#this redditor really called them out

[leclercskiesahead]

This guy said it better than me

Carlos Sainz has conviction. He believes in his own judgment and is willing to act out and speak out on it, often contrary to what the Ferrari pit wall offers. At the same time, he isn't cocky and will respect Ferrari's team orders should the need ultimately arise. It's been twice in [the 2022] season that Carlos' blatant ignoring/disobeying of Ferrari's calls rewarded him and the team handsomely, while in contrast Leclerc, whose unwavering reliance on the team's judgment often earns him the short end of the stick. Listening to Carlos' radio, you will constantly hear him asking questions and challenging decisions. It's a hallmark of all great drivers - especially (since radio communication has been made more accessible to the audience) Lewis Hamilton, who has, on many occasions, disobeyed his team's orders to pit, ran long in the race with great pace, then put on a monster stint at the end to win. Of course his own strategy decisions backfired on him a few times (recently and notably Turkey 2021), but most of the time, between Lewis and the team, they make the right strategical decisions. Lewis acted like another voice that contributes to the strategy team, and for a group whose sole goal is to make the best strategical decision, more viewpoints is always better as it creates a clearer picture for all involved. Ferrari's strategy and race engineering teams seem to break down with every single event that necessitates some sort of quick ruthless reaction. It seems like a lost department that has zero confidence in its own decision-making skills, predictions, and data. The lack of confidence from the pit wall, though, allows Carlos to make his own decisions without strong pushback, and it has rewarded him on at least two occasions this year [2022] already. Listening to Carlos schooling his engineer with words like "Trust me", "Don't do that" etc., it seems that he has that extra dimension as a racing driver, one who can deliberate strategy and tactics while driving fast, much like Sebastian Vettel in his Ferrari days. Carlos has an inbuilt bullshit-o-meter that firmly overrides some shitty decisions Ferrari torture themselves with.

[some-pers0n]

Demoman is one of the characters in the fandom I feel most people straight up ignore or don't know how to write. Blunt, sure, but I do stand by it. Demoman is such a fascinating, intriguing character with the most fleshed-out backstories, yet is oftentimes relegated to being Soldier 2.0, only now with poorly written phonetics.

In other words, hey! I'm a fanfic writer who has a ton of opinions as well as a neurotic need to analyze every character they come into contact with. Pleased to see you're reading this. I've already done a little doohickey essay like this with Medic a while back. The purpose of these long rambles is half of me combing through every instance of the character and pulling them apart to see how their character works...and also me not-so-subtly venting and complaining about mischaracterization. Shocking how a fandom where the main characters are all very clear-cut stereotypes with some slight subversions here and there can't seem to get them.

This essay will go through Demo's beginning and all the way to his latest appearance in the 6th comic. I'll touch on how his character shifts and is expanded upon. I doubt he changes as much as Medic has over the years, but I think it will be interesting to see. I'll just go over bits of characterization, try to rationalize it, and then try my best to sum up all of the traits by the end and try to describe his character in the most canon-compliant way.

With that preamble out of the way, let's begin. This is also 7k words btw just...be aware of that, okay?

Before we actually get into proper character stuff, I wanna lay the groundwork first by exploring the types of characterization I see from Demo. Pick them apart. See what they're really like.

So, of course, there's the popular Redditor opinion of Demo that's mainly shaped by the way people play him in the game. There, people will describe Demo as being generally a bumbling drunkard. It's not too uncommon to see people say that he's an angry drunk. A man who is more concerned with alcohol and drinking himself into a stupor than anything else. I've also seen people say that Demo straight up can't read, which...euhhhhggg. He feels more like an alternative version of Soldier at times, which, again, isn't accurate to his character.

I don't care at all for this characterization. I do think a good chunk is rooted in racism and it's generally very uncomfortable for me to look at for too long. This characterization is pretty shallow and empty, which makes for a boring and offensive caricature. Reddit moment.

The second one is more interesting and the version you'll see more on Tumblr. It's this...odd version of him. I can't exactly put my tongue on what is off about it. It seems more accurate to his character. He's a foil for Soldier a lot of the time (Boots n' Bombs is his most popular ship let's be real) and generally isn't exactly seen on his own. Sure yeah there's the oddball art of him and him only, but let's be real most of his tag is mainly just him being in the background or saying a jokey-joke.

I actually fell back into Ao3 for a bit to skim over some fics to see what kind of characterization there was of Demo there to refresh my memory, and some of the common throughlines was shockingly that he doesn't drink a lot. "He rarely drinks!" I remember reading once. That's not right, no. He's an alcoholic. Like that's a core part of his character. Another fic had him being called "Cyclops" as a pet name. Ew. Anywho, other than that it's Demo being pretty into cryptids, having the Eyelander as a buddy guy, etc and etc. It's fun, but also it's missing...something.

Then, it hit me: Demo rarely is seen as an individual. He reminds me of Heavy in that regard, where most of his appearances have him be the straight-man to another character. Most of the time he's secondary and just a folly for the other characters. It's disappointing in that regard. Like you see a lot more stuff for characters like Scout, Medic, etc and etc with their own unique characterization stuff and getting their own attention.

So...then what is Demoman's character, exactly? Well, that's what we're here to see. It'll be pretty interesting, no?

----

So, funny thing is that Demo didn't change nearly as much as Medic has over the years. Sure yeah, the concept art of Demo was more of the generic stereotypical Scotsman. White, ginger, sideburns, that whole thing. Cartoony and fun design, but eventually they went with the Demo we all know and love today.

Looking at the concept art, it all seems pretty standard for the tone that Invasion was going for at the time. Nothing really to note there other than Demo's face being a stock angry grr grr expression. It is interesting to see how the idea of him wearing an eye was a constant even from the beginning though.

This then brings us to the voicelines. Ahh, good ol' characterization. Demo here is characterized as being jovial and having fun. He's throwing out insults left and right, damning them to hell and laughing at them as they die. Usual typical mercenary stuff. This is just personal headcanon material, but I always rationalize the way the mercs act on the battlefield as being a result from adrenaline and generally being drunk on blood. They aren't as mean when off the clock, but it's worth noting that these are how these characters act when a gun's in their hands and they're exploding people left and right.

TF2 really likes basing the characters off of the class they play as and how they act. Scout is fast moving and his gameplay is oftentimes getting right in someone's face and bolting, which is reflective in his hotshot personality. It's only reasonable that Demo is an explosive, fun, and generally cocky guy when out and battling. He's lobbing grenades and sticky bombs left and right. He isn't afraid to yell to the Medic he just blew up that he's been shagging his wife and calling the Scout he just chopped the head off "twinkle-toes". He teases and such when it comes to the other team.

However, the voicelines also very curiously give us a really fascinating look into his character. He's an alcoholic. He loves his scrumpy, which is not whiskey, shockingly. I thought it was whiskey for the longest time, but no! It's a cider! His stock melee is the bottle he uses to drink, now turning it into a quick weapon. His model in the main menu is him holding up the bottle itself. His default melee taunt is him taking a swig from the scrumpy bottle. It's a core part of his identity, let's be real. It's a part of the whole Scottish stereotype he has going on.

The game of course follows this. There's a lot of lines where he's slurring and babbling in a cartoony drunken way. A good portion of it is just him making vague threats...but a lot of it is also sad. He calls himself a one-eyed bloody monster. He weeps and cries. When jeering, he says he's hit rock bottom here. Interesting new development.

Apologizes for pausing to ramble, but I don't get why people try and sand down the edges to Demoman's character by making him out as though he isn't an addict. He is. That's something that is made abundantly clear. The iconography of alcohol follows him like his own damn shadow. I dunno. It bothers me.

I digress. There's some other bonus stuff I think is quite interesting. Most of his battle charges involve the other team. "Let's gettem lads!" and all. I think it's neat how he views his teammates as just that. Teammates. Those he fights alongside with. Another thing of note is how he occasionally has lines that are...odd in a way. Poetic and dramatic. Something that subverts the typical characterization. When he loses at rock paper scissors, there's a chance he'll say "Oh, 'tis a dark day", which. well then okay buddy.

So to recap: for characterization in-game, Demo is an alcoholic Scotsman who is generally pretty witty and functioning despite the incredible amounts of booze he drinks. He is energetic, bombastic, and generally hearty and having fun. He's not taking things terribly seriously and is generally just going about and blowing stuff up. However, there is a very noticeable streak of sadness to his character. When drinking, he reveals undertones of self-deprecation and hatred. Why? How?

...well, you just need to take a gander at his character card.

Erm excuse me what the fuck.

I honestly do not understand the logic behind this backstory. Like in a practical sense. Like, yeah!! obviously this backstory is sad and such! I really actually like this backstory and honestly I love writing him in the context that this happened to him. It's just that...I can't wrap my head around the idea of this being Demo's backstory given that everyone else has pretty silly little blurbs here. I think the darkest it gets is Soldier going to Germany years after WWII ended to kill people.

This??? Sure yeah TF2 gets a lot sillier and more cartoony comedic as time goes on, but even with the current tone where is the funny? I ain't complaining, I love me my angst, but this is so jarring to see. I suppose that explains why they retcon it later, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Hey, at least it gives us an explanation to why Demo is sad. We can pretty easily gleam a reason for his current behaviour in the game from this: his messed up childhood. To begin, Tavish Finnegan DeGroot was abandoned by his parents and left to live in an orphanage. Eventually, he was adopted and brought up by some foster parents, who he then murdered in an attempt to blow up the Loch Ness monster. This was when he was six years old. Actual child. 

He then went back into the orphanage, where he would tinker with bombs. Why? Insert whatever headcanon here, but for me I think it's a feeling of fascination, yet also heavy guilt. Perhaps revenge. Either way, he loses his eye from these experiments. Eventually however, he's brought back into the family when word spreads of his excellence when it comes to manufacturing bombs. The use of the word "lovingly" feels exceptionally sarcastic, but that could be in part to how his parents are later characterized. Either way, this is a result of the DeGroot tradition, which, and I quote, is wholly unnecessary and cruel. It even cites it as him being reintroduced into his family as the "end of his unhappy childhood".

...so yeah. Pretty safe to say the reason for his alcoholism is to cope with that. He feels the guilt over that and will breakdown into sobs over it even. Yikeesss... It can also mean that he feels as though he's held up to incredibly high expectations, having the entire DeGroot family lineage to live up to. Again, later on he's being nagged at for not being as hard-working as his father, who, in good ol' TF2 fashion, blew up the Queen for a nickel. It does certainly feel that way, no?

So this introduces a new wrinkle to Demoman's current characterization: he's an alcoholic who is happy and has an upbeat and fun personality (at least on the battlefield), but underneath it he's hurting and feels ashamed of who he is. He drinks to cope and manage it, yet it only seems to exasperate problems at times.

Can I safely say that Demo is the merc with the most fascinating and intriguing backstory and personality thus far? Sure yeah I love Engie a lot as well, but Demo's character actually feels like it is a result of the backstory written for him. Like all of the other mercs sure you can go on and on about stuff with them, like Scout and Spy and their whole deal, Sniper and his parents, everything with Heavy, etc. Demo?? Right off the bat there's something to chew on in terms of actual character writing.

What an interesting character! I sure hope later installations of the story will follow through on this and give him ample screentime!

Anywho, time for the Meet the Demo video. Again, a departure from the Meet the Medic video and how I rambled on and on about that one, but it was mainly due to MtM being something to mark a drastic shift in Medic's character from serious and angry to more silly and mad scientist-esque. Meet the Demo, due to it being one of the Meet the Team videos made so early on, doesn't really get the benefit of a short with a story, but I digress.

This one is stylized more like an interview, which, in canon, means he's telling this all to The Director and all. It opens with the title screen before the horns section seep in, cutting to a clip of Demo running while explosions go off behind him. A freeze frame cut before a voice-over of Demo comes on with the iconic line "What makes me a good Demoman? If I were a bad Demoman, I wouldn't be here discussing it with you, now would I!?"

Okay so just more confirmation and all of Demo's personality in-game. According to his bio, he has a short temper and all, which could explain him getting louder when asked that question. I don't think it's a joke or him exaggerating, since he seems genuinely pretty upset by the suggestion. He would have to be good at his job in order to be telling you this, yeah? Why even bother asking? It's an interesting bit of characterization that somewhat expands on that short temper.

More generic footage of him running about while explosions go off before coming back to the interview of him explaining a bomb in its simplest form. "One crossed wire, a wayward pinch of potassium chlorate, one errant twitch... and kablewie!!" Seems like filler dialogue, but I always like taking note of the fact he uses the chemical compound term as opposed to something more colloquial. It's just headcanons, but I really enjoy thinking that Demo is pretty damn smart and really gifted when it comes to making bombs and general chemistry. It's a clear passion and love of his and I like touching on it when I can.

