#this isn't supposed to be a hate post but tagging just in case people don't want to see this kind of discussion about a game they like

[yuurivoice]

you need to know about your mod sandrockskaterpaladin (dusty). he's rude and hates your fans. i asked a simple question and he mocked me in his answer. you need to remove him as a mod and kick him out of your community immediately

I'll preface this by saying that you're receiving no benefit of the doubt or grace because of your behavior that I personally have been alerted to and been watching as you not so subtly whine in the YuuriVoice tag.

You're out of you're goddamn mind thinking you can treat my mods like shit, get treated with more respect than deserved of your presumptuous and petulant behavior, then come running to me. Me? Because you thought THAT was rude? Oh honey. You don't know me very well at all.

Talking reckless about my people like that isn't going to fly. I don't know what kind of asinine troll job you think this is, but I can't tell if you're stupid, twelve years old, or just painfully unfunny. Whatever the case may be, that's your problem and you shouldn't be making it anyone else's.

For onlookers, this person tried to scold Dusty for *checks notes* not posting about YuuriVoice...because he's a mod. Mind you, it was on his personal blog, where he has shared his love and interest for things well beyond my content since forever. Because...that's normal? That's standard?

Literally no one who moderates for anyone is somehow supposed to turn in their fandom and dedicate their lives to their creator like they're Jesus.

Christ forgives. Unfortunately, I do not in a case like this.

You don't need to be anywhere near me, my community, or anyone even in the same ballpark as us until you get fuckin real.

Gobble my nuts and go fuck yourself. ✌️

[utilitycaster]

Hi there, I saw in one of your tags recently that "if you think the raven queen was being unfair, I'm not really interested in your opinions." I was wondering if you could talk a little more about that because I'll be honest, Vax isn't my favorite character but I've seen all of C1 and I really don't get why some people HATE the RQ, call her unfair, manipulative and pretty plainly say this moon conflict is mostly her fault because she took Vax and through a Domino effect Ludinus is releasing Predathos. Also, I enjoy your theories and analysis for CR so much you got me listening to Midst, so thank you.

Hi anon,

Great question! This is going to be a very long post, with a relatively short initial answer, because there is both the literal misinterpretation that indicates this is not someone with strong analytical skills nor knowledge of canon, and a number of potential mindsets that lead to this manner of thinking in the first place, none of which I respect. You happen to have sort of hit upon the foundational elements of my whole deal re: CR meta, so, buckle in.

The first part is simple: Vex died because Percy triggered a trap before she'd been healed up. We've seen this sort of trap elsewhere in non-divine contexts (Folding Halls of Halas); it's just a form of trap. A particularly nasty one, but this is for a very powerful relic she doesn't want falling into the wrong hands, and, moreover, the party could have likely disabled it either through rogue skills or magic had Percy waited. Vax, then, as the third part of the resurrection ritual, told the Raven Queen to take him instead of Vex. The Raven Queen did precisely as he asked. He did not need to offer this (Scanlan was going to make an offering, the other parts of the ritual had gone well, it was Vex's first death so the DC was low, and Vax could have made any number of other, less dramatic offers), and he did so with the understanding that he would die in lieu of Vex, right then and there. He did not. I think that's the only case, actually, where the Raven Queen was not 100% upfront with her intentions before Vax accepted something; but he offered it voluntarily. Vax was a person who formed extremely intense connections, to the point where it was perhaps unhealthy, and did not believe life without his sister was worth living, and was willing to sacrifice himself to a god.

Everything after that was extremely straightforward. Vax communed with the Raven Queen, who spoke very directly with him in his vision in the Raven's Crest. She was extremely clear when she met with him following his disintegration: he was given the option to refuse her offer, and he took it instead. It is not manipulative to give someone a difficult decision, and if a character you like makes a choice you don't like, it is not automatically the result of manipulation.

As for the moon conflict being her fault…that is, to put it bluntly, unhinged, and what's more, ironic given that that's the manipulative argument. Ludinus tried to commune with Ruidus using a random crystalline artifact beneath Molaesmyr, centuries before Vax was born. He was going to do this regardless. If he couldn't get Vax, he'd get some other sliver of divinity, and what's more, it's been all but stated that Vax is not actually supposed to be leaving the Shadowfell to protect Keyleth, and is disobeying the Raven Queen directly (and it's been stated that this isn't necessarily helpful for Keyleth, who is trying to grieve and move on). So: Vax made his choices with the knowledge of what they entailed, is trying to bend if not break the conditions to which he agreed with full knowledge in a way that probably isn't healthy for him or Keyleth, and it's bananas to be like "wow look at how the Raven Queen made Ludinus try to free Predathos." Like. Even if she had tricked Vax, which she didn't, Ludinus literally could have just kept on his racist imperialistic longevitymaxxing beat indefinitely and left the moon well enough alone. The domino meme is a meme. I mean, while we're at it, couldn't we trace it back to Vecna instead, for killing Vax with Disintegrate in the first place, since had he not done so, Vax would have either survived that fight or would have been resurrected normally? Or perhaps it's Percy for triggering that trap. Or the Chroma Conclave for being the reason why Vox Machina was seeking the Deathwalker's Ward in the first place…but that only happened because Allura and Kima didn't kill Thordak but rather sealed him, and because a priestess of Melora cursed Raishan so that she had reason to ally with Thordak. We can go on indefinitely; the point is, to assign blame specifically to the Raven Queen when Ludinus literally did not have to do a goddamn thing with the moon is a fucking stupid take.

Below the cut, I talk root causes behind why people might decide the Raven Queen was unfair and come up with the above nonsensical argument to support that, since I don't think people say stupid things just to be stupid.

I think one root cause for this mentality of this is that the person in question wishes Vax hadn't died and is looking for someone to blame because they don't want to blame Matt Mercer and Liam O'Brien, even though yeah, that's who to blame. The thing is, as we learned in Campaign 2, character death is quite literally on the table. Had Vax not made his bargain, either in episode 1x103 or his original one during Vex's resurrection? He might have simply remained dead. Had he not given his life for Vex's, he was pursuing paladin anyway with the Everlight, and we don't know what she'd have required of him. But more importantly, for all people like to bring up a PC-centric perspective (which, in Actual Play, is inevitable) Vox Machina's frequent use of resurrection spells was in fact a massive privilege most people in Exandria do not have. And, unsurprisingly for a table whose DM made up rules specifically to make resurrection more difficult, the Critical Role cast is open to a story where death exists. I do not think it's an accident that resurrection has been made even harder in the subsequent campaigns. I also happen to think that Campaign 1 is a far richer and better story with Vax's death, given the other events that occurred. Had Vax not been the sort of person who would offer his life for a god to take in exchange for his sister? Sure, he'd possibly have lived to the end. But he was, and that's the character those people who wish he were still alive loved. If he wasn't that person, they wouldn't have liked him in the same way.

D&D is fundamentally about exceptional characters becoming more powerful, and will be focused on those characters. I do not think D&D supports a story about characters who reject all power. They can give up political power (the Mighty Nein, for the most part, do this - certainly more so than Vox Machina, and Bells Hells is yet to be seen) but they will progress in levels, which is power. Even if unwanted, it is power, because most people in the world are commoners with 5 HP and 10 in all their stats. With that said, a lot of people desperately want a subversion of this power narrative. Vax is, I think, the closest we get. In D&D you are not going to get a player character who finishes a campaign and remains Just Some Guy. But you can have someone like Vax, who doesn't have any interest in power (compare to Vex, who very much is about power and who gets a much happier ending) who nonetheless ends up on the Tal'Dorei Council and the favored of a god…and yet, in the end, his equally powerful friends still can do nothing to save him. I think a Power Bad story is overly simplistic, but "there are limits to power, and ultimately none of us have complete control" is not. I think Vax's death gives the story of Vox Machina a finality and heft that it would lack otherwise.

A second possible cause is the "What if the gods are BAD" argument. I'm going to be totally honest: I did not see this in the fandom until Campaign 3, and honestly, not until EXU Calamity in any widespread sense, which does lead me to believe that most people did not come up with it as a reasonable idea on their own until characters started saying it, because it is so plainly in conflict with the themes of Campaigns 1 and 2 that to make this argument would be obvious projection. Do I think a nuanced view of the gods as flawed beings, rather than perfection, is warranted? Absolutely. Mortals, too, are flawed, and we don't kill them all for it. I think Vax's story makes them uncomfortable because it makes it clear divine favor is not, as Ludinus Da'leth tries to argue, the gods just bestowing and withholding their gifts arbitrarily, but rather that divine favor comes with a divine responsibility as well. Clerics and paladins do not study the way wizards do; but they must live lives in service, whereas a wizard can shut the book at the end of the day and do whatever. Clerics and paladins have powers that can be taken away; a wizard does not. That's the fundamental concept behind the Age of Arcanum - wizards trying to get around the fundamental rules of this world! Vax's paladin powers came at a price. His options are guided, but also limited, by the oath he took. He is far more fettered than a wizard, in the end, and I think that fucks with the narrative of the gods cruelly withholding their gifts from all but a select few, so they instead make their gifts into manipulative punishments…while still, contradictorily, arguing that characters such as Laudna or Ashton or Imogen were denied the mercy of the gods. Now, setting aside the obvious, that these characters have their backstories because Marisha and Taliesin and Laura decided they would because this is a story, and one in which someone had a perfect life would be boring and so the gods didn't intervene with Laudna because Marisha Ray wanted to play a Sun Tree corpse (see next section), it really is fascinating to see how people who hate the Raven Queen so neatly align with Ludinus. It's fine for sorcerers to have inborn powers, apparently, and Ludinus actually has himself tried to ape druidic magic; it's not about power, it's just about that power source. Honestly, they're not even above the gods as a power source - Ludinus used the crystal beneath Molaesmyr seemingly unaware if it were of the Archheart, and he's demonstrably using Vax, and everyone loves a resurrection from the gods, but heaven forbid you pay someone for the work you feel yourself entitled to. (Entitlement: this will also be a theme throughout the rant portion of this post.)

