#Not that he wasn't cartoonishly evil before but now he's cartoonishly evil in a way that Fucks Up the Themes

[everymadara]

Chapter 675

#naruto #madara #madara uchiha #uchiha madara #six paths #+ obito #Okay so Kishimoto made Madara so cartoonishly evil in this chapter I have a lot of trouble taking it seriously sfdjkhkjfsdhkjfsd #Not that he wasn't cartoonishly evil before but now he's cartoonishly evil in a way that Fucks Up the Themes

[gooeyslime]

I will die on this hill but William Afton being a good dad would have worked so much better at making him feel realistic instead of becoming a cartoonishly evil man and honestly the juxtaposition of like, witnessing him kill a kid, dropping his cheerful Springbonnie act as he locks them in a room, just a cold glare as he kills them, making the player go "what a heartless monster... I feel so bad for his kids, having to deal with such a piece of shit" as we see him get out of the suit, cleaning up the blood and head home, as he opens the door once again we see his attitude change as he tells his kids "Dad's back home!" And we see them run up to him, Michael playing it cool bc he's an angsty teen but you see him smile as he points out he's late, you can tell they all care for him and got worried, after all there's a murderer on the loose and while they seem to target kids who knows? They could kill adults too... William smiles at them, genuinely, not like the smile he gave his victim whith his Springbonnie act, they all eat dinner together and if you hadn't just seen him kill a kid in cold blood you'd think this was a normal family, just a single dad eating and chatting with his kids... As he makes sure they are all sound asleep you see him walk into his bedroom, looking at a picture, it's a picture of all of them, smiling together, next to William is a woman and it dawns on you that she's nowhere to be seen and that she might be dead and he's trying to figure out how to bring her back by killing a bunch of random kids bc nothing can stand between William Afton and the only people he cares about, not even death itself... that stuff would make me way more scared of him than any "oh I am so smart I planned for you to try and set me on fire again so now if anyone scans my parts into a computer I can brainwash a random person and get them to rebuild myself ooooh I always come back!"

Like even showing him before he completely loses it would be terrifying, how he's just a normal guy who has his own troubles sure, but still isn't going around killing kids to study weird ghost stuff... Not yet anyway... And the the last straw happens and he falls to the deep end and you wonder, if you were in his shoes... If you lost the love of your life... And everyone just tells you life goes on and you just gotta get over it... What would you do? Would you also break? Would you go as far as killing someone in the hopes to bring her back? To put your family back together? And as you do that how would you handle your family breaking apart even further? Your daughter killed by YOUR machine, the machine you built to kill kids, the machine you desperately tried to keep her away from? Your older son acting out, angry because he couldn't handle his own sorrow at losing his sister shortly after his mom, he's falling apart just like you and in a moment of anger he ends up killing his younger brother, your other son killed because you couldn't see that your older son couldn't handle his own grief too? What would do then?

Stuff like that is utterly terrifying to think about... At least for me... Shame they made him so evil he's basically a Saturday morning cartoon villain now, he could have been so terrifying in so many ways but instead they made him an annoyance... Like even him coming back post Pizza Sim could have been terrifying if he wasn't such a joke by then, like we thought we finally defeated him but he's back, because he still hasn't done what he set out to do, put his family back together, and absolutely nothing can stop him from doing just that... Instead we get him showing up in 1 (one) ending and he's just... Walking around... Then he stares at a monitor and eventually he hacks Freddy by... Holding out his hand like he's using the force?? He doesn't even have a jumpscare either... I really hope the DLC at least gives him that bc him being threatening again is almost impossible after all the peepaw jokes people made...

Anyway I'm sure you can tell I have very strong feelings about this and so many thoughts for plot points that could be added to the lore if this was canon but I'll shut up for now before I write a whole essay lol

#ramblings #fnaf #william afton #elizabeth afton #michael afton #fnaf 4 cc #mrs. afton #burntrap #glamrock freddy #fnaf sb

[stupid-sloot-headcanons]

Infinite Wealth spoilers

Ok Eiji is so cartoonishly evil and such a slimy manipulate cunt, he's getting hit with the yandere/dark content beam for sure

Like he's not even that attractive outside of being a ridiculously manipulative piece of shit. He throws a tied up child down a flight of stairs and tear gasses her and the people trying to save her, what a fucking heel

Imagine him using the lidocaine and intentionally preying on Darling's kindness the same way he did Ichiban. Like they're at the hideout and he reaches too far for something only to fall and sheepishly apologize/thank them when they help him back into the chair. He wishes he could be more useful to the team instead of just using his tech skills. He's not strong like Ichiban...like you. Whenever you're out there with the group, he can't help but worry about you. If he could walk and fight, he'd be out there to protect you himself. Um...y-you know, as a fellow member of the team!

