /lhj

Just overall upsets me that the VAs seem to act offended by the mere idea of shipping characters? As if that's not a common/vital part of every fandom.

[OTHER SHOWS UNDER THE CUT]

TMGAFS

Upsets me that they can't clarify Puppets identity or pronouns? [Or maybe they have recently but I genuinely doubt it]

Because who are they meant to actually represent ?? It's probably just me but I wish it was more clear or something. I appreciate the VA for trying I do though, absolutely love that guy[Foxy’s VA, genuinely seems to just be a chill guy. And I think it's really cool that he actually does roles that could come off very cringe, voicing most of the cringe dimension characters +struggling with Puppets voice for the longest time.] I just wanna know if Puppet is a trans fem queen or trans masc slay or just trans ? But nothing seems to be clarified.

Again with KidsCove? Genuinely just annoying how they blatantly just do it to make fun of the people who ship them and get views from them.

Foxy seemed to have been gay before his memory loss. Or was at the very least interested in men to an extent. But since he began to be the main character of a show he suddenly only likes women?? S u s. They really keep insisting he's extremely straight and genuinely just annoys me that they erased him being interested in men [Proved he liked men in the episode he asked Moon out.]

. . .now. . . M o n t y. As a genderfluid person? I hate them and literally feel more represented and seen by cis characters from other shows. For the longest time Monty being genderfluid wasn't even adressed and was usually just brought up for plot reasons or something? And it pissed me of that every time they correct a character on Monty's pronouns.. they immediately go back to using he/him pronouns. I think the new fem body is pretty neat! Though I think it would've been more interesting for Monty to stay masc but ACTUALLY get their right pronouns used and their identity getting genuinely respected DESPITE of their appearance. But the body? It's genuinely completely fine! /gen I used to hate my body too and understand that the writers might've thought it might be easier for people if they just used a different body completely! But it annoys me that my gender representation comes in the form of M o n t y. The annoying character known for constantly hating on others and partially destroying their lives. Anyone can be genderfluid, yes. But when the representation is so little? I just wish it was at least a bit better or with a less hateable character.

TLAES

Lunar! Uh. Again can we just get clarification on his sexuality? Is he polyamorous? Bisexual? Omnisexual? Just any clarification please?

Gemini! I wish they were canon nonbinary. They're literally stars. Why did they have to be gendereddd. Also curious about their 'sexuality'? Will also likely never get clarification on it :/

OTHER SHOWS/SIDE NOTES

Roxanne is canon lesbian and so is Glamrock Chica! I'm so sorry but I forgot his name T~T I think it was Tiger Rock[??] Is also canonically gay! Glam Chica has a girlfriend! And I do think their relationship is pretty cute [from what I've seen] and overall wish I would finally get to watching the show a bit more! Funtime Foxy feels very queer to me? Not just because his design is pink but his overall characterization! He does have a girlfriend! But he seems to be comfortable in his own identity and presentation from what I've seen? At least, it seems to be more comfortable than some o t h e r characters. I feel more represented by Funtime Foxy and Lolbit than I ever felt represented by Monty. But that is a personal opinion!

I overall have just lost interest in all of the shows. I'm tired of being constantly disappointed and lead on. But I do wish I could watch more of the other shows since they seem to show more love and care towards their characters :)

CLOSING THOUGHTS!

It's just shows. Does any of this really matter? I think it matters when the shows are claiming to have good representation when they really don't. And they're allowing people who aren't queer/a part of the LGBTQIA+ community to feel like they have the right to shut real queer people down. I've seen so much acephobia and overall homophobia even in this community. A l o t in this community. I wish the writers would listen to ACTUAL QUEER PEOPLE!! I wish the VIEWERS listened to ACTUAL QUEER PEOPLE.

That's what I really want. I just want to be heard and represented.

I don't claim this community. I CAN'T claim a community who is constantly against us.

LISTEN TO QUEER VOICES.

[sorcave]

Hating Calypso does not mean you don't understand morally grey characters and defending her does not mean you understand them.

I've seen many takes from those defending Calypso in one way or another dismissing those who hate her as "not understanding morally gray characters" which is simply isn't true. Defending her as a poor victim who didn't know any better does not mean you understand the concept of morally gray characters either.

The main divide is whether intent, her actions, or both matters in defining her morality and by how much. Either side of that spectrum is missing the nuance of the situation- she's not a supervillain intent on making Odysseus' life horrible nor is she an innocent, naive girl who shouldn't be held accountable for her actions. To me, while I don't think she is evil, she is at the darker end of the "morally gray" spectrum as her actions are so egregious that her intent nearly doesn't matter.

Most defenders use the story that Calypso tells in "I'm Not Sorry For Loving You" as their evidence. She didn't INTEND to hurt Odysseus- she hasn't known anyone before so she didn't know! She was just lonely! She just loved him! If you were stuck on an island all alone for 100 years and finally someone came, wouldn't YOU want to make sure they didn't leave? Besides, she apologizes for her actions!

This is a trap that the song actively brings listeners into. It is meant (or at least easily interpreted as) as a plea for sympathy, to make the audience feel empathy for poor Calypso. It is not a simple explanation for her actions and it is definitely not an apology for them. The reason it feels like a "Youtuber Apology" is that they share many similar characteristics. She is intentionally vague about what she is apologizing about, to the point they are nearly irrelevant. "Coming on too strong" wasn't the issue- it was "Coming on too strong" AFTER Odysseus told her no ( "From here you're mine, all mine"/ "Hell No") was. It doesn't address her main crime, specifically keeping a man AGAINST HIS WILL for seven YEARS, even AFTER he became so desperate to leave that he was moments from committing suicide. Lastly, she doesn't take accountability but (intentionally or not) blames Odysseus . "I'm sorry if my love was too much for you" is a VERY common phrased used by abusers to shift the blame from themselves onto their victims.

The crux of the issue for me is while her rough experience up until she met Odysseus may explain her actions, too many people seem to use it to EXCUSE her actions (including, seemingly, the narrative itself). Why this rubs so many the wrong is because of how many real life victims have been told they have to "forgive" their abusers because their life was hard or "they didn't know better." Many who were bullied as a kid had at least one guidance counselor say they needed to "forgive/even befriend x because they are struggling/ \[Insert Bad Thing Here} happened to them." Many others see Calypso using the same tactics their own abusers used to hurt them, and justifiably hate her for it.

I am not saying someone is wrong or stupid for having a more forgiving perspective on Calypso. If you are one to put more weight into intent than actions, I could see why Calypso could be a much lighter gray ( I am not seeing many defenders saying she is an entirely innocent, "morally good" character"). It can be argued that her actions were not of an intentional abuser but of a goddess who haven't had much experience with relationships before, especially with mortals. If her idea of romance came from whatever the Ancient Greek version of romance novels were, it makes sense that her idea of romance may not be the healthiest. Heck, even reading the myths would explain or even excuse why she didn't see "She's my wife" as a sign to back off- for probably at least 90 percent of Greek Heroes, that would not matter.

In summary, Calypso is a morally gray character- but that doesn't mean there aren't valid reason to dislike or even hate her. Seeing her as dark gray bordering on black doesn't mean you don't see the nuance- many who are against her understand her intent may not have been evil- but that her actions make her intent almost irrelevant. So please stop dismissing those who dislike/hate her as simply misunderstanding/being naive with morally gray characters. Many are not (especially since the entire show is full of them) and simply put weight in her actions more than her intent.

[almacambiondaughterofsaleos]

I get frustrated when I see people argue that the people who complain about stellas writing just can't handle an evil woman, or don't care about men who suffer abuse from their female partners. Like no that is not why I find stellas writing bad--Cersei lannaster was great, and still evil.

The issue is that stella was made as bad as possible to make stolas look better. Because she's now a super abuser now any possible issues she had with stolas during their relationship are moot. Which to me is a problem when the main focus of the story seems to be the relationship between blitz and stolas.

Now we can't have a similar moment between stella and stolas that we had between blitz and verosika. Stolas doesn't have to reflect on issues he had in his past relationship that are now affecting his current relationship with blitz. Instead the show only has blitz reflect on his past, making it seem as if every issue between them is his fault.

And even with as little screen time as we get with stella and how bad she is, I can see where Viv could have stella rightfully pissed at stolas even before he cheated. Stolas is horrible at paying attention to people or listening to them. If it's not something he's super into he's not interested. He doesn't pick up on Via hating lulu land or that blitz wasn’t happy with their arrangement until its thrown in his face.