As a brief subsection to this: the idea that bad things happen to good people because the other side of that coin is free will is an ancient theological and philosophical discussion, and one we are obviously not going to solve here, though it is a little depressing I have had multiple rewarding conversations on this topic, thanks to an academically rigorous religious education, starting from the tender age of 9, and a lot of adults on Tumblr seemingly can't engage on the level of my third-grade classmates. I think, however, it tells a truth that fits in well with the wizard (and entitled fan) desire to control everything. People are terrified of random forces. Cancer, for example, is a matter of probability. There are things that can increase your chances of developing cancer, to be sure, but the simile I used when I was taught about radiation-induced cancers was that of lottery tickets: if you buy more, you have a better chance; but sometimes someone who bought a single ticket "wins" and someone who bought a ticket weekly never does. By believing the gods of Exandria are on trial for not intervening with every little hardship or for not taking Vax precisely as he intended, they reveal a profound terror of random chance and of the free will of people who are not them. Which is very funny when you consider we're watching Actual Play, where random chance is a deliberately induced element. I think the takeaway of all of this is "I think some of you guys are really mad this is a D&D game." But let's continue.

The third, and honestly most likely cause, is honestly sort of a continuation of the first but not centered around Vax so much as just a general, in my opinion deeply childish discomfort of any sort of tragedy or unhappiness in fiction. I've noticed this a lot lately, and I am not a cultural critic and don't have a high enough level view to pretend to be one, but as others have noted a lot of people seem affronted when whatever show they are currently watching does not meet their specific standards of "comfort media" or "hopepunk." It's a self-infantilization I don't care for, and it's certainly not limited to the CR fandom (see: any grown-ass adult passionately defending a choice to only watch children's cartoons and only read YA) or even fandom at all (see: the baffling popularity of the Mr. Rogers "look for the helpers" line which was intended for anxious young children, not for adults who can and should be the helpers). It really came into focus for me with CR when people referred to both EXU Calamity and to Candela Obscura's Circle of Needle and Thread as specifically "hopeless." They are, to me, deeply hopeful series. They are sad, and tragic, and many characters do not get a happy ending, but they are ultimately about how some people will endure, and will live on and find meaning after great loss. Calamity explicitly states that because of the actions of the heroes, while devastation will occur, total annihilation is mitigated. It's like the adage of how courage only means something in the face of fear; hope only means something in the face of darkness. Happy and fluffy tales are not hopeful; they are merely not things that require you to have hope. The root word of catharsis is that of cleansing and purgation and it originally related to physical excretion - cathartic stories are about getting those complicated and ugly emotions and fears out and feeling better for it by briefly feeling, perhaps, worse! Now, again, this has worsened with Vax's story with time. Shortly after Campaign 1, it was very common to see stories where Vex or Keyleth were utterly distraught, indefinitely, but those at least were engaging with grief, even if in a very shallow and unproductive way. But this has morphed into this idea that the fact that a work of fiction might make you even feel sadness makes it bad, and wrong, and hopeless, and the machinations of a cruel and heartless god. Which brings me back to the entitlement narrative: it's really as simple as "the story didn't give me what I wanted (whether that was a happy ending for Vax, or for Keyleth, or just a lack of sadness generally, or a narrative about the gods that validates my personal beliefs, or a way to justify Ludinus's actions), so it is bad." Which again is about being in control of the narrative, which again, in D&D, is simply not something anyone can claim. Why are these people here watching a D&D game? I don't know.

So that's really it: on a basic level, if you think the Raven Queen is unfair, you are profoundly ignorant of canon, so I'm already going to have to fact check anything you cite (if you cite at all), but there's a much deeper refusal to meet stories where they are and expand one's own comfort zone at play, and that means any analysis will never consider the possibility that your pre-existing beliefs were wrong (absolutely crucial in meta). You will always play it too safe and be uninspired and reactionary because the alternative is uncertainty and fear. I think a refusal to embrace tragedy in fiction is itself a profound tragedy; that is someone who is terrified to believe that life goes on.

[wispforever]

Some thoughts on Itachi

So, I've seen a lot of comments circulating about my tags on this post, and I'm intrigued at the interest. I didn't expect it, as I see much more pigeonholing of Itachi's character than honest to god analysis. No hate- I'm no stranger to Kishimoto's writing. Some of his characters were unfortunately butchered or never given the chance to be developed properly, and Itachi is most certainly no exception. That said, I like to grant him a bit more nuance than I see on most blogs. I think people get a little wrapped up in the supposed "moral implications" of exploring how Itachi was also a victim of the system, as well as someone who victimized many people. But it's silly to equate character analysis and context consideration with condoning genocide.

I have a good laugh every once and a while at the metaphorical gymnastics people do in order to stay in the good graces of a bunch of internet trolls who are just Waiting for any opportunity to tell you you love murder and think it's delicious just because you made a post exploring a character's background. Media is grey; it's layered and wonderfully complex. There are many wrongs and rights in every story, and many wrongs and rights within those wrongs and rights. That's what I love about Naruto. Often times it's really too much like real life. Instead of people being black and white, right or wrong, bad or good- they're usually in a tough situation, trying their best and falling short, don't have all of the information, acting with good intentions or acting on what they believe will bring about a lesser evil, and then end up hurting others.

But it is much easier to assign blame and move on. A so-called bad person will always be the perfect scapegoat for issues bigger than them. In Itachi's case, the fascist government in the Leaf. It's easier to say Itachi could have just refused and decided not to be involved, than to recognize that like almost every other character in the narrative, he was under extreme duress, living in a military state. He was a child whose existence, along with all the other children and adults in the Leaf, was only valuable as long as he could serve as a tool for the war machine in the shinobi world's fucked up political system. And saying this is not the same as saying he was not capable of better decisions or that everything that he did thereafter or in general should not be read critically or subject to hypothetical consequences. It is the same as a saying his actions cannot be fully understood without complete context, and the themes of Naruto will never come through if every villain is just "evil" with no further nuance. And it would be boring too LOL

That said, I love to think about Itachi's situation back then. The ages in Naruto are a bit muddled, a little inconsistent, subject to change and interpretation, but Itachi was a child when he murdered everyone in the Uchiha compound. Most sources say he was 13. It should go without saying that someone so young isn't capable of the same decision-making or critical thinking as say, a 30-year-old, someone whose brain is finished developing and has much more experience on Earth.

Itachi's experience at this point in his life is informed by his age, and it's obviously informed by his childhood, as he has no other place from which to draw conclusions. Itachi grew up in a warring state. He saw people die and was subject to extreme violence in his formative years. To make matters worse, he was taught that war was inevitable and the only thing he could do to guard against it was kill others before they got the chance to kill him (threaten the village). Thusly, Itachi internalized at a very young age that what was in his power was to minimize damage (to himself, to his village, and to the world). What was not in his power was to stop this violence entirely (by adopting a critical mindset and going against fascist powers).

A part of this I think people often forget is that Itachi has absolutely nowhere to adopt this mindset FROM, as even though his father and the other members of the Uchiha clan seek equity in the Leaf, if they were to overthrow the Hokage and create a new system, it would still presumably center around the same ideals (minus, of course, the oppression of the Uchiha as a group). Fugaku is the head of the Uchiha clan at this time. As someone who imposed near impossible performance-related expectations on both of his sons, and withheld love and affection whenever they came up short (so often that it was at the cost of having any considerable emotional bond with either of them), there is absolutely no good reason to believe that Fugaku would reform the Leaf using a non-fascist ideology. And if he did, there is no good reason to believe that he would be some kind of visionary LMAO

This is important to remember because when it comes down to Itachi's decision to either kill everyone in the Uchiha compound and his family, or be part of the coup that would overthrow the Leaf, some people treat it as though it's a choice between fascism and non-fascism, which it most certainly is not. And if it was, Itachi, as a child who had grown up immersed in this ideology, would not be able to appreciate the difference. This context allows us to understand further what Itachi was really weighing in that moment. Accounting for his young age and limited worldview, the only valuable difference in this moment to Itachi was the amount of bloodshed that he would "allow" to happen. Essentially, he sees the options as follows:

Either give in to Danzo and kill everyone in the Uchiha compound, or facilitate a coup where the current government is (hopefully) overthrown and risk starting another war.

Here, Itachi pauses. He has known war. He knows how it affects children, adults, families, and whole nations. The peace he's living in currently is bought with blood, but it's the only peace he's ever known. The alternative is horrifying. And a war in this context, Itachi likely thinks, would be his fault, as he has now been put in the position to "prevent" it. Danzo and the whole shinobi system have groomed him into thinking so. Itachi, at age 13, cannot understand that there would be no war; it exists only as leverage for Danzo's argument at this point. His sensitivities are being played on.

Fugaku, though he is not the same as Danzo, offers about as much help as he does (that being none). Fugaku has no interest in avoiding war; if a war breaks out, it's justified because it will still mean his clan will no longer be living in oppression. This idea is valid, as fascist systems and discrimination can only cease to exist when we rise up against them; unfortunately, this most often calls for righteous violence, as the oppressive powers will not be moved with peaceful shows (not to mention they are willing to go to extreme lengths to avoid losing their hold on the people they have crushing power over, i.e. the Uchiha massacre). But Fugaku has no words to explain this to Itachi, who fears the worst and further fears being responsible for the worst. All he does is act as if it's a moral failing that his 13-year-old son is unwilling to stage a coup, which he believes could mark the abrupt end of a peace that's only just begun.

That said, let it be known that Itachi does appreciate this situation with SOME nuance, though it isn't of the kind that might have enabled him to see he was being manipulated. He at the very least understands that Danzo is a warmonger and oppresses those he fears (the Uchiha). He understands that the rights of his clan have been sorely disrespected, and that the issue needs correction. He understands the anger of his friends and family. This is why it takes him much deliberation before he can even come close to making a decision. He plays both sides right up until the end, listening to Danzo, as well as Fugaku and Shisui, paying attention to the current atmosphere in the Leaf as he tries to decide.

It is something he doesn't want to do. Here's where I get to the part I put in the tags of my drawing.

In this situation, it's almost worthless to write an analysis about Itachi's feelings at this time, his understanding of what was actually going on, his loyalty to his clan or his loyalty to the Leaf, because really, he could not grasp it. He was never prepared for this. He never knew he would be asked to make a decision he could only understand as "your family or the world?"

Itachi was put in a position that had no happy ending. There was no decision he could make that would not hurt. That could not result in a cataclysm that split him right down the middle. There was no version of this story that a 13-year-old could carry out thinking "I have done the right thing."

