#If you disagree with a take based on actual show facts argue about it in a polite way

[frooogscream]

So David making the show gayer and listening to his collaborators... is a bad thing. Even if you weren't twisting his words, you're not making the point you think you are.

I did never say anything like that, what I sad is that the show was never supposed to be so queer in the beginning and that pretty much all of the queer details about the characters came from the queer actors. My conclusion was not “David Jenkins bad because he didn’t want to make a queer show”, my conclusion was “it is beautiful that these queer people poured their hearts into it and created something with a lot of meaning for other queer people”.

Yes I also used phrases like “we were never even supposed to have what we got” and “This show was NEVER supposed to give us beautiful things and treat it’s queer characters with “kindness”! It was NEVER supposed to be for queer people!”, implying that I personally felt like s2 made some choices that I, with my personal experience as a queer person was disappointed in (such as cutting all the poly scenes and killing of the older queer characters right after giving him a coming out arc, in doing so removing an actor who is very vocally supportive of trans people which I, as a trans person appreciate and used the opportunity on convention panels to talk about queer rights and removing the only of the three most central characters in s2 actually played by a queer person, etc.).

But that was just a tiny and implied undertone in an overwhelmingly positive post, in which I praise the cast of the show. And for the record, I DO think that it is great that DJ made these adjustments, I work in theater and occasionally in film and know that it is also not uncommon or bad to make changes as the project evolves and actors flesh out the roles more. I simply pointed out that he is not the one who originally had the ideas to make it this queer and that he originally didn’t plan to let the main queer love story end with a happy ending. Firstly this is not a bad thing, there are a lot of shows out there that aren’t queer, no body is “required” to make queer shows. Secondly where the hell am I twisting his words, he LITERALLY said all of the things I listed as changes towards a more queer show himself and you can find all the interviews linked in the source I gave in my post! Again the over all tone of my post was “oh my god, look what crazy info I stumbled upon and isn’t it fucking fantastic that these gorgeous queers have turned this regular show into something that means so much to us”. And that you manage to take that positive post and read something sooooo negative into it, just because someone dares to say that maybe David isn’t this amazing queer rights activist that some fans make him out to be and didn’t plan on making a revolutionary queer show, is honestly baffling to me.

I am also not “trying to make any point”, this is my personal block with barely 30 followers where I described my personal feelings towards factually true information and my personal feelings are:

I fucking love Vico, I fucking love Con, I fucking love Kristian (also Nathan and every queer person who worked on this behind the scenes) but I’m not gonna kiss David Jenkins feet for something that wasn’t even his idea, I don’t “owe” a cis straight guy who dosnt understand half of why the things his queer cast came up with are so important, gratitude. I gladly and freely extend a big fucking chunk of gratitude to queer actors who put their heart and soul into their queer roles way more then they are required to. Hope this helps.

#the gentlebeardies are at it again #now you can’t even compliment the actors anymore without being a hater #ofmd season 2 #ofmd drama #ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd discourse #fandom culture #why the fuck is this fandom so toxic #why are you going into peoples post just to tell them they like the wrong things about a show #I don’t purposefully search for gentlebeard posts just to yell at them that actually Stizzy is way better #If you disagree with a take based on actual show facts argue about it in a polite way #If you dislike a take ignore/block and move on but don’t come at people screeching “you’re wrong/not making the point you think you make” #our flag means death #toxic fandom #ofmd 2 #david jenkins

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

hi there! love your work! i recently had a prof say that all zoos (USA) are bad (so we shouldn't support them) and sanctuaries are better because using animals for entertainment is morally wrong, most zoo profits dont go to conservation, and conservation efforts are bandaid solutions to capitalism destroying animal habitats, so the real solution is to return the land to indigenous stewards to manage/rewild. i didn't disagree with the last bit, but the argument as a whole felt a little off to me for a reason i couldnt put my finger on. am i off base here? just feeling really unsure about the whole thing.

You're not wrong! There's a mix of reality and personal opinions in those statements, and it's definitely something worth critically examining. A quick fact-check of what they said for you:

All US zoos are bad

There's a massive range of quality of zoological facilities within the US (and around the world). Some are stellar and some are not, and it's really just not accurate to lump them all under the same umbrella for almost any purpose. Unless, of course, your issue isn't with animal welfare, and it's philosophical, which is what it sound like in #2...

2. Using animals for entertainment is morally wrong.

This is one of my favorite things to talk about w/r/t how we exhibit animals. Entertainment has become equated with exploitation and implicit low welfare in the last couple decades, and so you get a lot of people saying using animals for entertainment is wrong. But those same folk will say that they enjoy seeing animals in other contexts, and they think that's okay. Where's the line between enjoying something and being entertained by it? What makes something one and not the other? Also, we know that people learn better from from situations which are enjoyable/entertaining - even just a fun teacher who jokes around vs a dry lecture - so how can that only be a problem when it's used to make viewing animals more impactful? I wrote a whole piece on this a while back (linked here) if you want to dig into this more. Some zoos (and accrediting groups) are shying away from "entertainment" type branding - shows are demos now, for instance - and others are leaning into "edutainment" that's done with good welfare and communicates actual education messaging. In short, this is a personal philosophical belief, and you're right to question if you agree. (Even if you decide you do think that too! It's always good to question why someone is arguing what they believe about animal use, and how they came to believe it).

3. Sanctuaries are better than zoos.

There's two reasons I think he's misinformed here. First, almost all exotic animal sanctuaries in the US are licensed exhibitors - just like zoos! I only know of a couple that don't exhibit to the public at all. It's an important part of their revenue stream, because gate take helps support paying for animal care. Also anything you see from a sanctuary on Youtube, Facebook, or TikTok? Also exhibition! They just message about it differently, and often have a different ethos about how they exhibit (e.g. tours to reduce stress instead of letting people wander, doing conservation or rescue messaging instead of just display). Second... look, most people assume that the word "sanctuary" means a facility is intrinsically more ethical than a zoo, and therefore they must be a good place. In reality, many sanctuaries get much less public and regulatory scrutiny (at the state level) than most zoos. There are good sanctuaries out there, but there are also sanctuaries where stuff goes on that would absolutely be unacceptable at zoos, and it slides because of the assumption that sanctuaries are inherently more moral and ethical and care for their animals better.

4. Most zoo profits don't go to conservation

This is correct! Direct conservation funding is often a small part of the money a zoo makes. However, that's because money goes to things like facility maintenance, new construction, paying salaries, etc. If zoos put all the money they made back into conservation programs, practically, they wouldn't have the funding to continue to operate. The question that I'd suggest asking instead is "where are they putting money into conservation" and "are they doing conservation work or just throwing money at something to display the logo of the program." Also, it's worth keeping in mind that a lot of what zoos do to support conservation isn't necessarily financial. Many facilities contribute "in-kind", by doing things like sending staff to assist with programs or teach specific skills, or by donating things like vehicles and equipment. Research zoos do also seriously contributes to in-situ programs, and breeding programs for re-introduction like the scimitar-horned oryx and the black-footed ferret are also conservation. Could many of the big urban facilities with huge budgets do more? Yes. But looking just at dollars spent on conservation programs is disingenuous and inaccurate.

5. Conservation efforts are band-aid solutions to capitalism destroying habitats / Returning the land to indigenous peoples to manage/rewild is the real solution to conservation issues

This is a little outside my scope so I'm going to only address the part that I know. First off, like, there's no One True Answer to conservation issues. That's reductionist and inaccurate. Conservation really is a human issue, though, and it often has to involve solving human problems that lead to negative results for animals. There's definitely an issue with what some people call "parachute conservation" where Westerners swoop in and try to tell people living in range countries how to best manage their animals and natural resources without recognizing their perspectives, needs, or what drives their behavior towards those animals. That's not just a zoo issue - that's an issue with a ton of traditional Western conservation work. And there is progress towards fixing it! In the zoo world, I've been very impressed with the work out of The Living Desert, where their conservation people spend a lot of time overseas teaching people in range countries to evaluate and improve their own conservation programs, so they can assess efficacy and also have data to apply for grants, etc. They provide support when asked, rather than trying to tell people who live with these animals regularly what to do. One of my favorite programs that TLD collaborates with (they don't try to run it!) is a group called the Black Mambas that reduces poaching by supporting entire communities to reduce the desperation for food/income, educating kids about animals, and running all-female patrols staffed by community members.

Overall, it sounds like your professor's view of zoos is really informed by their personal moral perspective, and possibly reinforced by a lot of the misinformation / misleading messaging that exists about the industry and about conservation work. They do have some specifics right, but not necessarily the context to inform why things are like that. It was a good catch to question the mix of information and approach it critically.

#zoo industry #zoo information #philosophy around zoos and what they do #conservation #zoo questions

[tleeaves]

Folks going "WHAT they made a show about the Fallout franchise?? I've been hearing people say Bethesda messed it up, but I haven't watched it myself, so I'm going to trust the word of other people -- some of which also haven't finished watching it" is driving me insane.