The next couple seconds are shots between him taking a good swig of his scrumpy and then blowing up a level three sentry. It's just showing off his capabilities as a class. Nothing special (other than being cool and showing he's competent at his job). The real interesting part is his breakdown where he's on the verge of tears, exasperatingly telling the camera that he's...off. He knows it. There's not too many black Scotsmen, especially ones with a busted eye. "They've got more fucking sea monsters in the great Loch Ness than they got the likes of me" he says.

But, he perks up! He talks over a clip of him baiting a group of BLU mercs into a sticky trap. The voiceover is also really fascinating here. The way Demo talks reminds me something out of an Aesop fable. It's a very curious and fascinating way of talking. I wish this bit of characterization stuck around since it's pretty fun. "Come and get me I say! I'll be waiting on ya with a whiff of the ol' brimstone. I'm a grim bloody fable...with an unhappy bloody end!" is really cool.

The video ends with him taunting the mangled corpses followed by a rendition of the main theme with bagpipes. I should probably also mention Drunken Pipe Bomb, his theme song. It's an upbeat and fun piece with a mixture of the typical TF2 sounds (funky jazzy drums and bass guitar) as well as a Celtic flair, what with bagpipes, whistles, etc and etc. There's also a kickass surf rock section. It's quite the battle theme and definitely reflects a lot of Demo's character as being an energetic, explosive type of character who is proud of his Scottish roots.

So that's pretty much it for SFM bits for now. How about we take a step back and look at the first-ever actual TF2 comic: WAR!, where Demo really gets a big break for his characterization. We don't care about the Saxton Hale or Jarate ones. WAR! my beloved...

But first, the actual WAR! update. It was the sixth major content update released back in 2009. Remember when this game got actual content updates? Me neither. The update was based around the rivalry between the RED Demo and the BLU Soldier to excuse why they were adding new items for the both of them, with Soldier in the end winning the little contest and getting the Gunboats.

For canon lore, the update serves to introduce the idea that the RED Demo and BLU Soldier had a comradery at first. Friends! Interesting piece of characterization to have Demo explicitly go against RED and become friends with Soldier. The two of them do bounce off of each other quite well when they're paired up, I will say. They're both heavy-hitters in terms of gameplay and their personalities are quite loud at times.

For added voicelines, there's a bunch of the Administrator denouncing their friendship as well as domination lines for both Solly and Demo whenever they kill each other. Demo pretends he hates Soldier, but asks if he's okay, tells him that he loves him, and generally is like "but we're still friends though, aye? :]" He does care a lot about their friendship, which is pretty sweet and cute. Sure hope that lasts.

In the WAR! comic, we see Demo in a mansion. He's loaded! It's also confirmation that the mercs are given quite a lot of money, but apparently not enough for Demo's mother. She's nagging him about not working and saying that he should be ashamed for being so lazy, to which he rebuttals, saying he has three jobs and has made millions annually. Apparently not enough for his mother, since Demo's father worked twenty-six jobs.

She also brings up an interesting piece of information. "No demoman worth his sulfur ever had an eye in his head past thirty!" which implies that missing an eye is a family tradition to lose your eyes when working this job. Would this also imply that Demo is not thirty by this point, since he still has the one eye? Eh, whatever. 

Demo taking care of his mom in this old, nagging state is pretty neat characterization, as well as him holding down two other jobs besides mercenary work for RED. He's very capable and talented! He's also extremely caring and sweet. Even when his mum is complaining and griping about him not living up to his father, he gets her tea and takes care of her. He does respond with a lot of "I know mum" when it comes to that. He's heard it all before. She keeps saying the same stuff. I like thinking he knows fully well he can't live up to the extreme work ethic his father had or truly impress his parents and is pretty bummed out about it, but that's just headcanons.

Anywho, Pauling's there. She's there because the Administrator wants to break up the friendship between Demo and the BLU Soldier and instead have them be pitted against each other. While Soldier needs to be tricked and insulted by Demo and told that he's a civilian (something that he hates apparently), Demo is more coerced and convinced.

He's still loyal to their friendship, but, aye, there's something different about that sword there. Here's an interesting bit of characterization: Demo being a sword guy. There's a lot of medieval stuff relating to Demo, what with DeGroot's Keep, the Eyelander, his general way of speaking at times, etc and etc. It's fun and I think he takes great interest in medieval-period stuff, but, again, headcanons.

Demo feels conflicted. How could she make him choose between his best friend and this cool ass sword?? He doesn't give an answer, but Miss Pauling further pushes him to choose violence when leaving even more stuff for him as well as telling him that Soldier said that he'll join the fight. It's then assumed that Demo agrees by that point.

It's interesting to compare and contrast Demo and Soldier. Soldier, despite hearing all of these mean things, still wants to be friends with Demo. It's until "Demo" calls him a civilian, something personal and sensitive to him, is when he decides to betray him. Demo meanwhile is more swayed by things that he loves, but the final push is that betrayal. He only acts when he's finally told that their friendship has been severed. Curious how their loyalty is strong in those ways.

...I should probably sometime mention the actual retconning of his backstory however. Hoouhhh boy let's go. So, for the 2011 Halloween update, there was a comic alongside it. This comic had some cute gags, like Heavy giving a little boy he scared seven grand. However, the main attraction is the rewritten backstory for Demo.

I mentioned earlier, but I honestly can't blame them for maybe trying another crack at a Demo backstory that isn't as bleak and miserable. I do really like the original one because I'm a sucker for angst, but this backstory does work a lot better tonally when you're just trying to write some goofy stuff, especially if it involves Merasmus at some point.

The story retcons the whole thing and seemingly makes it so that Demo has always been with his parents and the reason he lost his eye was not because of some brutal accident but rather a currrseeee ooohhhh spookyyy. He's hired by Merasmus to sweep up the place a bit, with him being exceptionally clear to young Tav to not touch any of the accursed tomes. He does, of course. Nothing too much in terms of characterization. It's more just saying "Hey Demo's eye is cursed and that's why he lost it but! hey! it comes back once every Halloween!!"

Again, I can't really knock this version of events. They're simple, but goofy and fun. It's all up to whatever you're trying to accomplish with Demo methinks. If you want silly and whimsical stories, you can have that backstory. If you want gut-wrenching angst, probably should take the initial one.

Aanndd that's virtually it for Demo being important. Demo doesn't get too much plot relevance later on. He's just kinda done with. He shows up in Expiration Date for a quick gag where he returns with a bunch of beer, shouting and cheering while being unaware of how they all just learned they're going to die in three days. He then shows up again during the bucket scene and doesn't do much other than mouthing somethin' (I can't tell you want tbh). A new thing is that he plays piano! That's fun! He then kinda watches Scout try and ask out Pauling and he yells for him to describe what she looks like, which is just what Demo currently sees her as (drunk, blurry, etc). He then fights in the big battle yada yada and shows up at the end with the beer again.

The MVM trailer I suppose is a thing to be noted. Here, he's a BLU Soldier and is playing cards with the Soldier of the same team. Seems like regardless of teams, there's some sort of bond between the two of them. All that happens is that Demo is down to bust up robots with the rest of the RED mercs. Pretty much it.

It is quite unfortunate to see Demo relegated to a role so passive in the story and comics. I've mentioned it before, but I do have an ever so slight grudge against Soldier for taking up the majority of the screentime when it comes to the comics. Yeah, he's really fun to write about, I can't blame the writers for doing so, but also like...c'mon... In the end, we're left with a good chunk of the mercs being underdeveloped in exchange for a ton of Soldier trivia. Props if you like Solly though; your fave got the best treatment.

Ah, but still! Demo has some moments in the comics! Let's go through them! 

Uh. Upon checking most of the comics before the mainline ones, it appears he does not say even a single word. Or even show up in a good portion. Well that's disappointing. I thought he at least said like...one thing. The most he does in terms of characterization is put on a crown in A Fate Worse Than Chess, and even then that's just a silly cosmetic. Damn.

It's fine though! Because now we have the mainline comics! Hot damn finally some actual casual Demoman TF2 writing! Let's get a look and see what his normal usual personality is like! I wonder what fun shenanigans he's been up to.

The first time we see Demo he's babbling about his job being replaced by robots and looking utterly dishevelled and depressed.

Okay. That's...yeah pretty in line for his character thus far. An alcoholic who is struggling with some stuff and oftentimes will have a very vocal breakdown in front of others.

The way that he's characterized here is rather fascinating though, I'll say. He's depressed. From what we can glean, this is what his life has been like since the layoffs. He's gained weight (what with Soldier's very blunt "Hello fat Demoman!"), hasn't shaved, his clothes are dirty, and beer bottles are scattered in the living room. Even the Eyelander is like "dude you need to let it go" when Demo mumbles about robots replacing jobs. He's presumably lost his two other jobs and has just been laying on this couch, drinking booze and watching TV and nothing more, despite his mum's nagging.

This is a side of Demo we don't really see. Sure, yeah, we see the hot and tempered side (ex: Meet the Demoman and the general game) as well as the sad and weepy side, but it's never to this degree. Like full on depressive episode. Yikes. Sure yeah he gets dragged back into the plot and instantly gets back to himself (albeit more orange than actually black)(I keep forgetting how whitewashed Demo was in these first few comics), but it's played for laughs and gags.

What an interesting piece of characterization, no? I've seen a fair amount of major depressive disorder, BPD, PTSD, and or bipolar headcanons slapped onto Demo and tbh I can't blame them. I'd be really interested to see some fic explore that in greater detail. I'm too busy writing Engiemedic yaoi to do anything for now though. Womp womp.

The ending bit of the comic has Demo and Pauling mainly chat with each other. Oh yeah!! Demo and Pauling! They've got a couple pretty neat lines. For the usual contract it's just jokes about his alcoholism, his eye, and a couple about his mom and just general gags. In the Tough Break update, she's out drinking with Demo and nearly spills the beans about her job. Fun. I really like the Miss Pauling characterization where she regularly hangs out with the mercs. It's cute.

In the comics, she talks to Demo more like an actual equal than, say, Pyro or Soldier. She talks to them like they're children roughhousing in the backseat. Demo sits up front and the two go back and forth. Demo is the more mature and reasonable one here. Another thing that's a common bit of characterization in the comics is that Demo isn't...drunk. He's not slurring nor acting in a way that makes it immediately clear he's inebriated. He's pretty lucid. This can be from the fact that he's a very high-functioning alcoholic, but it also makes him out to be actually pretty all-there for most of the time. I've seen far too many fics where Demo is in a perpetual state of shitface drunk so that was a nice refresher.

Demo reappears in the second comic, where we get some pretty neat characterization. He's out on the town in disguise. I keep forgetting about that "What do you see?" "Not a damn thing. Let's switch places" gag that's so funny. Whatever. He is the voice of reason when it comes to Soldier. The straight-man character. He's not really...drunk here. He's not slurring his words nor is he exactly doing anything. He steps in front when Soldier starts yelling at an elderly woman, instead approaching her with a calm and kind demeanour. He holds Soldier back when he goes to strangle Scout for. I guess just being there.

So there's Demo when he's just doing stuff normally, I suppose. He's generally pretty level-headed, albeit because he's up there with Soldier. He's the Normal One when posed next to a guy like Solly. A little disappointing, but there's probably more in comic 4.

Ah the Swordvan comic. Demo and Pauling head over to Sniper's house to retrieve him. An odd bit of characterization is that Demo just takes one look at Snipes' house and goes "Welp, nobody's here. Let's get out". He doesn't seem terribly thrilled to be here, further backed up by him saying that there's just gonna be fingernails and jars of piss and he straight up says "good riddance" like what is his issue with the bushman??

Now that's kinda interesting. Demo sees Snipes as being kinda just gross and a raving lunatic. He could easily be in-place for the audience and just saying what we're thinking, but I think it's interesting to see that Demo, the guy often portrayed as being the weirdo party guy, being very straight-forward. He think Sniper is some sadistic madman and just wants out. Unfortunately, he's given a neckfull of Sniper's homemade family moonshine, so he can't get out quite yet.

A very common thing in these comics it seems is Demo being the voice of reason, which is pretty interesting. The straight man to everyone. When he wakes up to Pauling spitting on him to wake him up, he goes "eughhh gross, but, hey, it worked!!" before then is knocked out. He then stays quiet for the rest of the scene, unless of course you're counting the deleted pages. There's no dialogue, but Demo breaks free from the ropes binding him, yells at Sniper, then pushes past before then inserting three syringes-worth of the moonshine into himself and passing out. Alcoholism joke as per usual. Shockingly the first one we've gotten so far.

In the submarine ride down, Demo's passed out with his scrumpy in hand. Again just a gag about him drinking a lot. He then kinda stays in the background for the rest of the comic, only appearing really once to hold a vat of liquor, before then coming to in the final shot where he holds Sniper's dead body. Heyyyy Demo I thought you thought Sniper was a weirdo freak.

Nothing too much to say from this comic then. It's just establishing more and more that Demo plays a very...straight-man character role when it comes to the comics at least. He's reasonable, level-headed, and often just says whatever comes to mind. He's kind and will instantly rush to someone's aid when they're hurt as well as just generally being pretty good-hearted. Nice!