And that's the important part. Both sides asked him to make this decision, and so both sides are guilty of placing an immeasurable pressure on a child who should never have been put in such a position. Regardless of ideology, regardless of price, regardless of oppression or loyalty or devotion or any other thing- someone else should have made this decision for Itachi. Someone else should have been responsible. An adult, at the very least. Someone who COULD understand the implications of both options. Someone who COULD go forward and appreciate the evil of fascism and know that a coup was necessary. Itachi was never capable of such a thing. If he made the "wrong" decision, than every child who can't explain to you what a fascist government in a military state looks like and explain what the difference is between a hate crime and resisting a hateful power, is also wrong. Here is the nuance. These are things a 13-year-old in this universe cannot be expected to understand unless they are taught. And Itachi had no teacher. Quite the opposite. There were only forces pressing him from both sides, saying "choose."

Had his father done this for him, had Shisui been in this position, had any other adult Uchiha acting as a spy been put to this task, it would be a much different narrative. But of course, it had to be Itachi, who Danzo knew he could manipulate. It had to be a child, someone skilled enough to do the job, but inexperienced enough, afraid enough, to be willing to sacrifice everything they had to see the mission through. Someone you could whisper "greater good" to and have them hand over their well being on a plate. Someone who didn't understand they had the power and strength to destroy the system threatening them.

On a narrative level, Itachi exists to illustrate this point. How young people are systematically indoctrinated to serve a greater purpose, be it under a specific government, religion, or otherwise. We see it in real life fascism, in real life cults. There's no mistake. It isn't an accident that Itachi's story begins like this.

Which brings me to the rest of his life. The reason I drew the picture in the post referenced at the top. Itachi's character is a bit of a mystery the rest of the anime. Be that because of bad writing or an intentional omission, his motives, thoughts, and opinions are largely left ambiguous. However, there are still a few moments that interest me as far as the implications of his development.

When Itachi first comes back to the Leaf village, he faces Kakashi. On the one hand, this could simply be a narrative tool- the big bad meets the big good. He takes Kakashi out of commission! The first rogue shinobi we see who is able to defeat the pillar of the Leaf, the Copy Ninja, and without even breaking a sweat!

On the other hand, I find the brutality of Itachi's attack very intriguing. Again, it could be the tough guy act, but he's able to keep three jonin busy easily using standard genjutsu (with the help of Kisame). It wouldn't be a stretch to say that using the tsukuyomi is overkill, and at a considerable price, we learn later.

Why then would Itachi, who has been shown to have excellent battle intelligence, who is strategic to a fault, be willing to jeopardize his health among other things just to... scare the Leaf? Make sure Kakashi wouldn't be a nuisance in the future? Sure, the last one would make collecting Naruto less complicated, but they dispatched Kakashi easily enough, and surely Jiraiya, who Naruto was with at the time, would pose a bigger problem than Kakashi.

It doesn't make strategic sense, which makes me wonder if Itachi has a special animosity toward Kakashi. Being his superior in the ANBU before the Uchiha massacre, someone who was willing to conduct surveillance of the Uchiha compound without question, Kakashi could have become a symbol of the indifference of the Leaf for Itachi. He could very well have been a reminder of the inoperable position Itachi was put in when he was still a child, and Kakashi, of course, was an adult. Another adult who did nothing. Noticed nothing. Did not help Itachi.

And while I'm certain that Kakashi would have taken severe issue with the goings on in the Leaf at that time, judging by his reaction when he finds out the truth in Shippuden, Itachi knows him only by what he did then. Facilitated surveillance of the Uchiha compound, was a supportive superior, but nothing greater. A bystander whose compassion, while well meaning, was entirely unhelpful.

I don't think it's far fetched that Itachi fucking crucified Kakashi because he was so angry at what being in the Leaf did to him. At some point, as he got older, he realized how terrible it was. He realized there were people like him. Children who were "born killers". Pawns in the game of the shinobi powers.

After leaving the village, Itachi joins the Akatsuki, who are also seeking peace through war (another story). He is supposed to spy for them, but doesn't follow through in any enthusiastic way (that we're shown). He works alone for quite some time, or else with a group (briefly he was shown with Conan and Kakuzu). He is partners with Orochimaru before he's expelled from the Akatsuki. He is partners with one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist. He grows up and meets many people, sees lots of stories unfold. He learns that he isn't in a minority. Many shinobi are just like him.

And then, as an adult, he is partnered with Kisame, who he finds excellent camaraderie with because of their similar backgrounds. We see in this relationship that he understands what happened to him and what he did enough to acknowledge that, while neither of them are monsters, as many people say, they are human. And humans make mistakes. Humans are complicated. Wrong and right and wrong and right. They understand each other, and Itachi understands more clearly what the world puts these children up to. What it forces shinobi to become. That it isn't all his fault, but he still did it. And so he is responsible. He appears to be able to live with that.

But when he returns to the Leaf, those feelings bubble up. He hates the Leaf. He hates that system. He hates what he did. Maybe he even hates being a shinobi, how his excellence was weaponized, how being an Uchiha doomed him and his clan. And for what?

Itachi is played as a character who is only sensible, only logical, only interested in practical things, has nothing to express. But the way he behaves toward Kakashi in that moment bares all his grief and anger. I just like to think about it. We have so few moments where we get to see Itachi genuinely. The fight with Kakashi, the Sasuke/Deidara fight, his thoughtful moments with Kisame. Just makes me wonder what could've been if Itachi's story had gone a little differently.

Anyway, if anyone would like me to expand on any points or has additional thoughts, feel free to hop in my ask box or leave a comment. Thanks for the interest, I love to talk.

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Welcome New Followers Post xiv

gonna make this bullet points of Things to Know because deadlines, but hi! welcome!

-this is not a jewish identity or a jumblr blog. i am a jewish person and a holocaust historian, so my content often overlaps with those realms of tumblr

-this is first and foremost a public history blog. public history and public historians do history for the public. we're passionate about transmitting complex historical topics from the academe to the people, and we're in constant (one-sided lmao) conversation with entities such as: film writers and producers, textbook writers, government bodies, journalists, etc regarding the construction of public memory, and the responsibilities that entails

-you don't have to ask if something is ok to reblog. I appreciate the thought, but unless I turn off reblogs or specifically ask people not to engage in certain ways, you're fine, that said:

-I do see and read all tags, replies, and rbs. I consider them public, and I often respond to them as new posts. If you want to engage with me and don't want others to see, then send me an ask which includes the words "please respond privately"

-You can should disagree with me and tell me when you think I'm wrong! Now, I won't lie, years of existing as a young-appearing hyper feminine (i like skirts and bows and sparkly shoes it is what it is) female, Jewish historian have made me defensive and bitey af, and I often misread neutral tones as "coming for me" tones and respond in kind. I apologize for when/if that happens to you, and I assure that, once I realize you're not coming at me in bad faith, I will feel horribly guilty.

-There is a learning curve here. I don't have any desire to gatekeep my blog (it's the opposite tbh), but I do use high level terms which can have multiple meanings in different contexts. I actively try to avoid using impenetrable academic jargon in this space, but sometimes that jargon is the only appropriate phrasing available. In those cases, I urge you to do some research and poke around and then, if you still don't understand what I mean, DM me.

-I am a white, American woman. I am actively anti-racist, and anti-bigotry in general, but there will be times when I do or say something clueless or privileged. If you see that and you have the energy, please tell me! I want this blog to be a welcome place for all,* and I appreciate call-outs as an opportunity for (un)learning.

-Building on that, this is an anti-bigotry space which I'd like people of all demographics and identities to feel comfortable engaging with.* That said, I don't play nice when some random corner of tumblr rolls up in here and barfs their shit all over my posts.

-I am a cringe millennial. I started this blog in 2011, when I was 21, had just finished college, before I'd heard back from any graduate schools, and before I had much resembling a career. I am currently 34. It's fine. But a lot of you are in your teens and 20s and are just starting on your careers, so like, please don't negatively compare yourselves to me or get self-deprecating when/if you want to contact me. We all learn and achieve at different paces and that's ok.

-My book, The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto, will be released in Fall 2025. Trust me I will be screaming from the rooftops and you will not miss the announcements lmao.

-If I don't reply to an ask or a DM, it's not because I hate you. There are 800 reasons why I may not reply, and none of them are personal.

and finally

-I am not your Good Leftist Anti-Zionist Jew. I am not here as a rhetorical cudgel for left-wing anti-Semites who seek out Jews with politics similar to mine to then use as a weapon against other Jewish folks. Don't fucking do it.

*That does not mean that everything I post here will make you feel comfortable. History isn't supposed to make you feel comfortable. Sometimes, it can and should make you feel actively uncomfortable, because that discomfort/cognitive dissonance means you're learning (keep your cognitive dissonance temper tantrums tf away from me, tho). It does mean that I, as an individual, want you all to feel that this is a space where you are welcome to learn and ask questions.

i tried to use bullet points to keep this short, and i failed miserably. on brand.

[damnfandomproblems]

reponse to 759912485980717056

TRAUMATIC??

are you kidding me? it's perfectly fine to be cautious around cishet stuff, even if fandom wasn't created by and for poc and queer people. but that's why 'don't like don't read' exists. these people are actively searching for stuff they don't enjoy just to be mad about something.

newsflash: fandom is for everyone. yes, it's mainly populated by queer people, but that doesn't mean it's okay to treat straight people, or people who ship heterosexual couples, the same way you hate to be.

hating a ship is valid, but harassing others when you can just scroll past it is not. fandom is supposed to be a safe space, a place you can indulge in. it's not specifically for queer ships. if that was the case, then gen fics would not be a thing. ao3 wouldn't have a m/f tag. canon ships would never get fanfics.

they're sure as hell not obligated to respect cishet ships, but they also shouldn't be harassing people simply because their ship isn't queer

Posting as a response to a previous ask.

