#this is not relevant to my argument im just saying things at this point

[jelliegirl]

do you guys remember when avatar 2 was coming out and one of the "gotcha!" things people would post to make fun of it was like, a screenshot of how few fanfics were written for the first avatar movie (which was the highest grossing movie in the world at the time) vs. some silly franchise that was panned by critics having significantly more fics on ao3?* dont get me wrong i do not think avatar was a good movie but measuring the cultural impact of a movie based on how much fanfiction people write about it is so hilariously out of touch. homoerotic shipping potential is not the metric by which you should measure the quality or popularity of anything ever lmao

*this data was clearly skewed because the freaky avatar fics would have been on ff.net back in the day anyway

[amarayys]

DRDT CHP 2 EPISODE 12 SPOILERS!!

OKAY so according to a tweet from DRDTdev apparantly the whole fandom misinterpreted David's words and he actually doesn't remember Xander from before?? which like...it's kind of funny lmao. this means that David is just trying to kill everyone for a person he heard of online and then was friends with for like. a few days. which is really funny to me. .... .... ..... BUT YOU KNOW WHO DOES REMEMBER SOMETHING??????? teruko (I love you teruko but you're so stupidly suspicious). maybe she isn't aware of it, maybe she is, but THIS LINE.

Which, weird enough. But then VERONIKA says

Okay, even weirder. before we begin: 1. i suck at theories. 2. i suck at formatting, too. 3. this was made at like 1 am. so dont count on some points here being particulary sane. 4. Points that are started with "-" are just extra inputs that aren't too relevant, but I thought i should bring up anyway. So. Veronika, of all people, doesn't know about a killing game that happened in the past. You could argue: "But Amari, what if the killing game was covered up/erased from history?" Hm.. maybe, but this has some holes. A past killing game is a weird thing to *not* know about. If Teruko's talking about THH, that was broadcasted (worldwide, I think... but I can't remember. Even if it was only brodcasted in Japan, you'd think the news would spread, especially with the internet.) , you'd think most people, ESPECIALLY Veronika would know about it. We know from Min's bonus episode that students were taught about the tragedy, and someone like Veronika definitely wouldn't forget about a killing game that happened during it easily. If it was another killing game not related to the main dr games (ill explain this more later, I swear) , I'd still imagine people would know about it. I'm going to take a complete guess here and say it's not too unlikely that if a past killing game happened, it was broadcast similar to our current one. Same argument as before, people would know about it. If it wasn't broadcast, I still don't think it would be very easy to cover up a killing game. Remember - Veronika is the Ultimate Horror Fanatic. She is quite literally *THE BEST* at researching and knowing about this stuff. If Veronika doesn't know about it, Teruko, who kind of lives under a rock, (me too , me too.) being the only one as far as we know to remember it is WEIRD. Also, before someone says "what about memory erasure?" that answers Veronika, but why does Teruko know about it? - However, if it was covered up, I think it's quite likely the company who Min mentions in her bonus episode has something to do with it. Why? Cause introducing too many companies and sht would be confusing. Not very strudy arguement, I know, but I have a feeling the company is more connected to this than we think. Teruko knows about a past killing game. Which killing game is Teruko referencing? Is she referencing THH, or something completely separate? Like... a past killing game she was in? Okay, I'm reaching, but hear me out, okay? It's sort of maybe kind of implied that Teruko was in a past killing game.

This line is said by the guy at the start of the prologue (WHICH IM LIKE 90% SURE IS XANDER BUT THAT'S UNRELATED TO THIS.) , after they claim they have to end a killing game. Why do we need to kill sweet, amazing, perfect Teruko? Well, here are some ideas. 1. Teruko is responsible for the past killing game, or is at least the reason it's happening. Not necessarily the mastermind of it, more similar to the theory where the killing game was made to contain Teruko's bad luck (context because yeah). Not necessarily her fault, but she is the reason for it. I'd like to point out that this matches up scarily well with what basically the whole fandom agrees is Teruko's secret.

(How could I even select what secret to be your motive? Just about everything you've done in your life is worth killing for. The killing game is all your fault.) ...oh my. What if the killing game referred to in the secret isn't the current one? To be fair, all the above does match up with if this secret was referring to the current killing game, but I still think it's viable. 2. Teruko did something to someone and that someone wants revenge. What is "something"? Well, it could be again that the killing game is her fault, but probably not. "someone" could be PROLOUGE GUY AGAIN. I have this really weird theory that Teruko is the one who attacked prolouge guy with the fork (aka xander check out this post for clarification) - Technically, David could also be the one wanting revenge, as he also tried to kill Teruko (indirectly, through failing the trial) , but then Xander stabbing Teruko makes no sense. Xander writes future himself a note (the one saying "Kill Teruko Tawaki, again, whole other theory i can talk more on if you want) explaining the attack, and telling him to kill Teruko, as he thinks she is the mastermind or just an unsafe person (which, fair??) - And if we really want to start reaching, Xander is the mastermind and made the killing game in an attempt to kill Teruko. But like... is the killing game necessary? Why not just kill her regularly? Her luck preventing her death, maybe? This entire point is based on theories, though. So probably not lmao. I want to say point 2 but I think realistically I've gotta go with point 1. There's actually some evidence supporting it, unlike point 2. For Veronika's memory, the memory erasure does actually work here. MonoTV probably wanted interesting shit to happen, or it couldn't erase that part of Teruko's memory without her noticing a large gap in her memories and getting suspiscious. Now, let me get some stuff cleared up. I don't think Teruko remembers actually being in a killing game before present time, just that there was one. She brushes her memory off as just not paying attention in history when Veronika denies a killing game happening before this one (though she does hesitate when Veronika points this out - which is VERY weird) so she probably has *some* fuzzy memories regarding the past killing game.

- If my theory of her attacking prologue guy is correct, I don't think she remembers doing it. As i've mentioned way too many times, I think prologue guy is Xander, and she didn't seem wary whatsoever when she first met Xander, which you think she would be if she knew him, let alone attacked him. SUMMARY: 1. Teruko and Xander were in a past killing game together. At some point, Teruko attacks Xander's eye, although we aren't sure why. Xander realises that she's to blame for the killing game, and writes a note to himself, telling him to get rid of Teruko, and then he passes out. 2. Teruko and Xander meet in our current killing game. Teruko doesn't recognise Xander (or she at least doesn't have time to dwell on the faint memories she does have on him before he passes out), and stays around him for a lot of the killing game. Xander's memory was probably erased, but I'm not sure whether he had the note yet or not. 3. Xander goes stabbity stab stab on Teruko, due to the note. he panics, questioning why he made himself stab her. Teruko might have gotten a flash of memories (you know, the saying my life flashed before my eyes when something life threatening happens??), causing her to tell Xander that his plan wont work because she cant die. 4. (this point is straight flavour text) After Teruko wakes up, she might've remembered a bit more about the killing game, although still not the whole story. (playing into why she was so much more distrustful) Maybe she remembered knowing Xander at some point? Nothing too important regarding Teruko's memory happens after this. this summary really sucks, please dont take this too seriously. just some points to keep in mind.

Anddd yeah. That's it. This has so many holes but it's 1 am, I'm tired and cant be bothered to fix them lmao. Just thought I should give my input. I might edit over this tomorrow, who knows.

[slowdrippingnoise]

I cannot stop thinking about Fords dream. Plan sexual? Is this aroace confirmation??

"Attracted to planning" my ass. What happened to attracted to strange and the strange was always attracted to him?? You are a weirdo, except it

I an aroace and i was concerned that Ford will be straight in TBOB but now i am just confused???

