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withthewindinherfootsteps · 1 month ago

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Wei Wuxian and Narrative Agency – Part Three

For Xiantober Day Five: Past and Present, in which the author gets very unhinged about what parts of the past are shown and how that’s affected by the present!

(Part One | Part Two | Full version on AO3)

The Power of Agency: Shaping the Narrative

When I've discussed Wei Wuxian's agency previously, I’ve talked about how what’s shown and omitted tells us about a character, and we’ve talked about the character himself. Though this is a niche topic, it’s not necessarily something out of the ordinary to analyse, and we can assume everything up to here has been in some way intentional.

This? Linking structure to a character’s in-universe preferences?

This is where we get unhinged.

Before I start, let’s quickly establish something which will be important later: although Wei Wuxian is the central character, MDZS isn’t strictly from his POV. While omitting events a character doesn’t like to dwell on and concealing things the character wishes to hide is common in books with only one narrator, MDZS has multiple narrators which it switches between relatively quickly. This includes Wei Wuxian, but it also includes nearly every major character that appears in the story, and omniscient narrator as well. As a default, this format doesn’t lead to this deliberate shaping and omission because of one character’s preferences, since we have many other sources of information and events – which is what makes Wei Wuxian’s influence over the narrative and structure so interesting. We could have access to a lot more information, and access to it at different times, than we do (and that’s not an insult, quite the opposite!).

To begin: we’ve established that times such as Wei Wuxian’s time on the streets, his three months in the Burial Mounds and his loss in the Siege aren’t shown because Wei Wuxian has little agency there. But that’s not the only special thing about them. They’re also the three most traumatic times in his life, and so moments Wei Wuxian himself either can’t remember, or doesn’t like to dwell on.

This is why discussing Wei Wuxian’s treatment of tragedy in his life was important. Firstly, it shows he doesn’t focus on the tragedy in his life, so the idea that the narrative not focusing on this tragedy relates to his character has merit; secondly, it affirms that this is not a passive trait, but a choice. Therefore, when the narrative omits events due to this aspect of Wei Wuxian, it’s respecting not only a character detail – which would be cool by itself – but also an active decision. One that shapes the story it’s made in.

In other words, its very structure is respecting Wei Wuxian’s agency!

Now, of course there are flashbacks to other moments of his past he probably wouldn’t like to dwell on, too. But within the structure, they’re only shown when Wei Wuxian is thinking about them (or when he has reason to)!

Wei WuXian hadn’t woken up yet. His eyes were still tightly shut, yet his hand didn’t let go either. He seemed to be dreaming, muttering, “… Don’t… Don’t be angry…” Lan WangJi seemed somewhat surprised. His voice was gentle, “I am not angry.” Wei WuXian, “… Oh.” Hearing this, as though he finally felt assured, his fingers loosened. Lan WangJi sat beside Wei WuXian for a while. Seeing that he was motionless again, he was about to stand up when Wei WuXian grabbed him with his other hand, hugging his arm and refusing to let go. He shouted, “I’ll go with you, quick, take me back to your sect!” Chapter 63, EXR translation

Which, of course, is him dwelling on…

Lan WangJi spoke one word at a time, “Go back to Gusu with me.” Hearing this, both Wei WuXian and Jiang Cheng were surprised. Quickly afterward, Wei WuXian laughed, “Go back to Gusu with you? To the Cloud Recesses? Why go there?” He immediately seemed to realize, “Oh. I forgot. Your uncle Lan QiRen hates crooked people like me. You’re his proudest disciple, so of course you’re the same as him, haha. I refuse.” Chapter 62, EXR translation

…the painful flashback immediately preceding this. The third set of flashbacks (which are also painful) are a similar case. Look at the contex:

He lifted the bottom of his robe, revealing a prosthetic leg made of wood, “This leg of mine was destroyed by you, that night in the Nightless City (…)” (…) “Wei WuXian, I won’t ask you if you remember or not. Both of my parents died by your hands. You owe too many people. You definitely won’t remember them either. But, I, Fang MengChen, will never forget! And never forgive you!” (…) “In the fight at Qiongqi Path, my son was strangled to death by your dog Wen Ning!” “My shixiong died by poison, his entire body festering due to your cruel curse!” Chapter 68 (immediately preceding the flashbacks), EXR translation