[sunnymainecoonx]

I forgot I could put effort on shading(at least some kind of effort... shattered is a little chaotic but I'm too lazy to put a mind to that) it's still lazy but in the effort sense

Anyways, frozen stuff, I'm assuming Nightmares corruption is also just some sort of power(I kind of forgot how it worked but) and something like embracing it? Well, angst timeline, Dreams is more driven by hate and betrayal, and logically the kingdom also betrayed him(they betrayed Nightmare and thought Error as a hero aaand that's pretty bad in Dreams case...) soo he kills MOST of the kingdom along with Error.. some managed to evacuate. He's probably too kind a soul to do this but the corruption brought out all his hatred and.. that didn't end well for most ☺️ the x-tale people probably somehow got Cross to go there(I was too lazy for Epic, he's probably there too but this isn't the rizz timeline so Dream's just Cross' husband)(well that's a lie because Error was the one to marry Dream, but they had a nice and peaceful divorce so). I forgot how the trolls worked but come on.. like— leave me alone T-T Frozen came out in like 2013 how am I supposed to remember it

I imagine that Dreams corruption is slow, he doesn't want to do this but it hurts a little too much. Loss of his brother and friends with no one else to trust, probably some sort of abusive relationship(it is but I don't think in the physical way-) but like imagine having to marry the murderer of your sibling. Just constantly living in despair- no one believes in you?? Having nothing to make you happy?? Just, there, probably not even living just

He's just sad :( I would be too, probably do something... vile. Yeah. But then again, now that he's a monster, why would anyone love him now? How could his friends still like him. Cross is already looking at him with nothing but fear and pain. He killed almost an entire kingdom. How cruel

I ALMOST FORGOT THE TAGGING(that's the word right? This isn't being bad at English I'm just... I have a little memory and phrasing problem ☺️ I forgot a little of my own language too... but we don't talk about it) I WAS ABOUT TO POST IT HECK( @cakesmelons )

[doodlemancy]

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhh

so here's the deal re: this fucking horseshit. god i hate this.

i, personally, have mostly given up on trying to dodge inclusion in AI datasets. the stuff i make generally isn't what they're looking for anyway and there's no real way to 100% avoid being scraped short of becoming entirely invisible online, which would um, lead to me having no money and dying. that's part of the cruelty of all this, but also, in a way, it's the same risk artists online have always taken; if you want people to see your work, you have to post it knowing that some of those people are fucking lowlife piece of shit scumbags who will try to resell it on redbubble or something for a quick buck. AI is just a new and exhausting way for garbagey people to stink worse. i am not in any way excusing that behavior or trying to imply people should not be mad about it or that we shouldn't condemn this move and fight back. "if you don't want your work stolen, don't put it online" is the kind of shitty Internet Tough Guy talk i've always hated since my dA days. it's as useless and heartless as telling people that if they don't want their bikes stolen, they shouldn't leave them at the bike rack. i'm saying that i, personally, will not let a bunch of soulless thieving shitheads drive me offline. i belong here. they belong in a wifi-proof dumpster.

nightshade and glaze eat my artwork alive. they make it look terrible. when you have to sell things on the basis that they look nice, it's a big problem when protective measures make them look like dogshit. my work is not a good candidate for these processes. even if that weren't the case, i don't have the stamina, especially right now while my chronic pain is flaring for the third month in a row and my adhd meds are scarce, to go back and shade/glaze everything, and it wouldn't work on reblogs anyway. given the way midjourney and its equally stinky siblings have already scraped years and terabytes' worth of image data from popular websites, it doesn't seem worth my time. if you think it is worth yours i am not going to like, yell at you. i am just one person. but i want to be clear about the kind of situations some of us are being forced into.

i think some of the doomsaying about AI and what it will do to us has been overblown-- they need you, for marketing purposes, to believe that someday their shitty robot will be as good at "drawing" and as practical to work with as a human-- but the consequences of "AI" (which is not even actually AI) are already real and visible and obvious to anyone paying attention. i unfortunately am not infinitely wise and powerful and therefore do not have an ideal all-encompassing solution to this deeply stupid problem that the Most Unlikeable Manbabies On Earth have imposed on us after NFTs fizzled out.

what i do have is a very large repository of nice anime and game screenshots i've taken, knowledge of many archives of nice public domain images, a computer that can run nightshade overnight or while i'm off doing other things, and, most importantly, near-infinite capacity for pettiness. i do kinda feel like the jury is still out on how well nightshade/glaze will work in the long run, but in the meantime, i suppose it wouldn't cost me a lot to... perhaps... every time i get Mad About AI™, channel that anger into dumping some thoroughly-but-not-spammily-tagged, high-quality, inconspicuous poison onto this godforsaken hellsite via a secret side blog. i could make a batch of poison ahead of time, keep it on my phone, use my Toilet Scrolling Time or my Public Transit Time to post and tag up an image here and there. it could be a fun challenge to try to make some pretty robot poison that some humans will still enjoy.

the other thing we need to poison at this point, IMO, is the word "AI" itself, by being loudly and mercilessly critical of any company that dabbles in it, the same way we all clowned on any company that pushed their luck with NFT/crypto shit a couple of years ago. we need to have every corporation terrified that association with AI will tank their sales and hurt their brand. AI must = number go down and lots of people screaming at you. companies will fuck around. we must provide the finding-out. we shouldn't have to. but we can!

so make sure to let tumblr know you hate this. maybe you could include this interesting link (tw child abuse) about how Stable Diffusion was trained on some extremely serious crime. or these screenshots of Midjourney devs just sort of admitting what their whole thing is, which i got here but which have kinda been spread all over since January.

spite and anger can be forms of hope. that's all i have to say, or at least all i'm willing to type with my left hand tonight.

[kishimotomasashi]

Alright, Uchiha Clan oppression longpost

This is the unavoidable, and often central, topic people tend to surround their Naruto politics takes on, and is as a result a big, ugly discourse-generator. It's also a subject I'm definitely always thinking about when it comes to Naruto as a noted Sasuke stan, and my thoughts on it have changed gradually over the years. I'm making this post to share what my current interpretation on "how and why the Uchiha Clan were oppressed" is.

Before I do that though, notice on what this post is not:

I'm not writing a "discourse ender", a take meant to be spread around with the claim of being the only correct interpretation of events. This is a post I wrote to share the exact way I rotate an aspect of the manga in my mind, and to convince people that looking at it from this angle is interesting. Basically: it's not that serious, I think about this because it's fun.

This isn't a "character-bashing" post or whatever either, so like if you agree with what you read here, I suppose I can't stop you from using those infamous "anti-[X]" tags, it's just that making a post that warrants them has never been my intention.

Along with that, I do want to address the by now very well established fact that Naruto the series is Not Very Good, and has glaring inconsistencies in its writing. The Uchiha Clan drama is definitely not exempt from this, and in its case the failures in Kishimoto's writing usually show in inconsistent power-scaling, in which we're made to accept weird leaps in logic (how does a 13 year old get rid of what we're told is one of the most powerful and feared clans internationally?) That being said, those particular inconsistencies are kind of irrelevant to this particular post, and don't much change the fact that the Uchiha Clan Massacre did happen. I'll be taking it as a given that if you're reading this, you're accepting to suspend your disbelief of those events on a technical level, and are more interested in how I make sense of it all more on the diegetic social/political level.

With that settled, we can get to the important part now:

The most popular take (as far as I've personally seen) on the events that led to the Uchiha Clan's downfall is the one that takes Madara at his word: the Senju have been oppressing the Uchiha since Konoha's conception, and Tobirama becoming the 2nd Hokage gave him the opportunity to put the Uchiha in a more socially disadvantaged position (police force), gradually earning them the villagers' ire, which was the catalyst for their eventual genocide.

This interpretation works if the end goal of your analysis is to say "Tobirama really fucking sucks". I don't think this conclusion is an unreasonable one, since Tobirama's hostility towards the Uchiha is great enough that he can callously tell a 16 year old genocide survivor that if his clan "self-destructed for the sake of the village, so be it". However, to me, the circumstances surrounding the Uchiha Clan are much wider-encompassing and more fascinating than narrowing their fate to a single man in fan meta written to convince you to hate him, so it goes without saying that I don't think "this is all Tobirama's fault" is a very interesting lens to look at this from.

I also don't buy the argument that making the Uchiha cops was (originally) to their detriment. We'll get back to that in a bit. I suppose this depends on how you look at Tobirama's character, but I think that when he said he made the police force as a sign of trust and to give the clan something useful to do in Konoha, he was being genuine. Arguing the opposite requires you to either believe that a law enforcement order could ever be in an oppressed position by default, or that Tobirama created a fundamentally useless new institution because he just hated the Uchiha that much. I think the former is a weird thing to argue if you're trying to be Leftist about all this, and the latter is a very ungenerous interpretation of Tobirama's character in which his own "racism"/pettiness overshadows his more utilitarian instincts to ensure that the village his brother built was safe and functioning. Obviously you could interpret that, but that leads us back to the "everything is Tobirama's fault" take, that I already mentioned I find lame as hell.

So then, how do I think the Uchiha Clan was oppressed? Because I think they indisputably were, or I wouldn't be making this post. Well, I think it was less "The Senju/Tobirama have always wanted to lord over them and wanted them dead", and more: they became gradually more socially disadvantaged during the era of Hidden Villages, with the consecutive world wars creating a souring global opinion on kekkei genkai clans.

(I'm gonna base my arguments primarily on what we see happen in the manga, and I'll add in some information from the fanbooks/databooks that weren't contradicted by what we see happen in Kishimoto's canon)

Let's start with what we know, definitely, that canon tells us:

Kekkei genkai clans are discriminated against to a very high extent, leading to things such as their mass slaughter (eg, the Uchiha Clan obviously, but also kekkei genkai clans like Haku's clan in the Land of Mist), and a vulnerability which puts them in positions where they're likelier to be targeted and kidnapped (eg, Hinata, but also Orochimaru having a whole criminal entreprise built on kidnapping and experimenting on people possessing kekkei genkai).

The trend for their discrimination is in being scapegoated. When Haku talks about the genocides in the Land of Mist (I refuse to call it the Land of Water sorry it sounds so stupid), this is how he describes them:

(chapter 59)

basically, it's not shinobi as a whole who are badly seen even though all sorts of them were likely participating in those wars: it's kekkei genkai clans in particular. Compare this to the Uchiha Clan being blamed for the Nine Tails attack (I mean one of them certainly was responsible, but was entirely unaffiliated with the rest of the clan) and being roped off to the edge of the village as a result.

Kekkei genkai clans are also frequently described by characters as being a bit "wilder" and more violent than usual shinobi. Tobirama calling the Uchiha "cursed", Kushina describing the Uzumaki as being "a bit savage", and Kakashi introducing us to the concept of kekkei genkai initially with these fun visuals:

(chapter 25)

The thing that's interesting about all this is the context in which it exists: the shinobi villages aren't technically "nations", but I think it would be accurate to liken their possessiveness of their secrets and paranoia regarding outside intrusion + conception of themselves as unified cultural entities + incredibly harsh treatment of dissidents (becoming a rogue is essentially a death sentence) to nationalism. There's an intentse "in-group vs out-group" feeling here.

