#I love POC-Ifying characters

[somnas-writes]

Wanna write a PJO-TKC-MCGA protagonist cross over fic

Except I do What Ever I Want

#blond Percy exists #thank u walker scobell #darker skinned Sadie #not as dark as Carter but she’s light skinned #and she doesn’t have straight hair #I’m unwhiteifying Sadie #she has butterfly locs #I’m correct #she still is blond tho #black Magnus #no one can stop me #he has chin length blond locs #his roots are dark but they grow out blond #carter is still normal if not just a little bit darker #I believe in him #I love POC-Ifying characters #somnas.rambles #pjo #mcga #tkc

[jaegerisim]

Vent post y'all are gonna hate me for.

I viscerally hate how the Duffers treat most of their non white or queer characters and I hate even more viscerally, how y'all big byler blogs in your circle jerk of other 5 big byler blogs casually like to ignore many red flags the show has.

Y'all like to say: "tHe DufFeRs ArE gReAt WrIteRs" and it's like girl, who are you lying to??? They aren't top shit writers at all. The Duffers are pretty mid imo. Yeah, they run a good show that's fun to watch and theorize abt , but that doesn't mean they're good writers cuz they're not.

1. they completely side lined Will during s3 for the sake of their straight romances: lumax, jancy, mlvn, duzie and partly stobin (even if stobin wasn't endgame, thankfully, Steve's intentions were clearly wanting to date Robin and they gave it a lot of screen time). Will was sidelined bc he didn't fit the straight romance plotline bc they planned to make him gay or whatever. Now in s4 Will and his feelings have been used as mlvn toilet paper. Yes, we like to say this is build up for byler but canonically, Will's feelings have been used to clean the shit mlvn leaves behind.

2. Billy was sympathized a lot during the last 2 seasons. They gave him the sad backstoryTM in order for ppl to feel sorry for him. Billy's backstory is literally Jonathan's but whatever.

3. El's anger issues are constantly girlboss-ified. They down play her bullying situation and literally just use it for El to be a ''girlboss" without realizing how triggering that is. As someone who has lived bullying, seeing it be ignored by canon and fanon is super sad. The whole Rink-O' Mania experience must have been so traumatizing for her yet, everyone absolutely forgets abt it 🤷🏻‍♀️

4. Robin, Erica and Argyle are stereotypical characters. Robin is the quirky lesbian with social anxiety, Erica is the badass black woman and Argyle is the Latino stoner that sells weed to white kids and works as a pizza delivery guy.

5. Altho Argyle and Eddie both do drugs, (Eddie actually sells K-12 to a minor and nobody batted an eye. He has a huge fan base). Eddie is held in a pedestal bc "poor thing 🥺 he lives in a trailer with his uncle 🥺". Tell me a single fact you know abt Argyle that isn't "he smokes weed", "he is Jonathan's only friend", "drives a van" and "he works at a pizzeria". Exactly, Eddie is given a useless backstory and Argyle isn't.

6. Dustin stopped being important to the plot sometime around s2 and s3. He is only there to curse and be mildly funny. My guy needs to hangout with ppl his age cuz he only hangs out with seniors.

7. El needs to stop having so much "I'M THAT BITCH" screentime like I need in s5 for El's arc to not just be her becoming more powerful and falling in love with Mike. I need the Duffers to explore her trauma and problems.

8. Angela should have been run over by the van.

9. Patrick should have been given a backstory that isn't the basic "strict black parents that hit their kids cuz they are a disgrace". Patrick's backstory is actually racist af, fight w the wall.

10. As Lex already said, they didn't trigger tag the ep where Jason and his friends assault Lucas and Erica. Like wtf? Why was that necessary? Why did I have to see a black boy being held at gunpoint by some white guy?? Was it relevant to the plot?? I don't think so. And then I've got to see ppl online be like "Jason wasn't that bad. He was just mourning" like bitch you can stfu. This is what happens when you make the racist assholes conventionally attractive.

Also the fact that Lucas's arc is fulfilled by him fist-fighting Jason and "embracing his weirdness" aka accepting he is black. His arc was not fulfilled at all cuz that ending spoke so loud to me. It showed how little empathy ppl have towards the struggles poc ppl living in the Midwest have. Y'all circle jerks can only see racism when it's super obvious.

Furthermore, parents complained when ST showed "an excessive amount of smoking" yet nobody batted an eye when Billy tried to run over Lucas, when Erica (an 11 y.o ffs) was chased by white kids or when Lucas was held at gunpoint by Jason.

All of this happened while they focused on Max's guilt and mourning that, yeah, are important but certainly not less important than racism!!!

11. In s3, they gave us that whole Nancy vs The Bigots arc that was honestly just triggering and useless. It didn't help Nancy's character at all, quite the opposite it put unnecessary angst.

12. Lonnie being presented as an abuser just for him to never be spoken of again. Can we please get to explore the trauma he left the Byers's with?

13. The fact that both queer relationships are considered "sloppy seconds" is extremely sad. Both Vickie and Mike are rebounding from their failed relationship with Robin and Will. These 2 ships have caused more commotion than Jancy and Jopper together! (These last ships are technically sloppy seconds too but everybody forgets that. Shocker!!)

14. Last but not least, ppl blame Argyle for being the one to get Jonathan into smoking weed as if Jonathan probably wasn't the one looking for it. Let me tell you, that you only find weed if you look for it.