Or he'll do the stereotypical creep shit by asking you to get something he left on the ground earlier, just because it's across the room and he'd rather not wheel himself all the way there and back. And if Chitose is there and notices what he's up to, she glares at him and constantly tries to keep you away from him but won't explain why she's in such a weird mood. Just when she thought he couldn't be any slimier...

Just for kicks he decides to have the Barracudas take you AND Lani. After all, who's gonna stop him? A Yakuza like Ichiban? Eiji's researched so many crimes committed by the Yakuza over the years, and so many of those fuckers use and abuse women they think they're owed--typically bullies and lechers. Someone like Ichiban has no right to lecture him about honor and hurting innocents given who and what he is. Now EIJI'S the one with power, and he'll use anyone he wants.

So when the Barracudas bust in, he takes advantage of the chaos and stabs one of your thighs with a syringe of his lidocaine. As you stumble and fight to get to Lani, one of the goons throws you over his shoulder and hauls you into the car with Lani and Eiji. He's got an hour or so before his latest dose wears off and he can walk again, but you've got about 8 left before you can.

Once the brat's been stowed away, he has you handcuffed and has the guys guarding him stand outside. Your anger and sadness and betrayal is so funny, cute even. Ichiban wasn't the only one eager to play Florence Nightingale with him, but he has to admit he liked it better when you were the one he was leaning on. He has a nasty smile on his face as he lazily gropes you, moving his hands lower as you squirm.

"You know, I can see why the Yakuza like doing what they do. I had my life ruined because I tried to expose the actions of some selfish, evil pricks. Scum who took advantage of everyone they could, and destroyed everyone they couldn't. It's a rush, having that kind of power. But now, I get to do the exact same thing to them and anyone else in my way. I'm the one on top--in this case, literally, with you."

He's such a bully now that he can finally go mask off after all this time. See, the moment he saw you with Ichiban and the others, he knew you didn't belong. You're too nice, and unlike with Ichiban, it's genuine. A Yakuza like Ichiban, a former gangster's lackey like Tomizawa, a spoiled rich girl like Chitose...you're the only one whose biggest crime is being too naive and trusting. You really fell for Ichiban's Hero of Yokohama bullshit AND Eiji's puppy-eyed wheelchair-bound routine. That just proves you're too trusting and stupid to leave alone. At least now, you're with someone who's not pretending to be good and righteous like Ichiban.

That rush of power he feels while manhandling you and seeing you struggle in a futile attempt to convince him to stop, to get away, it's so gratifying. You really are cute when you're upset. He tells you every thought he had to keep to himself while pretending to be "Ei-chan" while touching you:

How he saw your lip quiver when you listened so intently to his sob story because you were trying not to cry and make him feel bad, and he was so thankful the meds had numbed his lower half and kept him from getting hard. How he invited you to look at him do his hacking and research just so you'd look over his shoulder and he could feel you brush against him. How when the others were patching you up after a tough fight and you'd let out those little whines/moans of relief, he had a dream later that night about you making those same sounds while he diddled you in the hideout (with one hand clapped over your mouth so you wouldn't attract the attention of the others in the next room)

Well, it's not that cramped hideout and it's just the two of you now, but at least he can make that dream come true.

#tw: noncon #.eiji #.yakuza #.like a dragon #yandere yakuza #yandere eiji #.myshit

[poopingonthefloor]

youu sshhould tell some headcanons u got for jack dave n henry if u want ofc

OK SURE! *glass shattering sound* (Some of these are not "headcanons" or are technically implied to be canon but im just going to list all of my specific perceptions regarding the character)

Long list down bellow. vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

-Dave and Jack both have adhdtism and borderline personality disorder. (((I also want to use this opportunity to apologize for any previous ignorance/rudeness i may have responded with before I'm a bitch but erm I am improving. so yeh also yeah i can definitely see Jack being autistic now too which i know i said i dont really see. it turns out my symptoms i projected onto him were also autistic symptoms so um...))) -Jack is a dog person, Dave doesnt have an animal prefrence but dogs suit him the best because he's dependent and sensitive and dogs love unconditionally, Henry has no feelings about animals however he dislikes dogs in particular. -Henry likes cartoon bears the best though. only cartoon versions.