I see you want to scream about the book of bill. Please scream at me i need someone else in this madness

OK!!!! so this is an extremely interesting question, and my perception of it is very heavily influenced by this interview being fresh in my mind (you've probably already read/watched but if not go do that it's great) towards the end you can find alex answering a question about ford being interpreted as queer- and basically talking about how ford is written as extremely romantically/interpersonally repressed in general- I won't try to summarize it i genuinely recommend just going and reading that, he describes it all better than I could (and again maybe you already have idk)

I feel like the tbob dream note could be taken a number of ways (and, while I wouldn't actually ask it cause i feel like leaving it up to imagination is actually more interesting in a creative engagement kind of way, i'm desperate to know what hypothetical answers are hiding behind that "usually" oh ford) but the thing that sticks out to me is. i mean it's very difficult to read it as straight isn't it. ford has recurring dreams about being quizzed on "what he's attracted to" and consistently dodges the question (doesn't even give a straightforward answer like "nothing", he misdirects back onto his logical smartguy persona) it's definitely a nod to fans too, sure, but in-character it's no-way-out firmly establishing that his sexuality specifically is on the Grand List of Stanford Pines Insecurities. we definitely got a nod to this way back in j3 of course- the ford&fidds campout conversation- but this i think this new tidbit betrays a much more internal fixation/anxiety than "it's confusing to me and I don't really want to think about it for more that a minute at a time" (<-the vibe his j3 stuff had more of to me) TL;DR whatever he is, i do not think you can call this man canonically straight at all lmao. W

(ok i'm losing track of my own thoughts a bit here. i should've outlined this like an essay lmao. back on track-)

In terms of what I personally believe/headcanon? honestly i'm in a funny in-between place right now- if you asked me last week i'd just say "he's gay probably" but this has me Thinking now in a more "ok, what cooperates best with canon and how I personally view him" way and the "ford aroace" people are making some interesting points. my most recent idea of him that i've been rolling around in my mindscape like a shiny rock goes basically like this:

(putting this under a cut)(also this goes wildly off-topic for a while because i love talking about ford. i promise it is tangentially related and relevant to my argument)

ford is repressed in how he deals with people because people are confusing and often scary (history of bullying and ostracization, we all hc him as some kind of autistic, etc.), and this extends to how he views romance/sex- if you don't see yourself as safe/belonging among other humans it can be extremely difficult to imagine yourself in such intimate dynamics with them (accepted, loved) and ford is very well established to close himself off to keep himself safe. the prospect of "romance" is by default more unsettling than it could ever really be comforting to him (within his ability to imagine it, at least) outside of the rarer "what if i was just normal and nobody bothered me for existing" fantasy, which is its own can of worms,,

another part of this is my (more arbitrary/i know because im right forever/because i lived it) hc that the elder pines twins' parents didn't really love each other by the time they were raising stan and ford, it was more of a "we both pay the rent/keep the family going, we may not strictly like each other and yeah there's a screaming fight or two every few years, but divorce is off the table because it would leave us both financially up the creek, so you do what you gotta do" situation. which has the potential to do. things. to how you think about Traditional Ideas of Couples and Suchlike. take my word for it.

another important part, though i find myself getting technically off-topic for a ways here, my apologies- i've been thinking about ford's Patterns with his attachments, in that he generally has one Main Person to focus on and trust at a time, and for a most of his life these attachments end Badly- throughout his entire adolescence he has stanley as that person, they exist in constant contrast to each other, their own self-perceptions are defined by their existence as a duo, covering for each other's weaknesses (to the extent that they can ignore traits in themselves that "double up", so to speak- stanley is the dumb muscle and ford is the booksmart genius with potential- no way out of that)(their dad affects this too)(oof) he and stan have a really awful falling-out that leaves ford with the belief that his One Person was willing to sabotage his future, completely disregarding ford's own feelings or sense of security and agency, just to get his way. (strike 1.5? against ford's ability to trust people) --- in college he attached to his roommate, fiddleford- and they genuinely get along and compliment each other really well! they're besties for life! yippee! so ford has a Person again, to exist next to, to prop himself up. but their lives go in different directions- they both move on with their studies/careers, and ford winds up in gravity falls, alone, where he has trouble again interacting with the locals and spends all his time wandering the woods, with endless hours for introspection. --- enter- Bill! :) bill becomes ford's 3rd Person, and he flatters ford and manipulates him and validates him and offers him everything he could ever shallowly imagine would solve all his problems and patch up the gaping hole in his self-worth forever definitely (while reminding him of what he remembers/imagines of his brother most likely, ow) bill is also more "safe" than other people, he's an anomaly, a supernatural phenomenon, even, and he lives exclusively inside ford's head. he's a perfect, safe, obsession target. (billford situationship essay for another day)

until he's not, of course.

until his college bestie Person is back too, and he's more Real than bill in a way that's very comforting, but fidds is another strong influence, one for the better, and bill can't have that around, he has to go. after that his relationship with bill also turns sour extremely quickly in a terrifying way, which leaves ford shaken and unmoored and desperate, which leaves... stan.

which also falls apart. (strikes 2, 3 and 1.5-the-sequal in rapid succession)

the 30 years spent multiverse-hopping are interesting to me too in how they affected ford- i think being around so much "abnormality"/being disconnected from his own world's ideas of normal did a lot to mellow him out- but he still couldn't really stick around anywhere to form deeper bonds with anybody, he's a wanderer until bill is dead, which may well end up killing ford in the process, so...

then! he's back home! which is bad! (from his perspective) but gives him the opportunity to try to Attach to a 4th Person- dipper! this was a secret essay on why i think he's Like That about dipper all along not about romance at all haha trick'd'ya! (i'm joking)

anyway you get the idea- fortunately he has a slightly wider support net by the end of the show between stan, fiddleford, and the kids- but to me it's relevant in that ford has a very limited network of people who he is close to at all, considering that his view on romantic relationships seems to orbit around "don't wanna think about that/that's scary, I don't know/etc.", and that for a long time the relationships(platonic or otherwise) that he did have were defined by their ending in trauma, guilt, and shame. it makes sense to me for him to not really be able to figure himself out, how do you dissect all the layers of the bonds you do manage to form, tease out one strong emotion from another, especially when you're always afraid of ruining something because this is all you have?

I guess, given all that rambling, to me he lands within some combination of demi-aroace(attraction of any kind is rare and difficult to distinguish from other emotions, needs a strong base first) and too repressed and deeply, deeply traumatized to really say what comes naturally and what's his brain trying to protect him from being hurt. he knows that something is, by the standards of humanity, "wrong" with him, but it's just another note on a long list of "reasons normal people don't like him". and he's gay.

-----

ok i probably forgot some stuff but i think thats my thoughts on that lmao. anyway BOOK OF BILL this makes me. so crazy. hasnt left my brain for days. i will never be the same i called these shots i CALLED them. but i couldn't imagine. anyway-

while i'm still talking about ford, i love that this book let him be more emotionally vulnerable than j3 did, i feel like there was a harsher impression of ford among fans for a long time (at least, with people who weren't already Obsessed with him) because he has limited time in the actual show for his character to be established, and a lot of j3 either had him on the defensive, or still stuck in "everything ever is my fault" mode. getting a better view both of how bill manipulated him, and how he's still affected by it "postcanon" puts him way more in line with. how i've seen him all along basically!! augh. he's lonely and insecure and afraid and wants so, so badly to connect to people,, "the ego of a king. the insecurity of a circus freak." compare to "my immense self hatred vs my delusional god complex" we were so right.

his last section of the book is. so so perfect i'm so glad we have that- it wraps up what felt like a loose end with other pieces of canon leaving him on "i'm the biggest idiot in the world" which felt. bad. all things considered. but tbob lets him air out that soul-crushing shame in such a beautiful way- both in letting us the audience actually See how it was with him and bill before, and his family reassuring him that they love him and don't carry some massive sense of Blame for him being manipulated... it hurts good man. perfect place to end on. he's gonna be ok it'll be ok.