Comic 5 mainly just features a gag with Demo's liver being so overworked that he starts turning his other organs into alcohol distilleries. The whimsy. The line that I find most fascinating from this comic is from Spy.

Like oh okay so he straight up doesn't eat anything other than alcohol and aspirin. Water literally poisons him. Probably just a throwaway gag, but geez. It does say that he is kinda in pain all the time, at least to the point where aspirin is one of the few things his body can handle. Someone out there can probably work with that and make it angsty. Other than that, not much else for Demo.

Comic 6! The final one! Home stretch here folks before I can wrap this up and give a thesis on whatever the heck Demo's character is. Demo, again, is mainly just here for gags. It's the one thing I do really wish that the comics did more: explore Demo's backstory. Like you don't even need to keep the original one, but it's still fascinating to bring up the fact he has a family lineage at all. Instead, he's mainly just a straight-man character. But, hey, whatever. I'm just the one analyzing these silly comics and jokey joke characters for gay melodramatic yaoi fanfiction.

There's a gag about Demo's liver coming back to him after leaving. These soap opera drama scene could parallel the type of shows that he was watching when having that depressive episode, but that's maybe a bit of a stretch. He then gets included in that fun group shot, where his pose mimics that from the Meet the Demo, before then gets a one-on-one scene with Medic. 

These two are such a fun duo I wish Jaggerbombs was a more common pairing. Ah well. Medic catches Demo up on everything whilst he's stitching up wounds. The medi-gun is broken so they're doing this the old-fashioned way. Demo has a gag where he's still drinking, only that it's hydrogen peroxide instead. This then leads to a scene where Demo asks why Medic never gave him an eye. Reasonable methinks. Medic responds saying he did.

Demo gets upset. He raises his voice for the first (official) time in the comics. Again, his temperament. I think it's a reasonable thing to be upset about tbh. Like imagine being told after all this time you could've had your eye back. He then learns that, no, the procedure has been done before, but rather that it never sticks because of how his eye socket is cursed. Demo asks how he can't remember this, to which Medic goes "Hooh :] It's because I scooped out a part of your brain" because of course he did. He then forgets the entire conversation + probably Medic entirely.

Aaannnddd that's pretty much it for Demo. That's his last speaking role. Just a quick, simple gag about his eye being cursed, his alcoholism, and generally being the straight-man for others, even if he does have a couple silly gags too. Seems like a culmination of everything he is in the comics.

To conclude: Demo is a character I feel can take on two main roles depending on what kind of tone you're going for. If you want angst, you've got a character who carries the guilt of murdering his foster parents as well as the burden of being a DeGroot, turning to alcohol to cope with his sadness and general inability to deal with it all. If you want silly goofy stuff, you have Demo being a straight-man or a neat party guy if you like the bit from Expiration Date where he brings back beer and such. Of course there's nuance. I find it best to try and find a balance between these two opposing sides. It just takes time and practice to really get a hold of his personality methinks.

I do wish he was more in the comics though as his own person, y'know? He's very reliant on others in order for his character to function, whilst most others have scenes where it's just them doing something. I wish he was used more than being the guy who drags the others back to reality. Damn it sucks to see that the fics where he's mainly just the straight-man are kinda right in that regard.

But for character traits? Hm, let's see. I find it's just trying to make sense of what's given to you and seeing what best fits for the tone of story you're trying to go for. However, for me trying to write him? Well...

His alcoholism is a central character trait. He is definitely 100% an alcoholic, regardless of however people try and sand him down. I personally really like sticking to the idea that he straight up can't eat anything but booze and aspirin because I think it's funny but also sad, but that's me. I think him having a flask of scrumpy on his person at all times is a neat headcanon as well.

Another big trait with Demo is his frequently shifting mood when drunk. He can swing from loud to weeping in a couple moments. I wouldn't say he's particularly angry nor aggressive, no more than any other character at least. He's most volatile on the battlefield, but otherwise at the base I feel it wouldn't be an uncommon sight to see Demo partying until dawn or holed up in the living room and sobbing. Poor guy.

In spite of what many think, Demo is certainly not lazy. He's a workaholic is anything. He holds down three jobs and rakes in a lot of money in order to live up to his name as a DeGroot. It could be because he likes working that much or that his mother just nags him to push himself that far. That also ties into his self-deprecation, another core trait of his, but that's pretty obvious to see.

His heart is another big trait. The guy loves. He cares for his mother even when she nags at him. He sticks by Soldier's side until he feels as though he's been betrayed. He takes care of the Eyelander and treats it like a pal. He generally cares a whole heck of a lot about people and other things. He wears his heart on his sleeve and says what he means. He doesn't feel a need to really hide who he is as a person. He's loud, fun, and just naturally pretty sweet and kind. I don't think he's ever really "mean" outside of the game stuff. There's also the whole "being hired to explode people" part but ehhh that's just the silliness in him :]

Demo also being generally pretty...normalish. He's a guy who's really just going through it when you take the angst option. He oftentimes will try and hold back others from doing something stupid when sober. I feel like when he's drunk he's more willing to get in on dumb shit, but still. However, this doesn't mean he's wholly a normal person. I think you can do a lot of headcanons here where you bring out some traits that are otherwise not talked about too much.

There are a lot of liberties to be taken with Demo's character as per usual. A ton of writing a character to be, well, in-character is just getting down their voice and mannerisms. Understanding their personality and motives is just half the battle. Demo sometimes speaks like an old-timey medieval knight or poet or whatever. He's generally pretty well-spoken and whatever. For the love of god if you want to write him, you don't need to include phonetics constantly. Please. It's so much better that tu'try toh spell everay whurd like tis. Oftentimes people will just know what the character sounds like regardless. Just try and mimic his way of speaking more and you'll do wonders for actually making that character sound like, well, that character.

I've neglected to mention Demo being a black man a lot because, well, it never really pops up a lot in canon. I think the most recognition we get for Demo being black is him just saying that he's black. He's a black Scotsman and that's about it. It's curious since I've seen a number of fics where it's all period-typical racism angst and whatever, with Demo being used as a way for the author to get up and proudly say that they think that racism is bad by having Demo being called a slur and getting upset. How progressive. 

I dunno. I never really personally touch on period-typical bigotry stuff myself due to the fact that this is Team Fortress 2. Rocket jumping was invented before stairs. Besides, this is the late 60s/early 70s. The civil rights movement happened by this point. Not everyone walking the streets is gonna be some abrasive bigot. I don't know why people want to try and make it "historically accurate" to begin with since this series has never been period-accurate to begin with. I don't particularly think TF2 is a great series to go on about tackling period-typical bigotry either. Literally if you want Demo angst you've got the actual mountain load of angst with his backstory right there. Obviously of course people are allowed to write what they want and I do fully believe that sharing stories and portraying bigotry is important, but why with TF2??? Do people just really look at a POC and think their existence is inherently political and they need to make it clear they think Racism Bad, even though the tone of canon really doesn't match that?? Ah well. I'm just rambling.

Regardless, Demo is just a character where you can take a lot of different avenues with. Maybe you can explore his trauma and try and write about how he feels trying to live up to his family name. What about his issues with his now-deceased father? Maybe you can forgo that and have him be a partner in crime to Solly or whomever else, with the occasional glimpse into his more sensitive self. Really, it all just depends on the story you're trying to tell. Ultimately, writing Demo with a healthy mix of comedy and angst is probably what is best done if you just want a pretty in-character version. He can be out on some grand adventure to take down Nessie with a merc or two AND have it be a story about him coming to terms with his past. That's just a me thing though lol.

Demo, like the rest of the cast, is an easily moldable piece of clay. All of the mercs at their very core are just funny character archetypes. They can be whatever you want them to be. It's just best to work with their original characterization and personality in mind, y'know? Fanfic writing is mainly about having fun anyway.

Speaking of which, enough procrastinating for me. I need to get back to writing my yaoi...

[the-golden-comet]

✨OC Reddit AITA Tag✨

Aha! A crossover from Reddit! Thank you for tagging me here @paeliae-occasionally , here @willtheweaver and here @theink-stainedfolk ❤️✨

Rules: Make an Am I The Asshole? post (look at r/amita or r/AITA for examples if you haven’t seen them) for an OC. The community will then vote to see who is the asshole in the given scenario.

Noah from YWIMC is a redditor, so he’d probably be on this forum:

AITA for giving my roommate the cold shoulder after he dragged me to a party?

Hey, everyone! I had an argument with my roommate, and I’m trying to see whether or not I’m in the wrong here.

So for context, I (25M) am NOT a partygoer. I’m in grad school ffs, I have deadlines to meet and my thesis to do. I can’t waste time at college drinking my grades away. This behavior concerned my roommate (1000+M 28M), who is the direct opposite. He loves to chat, goes out to parties, and is generally a really cool guy to be around. He’s usually really nice and careful about my boundaries, but there have been a few things that annoyed me.

For starters, he sometimes comes into the bathroom while I’m showering despite me telling him to give me privacy. Recently he started sleeping in the same bed as me after his evening prayers. It was awkward at first, but these little things I could let slide…until last week.

So roommate (let’s call him A) approaches me while I’m finishing up one of my assignments. He’s all like, “Hey, OP. There’s a party tonight and I think you’ll really benefit.” Um hello?? I told him that he could go without me and that I was busy with my project. A huffs and stated that, “You’re always working on your computer. Relax a little, sadiq.” Again, I told him I was busy and that he could take my bag (He can’t go too far without it; it’s a weird thing that’s a little hard to explain) if he really wanted to go. A was adamant that the party wouldn’t be the same without me.

This is where I may be TA, but wasn’t sure: I told A that I didn’t want to be around a group of C averages pissing my college tuition away, and that if he wanted to associate with that crowd he could go right ahead. A finally leaves me alone and goes to the party, letting me finish up my paper.

But then, A came BACK to the apartment, grabbed me, and forced me to go to this frat house. (Thank God I finished my paper and hit save before he did this). It was loud, people were obnoxious, and I was tense the whole time. I ended up taking an Uber home early, and have been giving A the silent treatment since.

So, AITA for not wanting to go to a party with my roommate?

Update: A has since apologized and made me baklava, but I’m still pretty pissed.

This is fun. I’m going to (gently) tag: @tragedycoded , @wyked-ao3 , @gioiaalbanoart , @jev-urisk , @drchenquill , @honeybewrites , @nczaversnick , @finickyfelix , @autism-purgatory , @sableglass , @words-after-midnight , @aintgonnatakethis , @ominous-feychild , @mysticstarlightduck , @saturnine-saturneight , @davycoquette , @thecomfywriter , @addicted2coke-theothercoke , @kaylinalexanderbooks , @katenewmanwrites , @lychhiker-writes , @zackprincebooks , @paeliae-occasionally , @agirlandherquill , @avaseofpeonies , @topazadine , @thatuselesshuman , @moltenwrites , @rivenantiqnerd , @writeahurricane , @differentnighttale , @houseplantblank , @lavender-gloom , @smellyrottentrees , @48lexr , @saebasanart , @theaistired , @mundanemoongirl , @fantasy-things-and-such , @clevah-girlboss , @inseasofgreen , @corinneglass , @alinacapellabooks , +open tag for whoever wants to join!

[the-two-of-clubs]

A r/limbuscompany Reddit thread titled "Why do people refer to Dante as a boy?" had a lot of answers given that frankly depressed me, so I wrote a huge essay. And because it's huge and the Redditors are definitely not going to listen, I'm going to repost it here. For non-Limbus fans, Dante's the game's speaking protagonist of indeterminate gender.

People will just straight up say "I just don't want to use they/them pronouns, it's either he or she and I get to pick, sorry!" and be the top upvoted comment in this thread.

When I encourage you to use they/them pronouns for Dante that's not even because they're nonbinary, it's because it's what Dante is always referred to in the game they're from, and it's because it's a less clunky standin for "he or she" as well. "They" can refer to anyone, that's why it's the single best fit of any common English pronoun for an ambiguous character like Dante. They/them is the only way to refer to Dante without making up a headcanon, whether that be a fan theory that they're Ayin or Benjamin or whatever, or a self insert projection.

They/them is something you (yes you! the reader!) could be getting used to being able to use, for multiple reasons. One of which being for nonbinary people, and another reason being not constantly being forced to assume everyone's gender all the time. To smoothly be able to use language that doesn't constantly exclude women. For example, hearing someone talk about a doctor and immediately leaping to "he/him" is a microaggression, because female doctors are constantly confronted with the assumption that they're either men or nurses.

The more you use they/them pronouns for others, the more natural to you they/them pronouns will seem. And Dante could be a great starting off point for some of you to start doing that. Using they/them pronouns can make somebody's day. It would be real self improvement that matters. You probably know a trans or nonbinary person, whether you know that about them or not.