-I imagine Dave as a child wasn't necessarily BULLIED by other orphans but he was treated poorly and excluded. Adult carers would try to befriend him but he was a "problem child" as a kid and didn't comprehend human boundaries (he never learned) so he made adults uncomfortable too. -I stole this one but if Dave was a cat he'd be a lykoi. henry would be a maine coon (jack is a default shorthair but i give him folded ears sometimes for fun) -My Dave was born purple (and also Henry is born pink) for reasons similar to Doggo's "why is henry's eyes evil" explanation. It's just different ways of their "evil" manifesting -- Dave's eyes are normal as a child however because obviously he isnt "evil" as a child, I imagine his soul is just weird and that he's never been fully normal. (because I'm not a fan of "x character if bad thing never happened" worlds where the character is basically just a normal person. Like its just more interesting if they were always an outcast/unusual from birth. Also it just makes more sense for Dave's character since he is never shown to be normal in any way even in the flipside LOL....also because Dave is often described as "not exactly human")

-Henry however just quickly grew to be jaded and resentful of anyone and anything living. Either from his dad or just that being his personality (but I prefer both). He wasn't outcast and he got along with people when he felt like it but he just hated everyone. -However I imagine Henry always had a childish side to him that enjoys more cartoon artistry and performance. -Henry and Dave gesture similarly when expressing excitement/enthusiasm, though Henry gestures very little most of the time. Henry either expresses exaggeratedly and cartoonishly (but comes across condescending) or not at all.

-Jack likes to watch TV but Dave does not and finds sitting still and watching pictures on a screen boring. (Though certain movies/shows are an exception) -Back when Dave still had simple desires/pleasures (before the lobotomy) he always wanted to have a pet but animals always hated him (because he didn't know how to handle them gently).

-Henry has no romantic or sexual desires whatsoever. He had a wife and child simply because Martha confidently expressed interest on him and he decided to lie to her. The only motive really involved was the societal standard of having a family/having a kid to continue his legacy (but henry didn't really need that to spread his didnt he lol..)

-Alongside that Dave is pansexual and Jack is bisexual (with a prefrence to men) but those are obvious -Dave appears stiff however can contort his body disturbingly (flexible), Jack is normal and appears in great condition for a corpse... (mostly due to makeup (nail polish emoji))

Ok thats all for now so I don't make this post longer than LONG. thank you for asking my headcanons though. ^__^ I love being crazy and sharing my opinions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#feel free to ask for more whenever #or if you have any suggestions you can send those (though i wont answer them unless I am particularly interested by it) #Dsaf #davesport #dave miller #jack kennedy #henry miller #william afton #old sport #dayshift at freddys #dayshift at freddy's #ask

[comicaurora]

(Now I would have used Tumblr's handy dandy reblog function on my last ask, but I felt too self conscious making a long post Even Longer over a single section, BUT!)

'If I put Falst in a notably hostile and unjust city and then just… left him alone, that risked turning the in-universe established fact of people being casually shitty to ferin into a tell-don't-show thing. The last thing I wanted was for it to seem like Falst was being oversensitive, that things weren't that bad or that he could've been hanging out in cities this whole time. ... It was very important that I not shy away from showing the gross, bad side of his experience, because doing so could risk producing the opposite effect.'

Y'know as (half of) a black person, this honestly never occurred to me, like I just Instantly grasped from the way others talked about Falst in his intro arc when he wasn't there "Oh. Oh I Know That." And so seeing him in active peril in the city as opposed to him playing cards with Alinua in the one spot he knew was primarily safest didn't register to me at all as a big difference in presentation because you're not allowed to just Forget that people can and will treat you worse than you are due on sight when you're in Falst's position. But the audience watching a story is allowed and very likely to forget or not register danger levels unless they are being actively shown those things at prudent intervals. Like the silent pressure constantly on Falst is something I Fully Get without having to be given examples, but also it's a silent omnipresent pressure on top of all his other issues that he refuses to bring out of himself, so in crafting a story around All Of That, you gotta shake the jar or else the glitter at the bottom will become such a non-thing that people might just kinda go 'I mean it's just a jar with something at the bottom, I don't see what the deal there is.'

Yeah, it's… a tough balance to strike. I'm not a fan of stories that aggressively fire off nonstop reminders of in-story prejudice (netflix's shadow and bone went so hard on the in-universe anti-"shu" racism I kept cringing away from the screen wondering how this world seemed to be composed 95% of people with nothing else going on in their lives except being racist), but on the flip side you get stories with, as I like to call it, Elf Racism, where some demographic of gorgeous superhumans like elves or angels or catgirls will be allegedly discriminated against or hated by some specific in-universe group and it will usually either be brought up (a) only once in a Very Special Episode where someone is taught quickly and cleanly that Racism Is Bad, (b) literally never, except maybe the token elf/angel/catgirl will be like "you think my ears/wings/kawaii kitty vibes are beautiful? but……… all my life I was told they were hideous", or (c) solely in the context of Radical Anarchist Rebels whose reasonable points about "racism is bad" are obscured by their startling habit of committing random atrocities for our heroes to morally oppose without addressing their actual moral thesis.