related- possession pages go crazy. like that is some "i've read fanfiction less fucked up than this" shit and I [the rest of this sentence redacted for my dignity] what was i saying. the dream scene was so viscerally upsetting. the "light switch". the stretching. (alex drop a link to your ao3 account. urgh) bill is so so so scary for that brief moment which is an amaaazing essential addition to the book that actually made me feel horrifically personally sorry for the little bastard for the first time maybe ever. i mean this so genuinely he's the worst he's been he's the saddest he's been it's a beautiful tapestry drawing me in. it's gonna occupy my brain for weeks. maybe months. he's desperate to hold on to ford he's desperate for his plans to work for once and he's pissed as hell but also now he has an excuse to cut loose- he doesn't have to hide his angry, shitty, abusive side from this little human that he's grown so attached to(who he sees himself in)- he can see ford and ford can see him (or, what he's willing to think of as "himself")(where did you all go-) and ford is just living a nightmare that he couldn't have possibly imagined. incredible

i'm practiced at being emo about ford i've been emo about ford since 2015 but the bill thing is new to me (not strictly the lore, i was around for the reddit AMAs/the axolotl poem, but the elaboration-) and it's killing me. he's so fucked. he's hopeless. he's fucked himself up so bad and refuses to get any better because just looking at it inside his head is too much. there's a loud buzzing in his ears and he blacks out for 30 seconds. everyone loved him he was the best baby ever. sixer, it would eat you alive. the doctor says three sips a day will make the visions go away. where did you all go. he's fine, he's fine, he's fine. it's all hitting me fresh like it's brand new, funy nightmare triangle abandonment issues go brrrr-

he wants ford to want him so bad he wants to not be alone so bad. hes awful he ruins every chance he gets and it's all genuinely his own fault. fuck (im not gonna talk about "pain is hilarious" im not gonna be cringe im not gonna do it) blacked-out list of exes love and fear are the same love cage you're my property if lost return to bill cipher covered in blood all alone in the universe-

I was gonna elaborate on those last scraps but. i am running out of brain. big week for ford enjoyers. big week for me being so so sad (/pos) ☀️

[calfrxca]

[JUDGEMENT]

no way, cal returns from his art hiatus to post gay people and returns from hiatus for good :00 ??? no- im. im still on hiatus, my escapades to vatican city and specifically st peter's basillica last month just caused some brainworms LMFAO, i have. way too much to say about this specific piece and how my reading of the illiad and the war that killed achilles made it so much stronger

also before you ask, yes this is based on michelangelo's pietà in the vatican, dont even TRY to @ me

my yappings aside

ordo (the guy with the fuckass pipe in his chest) belongs to @gemsbokk !!!

meanings and yappings regarding this piece below the cut as usual, i dont expect anyone to read this, i just need to get this out or i'll actually EXPLODE

(upright) improvement, forgiveness, change of perspectives, absolution and rebirth

(reversed) oppression, lack of self awareness, failure, repeated mistakes, and self loathing

generally, in roman mythos as a whole, there's this whole idea that cannibalism, incest, murder, whatever, doesnt apply to the olympians because of their status as "The Divine" and any mortal who tries to do the same will be met with divine punishment from said olympians [many times, a mortal's fatal flaw is hubris, see achilles who believed he was immortal and a god because of how successful he was on the battlefield; icarus who flew too close to the sun and died, a literal modern day saying in the west for man's own hubris, etc] and if i remember correctly, some renditions of the illiad depict the myceaneans as cannibals. the war that killed achilles specifically writes:

"In the apocryphal Acts of Andres (dating to the 3rd century A.D.), there is 'a city of the cannibals,' which is identified as Myrmidon; it is possible that this account taps into some more ancient, and savage, lost tradition."

and my recent escapades to the roman colosseum revealed that the romans regularly consumed blood because they believed it had health benefits to it and they thought it cured epilepsy [paper written by the NBCI on this topic]; is there any historical basis proving that the consumption of blood actually had health benefits? no clue, nor do i really feel like checking these exact logistics at the moment (but if anyone does, feel free to @ me about it, i love weird historical shit like this), the actual effects behind it are moot, what's relevant here is the idea

the idea of consumption and cannibalism turning one into a god have the same effects as how, in greek mythos, the gods were often depicted engaging in acts such as incest, cannibalism, whatever, acts that we as mortals define as "immoral" and "unjust," not only just to seperate them from humans but also show that morals are a very fickle, human thing

anyways, my point here is there's something so raw about tacet losing it to the point he's not even just eating mechanical parts, but he's also eating organic parts, see: organic hearts, guts, kidneys, the like

"No matter how many men you eat boy, you will not be a god."

i mean tacet himself masks his desperation for touch and sensuality with literal blood and guts, which then creates a feedback loop of violence and death, which is a reoccurring theme in greek tragedies; specifically observed and mentioned in emily wilson's translation of the illiad:

"When a man is slain in times of peace, families can gain partial compensation for their loss by exacting a blood-price from the killer. Killers may also be forced to leave the community and take refuge elsewhere, as Patroclus did as a boy after he accidentally killed another boy in an argument over a game; he was adopted by his cousin Peleus and raised beside Achilles, like an older brother. In such cases, the killer's loss of his original home comforts the family in their need for vengeance. But in war, killers recognize no binding obligation to compensate the families of their victims. The only way the bereaved can recoup their losses is to kill the killer—whose comrades will demand vengeance in their turn. Killing begets killing, death begets death, and every loss of life generates further loss of life."

another instance is observed in the emily wilson translation here:

"When it is too late to save a warrior's life, friends and kinsmen may be able at least to save his weapons and his armor. If those have been stripped, the companions of the dead man may at least save his body."

there's a certain trope found in media, especially queer media where cannibalism and consumption are a common metaphor for love (see hannibal and interview with a vampire), and considering their dynamic was written in the midst of a hannibal brainrot im not exactly surprised there's a lot of similarities here

namely, tacet was a cannibalism from the start, starting drinking energon just as a more cost and time efficient way to staying fueled, but it turned into an addiction and eventually was lauded as something holy (there's something to be said here about the christian idea of wine and crackers being symbols of christ's blood and body; communion, the eucharist, whatever); i cant remember if this was canon or not so don't quote me on this

but at some point, tacet convinced ordo to try cannibalism as well, just to "see what would happen," went well enough until ordo got the fuckass pipe in his chest; something something play on the idea of cannibalism is only reserved for the divine; ordo died and tacet lost ordo

queer tragedy is very much a phenomenon found in greek and roman mythos, and well. this feels like it fits

alright im done yapping for now, my head hurts now, thanks for listening to my ted talk

here's some pics from rome and venice as a thanks LMFAO

i'll add image IDs to these once my headache goes away I PROMISE

[cats-of-eden-valley]

question. how do lore

im trying to write legends and heroes and villains of the past and whatever but my mind is blanking

this is for a warrior cats au btw im working on windclan

oh brother I've been in the same boat so let me tell you a secret:

a culture's lore/stories/etc all serve a purpose beyond just being stories

stories as a whole have been used to digest and share information about the world since as long as we've been able to tell them. they help cultures remember important events, warn about danger, and explain the phenomena of the world around them

in fact, stories, science, and religion are all deeply interwoven in what they provide a culture. they are all attempts to explain how the world works, and this is important because typically the better your understanding of how the world works, the better your ability to survive and thrive there.

you say you're working on Windclan--let's break some things down. for cats living on moors/plains, what's important for them to understand in order to survive, and how have they woven this understanding into the rest of their world?

large birds can be dangerous, especially to younger cats and kittens. maybe then stories about how eagles crave youthful flesh might arise. in some ways it's true--they do go after young cats. but the reasoning is a little off--they go after young cats because anything bigger is too much to carry away. but in this case the reasoning doesn't need to be completely correct, because the story exists to tell young cats that they specifically are the ones in danger from eagles. as long as the story effectively serves that purpose, it remains relevant and continues to be passed on.

but then, maybe there was a point in history where a very large eagle was hanging around, big enough to carry away full grown cats. this is where you get legends. it's rare that eagles get that big, but it happened once and it was an important event in clan history, so the story of that time and how the clan handled it got remembered.

over time, the story will be modified based on key components. its less important that the story be perfectly accurate, as long as the most useful parts are preserved. there might be emphasis on how the clan dealt with the problem but forgetting less important details, like exactly how many died (which might get inflated, to drive home how dire this time was) or maybe omitting arguments the clan had about how to deal with it (not important to modern day, they just need to remember how they won, not all the plans that failed)

but yeah. once i kinda realized the purpose stories serve to a culture, it became much easier to make some up :P

[veliseraptor]

Hello ! I've read a lot of the posts you shared or wrote about horror, especially in reaction to "pearl-clutching" discourse against the whole genre.