Some of you are 100% telling on yourselves that you couldn't handle being around a nonbinary person who uses they/them pronouns in real life with this thread. The pronouns are so alien and unusable to you you're performing mental gymnastics specifically to get out of using them. Yes, nobody can stop you from using he/him for Dante, knock yourself out I guess. But also, what is your actual reason to do that? And not just some casual excuse that you're throwing out, like "you can't prove Dante's NOT a man" (why not use she/her then, hm? what if she's a woman? at the very least the correct pronoun for this would technically be "he or she", right?) Or "Dante is a male name" (the entire Limbus main cast has male names and you don't see people "he/him"-ing Faust. Seems like a specific issue you guys have with they/them and Dante.) Really ask yourself why. Why ARE you so convinced Dante is a man? No really I'm serious.

And when that question does get asked by OP here, people are arguing in this thread that men are the ones who play Limbus Company, and that of course everyone's calling Dante he/him because almost all gamers use he/him, with the whole self insert argument. Which is dismissal and erasure of women, who apparently don't exist and it doesn't matter if the game's self insert mascot represents them, despite showing up in this thread to tell you that they and their presumably from context also female friends play Limbus. This self insert argument will never make Dante a binary man, it would make Dante another type of nonbinary which is pangender or genderfluid, because Dante represents all players that play them or whichever specific player is playing them, and to refer to Dante as the concept, the gestalt, the infinite-mirror-worlds Dantes that exist on each of our phones, they/them still suffices in a unique way, to pay homage to other players with different genders than you and their Dantes which would match those genders, I think.

Calling Dante "he" is an active choice you're making, going against the way the game refers to Dante.

Using the pronouns that the character always gets referred to in the entire game they're from is the norm. You guys never don't do that, except in cases like this where it's so you can ignore they/them pronouns. You do have an actual reason, conscious or subconscious, to actively change which pronouns you're using. Some of the people referring to Dante as he/him here absolutely have biases that make them unwilling to refer to Dante as they/them and therefore they're going out of their way to contradict the source material, namely transphobia. That might not be you, but it's some of the people you're sharing this take that Dante uses he/him with.

I am under no illusion that Dante is necessarily intended to be nonbinary representation. However, some of your reasons for "he/him"-ing Dante are very much trans exclusionary. "Dante has a masculine frame"... People who look like men to you sometimes aren't men. Heck, sometimes they're cis women. And if this is the first you're hearing of it, yep! That's always been true and you should keep it in mind. We live in a big weird beautiful world. People who look like men to you might be nonbinary and use exclusively "they/them" pronouns for example, and being referred to as "they" rather than "he" might go a long way to their happiness and comfort because of a thing called dysphoria, which can be medically dangerous for people if they suffer too much of it from being misgendered too often. These people can't somehow get a different skeleton structure and look even more androgynous than Dante does in order for you to refer to them respectfully. Training yourself out of jumping to pronouns because of the width of someone's shoulders can do real world good just like training yourself out of jumping to pronouns because of somebody's career. It all helps you act respectfully and challenge your assumptions. And that can start right now right here. You can just refer to Dante or any nonbinary video game character you've been neglecting as they/them, sound it out in your head, nothing is stopping you.

And yes, before someone starts whining that I'm making "too big a deal of this" because I dropped the dreaded T-word that will get me downvoted, Dante isn't real and can't have their feelings hurt by the fact that people keep referring to them as he/him even if they turn out to have been a woman this whole time. I know I am aware. You should know that nonbinary people are reading the posts you're making and seeing how casually and thoughtlessly you're willing to dismiss even the concept of using they/them for a CLOCK who doesn't even have a human FACE let alone an obvious gender, and I for one know that were we to meet, you wouldn't gender me correctly either. You'd take one look at me and thoughtlessly assume you're always right.

Does referring to Dante as anything at all matter directly? No. It's fiction. However, words inspire people. Everyone is just referring to Dante as he/him because everyone else is and it's considered normal. A creative thinker, a leader rather than a follower, is someone who questions what everyone else is doing, and comes to their own conclusions. Coming to your own conclusions is what you will have to do with what I have written here.

For the Tumblr audience this is probably just an unsurprising PSA that Limbus fan Redditors are being weird about they/them pronouns and a bunch of weird arguments they're using to do so. I'm not trying to come after any queer person's he/they or she/her or any pronoun set Dante headcanons in particular here either, you can tell by the explanation of what dysphoria is that's not the target audience. If you headcanon characters having different pronouns when it's not just because you can't be assed to use they/them we're cool that's very cool of you.

[popculturebuffet]

MGADD: The Gatekeeper Review: The Masterpiece Shelved by Disney's Cowardice and Transphobia (Comissioned by WeirdKev27

Hello world I have arrived... because Disney has done something so monumentally stupid and offensive, even for them. I genuinely wish I was talking about this episode under circumstances that weren't "Disney showed what it really thinks of queer people... again", but if it weren't for a brave animator mentioning it off hand and the episode leaking soon after, I wouldn't of been able to.

The short vision since i'm sure most of you reading this know what's going on but to recap: thursday night an animator on Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Derrick Malik Johnson (Thank you The Mary Sue for recording the names), mentioned that an episode of the show was shelved due to "Which party won", while a poster on reddit, superootoro backed up the story. Both posts have since been deleted because the mouse clearly got upset this story got out.

Their also likely not pleased the episode ITSELF got out soon after thanks to disney fan Owlphibia. How they got it I don't know, and someone on the crew definitely supplied it.. and I applaud our anonymous hero. If a company isn't going to make something fully available for audiences to see, there is no shame in leaking it anyway. I felt that way when I thought Scooby Doo and Krypto Too was never getting released and reviewed it last year. and still want someone to escape Warner HQ with copies of Batgirl, Scoob: Holiday Haunt and Coyote Vs Acme.

We'll get into the episode shortly but needless to say it's focus on an openly trans character who outright states she's trans with a bigoted asshole who tries to move goalposts as the villian made it clear WHY Disney shelved the episode indefinitely, with Johnson claming they said it was due to who won the election. That said the presence of the beyonder, who disappears early into season 2 and the redditor saying the episode was meant for early season 2 makes it clear this is just an excuse: They shelved it, waited to see which way the country turned, then formally dumped it the second it was clear they MIGHT get heat from the new president over this rather than stand up for what's right.

Their response... does not help. Disney CLAIMS the episode was shelved not banned and their PROUD OF THE DISCUSSIONS IT BRINGS AND OF THIS SHOW WE JUST CANCELLED. NO FOR REAL. I doubt this will actually make it go away and making the tweets making accusations go away, thank alvis for screenshotting, just makes it more clear that no, they just wanted to shelve an episode that frankly and honestly talked about a trans child's struggles with no metaphors about brooklyn being trans: her transness is why the villain hates her and why the episode happens. It happens because a woman is a bigot, and Disney coudln't handle that. They can handle when the bigots an immortal definitely religious man but we don't say that or a super soldier from another dimension, where the subtext is blatant and what it's calling out is blatant, but Disney still has deniability. But when someone wants to tackle queerness openly and honestly.. they run.

It's a pattern for them. They cancelled owl house because its main romance is between two girls. They are oddly and throughly convinced that Lightyear failed not because it's a tonal mess that tries to squeeze buzz light year's cheesy good world building into a darker hard sci fi story that it doesn't fit in, but because two women kissed, and were so paranoid about that that they tried to make Inside Out 2 straight as possible by making the girl Riley has a blatant crush on older than her.. which.. it just makes it a crush guys. Thank god their so bad at this

And of course the piece de resitance before this: Firing openly queer black man and show runner for X-Men 97 Beau Demayo for both wanting his show to actually tackle prejudice instead of just rubber stamping it and being openly sexy on his socials when.. tha'ts his right, thent rying to frame him as an abuser, allegations that ONLY sprung up long after the show had already aired and only when they tried to bar him from showing up at an awards ceremony for an episode he fucking wrote.

Disney is not a good company on most days. They fuck up at least once a year from their implicit support of the don't say gay bill, to the owl house debacle to writing off a ton of shows for tax purposes. I love the CONTENT they fund, I love the card game ravensburger made with their properties, I love the creative stories many an animator has made. But I don't love them. Not anymore and probably not in the foreseable future. I love the stuff peopl ehave created under them but it's become clear Disney has become desperate, greedy and souless. While all companies struggle to be represnetive it's disney who shows their ass the most. Wether it's saying "first gay character evah come see" for characters who were there for a minute so it could be cut from china, banning pride flags, or not letting an alien we can all tell is gay just.. say she is when everything around Penny implied it. Let her fuck a duck disney christ.

I'm so.. tired of this. I've been at this for almost 6 years. I've been covering disney this whole time, starting with ducktales reviews and while I haven't been covering shows as they come out for a variety of reasons, I have kept a firm eye on them. And they just, keep fucking up. They dont' care about queer people. They haven't evolved AT ALL since this half assed tweet Alex Hirsch mocked back when twitter was relevant

And this should be spammed to them because my god. This is a fuckup of monumental proprtions. And it hits personally as I fear for my trans nephew in this colder, worse world we're entering. He may be 14 but he would've appricaited this and so would the many trans kids who just need someone to say: your okay you matter. That's what this episode was trying to do.. and it got shuttered.

The only good news is the pressure MIGHT get disney to actually release it. MIght being a strong word. Last i checked you could find the episode on internet archive, but I'd find it where youc an while you can as Disney is likely going to be doing everything to cover their ass

And that dear friends is one of the main reasons for covering this episode: Disney might try to bury it as deep as they can, so I want a full record of it. To show the content and context of it. The other is to judge the episode on it's own merits. I'll say right now: this is an excellent episode and it deserves to be released. But it's important to get into why: why this episode is good, why it deserved better and why this SHOW deserves better. Moon Girl was canceld recently and if anything this story draws more attention to somethign Disney likely thought they could do quietly and to the show from people who haven't watched it or may of given up after season 1. It's important to me as a critic and person to look at this work for what it is and not just what disney has done to it: a well done story that takes a side character and makes her a star, while also being bonkers in the conkers in a way that absolutely works. Join me under the cut won't you as I break down this tremendous episode.

The episode begins with the volleyball team at lunella's school gearing up for a regionals match. I'd honestly forgotten about these guys as their main spotlight episode for season 1, Goodnight Moon Girl was one I kinda half payed attention to as I wasn't a huge fan of the gimmick.

Looking back on the ep though it's easy to see why they gave the team's captain, Brooklyn, her own episode: she's funny, has an entirely relatable rivalrly with her sibling, and was open and welcoming to lunella. IT's easy to see why Lunella is now the team's eager hydration technician and casey is preparing the half time show. It also shows off the series tight continuity: They tend to bring back characters you wouldn't THINK come back, or if needing a side character using one of the casts established friends, with the volleyball team also playing a supporting role in the dance episode that chronologically comes after this. Brooklyn and co are pumped and ready for the other team whose team name I forgot but is mostly a threat thanks to their leader and her mom/coach greer.

Greer is played by Amy Sedaris and look the show had me at Amy Sedaris plays the main villian. I forgot just how good she is at being evil and her comedic energy nicely offsets just how.. nasty this person is.

While i'm not hiding that Greer turns out to be awful a touch I like is that the episode does for a second: Greer seems like a hypercompetivie hellicopter mom, but offers orange slices and is nice and cordial to everyone. It seems like it was just a bait and switch and given how the show goes, had this episode not been banned, you'd be expecting it to simply segue into some problem for Lunella that leads to her doing a science.

Instead the problem is entirely Greer and it starts simply because Brooklyn and her best friend Tai, who was previously established as non binary, something the episode makes sure to point out again later. They just joke and laugh reminscing about playing soccer together back before Brooklyn transitioned, with Brooklyn being happy she's not on the "boys team".

Unfortunately for her, Greer hears this. And just like that a switch flips: the animation is exagerated and it's clear this bitch is immediately nettled. It telegraphs a problem trans people in general face: that just saying your trans immediately makes some people target you. That just an offhand mention can lead to someone trying to make you miserable simply for being YOU. It's one of MANY reasons the targeting of trans kids disgusts me and i'ts something the show portrays chillingly well this sudden.. entitlement to decide who a person is based on their body. That because you can't get past it, this kid has to suffer. I"ve seen it, I hate it, and the show does it well and Sedaris does it very well, using her usual comedic energy to make a character whose utterly loathsome, yet in such a skincrawlingly real way. Greer is far from a subtle character.. but transphobes tend not to be. While her tactics are for the most part not over the top, her bigotry is portrayed as loud and hateful as we've seen from the right. (Not to give the democrats a pass given the sheer number who want to throw trans people under the buss for the party's systemic issues that caused the election loss, but the right are far more vitrolic and operatic about their transphobia, like Elon Musk deadnaming their daughter and making up a story about them being intrested in women's clothing.. only to get utterly wrecked by his daughter pointing out he was never around for her as a child. Given how fragile elon's ego is and how terminally online he is, zinging him on his own platform does way more damage than anything else could possibly do.