Being a hard core fan of something obviously brings with it a lot of passionate feelings when adaptations come into play. Of course, there's going to be people going "but in 8 episodes of the first ever season they made, they didn't explore Theme C or D, didn't introduce factions E and F and G, and because the source company is notorious for its scams, we and everyone else who's a TRUE fan should hate it".

The Amazon Original series Fallout follows the videogame franchise of the same name. It is a labour of love and you can tell by the attention to detail, the writing, the sets, and YES THE THEMES ARGUE WITH THE WALL. It's clearly fan service. I mean, the very characterisation of Lucy is a deadringer for someone playing a Fallout game for the first time. She embodies the innocent player whose expectations drastically change in a game that breaks your heart over and over again. Of course, she's also the vessel through which we explore a lot of themes, but I'll get to that.

There're some folks arguing that the show retcons the games, and I gotta say... for a website practically built on fandom culture, why are we so violently against the idea of someone basing an adaptation on a franchise that so easily lends itself to new and interesting interpretations? But to be frank, a lot of what AO's Fallout is not that new. We have: naive Vault dweller, sexy traumatised ghoul that people who aren't cowards will thirst over, and pathetic guy from a militaristic faction. We also have: total atomic annihilation, and literally in-world references to the games' lore and worldbuilding constantly (the way I was shaking my sister over seeing Grognark the Barbarian, Sugar Bombs, Cram, Stimpaks, and bags of RadAway was ridiculous). Oh, and the Red Rocket?? Best pal Dogmeat? I'm definitely outing myself as specifically a Fallout 4 player, but that's not the point you should be taking away from this.

The details, the references, and the new characters -- this show is practically SCREAMING "hey look, we did this for the fans, we hope you love it as much as we do". Who cares that the characters are new, they still hold the essence of ones we used to know! And they're still interesting, so goddamn bloody interesting. Their arcs mean so much to the story, and they're told in a genuinely intriguing way. This isn't just any videogame adaptation, this was gold. This sits near Netflix's Arcane: League of Legends level in videogame adaptation. Both series create new plots out of familiar worlds.

Of course, those who've done the work have already figured out AO's Fallout is not a retcon anyway. But even if it was, that shouldn't take away from the fact that this show is actually good. Not even just good, it's great.

Were some references a little shoe-horned in to the themes by the end of the show, such as with "War never changes"? Yes, I thought so. But I love how even with a new plot and characters, they're actually still exploring the same themes and staying true to the games. I've seen folks argue otherwise, but I truly disagree. The way capitalism poisons our world, represented primarily through The American Dream and the atomic age of the 45-50s that promoted the nuclear family dynamic -- it's there. If you think it's glorifying it by leaning so heavily into in the adaptation, I feel like you're not seeing it from the right angle. It's like saying Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck glorifies the American Dream, when both this book and the Fallout franchise are criticisms of it. If you think about it, the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout is a graveyard to the American Dream. This criticism comes from the plots that are built into every Fallout story that I know of. The Vaults are literally constructed to be their own horror story just by their mere existence, what they stand for, what happens in each of them. The whole entire show is about the preservation of the wrong things leading to fucked up worlds and people. The missions of the Vaults are time and again proven to be fruitless, unethical, plain wrong. Lucy is our brainwashed character who believed in the veritable cult she lived in before she found out the truth.

So then consider the Brotherhood of Steel. I really don't think it exists in the story to glorify the military. We see just how much the Brotherhood has brainwashed people like Max (also, anything ominously named something like "the Brotherhood" should raise eyebrows). Personally, I don't like Max, but I am intrigued by his characterisation. I thought the end of his arc was rushed the way he "came good" basically, but [SPOILERS] having him embraced as a knight in the Brotherhood at the end against his will -- finally getting something he always wanted -- and him grimly accepting it from all that we can tell? Him having that destiny forced upon him now that he's swaying? After he defected? If his storyline is meant to be a tragedy, it wouldn't surprise me, because Fallout is rife with tragedies anyway. And a tragedy would also be a criticism of the military. That's what Max's entire arc is. It goes from the microcosm focusing on the cycle of bullying between soldiers to the macro-environment where Max is being forced to continue a cycle of violence against humanity he doesn't want to anymore because a world driven to extremes forces him to choose it to survive (not to mention what a cult and no family would do to his psyche). Let's not forget what the Brotherhood's rules are: humankind is supreme. Mutants, ghouls, synths, and robots are abominations to be hated and destroyed. If you can't draw the parallels to the real world, you need to retake history and literature classes. The Brotherhood is also about preserving the wrong things, like the Vaults (like the Enclave, really). They just came about through different method. The Enclave is capitalism and twisted greed in a world where money barely exists anymore. The Brotherhood is, well, fascism plain and simple.

Are these the only factions in the Fallout franchise? Hell no. But if you're mad about that -- that they're the main ones explored, apart from the NCR -- I think you're missing the point. These themes, these reminders, are highly relevant in the current climate. In fact, I almost think they always will be relevant unless we undergo drastic change. On the surface-level, Fallout seems like the American ideal complete with guns blazing that guys in their basements jerk off to. Under that surface, is a mind-fuck story about almost the entire opposite: it's a deconstruction of American ideals that are held so closely by some, and the way that key notion of freedom gets twisted, and you're shooting a guy in-game because it's more merciful than what the world had in store for him.

I mean, the ghoul's a fucking cowboy from the wild west character he used to play in Hollywood glam and his wife was one of the people who helped blow up America in the name of capitalism and "peace". There are so many layers of this to explore, I'd need several days to try and keep track and go through it all.

The Amazon Prime show is a testament to the Fallout franchise. The message, the themes? They were not messed up or muddled or anything of the sort, in my opinion.

As for Todd Howard, that Bethesda guy, I'm sure there's perfectly valid reasons to hate him. I mean, I've hated people for a lot less valid reasons, and that's valid. We all got our feelings. But the show is about more than just him. My advice is to keep that in mind when you're judging it.

#fallout series #amazon prime fallout #amazon prime video fallout #amazon fallout #prime fallout #fallout #besthesda #todd howard #fallout spoilers #some light analysis #the american dream #militarism #lucy mclean #maximus fallout #cooper howard #the ghoul #I know they're not planning a skyrim adaptation and that's fine #I prefer it remaining in its videogame medium while I write fanfics #so if they had to adapt any of their games I'm actually glad it was fallout #also please forgive me I wrote this very late at night so there's probably a bunch of mistakes #and I've played fallout for like six years and still don't know anywhere near as much as the hard core fans but I'm also not a newbie

[saltydkdan]

Thoughts on Strohiem? (From Jojo)

It’s… rough. I have OPINIONS ABOUT HIM.

For those unaware, or have forgotten. This particular ask is about the character of Rudol von Stroheim from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. A Nazi Major that is introduced in Part 2 of the series. I have always wanted a proper moment to spotlight how much I dislike this character. And not just how I dislike him as a character, but how I dislike his general inclusion in the story as well.

Listen, I LOVE this series. But even I have my limits. It’s because I love it so much that I critique aspects like this in the first place.

Warning, I’m about to word vomit about this because I’ve been DYING to talk about this somewhere.

BIG DISCLAIMER: These are my thoughts and mine alone. I know there’s a lot of… interesting anime fans out there that might disagree. I’m not here to debate on stuff like this, I don’t want to hear your contradictory thoughts on the subject. If I see a single person say I’m “virtue signaling” by saying I don’t like the Jojo Nazi character, I am going to mail you a pipe bomb (in the hit game Minecraft for Windows PCs)

Stroheim’s existence (or at least, how he currently exists in the story) is not handled all that well in my opinion. Like… not at all. I like to poke fun at it, but I genuinely think Araki fumbled the bag so hard with Stroheim and it's more and more unbelievable the more I think about it over time.

No matter how you shake it, Araki fully wrote a historically accurate Nazi character into Battle Tendency and proceeded to give him a redemption arc and make him a member of the supporting cast. Now of course, I know that Japan has a fascination with a lot of German stuff, so within that context I can kind of get why he exists in the way that he does, but it just feels weird and in bad taste.

Contextually, it makes sense. Do I like it? No. No I do not.

To address the elephant in the room, I get it. Araki really loves to write evil villain characters, and then having them be redeemed, or switch over to the hero's side after a certain point. I actually really enjoy this trope especially in Jojo! It’s one of my favorites. Especially how it’s handled in Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable.

However, writing a redemption storyline for characters like Okuyasu and Rohan is fundamentally different from writing one for Stroheim.

First and most obviously, unlike other characters, Stroheim’s whole character is based on an actual real life totalitarian extremist hate group who committed horrible atrocities across history (and still does to this day).

As if that wasn’t enough, he quite LITERALLY commits horrible atrocities ON SCREEN. Sacrificing an entire room of innocent people to Santana (the first of the Pillar Men) so that the German’s can awaken and study him in their secret lab.