My biggest complaint with these executions is that they are wildly, wildly unrelatable. "My life is hard because I have adorable kitty ears, angel wings or superpowers" is the kind of thing that needs supporting evidence before an audience will buy it. "This world is prejudiced, by which I mean elves and dwarves hate each other - but not THIS elf and dwarf, they're besties, but all other elves and dwarves hate each other and in those cases it's just a fun quirk we will never attempt to address" produces a setting that can't decide if prejudice is a moral failing or a funny quirk. "There is prejudice in this world, by which I mean all the bad guys are racist and all the good guys are 100% enlightened and unproblematic" isn't much better, because it's being used as just another flavor of Good Vs Evil - plus the execution on the bad guys' part tends to be so cartoonishly over-the-top as to be completely implausible.

This is a problem, because if the "prejudice is bad" story is trying to communicate, for instance, the complex moral message "prejudice is bad," the prejudice enacted in the story probably shouldn't be so cartoonishly implausible that the audience has no chance of recognizing it within themselves or within anyone whose flavor of bias is anything less blatant than foaming-at-the-mouth-and-cranking-the-hate-crimes-dial-up-to-11. Most people will accept the idea that "people being ridiculously terribly prejudiced is bad," but when the image of prejudice the story paints is so divorced from any sort of lived experience, they will not see prejudice as a harmful flaw that real human people are capable of perpetuating, and they won't recognize it when they see it from the outside in real life - they'll see it as another hypothetical flavor of evil villainy that some bad people intrinsically do.

Prejudice is such a widely experienced issue, especially the "omnipresent invisible uncertainty of whether or not I am safe right now" thing, that it's baffling to me that so many of these stories don't seem to… get it? While the specific nature varies in every case, there is fundamental overlap in the experience! Like, I absolutely do not experience it the same way a lot of other people do - I am very white-looking, and too blonde for the garden-variety antisemites to figure me out, so race-based harassment has never targeted me - but I've been an underage woman in creepy-older-male-dominated spaces, I spent about half my middle school years as the target of nearly-nonstop bullying (a lot of it from people who I otherwise got along fine with and knew were ultimately well-meaning with a blind spot for casual cruelty), and in the past I've been cyberstalked and harassed by random entitled weirdos for long periods of time. I am very aware of the feeling of "there is a target on my back, and I just hope nobody hits it too hard today," and it seems to me that that specific feeling cannot possibly be this difficult to communicate.

It's like these writers read about how prejudice worked and were like "some people hate people for how they were born, got it" and just put that in their world without any nuance. Actually, I say it's like that, but considering the demographics dominating publishing, that's probably exactly why it happens so much.

#asks #writing stuff

[robotlesbianjavert]

Hi! I know you like Spinner so what do you think his time with AfO was like? Do you think AfO purposefully overloaded his brain with quirks to end his friendship with Tomura?

oh you know how in-laws are, amirite? amirite??? AMIRITE?????

but yeah i think it's easy to say that hanging out in AFO's cave hideout probably wasn't like, fun. given that the main times we get to see AFO and spinner together in the mancave is during/after the confrontation with Star & Stripe, and shortly before the final battle, so not a lot of data to work with.

obviously spinner isn't enthusiastic about AFO's shenanigans - he questions him after the jaku battle, keeps his distance when they're alone during the Star & Strip debacle, questions again if shigaraki is still himself when he sees him writhing about in body horror glory.

but whatever reservations spinner has towards AFO, there's just straight up nothing spinner can do about it except care for tomura best he can. he doesn't know a lot of the particulars about whatever is between AFO and tomura (mostly in the vestige fuckery sense, but he probably also doesn't know the details of their history), and he doesn't have anywhere else to go. AFO has the resources, connections, and power to keep them safe, because as much as AFO kinda sucks to hang out with, at least he's not the heroes who have already killed a colleague of spinner's and very much want to kill tomura.

stuck between a rock and a hard place! spinner's hands are tied, his self-esteem and anxiety about his capabilities are taking a hit, can't get a moment alone to decompress with his beau. IN-LAWS AMIRITE??????

