#which is in itself an opinion i know

[mxxnlightwriting]

Maybe someone already said this in the reblogs, but I also believe this "self-insert" mentality in first person is another reason why so many FMCs get hated for simply... being a character and doing things, especially when they're not 100% good or have a personality (the biggest sin of all—I say this with sarcasm) or aren't what the reader deems as "correct" in their eyes.

So, when an author writes a morally grey woman, and the reader uses their personal compass to guide themselves through the story, and suddenly this character that they're projecting onto does a bad thing they wouldn't do, they're like "nope, this is not me therefore this is a BAD book and whoever likes it is a bad person."

Not only is that a terrible take to have on a piece of fiction, but it also shows a lack of compassion and media literacy on the reader's part.

I say compassion because, in my opinion, part of engaging with any sort of art is to ask questions while trying to find the answers within ourselves. Why did this character do this thing? What led them here? Was there another option for them? Can I empathise with them for making this choice or not?

Also, art doesn't have to be questioned to be understood, and not every book is made to be analysed, which is more than fine (all books are valid and I will not tolerate people criticising romance as a genre because some of you think it's not "intellectual" enough. This is not about you, either).

And I say media literacy because characters are not—and I can't stress this enough—people!! So using your moral compass to judge a character will not work because, once again, they're characters. They'll always be constricted by the rules of plot and not the rules of reality/real world (even when these characters live in our world).

And like, there's nothing wrong with wanting to find characters that you can relate to, especially when they're the main characters! That's why representation is so important—sometimes we need to see some sort of "us" in the media/art we engage with so we can find value and understanding in who we are as individuals. But you're not the main character of the books you're reading.

And if you want to be the main character of a book, maybe write an autobiography, I don't know.

wait do people read first person stories and think they're the ones in the story???

Saw people talking about not liking first person, which is fair, but their reasoning was like "I would not do that" and I don't understand that mindset.

First person stories are still about a character. A character making their own decisions. First person isn't about you???? At least I thought it wasn't. What am I missing? I've always seen first person as just a more in-depth look into a character's mind and stricter POV. Not as a reader stand-in.

[jq37]

Who Is Allison Moore?: A Disney's Wish Mystery

OK, this is a little off the rails and random but this has been driving me crazy since I looked into it last night.

So, Disney's 100th Anniversary movie Wish is coming out soon and people have had a lot of hot takes about it so I wanted to do some digging. As part of that, I looked at the writers and two people have a "Screenplay by" credit: Jennifer Lee and Allison Moore.

Jennifer Lee, of course, wrote Frozen--their biggest princess hit in the modern era so that makes total sense to me. If you're coming out with a new princess movie for the big centennial of course you'd tap her. But I'd never heard of Allison, and when you look at her name on Wikipedia:

No blue link. So I headed to IMDB to check out her credits, figuring maybe she was some hot new talent recently promoted from within who did storyboards on some recent projects like Moana or something. But when I went to her IMDB page, this is what I found (after a brief mix-up with a Dexter's Lab actress):

Her Producer credits come up first and...huh. That's a lot of adult live action TV projects. Well, maybe her Writing credits are where this starts to make sense:

What? That can't be right, can it? The only vaguely Disney-esque thing on that credit list is Beauty and the Beast and, to be clear, that is a CW reboot of a 1987 procedural with the logline, "A beautiful detective falls in love with an ex-soldier who goes into hiding from the secret government organization that turned him into a mechanically charged beast." And she wrote two episodes on it.

And look at Disney's official page about Wish!

Everyone else on this page has credits that make sense--Frozen, Frozen 2, Raya, Encanto. And the two credits they list for Allison?

Night Sky and Manhunt.

Night Sky, an Amazon Prime show that she wrote one episode for and was cancelled after one season. And Manhunt--and show about hunting the UNABOMBER--that ran for two seasons and that she wrote two episodes for. Those are her two credits that they put up there next to Frozen and Encanto.

I have been scouring the internet trying to figure out who this woman is and how she got this job and I have come up *empty*. This is the big 100th anniversary movie! Why would they have one of the two screenplay writers be someone who seemingly has never done something like this before??? Like, I understand that not having done something before doesn't mean you can't do a good job, but it usually means you don't get the keys to the biggest most anticipated projects in the company's history!

They presumably could have gotten anyone they wanted for this and they picked this person and I have zero clue why and it's driving me crazy. If anyone has ANY information that could illuminate this at ALL--an interview, a social media post, gossip from your cousin who's a gofer at Disney--please let me know because I feel like I'm going full Pepe Silvia over this.

12/26 Edit: A SMALL UPDATE IS HERE!