Though it's a joke we see him do this with stella when she's yelling about taking hit out on him infront of his face. He's reading a book, totally not even hearing her. Now that's she always been abusive you can chalk that up to him learning to shut out his abuser. Instead of him always ignoring stella even before their marriage went south. Stella can't tell him that she tried to make their marriage work too but he never listened to what she had to say or payed attention to her, always lost in his own world. That maybe the reason she started screaming at him was because that was the only way he'd even actually listen to her (mirroring him and blitz, where stolas didn't realize the deep problems in their relationship until blitz literally screamed it at him).

I think it's one of the reasons why people are so harsh on stolas, because we know he won't get that self reflection blitz did. Instead he's portrayed as a sad dude, with the toughest life, doing his best. Naive, and a bit to soft, not actively wrong sometimes. Ironically I think if stella had been written better, stolas would be too. She could still do bad things, like hiring striker; verosika still has bad coping methods for dealing with her hurt over blitz, but at least her and stolas's relationship would have a bit more depth, and be used to help stolas become a better partner for blitz (since that is vivs intention, even if i dont like it).

It's this. Stella is just a plot device for sympathy like Octavia is for Stolas. Although in this case, she is used to excuse his abusive behavior towards Blitzo, his neglectful parenting, and even more his cheating. The abuse is just a cover for his character and it makes people think he's above criticism about his horrid actions. As said before, if you notice his behavior then you realize there are so many valid reasons why it should be a two way street because as you said that bird is selectively oblivious and doesn't understand anyone else's feelings. And again they say him being sheltered is why he is this way then again you could use that same excuse as Stella and yet she's not given that because the narrative lets her be treated like an adult like the creator's pet. I agree. I do think if they didn't excuse Stolas it would give him depth and give him more self-reflections s a person so he can be better for Blitzo rather than Blitzo have to always suck his pain to make Stolas feel better.

[towards-toramunda]

I feel like it’s worthwhile to point out that nobody is saying Ludinus is a good or morally grey guy. Nobody is saying the ruby vanguard is a good group. When people (or at least me idk I can’t talk for others) are saying that seeing the humanity of the people drawn into the other side is important it’s because Matt keeps making a point to bring it up. Matt showing us Tuldus being forced to pray for hours as a child and being punished for lack of piety, showing us a locket with a child on a cultist they’d just killed, showing us Lilliana’s pain, and now with Bor’Dor’s backstory with the gods.

Being a DM myself I think that its important not to discount the constant mentions of the trauma from the masses in this cult because Matt, the dungeon master, the story weaver, the one calling the shots, keeps making a point to highlight the backstories of the people who join the vanguard. I’m guessing (based on the fact that Utkarsh doesn’t watch the show and had no context for what the vanguard was) that Utkarsh came to Matt and said “give me a character idea” and Matt decided that the story needed a PC on the other side.

It really feels like he keeps saying “Look at how these people have been hurt. See them as people with trauma and love and family who easily fell for Ludinus’ lie.”

And that lie is another reason I think its valid to question the gods. Because questioning the gods doesn’t make you want what Ludinus wants. Questioning power, why it acts the way it acts, does the things it does, and doesn’t do the things it doesn’t do, is important in any society! Even one where there are gods (and I’d say especially one where there are gods with questionable morals and backstories). Because while Ludinus is evil and has vile intentions, he is drawing people into his power grab by hiding it in a nugget of truth: many feel slighted by the gods. Many have seen the good things the gods can do and are left to wonder why they’re left to suffer. Why the gods choose to help some and not them. Why their families forced them to worship those they didn’t believe.

And seeing this story NOW when we’ve seen so many stories in real life of people who are traumatized and hurt and confused going to the internet with their grief and being led to hate groups and radicalization feels VERY intentional on Matt’s part. It feels (to me) like he’s begging us to see the ruby vanguard members as people who were drawn in by a charismatic leader who pretended to understand their pain and used them.

Matt keeps telling us its important to see the humanity and the trauma faced by the other side. He could be doing this to flavor the story or to create tension or push the characters to make hard choices or some other reason. I just feel that empathizing with the trauma of those on the other side doesn’t make you akin to a terrorist sympathizer despite what some seem to take from that, and its wild given how clearly (to me) Matt wants us to empathize with them.

(Because this is the internet and people love to misread things:

I don’t agree with the things the people in the ruby vanguard do, I don’t think Matt agrees with it, but I think Matt wants us to feel conflicted with them. I think Matt wants us to believe they’ve been misdirected and could be deradicalized, but its up to Bell’s Hells to decide if they’re willing to forgive the harm they’ve been put through or attempt the effort to deradicalize.

I don’t think it makes any sense to say that questioning the gods makes one akin to Ludinus. Theres a lot to question about the gods. Where did they come from? What even is divinity? How much of their exandrian creation story can we actually believe if they’ve supposedly been hiding the existence of predathos from us? How do we actually know what predathos is? If a mortal can become a god then what the hell even is a god? Etc.

I hope this goes without saying, but just in case: If you don’t want to empathize with real life hate groups please don’t. This is a fictional cult based in the idea that they can release a predator that will get rid of the gods. I don’t see the ruby vanguard as a hate group, a horrible cult that has done vile things and led to the deaths of innocents absolutely, but I hate groups are hateful towards one or many marginalized groups, and thats not this. (I suppose one could argue they’re a hate group for the gods and… sure. I disagree but sure). To me, empathy for the members in the vanguard makes sense in the context of the story Matt is telling, but in real life it is very hard to have empathy for hate groups even if they are formed of traumatized and hurt people who could be deradicalized. I believe deradicalization is necessary for many but fucking hard/impossible for all, and I especially believe that members of marginalized groups shouldn’t feel the need or pressure to help in the deradicalization of those who harm them.

Similarly I believe Orym is valid in his decision to be at war with members of the group that killed his family. Yes I think he is unable to be objective (Liam O’Brien said so himself), but, as a person with ptsd myself, sometimes you need to screw objectivity in the face of trauma. I think we as the audience should be aware that he has lost objectivity so we can better understand his actions, but I don’t think that lack of objectivity makes his choices “wrong”, and its strange to see people claiming that anyone pointing out Orym’s lack of objectivity doesn’t have empathy or morals.)

Anyway this was too long and I should never get involved in discourse again.

[fallenrain40]

little uh... random rant thingy below. v yknow, I don't really understand the whole qpr thing. now,I know it isn't like this... but to me it feels like trying to pressure aros and aroaces into having some version of a relationship or partner. or to get an aroace to date you by saying "well we can just be qprs" (which is basically what someone did to me, i'm lucky that they then completely ignored me afterwards after like, a week. it upset me but at least it didn't keep going further.) and due to my first experience with a "qpr" a while back... it feels even more so that way. (as i just said) then I thought, well hey, maybe it can just mean friendship! it doesn't HAVE to mean anything more romance related... but then... if it's just friendship that's a lil different from the norm, I don't understand WHY I would need to use a different word for it. why can't I just call it being best friends?? platonic soulmates? idk, maybe the label just isn't vibing with me. I think it's just the whole "trying to find/looking for a qpr" culture around it that makes me feel like it's too similar to dating for me. like... when you get a best friend you generally don't go out saying "looking for a best frienddd~" ... it just kinda happens.

...yknow, when I first wrote this post, I started it trying to understand wanting to have qprs or label a relationship as a qpr, but now i'm back to low-key hating them again. it's just TOO close to an "inbetween romance and platonic" that I don't like. it's just... I hate when people say things like "oH bUT aROmANTICS cAn sTILl hAVE qPrS-" like uh does that mean if we don't want a relationship AT ALL we are bad and evil? only aromantics that want to have qprs are valid now?? why should we want to have a relationship at all?? why isn't friendship enough for you people?? why is the defense for aros, aroaces, and aces also, always "but they can still have _ relationships?" it feels like they are literally saying that we are only good becuase we still can have something close enough to romantic relationships. and obviously btw, i don't care if other people want qprs, i even like to headcanon characters with qprs, just please stop assuming it's a thing all aromantics or aroaces want or something that we all feel and can have.... and stop implying that those of us who don't want anything outside of friendship is wrong. or that we need relationships in any form. sorry, I started rambling.