as for whether AFO intended to overload spinner's brain to end his friendship with tomura - making an assumption, but it sounds like the implication here is that AFO has something to gain by isolating tomura. which he doesn't at this point - the end goal with tomura and the vestige is to combine into a new being, and he's already on track for that. so long as tomura keeps being a hater, the melding between the two goes forth.

he's not threatened by letting spinner hang around and fuss over tomura, and he sees spinner's feelings as more of an asset than a hindrance, as evidenced by his lil speech in 374. i think it's less he purposefully wants to break off the friendship, and more he just wants to use those feelings to their potential for their advantage.

if AFO is worried about spinner's feelings being an issue, he can stick the same explodey failsafe he did in nagant (which has a 0% kill rate. just saying.), and if something terrible does happen to spinner and tomura is emotionally affected by it, as far as AFO is concerned that can only feed into tomura's hatred. AFO shouldn't really have to go out of his way to sabotage that friendship - from what i'm getting, the merge between the vestige and tomura will be 100%. so the friendship either ends with the completed &birreversible merge anyways, or spinner can be friends with the New Shigaraki. or he can just go pound salt. but hey third act AFO is also cartoonishly evil now so maybe he is being sneaky about giving spinner brain damage. just for fun.

@codenamesazanka had an interesting observation when looking at the raws that i'll keep high level in case she wants to go more into it, also i don't know shogi. or chess. kinda checkers. but where when AFO talks about spinner succeeding in his role, he's using a phrase related to shogi? specifically the "promotion" move. could just be AFO sounding all fancy and smart. could mean nothing. who is to say.

#bnha bloggin #what i actually think happened in the mancave was AFO loudly reminiscing #about the things he and ujiko got up to in that cave back in the day. they threw the most insane and obscene parties. #spinner doesn't want to hear about any of it but he is morbidly curious. the curse of being gay and isolated.

[jesse-cosay]

Just a tidbit about Blake in the chrome car that Mes inspired, I really need to make more about this dude bc I love him and there is so little out there

Blake had nearly slipped upon first entering the car, the metal giving little traction under his ratty shoes. The turnip caught him, helping him into an upright position as he took a better look at their surroundings.

The whole car was metal, shiny like it had just been polished before the door opened. Now that he knew what he was stepping on, keeping his balance was easier. Blake ignored the turnip's worried voice as he marched ahead, not bothering to thank it or look back. They were tired of this train, tired of all the weirdness. Couldn't they stumble upon a Nap Car? That's a thing, right? It would be nice.

The exit was easy to find, dodging around the weird metal obstacles that were clearly built in some attempt to give passengers something to do in this car. Usually things were a bit more exciting than... this.

"Doncha think we should look around? See if there's a-"

"Not interested."

"Oh, okay," he could hear the turnip behind them, shuffling anxiously as Blake tested the door handle. Nothing.

"It's locked, why don't you go look for a key?" he barely glanced at the denizen, fiddling fretfully with his cartoonishly thin fingers. "Ya don't wanna come with?"

He crossed his arms, frustration bubbling in his gut. Blake was mad- not at the turnip specifically, but he needed to do something. Every move he made felt helpless, like he had no goal, no destination. What was the point of leaving this car? What was the point of traveling the train? And yet he couldn't bring himself to stop, too much restless energy- he kept running because he didn't know what else to do.

"You're supposed to help me, right? Besides, someone has to keep an eye on the door, what it it unlocks for some reason."

"Right! Of course..." his little feet pattered off into the distance, and some of the tension melted out of Blake's skin.

It still wasn't enough. His emotions had been surging recently, like the tide ebbing in. It was a pull he couldn't explain, that he didn't understand well enough to put into words. Pressure inside of him was just building, and he didn't know what would happen when he exploded.

"Hello," beneath him, his mirror image waved. An anxious posture that screamed his hesitation to say anything at all. "I can help you exit the car. The door will only open if I open it, with you as my reflection."

That... sounded like an evil plot device where his reflection would try to turn on him. "No, I can do it myself."

They gave him a skeptical look which made Blake feel even more like he was boiling over. "What? I said I can do it myself, everything is fine! I don't need help from you and I'm not playing this trains stupid mind games!" his limit had been reached. Blake kicked the door, only getting more violent as it gave no resistance beneath his foot.

His elbow caught the wall and it stung, but it only made him more mad at the situation. At himself. With one finally slam of his fist against the metal, that only hurt him more than anything else, Blake sank to the floor.

The reflection sat down next to him, clinking against the chrome of the car as he adjusted himself. (Or at least, as next to him as he could, being reflected in the chrome that Blake was leaned up against, "How are you feeling?"