So Greer goes to tell coach Hrbek, Luna's reluctant science teacher and loveable jock, that Brooklyn was biologically a male. Not her terms but fuck her for that. I like how greer just tries to imply it.. she won't come out and SAY Brooklyn's trans: just because transphobes aren't subtle dosen't mean they don't try to do this doubletalk bullshit. Hrbek nosells it just blinking condescndingly and when she dosen't get it telling her bluntly yeah he knows and tells her in no uncertain terms Brooklyn is a girl and she's playing.

He then slips on an orange because life is not kind to this man: like he dosen't get injured a lot but he is stuck teaching a concept that while giving it his best, he's not good at and dosen't like teaching. And now after doing something genuinely heroic, standing up for a kids right to be who they are and telling off a bigot, and only likely not saying fuck off because a crowd's present, he gets hurt. Poor guy. True hero

With the only adult out of the room Greer tries every bullshit tactic in the book to get Brooklyn disqulaified and I love her reactions: no coach, player coach. Her pride flag pads are ones she got from the store. Her bottle.. has water. Greer tries every bullshit thing but you get the sense this isn't the first, and sadly probably isn't the last time, some asshole has tried to disqualify brooklyn based on her gender.

In the locker room getting ready the rest of the Squirrels have picked up on what's going on. Lunella is upset and want sto do something but can't, but it's telling both Brooklyn and Tai try and brush it off. Tai outright tells them not to mentoin their non binary or Greer might explode and Brooklyn shakes it off just.. used to it. And it's fucking sad that a child whose 14 at most, the same age as my nephew, just has to be.. used to it. That people will hate you and try to unperson you just for being what you are. It's part of why this episode being delissted is so frustrating: the message is told well and it's one trans kids need to hear. It's why representation matters: that little voice that says "you are not alone". As a bisexual seeing bi characters makes me happy as their not common even now. While we don't share a gender, Luz being bi on loud house and the show making sure that was clear felt nice. It felt good being seen. That kids after me won't have to struggle with these feelings and just see someone and go "That's me.. that's what I am" and it's so fucking terrible Disney coudlnt' see past their already overflowing wallets to understand that, that the only chance the episode has of release is because they fucked up.

Since greer can't rules lawyer or bully a child out of competttion she goes with plan b: a magical key. Yeah another good reason to cover this one and something that understandably won't get as much coverage? This episode is fucking bonkers. While greer is a well written villian.. she's also a TERF who bought a magical key at a yard sale. No really the beyonder recaps how she got the key. It's not the first villian whose done that on the show, and I do want to someday meet the villian who hosted that yard sale, so it still works in the shows mythology. It also hope the show has had some rediculous villians: Living hair , a symboite tha'ts an online troll, lady stitlman at home. The show is serious when it needs to be this episode included, even the living hair episode had a serious aseop on the racisim black women get about their hair and the internalized racisim that creates. But the show isn't afraid to get weird so while a karen with a magical key she what bought at a yard sale is defintely the weridest foe lunella's faced, it's still within the realm of posisblity for this show. And definitely the marvel universe as a whole. I mean spider-man's rogues include a nazi made of bees and a stegasaurs man, both of whom I hope lunella fights if we get a season 3.

So Greer locks them in the locker room which turns into an escape room/death trap where they have to find keys. Thankfully Brooklyn's awful little brother loves them, so they have an edge and she shoots down lunella just.. mcguivering their way out. It's also intresting to have a super villian fight.. where lunella ISN'T in costume. She's just her normal self, and still just as competent and the only reason she dosen't break things right away is that everyone involved , particularly their leader, assumes they have to play this game fair. And given how in most death games breaking the rules usually kills you it's an easy assumption.

Our heroes do solve the puzzles well, and we get a great joke with Kai whose excited by the lava... and one of their teamates shouts "no it can kill us stop that".

That's a suprising thing I found with the episode: it is REALLY funny. I forget how funny the show can be, and this ep might be it's funniest as Casey, Luna's bestie and sidekick, is forced to stall like a motherfucker as she gets the sense something is wrong.. I mean opening the locker room to find no one there is a good clue. And yes Casey dosen't figure out this is supervillian stuff till near the end but it's done resonably: she can probably get the hint Greer's done SOMETHING but assumes she just locked them in another room or tricked them or something. You know standard school setting vilian shenanigans. Not "This terf tiger mom happens to have a magic key she found at a yard sale. Casey HAS seem some shit at this point, I mean one of the episodes in this very season not long before this was suppposed to come out is her and lunella having to travel inside the dinosaur whose also one of their best friends. But usually the villians on this show wear a costume. Even the gentrifying assholes from season 1, while wearing suits still had super tech and a very obvious black and white motif Lunella should've seen as a red flag. Greer for all intensive puproses is just a bog standard transphobic karen. You just.. can't plan for "turns out she has a key from a super villian yard sale." It's like "a giant obese monster from another dimension who literally needs raitings to lives kidnaps you to star in his shows or else". It's certainly plausible given how weird the marvel universe, but no ones ever really prepared for Mojo that hasn't met the floating fat man. Who for those who aren't freebasing x-men regularly is entirley real. I made none of that up

He also made chibi clones of the x-men called the x-babies. Look it up.

Point is no matter how fucking weird a characters life is, they can still be surprised. So Casey instead decides to stall. Stall as if her life depended on it which.. it dosen't but a lot of other kids do. So she makes up a tradition where they have to do THE WAVE before a game. And I love both her hammy calls to do the wave and the mascots gradual exhaustion. Best gag of the episode.

Let him Rest. Eventuallyt he poor guy collapses, but luckily Devil comes in as Casey called him over and tells him to vamp. Vamp like he's never vamped before. Vamp as if, in her words "Your mariah carey opening for beyonce". And he does... and while he sounds about how you'd expect him singing to, like he's gargling the marbles he ate this morning, everyone loves it. Because it's a singing dinosaur.

This comedy is just... fantastic. The shows humor dosen't always land, but this is it at it's best: silly, over the top, yet grounded in the characters; Casey using her natural ambtion and improv skills and Devil using the voice Satan gave him to sing to a souled out crowd. It's good stuff and nicely helps with the tension of the a plot, with the two cutting back and forth, i'm just not doing that because I don't gotta.

Speaking of which we get a nice musical montage of our heroes bravely solving the puzzles. And they do, passing all sorts of shit to do, opening the final door.. only to find the game's reset.

And here it is: the episodes signature scene. Out of all the cut stuff from the episode, this is the bit i've seen the most on social media, the bit I saw before I even saw the full episode. The speech that helps make what Disney did SO much worse and helps tie this all together.

Brooklyn realizes the hard truth: because Greer dosen't consider her a girl, she has to quit the team as in Greer's warped eyes, her playing at all is against the rules. It's a metaphor that's blantat as it is heartbreakingly accurate: Society always keeps moving the goal posts for queer people. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try to fit in or just be accepted, there were always be people who will just not care and will keep trying to shove you back int he closet because what you are is inconveint to them. if it dosen't exist to THEM it dosen't and they will keep making your life harder to try to break you down, to try and get you to quit.

I'm Bisexual. Mentioned it before in this article, and have never been shy about it. But it's also a side I struggle to explore sometimes. Growing up in a society that didn't even seem to have a word for what I was and already horribly awkward with women, I FEARED my bisexuality, convinced myself I wasn't. In hindsight.. I didn't want another thing on top of my autisim and anxiety for people to judge me for. Even now I don't try to date.. I mean part of it is i'm broke and have issues, but I realized as I wrote this article.. part of it is fear. Fear of rejection, fear of someone trying to change who I am, fear of getting beat up for being who I am.

And the fears I have I need to deal with, the reality I deal with.. is multipled twentyfold for any trans person. I have trans relatives. I won't get deep into details on the ground i'ts not my story to tell, but what they've faced is heartbreaking. What my nephew has had to put up with just for existing is fucking devistating. It's a bleak world that just wont' let them be who they are without a fight because the idiots who can't accept it have the power and some of those who have the power to stop it.. turn a blind eye. Again a good chunk of democrats were all too quick to try and throw trans people under the bus when Kamala didn't say hardly ANYTHING about trans rights. The knives come out easily and quickly and someone's personhood simply dosen't matter the second it makes your life harder. It's why these guys hate prounouns and trans people: They see just wanting to be who you are as entitlement, as a lot to ask.. when .. it's not. It's not hard at all to ask. It's not hard to treat someone with dignity.

In my case.. it was thanks to, ironically enough tv. It was the summer after high school, I was bored and had a lot of spare time so I watched a lot of the canadian teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. And while degrassi is far from the most subtle show or free of mistakes, when it came to queer rep it had a solid track record, slowly evolving with the times. As such this is the first show I saw with actual trans representation: a character whose out as a trans man, adam torres, and has to deal with the metric ton of bullshit kids STILL face, while also having plenty of story outside it, from his friendship with best bud eli to his marveling at his brother Drew's poor life choices. Adam wasn't a token, wasn't just a prop for trans stories (Though this being an early 2010's teen drama he both had a TON of stories about being trans and perscuted against and was played by a cis actress. Again not exactly free of mistakes), he was a fleshed out human who just wanted to be who they were. It helped me see Trans people exist, and accept it easily.

And that's why this episode being pulled.. fucking bothers me. Because realizing she can't win, Brooklyn breaks down, blaming herself for what's simply truly isn't her fault. It's Tai who naturally steps forward, pointing out she CAN open up to them and that when Tai came out as nonbinary.. Brooklyn supported them. It's not selfish or being a burdern to let others help you.. and it's easy to support others. to lift them up and accept who they are and defned them against dickheads who say otherwise. The most heartbreaking part is the simplist as brooklyn laments

"How many doors do I have to break down before they stop locking them"? And given disney put one up themselvfes.. it's galling. Btu the message.. persisits: support is easy, and support matters and you are not alone. It's okay to let others carry you sometimes, and it's not a burdern or drama to vent about shit this frustrating.

The other message is an important one as the republicans no doubt prepare to lock more doors... sometimes... playing by the rules dosen't work. Bigots simply will make more to try and keep you from playing. Sometimes you just gotta say fuck it and say fuck them. Fight. Don't play civlity politics, don't play nice, tell them to fuck off.

So our heroes do smashing reality and reealizing things are fragile in this reality: it's held together only so much.. and thus they start breaking it.

Back outside Greer's key starts to glitch and Casey finally gets it.. as does Greer's daughter whose HORRIFIED at what her mom did. That she wanted a fair match. And so did greer.. but only by her rules. GIRL POWER.. no really she says that. I love they just make her a TERF outright and the way amy sedaris says it just shows how hollow that statment is when you won't accept ALL WOMEN.

Her daughter also isn't having this shit and steals the refs whistle, not letting this start till EVERYONE is here. Luckily it's time for the shows ocne an episode beautfully animated musical sequence. This time using all sorts of pride colors and some really nice looking sprites. I lespecailly love them taking the menus of an rpg battle system and breaking out of the frame with it. Really fun stuff and of course we get the shot almost everyone has used and I'm no exception. Brooklyn in front of a pride flag, using a trans flag volleyball to smash her way out.

So our heroes are free, and with the key obviously glitching the Ref, whose mostly just been.. done this whole episode, gets the picture and Brooklyn, not being stupid, uses those soccer skills she mentioned to smash the key while Greer's escorted the fuck out. I mean granted the ref should also.. call the police or shield or somebody as several woman were kidnapped, but given it was in front of a large crowd AND this is the cellphone age i'm sure someone did. But it's just as statsifying Greer is left making hollow threats to get the ref decertified as the door slams in her face. Now she's locked out and that door should neve ropen again.

So Brooklyn and head.. rival team girl... whatever her name was, shake hands. Also kev sugggested they end up going out and I like that. Mostly because i'm pretty sure greer would fucking melt and then all the children everywhere would sing.

So we end on Brooklyn spiking. We don't know who won or lost.. and it jus tdosen't matter. What matters is Brooklyn got to play the game.

The Gatekeeper is excellent. Strong contender for my best of the year list which fast approaches as my backlog

Piles up as usual.. i'll manage most of this. But this episode is fantatic and wether you've seen the show before or not, watch it. It's excellent, and I hope to god the pressure from it makes disney actually release it on disney + next batch. I'm still not 100% they will hence doing this.. but as long as we keep the pressure up it could happen. And who knows, we could even get a season 3. Why not shoot for the moon? Thanks for reading and just remember "I'm pulling for you we're all in this together"

[theadhddimsenion]

you know ever since mastermind the blitzø antis seems to have had to rehash his previous “sins”.

At first it all was “he doesn’t care about anyone but himself”, “he adopted Loona so he could force her to love him!”, ”he yelled at my waifs/husbando and that makes him evil!!”, “he was mean to poor whittle moxxie boxxie!”, “he made Loona burn owls which she could easily not done!!”, “he stole from my succuwife!”, “he’s literally a rapist!!”, “he makes excuses!” Blah blah blah blah blah!! Yeessh!! But now they are constantly having to bring up his old sins and create straw men to make their nonsense work. Because when he put himself on that chopping block he proved that he cared more for his found family more than any of these people probably care for anyone in their life!!