#P.S: I'm gonna pay attention to how many ppl send me hate bc of this or block me #stranger things #lucas sinclair #st vickie #robin buckley #jason stranger things #will byers #dustin henderson #eddie munson #argyle #jonathan byers #erica sinclair #byler #← target audience #byler target audience

[goatsghost]

asian-ifying the batfamily with technically-not-quite-canon evidence but it makes enough sense in my head:

dick is half romani/half white, and it sounds like romani people are considered indo-aryan, and come primarily from india but also any of the surrounding countries in that area, so we’re good here

BUT, to be extra, i’m also heavily leaning into the wfa live action that got cancelled, where dick was going to be played by yoshi sudarso (indonesian), who i love. AND dick’s voice actor in gotham knights is christopher sean, who’s mixed japanese/white

basically what i’m saying is that the dick in my head deserves to be a poc at this point

cass is already canonically chinese/white

damian is also already canonically arab/chinese/white

jason, though he is canonically fully white, before finding out his biological mother was sheila haywood, both he and bruce briefly consider lady shiva (for some reason). so. he must at least look to be mixed race for it to be a genuine possibility

also his va in gotham knights is chinese (stephen oyoung)

for tim, i am still living in the era when ryan potter made a video to campaign to be tim drake for ben affleck’s batman. it didn’t work, they didn’t want a robin for those movies, but from then on he became the tim drake in my heart

though in titans (which i haven’t actually watched), it looks like his character is blasian? (jay lycurgo) so i’m here for that too, tim is just meant to be mixed race <3

duke i’m coming for you next

#if anyone wants to give examples for duke/steph/babs i am absolutely all ears #my main thing going for duke is that at least to my knowledge we don’t see gnomon outside of his suit #although i haven’t read all of duke’s comics yet so i can definitely be mistaken #dick grayson #cassandra cain #damian wayne #jason todd #tim drake #duke thomas #batfamily #mine #also please relax i am asian and i’m grasping at straws for asian characters don’t come for me lol

[o-wild-west-wind]

A Biracial Reading of OFMD, ft. Iggy’s Revenge Izcourse

a.k.a. I typed out a sentence that turned into an accidental essay of meta, whoops!

Y’all…I love this fandom to pieces, but I don’t think some of you realize why not all of us love Izzy/may be critiquing him. And major disclaimer—I am in NO WAY telling anyone to stop enjoying him as a character. This is NOT an anti-Izzy post (I will go into more detail on why I in fact encourage you to keep doing so later, and to the people who are sending unsolicited hate mail to Izzy fans & haters alike: please don’t!)—I’m just tired of seeing vitriolic hate against the people writing about him as an antagonist, or critiquing his actions based on canon, or post after post of “why don’t people love Izzy like I do!!” and then aggression when people explain their honest opinions. Look: we all have our skrungly little bad guys. I get it!! I’ve got my own collection!! I too have become a consumer and enjoyer of the Izzy fanon!!! PLEASE don’t take this as an attack—I just want to provide some personal, potentially fresh context from at least one (obviously non-exhaustive) perspective for those who want to know why Izzy isn’t universally adored, and also to make a plea for a safer fandom space where we can talk about our perspectives on these fictional characters without escalating to unnecessary vitriol, especially as s2 be upon ye (bc holy shit fandom is supposed to be fun, we’re having fun and that’s an order 😤)

(Oh, and I know I’m potentially stirring the pot with this post, but this should go without saying: don’t send each other death threats. What the fuck. Nobody do this?!)

So now that the legalize is out of the way: I want to share that the reason I initially imprinted on this show—and on Ed specifically—was because I’d never seen an explicitly biracial character treated with such complexity, nuance, and grace. While our ethnic makeups are vastly different, I too am half-white & half-brown—which means we’re absolutely nothing culturally alike, but our worlds view and treat us as pretty much the same regardless. And like Ed, my dad resents my mom and my racial makeup, and is prone to what I like to call “white violence.” Not going to overshare on the internet, but let’s just say that all this compounded makes Ed feel highly relatable to me (although for legal purposes I promise I have not krakened my dad 🙃).

When I first watched the show (and honestly also until my 3rd or 4th rewatch), Izzy IMMEDIATELY made me think of my dad. He also immediately made me think of Ed’s dad. Their mannerisms, word choices, and tones of voice; the obsessive need for control; the default of violence; the gradual dehumanization until an ultimate kraken-ifying breaking point—it all read to me like an intentional parallel. A shadow of white violence following Ed around that he hasn’t been able to shake, and mirroring to him the things he fears the most, including the things he fears within himself and feels forced to become (he is half-white after all, and this is a whole other post, but tl;dr there can be a lot of baggage that comes with being half-white/half-poc in regards to grappling with your toxic relationship to that white side of yourself, and especially if your white parent was racist and/or violent). And you can claim a different reading of all of this if you want (I genuinely mean that, like I’m in favor of meta & I think it’s great to analyze these things) BUT. that does not change the fact that I felt what I felt as a result of what was portrayed on screen and combined with my lived experience. Because fictional characters are just that—fictional—and are vessels by which you can process the world; we will always bring our personal lived experiences to anything we consume, and that’s okay—that can be the point, even. Art imitates life imitates art. Interpretation is the name of the game!