Everything about Stroheim feels like it’s very intentional at the start. He is clearly set as a villain from the beginning, and it works fine. However once he self-immolates and blows himself up to destroy Santana, the story seems to continuously frame him more and more as an ally/hero from that point onward.

After he returns with his cyborg body, the fact that he’s a Nazi suddenly takes a back seat and now he’s continuously just framed as a “patriotic” soldier. Legit, the moment after he shows back up, Joseph internally comments on how he’s “not exactly a bad guy”.

Some people will argue on how it’s a bit more complicated than that, since Joseph also thinks about how he dislikes that he’s a German Soldier. But directly after this, he also states how he’s still happy Stroheim isn’t dead. If anything, from this point onward Joseph acts towards Storheim in a similar way to how he acts towards Caeser. Even if they aren’t best friends, Joseph still has positive feelings towards Stroheim, and I hateeeee that.

In the anime, they even make sure to call him a “German Soldier” and not a Nazi. The avoidance of that word really struck me as them trying to avoid that subject because they knew the way the character was treated was strange.

So anyway, as I was trying to say. Redeeming villain characters is one thing, but redeeming a villain character that is straight up a literal Nazi is something else entirely. Especially when like, not to nitpick, but Stroheim never walks back the more extremist beliefs that he for sure subscribes to.

-And if you’re one of those weirdos who tries to make a point by saying “well, he never outright says what he actually believes in! Maybe he is just fighting for Germany for his own reasons.”

My dude, he’s literally described as a “Patrotic Nazi”. What the fuck do yoU THINK HE BELIEVES IN?

Also as a final addition to this rant, I also don’t quite like how weirdly normalized that Araki makes the existence of “german soldiers” in his story even outside of Stroheim. Nazi’s are weirdly commonplace throughout the plot, and while it contextually makes sense since they kicked off the main conflict, they are almost always weirdly painted as neutral or even straight up good guys (after the Santana fight). Which is just really strange to me.

Like bruh, you mean to tell me that Caeser fucking Zeppeli is casually frieNDS WITH ONE OF THEM? BE FUCKIN FR ARAKI LOL

It also sucks how Stroheim is so increasingly present leading up to the final act. Like MAN, GET THIS MOTHERFUCKER OFF THE SCREEN.

The only good thing about the inclusion of Nazi’s after Stroheim’s initial sacrifice, is that we get to see the Pillar Man murk a shit ton of them on screen. Like, fuck yeah dude. A great way to power scale and show how powerful the Pillar Men are as antagonists, without me feeling bad that they killed a bunch of people to do so.

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents that nobody asked for. I still LOVE Jojo, I think it’s a masterpiece of its genre, but it’s because of my intense love for it that I criticize it’s missteps so heavily. I hope that my wording on this post is done well, I had to re-draft it a second time after accidentally deleting it once, so I have a feeling it’ll come off a bit scrambled.

That being said, thanks for the Ask!

#saltydkdan #salty asks #jojos bizarre adventure #jojo's bizarre adventure #long boys

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/729708592592306176/how-about-a-different-discourse-death-of-the

What this ask is missing, a bit, is that Death of the Author *does* mean that the author’s take on things is no more or less valid than anyone else’s. It’s about decentering authorial intent in analyses of media. Barthes is pretty clear and quite pointed about it in the original essay.

What bothers me about misuses of it and what I think this anon means to say is when people start decentering the actual *text*. The idea behind Death of the Author is also that the text stands alone. You don’t need to look at any extra shit to understand it. As you said, it was a response to a mode of analysis that obsessed over plumbing through author biographies.

The issue with what people do in fandom is they ignore the text. “I don’t like this element of canon, so it doesn’t exist.” (Which is different from arguing that it’s there but it sucks because of XYZ reasons, so I’m going to consciously ignore it in my fan works. This is when people just act like it isn’t there in the text in the first place.) “You have to take my bizarro world out-of-nowhere headcanon that is based on nothing except that I want it to be true, that I love this character and I wish they were XYZ therefore they are” and take it just as seriously as headcanons that actually engage with what’s in the show/video game/book/movie/whatever and use that as their basis (like building off something that is subtextual in the original work).

Granted we all do this to some degree, we all come to a text with our own biases and you can’t *always* easily separate those out, and that can affect, for instance, your interpretation of what the subtext is, but I think the irritating fandom behavior is when this kind of ignoring-the-text-to-substitute-your-own-reality is this very deliberate sort of laziness. The annoying thing in my current fandom is people who are fans of this one ship that they insist is the most progressive and other people just don’t see the scintillating “subtext” of because we are bigots or whatever, between two characters who don’t interact that much for two MCs and when they do it’s not at all shippy (but these characters both have very shippy subtext with different characters), but where these people think the ship *should* exist because of their identities. And their “evidence” for the ship is always gifsets taken way out of context and not including the dialogue that makes the non-shippy context for that scene very clear (including that it might actually be shippy for conflicting pairings). It’s like this bizarre version of “close reading” that strips out the largely context *deliberately* in order to make a particular conclusion seem more compelling than it actually is.

Anyway, all that ignoring-the-text stuff is STILL bad analysis per DOTA. Since the point of DOTA is to go based on the text, if you’re obscuring the text you’re kind of just installing yourself as a new author.

This is why DOTA doesn’t mean “anything goes.” It just means “authorial intent is just one interpretation that doesn’t have to matter.” It doesn’t mean other stuff we use in analysis doesn’t matter, and if anything the point is to make it even more text-centric than the older author-centric analyses were. People can still disagree about what the text says, of course, but they should both be going back to it in how they construct those arguments, and not, like those shippers, deliberately ignoring chunks of the text that weaken their arguments.

--

I don't think all of them are consciously throwing out actual canon, but they are often throwing out all context that would help evaluate subtext.

Like... if you're analyzing a Marvel movie, you might ignore what the director said in an interview, but you probably shouldn't entirely ignore the fact that it is a Marvel movie and apply assumptions that make sense for some arthouse film.

And, yes, if you're arguing for shippy subtext, even unintentional on the part of creators, "I like this ship because..." needs very little, but "This ship has more support than this other ship" requires going back to the actual text and looking at it in its totality.

There's a lot of faux-intellectualism around garbage like TJLC where people try to make themselves feel smart by using the language of close reading while having the media literacy of a bucket of rotting fish.

[peachdoxie]

I don't think I ever really processed the trauma I went through in OCD treatment and reblogging that comic about OCD the other day really triggered me and arghhhhhhh I don't know what to do about it. Thoughts I guess.

The main thing is like, any time I would express doubts that I actually have OCD, my therapist (who specialized in OCD) would tell me that doubting that I have OCD is actually a very common symptom of OCD, and it felt like he refused to actually listen to my doubts when I was like "my avoidance happens because there's some block in my brain that I can't get past and it's not rooted in anxiety."

Like, because he thought I had OCD that meant that any thought or behavior I expressed automatically was because of OCD and not like, adhd, autism, fibromyalgia, sensory processing disorder, etc. It felt like my only options were to agree with him (which I didn't want to do because I don't!) or continue arguing and therefore just confirm what he already thought.

And like honestly it made me almost question my sense of reality when I was like "I'm avoiding this thing because I'm worried the physical exertion will trigger an asthma attack or tachycardia event or fibromyalgia flare up or migraine" and he'd be like "but what if it doesn't and you're fine?" and I was like "I can't take that risk because of how long it takes me to recover from these health issues" then he'd say "OCD treatment is about learning that you can and have to work through discomfort and, yes, even pain" and honestly if not for the fact that I have a strong sense of self and years of experience to back this up, I might have started to doubt that my health issues were really as bad (even though they are!) as I was perceiving them.

Like one exercise I had to do was increase my anxiety (to show myself that I can handle anxiety) by hyperventilating through a coffee stirrer for a set number of seconds, and I was supposed to do it even if I was going to black out but when I said I felt like that was too risky for me because of the aforementioned health issues (the tachycardia especially) he just kept trying to convince me to do it even though I kept saying I don't think I should!

And he kept suggesting things to convince me to do tasks, like if I don't do xyz by our next appointment I have to donate ALL of my savings to a political cause I disagree with, and I was like "that just creates more anxiety for me because I genuinely do not think I can do this thing because my brain won't let me!" That was the last session I saw him because I cancelled after that.

Honestly I think the main reasons OCD therapy was so traumatic for me were 1) I constantly felt invalidated when I expressed concerns and 2) I was being misinterpreted by someone who refused to listen to me. That second one is something that actually really bothers me a lot and some of the biggest falling outs I've had with friends in high school were when they misinterpreted something I said as malicious and used it against me. But the invalidation of my concerns goes right along with it.

The thing is too the part of me that does have perseverance and anxiety—not the logical side of me, that is—still worries that maybe he was right all along and I do have OCD and all of my problems are just because I don't think I can do something so I don't, even though my logical brain can point to all of the evidence contrary to that worry.