It was very though provoking (thanks!) but I was wondering if/how you draw the distinction between that and, well, honest and "legitimate" bad review / negative analysis of some individual stories who happen to be horror ?

Oh, for sure. Of course there's legitimate criticisms to be made about individual horror works, or even about horror as a genre on the whole. I'm never going to claim that there isn't. While I do feel like there's a place for the "let people have fun" school of thought around media criticism, I don't think it should be a blanket smothering of all criticism - mostly, as with so many things, it is worth considering your time, place, and audience. For your own sake as well, I find.

I do think that sometimes the language of "criticizing" or "being critical" has become a handy mask for people to say whatever they want in some of the same (though less pernicious) way that people use "I'm just asking questions" to shut down discussion of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Again, #notallcriticism, much of it is good and beneficial and keeps things fresh (and me thinking), even the criticism I ultimately might end up disagreeing with. And at the same time, I do see the tendency popping up sometimes to use the idea of "legitimate criticism" as a way to shield a person from disagreement (the somewhat infamous "think critically about x" translating to "and you'll agree with me" comes to mind.)

As far as the how, well, it's certainly a little your mileage may vary - what I might read as an unfair review of a book I liked, for instance, someone else might read as a well-deserved ripping to shreds of a mediocre work, and it's certainly possible for neither of us to be "right" about which it is. Some of this - maybe even a lot of it - is a matter of perspective.

I guess I would think of two things that shape my perception of how someone is talking about a work or a genre, in general and in particular with horror:

1. Is the writer familiar with the genre? Do they have at least a passing familiarity with the conventions, tropes, and other narrative tics that tend to crop up? If not, are the criticisms they are making marked by that lack of knowledge (ime some of the discourse about the A Song of Ice and Fire falls victim to this, sometimes). I'm not saying that criticism is invalid coming from someone without genre knowledge, but I am saying that I'm more inclined to be skeptical of criticism that comes from someone who clearly dislikes the specific genre they're discussing, because it sometimes feels like a willful lack of curiosity and unwillingness to engage with a text/genre on its own terms.

> Addendum to this: is the writer familiar with the genre as it stands recently? Horror now looks rather different than horror fifty years ago, just for instance.

2. Is the argument or point they're making actually coherent? Is the analysis solid and grounded in at least some kind of evidence or source? (Is the author using screenshots of tweets in lieu of actually writing about the phenomenon they're discussing?) I can't always but I'd say I can usually at least recognize, even if I disagree, when someone is actually taking what they're engaging with seriously and when they're not (in terms of the work put in to convince me what they're saying is true, relevant, and important), and if they're not taking it seriously then why should I?

And one more, I guess, which feels obvious but sometimes on the internet isn't, because people love to have opinions (I get it! so do I!):

3. Has the writer actually read (or watched/played/whatever) what they're talking about? This ties in a little with point one but is slightly divergent, because someone can to an extent be familiar with a genre without having read it. But someone talking authoritatively about the problems with something they haven't actually had direct contact with, based purely on a set of cultural osmosis and related assumptions, is frustratingly common, and people will assume that they know what they're talking about from that alone and are qualified to make a sweeping judgment from that position. And I'm just not going to take criticism made from that perspective very seriously.

That's how I'd draw my lines, anyway. I don't claim to be an authority, certainly; I'm a gal on the internet with a big mouth and a lot of opinions. I think the important things here though are a. I certainly don't think that there's no such thing as legitimate criticism (in the negative sense) of horror works or horror as a genre, and b. I have particular standards for how I judge that criticism based on content and context.

I guess it's also worth noting, with this particular example, that the other question is "how much does this feel like it aligns with the present moral panic around dark or disturbing content in fiction?" and if the answer is "a lot" then I'm significantly more likely to dismiss it.

[leolingo]

(rant about linguistics, aphasia and q!quackity’s impairments post-memory loss!!! to anyone who knows more about any of this, PLEASE add on or dm me id love to learn if anyones into neurolinguistics or anything of the sort)

ive been digging deeper into q!quackity’s condition (because I quite literally CAN’T stop thinking abou it) + taking note of his symptoms/behavior and it seems like what he’s dealing with could be called alexia (acquired inability to read) with agraphia (acquired inability to write), which are types of general aphasia, except i still need to know MORE about his production and comprehension i need to get in there!!!!!

it seems like he could be experiencing literal/verbal alexia with agraphia, which would mean he can’t recognize written letters or symbols at all and that is why he’s unable to read (this is all very tentative… all i have to go off of is my psycholinguistics class and as many academic articles as i can read). from what ive seen, q!q hasn’t actually tried to read any signs out loud, there’s no verbal attempt or production of speech which would make sense if he really can’t recognize the alphabet. BUT. what bothers me is that he can speak spanish with no issues. since spanish has a high proximity between phonology and orthography, theory says people who are able to speak it should be able to read and write the phonemes. and he can’t — or hasn’t tried. THAT makes me think he Can recognize the letters themselves

to confirm this i would really like to see him try to spell…. Or just name a letter! if its confirmed he CAN recognize individual letters, then id say what we’re looking at is more like pure alexia (without agraphia) — only a reading impairment, which would cause him to be unable to Arrange the letters in a sensical order. Its tough to check any of this w minecraft as a medium…. with a keyboard (or, in rp, on a communicator/in chat) it’s kind of impossible to know if he’s clicking at random or actually Trying to seek specific letters. but ill say that the way he sometimes dictates what he’s intending to write makes me think he DOES have the visual of each letter in his mind, and just struggles to order them or accurately transpose them

its also interesting to me how theres no sign of a speech impediment. q!q could speak fine from the very first moment we saw him. all hesitation was modal/owed to circumstance and not actually tied to his production of speech. i think that has more to do with the memory part of things! it could be that the extend of his memory alteration only goes as far as his writing and reading do. speech and comprehension come first in regular human development, and those are the faculties he has kept mostly unaltered. there could also be an argument to make about this pointing spanish as his first language (like cc!quackity) and english as his second, which would explain the dissonance between his production in one language and the other — but given that last stream he did express knowledge of english, idk if its relevant

i dont know much about the actual anatomy of things but i think it’s interesting that most aphasia cases are caused by lesions on the left temporal-parietal lobe. AND that its also possible for aphasia to be caused by head trauma like a hard hit to the head or deprival of oxygen (due to drowning? food for thought).

psa i know the situation in canon could be a lot less deep than im trying to make it. i get that. i dont expect the writers team to have researched the symptoms to this extent, but i enjoy discussing it. this is part of my major and a big area of interest for me so i find it really fun :) ill keep reading on this topic as much as i can and reblog w more of my musings if i find more relevant info. baseline qsmp team please let me in i need to study q!q under a microscope (lovingly)

[vampire-sugar]

Again not at all related to QOTD but related to stuff i see under the tags that’s been bothering me a lot. I was originally gonna send this as an ask but it might potentially not get answered so just gonna post. It’s in relation to this answered ask which i sent and just wanted to be more clear in what i meant. https://www.tumblr.com/nalyra-dreaming/742009291203035136/hey-i-originally-sent-this-ask-to-virginia-bc-a