(more under the cut)

So when I watch this show, it’s a helpful tool for me to process my own feelings of being victimized by the white violence that’s followed me around my whole life, as well as the ways in which I’ve rebelled against it/tried to make peace with a non-toxic version of whiteness (in parallel to the more overt theme of masculinity, which is—ding ding—inexplicably tied to whiteness and western colonialism) via chaos, love, hurt, and sometimes giving up and giving in—and in this process, Izzy is a safe target. And you know why that is? Because he’s FICTIONAL. I can feel rage towards him because he’s NOT REAL. I can better understand and process the pain I’ve felt and rarely seen societally acknowledged by watching it paralleled on screen via actors and writers who have likely also grappled with similar feelings (I mean, I genuinely have made more progress with my personal biracial trauma via this show vs. years of therapy), and if I want to assume the worst of Izzy based on my interpretation of canon to help me through this? That’s fine! Because I can’t hurt his feelings and he can’t hurt mine!! Because he’s not real!!!

And here’s why I still support the Izzy-enjoyment: I am sure that many of the people who love Izzy and defend him to the ends of the earth probably feel a similar way that I do about Ed. It’s why we get all riled up and protective of these characters, why we might take attacks on them as attacks on ourselves; recognition of the self in the form of the other, and all that. Izzy is a vessel by which to safely work through the dark feelings and the pain you’ve bottled up—and he’s a safe way to do that because he’s FICTIONAL. And that’s a beautiful thing imo!! That’s truly the beauty of art—it is what we make of it, and what we make of it helps make ourselves better. It’s good to be open to interpretation.

HOWEVER: that does not give you permission to discount my relationship to this show (as I will not discount yours), and more importantly: that does NOT give you permission to reject the notion that canonically in s1, Izzy is literally and thematically (emphasis on thematically) an antagonist who is purposefully written to cause harm that can be interpreted as a hate crime, especially to those with lived experience of homophobia/racism/ableism/bullying/etc.—and you cannot harass people about this when conversing about theories of canon. If someone sees Izzy’s dialogue as cutting, degrading, and even triggering, that’s extremely fair of them to do so—clearly Ed was written to feel it that way! Con himself has paralleled Izzy with Judas! And can interpret it all differently? Sure! But you CANNOT assume that everyone else will, and then get upset when people don’t. I can’t believe I need to spell this out about an angry white guy in a show about toxic masculinity, but if someone does not like Izzy, it is likely due to a personal history of harassment (or worse) that he is reminiscent of; by making a point to defend him to someone—even if you are well-intentioned—you are very much putting salt in a wound.

I want to take this opportunity to further emphasize some tenets of fandom in general:

you can like characters who do horrible things without needing to jump hoops to argue their morals as pure 👏

conversely, you can critique their actions and still like them (encouraged, even) 👏

you can like characters who do horrible things simply because they’re cool and hot and interesting—don’t worry, we know it’s not the same as liking people like them irl 👏

your liking a villain archetype says nothing about your own moral virtue 👏

you can like horrible characters and see reasons for why they are the way they are/view them as tragic/note sympathetic dimensions of their personality/root for them to have redemption arcs while acknowledging that said redemption arc may not have happened in canon yet and that these are implicit, not explicit, readings of canon 👏

and you can also reimagine canon and change their contexts in fan works so that they ARE morally virtuous 👏 but PLEASE just be mindful and accountable when you do this in a context where not everyone will see a character the same way as you, and where multiple of people of marginalized identities have spoken out about the harm not doing so can cause. Just be honest, sincere, and kind, listen and learn, and don’t harass people for understandably needing space from a character that symbolizes something different to them than it does to you.

Also: blocking tags or people just because they have character opinions different than yours is totally okay and does not mean anything other than “I am curating my online space to have a better time,” it’s NOT personal

And most importantly: FANDOM IS FOR FUN! This isn’t our day job! We come to fandom to decompress. Don’t ruin people’s safe spaces!!!

Like I said, I’ve grown to enjoy Izzy over time thanks to fandom and fanon, and I think it’s fantastic that fandom can have such diversity in the way it interprets canon. I can’t wait for his probable redemption arc (it will likely be a healing thing to witness for many of us) and I’m truly glad that we can all have different relationships to the same characters. But please—when some of us need Izzy to be a punching bag, just let him be a punching bag. No, it’s not homophobic and DEFINTELY not misogynistic to view him as an obstacle in Ed and Stede’s relationship (baffled by the amount of times I’ve seen this take—it’s a funny joke but if you actually think Izzy is treated the way female characters related to other mlm ships have been treated, the point is very much going whoosh). You don’t have to engage; it’s not personal. It’s not about YOUR relationship with him—it’s about MINE. Please let me feel and even discuss rage towards him when I think about episode 10. Please let me throw as many sandwiches at his head as I need to. Because I PROMISE, it won’t hurt him—because he, and none of these characters, are real; and yet we, the fans, very much are.

#woof #did I add enough disclaimers? #this was longer than intended so if you read all the way through I’m giving you a kiss #I wasn’t going to engage but I keep seeing vitriol in the tag when all I want to do is decompress and I just… #I just came here to see gay ppl kiss sir this is a Wendy’s #fandom should be a safe space and I hate getting an ick from tumblr when it’s what I’m trying to use to escape the bad shit #life is hard enough lmao #anyway #please be kind to each other #I could go into the whole other topic of what the trauma of Covid did to our virtual affect and interpersonal skills but #alas that’s a thesis within itself #and on that note I have my actual thesis to work on so i won’t be closely monitoring this post just needed to get this all off my chest #and for what it’s worth I’ve been trying to avoid s2 spoilers so I haven’t seen the Izzy clip yet but that’s honestly irrelevant to this #bc this is in relation to s1 and I hope we can all just have a good time again this season #ofmd #our flag means death #the izcourse #ofmd meta #trauma #racism

[caatws]

What you said about the mcu being uwu about Gamora's death at the hands of her abuser is exactly where they screwed up. It's not always comfortable to have these conversations or deal with issues of equality but the reality is you can't use a light touch and sugarcoat abuse, trauma and death when it comes to women and poc. It's unfair and not right but people will connect with and empathize with a white male character dying even without all the bells and whistles of a funeral and flowery words and open emotions far more easily than they will for other characters like Gamora. You have to be bold and loud and show some of the nitty gritty details if you want people to care even half as much for a character like Gamora.