Like yeah, I do have intrusive thoughts that cause my anxiety, but I'm pretty good at handling them. And my avoidance is based in past experience of "if I trigger one of my health issues by doing one of these specific things that have triggered them in the past, it will make the rest of my week very difficult as I struggle to recover and play catch-up." It's like, what anxiety I have is most often based in very real, very tangible worries—and even now, I'm struggling not to start spiraling about it, so I'll stop before I get there.

Tbh the only good thing to come out of those six months of hell was the conclusion that the vast majority of my problems aren't caused by anxiety and that there is something else going on, whether it's autism, adhd, fibromyalgia, or whatever. I'm not sure it outweighs the trauma, but hey I learned something I guess.

Tbh I try not to be too pissed at myself for seeking OCD treatment in the first place and basically wasting my leave of absence by making minimal progress. I decided to listen to the therapist who diagnosed me (different from the OCD treatment therapist) instead of going with my idea of seeking help from an autism/adhd therapist, because I tend to defer to authorities on things like that—though I will say, the negativity and fearmongering on Tumblr around getting autism/adhd diagnoses certainly didn't help.

I think overall it's frustrating because I will never get closure with the OCD therapist. He will always have misinterpreted me and refused to listen to me, and I'll just have to live with that.

It's also frustrating because I don't think either therapist necessarily did anything wrong, per se, since they were looking at what evidence they had from their experience in their fields, which certainly biased them—and they both admitted to me that they don't know much about autism or adhd, and I should have taken that as a yellow flag and bailed sooner—and I'm going to shut up because the spiral is starting again.

Anyway if you read all this, thanks I guess. I'm mostly just train of thought writing to get the thoughts out of my head (perseveration is a symptom of OCD but also of adhd/autism and I need to keep reminding myself that). Please don't give me advice or suggest I reach out to either therapist please. Compassion only.

Please also don't try to convince me that I do have OCD because I don't need someone encouraging my anxiety spiral.

#anecdotes by peachdoxie #I'll probably delete this later but whatever

[khionefr0st]

im gonna put this here bc at this point this acc is just me screaming into the void and sometimes the void screams back

I’m gonna preface this with the fact that what anon did here is wrong even if what they say isn’t. Just stop barging into other people’s spaces, or going into their askbox/interacting with them when you know they disagree with you and trying to convince them of a different viewpoint in fandom.

Anyway, to the point - if the nature of two characters’ relationship hinges on technicalities like whether they call each other brother/sister in canon, or the batfam wiki, or their adoption papers by the same dude instead of the actual nature of their relationship, which for some of them, does not fit siblings at all, then you could hardly call them siblings, even by the standards of canon itself.

Like someone could just as easily make the argument that since Jason died, his adoption papers under Bruce are no longer valid. He isn’t any longer adopted by the same dude because those papers were never renewed – and they never had to be, because Jason was already pretty much an adult by the time he decided to show up in Gotham again. In the same comic where Bruce adopts Tim as his son, he admits that he didn’t adopt Dick as a son, but a ward. Does this make Jason and Dick any less of brothers? Does it make Dick any less of a son to Batman?

And some would respond to this with “well, technically-“ and it would be an argument about technicalities all over again, and it would still be the wrong damn basis for judging the nature of any character’s actual relationship.

Take Jason and Tim. They did not grow up together. On the contrary, Jason has done things to Tim that would drive any two people apart – and at that time, they barely had any connections to each other besides Jason’s resentment towards Tim, and Tim knowing Jason as Robin but never really knowing him. And then the reboot happened, and none of it was ever addressed properly. We didn’t get an arc where Jason apologized to Tim. Just a throwaway line in a N52 comic where Jason acknowledges that Tim is kind of similar to him, and he realized he wasn’t his enemy. They bond more in the N52 RHATO run, but none of it is especially in a familial way. At best, in canon, they’re amicable coworkers for the same dude, no matter how many times they call each other brother or how you argue that Bruce still has their adoption papers.

Same can be said about Tim and Damian – sure, they have the same dad. Does it make them siblings? Not by a long shot, because the nature of their relationship needs more development than mere technicalities for it to happen. And for the love of god please realize that having the same father figure does not make people tantamount to siblings.

Because that’s the problem with some of you – it’s that you force them into these boxes of typical nuclear family dynamics, like since this is the dad, all his kids are siblings, and because some of them share the same siblings, that means they all see each other as siblings! When the batfamily is a found family and fundamentally does not fit into conventional family relationships.

At best, the “batfamily is a traditionally nice, good, loving family” is a headcanon with surface-level canon content to support it (like WFA, or some moments in Nightwing). But looking at their actual, genuine interactions with each other in the past? The actual moments that relationships should be based on?

Some of them are hardly siblings, no matter how hard you try and force them to be.

Plus, Babs can definitely see Bruce as a father figure. She can definitely be a mother figure and/or a sister figure to Steph and Cass. This doesn’t mean she can’t date their sibling, Dick. Stephanie doesn’t have to be adopted by Bruce to see him as a father figure, and you can definitely think she does see a dad in Batman. Steph isn’t any less of a sister to Cass or Duke. Doesn’t mean she can’t be shipped with their brother, Tim. Doesn’t mean someone can’t reinterpret Steph and Cass’ relationship as a romantic one, either. Because, again, they do not fit conventional nuclear family dynamics.

The reason Tim doesn't have to accept Damian or Jason as his brother is because the fundamental difference that separates found families from nuclear families is that they are not born into the relationship - the relationship happens because they make it work. Their bonds are not forged by a link in blood - they are forged by choice, and with effort. Without those things there is no relationship, no matter how many parental figures or siblings you share.

So yes, Jason is still Bruce’s son, not because of any damn adoption papers or because he called his other kids bro/sis, but because Bruce loved him like a son and Jason loved him like a father, and they've both put in the time and commitment in the past to prove that to each other.

I’m not doing this to justify shipping, because the justification for that is do whatever the hell you want in fiction. I don’t care if you still see them as siblings and neither should anyone. Fiction is held to different standards than reality, and fanworks are held to different standards than canon. It is a waste of time to make it your business to form an opinion on what everyone personally ships and doesn’t ship in a spin-off of a universe that doesn’t exist.

I’m saying this because I need people to understand that happy, conventional batfamily is hardly canon. They are complex, and yes there is love and family to be found there, but their familial connections don't limit them. I think it’s a disservice to the narrative and the inherent versatility of their relationships to pretend like the batfamily is founded on traditional family dynamics. And yeah, also because “Actually, in canon-” has been used again and again to attack people who choose to make them have romantic connections instead of familial ones (including DickBabs and TimSteph shippers somehow), and half the time, like in the post above, they’re not even right because they ignore nuance and actual canon history for the sake of trivial and arbitrary criteria.

And even if it was canon, it’s not something you can weaponize against people who choose to see their relationships in a different way from you. Nothing is stopping anyone from rewriting canon either and choosing to say “Well in my headcanons and works they’re not related.” Canon or not, nobody has the authority to barge into that space and yell “Actually they’re siblings!” (And nobody has the authority either to barge into someone else’s askbox and say “No they aren’t!”) I promise you, it does not matter. If SPN, GoT and Greek Mythology didn't normalize incest some batfam slashfic between two members of a found family certainly isn't going to do it. Stay in spaces you���re comfortable with and do away with those you aren’t.

Last P.S. if you really want to read healthy and good canon family dynamics, read Flashfam.

#batfam #batcest #jaytim #jaydick #fandom discourse #KhioRants #that will be the tag from now on when I do this kind of thing #tagged for your blocking pleasure #long post

[cinematicnomad]

not to expound on the tags in my last reblog re:buckley v diaz parents, but i am going to do just that lol

when i look at the buckley parents i see a pair of people who were traumatized by the death of their child and their reaction to that trauma was actively harmful. they were emotionally negligent of maddie and buck, they parentified maddie and left it to her to raise buck, and they tried to bury the existence of daniel because they were so unequipped to deal with their grief and a byproduct of that was further traumatizing maddie, who had no outlet for her grief and was taught to hide it instead, and harmed buck by creating this giant gulf in his own family narrative by which he fundamentally could not connect with his parents or understand their actions.

things i saw in the other tags and posts that i disagree with: i don't think they blamed buck for failing to save daniel—that is not something we see them doing nor is it something we hear maddie and/or buck accusing them of. buck certainly FEELS like he's at fault when he finds out the truth, but that's because of the fact that it was hidden from him for so long. if anything, you could argue that part of their faulty rationalization when hiding daniel's existence was to protect buck from that feeling. i am not arguing that that logic is sound or defensible, just merely stating a position that would imply they are not blaming buck.

i also, just, don't blame them for having buck to save daniel? there are certainly ethical quandaries to be had about parents having a savior baby and all that entails. but i also don't fault a set of parents for doing whatever was necessary and grabbing at every opportunity to try and save their son's life even if, yes, it meant having another child. now, CLEARLY they weren't mentally or emotionally equipped to raise that child after daniel died, and it's obvious that they did not consider this outcome when they decided to have buck because of the actions they eventually take, but i also don't fault them for the initial decision.

the other thing i would argue about is in regards to if the buckley parents love their children. i think we can answer that based on what we see of them in canon. we learn that the whole reason buck developed a reckless streak was because it was learned behavior as a child. he realized that when he put himself in danger, or injured himself, or was sick, he received the love and affection he craved from his parents. that is MONUMENTALLY fucked up. they SHOULD have been able to show him that love at all times. they caused him lifelong emotional damage that he needs to heal on his own because they could not access their own emotions except for in situations of extreme fear and concern. was it enough? no. does the fact that they showed him love and care in these moments make up for the times they withheld it from him? of course not. but i think it's evidence that the love was, fundamentally, still there. similarly, in regards to maddie, their concern about her relationship with doug was telling.

it's obvious to me, at least, that for the buckley's they’re so emotionally numbed that the only times their emotions are actually let out is when triggered by extreme fear for their children's safety. that is not healthy. that is not okay. but it is informed by their trauma surrounding daniel's death, and it is something i can understand even if i find it harmful.

basically, i really do think that canon got it right when maddie said they were good people but bad parents. i think it's generalizing it a bit, but fundamentally i think that's a pretty insightful read on them. they are people who underwent an extreme trauma and it changed them for the rest of their life to the point that they could not parent their children and that is not okay. but when i look at the two sets of parents discussed in the post, i can understand the reasons for one's actions, and i cannot understand the others.