And Wei Wuxian’s own thoughts and words:

Wei WuXian looked at the cultivators before the Demon-Slaughtering Cave. Their expressions were the absolute same as those of the cultivators from the night of the pledge conference, pouring their wine on the ground as they took the pledge to scatter the ashes of the Wen Sect’s remnants and him. (…) Wei WuXian, “Now it’s time to ask just whom it is that treasures it so much. It’s like Wen Ning. Back then, some certain sects or so were scared to death of the Ghost General. They said they’d kill him on the surface, but behind their backs they hid him for over ten years. How strange. Who was the one that said his ashes had been scattered back then?” Chapter 79 (immediately succeeding the flashbacks), EXR translation

Once again, Wei Wuxian’s own thoughts relate to the flashbacks we’ve just been shown. And, as I previously mentioned, though all the events which are shown are tragic, they’re also events which Wei Wuxian’s own choices and actions shaped – which he has this to say about:

“The things I did, not only do you remember them, I remember them too. You won’t forget them, and they’ll stay even longer in my mind!” Chapter 82, EXR

Admittedly, this applies more to the third set of flashbacks than the second (which is still fitting as the third set was the most recent), as in the second, although he still had agency within and influence over his circumstances, the majority of the pain was caused by others’ actions (excluding, of course, the Golden Core transfer… which is something we know stays for a long time in his mind, albeit with a caveat we’ll soon discuss). But it’s still important to note – especially considering that otherwise, focusing on this very painful time in his life wouldn’t seem like something very in-character for Wei Wuxian to do.

Of course, this can all just be explained by good writing. It is best to insert flashbacks when they’re relevant to the characters and events in the present day! But it is interesting to compare these to the start of the (not painful) Gusu flashbacks, which open this way:

At a later time, Wei WuXian pondered upon the reason why his relationship with Lan WangJi wasn’t good. Getting to the root of the matter, everything started when he was fifteen, coming to the GusuLan Sect with Jiang Cheng to study for three months. Chapter 13, EXR

Again, considering the circumstances around which these flashbacks take place – returning to the Cloud Recesses for the first time since the lectures, and meeting Lan Wangji once more – it makes complete sense for Wei Wuxian to be thinking about these events*. So it does fit the pattern of Wei Wuxian dwelling on something, thus leading to the narrative dwelling on it, too (and being shaped by his thoughts)… but there’s another layer to this. Importantly, it is the only flashback where Wei Wuxian’s present thoughts don’t lead to this happening, with his thoughts at an unspecified future time leading to it, instead. I like to interpret this as the text saying that, since these events aren’t something Wei Wuxian wouldn’t focus on in normal circumstances, he can dwell on them at any time. Therefore, they’re free to come up in the narrative at any time as well, even if he’s not dwelling on them in the present moment!

So, to summarise: Wei Wuxian’s decision not to focus on the painful times in his life directly influences the narrative to not focus on these times. When painful times are brought up and shown to us, it’s in the context of him thinking about them in the present day, and even then, his most painful moments still aren’t shown to us. His agency in this regard is still respected by the narrative structure.

This is the main way his agency influences the structure of the narrative, but I’d like to talk about the revealing and concealing of information, too. For example, I said I’d talk about the Golden Core transfer – though Wei Wuxian does think about this many times, as evidenced by his internal narration in Chapter 103. But unlike everything we’re shown through the flashbacks, this is something Wei Wuxian is actively trying to hide from others. And the narrative respects this choice (Wei Wuxian’s agency, again), never reveals it even when it would be relevant in the flashbacks, and we find out not through narration, but through a character’s dialogue!

And to clarify – I know these aspects may not be in the book for this exact reason. Showing flashbacks in relevant moments is good writing, concealing an important plot point you want to do a reveal for is necessary writing, and MXTX has said she didn’t want to write about Wei Wuxian’s time in the Burial Mounds, due to not liking to write transformation sequences (and also because it would not be pleasant at all, which likely also applies to Wei Wuxian’s death). That doesn’t prevent it from also being intentional – MXTX’s intelligence is shown in many aspects of this book, and there’s nothing disproving it – but there’s no proof for either option, so I won’t pretend there is. I bring this up because I know this feels like I’m overanalysing, as I feel that way as well.