Not to mention that canonically that shinobi have always been tools of imperialism for greater powers. While Hashirama's initial dream was to put an end to that, it eventually became corrupted; there was already discontent regarding land and resource allocations during his tenure as Hokage, and while we have no idea why the 1st War started, we know that by the time we're on the 2nd one, Konoha had become a tool for the Land of Fire's imperialist expansion (and was apparently was expanding its influence as a military village, too).

(chapter 436)

Basically, the "in-group vs out-group" conception that had once solely been clan-centric widened, and became this new concept of shinobi villages.

This is important because nationalistic sentiment inevitably rises during war; as a result, there's be a sharper eye for who'd turn traitor, who wasn't supporting the military effort, who would endanger their nation/village, etc. With this, there would be greater suspicion directed towards kekkei genkai clans, because they're more "genetically predisposed" to being unpredictable, because they would appear more loyal to their own than to the whole of the village, because they were the likeliest to turn traitor, and so on.

This would be a gradual process going on since the 1st War, but I believe that the 2nd War was where this kickstarted into becoming so much worse, because that one saw the destruction of Uzushio. It was a village composed entirely of a single clan, didn't bend to any of the big 5, and the Uzumaki were "savage" and had abilities that were greatly feared. It would be interesting to consider the idea that their associations with Konoha would have done them more harm than good here, too, given that Konoha was the Big Bad in the 2nd War and an alliance with them would not have been viewed positively.

It's thinking about all this in context, where nationalism was at its peak, where there's an idea that genetic chakra abilities impair swathes of people from being regular functioning shinobi like everyone else, is how we can imagine the Uchiha were discriminated against. They had another disadvantage to them as well, given that one of the first deadly attacks committed on Konoha was done by one of them. If we want to go back to the police force argument, it would be interesting to consider the idea that while it had been a good position for them at first, the utility and influence of the institution gradually eroded over time, and by the time the era where the massacre happened came along it became nearly meaningless since most of its original functions had been assigned elsewhere; as the kekkei genkai clan discrimination rose, the Uchiha also fell victim to it and their influence within the village significantly reduced out of fear of them.

The surveillance and the sequestering of the Uchiha Clan came after two important events; the first being the 3rd Great Shinobi War, and the second being the Nine Tails' attack on Konoha which happened barely a year post-armistice. Konoha was barely recovering from global armed conflict when half of it was destroyed in that attack; tensions are high, the Hokage is dead, and so the village saw an incredibly convenient scapegoat in the Uchiha clan.

So... yeah, that's how I see it! I find this a more fun interpretation than just pointing fingers at individual characters, because it allows me to consider the wider worldbuilding of the Naruto world, and also doesn't assume the Uchiha's position was especially unique and the end-be-all of all the problems with Naruto's politics. It's certainly important, but it's part of a greater network of problems too!

[grimalkinmessor]

I made a little post complaining about the lack of a Light Bashing tag, and now the time has come for me to expand on what exactly counts as bashing! :D

Bashing is described as "villainizing a character, and representing them without any redeeming qualities", and "...demonizing a character, referring to them with derogatory terms, or making them the subject of deathfics or spitefics". Deathfics aren't so common for Light (L Bashing is more common in those, though I have seen Light Bashing in deathfics centered around L) but I think spitefics fit very nicely with some of the ones I've seen.

Generally bashing is a negative deviation from the original character's personality by either ONLY representing their flaws, EXAGGERATING their flaws, or making up NEW flaws.

In Light's case, this is done by presenting him as someone stupid, incompetent, heartless, cowardly, arrogant, and/or sadistic. And yes, given that Light is a villain, arrogant and cowardly do describe his character—TO AN EXTENT. The representation of these traits only becomes bashing when they're pointed out repeatedly and/or exaggerated. (When I say repeatedly I mean it becomes an underlying theme in the story rather than a single part of it, harped on rather than just mentioned).

Now, where I think a lot of people get tripped up is this: Light's looks do not count as a redeeming quality. If your story's stance on him is "he's evil and stupid and I hate him but he's hot so it's okay"—that still counts as bashing.

In fact, even if you DO feature his good qualities in your story, if the bad outweighs the good then that would count as bashing.

Now, where this gets muddied up is, again, the fact that Light is a villain. "But Grim," you say. "How am I supposed to write Light authentically if I can't write him doing bad things?" You can write him doing bad things! You can write him being evil and awful! In fact I encourage it!

What I'm saying isn't that you should morally whitewash Light—I'm saying that bashing is an ignorance of nuance in a negative direction. Writing Light killing people isn't bashing. Writing Light killing people for no reason or for fun is bashing. Writing Light being an absent lover isn't bashing. Writing Light being an abusive lover is bashing. Bashing is, again, a discernible deviation from the known character in a way that makes them worse than they are, or refers to them in a derogatory manner.

"Well Light IS that awful, he SHOULD be demonized! Light SHOULD be referred to in a derogatory manner!" <- this is ignoring character nuance. If you write your fics like this, I politely ask that you tag them as Light Bashing (preferably as Yagami Light Bashing or Light Yagami Bashing, given that there's already a tag for light bashing that isn't Death Note related) because this counts.

And you should do this for every character in your story!! Maybe you enjoy Light, maybe you do enjoy the nuance of his character—you might still ignore L's. Or Misa's. Or Matsuda's. Or Mikami's. Or Near's. Or Mello's. Or a hundred other characters that I haven't mentioned. Don't think I haven't seen just as many fics that ought to be tagged as Soichiro Yagami Bashing out there too 🫵

Bashing is not inherently bad. A lot of people like those sorts of fics, especially when they hate the same characters you do. But the problem the DN fandom seems to have is UNTAGGED bashing. There are several tags that haven't been implemented that honestly should be, and I think it's just because the Death Note fandom is so old. It comes from before the tagging system, from before AO3 was even a thing. Times where authors had to toss up a warning in parentheses right before the smut started 😅

But we DO have a tag system now—and a very good one. I'm asking people to pretty please use it. Help people that hate the same characters you do find your fics. Help people that love those same characters avoid them. It's only polite 💖

[nartml]

it's not "entirely made up", which is the entire reason people are complaining lol have you seen what the fandom has done to the nazi allegory?

i agree that the people complaining are toxic, but also, a lot of the changes are both misogynistic and homophobic, and there's a lot of toxic masculinity and abusive romance tropes being romanticized, are people not allowed to call them out? representation is important, isn't it?

you literally tagged your post, adding to the toxicity

most new works follow the "new model" and people who write different things are harrassed (i've seen people be harrassed simply because they don't ship wolfstar). how are we supposed to change that if we don't call it out?

discourse in fandom is normal. you can just as easily follow your own advice and not read it/block it.

Y'all are quick lmao

Okay, okay, so, to get the easy stuff out the way:

I unfortunately made another hasty post, I didn't elaborate enough, that's definitely on me.

In my defense, it's 2:30am, I need to be up in five hours at the latest, and I saw the fifth post hating on jegulus and/or other fun parts of the fandom that I genuinely cannot find anything objectively problematic about.

I got pissed.

I tagged my post, and I agree that I further fueled the discourse.

This has been something that I've done before, unfortunately. I'm used to thinking of tags as part of screaming into the void, I'll be sure to erase them after this.

But as you said, it's normal for there to be discourse in fandom.

And honestly, that's what I usually do. Ignore it. Like I do with a lot of things I don't agree with on the internet.

I don't remember contributing to this whole ordeal before tbh, and I've been here for a decent amount of time.

But I got so ticked off, I wanted to get it off my chest for once.

Lost my grip there, but I honestly didn't think too deeply about it.

Anyway, yes, yes, obviously it's not entirely made up. We have the HP series, aka the source material, in which we do see quite a bit of Remus and Sirius.

I was more referring to the fact that every single other character in the marauders era, is, in fact, made up.

It's undeniable that, despite the bits and pieces we've heard throughout the books, we can't possibly have any sort of concrete understanding of how these characters were during their Hogwarts days, before the war.

Not only because the bits and pieces don't in any way make up a whole picture, but also because some of them might've been entirely unreliable.

So these characters; younger Remus and Sirius, as well as James, Peter, Lily, Regulus etc etc etc, have more or less been crafted on very arbitrary ideas.

They are made up, and very rarely reconcilable to their adult counterparts, which makes sense from several standpoints. (E.g. their canon characters have been severely beaten down and traumatized. AUs take place in entirely different settings; the context changes entirely, and so do the characters)

Now, as for the nazi allegory, I assume you're referring to a) morons who are glorifying the death eater tattoo (jesus christ), or b) the 'Slytherin Skittles'?

In b's case, I'd wager it started with Regulus and the potential to explore the Black Family dynamics, which then escalated to giving him his own friend group and creating entertaining dynamics between them.

However, I genuinely do not see the harm in this.

It hardly matters that they're canonically deaths eaters, or that they were most likely blood supremacists and horrible people; or whatever else could've been going on with them.

They were so barely mentioned in the actual story. Doesn't matter what effect their existence had on the story and how it served the narrative, because they were barely ever directly there.

We know next to nothing for fact. So it's next to impossible for most people to care for their actions in canon, and just see them as blank canvases.

I can't really fault them for that.

People project whatever they want on characters that are firmly established and thoroughly explored; characters that are borderline non-existent are free real estate.

And yes, changes can totally be problematic.

A prime example is definitely the hyperfeminization of Sirius, to make wolfstar fit the classic heteronormativity that plagues queer ships.

As for the romanticization of abusive romance tropes, I honestly have never seen it.

I mean, I hear people complaining about it, but I swear to fuck, it feels like you guys are fighting ghosts sometimes 😭

Either it's a part of the fandom I've somehow steered clear of, despite being balls deep in it, or some people are exaggerating, which isn't out of the realm of possibility, but I kind of doubt that's the case.

As for toxic masculinity, again, I literally haven't seen it. Hand to my heart, scout's honour, I have not.

Hyperfeminization? Definitely.

Toxic masculinity? Macho men? Written in any context that's not challenging it, and is promoting it? Nope.

Representation is important, and that was the other part my post was based on.

I've seen people hate on the liberties others have taken to explore gender through these characters, which ticked me off even more.

And this is coming from a cis individual, who doesn't really fuck with he/they Sirius, they/them James, etc etc.

I don't think that there's any harm in people creating/enjoying content that is representative of their struggles/experiences with gender (or any other part of life).

