#this has been on my mind for months now

[lace-sutures]

TW - implied s//cidal thoughts

If You're Gonna Jump

leo - mikey - raph

[corpsentry]

pick your battles

[reonnex]

The infantilization of book!Wylan and show!Wylan really needs to be looked at.

This isnt a call out, or trying to hate on anyone, just an overall thing I've seen throughout being in this fandom

In the books while Wylan is a child he is also 16. People underestimate him into innocent and even younger. And while he is naive, this does not make him innocent. He has his own morals, own judgment that havent been ripped away from him yet. He is just trying to survive.

People use the "we could wake them up line" a lot snd I agree! But to also look at the full lines as well

Wylan gestured to the guards. "Is it safe to leave them, you know-"

"Alive? I'm not big on killing unconscious men."

"We could wake them up."

"Pretty ruthless, merchling. Have you ever killed anyone?"

"I'd never even seen a dead body before I came to the Barrel." Wylan admitted.

"It's not something to be embarrassed about," Jesper said, surprising himself a little. But he meant it. Wylan needed to learn to take care of himself, but it would be nice if he could do it without getting on friendly terms with death."Make sure the gags are tight."

This isnt him being ruthless. Its him being logical. He is taking what Jesper says to heart. Wake them instead of killing them unconscious becuase Jesper doesn't want to kill unconscious men. Which they do end up tying the soldier to a pole, not killing them!! Him having morals shouldn't contribute to claims of him being innocent.

Wylan is worried about hurting people but will do so if nessecasry to save his friends. We can see this in the show and books. In the show he does not want to make bombs for Kaz, but does so in the end because he acknowledges he has to survive. He is worried about Alby, but goes along with the plan still.

All these are what makes Wylan, wylan. It is his fundamentals, his morals and idels. They are not however claims to see how sweet and innocent he is and how he was corrupted.

Ontop of this, while it is never y it is hevaily implied that Wylan is also autistic. (Also, correct me if im wrong please, but im pretty sure Jack did talk about this.) Autistic people get infantilizated already, and I've had my own fair share of this as well. ( I am autistic and have a learning disabilitiy, as well a speech impedament that I still struggle with.) I have to work harder to make sure people treat me as a twenty year old. Because that is my age, and there is a significant difference in attitude in how people treat me when they know im autistic, and when they don't.

And for Wylan, I feel like its the same issue. While it may not be intentional, ive been people coo over the fact Wylan has done simple tasks or teen experiences. Him having Jesper read to him, getting flustered when talking to him, Wylan not understanding social cues as well as others and taking things to face value.

You can be excited for him and think it's sweet, but to also acknowledge that there is a line between "Thats adorable" and "He's adorable." Wylan is someone who is neurodivergent. He was extrmetly sheltred as a child and was never given the proper tools to help his dyslexia, due to this he has struggles that shouldn't be overlooked or seen as "cute" when he experiences outcomes due to the situation he was in. Whenever he doesn't understand social cues, i.e., "Whos mark." People giggling and saying it's silly or cute when he doesn't understand the cues. That's infantilizating! You are viewing things he struggles with in the lens of watching a child understanding the world. Which Wylan isn't. He is a teenager, no matter the circumstances. His age should be understood.

This infantilization also effects wesper in how people view the two of them. Many people view black people as "older, the man in the relationship, rugged" while the white person is seen as the "women, younger, more innocent."

Infact, I think the show only worsned it for Wylan. As now there are faces to names.

Jack does have a youthful face, but still looks his age. I have a babyface and even now at 20 I look much older then I did at 16. The same goes for Jack. He cant control how he looks but because of his youthful features people only push for this racially hetaronormative mindset more between Wylan and Jesper (Even if its untitional).

Even Kit looks his age as well and has a baby face. He's 29 right now but was in his mid twenties during filming. Season 1 was filmed back in 2019 but due to covid post production got set back, and season 2 was filmed in the beginning of 2022. But why is it only Wylan who is infantilizated? Jesper struggles just as much with his ADHD and trauma as Wylan does.