But, whether it’s intentional or not, it exists in the text, and I adore it – so, regardless, it’s something I’ll explore. Because taking this into account… We aren't just told about Wei Wuxian having agency, we aren’t just shown it in the text, we aren’t even just shown it through which parts of his past are shown and hidden in the structure of the text (as I talked about in Part One). The parts of the past that are shown and hidden also have an in-universe reason for being shown and hidden, this reason being the choices he makes! Agency is the ability of a character to influence the story they’re in, but Wei Wuxian’s agency, as a property of a character who only exists in-universe, shapes the out-of-universe structure as well! That’s how we’re shown its importance! How cool is that?

At The End Of The Road: Summary and Final Thoughts

In this essay, we’ve covered how important Wei Wuxian’s agency is not only to the events of the plot, but to the structure of the narrative as well. The narrative omits periods in which Wei Wuxian has little or no agency, in favour of showing us periods in which he does, even when important events happened in the former. This indicates that who Wei Wuxian is without agency isn’t important enough to be shown to the audience, and therefore that his agency is an integral aspect of his character in MDZS. We’ve discussed how both in-universe and out-of-universe, tragedy does not define him – out-of-universe, the tragic events in Wei Wuxian’s life are used not to build sympathy but rather to show his strength of character and who he still is despite going through them; and in-universe, he chooses not to focus on the negativity and resentment caused by his circumstances or others’ actions, instead staying true to his moral compass and enjoying his life in the present day. Finally, we’ve also explored how this choice is another reason for the omission of certain events from the narrative, resulting in his agency shaping the story in a very literal way – it affects the out-of-universe structure, as well.

It’s quite fitting, for a story whose essence is about defying a conventional narrative – that of righteous clans rising up and defeating a great evil – and about a character who defies many conventional narratives on his own – that of status defining how skilled you could be, that for a golden core being necessary for cultivation and other paths being unavailable, that of a tragic but complete story of someone killed for staying true to their moral code (instead, that character returns to life and has a happy ending) – to have its own narrative play a role in such an important and interesting way.

(Or, if an image would be preferable:)

Thank you for reading!

(Part One | Part Two | Full version on AO3)

*This strong relation to the present day circumstances is another reason I love the flashback placement so much (and why I think it’s such a loss both screen adaptions altered it so strongly)!

#get ready for tag thoughts because there are a LOT of them #it’s for THIS reason that fanon wwx bothers me so much (didn’t want to get negative on the acual post)#bc so often all the changes are changes that woobify him!#self-sacrificial idiot wwx?? only doing things because… poor him he has so many internal issues and values himself so little-#-so of course he’d sacrifice everything before thinking of another option? woobifying #(whenever he sacrifices something it’s a deliberate choice to act on his morals because he values his morals so much – and he’s also very-#-capable and DOES often find ways for no people to get hurt!)#wasn’t aware that what happened to him at lotus pier was wrong and needs lwj to tell him that for him to have any idea if it?#woobifying (as we see in the lotus seed pod extra he KNOWS it’s unfair)#(he downplays it retroactively in his memory (links into not focusing on the bad things in his life))#(but that’s the actions themselves that are being downplayed not their fairness!)#he chooses to act! he is defined by acting! not tragedy – all the more impressive in the face of the amount of tragedy that’s happened #he could SO EASILY have been a woobie but instead he’s the opposite of one: defined BY his agency instead of the absence of it #that doesn’t mean he’s not impacted by tragedy or trauma – he is! but it’s not the most important aspect of his character (bc he doesn’t le #it’s also something that bothers me about the changes cql made #by making qq path and nightless city the fault of someone else it means he IS someone who’s more a victim of circumstance than anything els #he had no control over the tragedies of his first life at all #apart from ig his death being controlled by him? because he just leaps off the cliff during the nightless city siege?? but in THAT case it’#i watched that part recently (i’m getting through it very slowly) and yeah it reaffirmed my love for this aspect of the book even more #despite. having these exact thoughts for two years already #he also dwells on the past events a lot more than book wwx which adds to that version of him BEING defined more by tragedy rather than who #anyway over 7.3k words total (and 400 more in the tags apparently)... it'll be posted to ao3 in its completion this evening!#mdzs meta #my meta #wei wuxian #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #魔道祖师 #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #gdc