[lagiacrus]

god i have to get this out somewhere or i'll blow up

musing on the f/f media in fandom drama/yaoi discourse/etc (it is not a particularly Negative post i am just thinking aloud)

i guess in my eyes. i think both sides have very valid points if you extend nuance to them.

like. one of the big argument points i see is

a) if you want more yuri content in fandom, make it yourself!!

i don't disagree with this! like if you need to eat you gotta make your food. but also... i completely understand when people express frustration at the amount (overwhelming) of yaoi content over yuri content (or even het content, which is what gives me the 'hmm!' reaction, will explain further)

like... i dunno! it is really a fuckin' bummer when a media with at least 50% female cast is just kind of turned into a Yaoi Pool, i think that there is a lot of stuff to discuss there in that a lot of people gravitate towards male characters more than female characters. i have experienced this! many people i know have! and that just makes me think like...

is the onus of this to be blamed on the people or the writers for being unable to create female characters that aren't completely pigeonholed into tired tropes and stereotypes?

i think the writer thing is probably the idea i agree with the most. but i do think there is also still like... an internalized disdain for women in general, and we see it even outside of this discourse, we see it in blaming women for being 'gross fujos' etc and only talking about yaoi etc. but that's a cycle isn't it? like. you can't win. if you like yaoi you're labeled a 'gross fujo' without any level of investigation on if said fujo is a queer person, without any concept of the nuance that comes with that shit. but it's also like... damn!! why only men huh!?

i have been a #yaoihead for decades so like... i have Seen this, for years and years, i'm not just some yurihead on the outside looking in or whatever, it is really apparent how much people just do Not like female characters, and it's so like... idk.

so much of it really is like, so much media out there has the weakest fucking girls on the planet in terms of writing, and it's depressing as fuck!!!! it's why i'm hesitant to ever 'blame' content consumers because like. idk. i agree, i hate certain tropes for female characters and unfortunately those tropes are the ones that tend to Sell Copies, so i end up gravitating to the more filled out male characters.

but when i see a media with like really well written girls and such and it's still super overwhelmingly Male Oriented in fandom, it's like... man. it's a bummer, and like. back to 'even het ships are on the wayside', one could easily argue it's because everyone is exhausted with het (rightfully so) being the prevalent media in society. but i also just... idk. I Do Think The Women Aspect May Also Be Part Of It! idk. i'm an agender lesbian, i am the last person to go to bat for het ships, but so much of it stinks of 'kill sakura off for naruto/sasuke to be real' but with new, social justice wording that makes it sound like 'good person' discourse.

i dunno! i dont. my view is just like... i love yaoi and yuri. all is good. but it is very much a bummer looking thru someones catalogue for a game with over 70% female characters and seeing only men and the only characters they only acknowledge are men... not even as a 'there's no content of women!' but in a 'what is so disdainful about women that they cant even get an acknowledgement' way, i guess. i dunno.

at the same time tho do not get me started on the overwhelming new presence of gold star lesbian people in yuri fandoms lol. 'if you like a yaoi ship or ship this CANONLY (IN MY HEAD) LESBIAN WITH A MAN you are an EVIL LESBIPHOBE (EVEN IF YOU'RE A LESBIAN) and should KILL YOURSELF' like yeah okay i guess so lol

i'm not trying to start fights or anything i just really think this whole situation calls for more words than 260 characters on twitter allows and unfortunately it creates so much fighting and aggression when it comes up because no one wants to sit down and actually think about what causes these things to happen. iunno. whatever!

[rarepairronpa]

I can't even describe to you how much I love Junko x Celeste x Sonia (normalise shipping your favs with your favs!!). My toxic girls, my emotionally unavailable girls.

I read your Celeshima fic before and I must say that it fits perfectly with their dynamic I have in mind. How Celeste would definitely see and understand Junko for who she is and she wouldn't wish for Junko being any different, nor would she want to "fix" her, but only wanting to join, to rule with Junko in her quest for despair. But with Junko being Junko, she knows Celeste wants that, so she purposefully doesn't let Celeste join in.

Yet, yet!! She lets Sonia in, despite the princess being the one who is much more likely to oppose Junko's extreme ideals (at least not without a lot of manipulation on Junko's end), rather than Celeste herself. It's ironic, really.

And yes, you were so right about Junko breeding resentment into Sonia. I could also see Junko doing the exact same to Celeste, about how ironic it is that the "goody-two-shoes" can join in her despair, and not the one with the same dubious morals as Junko's. Because to Junko, what is love without a teeny tiny bit of manipulation and gaslighting lol

Normalize shipping your faves! That's how I landed on Kaede/Mikan and honestly, it's just fun. Who doesn't like to imagine their favorite characters interacting?

And ah, you read that? That one's one of my older ones. I'm a little embarrassed, wrote that one back in high school, aha. I'm glad you liked it though! I haven't actually gone back to read any of my older works from like, 2018 and older, so not sure how good they are. I at least hope I've improved in the years I've been writing, but definitely doesn't mean my old work is bad. And yeah! Some Junko ships are fun because you have characters attempting to fix her (and usually getting dragged down themselves in the process) but other Junko fics are fun because, like. You just want to see evil partners being the worst. I imagine that's also the appeal of Byakuya/Junko, lol.

And you're totally right! Very ironic that Sonia who would initially be against what Junko stands for is who she gets to her side, but Celestia, who's morals are already loose, is rejected the spot as her queen. Very much in line with Junko trying to cause maximum despair- where she does what you'd hate the most. Celestia would love the rule with her, so she doesn't get to; Sonia would hate what she'd become and so that's what she gets, too. This is basically what I think Junko does in SDR2 and DR1; in SDR2, it would hurt the class most to think she never loved them, that they sacrificed so much of their lives to someone who doesn't care. That's a big betrayal to them, that hurts more than if she actually did love them. So she tells them she never loved them. In DR1, however... the thought that she loved them and did this to them anyways hurts more. The thought that they loved her, and she loved them, and she still did this... The fact that there's love there is in and of itself a betrayal. It feels like it too, right? Like a betrayal to all their dead friends, that they ever loved someone who did this to them. Junko is a monster in their heads- that she loves them... that hurts. That makes them feel like they're betraying their friends by that love existing. Like they've betrayed themselves. Which is exactly why she tells them she did love them. So- personally, I tend to think Junko in both these scenes was just saying what would cause the most upset. Which means I think it's perfectly valid to headcanon the idea that... maybe she did care about the SDR2 gang. I mean, she does the same thing to Yasuke Matsuda, right? She loves him, that's a fact, we know that from her narration in DR0... and yet, when he lays dying, she tells him she never cared about him from the beginning, that she was only using him. Because he dedicated so much to her, that's what would cause him the most despair. Just like the SDR2 cast. Considering lying about never caring to send her loved ones into despair is something it's established Junko just does, it's perfectly reasonable to wonder if she was lying to the SDR2 gang, too.

So, with that headcanon considered... I do think it's well within Junko's characterization to deny both Sonia and Celestia what they originally wanted, if that makes sense? To have such different approaches with them, but it coming from the same place. I think Junko really likes her irony, because irony can hurt.

I could totally see her breeding resentment in Celestia, too. The thing about Junko, imo, is that she isolates you from your genuine bonds, and only reunites you under her banner. So, like. She takes your relationships from you, makes both parties in the relationship focus on her, and then reunites you through that adoration of her. She wants the only thing you have in common, that you care about, to be her. She wants your other relationships to just be extentions of her. So breeding resentments on both sides of this relationship? Very in character. Especially since that root of resentment is tied up in attention from her - very in character thing to do.

And yeah lol. No one's doing love with manipulation and gaslighting quite like Junko. Very true.

[wubbybubbly]

aww gumshoe’s trying to stand up for him…

also, I do like that edgeworth’s past corruption isn’t just being swept under the rug here. like, I do agree with him to some extent that eddie’s anger is understandable. regardless of his troubled past, edgeworth was a snake and I think it’s important to acknowledge his darker (and messier) side. he hurt people. he was a cog in a machine that kept the system alive. however, as I pointed out in my last post, I hate that characters like eddie straight up demonize edgeworth for it. mini rant under the cut.

edgeworth’s reasons for becoming a prosecutor were incredibly nuanced. even during his early career, he was never a cookie cutter Bad Guy. so defining his “demon attorney” days solely by his connection to von karma (i.e. his pursuit of a perfect win record) is plain wrong. it ignores just how deep and complex his motivations were.