#i'm not even tagging this with anything lol #why did i type all this out oh my god #i will probably delete this

[hamartia-grander]

Alrighty here’s mah lil ranty rant (But long, many apologies I dunno how I could shorten it)

Let’s start with Ada bc mommy- I mean mommy- I mean- (/j)

Ada Wong:

-So I see a lot of people trash Ada for the fact her personality seems to be more cold. She has distant she’s cruel (although she still seems to have lines she won’t cross, like with Wesker and the Las Plagas sample). I see people complain about that but I would like to make a hot take, here: it’s actually better. She’s a mercenary. She’s a gun for hire- her job has to be cold because she could be betraying her friends at any given second. In the older games, she was sort of just… I don’t know… A bit too human for the job, and the role in the story that she is meant to fill. I see people describing her as a Bella, and honestly, I strongly disagree. In fact, I would argue that the original was more of a Bella then the remakes. This is because all she was really there is for the generic “Ooh look pretty woman, bad ass eye candy” trope. I’m not saying that she didn’t have any depth as a character- I’m just saying that the remake gave her much more credit as a character, and made her much more interesting.

all right, moving onto the old man. (#1 Wesker hater over here I’m sorry I’m not sorry lol)

Albert Wesker:

-I know that I hate this guy, but even I have to appreciate that out of quite a few of the Weskers that have been made, this version is just better written. I see people complain that he is too angry and honestly, I disagree. The fact that he has a hidden anger, makes sense from a character perspective. And he’s getting increasingly more cheesed off at Spencer for obvious reasons. No wonder he’s pissed. Personally, I think the fact that they’re showing that he has emotions- he’s just learned to control them- is honestly much more compelling. I still hate the guy, but I can see where he’s coming from- in a twisted and a messed up way.

yeah. That’s it l. that’s all I got for him. I don’t really like him that much so he doesn’t deserve a whole essay like Ada imo. (Still like his character, though he’s very interesting.)

that’s my rant. Thanks for hearing me out -> I know this was ridiculously long. That’s why I asked permission first. I basically just wrote an entire essay in your asks and I am so sorry lmao

hjadsg no need to apologise. I may have to contest you for #1 wesker hater tho,,, 👀 I hate his guts too

BUT you're absolutely right the DLC added so much depth to their characters. and personally made wesker MORE hate-able to me personally because we just further see how messed up he is, to the point where even Ada - who has had to numb herself to the details of the job to survive - had visible negative reactions to his genocidal nonsense. I loved Lily's performance in the base game but she especially got to shine in the DLC, she absolutely nailed the cold look with emotion hidden underneath. Ada's cold exterior is her armour against her own emotions, she can't take a second to feel as that could be the second she dies, she doesn't have the luxury of emotional vulnerability; even though she does feel, she does care, she cannot afford to let herself. And little things like eye movements, lip twitches, subtle body language, and her inflections were all techniques Lily used to portray that tumultuous relationship between Ada and her feelings, and Lily did fucking amazing at it. Best Ada performance ever. Ada's never been allowed that depth before because she's always had to be palatable to the male audience :) so I'm glad she's finally getting it. And Wesker finally feels like a real villain, rather than just another power hungry white guy (which, he very much is, but now there's depth to it lol). Wesker's dialogue in the DLC is scary, and it makes the audience more aware of what exactly he believes and what his motives are. This DLC added so much to the base game that really drives it as my favourite RE game.

#and ofc Ada is mommy #Ada Wong #albert wesker #resident evil 4 remake #Separate Ways #resident evil 4 #resident evil analysis #asks

[maya-matlin]

What common Degrassi takes do you most disagree with, ie Zig being cocky and smooth, etc!

1.) Obviously, that one LOL. If someone legitimately tries to argue that Zig "I'm terrible at pretty much everything" "But is it good enough for you?" Novak is confident.. they're objectively wrong. They're getting stuck on him looking the part of the confident, bad boy and ignoring half of what comes out of his mouth.

2.) Darcy isn't irredeemable or a bad person because she falsely accused Snake of being inappropriate with her. She was a scared, traumatized child who panicked because she was thrown into a situation where she would be forced to talk about her rape before she was ready. Snake handled all of that completely wrong, even though he meant well. It didn't come from a heartless, malicious place. She immediately tried to take it all back and openly supported his return to the school. His career wasn't ruined. He eventually became the principal. I genuinely don't understand where people's compassion is when it comes to this story line. Darcy wasn't the ideal victim. She was never supposed to be.

3.) None of the canonically lesbian characters should have been bisexual. Based on what we saw from each one introduced to us with the assumption that they were straight (Alex, Fiona, Zoe), their eventual coming out journeys made sense. Could they have been written with more care with an actual explanation as to how they came to identify this way? Absolutely. But I feel like the Degrassi fandom constantly invalidates their sexualities, especially with Zoe, because they're upset they no longer get to justify shipping them with men.

4.) Don't kill me, but Eli calling Clare a whore wasn't out of character. It was cruel and he had zero excuse, but based on the number of times Eli lashed out at Clare and other people, it makes total sense that he'd say the worst possible thing he could think to say under the mistaken impression that he'd been wronged. He was hurt and angry, and he wanted her to feel bad. He behaved in a similar way after their first breakup.

5.) Jimmy wasn't the perfect boyfriend. In fact, Jimmy never gets enough shit for being so passive aggressive in relationships, particularly when he's ready to end it and emotionally invested in another girl. But because he's cowardly, something we saw pretty consistently over the years, he waits for his girlfriends to notice so that he doesn't have to be the bad guy and can play innocent. Overall, there are little things about Jimmy that bug me, such as calling Ashley a slut. And on that note, this fandom is way too comfortable openly enjoying slut shaming when they feel like the character is unlikable or irritating enough to "deserve it" (Clare and Ashley).

6.) Obligatory reminder that Zig didn't murder Cam due to his depression leading to his suicide and multiple things over the course of a couple of days playing a role in the headspace Cam was in when he ended his life

7.) Liberty was completely fucked over during her pregnancy arc. Excuse me. JT's pregnancy arc. It was blatantly racist how the show chose to be revolutionary by focusing on the black pregnant girl's white boyfriend for the entirety of her pregnancy. Liberty was the villain in her own story line because the writers really wanted us to understand how much pressure JT was under due to expecting a child, worrying about finances, his life changing drastically, etc. Things must have been rough for Liberty as well, but meh. She's just a bitter, controlling, bitch who never deserved JT. Seriously, I see that take a lot. In my opinion, they both could have handled things better, but neither was getting the help or support they needed. Liberty seemed to be in denial and couldn't cope with the fact she'd allowed herself to become pregnant due to carelessness when she's supposed to be so responsible. A lot must have been going on with her, both mentally and emotionally, but we never hear about it or see any of it.

8.) Clare and Drew were actually a good (no, great) ship. Many fans just weren't prepared or happy to see either with someone else due to the popularity of the Eli/Clare and Drew/Bianca relationships. It also wasn't random, out of character, or even all that forced based on how their characters had grown through the years. It's funny to see Clare described as being not Drew's type when he's pretty consistently into smart, ambitious women who can put him in his place. And in the case of Clare, her preferences are all over the place with Drew not being all that different physically or personality wise from KC or Jake. Their emotional connection grew and deepened for almost the entirety of season 13, including the summer between school years and for the majority of their senior year. Even though their decision to sleep together was impulsive and surprising, in reality they'd been circling each other for months. It was bound to happen, and then it did.