Blake snorted derisively, "Wouldn't you know best?"

They looked away, fidgeting with the extra fabric bunched up by his ankles. "I see... A lot. Not everything but- most of it. All the important stuff. You never tell anyone how you feel. You never say anything at all. I know you from your actions- but I don't know your thoughts."

They were staring, Blake could feel their eyes, the way he always felt prying eyes on the back of his neck. It was just like school, when everyone knew about his father, just like his sister and mother- it was too much. He wanted nothing more than to curl up, to squeeze all of the pressure out of himself. Nothing Blake could say or do would quell the concern of those around him- and he hated feeling fragile. Like the whole world was trying to tip toe around him- a ticking time bomb about to go off.

"No one does... Not even me."

A pressure, cool and reassuring where his back was leaned up against the wall. It would be so easy to brush the hand aside, to leave his reflection here and go back the way he'd came. To hide from the world, from the vulnerability he'd expressed. But this was someone who knew everything about Blake. Every sin, every horrible moment, and repressed memory. Someone who knew the worst of Blake in a way that he thought only he could.

"It's okay to not know what your feeling, but you shouldn't keep running from them."

And yet they treated Blake with... kindness.

His eyes hurt- and he had no reason to cry. Not right now. Where were these tears when his father passed? When his mother begged him to consider therapy? When his sister dropped out of high school so he could have a 'better future'? Where were they when he'd needed them?

It ached. His throat, his lungs, the way his fingernails dug into his arms just to keep some sort of grip on reality. To keep him from slipping away.

"Don't you feel better?"

Blake wiped his nose on his shirt sleeve, sniffling uselessly. "But why am I crying?"

"You can figure that out later. You got your whole life to figure it out- but you won't be able to know what you're feeling if you don't let yourself feel it first."

"Yeah,"

A crash echoed from somewhere to Blake's left, an unearthly screech ripping through the air. They both glanced at each other, matching looks of concern. "Is that your turnip or mine?"

"For everyone's sake I really hope it isn't mine."

#infinity train #infinity train blake #blake infinity train #I actually think about him SO MUCH for a character I don't post about #I have a whole story in my mind and it is all canon own told me so himself #Infinity train book 6 #Infinity train book six #Infinity train b6 #Couldn't remember which of those tags (if any/j) existed #I'm so sorry turnip Blake is gonna get there 🥲

[archduchessofnowhere]

in the empress (2022), are the audience led to believe that archduchess sophie is possible bisexual? (re: watching her servant in an intimate moment, and then countness esterhazy trying to make a move on her (?) and idk if it was in my mind but it seemed as if it might have happened before???) sorry i just confused why they put those scenes in heh unless they were hinting at something

Hello anon! This is something that I was going to address in my review, but since you asked I'll just talk about it here: the queercoding of The Empress' female characters, and how I didn't like it at all.

As you mentioned, throughout the season there are hints that there's something going on between Archduchess Sophie and Countess Esterházy. Which was surely a choice. First of all, as far as I'm aware, Sophie wasn't attracted to women; of course we can’t never know for sure, especially since the way we understand sexuallity today it’s completely different to how it was understood in the 19th century also am I really meant to believe that King Max’s ten children were all straight? That doesn’t sound realistic. But to include this on the show was entirely a choice from the writer’s department.

Which leads me to one of the main reasons why I didn’t like this choice: we are again queercoding the villains. Sophie and Esterházy are the show’s main antagonist and they purposefully made Elisabeth’s life hell in order to “break her ''. Now, I do not think that LGBT+ characters should only be good, we deserve to have as much variety in queer characters as there is with cis straight characters. But if your only queer female characters are villains (and villains this one dimensional on top on that), I will raise an eyebrow and go "Really? This is what you're doing?".

Elisabeth, our Cool Not Like The Other Girls protagonist, gets her historical counterpart’s possible asexuality completely erased, meanwhile the cartoonishly evil villains Sophie and Esterházy, whose historical counterparts seem to have been straight, are queercoded in the most problematic way. We have that scene of Esterházy making a move on Sophie, and we also have the scene of Sophie watching the servant woman (did they mention her name? I can’t recall) having sex. With her son.

I hate this show.

The scene of Sophie watching the woman have sex with Franz Josef is weird and gross, and it’s filmed in a way to feel like that. I talked about this with someone the other day, about how this kind of voyeuristic scenes (that usually have an incestous undertone) are used to portray a character as morally corrupt in period dramas. And if I’m supposed to get from that scene that she’s into women… yikesss. And the scene of Esterházy could be read as you say, that she’s making a move because it happened before, but it could also be read as the harmful stereotype of the predatory lesbian that tries to “corrupt” the straight woman, since whether Sophie corresponds Esterházy’s affections or not is never clear. Double yikes.