Now I know that the internet isn’t the best place for a civil discussion this is especially true of Reddit but just yesterday I saw someone get 2000 upvotes for calling people hypocrites for supposedly “ignoring” blitz’s stalking of m&m in favor of emberlynns stalking of him! And contrary to what some people think I don’t believe that m&m need any kind of “karmic justice” on him in the slightest!! He saved their fucking lives this episode I think he’s got a lot more good karma than people give him credit for. Fortunately the Redditor in question was rightfully flames for their bad take which goes to show that no website is a monolith.

We all know that blitz’s greatest flaw is his self hatred but I would argue that self awareness is his greatest virtue. You can’t really blame yourself for everything and make it make sense in your head without knowing who and what you are on a very deep level. Contrary to what some people think he has never once tried to deflect blame from himself even in apology your he said “everyone is shitty” that obviously includes himself and no he’s not trying to deflect blame from himself he’s asking “why me specifically?” To which veroskia doesn’t answer but instead insults him and speaking of veroskia. It should be plainly obvious to everyone with an iota of media literacy that veroskia was not helping anyone with those parties of hers she was just prolonging their supposed suffering by dragging them into her bad coping mechanism and causing them to never move on just like her. If she doesn’t want to forgive than fine but at less than forget!! Blitz is always the first to take responsibility even for things that aren’t his fault this is made crystal clear in mastermind where he volunteered for the chopping block and took advantage of the fact that he big red bitch was never going to hear them out. Blitz’s greatest “crime” is daring to be something more than a worthless little circus imp who’s value is determined by everyone but himself. And to me that makes him a working class and neurodivergent hero.

[woman-respecter]

i lurk on this liberal pro-dem subreddit that skews mostly male and it's so telling tbh. they'll be like "why should blue states subsidize red states? skill issue. red states simply can't keep up with a changing society and deserve to be left in the dust" but the second they're an article about the groyperization of young men they're all like "can they be blamed? young men have many legitimate grievances. our school system and society encourages the success of girls. feminism calls men evil rapists, etc" without shame or irony. no one would suggest affirmative action to fix men's plummeting college attendance bc aa is not a popular concept on that sub but you just know they're thinking it. that one atlantic article about the couples who are doing ivf specifically to get daughters bc of the view that daughters are better behaved and more reliable and responsible than sons really brought the mras out of the woodwork on there. like actual "i no longer doubt that we live in a gynocentric society" comments. men have held women back and it was treated as evidence of women's inherent inferiority. now women are overtaking men in some small sectors of society and it's treated as a public health crisis. like, sorry you're useless and your parents don't trust you to take care of them when they're old. skill issue.

it sucks that even the men we expect to be our best allies still have manosphere beliefs. men have an evil solidarity with each other that women don’t, which really sucks.

tho tbf reddit may not be the best sample bc that is such a manosphere type website. perhaps non-redditor men are more reasonable?

[gorbalsvampire]

Can we please have an OC Deepdive for dear dead and dreadful Penelope?

OC Deep Dive | Mother Superior Penelope Germaine Armitage-Stoneleigh

What common/uncommon fear do they have? I think Penny's afraid of rootlessness, routelessness - having no sense of where she's from and where she's going, it would be all too easy to simply collapse, into an endless train of atrocities. As long as she has a cause, she has a mission, and as long as she has a mission, she has a reason, and as long as she has a reason... she can hold onto hers.

Do they have any pet peeves? Thought-terminating cliches in general, but she reserves a seething hatred for what people of a certain age still call "image macros." Failure to use your words indicates lack of an argument. You have lost. (She's such a fucking Redditor, I swear to God.)

What are 3 items you can find in their bedroom? Nail polish. So much nail polish. It's about the only part of her beauty regimen she can do for herself and she's quite good at nail art. Also, hats. And she never grew out of her childhood habit of stuffing whatever books she was reading under the covers instead of putting them back anywhere.

What do they notice first in a person? What they look at to avoid looking at her. If they actually look at her, head on, they are worth considering.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is their pain tolerance? About a 6. She's not as tough as she claims she is, and in a straight up fight, she's something of a glass cannon. After the initial ambush/environmental hazard phase, the Penny boss fight doesn't actually take too long.

Do they go into fight or flight mode when under pressure? (or freeze and fawn) Fawn, and she hates it about herself. Freeze if she's merely discombobulated.

What animal represents them best? Monitor lizard. I saw a video of one acting like an oversized housecat that didn't blink and yep, that's her.

How would a stranger likely describe them? "So I had this bird in the cab the other week, right, and she just sat there for the whole ride - just stared. Didn't say a word. Didn't blink. Funny thing is, I don't remember her getting in... or what she looked like. Just those eyes. And she paid cash. Wouldn't even touch me card reader."

Do they have any hobbies? What a quaint notion. Not... really. Everything Penny does is technically part of her Sabbat hustle. Being a troll on vampblr.sck is fun, though. I imagine she still reads, and she can do a cryptic crossword in about half the time it takes anyone else, but that's more about keeping her brain active... it's like exercise. I'm now struck by the awful image of her working out, just to freak out the gym rats, and I can't get that out of my head...

[medford-oregoppenheimer]

I hated my old intro post. Or maybe I just forgot that it existed. So let's just get to the point here, shall we?

Hey you guys, it's me Medford. 8th biggest city in Oregon, seat of Jackson County (take THAT, Jacksonville!), and the crown jewel of Southern Oregon's natural beauty. Yes, I'm more than just crime, trains, and Jacksonville's bully. Or whatever the hell you guys have been saying about me.

Only they/them for in-character, but she/her is ok for mod

DO NOT MAKE KYS JOKES WITH ME. Ever.

DNI: the typical stuff, any type of discrimination, nazis, fascists, radqueers, radfems, pedophiles and maps, terfs, anti-endos, proshitters, donation asks, hate anons, people who are really just here to make fun of the whole gimmickverse concept or the way I act, or people who want to make fun of my friends (you do NOT just get to do that), literally get the fuck out because Medford don't wanna deal with you. holy shit that was a lot

ALSO: DNI if you're into D4DJ, Pretty Cure, Oshi no Ko, or Mori Calliope; are an active Redditor; romanticize tsundere or yandere (please don't ask about any of these, you will get blocked)

oh yeah also under 13s please DNI and maybe consider getting off social media and trying to enjoy real life, there's a reason COPPA is a thing

Now that we've gotten that whole exhaustive list out of the way here are a few things you should know.

I often joke around a lot and I enjoy teasing people so if you don't want me to do when talking to you PLEASE let me know

The following phrases are all said as a joke because it's part of the persona and stuff:

"It's not like [whatever] or anything"

"I hate you"

"Don't get the wrong idea"

"Don't tell anyone I said that"

"You hear me?!"

Anything to do with that one fake chain post I made

And probably a lot more so if you see something I say often that sounds like a joke then let me know.

I don't do donation asks. Or picrews because that's for my main blog if you ever find it. Also please don't tag me in chain posts, or at least not on this blog, I know you guys mean well and all but really it means nothing but a bunch of words meaning to scare others into believing they're so dead if they don't repost those stories.

ALSO stop with the whole "moody brat" jokes. I don't mind teasing and stuff but we're gonna draw the line there. Only I can call myself that.

Anyhoo here's the relationships and stuff

@raleigh-nc-official-totally-real sibling city on the other side of the US

@certainly-eugene that one friend with a trashy flag

@the-state-of-georgia-official friend and idol

@maryland-officially and @ohio-thestate idols

@buffalony-official #1 best rival :)

And yeah that's pretty much all there is to say. I can't imagine anyone who would read through all this, but if you did then I guess you're kind of cool. But don't get the wrong idea, okay?! Because it's not like I care or anything! Seriously!

Well, why are you still here? Stop looking at me like that!!

[yuttikkele]

please tell me more about gen z lotf au 🙏🙏

OFCCC!! i wrote a lot more about this than i thought i could, and i feel like i could keep going but i do wish to go to sleep! ty for the ask! (there was also an anon ask with this question, idk if it was you, but i'm just gonna answer this one lol)

the choir boys all know each other irl (obvi they still have choir together). everyone lives roughly in the same vicinity, but no one knows that.

they all met online during the pandemic. possibly through video games, twitter, or tiktok

how did this ragtag group of people all become friends? idk fortnite probably

i don't know much about fortnite, but it seems like it would start some friendships and/or rivalries. maybe minecraft or roblox too.

how they met and became friends is hazy, like how the beta kids became friends in homestuck. point is: they're all friends. pretty much.

some boys are closer friends than others, but they're all mutuals. they're all in like the same community. what community? that is a good question i should probably think of an answer

piggy uses the nickname people bullied him with as his online name. he gets cyberbullied and has ended up on many a cringe account, but it doesn't really bother him anymore. he likes to spread information, but he was a little self-righteous about it before he quit twitter. now he argues with people on instagram. piggy's also a redditor.

ralph usually just watches other people's content, but sometimes he'll post something and it'll get pretty popular because he's ralph and being well-liked is an innate part of his character. ralph does prefer to go out and do stuff than being online all the time.

simon is chronically online. being shy, he gravitated towards the internet. he's definitely a fandom girlie and has a tumblr (hi tumblr). he spreads positivity on the internet all the time. he's one of the good ones fr. i do hc simon as a Christian, so he does spread the Word a lot as an lgbtq affirming Christian dude

jack doesn't spend too much time on the internet. he also isn't allowed a lot of these medias by his parents, so that may have something to do with it. he does get upset when his posts don't get as many likes as ralph's

roger ragebaits and leaves hate comments all the time, but he has moments where he's nice. maurice memer obviously. sam and eric are the voros twins. i don't have too many thoughts about these guys just yet

they voice chat and sometimes video call

meeting each other irl for the first time led to the utter disgust at ralph's blindness in the fashion department

ok onto them reading lord of the flies cause i think this is such a funny concept

they all miraculously start reading lord of the flies as a class assignment at the same time

they all tell each other this and they're all like "loooool that's crazy we're all reading the same book at the same time"

i saw someone on my last post ab this say exactly what im about to say. it is truly the only way to go with this.

everyone's all "oh haha ralph's got the name of the first character AND he's blonde!" "piggy has the same name as peter's online name! haha how sill-" "WHY IS MY FULL LEGAL NAME IN THIS BOOK???"

the last person is jack btw if you couldn't tell

the exact names and character descriptions matching up a little too well with the boys startles them, but they still joke about it A LOT.

i mean, think about it, if you were forced to read this book in class and you find out you and your friends are basically the main characters, you would NOT stop cracking jokes about it.

"'ugly without silliness.' wow jack, william golding really DID put you in his story!"

they do start to get a little more freaked out when, yk, stuff starts going down in the book and they have to analyze it.

piggy's eventually like "OK we, or at least i, have got to figure this out." and he goes and does some research.

aaaaand that is all i can tell you for now :))

i do headcanon a lot of the boys as queer, but my hcs of them as gen z-ers do differ a little from my hcs of them as gen silencers.

piggy is a strict ally, his aunt is an ally, allies all around, until he realizes he is not so straight as he seems and is not really just an ally. bisexual

ralph knows nothing about the sexuality and gender biz he just does what feels right. he's pretty much demisexual/romantic tho.

simon is a gay dude. he is gnc and on the trans spectrum somewhere

jack is the only one using queer slurs, everyone gets onto him for it. he's gay, but he doesn't know it/won't accept it (because everyone in his life is HOMOPHOBIC!!!). when he does finally accept it, he is still using those slurs as slurs he is not reclaiming them.

[theknightstemplar]

perspective. (end of year rant)

Rubbing my hands together as I force redditors to sit around me like kindergartners. I then explain that "Argath's actions are undeniably Bad but. we are viewing them through a lens of detachment and fiction so it's all too easy to say 'WELL I WOULDN'T DO THAT IF I WERE IN HIS SHOES' ."

Ivalice isn't real-- though the issues it represents very much are. Argath is also not real but going "well I would subject this 16 year old to what amounts to war crimes for his actions!" is not the hot coals of justice take you think it is.

Argath is a child.

A fictional and fucked up evil child, but a child still. I'm more willing to pity him than I am the adults who perpetuated and even rewarded his behavior. You wanna know who you should hate more in my opinion?

Zalbaag Beoulve.

I won't lie, I get a little sick of the "zalbaag should have joined the party!" opinion. At least as it is now... You really think Zalbaag "This Changes Nothing" Beoulve would have done anything to help in ch2 onwards? Ha ha, I fucking doubt it! Even if you think tietra's death was a fluke or that "argath shouldn't have shot her" (someone else would have if argath hadn't, you know this I know this.) the first thing he does when ramza DOES come to him for help issssss... oh wait, let me check! HE DISMISSES HIM AND DISOWNS RAMZA TO HIS FACE.

Ramza: You speak of trust, Zalbaag, yet you show me none in kind! Zalbaag: What have you ever done to inspire my trust? The mistake was my own. Until today I had looked on you as a true brother. But your mother's common blood forever stains you common. You are not fit to bear the Beoulve name!