Jack and Kit are only one year apart, the same in the books but still ive been Wylan be portrayed as the "poor innocent child who was abused." and Jesper as the "he needs to get over his addiction hes a grown man/ he's too mean to Wylan."

In society now so many black teens are seen as adults and treated as such, while white teens are seen as younger and not pushed so hard. The same can be seen for wesper.

Ive even seen people on Tiktok and other socials claim that Jesper was rude to Wylan and abusive. (WHERE???). Both Wylan and Jesper have said things that hurt the other, and they both apologized for it, and get grilled as well. In the show and books they learn and grow. The infantilization of Wylan doesnt hurt just him but plays into racial stereotypes and also microagressions. Why is it that when the white character is calling someone out its "deserved" but when the black character (who might I add had no idea) makes a side comment he is labled as cruel and abusive?

In so many shows and books the black character is usually portrayed as the joker character. Six Of Crows does this as well, which is something important to not ingore. Jesper is seen as the flirty joke character. However the only difference is soc also show more sides to his character by letting him be vulnerable. Letting Jesper show his struggles to the audience as well, how his neurodivergece effects him, letting him dress in skirts and bold colors that step away from the gender norm. So many times in media the black character is just there for shits and giggles, or is used as the villan/antagonist.

It believe its really important to understand this, and to acknowledge if your infantilizating him, or even using microagressions on Jesper unintentionally, then to learn to understand why and to grow from them.

[constellation-sapphic]

Y'all can imagine who that green thing is

[11syrups]

“You believe me like a god, I betray you like a man”

[pansyfemme]

i have been a ball of depression lately as well as my physical health worsening pretty severly this past week due to stress and so my friends have been. trying so hard to get me to get out and do things and its very sweet but i feel bad because the whole time i’m just a total mess

[alt-png]

scrappy little doodles before bed

[skunkes]

[the-heron]

I want to live where Soul meets Body

[pnfc]

i haint watched the dang chibisode and idk if ill actually watch it with sound on sdfjk but i have a hurt feeling about them casually imbuing perry with speech for a one off gag because the idea that he needs to talk to communicate is fake. we had 4 seasons of wacky magic hijinks cartoon where perry never needed verbal speech to communicate. they couldve done this gag at any point in the show but they didn't, and the fact that they didn't felt significant. perry's muteness is such a core part of his character, to me, to the way i conceive of him/write him. i don't wanna overreact to a goofy little side cartoon (even tho i'm doing it anyway) but it's still the characters, and it still upsets me! ok that's it i've said my piece

[bmpmp3]

finding out ur coworker is way older than you thought and having to very quickly reorient how you talk to them

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Jellyfish Prince 💙

[kindahoping4forever]

Nostalgia For A Time That Never Existed in Washington DC - 26 May 2024

[whipbogard]

"Brother... why did you abandon me?"

DC, please, give me one (1) Linc merch before I lose my mind 😭

[heraldofcrow]

SOTE haters be like: "boohoo it is all FromSLOP's fault that fans are babyfying Marika and making Miquella a villain, had they not written Marika as an actual person with the story instead of a caricature and had they not put Miquella through tragic descent instead of wholesome hopepunk stuff they literally never did, fans would magically stop ignoring obvious canon clues to make a character into what THEY want instead!!! Bad writing!!!" 🤦‍♂️

So, "good writing" is writing characters like bland caricatures that have nothing to do with how real humans and world we live in are? Honestly I have no idea what's going on in people's heads when they blame realistic writing (nobody is BORN evil @ naive idealism doesn't work on humans so you either give up or force people to be friends) for the takes they dislike

There is this thing that happened in the Elden Ring fandom that keeps reminding me of the DS2 backlash, but it’s not gamer rage over mechanics and the physical experience of the game — it’s that newer (?) (probably not) wave of nonsense that is permeating countless other fandoms that people recently blame on “puriteens.”

Basically, those younger people that haven’t had enough experience to see the world beyond black and white, Tik Tok-based morals; where everything has to be moderated and pure enough, progressive enough, GOOD enough to meet some high standard of ethics.