@nalyra-dreaming Thanks for answering, and I’m gonna come off anon bc I think it’s more transparent that way, only was on anon bc didnt want to be potentially blocked and not see a response. Just wanna clear some things up. I did not read all the books, just the first couple and working my way up, but im aware of what happens bc idc ab spoilers etc. Also I like Loustat, i like jam I listen to the podcasts read the interviews etc etc so im aware of the things u might think that I’m not aware of. I know the characters are still the same, I know we’re gonna get revisits and personally I’m excited for them I love shows/movies where there’s a shift in perspective I think it’s so fun. However I do think they gotta be careful when doing the revisits bc some things would be problematic/racist, and I have read your rant which is why I say that you agree w this. You also agree with this in your response. What I’m confused about thooo is the contradiction in both your rant and your response to me where you say that “ if I‘m going to see anyone scream “bad writing“ or “Louis being made a liar or the memories revisited/changed is racism“ when the changes will hit I‘m just gonna block you.” And then say that it has nothing to do with the problematic directions the show could take to the revisits “because there are many traps there to consider because of the racial change”. And then say “but it’s not bad writing, or racism, if and when these things happen”. I don’t understand, what is it then? Or maybe we disagree about what would actually be a problematic way to revisit ep5? Would something have to be super explicitly racist for it to be considered problematic or bad?

As for listening to the Black cast and creators, I do and I agree with them as well? Jacob says Louis lies and I didn’t need him to say that for me to see it already in s1 like Louis’ lies ab tbe extent in which Claudia resented him, how much he loved Lestat to the point of not being able to kill him etc. I’m literally saying if he lies ab the ABUSE it would be badddd which is why I don’t think they’ll go that way, even if Louis lying ab things is canon (+++ how are things being canon suddenly an argument for why they wouldn’t be bad if adapted in the show??).

And then the other anon saying “why would it be bad if Lily was shady anyone of any race can be a villain” bruhh like what evils could she have committed to deserve death? (stealing and killing from her clients like the prostitutes in the book who lestat feels justified in killing? she’s a Black sex worker in 1910 New Orleans the show opens with Bricks literally being assaulted by a client if she had killed him I would have cheered so idk what would make lily evil enough to have deserved death that’s what i mean by thatt which is also another example of something being canon still being bad)

Also I realize the way I phrased my ask made it seem like I think the making fun of wanting jassad is weird bc it’s mean or something, which is not at all why I think it’s weird. Ppl specifically making fun of wanting to see two poc who are an important pairing in the show be paired in promos as well, that’s the weird part.

And I did not say at all that I think they’re gonna be wholesome bc they are POC, the fuck? Why did you have to do all that when discussing the jassad part of my comment? That’s also very weird. Like I know who Armand is and what he does, that doesn’t mean that I will stop being excited that the ppl playing the part are POC and no longer want to see them on my screen or do promos together…. I’m excited to see all that stuff play outtttttttt….. y am i supposed to only be excited for loustat…..?

As for the comments you got on your fic, I personally did not read your fic but I’m sure you write v well and I’m assuming the comments are super hurtful and unnecessary and things like “kys”, which I find the casual use of in online spaces in general very weird so I’m genuinely sorry that you received that in your inbox. However I’m talking about how even getting just a “hey that’s racist” would also be not a great thing to receive like no one wants to be called that. Getting anything negative at all in the inbox is not great so getting even wilder stuff is very hurtful, I get that, which is why I’m trying hard not to come off in any type of way that would suggest that. People saying I’m tired of this discourse, plz know this is in response to your rant as well as a lot of the asks ab the jassad pairing, not just for discourse’s sake. Personally, I think it’s important and interesting to discuss how changes in certain characters’ races could affect the story moving forward, and I like that you talk ab your theories for how they will adapt s2 that stuff is fun and very fandom like behavior. But when ppl point out that some things won’t work bc of the race (which again u agree w in ur rant + ur response) u talk ab how some fans who say this pair it w hurtful language and then by dismissing the hurtful language you dismiss the notion that the suggestion would be racist or problematic in the first place which is very contradictory. But I guess since I have not read all of Anne Rice’s work my opinion ain’t shit.

[nothorses]

anon from before, i understand better now! i think i just thought abt it too much and confused myself but your explanation helped. im still on the fence abt cultural christianity but i think thats bc it seems like everyone is talking about it in a different way? like one person says it means this, but another person says its that. i think you made some really good points against it, but i also think spacelazarwolf made some good points for it so im just still figuring it out i think.

Yeah, I fully agree people are talking directly past each other in the conversation, and that's exactly why I made this post to begin with.

And I'm gonna @spacelazarwolf here because I respect his point of view a lot, we've been mutuals for a while, and I hadn't seen him talk about it until I went searching his blog literally just now; I don't wanna be talking about this behind his back or anything.

So like- correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like what he's defending is, for the most part, use of the term in some specific contexts:

"You are viewing this issue through a culturally Christian lens"

"Because you come from cultural Christianity, you may have developed blind spots and internalized ideas that you need to pay special attention to finding and rectifying"

(I'm specifically referring to these two recent posts)

I actually really agree with these uses! Those posts also clarify further that this isn't something you are, it's something you've been influenced by, or something you're doing. That's exactly the thing I say in my original post that I am very much here for, because, like I've said: Christian hegemony is obviously real, people are influenced by it- some more than others-, and it's necessary to be able to talk about these things.

I feel like the majority of arguments I see recently boil down to like, "why do you think cultural Christianity doesn't exist?" which, y'know, I don't doubt some people are actually saying. But if a lot of people are only really arguing that we shouldn't use it as an individual label that others get to decide to apply to them, and the people on the Other Side of the argument are only really arguing that we should be able to use it to refer to the impact of Christian hegemony on culture and shared ideology, like...

Maybe it's time to recognize that we're kinda saying the same shit. If we can get behind "don't label individuals, but do acknowledge the cultural impact and behavior", we can probably just move forward knowing that none of us are trying to advocate for something shitty just because someone else on our "side" said it. And maybe have more productive & relevant conversations.

[charlie-artlie]

opinions on cassidy five nights at freddies and the golden duo theory

anon do you realize you’ve asked me about my favorite topic?

TLDR, i dont like either of these theories! but i love talking about them, and if you WOULD like to read about it, i will ramble at length under the cut

so I’ve already spoken at length about my issues with the cassidy theory but here’s a quick rundown:

if shes real, she is one of the most important characters in the entire series and we know literally nothing about her. her name was gotten from a cypher in a word search, and her popular fanon design was just a random kid on the same page (or a different page that was also cassidy relevant? idk) (also also, i have seen a great theory that midnight motorist is actually about cassidy, and honestly id love it if that were true and this was hidden cassidy lore all along, but the character is only referred to with he/him pronouns, which leads to my next issue)

every character that refers to her uses male pronouns. the only argument i could see for this is retcon, because im not going to argue with people that republican scott cawthon made a character named cassidy with he/him pronouns. this would have to mean that sometime between the security log book and UCN scott changed cassidy into a completely new character, which to me, is a much bigger leap than the retcon from “SAVE HIM” to charlie, but, thats just me :/

her name was removed from princess quest, which signifies to me that she is not supposed to represent the princess in that game. steel wool has hidden lots of easter eggs and lore hints in the code, but to my knowledge the only one they’ve removed is the princesses name as cassidy (renaming her just ‘princess’ i believe). imo, it makes more sense if the princess represents vanessa, seeing as they follow the same path, both collect the vanny mask, both get trapped by glitchtrap, beating the game frees vanessa, etc etc etc

my honest opinion? everything she represents in the story would be better served to a pre-established character. i KNOW im biased as a charlie stan, but literally why isn’t TOYSNHK charlie? shes already established as having more control and awareness than the other spirits and likely was the only one who personally KNEW afton when she was alive, giving her even more motive to hate him. or even CC would make more sense! arguably the very first child to die to an animatronic, narratively, it’d make way more sense for it to be him. hes been stewing in agony and remnant for decades, seeing everything his father does, the one character who ACTUALLY has a connection to the golden freddy suit, and! now that we have a slightly more concrete answer to the fnaf 4 cameras from sister location, could actually be counted as one of his fathers victims!