They needed vol 3 to be a Gamora love fest with bells and whistles galore and it wasn't. But to make matters worse the whole movie skirted the line of being just subtle enough about all the characters feelings outside of Peter and dismissive enough of her death and life all together that they unfortunately pushed her right over the line of non entity for many people. I know in the next week or so vol 3 discussions will fade away because the movie will have been out for a while and new interests will pop up, but I'm still kinda torn that this is the end of the trilogy and where Gamora's story ended. I think even one movie or Disney plus special about her that had more thought and details could have made all the difference. Or as lofty as it might be some detailed commentary from James Gunn about the complexity of Gamora's role in vol 3 and how before she died she was an important team member. Something official to balance what's lacking in the movie would be really nice

yeah! honestly i had a similar issue with the mcu's tone with black widow seeming to try to walk a line between being actually really dark and serious in a realistic way with its kind of graphic depiction of human trafficking (especially in the opening credit sequence) and still being a comedic mcu film. i think when/if the mcu wants to tackle serious themes, they need to commit more fully and not try to uwu-ify it with as much mcu humor and stuff. so in the case of gamora - another victim of both abuse and trafficking, just like nat and yelena (and nebula) - there was a whole lotta care that needed to be given when handling her storyline that just...really wasn't in iw/eg.

at least vol 3 showing how much everyone loved and missed her would've shown how much the characters lost. and i think you and i are both right to consider her race and gender as factors to consider in why her death, the circumstances of her death, and her legacy were handled the way they were in canon. there was definitely more story to tell there before the endpoint we reached

#ask #the gamora situation #gotg vol 3 spoilers

[slut-and-falcon]

My predictions for the wicked movie knowing Hollywood if they include elements of the book (which they should!!!):

-queer bait the shit out of Elphaba and Glinda

-they hired a white guy to play Fiyero so I’m betting they may attempt the whole subverting the race power dynamics thing instead of yknow sticking with the very clear allegories in the book. They also won’t let Fiyero wear his cultural clothing, instead sticking with a very boring suit or shirtpants

-make Elphaba very feminine…I swear the god if they don’t give her a too big man’s coat she wears in the book I will fight someone

- more of a tiktok thing that will happen: ‘Blue diamonds on a green field’ romance trend

-either they will focus too much on the Time Clock Dragon or not at all despite it’s importance to the plot

-if Crope and Tibbit are included, they either will not verbally queer but will either wear leather or have colored hankies (cuz the costume department knows what they are doing), or they will be the opposite of yassified

-they won’t show Tibbit (I think it’s him) in hospice dying of what is implied to be HIV/AIDS (which omg is such a large part of the plot and culture of which it was derived from! The whole ‘friends of Dorthy’ + queer women having to step up and care for queer men during HIV/AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s and still to this day!!! There is so much subtext in that few pages!)

-the genocide of the Quaddlings for their land’s rubies won’t be mentioned or if it is they will ‘holocaust’-ify it and it will be very disrespectful

-they won’t make the Wizard like ale enough. The whole point in the musical is that he is so charming that even Elphaba is tempted. A fatherly actor, Tom Hanks??, should play the Wizard 🫢

-the Animal animation will either be extremely bad (like the Lion King remake), which is most likely, or they won’t use it at all. And tbh I want to see something like that is in Narnia.

-they will market it like they did the Hunger Games (I honestly don’t have much of a problem with this because I found that fascinating when that happened).

-it’s gonna be so straight. And that’s really sad because this book was written by a gay man, and has sooooooo many references to queer culture and most of the characters are canonically queer in some way. And honestly as depressing as the book is, I read it as a cathartic image of what LGBTQIA+ and POC go through. I think that is why I love it so much- I see myself and my pain and my community’s pain represented in a nuanced way.

-the only thing I can rely on happening is the violence against women 🙄 it’s in everything

I just really want a wicked series that is similar to Game of Thrones (with better writing) mixed with Pose and MASH, and be a political/action/horror thriller like Kingdom (K-drama). I know that’s complicated but it all plays out in my head lol.

I’m holding out this much 🤏🏻 hope.