I’m honestly relying on the Soulsborne fandom as partial proof that this issue HAS gotten worse in some ways because of Elden Ring…but I wouldn’t be surprised if it started and flourished in places like the Undertale fandom, where the game itself trying to teach a valuable moral lesson resulted in younger people that played it becoming extremely hostile online towards anyone who dared to take the Genocide route to see the outcome.

People who wanted to see the end of that route were going to learn the lesson of the game. They were MEANT to learn that lesson and find out why it was the morally unsound path to take within the context of the story. There were also people who could take that route every time just to enjoy the tragedy of it or simply because it was more interesting.

That was absolute heresy to the puritan fans who wanted to control other players and condemn them for even thinking of committing that crime against the poor characters. They didn’t want the “lesson to be learned,” because in their minds, who would ever willingly go kill to learn that killing was bad?? Oh no, anyone who would do that is evil already!

(Forget that all of it wasn’t real of course…or that the Genocide route was essentially just a regular video game lmao.)

And even since then, I’ve seen this blossom in so many big fandoms.

“Just because I like doesn’t mean I condone blah blah”

Nobody should have to say that statement ever again.

Nobody should have to rigorously defend the satire of “my mass murderer did nothing wrong.”

And more people should understand that even the worst of the worst!!…the… *gasp* justifiers!! of fictional war criminals are often just viewers swayed by the villain or antihero’s philosophy or reasoning for revenge. Or mayhaps they were charmed by devilish good looks. How could the young ladies do this??? /s

The people screaming “Thanos was right!” or whatever, are usually….90% of the time…not mass murders in real life. Some of them might be assholes or creeps, and sure, you might have to smack them upside the head with “Hey! Your justification of this character within the story is a bad interpretation and rooted in bias or misunderstanding!”

Yeah, that can be a problem. Those people can be troublesome in the heat of fandom drama. But then again…toxic fans of any kind can be this way too. Toxic shippers are often some of the cruelest, most actively harmful members of fandoms, and even then…cases where people start getting murdered en masse is rare, mind you. Lol.

Fiction is not what affects reality in a negative way, it’s people’s IDEAS about fiction that affect reality in a negative way…IF they choose to not be responsible with how they react or behave.

That’s it.

Their interpretations, their takeaways, their decisions on how to engage with it or be inspired by it, all of this CAN be negative, yes.

The Genocide route in Undertale did not inspire anyone to go commit genocide, but it did create a wave of fandom puritanism that caused harm to others. And that’s ironic isn’t it? That shouldn’t be the case, right? A story that intended to share a moral lesson about why harming others is wrong ended up inspiring people to harm others in fandom. How does that make sense?

Well, it doesn’t if you blame the game and story.

It DOES make sense if you observe how people were choosing to interpret it. The story itself does not have to be taken seriously, engaged with, or even acknowledged. It only has as much power as you give it.

FromSoftware being blamed for people CHOOSING to treat Marika like she did nothing wrong or people not seeing the signs of Miquella’s downfall is taking the responsibility away from fans for how they engaged with the story.

Now, having said all this. Bad writing does exist and authors absolutely can mislead an audience. That’s a fair complaint and that’s one case where fiction causing people to react negatively lies partially with the fault of the writer, but it’s a spectrum in that situation as well. As fans, we still have a responsibility to not act like animals or treat each other poorly when bad writing upsets us.

I don’t believe the DLC was badly written. I think Marika’s story was beautiful and Miquella’s downfall was built up to reasonably well while still creating a nice mystery for us. I think FromSoftware is smart in leaving gaps in the story for us to fill, because that leaves us with room to decide what we think happened.

But even if they didn’t. Even if the DLC was objectively just bad…it sucked ass….that still in no way justifies what’s been going on this fandom since it released. That still would not be something to blame for people justifying the Hornsent genocide or getting too heated about interpretations of Miquella.

“Honestly I have no idea what's going on in people's heads when they blame realistic writing (nobody is BORN evil @ naive idealism doesn't work on humans so you either give up or force people to be friends) for the takes they dislike.”

Why do people blame writing at all for the takes they dislike? Why do they blame writing for OTHER people’s views and reactions?

Because of everything I just said. They shift responsibility off of others and themselves and blame it all on the story.

Video games cause violence, kids.