Exactly because in the marauders fandom, characters are incredibly flexible, for aforementioned reasons.

Blank canvases, remember?

Usually this hate, from what I've seen, comes from people who prefer sticking to the canon part of this whole story.

In which case, totally, the 'new model' is very. Very. Unrealistic.

(There are definitely harmful headcanons out there. Even within this context, there also exists content that fetishizes the very thing I just defended. But I physically can't sit here and list off every problematic thing that has happened in this fandom. I don't have the energy. And that's not what the post is about anyway)

-"People who write different things are harassed".

Yes, glad that you get my point, even though I obviously didn't get it across.

This goes both ways. This goes all ways. Yeah, people who don't ship wolfstar get hate.

But people who headcanon Regulus as trans get it too.

People who prefer Jily get hate.

But jegulus shippers have their hands full as well.

People giggling over silly headcanons that are honestly just that: silly; can't catch a break.

What was that, you like the new model? Here's all the ways I think it sucks ass.

Oh, you prefer canon? What a loser, you're in the wrong fandom.

Ultimately, the joy gets drained out of everything.

This is meant to be fun. This is meant to be a break from real life stress.

It's not meant to leave you exhausted because you're too busy apologizing about not taking something too seriously, or defending your ship preferences.

In the end, however, I obviously get what you're saying. There are harmful changes that deserve to be pointed out.

But I never said that they didn't. Calling out the notions that are inherently problematic when perpetuated is important.

Constructive criticism is welcome. It's crucial. It only adds, it deepens people's understanding of media and brings attention to problematic aspects of certain interpretations.

That's not what I was referencing in my original post; at least, not intentionally.

I was talking about how so many people love to mindlessly complain about things they don't like, without actually bringing up any substantial points.

The only goal is to tear other people down.

As we've agreed, some of these changes are problematic.

But so is the way some people convey their disagreements.

Some of y'all use your complaints about new character developments to also hide your general prejudice against something.

Like, there's no need to get this heated over genderfluid Sirius.

In this particular instance, it's because the general concept of the 'new model' is pretty mainstream, so it's hard to avoid it. So I know that I'm being a bit unfair when I say, 'ignore it'

Ignoring it is rarely easy though, no matter how mainstream or minor.

It should be, because logically this is all fictional and it doesn't matter if someone dislikes your OTP, or if you think someone's hc is painfully unrealistic.

But we can't help it. It's impossible to care about how fictional something is when it means so much to us.

And seeing something antithetical to our interpretation can feel like some sort of personal attack, even when it's really not.

Part of it also stems from how, when you see fifty other people throwing in their two cents, you also want to.

Because it's a base instinct to want to be heard.

All that said, ignoring it, despite the circumstances, is often the best way to go, because a lot of the time it can be irrational.

Hating on someone because they don't like your ship can be irrational.

Starting a fight over someone's differing interpretation of a character can be irrational.

Think critically before you speak, and be careful when phrasing your points.

Being respectful is crucial, and if you're not getting the same courtesy, then stepping back is the smarter choice.

I'm still working on always maintaining these things myself.

I've been doing a bang-on job, broadly speaking.

I had a slight moment of weakness earlier :P

(For those wondering, I took the og post down. It wasn't anything tragic, I just said that most people who complain about the fandom's toxicity actively contribute to it when they hate on stuff others enjoy.

In the tags I went off a bit, my ultimate points being that the fun is often sucked out of everything, and that if I personally don't like something, I avoid it, stick to my stuff, and don't venture into others' spaces if I'm not willing to be open minded.

But I was definitely more aggressive with the delivery, which was my bad. I hate it when I break my own rules on how I want to behave on here.)

Anyway, so sorry for this long rant, and sorry if I've missed something or made a bad/harmful point. I'm borderline asleep.

And it's now 4:10am and I got too absorbed in this *sigh*

[elvisabutler]

quiet on the set ( part one )

summary: once upon a time there was a female director who happened to be a bit of a nepotism baby despite her father's known distaste for them. once upon a time there was a singer turned singing actor who just wanted to be a serious actor. this is the story of how those two people meet, kind of hate each other, make two award winning films together and fall in love along the way somehow. fandom: elvis presley | elvis ( 2022 ) rating: t, this part at least pairing: elvis presley x original female character word count: 3159 warnings: negative self talk. the colonel. talk of nepo babies. anxiousness. mild period typical misogyny. a whole thing about how transatlantic accents are the worst. playing a bit loose and fast with history. a use of the nickname princess that will exist this entire fic. author’s note: i have had this brewing since december. i've been trying to just straight up finish it before posting but i am truly at this point the most impatient and want to share it with everyone. it's based on a post by @steph-speaks who mentioned a female director and elvis winning awards and then @headfullofpresley and @burninlovebutler got at it and then oops angst. not spoiling it but this doesn't go exactly like the post i promise. i also can't find the post but steph has known about this for a long time. beyond that, so, few things of note, alfred hitchcock's actual daughter had said that he didn't believe in nepotism but i am deciding that in the case of a daughter who wanted to follow in his footsteps, well he could make an exception. in addition, transatlantic pictures shut down after three films but for the sake of this story, i do what i want and no it didn't. beyond that, picture elvis or austin elvis, works well either way i like to think. and special thanks to christi, bee, birdie and marina. i'd tag all of y'all but you're in the taglist so it seems silly. but those four have kept this chugging along more than i'm willing to admit. also credit to marina for the moodboard.

"That's the director?" Elvis asks a bit incredulously, narrowing his eyes at his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. "The one whose daddy gets her all the movies n' scripts she'd like and they turn out kind of good? That's who they've got directing this picture?"

Wasn't that just great, he's got one last shot to make a good- an honest to God good film and he's stuck being a part of the little Princess's latest vanity film. Well, he's hopefully stuck doing it, because while the Colonel assures him that he's going to be in it, that they'll have the contract whipped up in a jiffy but- she's insisting on an audition. Imagine that, him having to audition for a film, it's mildly embarrassing is what it is. He knows- god he knows his career isn't hot, knows that even with the special he's whipping up with Binder and Bones that his career's in the toilet like Binder said. But to have him have to audition for a picture that was a remake of Brando picture? It's an insult and an embarrassment to both him and her even if he figures this is the one time he can fully guarantee he won't have to croon some set of songs that the Colonel insisted get shoehorned in.

"My boy, they asked for you specifically, something about how they wanted a true Southern man in the role this time." The Colonel tries to explain before Elvis runs his tongue over the front of his teeth in frustration.

"Ain't from New Orleans, Colonel. Hell ain't even from Louisiana. Won't sound like Stanley's supposed ta-"

"Nonsense, you don't need to be exact. Just good enough. I've got you another picture! And they're paying you more than than the others." Elvis wishes that hearing that they're willing to pay him more didn't make his ears perk up but it does. It reminds him of how his daddy was mentioning they could use a bit more cash unless he wanted to get rid of some things or some workers.

"'nough to keep everyone happy?" Elvis asks gently, worried the answer is one he's not going to want to hear. He just needs to know his- needs to know his daddy isn't going to remind him of the cash flow problems.

"And more, my boy. It'll put you back on track, hm? I'll have to talk them into some songs but her producers and Miss Hitchcock herself know my demands." A beat. "Our demands."

Elvis can feel the migraine already starting to form behind- or maybe it's around- his eyes and finds himself leaning back against the chair looking up at the sky. It's almost as if he wants to ask his mama if it's the right thing to do. This- He remembers Streetcar, remembers his Mama thinking that Brando was good- great in it but telling him it was a shame a real Southern boy didn't get the part. Now that he's been in the movie business he understands why, understands that making a man from Nebraska talk like it is easier than letting a Southern man do it but find himself without a job because he can't shake how he sounds in a way that makes people- all those who like that accent they call Transatlantic- uncomfortable. Like sounding faintly hoity toity didn't make most people feel dumb as a bag of rocks and feel like Hollywood might be making fun of them. He might have lost his accent a little- consequence of being in California, he figures, he still knows he sounds a hell of a lot closer to Stanley than Brando did.

"Ya- Ya know I don't gotta record anythin' for this. This- this ain't a film that you can put 'em in. People- People won't be expecting that with me playin' him." He manages to avoid the natural infection he wants to add to the end of that sentence. Manages to avoid turning it into a question because he's not entirely sure. His pictures aren't doing as well and he's bored out of his goddamn mind with them, but is it because of the songs or is it because of him?

"That's what will make it different." The Colonel says with a smile that makes Elvis bite the inside of his mouth just a little in frustration. He wants to fight, to argue right now but it's not worth it to even try so he nods slowly earning an even larger smile. "I'll iron out the details. You just- knock her socks off, hm?"

A sigh leaves Elvis's mouth as he nods. He can feel the dreams he had for this film starting to crumble in his mind. The vision's already there, instead of screaming- shouting- bellowing Stella's name, he'll be singing it. Singing about how he needs her and how he's a fool. The same old song and goddamn dance for him to do so people can maybe buy tickets. Maybe see him in something they'll think is a departure from everything but is just more of the same bullshit masquerading as fun entertainment. Mr. Williams- Tennessee's gonna be mortified he let the Princess touch his film and cast him, gonna be mortified a fellow Southern man did his work so dirty. He can faintly hear The Colonel talking but the words honestly don't matter to him any more, washing over him like as if they're nonsense or a different language. Elvis stops nodding and giving appropriate hums after a while and finally was left in blissful silence to contemplate what exactly he had agreed to.

The day of the audition it's raining which Elvis thinks he should have taken as a sign from God that something was going to happen. What that particular thing would be he couldn't know but rain like this when the day before it had been sunny and bright? Hell, when earlier in the day it had been. The umbrella he had kept most of the water from drenching him but it was a near miss as he entered the building. Now, he knows very well where he's supposed to be, he had been told the room, had it written down on a piece of paper, everything, but here he was with a brain feeling half waterlogged and a piece of paper with smudged ink he couldn't read any more.

Well, he could read part of it. Something with the number eight in it assuming that wasn't just the ink smudging to make a zero turn into the eight. It shouldn't be that much of a problem, he doesn't know Warner Bros lots and buildings as well as he should but it's not like there should be that much of a difference between places- between studios. It should be easy enough to find, just look for all the places that had an eight attached to them and he's got to find her in one of them. He just hoped she wasn't a stickler for being on time given the circumstances. Hell, it's not as if this sort of thing was something he prepared for and planned to get caught having a problem with. Then again, maybe he'd get lucky, have a nice third time's the charm moment with rooms he tries.