#elphaba #fiyeraba #fiyero #wicked book #wicked musical #wicked movie #predictions #this is really depressing sorry lol #but I have a lot of feelings about this okay?? #it’s a QUEER story but it’s not gonna be told that way #Broadway

[achorusofnonsense]

seeing people posting their speculation for the next d20 season, so i figured i'd throw mine in the ring.

the pattern for the last twelve months seems to be a brennan-led season followed by an orion-led season, and i see no reason that would change now. orion d. black is the overall creative director of dimension 20, and developed misfits & magic with aabria iyengar and shriek week with gabe hicks. so i would expect another shorter, experimental, non-5e, POC-focused game not gmed by brennan.

not 4 episodes, though. in both the mismag and the shriek week crew adventuring parties, producers expressed regret that they had limited the number of episodes so much that storytelling elements ended up feeling rushed or incomplete. so 6 episodes seems right: bloodkeep, tiny heist, and pirates of leviathan have demonstrated the capacity of the 6-episode season to tell a satisfying story within the constraints of dimension 20's format.

so that's my starting point. now to consider the vague and elliptical hints that have been dropped. a lot of galaxy-brained sleuthing has been going on in the dropout discord for the past week, some of which i've found compelling. last week's newsletter, in which the letters b i o r l were highlighted in navy blue, has been acknowledged as a cryptic hint; this week's newsletter, which pushed back the trailer to next week and recommended some d20 content to watch in the meantime, has been taken as another hint.

navy blue might suggest a nautical campaign, and the recommended videos -- ally on a ferry (nautical again), bloodkeep reunion (returning casts), and chungledown bim creation (pirate, spyre, and leviathan specific) -- could be interpreted as pointing toward a second pirates of leviathan. which would fit in with the POC-focused element of an orion season, if not the experimental, non-5e elements.

but of course a second pirates of leviathan wouldn't give brennan a break, if it was exactly the same cast and gm as the first. and so i'm calling a wild shot: b. dave walters will switch seats to be the gm, with marcid moving to the background as an npc, and ify nwadiwe will take his place as a new pc. ify and matt mercer have bantered on twitter about their bloodkeep characters' sexual chemistry, and this would be a great way to follow up on that. (ify also posted a tiktok a while back with the box of doom; of course he's been in the dropout studio a bunch recently so he could have just popped into the dome while on set for um actually or dirty laundry -- and in fact he's wearing the sweatshirt he wore on dirty laundry in that tiktok. but we'll see.)

but where does biorl fit into that theory? well, a common fan shortening of pirates of leviathan has been pirol, and if you move some letters around while keeping in mind mike trapp's monologue during the sponsored episode of game changer in defense of the all-P keyboard, "what is a lowercase b but an upside-down p," you get exactly the kind of arcane but annoyingly dumb hint that dropout loves to troll its audience with.

am i entirely sure that this will be the next season? no, of course not. there are any number of things it could be, and it wouldn't be the first time that misdirection led the dimension 20 fan-theorists off on a wild goose chase. would it be hilarious if i'm right? yes it would. and would it be a great fuck-you to the reddit assholes who accused b. dave of cheating during the original pirol campaign, as well as a wonderful showcase of an amazing cast whose brilliance was not fully appreciated due to the technical failings of d20's first remote campaign? also yes.

as always, we'll see if i'm right. i never have been entirely right before when making a prediction about d20, except when i've said that the next season isn't going to be fantasy high: junior year. and i will continue to be right about that.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 speculation

[imnotrevealingmyname]

Hey :) I just saw your post about the new loki show and how disappointing it was, although I'm well informed about the transphobia and the (gender)fluid-phobia, could you maybe elaborate on the racism parts? That would be fantastic!

Of course!

1. In episode 1, the Mongolian villagers had basically no role to play. Just two sentences. No reaction to the TVA hunters popping out of nowhere. They didn't advance the plotline in any way, nobody paid them any attention besides Loki responding to their two sentences. That's tokenism.

2. Hunted B-15 is was just a worker for a fascist organization who loves to kill and apparently has 0 compassion until the white heroine showed her the "path of light", so to speak. After that she had no role to play other than hyping Sylvie up, because apparently she had no desires of her own to find the real head of the TVA and only existed to be a mouthpiece for Sylvie, the "good white superhero who was gonna save the day".

3. Casey had just handful of lines and I feel like he was there just for comic relief. A dumb-ified cathartic element to make Marvel seem more inclusive. We never saw him after episode 2.

4. Ravonna Renslayer practically leads an evil fascist organization and also loves to kill innocent people. When she finds out about the TVA's secret she conveniently leaves altogether to "search for free will". Aka the writers got tired of having her and used rhe stupidest, most meaningless way to get rid of her. Especially because she already knows that she has to get pruned to get to the void. Why did she not self prune then?? Where is she going? No idea.

5. C-20 also had only a couple of scenes, and she was killed off screen.

6. King Loki had no role other than obeying kid Loki and then betraying him. Also unlike all the Variants (other than pres Loki) he has no backstory. No clear nexus event. Nada. We know at least a little about the others.

I think @lucianalight and a couple of other people elaborated more on this, but I can't find the posts, so you can check those out too. Hope this helped!

7. No POC character made it to the void. Aka no POC character gets free will. Only King Loki does and even he ends up being the most badly written, shallowest character you could think of.

8. @lucywrites02 reminded me of this one. The main Bad Guy™ is a black character. We're seeing a trend here no?

#inrmn.txt #loki meta #loki series critical #loki series negativity

[biofreak659]

U know what? On that note: why I didn't like Netflix Castlevania and how it could have been better (with the caveat that I gave up 2 episodes into season 3 because everyone was obnoxious lol)

The biggest problem Netflixvania suffers from as a story is it's poor pacing. It takes an entire season for our main characters to even meet, and then another entire season for them to finally face Dracula. This could have easily been a single season series, but of course how could the show have survived without long rambling jokes about having sex with sheep, or our main trio bickering like high schoolers (I'll never forgive marvel for making annoying 'witty' dialogue the standard for comedy).