[milk-ly]

Kotoko and her connection to Dante’s Inferno’s Satan

Disclaimer: This is just about symbolism and I know how it sounds but I promise I’m not trying to imply anything or demonize her! I love Kotoko! Ive just been repeatedly noticing details about the parallel for several months now and I just really want to bring it up! This is just an analysis of the details MILGRAM has provided for it. I’m incredibly sorry if I make a mistake!

Kotoko has a lot of parallels to Dante’s Inferno Satan, especially in relation to Es.

To make sure we’re all on the same page, Dante’s Inferno is a Christian poem that outlines the 9 circles of hell. MILGRAM directly references Dante’s Inferno by quoting it in all the t2 door arts.

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter.” A quote derived from a sign at the gate of hell in the poem.

Each ring of Hell contains sinners with different levels of sins, and each ring’s sin was meant to be worse the further inside you go. Ive seen a couple theories that each prisoner correlates with a specific ring of hell. (Ex: Haruka is ring 1, Limbo; Yuno is ring 2, lust; etc)

But Dante’s Inferno only outlines 9 rings, what about our 10th prisoner, Kotoko?

While it could be that she’s again the “outsider” to the other prisoners, the last section of the 9th ring of Hell is significant because it is the center of Hell, containing Satan. So it could be reasonably argued that Kotoko correlates with it.

MILGRAM already has a TON of religious references. One that I’ve seen pointed out is how it seems the cover art of each novel is a reference to a famous Christian art piece.

The Es in each novel seems to be where Jesus relatively is. Remember that Jesus is both the son of God AND God. God gives sinners their judgements which sounds very similar to Es and how they're giving the prisoners (the human sinners) their verdicts.

Plus, the quote Milgram quotes is on the doors the prisoners are entering, and in Dante’s inferno, it’s on the gate of hell so you can compare or theorize that MILGRAM is a parallel to (or straight up is) purgatory. And Es, being the one who decides the verdict, parallels God.

Also, her t2 VD is named “YONAH,” which is the masculine version of the name Jonah. Not only does this relate to her themes of masculinity again, Jonah is a name that originates from Hebrew origins which means “dove.”

It is also a reference to the book of Jonah. A main theme of this book is “Jonah wants God to operate on his timeline [...] He wanted God to dole out punishment on his clock instead of according to God's plan. Yet God showed Jonah that in his infinite wisdom, he can't and will not be rushed.” Which is pretty much exactly what happens in YONAH, and also once again compares Es to God.

Dante’s Inferno’s Satan was an angel, a splendid being, apparently the most perfect of God's creatures… an “Angel of light.” We/Es deemed Kotoko innocent in t1. She had the highest innocent percentage in t1 too because a lot of people thought her murder was justified. You know, the most perfect of God’s creatures. The most perfect out of the prisoners.

“We really can work together.”

But then Satan tried to usurp God.

“If you don’t have the strength on your own, let me take care of it. Es! I can do it in MILGRAM!”

Kotoko wants to be the prison guard because Es isn’t capable in her eyes.

Satan was ultimately sent to Hell and punished as "the ultimate sinner" for his betrayal of trying to usurp God.

We are now punishing Kotoko for her attempts to judge the prisoners herself and “usurp” Es. It works even better now that she has the highest guilty percentage in all of MILGRAM so far as the “ultimate sinner.”

As a lot know, Fuuta also has tons of religious references too. (Ex. His VD is titled Baptism by Fire) By him also passing judgements onto people, you could say that he was trying to play God.

What is that saying about us, the audience, then? And our parallel/foil to Fuuta/Kotoko?

Dante’s Inferno as a whole is very much based around the idea of “evil will be punished,” which not only encapsulates Kotoko’s ideals but MILGRAM’s as well. It makes sense that MILGRAM says that Kotoko is a perfect parallel to the facility.

(I also wanna mention that there's something that could be said about the holy trinity in relation to Es + the audience + jackalope. For example, how Jesus is God in the flesh and Es is the audience "in the flesh," by acting as a personified version of us to interact with the "human sinnners" but I feel like I might be going into tinfoil hat territory.)