He doesn't let Ramza defend himself or anything, it's on-sight immediate "you're wrong you're not my brother commoner filth i hate you fuck you" Argath was less defensive than this when Ramza called him out just before Zeakden ("Best of luck, my soft-hearted friend. You'll need it.") so WHY AREN'T WE TALKING MORE ABOUT WHAT AN ASSHOLE ZALBAAG IS? He's the same vein of classism Argath is only WORSE because he's an adult in a position of power over others!

It's almost always "Ohhh zalbaag the tragic hero!" "zalbaag felt so bad, I wish he could have been saved :(" and rarely "zalbaag only felt sorry after it was too late for 'sorry' to MEAN anything" or "zalbaag never truly apologized for facilitating the death of several northern sky soldiers and at least 2 children, only for being dycedarg's good little moron" yeah zalbaag, tell tietra how sorry you are that you essentially said her life means nothing. even if you say it to her grave. would you have, zalbaag?

the narrative forgives zalbaag as well. dycedarg largely takes the fall for his little bro flubbing fort zeakden. zalbaag gets the more heroic sounding theme of the older brothers and he's given the benefit of doubt by ramza re: war scheming-- I would say it's a mercy almost that Argath's in turn forgotten by the narrative as a person and turned into more symbolism but then. War of the Lions had to fuck that up lmao

But my point is. I don't forgive Argath's actions; I pity him. It was adults like Zalbaag, Gaffgarion, and Dycedarg that left him to fall through the cracks and become the hateful thing he was before he died. And even if Zalbaag didn't have some grand sinister agenda he's still an asshole whose inability to open his eyes and either act or change lead to death abound, moreso than argath.

[kellyvela]

I'm unable to fathom the logic of J0nrya shippers. I recently got into a twitter altercation with a couple of accounts and oh my god, I totally forgot how terrible they are ! I have all of them blocked on here but they must be on twitter as well, I even recognised some of the users. It's just awful energy all around; all of them despise Sansa, no matter what she says and does. And they are SO weirdly possessive of Jon. They claim that WE treat Jon as some trophy husband when it is actually them who are guilty of that! They even hate it when people make simple Sansa/Ned parallels because apparently Ned belongs to A as well? Never mind that Ned is also Sansa's father...smh.

Their copium is very loud and obnoxious. I wonder how they felt when GRRM straight up debunked the ship at Balticon. Calling J/A relationship by all accounts, quite simple - that the fans have given it more thought than he has etc. I would have just packed up and left after that and accepted it wasn't going to become canon. But alas, they get even louder than how they were before. Do they understand how weird they sound. They sexualise A so much and want her to become a courtesan and get her period. It's very obvious A is not going to be the love interest because GRRM has done everything in his willpower to portray A as a prepubescent child. But he has done the opposite with Sansa; He's made her tall, full-breasted, acting as a mother to a child, basically running the household in the Eyrie etc. sometimes I forget she's meant to be 13...

We all know that when someone is on the right track, GRRM will respond cryptically and give a short, sweet answer. He rambled when it came to j0nrya, that's not a good sign for the canon basis of their ship, especially when they have the nerve to call Jonsas delusional.

The truth is, I wouldn't still be here fully believing in the inevitability of Jonsa if GRRM debunked it in the same manner he did w J/A. When that Alexandragenesis person asked him about it back in 2018 and GRRM just responded with "not going to tell anymore than I already have" I knew that we were on the right track. If GRRM flat out ignored the question or responded with a simple "not the direction I'm going in" since he had no issue debunking another theory on that same chat...if I remember correctly, well I'd have left and accepted I just misinterpreted the text and saw romance where it wasn't meant to be. I'd still read fanfic about them and enjoy them in a fanon way, and I still believe all the brilliant metas hold merit, no matter if they're meant to be interpreted as romantic by the author.

But j0nrya's didn't let go of their stance and just cracked down harder on jonsas. I'm embarrassed for them. I don't care if they ship it in fanon, if they just enjoy it as a pairing and have accepted it won't become canon based on the author's blatant dismissal of any romance between them - but the way they have behaved in this fandom is really really childish and frankly, irritating. They actually dominate reddit as well, surprisingly. There's quite a few popular Redditors on there who get lots of upvotes and who are also big A/J0nrya bloggers on here. And sometimes there are posts about Queen A/J0nrya which is met with 0 criticism by the community. There's healthy discussions which receives heaps of upvotes and everything. But it's the opposite situation with queen sansa and Jonsa. Little to no upvotes and harsh criticism.

Are these people selectively blind? Is this fandom completely unable to understand subtext and implicit clues/foreshadowing? Do they get how fiction works? Do they get the different literary influences that inspired GRRM to write ASOIAF? His past works? His favourite authors? The themes of his series? The importance of omission? Unreliable narrators? Dramatic irony? Have these people never studied a text before and been made to pick apart imagery, sentences, parallels etc?

I'm just baffled by this fandom having such a surface level reading of the text. "BUT JONSA COULDN'T HAPPEN BECAUSE THEY RARELY THINK OF EACH OTHER!!" If they took the time to read our metas they'd actually realise... that works in our favour...the distance supports our theories...that's exactly what we are pointing out lmao. I'm utterly convinced that if Jon was mussing Sansa's hair and thinking of her as his little sister constantly that Jonsa would hold a lot more merit.

I mean, even just the implication that GRRM's response to Jonsa was clearly 'fan service catering' is so fucking disingenuous I have to laugh. Why would GRRM feel the need to appeal to such an incredibly niche fanbase and tell them what they want to hear when majority of the fandom wants Jon and D*ny to have sex and save the world together. And when you compare how GRRM responded to Jonsa vs how he has responded to R + L = J, it's so obvious that Jonsas are actually the ones who are making sound predictions. There's a reason a lot of us correctly predicted major beats in the show while the rest of the fandom were foaming at the mouth over Sansa being killed by one of her family members, queen d*ny, and the curtain of light theory ....

My Twitter account is locked for a reason. Somehow they always find you only to attack you.

Anyway, fave sister stans and fave sister/jon shippers are a funny bunch lmao I mean only them can write metas about fave sister being Lady of Winterfell *by proxy*, or that "official" Asoiaf fanart *confirms* that fave sister is the most beautiful human being on earth, or that fave sister and aunty wearing baby pearls means that they are the epitome of fertility and motherhood, despite them both hating those attires and quickly changing on masculine clothes 🤪 And I won't mention the training with a courtesan because that's sick 💀

I won't fight them on fave sister being jon's fave sister, that relationship can stay like that lol

I won't fight them on fave sister being Ned's fave daughter, that we can't change and there's reasons that vastly explain that.

They simply decided to ignore BALTICON, and they also do the same that cujo shippers do, they made up a narrative where GRRM knowing that they "rightly discovered" that their fave romance is *canon*, tried to mislead the readers to keep the susrprise factor when their ships happen . . . . ahxvasdhbshfbdfjsbdmjwd.alsdshadb

Did youk know that the Alexandragenesis was probably a hater from reddit trying to get GRRM debunking Jon/Sansa? Alexandragenesis is some fake disorder that gives you violet eyes born in the internet, so that name was targ coded. Also, after GRRM didn't give them the answer they were seeking they started to attack fave sister in favor of Sansa, so that person was definitely a Sansa hater/targie/fave sister stan failing as always lol

I think they read our metas and feel really dumb after that but they will never admit it, at least not in public, which reminds me of these two anon messages I got from them once:

. . . 🙈

They really said the GRRM answer to the jonsa question was fan service??? 🤡

I'm telling you, they are a funny bunch 😂

Anyway, I can't believe the curtain of light is a thing . . . . 🙃

Thanks for your message anon 💋

[all-hail-trudos]

The way Zelda redditors behave like BotW is going to be the template for future titles is absolutely hilarious. They are convinced that Nintendo is done with classic Zelda elements forever. TotK proves it! Never mind that they can barely agree on whether this even deserves to be called a new game or overpriced DLC. Or that Nintendo themselves have said that this was a very big experiment, where they let a team comprised of mostly younger devs run the show, and the director of BotW has actually left the company to go work on Infinity Nikki of all things. I don't know what the future of Zelda is going to look like. I can't see Nintendo just walking back everything they did in BotW. (And they better not. Skyward Sword is the worst mainline Zelda title, and BotW was the exact opposite of the hand holding the series had gotten really bad for). However, we can guarantee one thing for sure. The open-air game concept that specifically defined Breath of the Wild and its direct sequel Tears of the Kingdom is not simply going to be the new template for the series.

I could leave it there with a "because Nintendo said so" but it's midnight and I'm already making bad decisions, so I'm going to go one further and back this up with a second supporting argument. That's not how Nintendo as a company works. That's not how they've ever worked. They stopped doing rational, clear iterative upgrades when they followed up the Gamecube with the Wii. The Zelda series itself has constantly been one of self reinvention. Ocarina of Time is incredibly special in that Breath of the Wild is the first time they've so clearly broken away from the model it set. But when you look at the rest of the series, it's obvious BotW was the biggest experiment, but not even remotely the first. Majora's Mask turned the main gameplay concept on its head by putting everything on a Very. Tight. Timer. When you hit midnight of the third day, that was it. Rewind or die. All your progress was reset except for your sword (iirc), your masks, and your rupees if you put them in the bank (because the banker was a time traveler?). Wind Waker flooded the whole continent and had you sailing around on a boat, using a proto-physics system to fill your sails. The wide open world of OoT was gone altogether, and Princess Zelda didn't show up until halfway through the game (we won't talk about what they did to Tetra). Twilight Princess made the game super linear and made Zelda herself almost secondary to the plot. Actually, TP almost feels like the most direct callback to OoT with the doubling down on horse mounted combat, an art style that looked more like it next to whatever WW was doing (but which would ultimately age a lot worse), dungeons that also felt more directly inspired, and a combat system that was a little less fluid and reactive. But it also had Link temporarily become a werewolf, and gave us an egregiously underappreciated Spaghetti Western shootout that came out of nowhere and was all together too brief. Then Skyward Sword came along, which was the least reinventive of the bunch mechanically, but which did at least try to turn the classic narrative on its head. Also Zelda went from being barely there to being a driving character in the narrative. And she walked so BotW Princess Zelda could run. That said, imho, you can see why they leaned so much harder into experimentation with their next game that nearly skipped a whole console generation, because by SS the series tropes were getting a little too strong. The series was actually drifting into iterative territory, and that's not the typical Nintendo way. Especially not with one of their two core in-house franchises.

(Please don't bring up Pokemon here. I know it's Nintendo's third core franchise. But please remember, Zelda and Mario are solely owned by Nintendo, while Pokemon is at this point is at the center of an entire corporate conglomerate, which Nintendo is only part of).

I get that some people didn't enjoy BotW. I can sympathize with the people who did not want more like it and who were consequently less than thrilled by TotK's arrival. But bemoaning the fall of the franchise and saying Nintendo is going to be like Ubisoft, EA, and all the other trend chasing studios out there is really going too far. Nintendo has spent too many years baffling investors to start doing that now. Yes, Tears of the Kingdom exists. No, it's not proof of the trend. It was a planned sequel (itself an enormously rare concept in Zelda history). You can't make a planned story and gameplay sequel to a game and just throw away the concept you're following up on. That would be an enormously bad idea. (Worse, even, than trying to make your sequel game stand on its own for new players and erasing nearly all memory of Link from the same people he helped save. I love TotK so much, but I am not blind to its flaws, what few there are).

ALSO yes Echoes of Wisdom has Zelda stacking beds into a diy staircase. NO that doesn't mean we're seeing a return of this apparently beloathed systems-based physics gameplay in 2D fashion. If there were physics, the beds would have fallen over. That's like calling Minecraft or Dragon Quest Builders a physics based exploration game just because they have objects you can stack. That is the dumbest take I've seen come out of a community that is profoundly skilled at coming out with dumb takes.

[physalian]

"Objectively terrible" you say?

I saw this Buzzfeed list about popular movies that the people on this list can’t stand, and while I did agree with some of them (hate Elf), it reminds me of back when Last Jedi came out and you had people (me among them) calling it “objectively terrible”. My argument at the time had boiled down to “take ‘Star Wars’ out of the title for a second, take off your rose-tinted glasses, and convince me this movie has excellent pacing” and the movie’s fiercest defenders to me were always desperate Star Wars fans who basically said “it’s Star Wars, thus it can’t be bad” which… led to some irreconcilable unrelated differences underneath the tip of this iceberg.

I am older now. Still don’t like the story of that movie, still will proudly defend my hill of “8 movies into this franchise and 2 movies into this sequel series and you have a responsibility as a writer to at the very least communicate with the people who write the movies before and after yours so it fits cohesively”. But, the effects were cool I guess. I liked the cinematography.