The interesting stuff (ie the castle part of the castlevania) is condensed into a ten minute fight scene, while our mains waste so much time on complete nonsense. But don't worry! Because the show also wastes time on complete nonsense! We definitely needed to see Dracula's whole backstory.

Anyways, now to ramble about how I think it would be better. My opinion is 💯 correct so if you disagree you are wrong and stupid.

Instead of going ahead and laying out all of the story cards, Netflixvania should have at least tried to be a bit more subtle, and more careful with what they chose to share with the viewer.

The existence of Lisa and Alucard really should have been kept secret until Alucard was encountered in the Castle.

Anyways, story. It begins with Trevor saving some hapless villagers or somesuch. They thank him, until they realize he's a Belmont, and then they flee, cursing him because he's been excommunicated and is evil now, yadda yadda. Like it or not, Trevor is our main character, not Dracula or Alucard, and thus the story really should be his. I felt a big problem in Netflixvania is that he really doesn't have any motivation to kill Dracula, beyond Sypha making him feel bad about it.

Give the man some internal motivation! It doesn't matter if it's a sense of duty, or the desire to regain his family's honor, or even if Drac kicked his dog—give Trevor a reason beyond 'because the plot needed me to'.

Anyways, I did like Dracula's generals. I thought they were very interesting, but I think Godbrand should not have been included. He's a dumb marvel archetype for comic relief, and he doesn't do anything for the story beyond being obnoxious. I would have preferred it if, like Carmilla, they were all monsters that appeared in the games (Orlox, Abbadon, The Mummy, Frankenstein's Monster, etc), but regular vampire generals are cool too. I really like Carmilla as a schemer, and moreover, I liked that her scheme failed, largely due to the trio smashing through that plot and killing everyone.

I'm... iffy about the inclusion of the Forgemasters. I don't think Hector or Isaac really added anything to the plot that needed to be added (they make monsters! Uh okay, why do the monsters have to be made?), apart from being sucked into the aforementioned scheming.

I'm losing the thread. Anyways! Trevor goes into the castle, does some fighting and exploring, etc. Basically the stuff from early season one, but with no obnoxious quipping. Along the way, he runs into Sypha, as a statue, Grant, as a gremlin man, and eventually Alucard.

I'm torn about including Sypha's disguise as a man. On one hand, it's very funny, on the other, it really doesn't serve a purpose.

I suppose now I ought to mention Netflivania's decision to poc-ify it's white characters.

This, like a lot of netflix's other IPs feels very, hmm, performative. Take the generals for example. There's the japanese lady, and the turkish guy, the indian lady, etc. In the third season, the japanese lady even serves as a sort of tertiary antagonist, as the two vampire hunters were once her slaves. She's got a cool design, too. You know what would make her cooler? A line of dialogue, perhaps, or even, a Name.

I had to look the generals up, and only then did I realize that they actually had names. Netflixvania has a very diverse cast, except the only characters that actually do anything are white.

Except for Isaac, but for some reason Netflixvania decided they had to justify his being black with a slavery backstory, that did not exist in Curse of Darkness.

Anyways, back to the problems with the story.

Dracula and Lisa

In SOTN, we don't even know what happened to Lisa until the Succubus boss battle. In Netflixvania, it's the first thing we see. I feel the decision to humanize Dracula from the getgo, rather than cast him as a complete monster, then make both us and the characters realize the error in thinking of him as an emotionless monster once the existence of Alucard and Lisa are revealed, makes the story seem flatter. It's very predictable in that sense.

'oh Drac wants revenge cause they killed his dead wife but he's gone too far and needs to be put down' is way more interesting if it's

'oh drac needs to be put down but wait he's doing it because he wants revenge cause they killed his dead wife'

It's a fairly predictable story either way, because it's, y'know based on a video game with 3 gig of storage, but at least we have some mystery in why he wants to kill everyone.

And, you could add a but if foreshadowing and drama with the vampire generals, who know why drac is out for revenge, but aren't allowed to ever bring it up.

Characters

All of the characters in Netflixvania are obnoxious and seem to hate each other, except for Sypha who inexplicably falls in love with Trevor, possibly because the future told her she had to.

Seriously, the trio doesn't seem like they can stand each other, and Alucard and Trevor especially. This would be fine, except the series also likes to pretend that they're just doing some friendly witty bickering. This would be fine, if Netflixvania decided to show us that they were actually friends.

Just leave them as enemies, it's fine.

Grant Danasty

Okay this one is more petty and personal, but I like Grant mostly because my sister mained him in that awful castlevania fighting game (I was always Eric)

Where are you looking!

Anyways, they totally could have included Grant, but there were more important scenes, such as: Godbrand doesn't bathe, and

Yeah okay I'm giving up for now. This dumb show incenses me

I will write more later unless I forget

#wah wah #long post #i hesitantly tag this #castlevania

[deliciousscaloppine]

Hot takes galore 2: A brief overview of fandom backlashes that influenced fanfiction writing traditions as I have personally experienced them.

In this segment we examine...THE INDOMITABLE MARY SUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, as I was entering fandom in 2008 (Bleach, a manga by Kubo Tite), the hottest, sweattiest discourse pertained perhaps to Mary Sues. I thought the hatred of Mary Sues had completed its cycle and it was dead and gone in our days, BUT I happened upon a post that said that we are all stanning Moxiang Tongxiu’s OCs (original characters), in a sort of admonishing tone, and I couldn’t help but smile.