And the worst part is that, like almost every plot point in this show, it goes nowhere! Sophie and Esterházy’s relationship is never fully explored, and by the end of the season it doesn’t matter because Sophie mercilessly dismissed her. Representation wins! The only explicitly sapphic character in the show ends up crying on her knees while the woman she seems to be in love with doesn’t even spare her a glance.

Speaking of queer characters, we also have the young Archduke Ludwig Viktor (it was him! rare moment of me not clowning), who in real life was as openly gay as his privilege allowed him to, and also crossdressed. He isn’t around much this season, but in the last episode we see him crossdressing (for the first time?), so if the series gets a season 2, they’ll probably explore his sexuallity and gender in a subplot. I really, really hope it receives a better treatment than whatever they tried to do with Sophie and Esterházy this season.

So are we, the audiance, led to believe that Sophie is bi? Who knows! The show isn't well writen so we can never get across what was the intent of those scenes, other than "queercoding the villains because yes".

#the empress (2022) #die kaiserin (2022) #asks

[grayblacklight]

I give up! I can't be more cartoonishly evil than the American education system! And I'm literally a cartoon villain!

As someone who ended up changing schools a number of times, I want to start making a list of all the problems with the us education system, especially the classes that failed on a fundamental level - because sometimes specific teachers and schools may address certain issues or (more likely) have some their own, I feel I have more to say about the American education system then the average person. And none of it is good.

- A big one was the computer classes- which I took as many as I could as extracurriculars in HS, by the way, but the biggest issue- one that single handedly multiplylied the effects of the other failures on this list tenfold - was sources and fact checking. Of course, you all remember how many teachers insisted on exaggerating how unreliable Wikipedia is because anyone can edit it, although in reality the editors that actually work on the wiki are far more effective - but you might not know the 'shortcut' they taught for telling if some sources were inherently trustworthy... By using the domains. I wish I was making this up, but not only did they say that .com and .net were inherently sketchy because anyone could own them (which is quite frankly Bulbapedia slander), they said that some domains were inherently SAFE- which is I am convinced is a government scheme to control the population, because they proceeded to say that .Gov was an inherently trustworthy domain. Of course, I don't need to explain to you why that's bad, you are on Tumblr.

-Social studies, a name given because it sure as hell isn't history, AKA us propaganda the class. 90% of is about the US, not that it teaches you anything about the US, especially in elementary/middle school where they censor so much that there isn't anything but propaganda- and don't get me started on the 9/11 focus, glossing over the treatment of native Americans, or the pro-capitalism bias. No, today let's talk about the fact that it's IMPOSSIBLE for teachers to properly teach you everything they are supposed to in the curriculum in the time they are given. Many of the other issues with the American education system can be circumvented if you're lucky enough to get a good teacher (good luck with that in this economy though) but they made SURE that Social Studies teachers wouldn't have a lot of spare time to go in depth on the nasty parts of the US history and ESPECIALLY not modern day issues, because every history class is supposed to go over EVERYTHING. That's like if every year they taught variations on the same math class, and high school math had to teach you addition and all that before trying to speedrun teaching you geometry and trigonometry in the last quarter of the year. And pray that you don't have a BAD history teacher, you will not learn anything. I had one teacher in high school that told my class that Trump was 'guaranteed' to be re-elected regardless of what we think of him because of 'all the good he did for the economy' as if he wasn't too busy burning the world to the ground to do anything positive, and the only thing I learned from his class is that he is a fucking [YouTube]

-english/literature, second only to social studies in terms of how much propaganda there is to sit though- albeit with more variation, cause now there's abilism porn and occasionally even Christian propaganda to sit through- AND how much the internet has taught me was wrong. See, meeting and following various creators, having access to more stories across various mediums then ever before, and knowing that many of the most famous and successful writers of our time are complete fucking [YouTubes], allowed myself and many others to see what writing is actually like, and boy golly does the curriculum seem a lot dumber as a result. And yes, at one point I had to sit through a shitty Christian propaganda movie and write an essay about it's contents, in a public school that is supposedly meant to be religiously neutral. I instead wrote an essay about how messed up that is, fluffed it up into elder scrolls 4, and got a B+, so either my teacher agreed with and was required to show us that, didn't actually read it because there's a limit on how many essay's written by teenagers one person can put up with, or just really appreciated the change of pace, I still don't know for sure.