I don’t know. I just think saying something like “I’m still angry at you for what you’ve done, but I understand that you were in pain and going through something I can’t comprehend” is really important, especially for someone like edgeworth. again, he was a fucking child. he didn’t become the “demon attorney” out of nowhere. he was trapped in a self-destructive cycle of guilt for over a decade. something that manfred, his mentor, had the power to alleviate at any time. but instead, he deliberately withheld the truth from the tormented boy, and miles had no idea of that power until he was in the defendant’s chair.

(it’s even sadder when you remember that edgeworth says in turnabout goodbyes, “if I had known the truth, I might have become a defense attorney after all.” what the fuckkkkk I’m killing manfred as we speak!!!!!!)

you can hold someone accountable for their actions without treating them like they’re satan incarnate. I actually find this flaw of eddie’s to be compelling, and I get why he might not be in the right headspace to see beyond his own anger and consider how gregory’s death affected his own son. like, I know that eddie isn’t privy to the information that the player is, so it’s unfair to criticize him for not acknowledging what edgeworth’s motivation to prosecute was. because he didn’t know. but it’s the fact that he doesn’t even try to understand that bothers me. he just jumps to conclusions and doesn’t think twice about how that might affect edgeworth. like, he has no idea what he’s fucking talking about. flippantly throwing the name von karma around and making comparisons between them rubs me the wrong way. it’s cathartic for eddie to lash out at edgeworth, and it’s selfish, just like how edgeworth himself used to be. and eddie has NO idea how similar they are in that regard, which is so juicy to me.

I’m excited to see where eddie’s character goes from here, but I’m still pissed at him for handling the situation horribly, lol. there’s a right and wrong way to criticize someone. eddie calling edgeworth out is fine, but he has to be accurate about it. or at the very least, acknowledge that he doesn’t know the full story. his feelings are valid, but they’re also self-centered. multiple things can be true at once.

I’ve been saying this ever since I played the trilogy, but edgeworth is someone who desperately needs to be told “I see you. I hear you. I acknowledge you” instead of “hey remember when you used to be evil” like THE WHOLE POINT is that he’s a human being too, gumshoe is literally the only person who points that out. edgeworth was abhorrent, but he was also in pain.

[thenugking]

✨🌊🌸🌿

✨Which is your favourite platonic BG3 dynamic and why?

Hmm. Based on purely in-game stuff, it’s got to be Wyll and Karlach. Enemies to BFFs in like three days. Out of game, I love my Durge Lee with Astarion (they are like when you have two pets or perhaps siblings who sometimes just slap the shit out of each other for no reason before going back to chilling together) and my first Tav, Val, with Shadowheart (bitchy goths who don’t care about people except actually they care So Much). Would love to get around to writing them someday.

Also the dynamic I’m writing between Orin and Ketheric in No Highly Esteemed Deed. This is Ketheric’s emotional support surrogate daughter figure with zero red flags!

For my favourite dynamic not in the game or made up by me… we’ll get to that in question four!

🌊What moment in the game had the strongest emotional impact on you? 

Karlach’s breakdown after killing Gortash gets me every time. And I was sobbing in my Shadowheart Origin playthrough when I saved her parents. That storyline is so comforting to me, especially when, if you’re not playing as her, it’s Arnell who goes, “Ohh you don’t want to go by your old name anymore, of course we’ll love you for whoever you are now.”

🌸Rec one of your fics and tell us what you like about it!

My series No Highly Esteemed Deed Is Commemorated Here is my baby at the moment. So I’m actually reccing two fics but look I spend half my time thinking about this series and I want some validation. But, uh, warning for incest and every relationship here being at least toxic, if not downright abusive. If you like your doves dead, come and give me some validation, if you’re not into that shit, understandable, have a nice day.

What Is Here Was Dangerous And Repulsive To Us: Gortash and Durge take a nice romantic carriage ride to Moonrise Towers except that lol no they don’t, Orin Is Also Here, and gortash isn’t positive she wants to fuck her sibling but The Vibes Are Fucking Rancid.

Super proud of the slowly building Well This Is Fucking Uncomfortable in this one! And that multiple people have told me “damn how did you make me feel for Gortash here?” He’s still very much a bastard and I loved writing him hating the whole world, but he’s fucking Going Through it.

One of my favourite reviews: EXCUSE ME ORIN> MA’AM. THIS IS A WENDYS

This Place Is Not A Place Of Honour: The multichapter sequel that I’m currently working on! The events between the gang arriving at Moonrise and Orin stabbing my Durge in the brain (and the aftermath of that, if I ever get there). They’re all doing their evil plotting in the background, but it’s mostly focused on the relationships between Durge, Orin, Gortash and Ketheric, and the various ways in which these characters are deeply fucked up.

Like I mentioned, I’m really enjoying writing Orin and Ketheric’s weird fucked up friendship. Ketheric imprints on Orin as his New Daughter Figure after Isobel runs away from him (just because he told her that her wife who he is currently torturing was dead so Isobel should get over her) and that’s going about as well as you’d expect. Ketheric is trying to fix Orin while ignoring most of her underlying issues, Orin’s worrying that she’s going to lose Durge to the Gortash and the Absolute plot, Gortash is determined to Win his relationship with Durge despite the constant red flags, Durge is causing problems on purpose.

Another of my favourite reviews: i went into that scene like "hehe the horrors" and i went out like "OH DEAR GOD THE HORRORS"

🌿Rec someone else’s BG3 fic and tell us what you like about it!

here there be dragons by shadowfell

13 year old Orin ends up the ward of the BG1/2 protagonist and under a geas stopping her from murdering people, and becomes friends with 14 year old Wyll. Two Weird Theatre Kids with no other friends hanging out while Orin puts a lot of effort into drawing Wyll’s thematically appropriate gruesome death. They work so well together and their dynamic fucking delights me. And I love getting to see my two blorbos who fandom often doesn't give the love they deserve fucking shine.

There’s also a multi-chapter sequel of the two of them as adults going through the game plot. It’s still early on, but chapter four got posted last night and that’s my read for this evening, once I’m done killing Orin in my current BG3 game and need to go and read a kinder AU for her.

[rollercoasterwords]

Hey rae! So, I have a topic that I’d like to hear your opinion about because I feel like it’s been talked about a lot (at least from the media I consume) and that is saying that liking DE characters makes you anti-Semitic/ ‘support’ Nazis. I know how you feel about rosekiller, which I totally support, if you wanna be a hater, please do, but…hmmm I don’t know how I feel about people calling each other every name in the book for liking a DE. I mean that’s the same with regulus, I’ve seen quite a few people talk about how they hate him because he’s DE and liking him/any other DE makes u anti-Semitic. This has me questioning my morality and my pov because I refuse to be associated with people as horrible as Nazis, and I think that you always give a good perspective on things and so if you also think that liking these characters associates a person with them then I seriously need to sit down and have a 1:1 with myself, y’know?

Also, on the same topic i feel like there’s a huge controversy with liking Barty and hating Snape, which I see how that could be wrong, but we know more about Snape and he’s done things to characters that we really know and love so I kinda feel like not being fond of him but liking Barty is valid-ish?? Because yes, if we can erase huge parts of Barty’s character to make him more likeable&redeemable why wont we do that with Snape? I still don’t know how to feel about this whole thing because I think questioning things about yourself is a good thing and it helps you learn&grow so I’d just like to hear your thoughts (rosekiller hatred put aside). Like, if you think rosekiller is the most boring ship in the universe and if you wanna hate on it, please please do!!! Express your opinion!!!! But it kinda rubs me the wrong way to hate on the people liking DE and associating them with a hateful group. If you don’t wanna answer, that’s more than fine, you can totally ignore my ask!!! I understand if you don’t wanna share your opinion on this topic. Have a good day!!

hi! i appreciate that u value my opinion + i'm happy 2 talk thru my thoughts with u, but before i do i wanna make it clear that i am not any kind of expert in antisemitism + am not jewish myself, so you should not be taking my thoughts as like. The Ultimate Opinion on this issue at all--like, i'm happy to discuss, but i do not by any means have the authority to just deem something Good or Bad for u, y'know? nor would i ever want to! i don't really think issues like this can be boiled down to a simple "it's totally okay and no one should ever get upset about it!" vs "it's morally evil and no one should ever like these characters!" (also - if any jewish mutuals or followers wanna weigh in + let me know if there's anything i'm missing/overlooking/etc please do!)