okay, now with that out of the way, onto why i specifically dont like the golden duo theory, because, here’s the thing, even if I could accept cassidy as a Thing in the franchise (which i can! she’s been acknowledged by scott so I have to accept that shes at least real in some capacity [cassacity]) i STILL have issues with the golden duo theory for different reasons

the first and biggest reason is simply that CC is a hugely lore relevant character, who has an actual backstory, a tie to the main villain and the main protagonist (if you consider michael the protagonist, which i personally do), and makes narrative sense to possess golden freddy (the animatronic that killed him, not to mention his father possesses its counterpart, i mean come ON that is just a delicious parallel!!) cassidy, meanwhile, is a name you can find in a word search. and thats pretty much it. (not counting the yandere simulator chica mini game as actual cassidy lore. im literally just saying no. you cant make me.) im sorry, but it just cheapens CCs role in the story. there is literally no point in making him share golden freddy

its just not present in the games at all. there was every opportunity in UCN to hint/tease/confirm this but none of those things were done. the ONLY thing i’ll grant is that “The One You Should Not Have Killed” and “The Vengeful Spirit” COULD MAYBE be different characters, but why would they be? that sounds like two similar descriptions of the same character to me, personally.

the only evidence for it in the books is that, if you ALREADY believe that cassidy and CC are both possessing golden freddy, you can then reverse engineer that theory into “cassidy is TOYSNHK” by saying its a parallel to the stitchwraith plot line. feels more likely to me that TOYSNHK was originally just going to be andrew from the books? i just dont see how any of this actually ties to cassidy

the security log book. i hate the stupid security log book. everything in it is so arbitrary but its also the lynchpin for major fanon accepted theories. sorry but the “two spirits are talking to each other and also michael i guess” just doesnt hold water for me. why is the dialog on random pages out of order, and why does some of it not even line up with each other. the logbook honestly made more sense to me when the theory was bite victim=michael, the way it is now just seems like people deciding it means whatever they want it to mean

okay now this one is a little more nitpicky but im including it anyway (this is again more of problem with cassidy in general but stay with me) including cassidy in the missing children incident would mean we have five missing kids (cassidy, fritz, jeremy, gabriel, and susie), and then separate from that incident i guess, is charlie, and then also separate from that incident is CCs death, so seven dead kids in total (ignoring elizabeth since shes at SL, and also the “second missing children incident”, which is another theory i dislike but thats a rant for another anon messenger). with that math, that means someone HAS to be excluded from the fnaf 6 gravestone ending and i hate that. if cassidy is one of the missing children then shes the obscured gravestone, and then only charlie or CC could be the one in the distance, and excluding either of them feels wrong. CC is (arguably) the first kid to die in a freddys and (arguably….) what started everything happening, and charlie is the one to help the others possess the original suits. they are both more established characters than cassidy, who, again, we know nothing about.

all of that is to say this: if cassidy is a thing, why does she have to be in golden freddy? can i tell you what id prefer? what i think would be so much more narratively satisfying? what i lay awake at night staring without blinking up at the ceiling gritting my teeth wishing was real? i wish…cassidy was possessing freddy. freddy, og brown freddy, is the face of the franchise, and has literally zero lore significance. the only reason we know who possess him is from inference from the fnaf 6 gravestone pic lining up with the fnaf 3 ending head placement (does this sentence make any sense? can anyone hear me?) if cassidy is freddy, then charlie is the fifth missing child (i see no reason why she couldn’t be, theres nothing to indicate that the kids all died on the exact same day) and CC is golden freddy and the narrative is satisfying. cassidy can still be important, can even still be TOYSNHK for all i care, and CC can continue to writhe around in golden freddy in the 5020 ending.

deep weary sigh. i think…. thats actually all i have to say on the subject. if you’ve read this far thanks and also sorry. i just wanna cap this off by saying im not mad at anyone who likes cassidy theory or likes cassidy as a character, i have absolutely no problem with any of that! my problem is entirely with scott, who has just dropped this deus ex machina william-afton-seeking-missile on the table in front of us and refused to elaborate.

[acephysicskarkat]

@queerplatonic-msr

#im kinda interested in your opinion of zutara-

I tend not to think much about it.

Like, I'm not actually here to pick fights with randos on the internet about shipping. I'll comment on a pattern when I think it's interesting or it's relevant to a point I want to make, but while I don't personally ship, to take an example at almost-random, Optimus Prime with Shockwave, picking fights with Shockop shippers is not actually a thing I want to spend my time doing, because I have so little of it and would rather spend what I do have on something else, especially since my new year's resolution for this year was to get into fewer pointless internet arguments.

I'm also just...not that into Avatar. I like it well enough, even though I still haven't seen most of book 2, I enjoyed Legend of Korra and the first Kyoshi book (haven't read the second), I'm enjoying the kicking the live-action one is getting in a popcorn kind of way, but it's not lodged into my autistic soul the way Star Wars or MTMTE or Discworld or even some remaining shreds of Homestuck are. I'm not passionate enough to get invested in shipping arguments about it.

On top of that, when the original show ended in 2008, I had only just picked up my first laptop, which I mostly used to play videogames. I'd never been active in an internet fandom, that didn't really happen until later that year (and that was mostly getting into fights about D&D and Warhammer on 4chan, so, not a great start), I didn't read or write fanfiction (that's relatively recent, and I need to actually finish and publish something after like two years of drought), and while I hadn't even heard the word "aromantic" at the time, I certainly wasn't paying attention to shipping arguments about a cartoon that, at the time, I'd seen Some Episodes Of and Sorta Remembered Enjoying.

At most, at this point, I'm a little impressed by Zutara's resilience. There are people using this website who weren't born when Aang and Katara hooked up. Their kids were prominent figures in the sequel series. And this one non-canon ship is still clinging to life like a f***ing limpet. Can I get a round of whatever they're having for the non-canon ships I enjoy?

But in terms of actual commentary...no, sorry, I don't have any. If the live-action show goes for a Zutara endgame and the writing is ass, I might have something of substance to say then, but I don't have anything now.

Sorry.

[coldresolve]

yeah, nah, fuck it. im sharing this post and then i'm just gonna link to it whenever it becomes relevant.

every disagreement i have with yall always comes back to me phrasing things in a way that sounds mean. always, always. like duh, i dont try to sugarcoat how i see things, i have realized that, in fact i do it on purpose. why? well.

i come from a culture where it's often interpreted as deceitful and/or shallow to sandwich your point in with superficial courtesy. if you spend too much time packing your point in with whatever you think will make it easier to swallow, people will start to feel like you're infantalizing them, or straight up wasting their time. being direct and honest from the get-go is seen as a sign of respect - yes, even if what you're saying could easily be interpreted as rude. say what you think, say exactly how you feel, and we'll take it from there. that kinda thing.

when i say an opinion or criticise something on here, i am treating you, the reader, like someone who is smart enough to understand the gist of my argument without being bogged down by its delivery, mature enough to recognize the difference between criticism of your work (or general trends) and criticism of you as a person, and emotionally well-adjusted enough to not pin your self-worth on the negative opinions some random guy on the internet might have of something you do/create/like.

i am showing you respect by talking to you as if you are an adult who can deal with what i might have to say. if you're not, and you can't, i expect you to have the wherewithall to not engage with me. i could at the very least respect that. alternatively, you're also welcome to disagree with my points, obviously. i'm always up for a good discussion.

but you responding to criticism like mine with defensiveness, affront, or worse, the idea that you're now justified to go after the criticiser as a person, only comes across to me like immaturity, self-consciousness, self-importance, and in some cases - deliberate or not - obtusiveness. see how that cultural divide can go both ways?

we're probably not gonna find common ground here. i'm tired of being interpreted as aggressive all the time, but i have no intention of conforming to the american ideal of social courtesy, because it makes me feel shallow, disingenuous and fake. meanwhile, you're probably not gonna be able to hear me speak without shaking the knee-jerk feeling that i'm purposefully ignoring the sensitivity of others (because objectively, i am).

so do we chuck the whole thing up to different culturally determined approaches to communicating our ideas? can we keep a shred of respect and mutual understanding and leave it at that?

or are you gonna insist that i'm immoral/rude/aggressive/callous/antagonistic/attacking people/etc, for voicing my own opinions, in my own way, on my own blog - in which case i, in turn, will feel perfectly content to just consider you an inherently silly person?

as far as i can tell, it's one or the other.