9.) Another thing I disagree with is that Maya should have talked about Cam more or told ___ about his suicide. It was very obvious to me that Maya was extremely triggered by Cam's death and struggled to move past it. It makes perfect sense that she'd struggle to even talk about it. It was extremely painful and personal to Maya. Miles was never going to be the one she opened up to. He just wasn't. This isn't even necessarily a pro Zaya thing. But the fact Zig was around for Cam's death and understood most of Maya's pain meant that Maya opening up to Zig about the way she was feeling and acknowledging her ex's existence was far more likely than Maya opening up to Miles, someone she struggled to open up to emotionally or relate to beyond what he was willing to share. At a certain point, it starts to feel like Maya bringing up Cam for the sake of bringing up Cam. Not because it's actually helping Maya or moving her story forward in any way.

10.) Tristan's biphobia towards Miles didn't happen in a vacuum. While Tristan's character was extremely flawed and he wasn't always the most likable person, it honestly came across to me that his biphobia got so out of control because it took the writers a long time to catch on to the fact that Tristan invalidating his boyfriend's sexual orientation was inappropriate, dehumanizing, and shouldn't have been written off as catty comments not meant to be taken seriously. Degrassi overall didn't handle polysexual identities very well. Paige's attraction to women was downplayed aside from her relationship with Alex. Imogen was also never labeled, eventually being referred to multiple times during her final season as a lesbian.

11.) Lola got the right endgame, and she definitely shouldn't have kept Miles's baby.

#mayamatlinscello #Long post #I tried to come up with some good ones LOL

[dominote]

omg... please may I know more abt bb playing L in ur tv show au 🫴 (no pressure, I just saw ur tags and I'm so intriguied :3)

aaaa yes!! i'm not gonna give away the WHOLE THING yet (i have over a thousand words of pre-planning notes that WILL magically be turned into a fic sooner or later), but i can definitely tell you about the premise!

so, basically - a few establishing notes:

BB survives. he's let out on probation post-canon for being on good behaviour; near pulls some strings and makes sure he's kept a close eye on.

he does this by putting him with mello and matt, who also survive the events of death note. don't worry about how. the important part is that mello's the only one left who heard about BB directly from L himself, and mello can't really argue with that logic, especially with near saying mello is better suited for something than him.

mello publishes a book about the kira case because he strongly disagrees with near about keeping things under wraps. letting light yagami be remembered as a good boy and kira as a martyr to his followers? nahhh. let the world see the man behind the "divine justice" for the charming snake he was, and let kira's followers see exactly how human their god was. some details are edited, of course, but it's largely a factual account of the case where it's clearly stated when aliases are used to protect the privacy of affected people. even a lot of details about L are released, because mello wants the original L to be remembered properly, not be tucked under light's and near's asses as though there was never a difference. near doesn't agree with mello, but he doesn't stop him, either, as long as he gets to approve the final draft before release.

the book becomes an absolute bestseller, obviously. everyone wants to know the real story of the battle between kira and L. before long, directors and movie studios clamor for mello's attention, wanting to sign deals for the rights to make a movie or tv show based on his retelling of events.

obviously, they need actors for the tv show mello agrees to sign with. hideki ryuga's the director's top choice for light, not just because of the resemblance, but the fact that he's local to tokyo and the bonus of his name coming up as an alias used by L himself - it's perfect. recognizing that mello is really, really picky about the casting for L, though, the director lets mello sit in on the casting for that role.

no force in the world (matt) could possibly have kept BB from making it to the audition.

mello has little choice but to admit that yeah, okay, going for accuracy, applicant rue ryuzaki is unfortunately the best casting choice among the options. he is also one of mello's roommates and a nightmare to work with-- yeah, the director's already got him signing the contracts, sure, whatever.

BB is absolutely gleeful.

he is also, in fact, a nightmare to work with.

hideki ryuga, his co-star, puts up with him. so does misa amane (playing the role of misa amane). everyone else is desperately unsettled by his method acting ass.

in an attempt to bond, hideki takes BB out to party. while the night is a bit of a mess, they do at least get absolutely schwasted in the end. sensing weakness, BB pounces to ask the question that's been burning in his mind ever since he heard about hideki ryuga being an alias of L's.

L doesn't just use other people's names. he takes them as trophies. he defeats them first.

oh, yeah, a very drunk hideki ryuga confirms. yeah, i did encounter the guy, actually.

hideki ryuga does not realize in the slightest at this point that the perpetrator of the los angeles BB killings has just decided he is now the most interesting person around he can hyperfocus on.

#am i gonna write bb/hideki ryuga rarepair fic. the answer is ''i mean. too late. i already started it'' #enjoy this uhhh. idk. preview? trailer? intro summary?

[1eos]

Re: your post about the kardashians/bts being pop culture slaughter:

Respectfully, this take makes no sense. Are you basing your idea of BTS on the three english singles they’ve released in their 10 year career? If so, then I can understand how you might come to the “soulless pop” conclusion, but you are leaving out 99.9% of their actual work in saying that, making your point invalid. Also, I severely disagree with you using BTS specifically to make the point about music nowadays being “all about numbers”. A much better example of this would be the rise in tiktok songs which are solely designed to be promoted on tiktok and get 30 second clips played on the platform for views. BTS fans only work so hard for streams because in the beginning, BTS weren’t recognized. They were cut out of performance shows, their performances were blacked out by fans of other groups to make it seem like they were performing to empty audiences, they purposefully trended other artists to make any attempt BTS made at promoting their music unsuccessful, and routinely called into KOREAN award shows to dispute results or argue against them winning anything. This isn’t even taking into account the fact that while BTS have a significant western following and have since the start, they’ve only really gotten tangible recognition from the western music industry recently. Even when they were first becoming popular their main recognition here was by numbers (albums sold leading to their positions on the billboard charts) or solely for online influence because of their fans (top social artist awards) and not to do with their music. Even now a lot of the awards they win in America are based on the fact they’re Korean and not due to their actual music. (i.e. only being nominated in “best k-pop artist” category rather than for anything related to the actual music they put out). 

Also, to your point about cultural appropriation- I want to ask, can you point to specific examples? I’m more than willing to have a dialogue about this issue because it’s obviously nuanced and I’m never going to think I am 100% correct about it but I’d like to hear where you’re coming from. Is it the clothes? Is it because they rap? I’d like to ask what you’d have them do instead. They have routinely paid homage to the black culture they take their musical style from and never shy away from hip hop and raps roots. In fact during their early years they had a whole series about going to LA and learning about hip hop culture from real hip hop legends like Coolio to become further educated on where the style originates. They have an entire song dedicated to them loving hip hop and naming black hip hop artists where they got inspiration and who they admire (it’s called hip hop phile). Would you have them stop rapping or stop making hip hop? Would you have them stop delving into soul? If that’s the case would you have every non-black artist stop making soul or RnB or hip hop music? These are genuine questions. I just don’t understand where you are drawing the line. Where is your line between appropriation and appreciation? Is any non-black artist who delves into these genres only bad if they become famous because of it?

Also take issue with your comment about how no one can sing because they’re fitting into corsets or whatever. Have you listened to actual clips of BTS singing live without backing tracks? Of course everyone has their own opinion but they are FAR from objectively bad singers. (Jungkook actually appeared on the korean version of masked singer and almost won. I understand that’s one member of 7 and he’s the main vocalist but to say they all can’t sing is incorrect, and even though the other vocal members don’t have those accolades they are still quite talented.)

To me your take seems severely misinformed, it seems like you are assuming A LOT about BTS based on your own opinions about “new” k-pop (again, BTS aren’t really “new” and are only a year younger than the group you seem to be a fan of. If a decade old is new then we have very different time barometers. LOL.). It seems like a lot of your take is rooted in the notion that BTS came from a “k-pop factory” (which in itself that idea is a bit. well. it’s not a KIND take to put on the korean pop music industry and singling out BTS while not mentioning any new american pop is crazy to me sorry) when they in fact came from an indie label and the only reason anyone knows who their company is now is BECAUSE of BTS. BTS saved their small company from bankruptcy by singing about themes their target demographic in korea (teenagers at the time, because THEY were teenagers) actually cared about (being pressured by the adults in your life to have a “dream” even though no one knows what they want at that age, the rigid school system present in their country- in general their theme as a debut idol group was essentially “stick it to the man” which isn’t a very mainstream premise and definitely wasn’t back then. no mainstream pop or idol group was singing songs like that.) and created a following and then continued to change and grow their message to speak to their audience as both they and their audience aged. To say they are bad just because they became incredibly popular discredits their artistry and frankly discredits many artists who have found fame. 

now you know damn well i'm not reading this shit 😭😭😭😭😭 DEPLOY THE LOSING GAME

#LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOO #i just want yall to see how long this is #i saw 'do u have examples of cultural appropriation' and checked out #yeah i do #its all over the internet if u cared abt black ppl u wouldnt need it pointed out LMAO #i'd have to be on drugs to waste my time picking out every stupid statment #*statement #SHOOT ME DOWN KILL ME NOW #honk honk

[reds-burrow]

it's interesting that you think of badger as "dog" and snake as "cat", because to me, my snake loyalty to my people manifests itself as very dog-like loyalty. I'm not disagreeing with you, I genuinely think it's interesting!

(This ask is in response to this post.)

Is there a difference in loyalty? I guess cats are generally more independent and subtle in their attachment than dogs. But as far as actual loyalty and devotion, perhaps I’ve simply met different cats than you, but once they devote themselves to someone, I’ve seen cats be as intensely loyal as dogs (and science supports this). When I said Dog and Cat are good alternatives for Badger and Snake respectively, I wasn’t talking about just loyalty, but other behaviors. My apologies for the confusion; I never fully explained my thoughts.

The first part of it has to do with how dogs live in packs, while cats do not. In a sense, dogs are naturally community minded. So, like how the well-being of the community comes before personal wants for Badgers, most dogs can learn to take commands and do what their humans expect from them even if they'd rather jump on the dinner table and eat everything. Cats, however, will do what pleases them before they’ll listen to their human, like how Snakes will prioritize their personal wants. Oftentimes those wants are to take care of their people, just as you can have incredibly friendly, cuddly cats. But it's difficult to get a healthy Snake or a cat to do something that they don't want to without an alternative incentive.

There’s also the fact that many cats are pickier about who they get close to, which I see as reflective of Snake Primaries and their vetting process. You have to earn a cat’s affection, just as you do with Snake Primaries. There’s a reason being chosen by a cat feels similar to being chosen by a Snake. On the other hand, for Badgers, there is already a base sense of loyalty to others, even strangers, simply because they are people, which I find is more similar to how dogs latch onto people. A recent study has suggested that the friendliness that dogs exhibit, a key part of their domestication, came from a similar genetic mutation as what causes Williams syndrome in humans, a disease that (to oversimplify) causes people to look at everyone as a friend. Meanwhile, cats domesticated themselves because they recognized that being around humans gave them an advantage: humans store grain, grain attracts rodents, and rodents make a good meal.

And… It’s not what your ask is about, but if you'll indulge me, I'd like to explain my thoughts on the Secondaries. Yes, Snake and Badger were selected as the HP mascots specifically with the Secondaries in mind, but I think I can make a decent argument for Cat and Dog.

Dogs are pack hunters and display alloparenting. That means they work together, specifically that they invest in each other, taking care of each other’s pups and sharing food resources. I’d argue this is similar to how Badger Secondaries invest in people. Also, most dogs exhibit joy in being given a job to do. Their hard work can vary from actual jobs (service dogs, search and rescue, livestock guardian, etc.) to performing the tricks their humans ask of them.

Cats, however, will do what is easiest to get what they want. A study showed that when given the choice between performing a task to get a treat and simply taking the treat, cats chose the latter. This might sound like the obvious choice, but many animals, including canines, prefer performing a task to get their food, a behavior called contrafeeloading. But cats? They are happy to freeload, even if they’re active and intelligent enough to solve the presented food puzzle.

Then there’s the fact that both cats and dogs have shaped their behavior to better communicate with humans. For dogs, these are mainly instinctual behaviors or literal changes to their form, built into their species over thousands of years, like understanding human pointing from birth and evolving expressive eyebrows to better communicate their feelings to humans. Meanwhile, cats learn to continue meowing past kittenhood, depending on their situation, by reading their humans' reactions. Feral cats don’t meow at the same rate as house cats because adult cats generally communicate through smells instead of sounds. Meowing is something cats developed for humans.

Anyway, I understand if you still consider your loyalty to look more dog-like. Perhaps the subtle affections of cats aren't your style. But I hope you enjoy this alternative way of thinking about things!

#I've been in technical writing mode all week and I think it leaked out here #sorry about that #sortinghatchats #ask response #badger vs snake primary #badger vs snake secondary #badger primary #badger secondary #snake secondary #snake primary

[redburrowrights]

My previous post about this wasn’t great, so I’m doing this again. While I hold the same opinion, my previous post was poorly written, and contained some inaccuracies that I’m gonna try to correct here. But first, let's get this out of the way: This is an opinion piece, and not a popular one. You are free to ignore it, block me, do whatever you want. You are free to disagree with my points. But if you think me disagreeing with you about a video game character is a good reason to harass me, insult me, or just generally be a dick, fuck off. And if you’re gonna dismiss what I say because you disagree with me on entirely unrelated  topics, also kindly fuck off. I don’t tolerate that shit. 

Anyway, that said, I think Arven is a pretty poorly written character in a poorly written game, and I like complaining on the internet, so I’m gonna talk about it.

Let's get to the big thing first: His dog. His dog being hurt is a horribly written sympathy play. When the player finds out about the fact that he’s trying to get the herba mystica to heal his dog, you can ask if he’s tried potions or pokemon centers, and he shoots it down by saying “Nothing seems to help” and “They said this isn’t any regular old illness”. I find this to be fairly lazy writing. It’s never elaborated on what was wrong with mabosstiff, what kind of injury it was, or why they couldn’t help. I find this to be pretty lazy because pokemon healthcare is, well, kinda magic. 

Now, in my original post, I blamed the injury on Miraidon (or koraidon but I played violet so i'm just gonna use that version for simplicity). I then went on to talk about miraidon’s in battle stats, and how using it in battle shows you can heal after getting hit by it no problem. Both of these points were pointed out as being incorrect, and that’s true, and I appreciate the corrections. However, the way they were posed felt like gotcha questions to shoot down my point. I’m not sure why, considering both of these make Arven look way worse when corrected for.

Looking at the pokemon present in area zero, the location where mabosstiff got hurt, canonically the strongest pokemon down there was miraidon. That is, except for terapagos, but considering it was dormant in a cavern only accessible by the zero base’s secret sub basement, I’m gonna guess it wasn’t terapagos. My point was that looking at the strongest pokemon mabosstiff could’ve gotten hurt by shouldn’t have been able to do this damage, so it doesn’t make sense that it can’t be healed. But considering that Arven never actually says it was miraidon, and miraidon is right there, it would seem that it was a different pokemon. Which means that mabosstiff got hit by a much weaker pokemon, and REALLY shouldn’t be this badly injured.

The other point is that the in-game stats are game mechanics, and are not necessarily reflective of a pokemons canon power. This is also true, and my use of in game stats and battle mechanics was a mistake. However, what the stats were in reference to was miraidons ability to inflict damage, which is actually nerfed when looking at battle stats. Miraidon is canonically much more powerful than its stats reflect, because the in-game battles need to be balanced. The same goes for every legendary. The larger point that all this was in favor of, was that the player faces powerful legendary pokemon in literally every game, and then go to the pokemon center to be healed. Miraidon is, in terms of legendary pokemon, pretty low tier power wise. It’s strong, but it's not “rip holes in space time” or “unleash the unbridled power of the sun or ocean” powerful. Looking at something like diamond/pearl, where we’re facing creatures that can warp space time, we fight them, take hits, and get healed to perfect condition at the pokemon center afterwards. While we can argue semantics about what exactly happened during the battle, or exactly how the pokemon healing tech works, it is canon that the players pokemon fought these creatures, and that the pokemon center was able to fully heal them afterwards. The pokemon center machine is not a game mechanic, it is a canonical piece of tech that has remained consistent in its existence and function since the beginning of the franchise. You stick your pokeballs in, and the pokemon get healed. If that tech can heal my pokemon after a battle against palkia, groudon, kyurem, or any other legendary, why can it not heal Arven’s mabosstiff after a fight with a much less powerful pokemon? This is a poorly written plot point that is hand waved so that Arven can have a hurt dog for the story. But it so blatantly contradicts the established canon, and it honestly broke the whole story line for me. He says the pokemon center couldn’t heal it, but we know for a fact that they should be able to heal much worse injuries, so my only assumption can be that he’s for some reason lying about it. 

I talked about my head canon being that Arven is just against modern medicine, and that he lied about the pokemon center cuz you wouldn’t help him if you knew he was an anti-vaxer. This was a point that a lot of people pointed to as my whole take being bad. I admit it’s a ridiculous extrapolation, I mostly used it because I thought it was funny and attention grabbing, and I guess I was right. The bigger point is not that I literally think this fictional child is an antivaxer, but more that when a story makes vague excuses that don’t make sense within the story, the viewer can extrapolate out points to fill the gap left. That’s what head canons often are, the viewer filling in details that weren’t explained. For this one, it’s looking at the fact that there’s no reason the pokemon center couldn’t heal the dog, the fact that no pokemon in area zero would be stronger than pokemon we know the pokemon center can treat wounds from, and that arven is looking for mystical herbal remedies, which sounds like something an mlm would try to sell you. The story could have and should have given an explanation for why the herbs were needed, and why the magic healing tech that’s existed since the 90’s wasn’t enough. If you want a more reasonable headcanon, maybe he was attacked by a paradox mon, and it carried some kind of paradox virus that our healing tech isn’t compatible with. Of course, that comes with its own problems, like why that virus wouldn’t infect any of our pokemon that fight paradox pokemon, but it would’ve been pretty easy to write in. But I think mine is funnier, so there’s that.

TL;DR, the plot point is weak because it’s never explained why Arven couldn’t use a pokemon center. They just say he can’t and move on, even though he really should be able to.

The other major point is that, in my opinion, Arven is an incredibly unlikeable character throughout the game. In your first interaction, he’s incredibly rude, then the next time you see him, he immediately demands that you help him fight a bunch of dangerous pokemon. He’s also very mean to miraidon, a pokemon that the game makes very likable, and thus makes Arven look particularly cruel. After the first titan battle, he doesn’t even want you to feed it. Seeing that he’d been the one to entrust you with the pokemon, being upset that you gave it food seems like a pretty dick move.

I had originally thought that Arven was mad at Miraidon, because the other miraidon had hurt his dog and he was confusing the two, so he hated it. But as pointed out before, miraidon wasn’t the pokemon that hurt mabosstiff, so he has no reason to be so mean to it. It’s explained later that the actual reason was that his dad neglected him to study miraidon, so he resents miraidon for it, even though it didn’t actually do anything. He does eventually admit that he was wrong for this, but to me it felt too little too late. Especially during the final act, where he still blames miraidon for ruining his childhood. Being abused and neglected isn’t an excuse to act like an asshole. It felt like his redemption as a character was based around the revelation of his trauma and abuse, but the dog plotpoint was weak, as I’ve already gone into, and his dad neglecting him never gets properly developed or paid off, so I don’t really care that much about the relationship of these characters. He was a mean character with underdeveloped motivations and a clumsy, shallow redemption arc.

This doesn’t get any better in the dlc epilogue, where Arven’s first words to another abused child with self esteem issues, is that he’s the player “absolute BEST friend”, and then refer to him as “the enemy”, despite kieran also being a friend of the player they Arven was specifically invited to meet. This makes Arven feel like a jerk, who only came on this trip to put down one of your other friends. Kierans arc in the dlc is a whole other mess I’m sure I’ll get into some other time, but at the very least I find his character to be much more likable than Arven, so having Arven be so defensive and rude to him for literally no reason really paint’s Arven in a bad light.

The final part of Arven’s story I wanna talk about is the final descent into area zero. My main issue with this portion of the story is that Arven really should’ve been involved with it. Arven being called by his dad is the whole reason you go into area zero in the first place, so you’d think he’d be pretty important to this portion of the story, but he’s just not. He drops some exposition, but he’s pretty sidelined the whole time. The player and Nemona are the muscle, and Penny was brought to hack the terminals to open the zero lab. Arven is there cuz his dad asked him down there, so you’d assume he’d get a big payoff, but he really doesn’t. He’s not present for the revelation that his dad is dead, or for any of the explanation of what his dad was doing down here. He walks into the room halfway through the climax, and really doesn’t have much to say. He has a few lines after the AI professor goes through the machine, but it’s all pretty surface level “I’m sad cuz my dad died, but not really that sad cuz I kinda felt like that was the case.” The way the game presents it, Nemona almost feels just as affected as Arven, despite having no connection to the professor whatsoever. The AI prof was more than happy to do the battle with the player, despite calling Arven in the first place. And he already knew about the player from the start because they had miraidon. You could have entirely written Arven out of the climax of the story entirely by just having the player find miraidon’s pokeball with it on the beach at the start, then having the professor call the player instead of Arven after they’d finished the other two story lines. You should not be able to do that with this character. All you’d miss out on is some pointless exposition and a handful of lines about “I’m sad my dad died but not that sad really.”

Overall, I find Arven to be a pretty underwritten and unlikable character. I don’t find his story compelling, and I found his personality to be unpleasant. I think he’s a complete waste of what could have been a strong character, had gamefreak actually put in the legwork to make his story actually function as a narrative, rather than being shallow and broken. Like most of this game, I think it could have been very good if handled with more care, but it’s clear that the team behind this cut corners, and it severely hurt both the game, and Arven’s character.

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet

[comradekatara]

Appreciate the way you’ll write ten paragraphs about Katara being a compelling character, examples provided, then you’ll also use it to show that she’s a homophobe and deal with people who think you’ve committed an act of homophobia second only to saying taylor swift’s music is peak heterosexuality. Idk, the fact that lots of your ‘headcanons’ are actually based in the text make them more grounded and the funny ones funnier. Like yeah, Azula and Jet WOULD be redditors.

lmfaoo stopp 😭😭

i mean first of all, the term “headcanon” is extremely nebulous. people mean a million different things when they use that word, so i generally don’t subscribe to that terminology. for example, i wouldn’t consider katara being homophobic a headcanon, but rather a joke about the nature of some of her dialogue in the show.

we rly need to distinguish between a Joke about the text, an Interpretation of the text, and Something You Pulled From Thin Air Because You Felt Like It. i get that on the internet ppl always wanna read other ppls takes in the worst faith possible, but i rly do think reading comprehension is smth we can practice !!! i believe in us!!!

and like. of course my “headcanons” are rooted in the text, what the fuck else is there? why would i engage with a text i don’t actually care about? of course different people are gonna have different interpretations of the text, but as long as those interpretations can be argued by using the source material as backing, those interpretations are all valid, even if i happen to disagree with some of them. that said, there can be wrong interpretations, which are those that are not rooted in the text. this is extremely basic shit, but it bears repeating in..... these circles. (sigh)

anyway yeah azula and jet are both addicted to reddit and their favorite pasttime is getting into pointless arguments with each other that both end in them getting mad specifically because they are each advocating for the genocide of opposite populations.

#mlepnosstan #asks #no clue how to tag this

[nalyra-dreaming]

Hi again. Just to clarify, I have no problem at all with you talking about the later books or answering questions honestly when asked. As I said, spoilers are no longer in effect because the books have been out for 40 years and I think anyone who comes on your blog is well aware that you talk about the entirety of the VC.

My issue is with the way Loumand shippers are constantly mocked and ridiculed for feeling the way they do about these characters when that's the way the story purposefully frames it.

Lestat is the villain of IWTV, both in the book and the show. In fact, I would argue that the show gives him a much more nuanced portrayal than the first book does. That's because IWTV is Louis's story and regardless of what he claims, that's how he portrays their relationship Lestat was the big bad vampire who seduced him to the dark side, and he was just the helpless victim/accomplice.

Obviously, we both know it's much more nuanced than that and the show does give many clues that Louis is full of shit and glossing over many details, either on purpose or because he simply forgot.

But It's not stupid or unreasonable for non-book readers to dislike Lestat and prefer Armand because again, that is how the story frames it. Show fans are simply making what is a very logical conclusion based on the information the show has provided so far.

These little snide comments about oh Loumand truther will cry and hahaha they are stupid and don't understand the real story and we are so superior because we've read the books feel very gatekeepy and unnecessary. I'm not implying you say that btw, just that you seem to agree with the anons who do.

But that's just my opinion and you can feel free to disagree.

Hey,

thank you for clarifying.

I... want to point out what I actually say:

I did point out earlier, that for show-only fans it is only logical they'd hate Lestat. And I agreed that "subverting the expectation" is likely the whole point.

At no point did I make fun of anons who come to me in all seriousness and asks.

I have had anons who ranted at me, and yelled at me, and yes, I did throw the blender gif into those answers at times.

I try to be very respectful of asks. Sometimes I may fail, I'm only human.

But I never negated the fact that with season 1 a few assumptions may be logical. You say I seem to agree though... with what.

"oh Loumand truther will cry and hahaha they are stupid and don't understand the real story and we are so superior because we've read the books"

With this? Have any of my replies really given off that vibe? Because then I would ask you to go through my asks, and find all those where I explain again and again stuff to those asking.

And if you do that please also take careful note to what I actually agree in asks, or what I address.

...

Look. I think this has hit a nerve?

And I'm sorry if it has. But the backlash on SAM this season also makes some coming from the books a bit nervous re next season, as @cbrownjc addressed earlier as well. Because... when that change comes? That whiplash change? When Armand is not who they think he is? And does the stuff he does in the books?... I REALLY DON'T WANT THEM TO HATE ON ASSAD!!!!

AND THE LAST MONTHS HAVE BEEN NOTHING BUT A SHITSHOW IN REGARDS TO HATE AFTER EPISODE 5 - CAN YOU HONESTLY TELL ME THAT ANOTHER EPISODE 5, WHERE ARMAND CUTS OFF CLAUDIA'S HEAD, WILL HAVE ANY OTHER OUTCOME.

Because I think if they go there it will be mayhem. And that is only one of the things Armand does.

...

sorry for yelling.

I joke about the mayhem, and about preparing ourselves, but it's actually no joke.

And so I will reply, with what I know, respectfully and hopefully kind, to asks - but I won't hide the truth that their take might be wrong.

If I am asked.

#Anonymous #asks #amc iwtv #iwtv #amc interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire amc #iwtv amc #iwtv 2022 #interview with the vampire #lestat de lioncourt #louis de pointe du lac #loustat #armand #loumand #future season speculation #ask nalyra