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[quibbs126]

I think I’m too influenced by other people’s opinions

I mean yeah, I know that, but I mean this specifically in the case of my current fixation, aka Transformers, and that I really don’t know what to think on it anymore

Not about whether it’s good or bad in general, but more how should the story and characters be interpreted, and what were poor decisions or not

Like for example, Megatron. I was thinking about making this its own post today, but it fits here. I feel like having my first two pieces of media I consume in this current dive into Transformers being Transformers One (where we see the tragic fall of D-16 and I’m really invested in him and Orion’s bond and just want to see them get back together, and also this version of him has done relatively very little so it’s a lot easier to redeem him) and then after that Transformers Earthspark (where we start out the series with redeemed Megatron and we almost always see him in a positive light, plus it’s the only non doomed megop) is the main reason why I’m so invested in Megatron as a character and want him to have redemption stories. Like I feel like if I started with another show, I might not feel this way. I might still appreciate him as a villain, I like him in Animated, but he would not be my (I think) assigned mess of a character I obsess over and want good things to happen to

Because it’s like, I want him to have a redemption story, I want to see him turn to the good side (and probably kiss Optimus idk. I would be open to other options if there’s others). But a part of me also recognizes that Megatron is definitely not the most deserving Decepticon of that title; Starscream at least deserves it more than him. And to top it off there’s the problem of him committing so many war crimes and atrocities that gets really hard to justify him getting any sort of happy ending that redemptions usually come with. TFOne Megs is like the one with the least amount of that problem, but it’s probably not going to become common

And also when I say this, I don’t mean I want it for every version of Megatron. I’m saying that when I try to make up stories or my own version of a continuity, this is what I want to do

Like it’s to the point where I’m trying to invent in my mind characters to be more evil than Megatron or be above him so that he can get that redemption, until I realize that what I’m doing would better fit another character. Megatron is supposed to that big bad evil, it’s literally what he’s here for

So I think that wanting this is a bad thing and I just shouldn’t do it. But then I also see other people who think the story of Megatron having a redemption is an interesting idea, meaning that it is something that has merit. So I don’t know now whether I should. Can you give Megatron a believable redemption story or not? And does it depend on whether you need to tweak him to polish out some of his big flaws?

Though it’s gotten to the point where upon reflection, I think my issue isn’t necessarily wanting it, it’s the way I want it as opposed to how it should be done. I think I’m gonna need to find more interpretations of redemption Megatron to really see how it should be done, because I know what I want probably isn’t the best for the story. As far as official media goes, I assume my best bet is IDW, since that’s the one that actually introduced the concept and showed the redemption. But even then, I wouldn’t know what’s considered a good version of this idea and what isn’t until someone tells me

Crap I spent a bit too long on this topic. I actually had a second one to mention. Well, since we’re here anyways, might as well

The other big point of contention for me is the matter of the origins of the Deception cause

Because personally, I like the idea of it starting out as a noble cause, and/or at least the idea of the Decepticons not being pure evil and more a group of Transformers with differing opinions and morals from the Autobots

But then you come to the issue that: they’re literally called Decepticons and they’re supposed to be the bad guys, no matter what sympathetic backstory you may give them. They only aren’t the bad guys when something else more evil shows up, and that’s usually only temporary

Like, to borrow words I heard elsewhere, how do you believe in your cause with a name like that? It’s so evil sounding, and how do you justify giving them a name like that? And for the second point, what does it say when these guys are ultimately supposed to be the villains?

And like I’ve seen people criticize the more modern backstories given to the Decepticons and by proxy Megatron, in part because they’re the villains. From what I understand, in Aligned, the Decepticon cause started from a genuine want by the lower class citizens for equal rights and a distaste for their genuinely absolutely corrupt government who didn’t care about them. It is essentially a worker’s revolution, and them being violent doesn’t necessarily make them evil, as we have historical proof that taking violent action has ultimately worked to change things for the better in our society (though it also isn’t always the solution, just that it has worked before). So what does it say when these people, at least later, become the objective villains of the story? And what does it say when the Autobots, the good guys of the story, weren’t largely made up of this group of people fighting for equal rights? Yes, Optimus agreed with their initial stance and worked with them because he genuinely believed in their cause, but he wasn’t a low class bot, Megatron was

Like I understand that criticism when it’s spelled out like that. And not to mention, it is a bit ridiculous trying to justify a name like Decepticons, just when you look at it on paper

If they had a more neutral sounding name, like the Autobots, we wouldn’t be in this situation. But it was the 80s and they needed an obvious bad guy name and we’re never going to get rid of it, so

But also I really think you’re losing something by just having the Decepticons be evil and nothing more, and their cause being nothing more than conquest and other evil things. But then where do you draw the line so you don’t go to the point where you’re questioning why they’re the bad guys? I just don’t know