(also please please recognize the difference between using culture as an excuse, and pointing out a very real cultural divide that influences both how i communicate and how you interpret how i communicate. my point is that we're gonna keep talking past each other unless we adress the fact that we approach communication with very different goals in mind, mine being effectiveness and honesty and yours being courtesy and social sensitivity. i am also not saying that either one of these is "the right way" to communicate. don't read shit into my takes that isn't there to begin with. thx)

[terraliensvent]

I agree abt the white knighting. u and some anons r quick to criticize the language ppl in terras use but when asked to introspect abt it urself, u refuse cause it’s ur blog ur opinion ur rules. that’s hypocrisy to me. i aint burying my head in the sand like u say, this is a genuine criticism and if u r gonna ignore it then I think that’s petty. all ur being asked is to look back and try to understand where anons r coming from, u call some ppl white knights and meat riders for bringing up valid concerns even if they also agree terras r bad. U don’t just do it on posts where ppl actually are white knighting.

alright lets dissect every recent post i have called whiteknighting

Post 1

“Oh yeah. A villain bc they revoked the right to THEIR OWN WORK... Whatever shall the world do? However shall we survive the fact coy didn't want them using THEIR WORK after going back on a deal”

hey look speaking of whiteknights

youre missing the forest for the trees here, terra staff was completely willing to remove coys assets but they wanted to act like a toddler stomping their foot shouting “NOW NOW NOW” that they broke in to the site and vandalized it. but sure, your immature petty pos idol can do no wrong

what about this is ignoring?

their argument: “coy is not a villain for wanting their art taken down”

my argument: “nobody said that, cal was perfectly fine taking the artwork down, they just said they cant do it in a heartbeat. coy is in the wrong for breaking in to the site and doing it themself with no consideration for how it will affect the species.”

Post 2

“It's so funny how obsessed y'all are with coy and civ... Get over it bro”

wow its almost like… their actions have a direct consequence on the species…whoooaa

Their argument: “why do you guys care about this”

my argument: “because people have put time and effort into this species, cal and his new team are trying to pick up the pieces and have gone a lot further than ever before with coy and civ at the head. coy being a dipshit has a direct affect on how the species will operate, specifically in this situation by taking away all the old pet species which people may have cared about and wanted to make characters out of.”

Post 3

“You mean.... The site THEY MADE? oh noo, how dare they remove their art from the site them and their partner made... Boohoo.... Boo boohoo.... Stan petty Coy”

come in my inbox again with these room temperature iq takes and im blocking you. they barely did shit for the species and you know that, and coy themself admitted they never had anything to do with the site they just wanted to make their dumbass plain white dog adopts to rake in cash while doing no extra work to put the pieces together

repeating: cal and staff were PERFECTLY FINE taking off all of civ and coys assets, however you cant fucking do that with the snap of a finger. i know this must be incredibly difficult for you coy supporters out there but lets TRY to use our brains for a min

their argument: (ignores my counterpoint from Post 1) well THEY made the site initially. i dont care im still gonna stan coy.”

my argument: “oh ok cool, i can see you are not actually willing to engage with the argument and just want to be inflammatory, and i dont feel like dealing with you if you arent going to use critical thinking. (reiterating my point from post 1)

for this post in particular, i would also like to add that in the transferring of species ownership, there are cetrain things that can be assumed to change ownership along with the transfer. (this is not the first time a species has ever been transferred in ownership). for one, the site. obviously thats needed for species functions so it now belongs to cal. another is NPCs, other species when transferred will give the NPCs to relevant staff because they are an integral part of species function. in this specific instance, the pets, since they were never a part of the original agreement they are assumed to move ownership as well. coy can make the argument they want their art taken down, thats perfectly fine, they could even say they want their designs taken down, but again, the problem is that this is not something that can just be done at the drop of a hat. you need to find replacements and create new assets. breaking in to the site and vandalizing it because you wanted to be a bitch baby and have no patience is immature and wrong. the site has changed ownership. you do not have agency over it anymore, you dont get to go in and delete things without asking.

lets compare this to an oc you trade on toyhouse. lets say you own this OC for a year, and you have drawn a good amount of art for it. then you trade it away, boop, gone, not yours anymore. lets say later on you dont want your art featured on that OC’s page. problem is, that art you drew is embedded within the character’s profile code. you have the full right to delete the art, but you cant just break into the OC’s profile code and fuck around with it yourself. you have to ask the new owner to take it down, and they say of course, but youll have to be patient so they can redraw a new asset for the code.

granted, this example falls short in some ways, but you get what im trying to say

anyways, the point is that if youre going to refuse to engage with the argument then im not going to engage with you. i truly do not understand why you guys are ride or die-ing for these shitty posts that have absolutely no substance

[thisisyourprincipalspeaking]

The biggest issue with some people on here is that they spread their “opinion/hypothesis” as fact and then get angry when someone else either doesn’t agree or didn’t know about this opinion (because they blocked these blogs) or asked for proof (and clearly didn’t get it).

if an anon comes to your blog talking about something, one of these other blogs will likely pop up and angrily spout their rhetoric and say “how are you so stupid you didn’t know??”

Like. My question to them would be “and who told you what you think is right?”

Their current narrative is that the celeb resigned an extended contract that he was allegedly supposed to be out of last June and that’s because of the strike.

Nobody knows if this is true. Nobody including those blogs can provide actual proof that anything was signed in the first place. But they spout this assumption as fact then get mad when others don’t blindly buy into it. They’re hellbent on blaming the celeb for being stupid and signing himself into a marriage when there was never any proof he signed anything in the first place.

Imagine an impressionable anon on here (there are many of them) attending a comic con or even going onset to where this celeb is filming a movie and trying to ask him about his alleged contract. Imagine how bewildered the man would be, or if he’s getting tagged into hate posts that include his family, friends, business partners (even Disney and marvel) by hate accounts accusing him of being so “stupid” he signed his life and career away.

The problem with most ppl is that they don’t think past their own asses and they don’t know how to critically think and question anymore. That is the issue with far left and rightist thinking when it comes to social political topics.

But I also think it applies here even if this particular topic is hardly worth losing sleep over.

You are allowed to have questions about public relationships and ordeals to an extent since the information has been displayed for public consumption. I wondered if a celeb whose the new face of Dunkin’ Donuts and his pop star actress diva wife were real or if it was being really played up since he broke up with his ex Cuban born actress gf and immediately was seen with the pop star diva ex. Then they went onwards and have been on headlines ever since, and he almost always looks miserable. They play too much and I do wonder if it was all stunt that’s about to end since rumors of divorce are everywhere.

But I don’t have proof. It doesn’t make me lose sleep or have arguments with anons. It just makes me a bit curious and amused by it all and shows to me many things in HW, the entertainment, music, sports etc industries are fabricated, orchestrated, and also played up for attention. As someone who works in marketing and PR, my entire job is to sell my company’s brand and image 24/7. Most of the stuff we put out is fodder to a point and we get told what words and phrases to use to get attention and to sell a narrative. But BTS, we know it’s strategized and planned out weeks, months, and years in advance.

People who are industry adjacent have tried to telling these blogs but get ignored by the screaming minority.