Anyway, on this Buzzfeed list is one of my favorite movies, Inception, and the comments for every movie nominated were incredibly cynical to begin with, but some lovely person had this to say: “Inception was boring AF, and the whole ‘it doesn’t matter if stuff in a movie is anachronistic because movies are fake anyway’ is absolute anathema to me” an argument I have never heard for this movie anyway.

Also on this list are Ferris Bueller’s Day off, Brokeback Mountain, Grease, Gone With the Wind, and a couple others.

And as somebody who can happily accept and discuss the flaws of my absolute favorite films, “I hate this and I don’t understand it” and “This movie is terrible because I don’t understand it” do not mean the same thing.

Is Inception confusing? Absolutely. Should you be required to invest your full attention and then some for multiple rewatches to understand a story? If that’s not your thing, no. But “I don’t like it, thus it is bad” arguments are… kind of funny? And weirdly insecure?

I hate Elf. I don’t like most comedies, especially 'manchild' comedies, and can only handle Will Ferrell in very small doses. I don’t think he’s all that funny and I only really liked him in Lego Movie, when he wasn’t “Will Ferrell”. I also hate Elf because it’s unfortunately associated with a truly awful Christmas spent with family in the hospital and this movie was the only movie on and it was an Elf marathon.

But do I think Elf is a bad movie?

No.

It’s a lighthearted comedy. It knows exactly what it is and it’s not trying to be anything else. It successfully told the story it set out to tell and it makes people laugh and I do like this one line from it: “You sit on a throne of lies!”

Sorry I guess I’m of the opinion that movies can be made and stories can be told that aren’t watered down and oversimplified to appeal to mass audiences. Sorry this angry Redditor hates one of my favorite sci-fi movies. But that they didn’t understand it does not make it an incomprehensible mess. Some of us like examining movies over and over again and catching all the tiny details.

Also not here trying to say "you didn't understand it thus your opinion is invalid". Rather "you're trying to assert your opinion as a universal truth, which is invalid".

"I don't think Will Ferrell is funny" - opinion.

"Will Ferrell is not funny" - (incorrect) assertation.

We can argue semantics all day long but the point I'm trying to make is that attempting to frame the success of a work of art as objectively or universally anything based solely on your opinion of it is wrong.

It wasn’t just Inception, though. I don’t love Brokeback Mountain and boy is it uh… a product of its time and its characters reflect that, but it’s not a bad movie. It’s slow, it’s sad, it’s frustrating, but… it’s supposed to be these things.

Ferris Bueller is supposed to be a little ridiculous. Scarlett O’Hara is supposed to be insufferable. These all told the stories they wanted to with perfect execution. They’re not confusing, they’re not filled with logic-shattering plot holes, the characters are consistent, the continuity is maintained, they cinematography is solid. To call any movie “objectively terrible” wanders into the territory of physically unwatchable and incomprehensible on accident.

It’s art. I have absolutely sat through movies that are 100% pretentious bullshit that could easily be 30-45 minutes shorter but they spent so much time on lingering shots of absolutely nothing pretending to be profound. I’d call that bullshit, they’d call it Avant Gard, I’d call it Avant Gard bullshit. But those weren’t made for me.

And while I get this was a list of popular movies that some people can’t stand so they were venting and being nasty more than usual, the entire list was just one long parade of insecure comments.

I don’t like Nightmare Before Christmas. I think the romance isn’t given enough time to develop and it’s one of those “they love each other because they’re the main characters and they shared a longing glance” romances. I definitely don’t like when people make the movie their whole personality and I hate how it takes over two whole holidays for 3 months of the year.

But it’s not a bad movie.

I like the songs, I love the animation, I love the creativity and the vision that everyone who worked on it had.

If every movie was made on assembly line to be perfectly generic and understandable and digestible to everyone who could possibly wander into the theater to see it, that would be a pretty sad world.

“I don’t like it and I didn’t understand it” is perfectly valid, whether it's movies or music or books or TV shows.

“I don’t like it and I didn’t understand it and this makes it objectively terrible” is not valid.

[loveislandthegame]

thoughts on todays volume ! i swear at least 90% of this volume was just ava spewing ”i’m not like other girls” pickme nonsense. i have no clue why she thinks she’s competing with my MC for hayden (this is rhetorical, i know it's FB being too lazy and heteronormative to branch) i only have eyes on lisbeth & jesse 😭

moving on, of course i chose to spend the night with lisbeth ! ❤️

ava caught us, and i’m getting sienna flashbacks (seriously, which weirdo at FB is obsessed with this “rival walking in on MC possibly doing bits” thing ??) and why the hell would i care what hayden thinks ?😭 if she really wanted to hurt my MC, she’d focus on telling jesse...but he doesn’t give a shit. in fact, not a single islander in this villa cares

eisha pulls MC for a chat, unfortunately just for casa drama instead of getting to know her. i thought this would be the moment where we have to choose between her and lisbeth, but we’re safe for another volume

up next is some quiz challenge, i tried to get everything correct but it genuinely doesn’t matter what you choose here, we don’t even learn what the correct answers are 😭 i was also speed tapping through ethan and jesse fighting & ava insisting that her and hayden are in sync (the lady doth protest too much, methinks)

afterwards, jesse takes us to the swing set and confesses that he likes us. i feel like that's been established 300 times now, but it was still a very sweet scene ❤️

ethan and isadora did the worst in the challenge & end up getting dumped. why on earth was telling her the truth about her shady partner a gem option ?😭 i guess it could be considered revenge for him getting you dumped, but it should’ve been free. especially since these spineless guys were fully aware but didn’t tell her because “ethan should 🥺” (sorry jesse ❤️)

MC really has the entire villa at her feet. the whole sequence of lisbeth and eisha fighting for her, hayden swooping in to take her up to the treehouse, and then caleb climbing up the ladder had me in tears

this was the hardest decision of my life. jesse is finally available, but i’m worried that not picking lisbeth here will end up locking you out of her route (if you’re wondering why i’m worried about that, i noticed that some redditors who were romancing her didn’t get her casa amor scenes. maybe it's a glitch—the coding has been especially awful this season—but it could potentially be because it‘s tied to whether you chose her or your OG LI for the pre casa gesture. so it seems like you have to keep choosing her to stay on her route, meanwhile, telling the guys you’re not interested 100 times won’t push them away. classic FB 😒)

so what i decided to do was pick jesse first, and then replayed and picked lisbeth. i think this scene was definitely written with jesse in mind, but there were some small changes, mainly about the time you’ve spent together (also the narration calls lisbeth’s bum "curvaceous" lmao)

considering this shower scene is unavoidable, i wonder if it will end up being MC's movie night clip 😳 oh well, MC has plot armour anyways

YESSSS, tristan my love mortal enemy, come back to meeee 🙏🏽😭 (watch as it ends up being two offscreen bombshells)

overall, ava is so obnoxious that it ruined my enjoyment of this volume. it's not even about her pursuing hayden, but the fact that all of her dialogue is either putting down MC or talking about how she's better than everybody else, plus the sheer volume of it. i'm tired of lazily written rivals that have no personality outside of being horrible (and to be targets of body shaming, misogynistic, even ableist and transphobic hatred from the fandom)

on the bright side, jesse romancers finally got fed !!! 🎊🥳🎉🕺🏽🥳🎉 hopefully an actual recoupling is soon, but also i don't want to decide. let us have throuples/poly relationships FB 😩

i actually wonder who else would be taking MC on a date, i thought about dean and whatever casa guy didn't get chosen, but it says "blast from villa past." maybe sofia will pull an allegra, idk

[randomingoftherandomness]

There is a thing I don't get, why Yuanzhi was so against the idea of Ziyu becoming the sword wielder?

Just because he wanted his brother to be it? Or because of the rumors about Ziyu's mother? I mean, Shangjue was always logical on the reasons why he didn't want Ziyu to be the leader while Yuanzhi seemed to just do what he was told to do.

I read an answer on Reddit where Yuanzhi was described as Shangjue's dog, with no opinions of his own, petty and oblivious. Many people regarded him as the true villain of the show because he caused pain and played tricks for no real reasons. Do you think he is like that? Only smart for poisons?

Me to the Redditor who said that:

Knuckle and buckle, kids, you're on the Gab Meta Train.

1. Gong Ziyu started out hella unqualified and everyone knows it

Don't come at me and tell me Gong Ziyu was the most worthy candidate to be the Sword Wielder because based on the first character setup, he definitely was not it. He was known to frequent the pleasure house, he stumbles home drunk in broad daylight, he has no involvement in the family's affairs, and he is most definitely more known as a dandy than anyone who is being groomed to take over the helm of the family.

Honestly, off the bat, in real life, would you want someone with a proven track record to lead you and protect you and your interests, or would you want some dude who is better known for hanging out at a brothel than he is actually handling paperwork or has a track record of maturity?

Yuanzhi, who is younger than Ziyu, but already is contributing to the day-to-day running and the development of tech and research for the family.

Which means...?

He has skin in the game about who he wants to lead him in the family. And that's a very valid stance to take. It's more than "oh Gege told me to do this, so I will" because that's such a sad 1 dimension take, and again, to that Redditor:

Of course, we as the audience know that Ziyu will shape up. He will step up and he will answer the call, so to speak. But Gong Yuanzhi and Gong Shangjue did not. And if you really think about it, they're pretty much 'employees' of the Gong company. They just didn't agree with what top management decided and vocally voiced that opinion.

If you reeeeeallly want to think about it, they were just unionising :)

(gonna put this under a read more coz it got long)

2. Gong Shangjue has instilled a mentality of "Family First"

Relating to the first point.

Shangjue is obviously Yuanzhi's North Star. He is who Yuanzhi is shaping himself to be, and for all we know of his character, of course he would. He's basically the perfect man to aspire to be in a society like theirs.

So, when Shangjue says, "Family is the Most Important", don't you think Yuanzhi is gonna listen? Gong Shangjue is Gong Yuanzhi's most important person. He's family in a way that the rest aren't. Even if he doesn't outright say "I want that position", Yuanzhi would have done anything to help support him and get him there.

And going on the point where Shangjue and Yuanzhi were on Ziyu's case coz of the rumours that his mom was possibly pregnant when she married into the Gong family; I know other users on the MJTY tag have quite possibly discussed this matter (shoutout to @kingsandbastardz @swiftletinthecloud @romchat for their lovely metas and analysis posts ❤️ I consume them with much gratitude and glee), but let me crudely try to wrangle what has been beautifully said into my my own words;

For a family that prides themselves with being very strict about their familial rules, the fact that there is some measure and level of doubt persisting about Ziyu's parentage should have and must disqualify him from the position itself. Ziyu's dad could have easily kiboshed the rumours but he didn't, why?

More than that, the implication given to Shangjue over tea was that the position of Zhiren was always meant to go to him. Rewatch that scene where he last saw his uncle. Tell me differently.

The whole paternity issue is just one facet of a very Ziyu shaped problem. Having a murky paternity will raise issues of succession. Why do you think the nobilities of Europe back then had a court of people, usually people of importance, to be present when a marriage was consummated and a child was born? This is to make sure that there was no doubt that the marriage was legitimate and the line of succession and paternity remains unbroken.

(there were always exceptions to the rule, of course, but you get my drift, right?)

Of course, we got the resolutions to all of these issues; Ziyu was always the bio son of the Zhiren, he probably didn't kibosh the rumours because he never wanted to have his son carry that burden of leading the family when he could tell that his son had always wanted to leave the Valley, and Shangjue never coveted the position in the first place, he just wanted the right person to lead.

3. Yuanzhi has no opinions

Yuanzhi's just a dog to Shangjue? Well, if he's a dog, I wanna be one too Woof Woof.

Yuanzhi has his own motivations and drive. They just so happened to be Gege-shaped. I don't see how that warrants being called someone's dog.

He doesn't have his own opinions? Bro quite literally almost died to prove a point that the porridge was poisoned and Shangguan Qian cannot be trusted. HOW IS THAT NOT HAVING AN OPINION?

WERE WE EVEN WATCHING THE SAME SHOW???

Honestly, it's Reddit so I shouldn't be this surprised about the hot takes that happen on there, but damn if some people lack two brain cells to rub together to critically consume the media in front of them.

4. Yuanzhi is a reactionary character

Think about it; how many times throughout the narrative did he cause problems for no apparent reason?

If anything, don't you think that Ziyu & co. are the ones who deliberately do things to antagonise him and Shangjue? It's almost midnight as I am typing this and the old noggin is starting to lag, but let's focus on the blood GPS incident.

Yuanzhi saw that the people in the Yu residence were being a bit suspicious so he goes to snoop (cause + reason = reaction). Jin Fan is best boy, but Yuanzhi did not instigate that fight, he did (with good reason i know i know). (offense + defense = reaction). Ziyu & co. tried to stuff him into the closet (*snerk*) and what does he do? Bites down until he bleeds because he knows Gege will find him if he sniffs him out. And he did. A successful reaction.

In my opinion, he's like gunpowder -- left alone, they'll be fine. When given a spark, will react.

And again with feeling... To the Redditor who spouted such utter shite;

Class dismissed