I’m realizing now that these issues I’m bringing up are just things that probably require nuance if you want to execute them well. Maybe that’s the reason they confuse me; I have no moderation and can only go one extreme or the other, unless someone tells me what the correct balance is

But my point was, I have thoughts on how I want Transformers things to be done, but I don’t know what the correct way to do them actually is, probably because I listen to too many people with a bunch of different view points because I just want to see all sides of an argument

And now it’s left me unable to truly know what I think, because I just don’t know who’s right

I feel like maybe I just need to take a step back and just watch the shows without sticking too deep into the fandom to figure out my own personal opinions and what I’d want to do. But at the same time, I’m ass at binging these shows right now and I can’t not interact with the fandom, I need the content

[freakinator]

wait realistically how successful do yall think the sb-derap-pangi plan will work

[fourswords]

so i finally read through that linked universe comic just to see what all the fuss was about and while i think the sheer attention to detail when it comes to game mechanics and weaponry is fucking awesome (the FOUR SWORD!!! the one shot of the pristine master sword in twilight princess juxtaposed with the overgrown red master sword in a link to the past! the magical sword finally getting some attention in fanworks!!!) i do have. some questions about four (because of course that's the guy i'm focused on. you see my blog's url). because. like. he's directly modeled after the hero of men in particular but he's also the hero of the minish but he's ALSO the hero of the four sword and then i'm assuming that sort of just lumps both the actual hero of the four sword (post-minish pre-four swords game guy) and the playable hero in four swords together. and THEN given that when he splits the creator said she based it off the manga and the fact that four knows about ganon he is ALSO apparently the hero of light. and like. sure. given the weirdness of the canon timeline and ignoring the differences in looks/lore given in the game manuals you COULD. if you wanted. just fudge the playable heroes from the minish cap/four swords/four swords adventures together and say that they all could be the same guy. but. i mean. under no circumstances would that include the hero of men, wielder of the picori blade. i feel like this is coming off as criticizing or something and i don't mean for it to at all but why in THE hell is he based directly off of the hero of men. when he's supposed to be the hero of the four sword

[jerksbitch]

twitter has poisoned this fandom i fear ... we used to be a community..

[leidensygdom]

man, you know something is deeply wrong with Xitter Twitter when the Eurovision subreddit has saner opinions than Twitter itself :| I know it will push blue checks/certain ideologies over others, but holy shit.

(For the record: I did not watch Eurovision according to the boycott, but I've been checking out what social media had to say about what went down. It's all been a massive mess- And distracting from what is actually relevant, but it was a way to gauge public opinion.)

Anyhow, please donate if you can to any of these charities. I'm sorry for not having spoken up enough about this.

[cuteniaarts]

Behold, my latest and most enamouring new obsession:

Malina, Lady of the Chief of the Northern Water Tribe. As if Red Lotus child OCs weren’t niche enough

[nicorobinphd]

because this just happened: maybe don’t come onto my page, crap all over an element of op’s story that i have been very open about deeply enjoying (in this case, wano ace), & then misgender a trans character that i also deeply enjoy on the basis that the way oda handles his transness is messy (yamato). like how bout we maybe don’t come into my house & shit all over my carpet? that would be nice. further rambling in tags.

[calamitydaze]

long tag ramble below u have been warned

[lususnatura]

🎤 🎤 🎤

a song that i associate with my muse meme!

AHH, hey, ramone!! thank you for sending in this prompt :D since you sent in three of the mic's, i shall now be treating you to three songs that make me think of blamore when i hear them / that i associate with it. an explanation of why i chose them will be in the tags <3

hozier - who we are.

icehouse - crazy.

depeche mode - personal jesus.

[variousqueerthings]

I know that Doctor Who eras are universally considered camp and that a seasoned classic!who fan presumably will laugh at the idea that the show is good "again" when its peaks and valleys constantly come around and are reassessed as overrated or as secret gems, and so yes the idea of Doctor Who being good "again" is kind of ridiculous in the grand scale of things, since RTD is but a drop in a very very big pond (albeit a very important drop considering his was the reboot), but coming in to Capaldi again I've got to say. that M*ffat era is bad, and even Capaldi and Gomez can't make it that much better, although at least they make it bearable and have individual great scenes. but yes this is improving upon quite a few years of bad.

[general-grey]

by the way, i finished Nadia's route for the first time and I can really confidently say that out of all the routes i've done thus far - Lucio's and Julian's finished, Asra's and Muriel's half done -, this one was the most well put together for me - which is funny, considering Nadia herself is ALSO the most well put together character in the game :')

[limielle]

idk i feel like so much discourse could be easily minimized if people learned to say "i think" instead of "it is"

[spikeisawesome456]

.