Im absolutely sure a PR spin is being made about this particular relationship and I do think personally, some type of contract may have been signed. But I have zero proof what happens behind the scenes so I cannot sit here and say my assumptions are fact. If that makes some blogs on here think I’m playing “team middle” then so be it.

To me, it makes the most sense to be in the middle. There’s a saying that the truth often lies somewhere in the middle and I believe that’s likely true here.

I like your blog and your insight and I hope you don’t go anywhere!

you seem to have the right attitude, anon! thank you for stopping by and sharing your perspective; especially for appropriately identifying what is your own feelings and opinions.

i urge everyone to continue asking relevant questions. sometimes those questions won't or can't have public answers, but it is important to keep those looming in one's brain.

i hope that no one is asking or saying anything so outlandish to chris' face. even if it IS true that the situation is contractual (which we do not know!) he would absolutely NOT be able to discuss such things with random strangers. conversely, no one on the internet should be angry about receiving logical questions. if someone is going to claim something as truth, be able to back it up.

and don't worry... the principal has no plans to go anywhere! thanks for sticking around.

[battlekilt]

I saw your reply to a post where you mention how fanon has fucked over many character in dw including Fives. And holy shit im so glad someone finally said it. His fanon depictions have become so widely accepeted and annoying, i'd love to see a post actually call them out for once.

Yeah, I agree with you.

I don't know what fanon ideas you are thinking of about Fives, but for me, it is the idea that Fives is an insubordinate chaos child, and sometimes as far as being portrayed as ditsy. He isn't. He is actually quite intelligent, but that part is easy to get the fandom to come to an agreement.

The part that is the most side-eye from me is the idea that he is insubordinate. We see him on Rishi Moon reading the regulations.

Fives is, in all honesty, a very responsible, and respectable soldier. Sorry to say, but you don't become an ARC Trooper unless you are. They are the elite of the elite. They have to be smart, well-disciplined, and also have the capacity to understand when and how to act in defiance.

The idea that Fives causes so many problems for his superior, like Rex, is absurd, and just a self-projected wish that Fives be the chaos child others want him to be. Fox and Cody suffer similarly. On the flip-side, Echo and Rex suffer in contrast; they were the boring ones.

Fives didn't try to reveal the chips out of defiance of the military, but in compliance of his overruling operative. He uncovered a mechanism by which the Jedi could be slaughtered, in mass. To him, it looked like a means of treason, at the expense of the only friends the Clones had, the Jedi. Which, it ultimately was.

This does fundamentally come down to, again, a lack of understanding of how the military operates.

More to the relevant point, it shows a lack of emphasis on what facts and details we are given about the characters.

Another aspect of Fives's character that I do not agree with is one he has in common with Obi-Wan. I personally do not agree that sexual-liberation means what feels to me to be hypersexualization. To me, the opposite of slut-shaming isn't making someone a slut.

I understand that, ultimately, people have different priorities in what they want to get out of their engagement with a franchise and fandom. For some, it is just... what would make them laugh, or tickle their proverbial boner. People are in it for the deep-dive examination, and others are in it for world-building.

My biggest issue is, and remains, when the fanon ideas are perpetuated to the point that it becomes the presumptive norm.

Too many times I've had people assume that I headcanon Cody's name originating from Kote, that I ship or DON'T ship the same things they do, or that I participate in a specific trope.

All this being said, the problem with "calling out" the fandom is it makes people feel like they are being attacked, that their favorite toys are being taken away. They won't listen, and instead, will get on the defensive... and often, they can get nasty. Hell, I've had people try to start a riot because I voiced that I wished more people would research the military.

No one is obligated to interpret things the same way as others. If others want to write PWP for the sake of it, they can. I would, personally, be exhausted trying to pretend my position because I can already hear the reply that no one is required to do— Yes, I know. No one is required to do anything. No one is required to watch all of TCW, do the research into the military, perceive the dynamics of the Clones with the Mandalorians the same way. I get it. I know that. It feels a lot like the, "Pineapple is good for you, eat more Pineapple," followed up with, "I'm allergic to Pineapple" or "I don't like Pineapple." Because obviously the only answer is, "Then, don't eat Pineapple."

At this point, everything feels like YKINMK: Your kink is not my kink, except, instead of kink, it is fandom tropes and characterizations.

No matter how good of an argument I have against the fanon tropes characters like Fives, Fox, Cody, Obi-Wan, and others are subjected to, no one is obligated to alter how they engage. If they want to continue under those tropes, I cannot stop them, nor would I do so even if I possessed the power.

But yeah, fanon and fandom ruin more characters than even the IP holders do.

[jungshookz]

hey cee I think I’m aLso in my smitten!yn era

there’s this guy I met last year and he’s the sweetest dorkiest funniest darling ever and I think we get along really well. he lives quite far away so we’ve been facetiming a lot and (since we both play violin) sometimes we’ll call each other while we’re practicing and give each other feedback, or sometimes just listen to music and vibe and it’s the best thing ever. we also have a lot of inside jokes and we even have matching zebra plushies!! I just really really like him.

but he just told me like last week when we were calling that he was gonna go to his one friend’s graduation that’s happening on the 13th (and I think he’s traveling early to see her).

I have a feeling that he really likes her bc he always talks about how her siblings are like his own brothers and they just get along so nicely. this girl is also like the sweetest prettiest smartest person and she’s so nice and I also know her fairly well, so I could never wish ill on her bc she’s just,,,so so wonderful.

he’s also mentioned briefly that they had some sort of argument or falling out last fall (he didn’t seem to want to tell me so I didn’t push it) and that was when he kind of just shut off and didn’t answer to my texts or anyone else’s. so he plans to go to her house and surprise her and he seemed really excited about it (she had just texted him telling him they needed to ‘talk’—im assuming theyre gonna work out whatever’s been going on).

so I’m just kind of conflicted and sad bc for one I kind of feel like I’m living in someone else’s romcom—they really do have the perfect setup and deep down I know they’d be great together. I do feel like a second lead or whatever lmao. also he’s four years older than me and we just might be on different paths in life.

I’m just choosing to be happy for him and hope that he and the girl work out their disagreement or whatever happened between them, and that he has a lot of fun surprising her for the graduation. I know I’m probably just a friend to him and whatever I think is just in my head.

sorry to whoever is gonna read this, and if you made it this far thanks for listening <3 I’m not asking for any solution, just wanted to tell someone what I’ve been burying for a while. love you cee :)

okay people we really need to focus on our own traits and what we bring to the table and what we love about ourselves because yes other people may be sweet and kind and smart but WE ourselves are also sweet and kind and smart!!! i don't know if what i'm going to say is going to useful or even relevant to your situation but i have been getting a concerning number of 'cee i'm also in my smitten era' messages and I MUST SAY THIS

ever since my breakup i've been operating with the 'the universe will always lead me to where i need to be' mindset and just trusting the process and i think that if ur in ur smitten era you should also trust this mindset -- if you are not meant to be with this person, it just means that there's someone else out there who you haven't met yet that will think YOU are the sweetest kindest smartest person they've ever had the pleasure of knowing. we do not chase after people who don't want us and as hard as it was for me to understand this point (and tbh i'm still working on this) our self-worth and value is dependant on ourselves and nobody else. just because the person you like potentially may not like you back does not mean that you are not good enough or pretty enough or smart enough, i always chalk it up to a compatibility issue! and why the heck would you want to be with someone you aren't compatible with romantically!!! gosh darn it!!!! everyone needs to STAND UP i want everyone in this room to tell me what they love about themselves nAAoOWW

but also yes depending on how old you are a four year age difference is significant because like 18 and 22 or 19 and 23 for example are both SUCH different foundational ages (recently found out my ex just started dating a 19 year old and it skeeved me out a little so maybe i'm just biased) so you can be sad about this for as long as you need to but just know that perhaps this is for the best and you will find someone more compatible