so, i've seen at least some of the discourse you're talking about floating around online. i've seen some jewish people saying that blorbo-ifying death eater characters ignores the nazi allegory and makes nazi-allegory characters sympathetic, which is antisemitic. i've seen other jewish people saying that it's offensive to simplify naziism, a much larger, real political issue, down to calling fictional characters "wizard nazis," and that it belittles the actual historical significance to use antisemitism as a talking point in this discourse about which characters it is or isn't okay to like. that's why i say that i don't think you're gonna find One Cohesive Position on like....what's okay or not okay; it's just something you're gonna have to parse for yourself, and while i do think you should be giving particular weight to the perspectives of jewish people on this issue, that obviously doesn't mean that every single jewish person is going to agree.

anyway, i've mostly stayed out of this discourse partially bc i don't really care about most death eater characters and partially bc, as i said, i do not feel like i am any sort of expert who is like. qualified to discuss the ins and outs of antisemitism in hp fandom spaces. so again, this is just gonna be a conversation about my thoughts as they currently stand--not a lecture where i'm telling you what's right or wrong, and not a set-in-stone Stance on the Ultimate Truth of this matter or anything.

currently, my feeling on this whole quagmire of discourse basically boils down to: i think it's reductive to broadly state that anyone who likes/engages with death eater characters in fandom in any way is automatically antisemitic; i think there is more nuance to the situation and boiling down the issue to an overarching generalization is not necessarily the most useful way to address antisemitism in this particular fandom space.

and there are various reasons that i feel that way, which i'll try to break down below:

death eaters are not a 1:1 allegory for nazis

this is something that i think gets lost in translation a bit when we just say "oh the death eaters were wizard nazis." while, yes, i think jkr was definitely making some allegorical nods to naziism + hitler, particularly with the blood purity aspect of death eater-ism, personally i think that had less to do with jkr actually having a good grasp on the politics of nazi fascism and more to do with jkr being the kind of liberal who just goes "hmmm who's the Worst Person in history??" and then just cherry-picking bits and pieces of like. naziism to give her Bad Guys an easily recognizable cultural referrant to associate with their Badness. (i mean--from the critiques i have seen regarding jkr's own antisemitism that is embedded in the hp text, she clearly was not writing the death eaters as like. a disavowal of antisemitism.)

something that concerns me is that treating death eaters as a 1:1 allegory for nazis sort of obscures some very important, very fundamental differences in the fascism of actual nazis. in hp, death eaters are positioned as a fringe "terrorist" group, in that they are opposed to the wizarding State. they obtain power through largely "illegitimate" (again, by the metrics of State power) means by way of a coup; in this way, a fundamental aspect of the death eaters as Bad Guys is that they are not legitimated by the State--something that very clearly speaks to jkr's own liberal politics when it comes to defining Good versus Bad.

but real-life nazis rose to power specifically by using legitimated State power. this is really fucking important to understand!!!! historically, fascism is often perpetuated by the logics of State power, and that's part of what allows it to take hold--people think, "oh, it can't be that bad, after all, we elected this fascist leader." etc. while hitler did attempt to gain power through a coup in 1923, that specifically failed and led to him pivoting and seeking control by becoming a legitimate part of the German government. he solidified his power using completely legal means, from within the State. this is very, very different to how voldemort + the death eaters take power in hp, and also very opposed to jkr's State-centered politics about Good vs. Bad. while i think it's important + useful to recognize the ways in which death eaters draw allegorical connections to nazis and how that can perpetuate antisemitism if we're not aware of it, i think to simply paint death eaters as nazis can actually lead into the trap of thinking fascism is something that is opposed to the State, when it is more often something that grows out of the State.

liking a death eater character is not always gonna translate to liking death eaters

so, aside from the whole sticky situation with nazis as an allegory for death eaters in the first place--what's more important to me when thinking about how someone likes/engages with death eater characters is gonna be the way they engage with those characters, and what that reflects about their own politics.

if someone likes a death eater character because they like death eaters and think that like...there are no issues with the death eaters' beliefs or positions, then....yeah that's a major red flag. but most of the people who like these characters, from what i've seen, tend to do one of two things:

1 - explore the character because the character broke away from the death eaters in some way (regulus, snape, etc). this usually requires an exploration of how the death eaters are bad, because it requires an exploration of why the character turned away from them. i'm gonna be interested in how someone explores that issue and what that says about their own politics, but that's a case-by-case basis, y'know? and even if i personally think someone is still missing the heart of the issue in their "death eaters bad" story, it is still a "death eaters bad" story--i don't really think a person is aligning themselves with the death eaters if they're specifically writing about how they are bad and why someone initially taken in by their beliefs would later turn away from them.

2 - explore a character who hasn't broken away, looking at why a person might align themselves with death eaters and how someone might buy into that sort of political rhetoric. again, this is a case-by-case basis for me in terms of looking at what sort of politics is reflected, but generally speaking i do not think that writing stories about why or how someone might become a fascist is Always Morally Wrong. in fact, i think these stories are very necessary in helping us understand how fascism takes root in real life.

if someone is just writing "death eaters ra-ra!" fanfiction then. yeah i might take that as a red flag. but the death eaters are so clearly Bad Guys that i personally have not come across any examples of someone doing that, even if i have come across stories where i don't entirely agree with the politics of how someone is writing the death eaters as Bad.

liking a character in the context of fanfiction is not always going to translate to liking that character as a death eater

a lot of people write aus and stories where the death eaters don't even exist. in those situations, i struggle to understand how liking the characters, in and of itself, would be antisemitic, as the character has specifically been turned into not-a-death-eater and is oftentimes basically an oc.

liking a fictional character is not a simple moral reflection of how someone actually thinks - what i'd be more wary of is someone absorbing the neoliberal politics of hp without question

this is kind of getting back into repeating some of the points above--but again, for me personally, this is an issue that i evaluate much more on a case-by-case basis rather than trying to broadly apply One Rule. since i can't automatically know someone's reasons for liking a character, the context in which they like the character, etc, what i tend to judge more is the specific way i actually see them interacting with that character--how they write them, what stories they like to read, their hcs, etc. again, i am not an expert when it comes to judging antisemitism, so i do also try to make it a point to see what my jewish mutuals are saying when this sort of discourse comes up. but for myself, i tend to be more wary about the politics underlying specific pieces of writing rather than which characters someone is choosing to write about.

all that being said, i do still think it's fair if someone views liking death eaters as a red flag, y'know? like, everyone is allowed to judge for themselves what they see as red flags in this fandom space, and if someone is saying "i think it's antisemitic to like death eaters," i personally don't really think i have a right to go and argue with that person, for obvious reasons. since i do sometimes write about death eater characters, i try to be very aware of what kinds of politics are underlying my work and what sort of messages someone might take away. but if someone needs to block me, avoid my work, etc, i obviously don't have an issue with that--everyone is allowed and encouraged to curate their fandom space in a way that's best for them, and if someone has a boundary regarding interaction with death eater characters, that's their boundary to keep, y'know? i don't think it's productive (unless maybe you yourself experience antisemitism and it's a conversation you want to have) to go to that person and argue about why they're wrong, as if they need to tell you your actions are actually morally okay with them. sometimes people are going to have issues with the things you write or read in fandom, which is why you need to develop the ability to reflect + weigh these sorts of issues for yourself, and grow comfortable with the idea that there is not always going to be an ultimate Right and Wrong answer for How To Behave.

as for the snape vs barty [or insert whatever other death eater character here] - my thoughts on that are essentially. i truly do not think it matters which characters you like or dislike. you can like one death eater character or not another. it's fine. you don't have to like one character over another. this is fanfiction. the moral stakes are not that high.

the only instance in which i would say liking one character over another gets hypocrticial is if you are saying that people shouldn't like a character. for example -- if you are running around the internet saying that snape is a disgusting character and nobody is allowed to like him, but at the same time you're blorbo-ifying barty crouch jr. then, yeah, that's annyoing and hypocritical. but if you're just chilling in peace, reading + writing ur fic and not policing the things that other people are allowed to like or dislike, then i truly do not think it matters if you like barty crouch jr. but not snape. i'm all for self-reflection and thinking about why you personally might like one character over another, but at the end of the day writing + reading fic is not any kind of activism; it's a hobby, it's for enjoyment. i promise that u do not need to have a moral crisis about disliking severus snape from harry potter lmao

[beanghostprincess]

What are you most controversial/unpopular OP opinions??? Sorry if it was answered before

You want me to get canceled so bad-- If I speak-- But idk, I guess I'll say the controversial opinions I can say publicly without a bunch of people coming at me!