For back in the day, OCs, were termed self-inserts at best, and if they were a female protagonist that would sideline the canonical cast of characters then they were Mary Sues. And there were as many people hating original characters, and Mary Sues in particular that I remember sitting up all night thinking on whether I should post or not this fic that had some OCs in it that were there to just deliver some messages.

And of course this bled into accusations of writing canonical characters as basically “original characters” or “self-inserts”, by use of the term “ooc” (out of character). Personally, I thought this was over, but recently Riri accused me of disregarding the existing characterization and turning the CQL characters into my own original characters...for KINKY HAVOC IN VOLCANO PALACE!

An unjust accusation, I feel, Riri, because I do my damnedest to maintain characterization even under the wildest circumstances. 

People were looking to extend their enjoyment of the existing characters and story, and for some reason fanfic authors could come under fire for not catering to that, and writing for their personal self-fulfillment. 

And there were as many people writing oc’s and Mary Sues as there were people hating them, and the writers for it. It was chaos, there were journals (i was in livejournal) devoted to roasting mary sues, laughing at authors etc. If you came in fandom after me, you live in much much gentler times, and perhaps you have the Mary Sue to thank for that, because the Mary Sue kickstarted a lot of fandom feminist discourse.

Back in the day they usually determined “Mary Sue” as an overpowered, female character, whom everyone loved even though she might not be particularly charming (by whose standards?), who was adept at everything, knew everything, felt everything etc. 

The thing is that Mary Sues did not seem to exist only in fanfiction, but everywhere around us, whenever there would be a project film/show/comic/book that had a strong female protagonist.

And that was because fandom and male nerd culture were intertwined. Anime, games, comic books were heavily “invaded” by swaths of girls who were not quite fulfilled by corny pop stars, or saccharine rom coms, and seeing that there were no female power fantasies available in these media, they created their own.

It was a very interesting time because if you remember, Marvel Movies started getting made around that time, riding on that convention power, which was dominated by male nerd culture - and that is why they gave so little screen time to female characters, because the demographic was pretty thoroughly examined and they were found to dislike any and every female character that was not there to validate the male character’s cishetero sexuality (YEAH BABY)

I mean women, actresses, female characters had a good portion in media, and the marvel cinematic universe and its imitators pretty much sidelined all these people very aggressively. Male stories started exploding and taking over during this time, exploiting that very vocal male nerd demographic. 

But where is the backlash you ask, because so far we’ve only seen the oppression. 

I saw a lot of writers struggle with the validity of the female character, and then the validity of female writing. They conflated writing female characters, as writing without examining themselves, or attaining a neutral voice and a role of representing accurately reality (lol). Writing Mary Sues was bad writing, and at some point all women were Mary Sues.

...So can you guess what happened?

A lot of these people turned to male slash in order to cope. Before the Mary Sue hate, male slash was a considerable but not dominant piece on the fanfic pie, which was mostly dominated by main het ships. Male slash was already enjoyed by female heterosexual audiences, but it started gaining more and more traction until a term was coined (shipping goggles), and accusations were once more flung: that fangirls will ship any two white dudes - not untrue. 

This audience was not very friendly to actual gay people. There were all sorts of strange views passing before my bespectacled eyes at the time. People proclaiming that they loved yaoi (i was in manga, so this was the term used), but would not watch gay porn, and thought gay people were gross. And in the case where gay people were in fandom these people often complained of not being included/invited in fandom activities, or having minimal readership from groups that promoted male slash, but not gay writers.

This is why I often say fandom is not a friendly place for lgbtq people, because this type of audience still exists, even if it had to suppress their discomfort and assimilate the rhetoric of allyship at some point. And sadly a lot of people who dominated these early discussions about fandom becoming more lgbtq friendly since it consumed such relationships in media, managed to set this climate of dishonesty where everyone is pro-lgbtq in theory, but not in action.

Meaning a lot of stereotyping that is not endemic to actual lgbtq communities. Like top-bottom (most people are verses), whiny bottom, subby bottom, violent top, aggressive sex, hypersexual gay characters, almost complete erasure of bisexuality, lesbians what are they?, a complete and absolute fear in portraying trans characters, suppression of genderfluidity, accusing people of writing male gay characters as female characters as a form of wish-fulfillment or supposed homophobia.

A while ago I saw this article asking why lgbtq people are so mean to each other that confused me thoroughly, until I remembered this call out phase that happened a while ago and still goes on, where everyone blames everyone else of abusing and gaslighting them, friendships falling out etc, which is not at all the reality of older lgbtq scenes, because these were not formed online under this climate. 

And because fandom is a vehicle for self-exploration a lot of people to this day conflate consuming lgbtq relationships through media as being lgbtq themselves, or these “actual” relationships being set as these other fictional “idealized” relationships. Whereas in older lgbtq scenes a lot of people come into them by realizing their attraction to actual, real, live people and not characters, or hot celebrities.

I am not saying that current lgbtq people who discovered that about themselves online are lying, or lying to themselves, but they definitely came out in an environment of fake acceptance, and have a hard time reconciling reality with that lie of acceptance through no fault of their own, of course, because they never developed the language and the understanding that language brings in order to communicate amongst them. The characteristics were set by a group outside of them that might be pro gay marriage, and having a cool gay friend, and the inherent tragedy of homosexuality or something, but are not really for it - as a very wise queer eye contestant once said. 

And so every trespass by their own people, becomes a proof of this generalized rejection with tremendous consequences for young people’s mental health. YOU ARE BEING GASLIT IT’S TRUE - but not by your own people, it’s just a miscommunication going on there.    

BUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MARY SUE. She changed. She stopped seeking love, sex, and power, or at least pretended that she did not want any of these things, or did not understand them, she stopped speaking, and became more stoic so people wouldn’t judge her opinions, and finally one day she went on to accomplish great things, because women seeking representation was also a pretty set demographic, and somebody could and would exploit that!

The Twilight Saga, Fifty Shades of Grey, even Hunger Games, are the media progeny of the Mary Sue powering through the entirely of male nerd culture. In a whole decade where people wanted Marvel to release a Black Widow movie, there have been three major spy/action girl movies that did very well in the box office, and since producing and releasing a movie usually takes three years, i’d say the audience was heard loud and clear - even though not by Marvel. 

And the side girls in these Marvel movies, or other action movies, became more and more badass - they all went from damsel in distress, to saving the hero, and of course the male characters were subsequently “queer-ified” until everyone was finally happy, and nerd culture was exposed as having been infiltrated by neonazis and that’s why it was making those unreasonable demands for no women ever in the first place.

And everything was right in the world, except that it was not. Because...girls had also been infiltrated by “neonazis”. A lot of these media, and a lot of these “white” Mary Sues, fall under many conservative criteria. Conservatism being a nice word for fascism. 

A few examples is the person of color always dies, or is brutalized, or is admonished constantly even as they shadow the protagonist in order to reinforce their inherent radiance. Characters who might be poc in books or in the anime (hur hur), are whitewashed in the visual media. The women are almost never comfortable with sex or romance, always thinking about the future and amassing power, not for themselves, but for the benefit of the resistance, or the family, or any other entity they belong to. And of course they are forever incredibly flawed - as opposed to idealized versions of male heroes always on the side of good for the right reasons! Also a minimal cast of women, with one woman being the protagonist, and the rest functioning as side characters or mostly antagonists.

So every time you feel a slight trepidation for not being the right type of lgbtq for writing something that is not strictly anal, or fear to include feminine characters, every time you erase yourself from the narrative it is it, the spectre of the Mary Sue coming to haunt you with a “We won, what more do you want?”  

#fandom history?

[verycorrectlotr]

Today someone asked me if I was excited for the Amazon tv series..

I mean yea of course BUT!! Only if they do it right. 

- while the original cast did an amazing job,,,,,, can we get someone who isn't white in here please. Tolkien’s middle-earth is a fantastically multicultural, diverse place, and the on-screen representation should reflect that (not to mention the multiple canon descriptions of a brown-skinned Sam). I remember watching the movies for the first time and thinking “why are the only poc  characters the evil pirates and random background extras” - I don't want the show to inflict that same feeling on its audience.

- PLEASE don't game-of-thrones-ify it. I love the ASOIAF series, and I read plenty of dark, gritty, gory, violent stories. But that's really not what lotr is about. Tolkien fought in a war. He doesn't glorify it - the exact opposite, in fact. Making the Amazon show one bloodbath after another not only misses the point of the lotr series, but also disrespects Tolkien’s memory, his ideas and his message.

- also make Sam and Frodo officially gay please and thank you

#rant by me #sorryyyy #not a quote #sam #frodo #samfro #if nobody gets bitchslapped by Arwen at some point in the series I will be speaking with Amazon #oh that's another thing Make Arwen Cool Again please

[nazumichi]

What are some critiques you have of shows you like besides SPOP? Like TOH, TOA, BNA etc.

spoilers for tales of arcadia + tw for racism mentions

DO I

Lets talk about tales of arcadia, why don’t we? It’s actually one of my faves, especially when I was young! I love the world building and the animation and the characters so much, you wouldn’t believe.

First time I bawled like a baby over a fictional character was when Jim got troll-ified and when Draal died.

What I’m saying is I love this series a crap ton, but the rep is... eh...

Predominantly white cast (is Claire white? Her middle and last names are Mexican as is her brothers) is not my favourite at all. There are like, two or three poc, excluding changelings and akaridions and Claire, which would equal uhhh 5.

It‘s really lousy, and toa is one of those shows that loves to pair up all its characters and it is so tiring. Please let Krel and Douxie be aroace, please please please.

Bouncing back to the lack of poc, I like how 3Below talked about racism, and it was so nice to see, but please include those characters in your show or there isn’t much point.

And now I want to talk about brand new animal. It’s actually the first anime ive ever watched, so take that as you will. I love the characters, the animation, it’s just a really cool show.

The whole “animal-people vs humans is a racism metaphor” trope is so rarely done well (I think kipo is the only good version of it I’ve seen), and although bna does have some good points and metaphors, especially in “Dolphin Daydream”, it’s just not a good trope, to compare poc to animals.

Another bad decision was calling Michiru transforming into a beastman a disease. That was just so wrong. Because the show could’ve made an interesting point about privileged groups using their privilege in a healthy way to uplift minority voices. But noooo it’s a disease being in the shoes of a minority group is a horrible disease for normal people™️

One thing that I especially hate, the treatment of the only black character in the show. Marie is shown to be obsessed with money and cash and payment and scamming, and she does everything for herself. She really works into the stereotype of black people being desperate for money and money obsessed. And it’s really sad, because she has so much potential to be a really interesting character, who could turn her life around and be, I don’t know, good rep?

Sigh.

#ask #raii talks a lot #tales of arcadia #brand new animal #tw racism #raiis anons