Eighth time was the charm is what it was beginning to look like. How one place could have so many things that had things involving the number eight he has no idea. He looks at his watch and frowns, he's now almost thirty minutes late and what does he have to show for it? He still hasn't found her or anyone who's been able to even direct him to her. There's a part of him that's about to throw in the towel in sheer aggravation when he opens the door to reveal a woman just a few years younger than him looking so composed and polite he'd have thought he was looking at Princess Grace Kelly herself. Her brunette hair was pulled into a tight bun that somehow didn't make her look too harsh and instead seemed more practical than anything else. His eyes scanned her form starting with heels that he imagined gave her height but also served to lengthen her legs, not that he thinks she needed it, not that much at least. The longer he stares the more he swears she seems familiar but perhaps that feeling is just from the fact that she's another human being who looks like she just might be able to tell him what he needs to know. That she looks- reasonably attractive and has his eyes settling on her ample hips for just a hair longer than he should doesn't mean anything. Elvis manages to take a deep breathe before strolling in like he owns the place and stopping right in front of the woman in the room, completely ignoring the camera that is in the room.

"Thank God, someone who might be able to help- 'm supposed to be goin' to an audition. I know, having me audition for somethin', right? But I'm supposed to be auditionin' for Ms. Hitchcock and I can't find the room she wanted me t'have me do it in. And now I'm runnin' just a bit late and I figure she's gonna have a fit 'bout it." Elvis realizes he's mildly rambling and finds himself pretty thankful that by the grace of God he isn't stuttering from the nerves he feels in relation to this audition. The more he looked into it the more he realized she's a tough sell and is known for- bringing things out of her performers that make him excited- even if he's still so apprehensive- to maybe work with her. His eyes fllt to the camera, finally deciding to take his eyes off of her and her disapproving gaze. "Why are you in here with a camera by yourself?"

Her lips curl into a wry smile before she purses her lips and just lets out a slow exhale. "Imagine Mr. Presley having to audition for Ms. Hitchcock. I know who you are, Mr. Presley. But I take it you have no idea who I am. After all, I don't appear to be having- oh how did you put it- a fit about you being late. I did see the weather outside. Nasty bit for California if I'm being honest." She pauses and looks at him like she's peering into his soul before standing up and walking to him, holding out her hand when she finally reaches him. "Catherine Hitchcock, the reason you're having to audition."

Elvis is entirely aware that if he had a mirror in front of him he would get to witness his life flashing before his eyes and see the color drain from his face. He had just- She had just let him go on and embarrass himself. Formality or not, this was not how he needed to have things start out with him and her, especially since he's been practicing over and over and he wants this to work, wants to earn his place in this film. The Colonel may think it's a done deal but he doesn't think so and the more he looks at Catherine the more he thinks he's right. This would be the perfect excuse to keep him away from this film. He's not punctual, he's insulting, he's-

"Why, so you can tell me I'm too Southern for a picture that takes place in New Orleans?" The words slip out before he has a chance to stop them, his brain deciding he needs to defend himself from what slight it feels she committed against him. "Been told it's a formality, Ms. Hitchcock. They tell me wrong?"

Catherine tilts her head just so in a way that's infuriating to Elvis. She's studying him like he's beneath her, like he's some bug she's found in the dirt and is inspecting to see if she wants to keep. "I don't need a singing actor. They told you wrong, this is a serious audition and one I'm beginning to doubt you-"

"Prepared for?" He finishes her sentence with a huff of a laugh, shaking his head as he backs up a little. "Nice to know you're every bit the princess I figured ya were. Can't handle other people gettin' in on-"

"Mr. Presley." She warns as she moves back to her table and shuffles some papers before sitting back down. "I don't- you are thirty minutes late, we don't have time to- I need you to focus. We're busy people, are we not?"

His eyes slide down her form once more, noting how her relatively ample chest is heaving just slightly in frustration as she looks at him and he wrenches his eyes from the view as he nods. "Considerin' I gotta head to talk t'some more people, I'd say yeah. From the top, then?"

Catherine nods, moving to fiddle with the camera in order to attempt to tape this audition. "Yes, Mr. Presley, from the top."

What transpires next is the longest three hours of Elvis's life. He's heard about English women, sophisticated women being hard to crack, heard about them being hard to get a read on but if there's one thing he knows, it's how to read someone- how to read women specifically. Even though he had been such a nervous boy and young man, he knew how to charm them nowadays. Knows the ins and outs of their faces and how he knows that he's pleased 'em. But Catherine is blank, she's blank and silent. All the other directors had mentioned things he might need to change when between takes or between different lines. Yet here she was leaving him to drown in uncertainty. Leaving him to drown without offering a life preserver to tell him he's doing good, to tell him she likes how he's approaching things. He's pretty sure he'd take her telling him he's atrocious versus this silence. Is this how people feel working with her father? Is this why- no Elvis can't dwell on it, can't dwell on the possibility that Little Miss Princess Hitchcock is going to be cruel enough to tease him with a part only to deny him it. Elvis starts to open his mouth to begin again before Catherine holds up her hand and shakes her head.

"I've seen enough, Mr. Presley. Heard enough of your voice for today, I'm afraid." Her tone sounds bored, he thinks, but maybe that's just how she sounds in general, maybe that's not a true sign of her dislike or enjoyment of his performance. He wishes he was able to read off of whoever's playing Blanche, oh he knows he could have shined better. Shown off how good he is playing off of other humans and not a wall of silence other than required lines. He runs his tongue across the front of teeth before his lips twist into a frown of sorts.

"That it then? Ya done wit' me?" Elvis asks and there's a small part of him that knows he means it a multitude of ways and not just if she's done with him today. Catherine's response startles him when she nods with a certainty that has his stomach dropping to the floor.

"I'll be in touch if you got it, Mr. Presley. After all, I never did say it was a guarantee. To you or to Colonel Parker. If he told you any different, that is entirely his fault." Her body easily moves to stand up and starts to grab the roll of film. "Your voice suits him well enough, though, I suppose. If you can shake any lingering California traces."

"I don't have any-" Elvis starts before he hears the tap-tap-tap of her heels against the floor and feels her finger on his lips.

"You do. Now, if you excuse me, do go and handle your business that I've kept you from, I'd hate to be known as someone who caused you problems like that." She pauses, and turns around, leaving Elvis to stare at her backside and the way her high waisted pants are somehow perfectly tailored to her body and- he was not going to dwell on that.

Words and defenses that are on his lips died as soon as he felt her finger against his lip so he nods and gives her the largest and most sincere smile he can manage. "'Course. Have a good day, Ms. Hitchcock. Lookin' forward t'workin' wit' ya. If ya go with me."

There, that's what he needed to do, to plant a seed so she'd know he was serious about this job, that he was serious about wanting this for so long and no one wants to give him a chance to prove himself. This time he could do it though, this time he wanted to do it and this time he wants to hear some form of praise coming from her mouth. He leaves the room as he hears her sigh and hears a small creaking noise from the chair.

Waiting for Catherine to call him involves days that feel like blurs and yet feel like they never end at the same time. Nothing to the Colonel, nothing to him, not even her calling to tell him that he was the worst actor she had ever come in contact with. Two whole weeks of being on edge waiting for some knowledge only to be let down every single day. It's the 8th of the month now and he hears the phone ring and Elvis swears he's never moved so fast as he has from the front door of his house to the nearest phone. Catherine's voice rings out through the phone and Elvis finds that he's holding his breath.

"Stanley Kowalski?" She asks and Elvis feels the breath he was holding rushes out of his mouth in a flash. "I'm teasing, Mr. Presley. But, I'm formerly telling you that you've- With you I do believe I found my Stanley. If you're willing to-"

"Ms. Hitchcock I'm willin' t'do anythin' to do him justice. Know I'm not Brando- but- you won't regret this and I'll- I'll rein in the Colonel, won't have him addin' songs." Elvis cuts her off and he hears what he swears is a small smile in her voice before she shushes him.

"I'll believe it when I see it, Mr. Presley. Don't be late for the first day of shooting, hm. Come rain or shine." Catherine's voice almost sounds like she's teasing but Elvis can't tell. It's probably what influences his response more than anything else.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Princess." He responds before hanging up the phone.

It's only afterward when he's laying in bed that he realizes that quick hang up might have been a mistake. Even if she is a little princess, he probably shouldn't have called her that like he did.

"Shit."

taglist: @blurredcolour, @ab4eva, @precious-little-scoundrel, @butlersxbirdy, @thatbanditqueen, @eliseinmemphis, @powerofelvis, @prompted-wordsmith, @mooodyblue, whoever wants to be tagged for this fic, just leave a comment, alright?

[ara270904]

Being fan of Darling AND Daring can be difficult because they're like my babies okay? They're siblings, siblings fight that's okay.

But Daring is not a bad person, please I'm sure he isn't a bad person. And maybe it's the problem I have with some fanfics and maybe that's why I haven't read a fanfic that looks great but one tag says "Daring is not a good person" or something like that and I lost my desire. He isn't bad :(, as an older sister, I myself think that he does love his siblings a lot.

Fighting with your siblings or things like that doesn't always mean you don't love them, I would give my life for my little brother but I still don't want him to grab my charger for his tablet.

And I think in the context of Ever After High a lot of things are the fault of King Charming and Queen Charming's upbringing they gave to their children. Because they raised Daring to believe he was the best and that he could only be the best, while Dexter had to be second best and Darling a helpless princess and that's it.

So it isn't my boy fault, It's like people who defend Apple because she's not bad, it's just that Snow White raised her that way.

So I think the same about the Charming siblings, because who's to say that maybe Daring wanted to have other tastes that his dad wouldn't approve of, and maybe he just did what his dad said because what else was he supposed to do?

King Charming literally molded his children into what he wanted them to be, in a mold. At some point, Darling and maybe Dexter didn't like being in that mold because it wasn't them because maybe they did have other tastes and maybe their parents didn't pay as much attention to them and they could have their own tastes. But maybe the only thing Daring has is that mold, Daring feels that he is that mold because it is everything his father has told him.

And , but as I said before, if Apple can be a lesbian and break out of that mold that she thought defined her, why can't Daring do the same? I think I've said it before but it would be really cool if they had left it as if Daring didn't a destiny meaning that he could have his breakdown and everything and be free from that mold that his father forced him to be.