Zo$an is a bit... Overrated? And by overrated I mean extremely/annoyingly overrated. I like the ship and its canon dynamic but I think at least 80% of the fandom portrays them in a very mischaracterized way. Not to say that... The ship is literally everywhere and the shippers always look for every little thing to prove they're canon, even if the "proof" has literally nothing to do with them. It's not that I don't enjoy the ship (although I must admit I prefer other dynamics a lot more) I just can't stand shippers that go to extremes. It's funny because I think Zo$an's dynamic is way more interesting and romantic in canon than it will ever be in the fandom. It's a bit sad, ngl. I liked them a lot at first but it got so tiring and now I am pretty exhausted from seeing it everywhere. The people force it to be more than it is when the canon is already pretty fucking great.

Adding to the Zo$san thing. I think that relationship would only work if Luffy is there somehow but it wouldn't last a day without him in the relationship. Unless there's like, a ton of character development most of these people don't make them go through.

One Piece Film Z is my worst enemy. It's such a boring movie. The only good thing is the soundtrack and maybe the suits but God watching that was torture.

Boa hate is uhhhh weird. I mean, I get why the joke about her being in love with Luffy might be annoying, but I think most of you need to learn to understand that Oda's sense of humor is sometimes a bit too exaggerated (and not funny) and it has basically nothing to do with the actual canon dynamics between characters. Boa likes Luffy because he's one of the first men who has ever treated her right, so of course she confuses that feeling with love. And of course, yeah, it isn't canon. Whatever. Just read between the lines, maybe? And also, stop using words like "pedo" to describe her because using that term so lightly about 1) a fictional character and 2) somebody who's clearly not a pedo is fucked up. Lmao. Do you even know what that word means???

Once again complaining about Pudding hate and saying that it's stupid. I won't overanalyze because I always do it with her, but the only reason people hate her is for misogynistic reasons and because they're babying Sanji. Evil male characters are okay and hot and very traumatized but the second it's a woman she's the most evilest person ever! Because God forbid they make mistakes! Suddenly their character development isn't valid because they hurt their babygirl!

Now that we're talking about my dearest Pudding. Not tagging anybody of course, but I saw this post with so many interactions of people agreeing about Sanji considering violence as a sign of love which??? Doesn't make sense at all?? OP said it was because he couldn't tell the difference between love/abuse because of his family, but that's just... Not accurate. That could only happen if they had manipulated him into thinking abuse is a type of love, but he had healthy love growing up. Even when he was with the Vinsmokes (Sora and Reiju, I love you). And yet OP said Sanji considered Pudding's behavior flirting (wrong) and that's why he let her attack him (nope) and that it was proof of Zo$an. And okay, it's not a hugely popular theory, but a lot of people agreed with it and it bothered me a lot because it's both out of character and also using Pudding (complex female character) once again to try and prove the canon of a ship (that doesn't have anything to do with WCI either???). It just bothers me. People can perceive the story however they want but... Y'know.

OPLA isn't that good. Or good at all? I only like it because I like the cast and it's funny seeing my blorbos irl. But the script is simple and dull and just stupid most of the time. The characters are either simplified, mischaracterized, or forgotten. And tbh most of the shots are very awful and could be a lot better. The directing is also nonexistent. It's 6/10 and 3 of those points are because both the Zolu and the cast.

Apparently this is a very common theory about Nami's origins, but, uh, I don't think we need to know? What else do you need to know about her? People say she's a lost princess or something like that as if we didn't have a lost princess already (Sanji ily). Repeating the same plot would be boring and underwhelming, but also? It'd be extremely useless for the plot and it'd go against everything about Nami's story and the way Luffy reacts to it.

Luffy isn't canon aroace. In fact, the reasoning people use for him being "coded" is the same Oda uses for Zoro too and Zoro is almost never portrayed as the "idiot who doesn't know what sex is" the way Luffy often is. If you're calling Luffy canon aroace for what Oda said about him being focused on adventures, the same goes for Zoro being focused on his dream. They could be coded arospec but there's nothing confirmed and the constant discourse about it is stupid. Attacking others because of their ships just because you don't agree with them and saying it's wrong using our identity to do it is very fucked up. Especially since most of the time people complaining aren't even aroace. The only reason people do it (attacking others saying they can't ship Luffy and that it's "weird" and "wrong") is that they infantilize Luffy/Don't want him getting in between their ships (<- aroace person writing this) (also, it's very ableist since people agree on Luffy also being neurodivergent coded and treating him like a kid bc of that but this isn't about that now).

Somehow this is very common. Some fucking how. I can't believe I have to say this. I'm tired of people blaming Usopp for what happened in Water 7. Or in general hating Usopp. Actually, he's one of the best-written characters in the whole show and he's so underappreciated it's so frustrating.

Sanji's perv jokes are annoying af and we all know that, but people who hate the character and consider him a red flag for that are missing the point completely. The point being "Oda exaggerates jokes to an annoying extent and most of the time they don't even reflect the character". I understand they can make you uncomfortable (same here tbh) but reducing Sanji to only those jokes is a waste of his character. You need to take jokes less seriously.

If I see one of these "red flag OP boys" TikToks adding Law/Ace/Zoro/Sanji next to fucking Doffy I will riot. Also, stop adding Crocodile there. He's a mafioso, there's NO way he won't be a sweetheart to his lover.

Baron Omatsuri's artstyle and animation is amazing and it fits the plot and aesthetic of the movie perfectly and people saying it's ugly will forever bother me.

"Usopp is suddenly hot after timeskip!" He has always been hot what the fuck are you talking about.

People reduce Nami to her "mean"/"sarcastic" personality a lot when she's quite literally one of the most kind-hearted characters of all. That being said, morally speaking she's probably one of the worst. I could explain how that works but I don't want to do it now, the point is-- Let the girl be sweet instead of making her mean all the time. And also, let her be mean and selfish without making it her entire personality. There's something called "balance".

Film Red was kind of bad. Like, the songs are amazing (thanks, Ado) but the ending is awful and the plot is very meh. I'm only here for Uta and Shanks but the rest of the characters are just useless. I do appreciate Sanji's hair in the movie, though.

[bowtiesarecool123]

yk what guys time to refute all of the hate all quiet has been getting bc i have nothing better to do

ok so i am having a very hard time understanding how a film score without lyrics can be offensive. does it make fun of something that requires nuance? no??? this score is not satirical in any way nor does it appropriate cultural music so where the fuck did offensive come from??? also what is so bad about the score being anachronistic? in fact i think this is one of the best aspects of it, if a film score has to be strictly within whatever period the film is set in not only does it lead to one dimensional uninnovative film scores, it just doesnt make sense in some scenarios. does a prehistoric film have to feature sticks as its only instrument?? ok even if we take all of that at their best, i feel like we're being too severe a couch critic, like cmon, they won for a reason, we don't have to be this rude about it, just say it's mid and call it a day...

yay lets generalize a very diverse fanbase bc it makes it easier to strawman and push my argument!! ok anyways i think a rlly big thing with sucessful adaptations is that ur gonna have to change some stuff. what works on paper might not necessarily work on the big screen. i get that a huge point of contention is the ending change and the cutting out of the returning home section. so about the ending first, i actually liked the changes bc while i get the poetic ending of the book, i think the movie ending does rlly well for character development and rlly goes all in to show the psychological changes paul experiences during the war. if we did keep what they were doing in the book, we might run into a lot of issues bc we're able to know what paul is feeling however that might be difficult to translate on film. also, we get interesting interpolation and final emphasis on the theme of how war is essentially just a puppet game. without the changes of the 11am armistice or the final orders from the evil general dude, we lose the new themes that the film brought in which would feel less complete than status quo. ok so the returning home argument, the novel is obviously more complex than the film but that doesn't make it better or worse. our film at hand already has a huge run time, if we tried to shoehorn in another whole theme, that might be too ambitious and we lose the focus the film has right now. i would definitely choose a world where they focus on one theme and do it really well, which is what's happening rn, over a line by line adaption that could feel messy and end up being too ambitious. again, a line by line adaptation has already been done and i wouldn't fault anyone for thinking the 1930 version is better, it just means it would be even worse and completely redundant to make another line by line adaptation rn. also again, these are completely all my opinions and its def valid to disagree on all of them but the real root of the issue i have with op's comment is how they chalk it all up to ppl not reading the books. it just comes off as rlly elitist and just not representative of what ppls actual opinions rlly are. also it's better to attack the media itself rather than ppl who enjoy the media 💀

braindead bird app time, here we have the classic case of someone thinking it's cool to shit on the film that all their twt mutuals are shitting on rn without ever having seen it. sorry if this is a bit left field but next time maybe watch the film b4 commenting on it?????????