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reggieblk · 1 year ago

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just saw a tiktok of a guy saying "Me when I see a fanfic that mischaracterizes my favs so bad that I actually have to comment and tell the author to never write again" with the sound "i love the way it feels to be a hater", and I opened the comments expecting people to be like "haha yeah, but don't do this" or like "okay but never comment hate on fics because people are writing for free and out of love so...", etc. but the comments were full of people admitting to absolutely heinous behaviour.

someone said: "that time i hated a fic so much I bookmarked it and filled the notes with an angry paragraph about how much I hate it", like, what? in what world is it normal and acceptable to do that? and that's just one of the many examples.

I mean, there was a lot of joking and exaggeration but also people have done this, people do this. idk it's so bizarre to me that you would actively read something you don't like (after reading the tags and author's notes), to then write paragraphs upon paragraphs of hate, that is directly sent as an email to the author

honestly, if I got something like that in my comments or bookmark notes, it would really affect me. someone going "never write again" or just loathing what I wrote, I'd feel really bad.

just idk, have some empathy. you can exit a fic, you can block the author, you can hate silently, or even pour every ounce of hate out into your friend's dms or a journal or something. just why would you actively hate on someone who is providing entertainment for free and for fun?

strange behaviour

#perhaps people who were introduced to fandom on tiktok shouldn't be allowed on ao3? thoughts?#seeing fanfiction as something to be consumed and not something to be enjoyed together as an experience is insane to me #i hate this new wave of fandom to be quite honest #also the idea that you need to share every single negative opinion you have about everything you interact with is hell. we are in hell #fanfiction #ao3 #billie speaks

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pyrosomatic-metamorphosis · 10 months ago

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tbh i think that even unwinnable fights should be winnable. some of the BEST fights i've ever run as a dm were ones i built kill the players (in a fun way. I had some cutscenes prepped so even the loss would be a different flavour of win)- but then they were clever bastards and managed to either win the fights or pull themselves out of trouble. I think it's perfectly fine to plan for a fight that players aren't supposed to win, but you need to let them. if they can't win, they can't lose, and the meaning of that encounter is diminished. do that too many times, and they stop trusting you to give them roleplay prompts and start expecting to sit there waiting while you drive the story for them.

but if they can win... if there is always the chance to win, no matter how impossible the odds, then they ALWAYS have hope. they always get invested. they feel the big emotions of success or the big emotions of failure, and you fucking Win as a dm/roleplay prompter/lead bastard.

#qsmp neg #qsmp crit #discourse #<- for blacklists #im not grumping or anything im just musing on like. the mechanics of why everyone is so upset about the latest fight #and how it can be avoided while still keeping these fights genuinely difficult and intense #its hard because there's so many players and they all have wildly different strengths and weaknesses #so someone who could take on the code easy needs that enemy scaled differently than someone who isn't a big fighter #but it's hard to do that in a world where they interact w the same enemy #and you only have so much man-power to cater to a big server like this one #and then you bring in the big powerful items that the players can and can't access but which the admins have ultimate power over #and the fact that some of the admins themselves have lag issues or aren't super great at pvp so they accommodate that with better gear #and it starts getting messy #but for the fights themselves yeah regardless of what armour or gear or killing-methods they use there should Always be a win condition #and idk maybe there was one and we just didn't get to see it #but if that win condition is 'parents sit in the safe room with their babies while the others are overrun'#then i think there are ways to build better win conditions #anyway i love game design and player/dm interactions qsmp hire me now i want to know your behind the scenes #jk im too busy to apply #but man. i wanna nerd out so bad that sometimes i think about it

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reel-fear · 5 months ago

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Genuinely so curious who Mike thinks is gonna be buying The Cage or the new DCTL GN bc with the way he tweets as far as he's concerned, it's not gonna be:

The queer people he has actively admitted he will never show any representation of in the games.

2. The POC he has actively fought against representing in his franchise. [Who he also mocked for thinking they would be represented in his franchise]

3. The Bendy fandom which has always been concerned with topics of diversity esp in the sense of queer people since its creation. Who he has responded to really poorly esp in regards to the GN.

4. The fans who critique him. [He blocked me for doing so lol]

5. His fans in general who he tweets about like this currently. [He's being vague about why people were mad at him or sent him 'nasty messages' because if you actually looked into why you'd see he was in the wrong. Either way, a very hateful way to speak abt ur own fanbase.]

Reminder while Mike is trash talking his fans he has always treated them rather poorly. The fans who won the fanart contest for Chapter 5 never got their posters actually in game due to it being rushed. Not only was chapter 5 a big slap to the face story wise, but it was literally so rushed he couldn't be bothered to add in the art his fans gave him for his game FOR FREE. [Meatly blames this on a crazy timeline, reminder him and Mike are the literal ceos of this company. The proposal of future updates here is also pretty cruel considering Mike nowadays happily admits he corrupted Chapter 5's source code and therefore literally can't update it At All currently. Because he is a moron]

At least they got to be in Boris and the dark survival, and by that I mean that was the Only game they got to be in so far, isn't that just treating your fans like you love them? Shoving their hard work into a spin off game almost nobody has played or addresses much. [Hell, who knows if with the Lone Wolf rebrand they'll even stay there. In which case they'll be in None of the games, only in the credits of BATIM]

6. The Bendy fans who just generally disagree with him on stuff. Like the new ink demon design where there is literally a public poll showing people generally prefer the old one.

7. The Bendy fans who can see he is actively lying to them. To their fucking faces.

He says this has always been the case, but screenshots and links to tweets regarding the books being canon prove it was not. Does he really think bendy fans are stupid or something? [Unless he's admitting here he lied to Kress when he told her the books were canon which sounds worse!]

8. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of giving money to a guy who laid off tons of employees then afterwards thought it was a great idea to express his anti-union views! Also brag about how good of an employer he was, according to his employees, he was not!

So in summary; Mike is an awful person who has not learned anything from the awful things he did. I will not be purchasing The Cage because, combined with this and his absolute refusal to take any kind of critique or see any differing interpretation of his franchise, I have no reason to think my problems with the franchise will ever be addressed or fixed. I probably will pirate The Cage along with any future Bendy Products [Including the movie] and will do my best to avoid giving it any kind of monetary support. Unless this changes any time soon, I can't see myself making anymore positive Bendy posts soon.

Mike has just managed to make it so hard to speak positively or optimistically of this franchise when he's so willing to broadcast how little he cares about it or its fans. I'm at the point where I refuse to pull any of my punches with my problems with it. What's the point of trying to play nice with my critique when either way the people creating it don't care?

So with this post, I want to invite anyone who feels similarly about the franchise to tell me, make a post or send an ask talking about how all of this makes you feel. It may not change how things are, but genuinely seeing other people share my feelings of anger makes me feel better. It feels nice to see when other people share our same concerns and worries. I'd also love to know if anyone else thinks they'll be avoiding purchasing Bendy products over this.

I'm not forcing anyone to participate in it nor trying to say anyone who doesn't supports mike but genuinely maybe if we can collectively decide to boycott things like the movie, graphic novel and The Cage... It might at least make the bendy devs acknowledge how much they have destroyed their own fandom's faith and trust in them.

The way Mike tweets about his actions like he had no control over why people were mad at him at least proves to me he takes NONE of it back nor regrets it. If you didn't know about his actions and only went off his tweets, you would be led to believe Mike has been needlessly picked apart by fans over things he couldn't control [or in his own words, had his words twisted and taken out of context]. That is not how you speak about your actions if you have actually learned better from them.

anyway, that has been my bendy dev callout post. This is an open invitation to anyone feeling similarly upset about the way the franchise is going to talk about it. It's genuinely nice to see how people feel about this and the more we talk about the more it's likely the bendy devs are forced to address our concerns. I don't think they will but hey, that's why I'm not gonna support them with my money anymore nor am I gonna be nice to them in any content I make critiquing Bendy. I mean I'm also basically making this post just in case anyone asks me Why I feel this way towards to bendy devs/as a way to respond to anyone who thinks I am too harsh in my critique in the future.

As always, it seems the best part of Bendy isn't actually anything about canon but about what the fan's are creating with the ideas Bendy failed to do anything interesting with.

Also the books, the books slap.

#batim #batdr #bendy and the ink machine #bendy and the dark revival #ramblez #bendy and the silent city #bendy the cage #for the record another reason Im making this post is bc some of the only good resources to learn abt why the bendy devs suck are some old #very longer videos and this is a very long post but I thought it was important to document the recent shit theyve been doing alongside some #of the worst past things theyve done bc Mike has been trying to misinform people on what happened but those videos are still great resource #if you want more info n such #long post #mike D #for anyone who doesnt wanna hear abt him since he doesnt go by mood anymore #sorry if this is rambley or emotional Im just so sick of these guys fr dskjhgskdfjghskdjhgkjhsd #I miss when I didnt spend my days stressed about the awful shit mike is gonna say next and how I would have to disprove it in a post later #or explain why its bad to have a cast of nothing but cishet white guys n constantly fight back against any push for diversity in said cast #genuinely its just tiring esp when u see other bendy fans give ignorant or very silly defenses/takes on those things #n then u lose a lot of respect for them bc they are speaking on stuff they dont know much abt so confidently and therefore misinforming #people or even encouraging very bad views on stuff like diversity n its importance #Im not saying people like that are bad people but it is stressful n upsetting when u see someone u thought knew better do that sort of thin #it makes it hard to trust them again on other issues bc u now dont trust they know what they r talking abt!!#like please think twice before telling young artists making norman white was a tough and complicated decision it was fucking not the bendy #devs just think all their humans are white by default and dont wanna change that its been proven time n time again thats all it is #and defending them just bc u like a franchise they made is very very bad!! They are not ur friends!! they suck and we seriously need to #stop pretending they dont!! toxic positivity is only gonna make the fandom an absolute nightmare its not gonna make ANYTHING better #it just means people will be forced to PRETEND they never have negative thoughts abt the franchise n therefore make them burned out #just look at other similar fandoms please lets not make those same mistakes!!#sorry can u tell Ive been having just. A time recently #anyways back to making my queer ass bendy fan game full of so much diversity mike will prolly shit when he sees it DKFJGHKSDJHGKJHSD

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lleclercism · 1 year ago

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"another charles pole and max win" me personally i know the only reason charles is fighting versus the rockship that is redbull its purely because of how well he manages the car and how much he has to fight it for it to be able to be competitive and guess what! is not enough! because the sf-23 is still a tractor and rbr have won almost every race this year! and they've dominated the past 3 seasons! and i think the amount of poles he has had just shows how good of a driver he is and the potential he has to show when he finally has a car that will fight alongside him, not against him

#like this argument is sooo tiring #you dont see any of the other drivers on the grid being close to him on quali day and that just shows how insane of a driver he is #he is not slow and he will never give up and i need people to understand there are so many factors that dont allow him to win #and winning races is nice and he 100% deserves it but i promise you all he wants is a wdc #like people just like to mock him and make fun of the stat but i think its fucking nice hes one of the only drivers that can put up a fight #vs rbr ! no other driver can do that on a normal day! so i need his fucking fans to stop being so negative about it jfc #anyways just one more week until we burn the sf-23 🙏🏼#charles leclerc #las vegas gp 2023

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aroaceleovaldez · 3 months ago

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one thing running @riordanverse-ship-polls has gotten me thinking about is that the fandom should bring back a lot of old ships that got dropped. Just to mix things up and add some more variety into the fandom again. The community used to have a lot of really interesting and really varied ships but now most of the stuff you see is canon and maybe a couple of leftover things from that time or some rarepairs and that's it (and a lot of weird aggression towards people who diverge from canon ships at all). Half the major characters don't even have prominent alternative ships to canon these days. Like, did you know Hazel/Piper used to be a decently popular ship? When was the last time you saw Hazel/Piper stuff? Probably never if you're a newer fan.

anyways we could really stand to have more variety. together we can bring back variety. the fandom needs to get weirder again. like cmon we've got some new characters let's thing of some new combos.

#pjo #riordanverse #i need to make a tag for when im rambling about the ship polls blog #riordanverse ship polls #< there we go #part of this is brought on by seeing how many people are voting negative towards Little Big 3 in today's polls #like i both expected it but am also surprised because like. the fandom used to LOVE that ship #and i know from the nico ship polls that little big 3 + will actually is pretty popular still?#and all the component ship variants are still decently popular? so seeing it being so high negative is odd #like how does that add up?#and part of me has to wonder if the reason why certain ships are getting lots of negative votes is just cause nobody sees them anymore #cause it generally seems to be the more the fandom sees of a ship the more neutral or favorable they are towards it #which is kind of self-perpetuating #but now the fandom has gained a sort of attitude of stomping down ships that aren't ''as canon''#like. the entire *point* of fandom is that it's not canon i hate to tell ya. thats kind of the whole thing.#fandom that doesnt extend beyond canon is pretty sad and dies pretty fast

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americankimchi · 8 months ago

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god i wish they hadn't retconned maul's death. i get wanting to explore more of his character because he was, objectively, one of the coolest star wars characters to ever hit the big screen and didn't get much screentime prior to his death, but also his role was fulfilled perfectly within those constraints so i wasn't too upset by it.

but by retconning it and making it so he never died it's like. okay. what now? the whole point (well, to me, ymmv of course) of the theed generator fight was that it was the first ever fight between the jedi and the sith in thousands of years, and that in the end even though the jedi (obi-wan) won the fight, a jedi (qui-gon) and a sith (maul) still died. a master and an apprentice dying together to herald the start of a new age/the return of the sith. perfectly paralleling the way in rotj a master (palps) and an apprentice (anakin/vader) died together to herald the return of the jedi. in both instances, a father figure (qui-gon/vader) dies in the arms of their son (obi-wan/luke) as a sith (palps/maul) is cast down into the abyss to their deaths. (palps being alive in the ST and retconning his death in rotj is also annoying for this reason)

i mean i like maul. don't get me wrong. he's an incredibly compelling character and i enjoy seeing more of him... but there's always the thought hovering in my mind like "he should be dead though. he should 100% be dead. this wouldn't be happening if he was dead, but i honestly would rather it not if it meant that maul was dead."

like the tpm fight just doesn't hit the same knowing that canonically he's just. going to become a robot octopus at some point. (shoutout to palps becoming sith glados in the ST) it cheapens the moment for me. it was supposed to be a moment of triumph marred by the deep and soul-crushing loss of a loved one and it's just... not, anymore. or at least not to the same extent. AUGH i'm just. frustrated. wish star wars as a whole wasn't constantly reframing/retconning what's been established. just puts a bad taste in my mouth.

#personal #star wars is HUGE #there's a GALAXY'S worth of stories to be told #and we're always for whatever reason focusing on this ONE PARTICULAR TIME PERIOD #it's suffocating #this is partly why i'm so excited to see the acolyte #it's a break from the skywalker saga #i love the skywalkers. i love the skywalker saga.#but that's also why i want them to STOP ADDING TO THEIR STORY #sometimes a story has a beginning middle and an end and that's okay!#that's fantastic!#we don't need to see between the lines! or behind the scenes! what if we just LEFT IT ALONE #AUGH #anyways. i don't know. i'm just frustrated with the state of star wars as a whole #it feels so claustrophobic right now. just because the space is there and undefined doesn't mean it needs to be filled #this constant push to canonize the years leading up to an event with content is so frustrating #negative space in an image isn't a bad thing it just helps guide the eye to what's most important #otherwise it gets too cluttered. too noisy. too DISTRACTING.#this was supposed to be about maul being alive but it's really about my ongoing grievances with how star wars is cannibalizing the movies #i'm tired of it........ tired i tell you #anyways that's all. real old man yells at cloud moment rn lmao

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kyouka-supremacy · 8 months ago

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If we’re talking about sexism in BSD can we talk about Dazai Osamu’s Entrance Exam? (Not the anime adaptation) I really really really hated how Dazai and Kunikida would talk about Sasaki right in front of her like she wasn’t even there?? And just how they generally were with her…Reading that light novel was a genuinely unpleasant experience more times than I’d like to admit solely because of how egregiously gross it was when it came to Sasaki's character and how the guys would treat her. I've never seen anyone talk about it but it's been bugging me for a while now.

(个_个)

I understand how that's all sorts of fucked up. I haven't read the Entrance Exam novel but in my opinion the Sasaki / Kunikida / Dazai anime scenes rub just as wrong. There's really the whole deal of talking in front of women like they were lesser / objects which is plain atrocious. But then again, the bsd novels produced the unfamous Naomi description, so it's really the author giving their worst apparently.

The sexism in bsd is pathologic. Something I've brought up before but that is really explicative to me, Dazai going “The murder must have occurred in the early morning, because that's the only time of the day a woman wouldn't be wearing make-up”. And it's probably silly of me to pick up on such a small thing when wearing make-up is debated within feminist spaces itself, and it's probably something I have personal issues with, but the way in the story it serves the role of an objective hint, something plain and unconfutable, that women are expected to wear make-up at every hour of the day and them not doing so is just absurd and unthinkable… To me it really speaks of how the world of bsd is a world were women are expected to fit a determined ideal that is very distant from reality, and the author really has a very limited understanding of what women are actually like irl.

If we’re talking about sexism in bsd, can we talk about what was up with the Yosano / buisnessman (?) scene in chapter 7? It's been two years since I've watched and read that scene, and I still can't figure out what it's supposed to mean or convey. First, Yosano is shown being tame and overly polite towards someone who was being extremely rude; then, after he hits her and tells her to know her place, she replies “Well, a thousand pardons, sir. Would it be more womanly for me to crush your puny ××××× under my heels, perhaps?”. Now, her reply is somewhat funny, but really, doesn't mean anything. And I'm not talking about the censure. Why is her behaviour so fluctuating and inconsistent? What does womanhood has to do with anything here? Why would she be so polite and then suddenly backtrack? Really, why was she being polite in the first place to someone being so vulgar and disrespectful towards her? Honestly, that doesn't feel Yosano at all. At most it feels like that's supposed to portray how a woman is expected to react in an imaginary and unrealistic world, but that has so little standing potential irl, not even Yosano in this manga could hold the charade for long, and the result ends up looking awkward and nonsensical. Every time I see this scene I'm just like… What is going on here. Not even in a judgemental way, just as in “I seriously can't understand what the author was trying to say with this”, and frankly, I don't think they do know either. It really makes evident their struggle to write female characters, like women were this strange, foreign, very abstract concept that's impossible to crack or relate to. And when the answer is so simple, that you shouldn't write women as an unknown and indecipherable species, but simply as people— it would almost be endearing if it wasn't so detrimental. I won't even get to her “It is an era of equality for men and women” line which, put in the context of this manga, comes off as the most unfunny joke ever. Here, I can see what the author was trying to do alright, nodding to irl Yosano Akiko feminist viewpoints, but making the character Yosano talk in cheap feminist slogans to rival mcu movies ends up doing her a disservice more than anything, and I doubt it would leave the actual Yosano Akiko positively impressed at all.

If we’re talking about sexism in bsd, can we talk about how Kouyou should be the next pm boss, and the fact that the spot is canonly reserved for Chuuya instead is insane and nonsensical and outrageous to the point that even CHUUYA agrees on the fact that she should be the one? You know, Kouyou, the powerful ability user, experienced, senior in hierarchy, who has been shown to be both loyal to the current boss Mori and close to him on a personal level? Compared to Chuuya who never wanted to be the boss in the first place? But he gets to be either way, because the concept of a woman pm boss is just unthinkable. I feel like there's more reasons to cry for that Cannibalism stage play scene than the Flags' voices.

If we’re talking about sexism in bsd, can we talk about Higuchi? Can we talk about Lucy? Bsd offers so many examples of its sexism, we could be here to talk about it for days. At this point I feel like I might come across as someone who loves hating on things, but in reality every time I write a post of this kind it's a desperate prayer to the author: “Prove me wrong! Please, prove me wrong! Write women with layers and agencies! Expand on their virtues and flaws and ambitions! Dedicate narrative arcs to them! Prove me wrong!”

#On one hand I'd say let's try and keep the negativity levels low but on the other you know what?#Actually speaking of this from time to time can be helpful for everyone.#And I truly get how genuinely frustrating it gets ESPECIALLY to see it ignored and not talked about so like.#I've changed my mind in reality we should TALK about this. And if you need to vent about this in my inbox feel free to.#nobuko sasaki #akiko yosano #kōyō ozaki #bsd #bsd negativity #mine #people asks me stuff #If the wording sounds dramatic in some points there's a very simple explanation for that and that is: I like to be dramatic

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