And I'm saying a lot about that character that I also said I hated but that I realized that all my hatred was unjustified.

But as I said, many of the things that made Apple be and will change and break its mold and blah could also have been had by Daring because it is assumed that both were from the same story and that possibly they were friends but maybe just friends because they spent time together for a long time to prepare to be married and have their happily ever after. Which it seemed like they both wanted because it was the only thing he had apart from bad parents and although in Daring's case he has the twins, his siblings.

And maybe the three siblings were in need of love, but Darling and Dexter were looking for something more genuine and that's why they had few friends and maybe Daring lived on people's approval and that's why he liked to be surrounded by people and that they love him even if it's not real.

And maybe instead of Epic Winter, it would have been cool to see Apple and Darling accept their new destiny, Daring having eight hundred breakdowns because he was only popular for being a Charming, and for supposedly being Apple's prince charming but since he is not, he was no longer as popular or almost not popular at all and that together with what his father would say when he found out would ruin him.

It would also have been nice to see Darling chatting with Daring after she "stole" his destiny that Daring may not have really wanted but was all he had. Dexter could be there to comfort both of his siblings.

And I feel like I haven't done a post this long in a long time but that fanfic I read that didn't feel like Daring to me upset me a little, IT ISN'T HIS FAULT OKAY???? :(((( It's King Charming's fault, I hate him.

And who says no, maybe Daring secretly taught Dexter and Darling how to fight with swords much better and self-defense and those things that they taught him that they didn't teach Darling.

Could this be considered character analysis? Possibly yes.

So yeah, that's for today. Thanks for hearing me or in this case reading what I wrote. The only characters I hate is Snow White (ever after high obviously the Snow White from the Disney movie is my absolute favorite), King Charming and Headmaster Grimm obviously. Yeah

[novel-nook-blog]

OC interview – Damian 🌚

I've been tagged by @creative-author, thank you sooo much for tagging 🥰.

I don't know who to tag, so feel free to do this interview for your own joy ☺️. (Open tag)

I've been thinking about this for a while. I wasn't sure who would be more interesting to interview, but I think Damian would be a better choice. This way, you can get a chance to see the side of him everyone else sees. If you read my previous post about him, you know he's an introvert and a lone wolf. He acts very differently around strangers than he does with Lys or very close friends. So go ahead, read about Damian and his very cold attitude! 😆

Were you named after anyone?

No.

When was the last time you cried?

I don't cry.

Do you have any kids?

No, I don't. First, I'm only 23, and second, a child of mine that my wife and I would have would immediately become a weapon in my father's hands. Children are out of the question. Also, have you ever met Lysandra? Living with her is like taking care of a little child.

Do you use sarcasm a lot?

That's a stupid question.

What's the first thing you notice about people?

Their wings: I need to know if an enemy is approaching me. However, in my wife's case, it's a bit tricky… her wings match the color of my enemies. So I seek wings and her little blonde curly head.

What is your eye color?

Blue. And before you start yapping about how fascinating my eyes are... stop. I hate them. At least I can see stuff, I guess.

Scary movies or happy endings?

Scary movies with a lot of blood. What else would you except from a guy who's nickname is the demon? – Lysandra steels the 'mic' – He loves romcoms with happy endings, he's just a big old softie.

Any special talents?

Except the mater of k!ll!ng? I suppose I know my way around the ballroom.

Where were you born?

Kingdom of Marikh, the Angel of d€ath.

What was your favorite subject in school?

War tactics.

What is your dream job?

I'm satisfied with my 'job' as it is. Even though job isn't the word I'd use. Being the general and the crown prince is my purpose, without this role I'm as good as a homeless angel living under a bridge waiting for d€ath to take me.

[sokkastyles]

I wonder, how widespread is the Azula stan fandom in reality? It seems like wherever I go there is at least one of them. Maybe it's the case of the loud minority, but you've been around longer in the fandom than I have, so I wonder if you think it's the case.

I've only been here three years, but I've been in fandom a long time and some of the Azula stans I recognize from the GoT fandom, where they make the exact same arguments about Cersei Lannister. What is new is the amount of Azula stans, and there always seem to be new ones popping up no matter how many times I block them, but I think a lot of them are just young or easily influenced fans who are reading the things said by the BNFs, which, as I said in the last ask I posted, often come with heavy amounts of guilt-tripping. Do you hate mentally ill abused fourteen year old girls? Of course you don't! Well then listen to me. It's manipulative rhetoric and gaslighting, and it's the same sorts of tactics used by abusers and cults to get you to doubt what you know is true and trust only them. I've even seen Azula stans admit that they realized that was what was going on, that they were just repeating talking points from BNFs that they didn't actually believe, because they thought they should. It's very easy to get caught up in the fandom's sense of self-righteousness, especially when it's a character you identify with and what people are saying sounds reasonable and uses social justice buzzwords to reinforce the arguments.

What's ridiculous is the amount of people that make these arguments and how illogical they actually are, and how pervasive. And how aggressive and entitled the stans are. One of the first posts I saw in the Zuko tag, before I had even finished the series, was a post about how it's "weird" that Zuko acts younger than his sister. And like, at that point I didn't even know Zuko was supposed to be older but I understand enough about logic to know that that isn't how it works, anyway. I didn't even know at that point that this was a common Azula stan anti Zuko talking point, I was just like "okay, someone doesn't understand how family dynamics or kids or abuse works" and moved on with my life. Then I realized why the arbitrary ages of cartoon characters matter so much to these people, more than what is actually onscreen, because what you actually know to be true from watching the show can be manipulated if someone can convince you that numbers matter more.

[040504210320092209191319]

ccan i be crazy for a second as a Detective Media Consumer

this post actually drives me nuts and normally i'd be like whatever everyone on the internet uses hyperbole but op clearly doesn't know much about the genre or archetype and the fact that a bunch of people who also don't know a lot about the genre agree with them is a littleee aggravating likeeeee

while they aren't wrong that plenty of fictional detectives are affiliated with law enforcement most of them are not

arguably the most influential ones aren't affiliated with law enforcement and hate cops, not just sherlock holmes

'all of them should be weirdos about-' they are. they are amateurs who enjoy mystery solving.

it's worth noting -- bc op brings up holmes in the tags of their og post -- that holmes popularizes the fictional detective archetype and that's why many of them are actually not police detectives

let's look at a few of them

philo vance: famously hated by the police, messes with investigations for fun

john dickson carr's gideon fell: another amateur detective, also annoys tf out of the police

edogawa rampo's akechi kogoro: literally a college student with a hobby (sound familiar?) who often runs circles around and deceives the police to get culprits off the hook when he feels like it

soji shimada's kiyoshi mitarai: an astrologer and college professor who gets brought cases by his crime enthusiast boyfriend, hates the police and nearly gets arrested by an officer for being disrespectful

seishi yokomizo's kosuke kindaichi: another amateur sleuth who's often underestimated by police investigators

yukito ayatsuji's kiyoshi shimada: a buddhist monk who solves mysteries part time because he's a mystery enthusiast

nisioisin's iichan: literal college student, solves mysteries because he happens to be there

nisioisin's jun aikawa: a freelancer in many fields who isn't solely a 'detective,' but isn't tied to any one organization or agency

etc etc etc

like yeah there are many detectives who are even p.i's that are often affiliated with or working with the police (L from death note, shawn spencer, etc) to act like they're typically written or portrayed like a cop character is so...??

when. a very clear, defining facet of the archetype is that they aren't part of the police force. and it's usually because these stories often feature officers as their culprits. like. .

not to mention that many of these characters are also meant to solve their crimes in unconventional ways, apart from the bureaucratic methods of a crime scene investigator - again they are Guys With a Hobby they're Mystery Enthusiasts and i'm sure a lot of authors find more freedom writing a private investigator than a cop because cops are supposed to wrap things up a certain way. they're supposed to be aiming for arrests. sometimes a detective doesn't want to do that. sometimes they want to solve the crime, lie to the police, and get the culprit off the hook bc they know the truth and don't think that the culprit deserves to get jailed and they dgaf if that's "right" or "wrong" in the eyes of the system

like i do think that a lot of more 'mainstream' media like criminal minds or CSI or whatever do portray a very different sort of detective but traditionally your fictional detective is a private investigator and their stories usually mandate that the police are incompetent, corrupt, etc in order to benefit the amateur sleuth who usually has poor rapport with them

it's definitely rarer to find detective media where zero cops are involved, i get it, but i think it's crazy to completely ignore that the entire genre originated from and is built off the backs of guys who cannot mind their own business to save their lives

[cosmics-beings]

talking about starscream or showing him empathy is a uphill battle because you can acknowledge that he is not a good person, that he is evil, etc., but that you also want him to have better and more fair writing, especially if other decepticons get it, and people will look at you and accuse you of 'pacifying him' or excusing him, or acting like he isn't evil. i wish that both mindsets could exist at the same time. it's a reason i've stopped wanting to make my starscream meta, especially in reference to tfp, or why i don't like to tag my asks. because yes while i know he is an awful person, who treats the people around him like shit, i do also feel his writing could be more solid especially when the writers have given him depth but also redeem people who are as bad or as worse than him. but i guess to most people that just comes off as woobifying him.

like i kinda hate that in fandom spaces you can't be sympathetic or look at a 'evil' character with any type of complexity or empathy - even if you DO hold them accountable - or people will accuse you of completely pacifying and babying them, when that's not what you're doing.

i don't think that starscream is a good person, even in IDW he is arguably a demonic presence. but i do feel bad for him, i do feel bad seeing him get beat and abused, and i do feel a certain way when others who are worse than him get forms of redemption and love, this doesn't mean i excuse what he does (this is also primarily for tfp starscream. boy idw starscream is a whole story)

this really was supposed to be a part of a 'if starscream gets redemption, the megatron should get it to' in fandom opinion, but i just kind of felt like explaining both of their flaws and complexities and why i something thing they both deserve the scope of redemption if one gets it, is just gonna be reduced by others to 'im tired of people woobifying starscream'. and surprisingly megatron is more redeemed/pacified and accepted by the fandom as a redeemed person than starscream is.

it's like idk - i wanna make in depth posts about him but people tend to look at making empathetic takes on HIM specifically, as woobifying or excusing him and that's just not the case (because no other decepticon gets that treatment. it's like you can be empathetic toward them and people wont claim you are pacifying them...idk)