this is honestly one of the least problematic opinions out of the all quiet haters so far but i am still responding to this bc the only category all quiet beat banshees in was original score (why is it always this) and the score doesn't have much to do with whether or not this film is a war film or if soldiers appeal to u or how many times this has been remade. and like i agree, banshees score, phenomenal, but if all quiet lost it still would go to babylon so i feel like the anger here is rlly misdirected.

all quiet haters cannot seem to comprehend that this film is not a remake holy shit. and even if it is inferior, it would only be inferior storywise bc u cannot fucking argue the point that 1930s vfx and cinematography are better than the 2022 version. and the only sweeps all quiet got were technical category sweeps so the inferior remake point is entirely irrelevant. and i am willing to bet 5 bucks this person didnt watch the movie bc then they would understand that technical aspects and story aspects are different bc what it sounds like rn is they're repeating whatever they've heard without properly applying the criticism to its accurate category.

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ok im done now very slay if you've read all of this im sleep deprived bc of babylon dickriders so ignore my gramatical mistakes ty.

[nonbinarygamzee]

Dave thoughts? I'm very curious about your hatred for that guy (if that makes sense)

HAHA ok so admittedly maybe my posts about how much i hate him are a bit overblown because i basically think its really funny that he only comes up on my blog if i am being a hater. integral to understand that while i post "fandom" content on here that i dont really think of this as a fandom blog so much as a blog where i come to have conversations with myself and so naturally just bc of who i am a lot of my little posts are full of context and meaning i never bother to externalize because they are for me to reread later and have a little chuckle about.

anyways. theres a lot of reasons i find him grating but i can at least admit it that a lot of my annoyance has more to do with the way i was forced to slog through strider manpain posts endlessly as a teenager any direction i tried to look. when the fandom seemed hyperfocused on him and his woes while actively sending me like graphic gore at like age 14 for saying hey maybe this other character also deserves some sympathy and maybe even analysis that has more to say than why they are an evil irredeemable monster for being unstable as a child. which yknow that isnt daves fault but man even without that part it was tiring to see all of the emotional depth constantly boxed into his corner. and then to repeatedly have the comics itself affirm all of this as valid exploration and then ridicule me for My exploration. for many many years the strider manpainisms made me not bother with dirk just on principle even though today hes one of the more interesting characters to me! so i can admit im not being totally "fair" here but well. as usual i think the fandom darlings can handle a fraction of the disdain ive see thrown my favies ways constantly for over a decade.

and like none of that to say i dont Get why people do this with him or that he deserved anything he got as a kid or it wasnt abuse or whatever. let the records show that i think it is Wrong to terrorize your brotherson with swords and sex puppets. im a feminist.

more rooted in the reality of the comic itself though i just find it grating how often daves sole function in a scene is to be the authors mouthpiece and specifically often in ways where you are meant to implicitly agree with the things he is saying irregardless of whether they are a centrist gen x nightmare opinion because its also the larger opinion of homestuck as an entity. dave is far from the only character to do this and id say any of the characters you could comfortably refer to as the "protagonists" actually end up slipping into this fairly often. that said the other biggest offenders imo are karkat, egbert and terezi and i also have feelings of extreme ambivalence for terezi and to be honest an outright disinterest in egbert. so. i am at least consistent about it! karkats my special guy but i need him hunted for sport and tortured until he stops being this and largely the things he believe that make me feel that way heavily align with the opinions the comic depicts as mostly right and again tend to be moments hussies worldview is bleeding into the narrative especially openly.

anddd ok. i just find daves personality grating on top of it. i cant sit here and pretend ive never laughed at a dave strider dialogue but generally a lot of the parts people find very funny are parts i tend to come away having seen the thousanth iteration of dave having his worldview affirmed and getting to do some #awesome clapback at the person insinuating he even try to think outside of his own preconceived ideas about what things should be like. in general in a story so full of characters doing bad things it just grates on me that, while his offenses are certainly usually "minor" in the grand scheme of things, the lack of willingness to challenge them often just means like dave gets to be right and nobody remembers when he actually massively fucks someone else up or makes them feel worse. like to be clear none of this is a problem in that characters cant "do bad things", i literally like vriska, but it would be cool if we could at least like. acknowledge that theyre anything but entertaining even within the context of the universe where other characters should be allowed to be uncomfortable when hes actively creepy or uses their emotional breaking points as a soapbox for how He feels. but since it would cause this big rift in how homestuck itself presents the opinions it wants you to agree with, those characters just..... not only do not mind most of the time but even if they do its never in a way that allows them agency in the matter. thats the crux of it all for me actually, hes by far one of the most autonomous characters of the bunch and it feels frequently like his agency is at the expense of others because hes a self insert.

um ok tldr hes annoying and him being the Face of homestuck is like..... accurate but in the most painful nightmare way because he kind of just. Is homestuck. to me.

(and i actually do see iterations of him sometimes that i find compelling but they all feel so detached from how hes presented in the comic that it just feels like someones oc. all of this said also i actually kind of have an absurd amount of thoughts on how he would act post game (epilogues ignored here) just i dont bother to do much with em because dave likers would hate it and other dave haters probably wouldnt care enough lol. also always secondary info anyways, hes finally allowed irrelevency in My city)

[bananasfosterparent]

(since the reply is one relative to me)...

Here's the long and short of it:

It's C O N T E X T. It's roleplay.

My bard, both my druids, my cleric, and first bard turned druid would all agree with your point. Ascension is evil and no life is worth more than another. Astarion has done nothing and cannot do anything to make his worth more than anothers because a life is a life, and sacrificing the others only prevents them from the opportunity Astarion got lucky to have. Freeing them is his chance to return that kindness and they've done nothing to not deserve that same opportunity. And I would also like to see more content about them in the actual game.

We all understand this. It's why I have Tavs who believe in this and strongly and proudly take that stance.

But what you don't seem to understand is that for most AA fans, our "it's okay to sacrifice the other spawn" stance is completely within context of the Tavs/Durge paired with AA and their individual playthroughs. And for many of us, that reasoning to help him ascend is a better/positive/more fun/more cathartic roleplay experience than the alternatives. So we prefer it and defend it for ourselves as fans and for our characters, because within their own context, it's a good choice to make. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Because none of it is real. Astarion is not real. His story is not real. His siblings and their story is not real.

But real people can get different things out of it. Seeing it differently does not negate or invalidate other ways of viewing it.

Sacrificing 7006 spawn + Cazedor doesn't have any negative impact on real life nor does it say anything about the moral standing of real people being attacked over a video game choice.

And no, there is simply no world in which killing 7000 people, of whom all have been abused before, while at least several thousand of them are innocent, is "the good thing".

In a fantasy world, you can actually imagine how different outcomes of the same issue might turn out, and control how the narrative is seen within its own context. And no one irl gets hurt or affected.

As a fan of Astarion and member of many Astarion specific groups, I understand how the AA ending can be a complete negative and cautionary tale for some. BUT as someone who has been through DA, who's friends with other AA fans with their own traumas, I also understand those of us who connect to his story in a different way and find his ascension cathartic and positive as a roleplay option. Are we just connecting to Astarion "wrong" and must we be "corrected" by those smarter and more media aware than us to show us the truth? Because that's how it feels people against AA fans think.

Hate AA! Or love AA as an abusive person. Please, it allows for variety within the fandom and is cathartic for many players.

But please try to understand that hating on AA fans and trying to correct us for finding that catharsis elsewhere, in different ways...only feels disrespectful, condescending, invalidating, and unnecessary.

We're not asking for you to understand it or follow along. We simply just want people to understand that there is no "one true way" you're supposed to see Ascended Astarion and that viewing it as a positive does not go against canon or hurt anyone. It does not render the abuse narrative null and void. It does not take away from it.