#i'll probably add more later #as the memories come to me #you don't deserve context #fuck the us education system #and the us in general really #i think this qualifies as a #rant

[skrunksthatwunk]

saw one of the most transphobic things I've ever encountered in the wild while looking for a majima gif for my rgg ppt yesterday and it's still festering in my brain so I'm gonna go draw goromi to purge it

(I'm gonna rant about it for a bit in the readmore so if you're not just fiending for some Vile Fucking Shit Like I'm Not Kidding It's Bad And I Want You To Take Care Of Yourself then like. please don't read it it's not worth it <3)

i wanted to grab a gif of majima dancing on the bridge. yk, in that one y0 substory where you help that statue street performer. gif in question is majima doing the miracle johnson spin and point (I'm pretty sure? I'd spent like 6 hours at this point looking at this shit ok it blurs a bit) with the caption "me when the tranny suicide rate hits 50%"

like. jesus fucking christ dude

I'm lucky enough to not encounter Big Boy Transphobia super often, so while I've heard shit as bad as this before, it's pretty much always been in a context where I've got due warning (i.e. it's a video about transphobia, so excerpts/examples are expected), and where it's refuted shortly thereafter. so this kinda took me out a bit just seeing it float by me

rgg as a series is.. Complicated. in its depictions of trans people, to oversimplify, but at the very least it's a group they've shown some sympathy and growth towards, especially in later entries. definitely in a way incompatible with celebrating their suicide rates.

but specifically for someone to use majima as the icon for that hatred when so many people read him as genderqueer, when he is textually gender nonconforming, when i feel so seen in him AS genderqueer rep via goromi... idk,, it just felt really strange to me, is all.

like. it was bad. obviously. it felt bad. but like,, idk sometimes you're faced with indirect bigotry in people you share something with and suddenly you feel real alienated and helpless about it.

this person probably likes rgg. that doesn't mean we should be friends, but there's a strong part of me that inherently perks up at that connection, sees a potential bond there,, so it feels like a betrayal even when it couldn't really be. i don't know and don't want to know this person, but some part of me thought we were on the same side simply by liking this media.

and then it's that it wasn't even directed toward me, or even necessarily at any trans people specifically. i have no way of engaging with this person, they just made that for their own pleasure, for their own little audience, whoever that may be. it's just something i have to accept is floating around out there in the middle of all these things that bring me joy, that whoever made it is now talking with their parents or eating in their car or sleeping off a hangover or whatever. idk. it's very human in a cold way, in a way i don't experience often. it hollowed me out and is now echoing through me

shit. idk. like i can't imagine ever getting to a point where i would celebrate a group of people's high suicide rates, especially when it's something that hurt anyone (though this person may believe being trans does, depending on their justifications for their hatred. but they're also just factually wrong about that so whatever). it's such a cartoonishly evil and heartless thing to do that i don't know what to do with it. it's just sitting here in my hands. I've seen people joke about the percentage before and obviously people get told to kill themselves a lot, but there's something about it being celebrated away from trans people, in a different context entirely, where their existence is a point of conversation and they are not, that's real weird. people do this a lot with bigotry and w transness specifically, but seeing it firsthand just kinda drives it home. we and our suffering are a point of entertainment and discussion for them, one they don't have to be invested in, that they can abandon at any time. idk.

like. would this person throw bricks at me? would this person look the other way if i was being attacked? would this person support legal punishment for me being trans? send me to conversion therapy? dox me? kill me? if they cheer on my death, my suffering, my heartache, then what will they do in their private lives, on voting day, at their workplaces? it's scary, man.

it's always jarring to encounter bigotry in a fandom where you feel so happy and safe being your little marginalized self and this was just cranked to 11. like i thought i could be like "omg majima he/she icon" and everyone would be like "yeah yeah majima the he/she icon we've all seen her" but apparently VIOLENTLY not (and like,, disagreeing with me on whether or not majima's genderqueer is fine, it's just that my little pocket of rgg fandom is very queer and seeing such INTENSE queerphobia with a character maannyy people think is queer if not specifically genderqueer was just extra brain-rattling). I'm sure it's worse for ppl who are visibly marginalized, who have always known about it and cannot hide that status, and me only experiencing it now is a privilege thing, but it still sucks to experience it like this. we all deserve better than that.

anyway, if you're trans, i love you dearly, and you make the world a better place by being in it. please don't let anyone fool you into thinking you're wrong or dangerous or ugly or unwanted just for being trans, and please be kind to yourself if some of those thoughts worm their way into your mind anyway. at the very least i love you, and I've got fucking immaculate taste, so you must be doing something right <3

#yeag anyway it bothered me