And I know there's a cowriter who said that ending can only mean Tav is sexualizing AA and that he's "ruined". But if you can't see that was a personal opinion of that cowriter and that they can't dictate how each player roleplays, then I really don't know what to tell you.

It's simply an alternative interpretation, opposite of the abuse interpretation. And yes, the way you see his story and the other spawn is one valid and respectable interpretation. Not a singular conclusion that you have to agree with. Even if you cannot fathom otherwise being valid, that doesn't make it invalid.

I was not influenced by anyone when I began to prefer AA. I went into the romance and the entire game itself completely blind and unknowing of what would happen. For me, the ascended ending offers more positives, sparks joy, and the outcome makes the sacrifice worth it for that Tav, her moral standing, her personal views, and her warped values. And I as the player am free to indulge in it as a positive all I want.

The positive reasons given are ones that justify that choice for the Tav I have paired with AA. To justify it NOT irl, but to justify it within her narrative so that it makes logical sense as a story and her personal development journey lines up. And to justify it as a cathartic/enjoyable RP experience for me as a player.

For most AA fans (at least ones I am friends with and in private groups with), that is the case.

Just because you cannot fathom roleplaying such a perspective, and just because that perspective doesn't spark joy within you, does not make it invalid, anti-canon, stupid, or wrong.

We see the same cut scenes you do. We hear the same dialogue you do. We read the same dev notes and writer interviews. But we have different eyes, different irl experiences, different traumas, and different ways of viewing and dealing with those traumas. We want different things out of the story. Interpretating an open-ended story in a way that's not popular doesn't mean it's inherently wrong.

And you can view the story as being non-negotiable and non-open-ended if you want. But the story and Astarion himself are art. And art is meant to be seen and interpreted however the viewer decides in their brain. Even if one of the cowriters doesn't personally see it that way. Even if you cannot personally fathom seeing it that way.

Astarion, his siblings and his "victims"

I wrote a blog about how I really do not get those folks, who do honestly in their heart believe that Ascending Astarion is the "good" ending. And frankly, the comments that AA fans left underneath really make me just shake my head.

One of the people understanding my point also put a really good comment underneath:

Because I really get the feeling that the AA fans do not even consider the siblings and the "victims" of Cazador as actual characters within the story.

And yes, sure. From a writing perspective they are not big characters. I mean, the siblings do have very little in terms of background. Some have a bit more (mostly Leon and Darylia), the others a bit less, and then there is Yousen, about whom we know nothing but the name. And out of the other 7000 we obviously only really do know Sebastian in any regard. Which from a writing perspective is absolutely fair, because the focus definitely is on Astarion. Yet, the interactions you do have with the siblings - and with Sebastians - are meant for the player to understand that this is about empathy.

It is very likely that pretty much all of the siblings got abused just as much as Astarion - or at the very least lived in the same fear of abuse as Astarion. They are all the victims, even though it is fairly likely that they also abused each other. That is just something that abusers use in their advantage: Trying to get their victims to abuse each other. BUT that does not stop them from being victims.

And yes, it is absolutely heavily implied that some of Astarion's "Victims" also have raped him (same with the other siblings). Because as he was ruled by the order of Cazador to bring him victims he had not even a lot of chance to fight back. But we know that is not true for all of those 7000 souls. Some of which will just be purely innocents, who got seduced or kidnapped, and who have at times been made to suffer endless hunger in that dungeon for at times 100 and 200 years!

This means that to ascend Astarion, what you do is to kill a lot of innocent victims of abuse. More than that, you are with it condoning the abuse their abuser had put them through - because you are quite literally enacting the plan this abuser has come up with.

I feel this is a big thing that is also missed with the Vellioth memories. While Vellioth obviously would have prefered to live and go on abusing Cazador for years and years to come - he is also proud for Cazador to defeat him and then continue the circle of abuse. Because in Vellioth's minds he has "taught him well".

While yes, Cazador wants to ascend himself, at least if Astarion ascends all the planning for the ritual, and all the "lessons" he has taught were not for nothing. Astarion will continue Cazador's legacy. He will simply become the next Cazador, until inevitably one of his own spawn will rise up against him and so on and so forth.

If Astarion ascends, Cazador lives on through Astarion. Because in that case Astarion does all the things Cazador would've wanted to happen.

Of course we as players are biased for Astarion, because not only is he the one vampire spawn we know, but we really get to know him really good. Not the very least given the fact that Astarion also is literally the companion with the most playtime for his companion quest. But just for a thought experiment imagine that by sheer luck one of the other spawn also has gotten loose from Cazador and was doing a quest with some of their own companions, while Tav/Durge, Astarion and other companions were doing theirs. And now imagine that other spawn - no matter who of the other six it might have been - went in wanting to sacrifice everyone else, including Astarion, to ascend themselves.

I can guarantee you, that each of them could have made as much of an argument for it, as Astarion.

Would you still think that would be a good thing?

By all means, argue about the fact of how good the relationship between Ascended Astarion and your own Tav/Durge might be. How it is totally not an abusive relationship despite the non-consensual choking...

But that does not change the fact that the ascension itself is a bad thing that is going to continue Cazador's plan and Cazador's legacy.

And no, there is simply no world in which killing 7000 people, of whom all have been abused before, while at least several thousand of them are innocent, is "the good thing".

... Also, I just want more fandom content about the vampire siblings, because I just think they are neat.

[yuikomorii]

Hello there, I would like to ask you something.

Why is the Sakamaki family your least favourite if your favourite Diaboy is a Sakamaki?

// You kinda answered your own question, Anon. :”)

The reason why I don’t like the Sakamaki family is ✨Ayato✨ or the way he’s treated there, to be more precise.

Ayato is without a doubt the most unfairly treated member of that family, even Kanato is more loved than him, although he’s supposed to be the one nobody understands.

No one ever thinks about what he had to go through, despite the fact that his past was extremely painful. It didn't leave "scars" like Laito's, but pretty reminder that Ayato was the most tortured Diaboy in the entire franchise, given that the lake scene was only one of many near-death experiences Cordelia forced him to go through, and he was also very emotionally and mentally abused for centuries. But does anyone really care? Apparently not.

Either his brothers are incredibly ignorant, or Rejet simply does not know how to write trauma. Only because Ayato appears energetic and unbothered does not mean that he is without inner struggles or insecurities. They pretend that in order to be considered traumatized, you must hate yourself or be depressed, which is a very wrong mindset. I also dislike how many characters, particularly Laito, find Ayato's life ideal to the point of envying him, despite the fact that being in Ayato's shoes would be a terrible fate.

Now, let’s get into more serious stuff. Ayato may not be a completely innocent character, but he would never betray anyone or project his insecurities onto them.

If you ever feel pathetic, read this YOUNGBLOOD chapter, where Shu and Subaru both backstab Ayato and use him as bait while he is being beaten up by ghouls to help his brothers find out more information. The fact that they casually talked about betraying Ayato makes it even worse, and I can't understand how people here are excusing their behavior with "They were just children." Being a child is not an excuse to be a jerk and ruin someone's life. Ayato wouldn't have been cursed if they hadn't left him there.

This really dark secret has been confirmed in Laito's LE route, and while I love Laito, this literally makes him far more toxic than he was before. So, basically, Laito wanted to kill Ayato when he was younger. It would have liberated Ayato from Cordelia's abuse, but he also has a desire to live, and taking that away from him would be evil. Again, I've seen people justifying it and they were all like "Poor Laito..." . He had his reasons but what he wanted to do is still very wrong, Ayato did nothing wrong to him.

Reiji is also really mean towards Ayato, plus was the source of Ayato's breakdowns in LE, but I don't have high expectations from Reiji because, like Ruki, he isn't sugarcoated and he talks ill about everyone. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but Kanato is Ayato's brother who has hurt him the least; they insult each other, but he hasn't done anything cruel to him for no reason (not counting bad endings).

And now people will probably come to me and say that the Sakamakis do care for each other, but their "love" for one another is phony and forced to me.I'm not including the Tokutens, where they appear to be having a good time together, because those aren't 100% accurate after all. I honestly don't care if they're family-oriented in other routes; if they can't be like that in the most canon route, with a guy who's almost always supportive of them and apologizes if he ever does them anything wrong, they're no longer valid to me and the best ending for Ayato would be to leave that household as soon as possible.

Bonus— Here we have two DL characters able to stand up for themselves and for others, who are never afraid to help someone but still get mistreated, while the fandom keeps mischaracterizing them: