#Okay so for everyone whose interested i will give some bits of context cause yes

[sistersblack]

tomjr replied to your post

“i’m in a ‘i am going to cause problems on purpose’ mood and it is...”

Do you have a post on why you like Lucius? As someone who, admittedly, isn't a massive fan, I'd love to read why! :)

okay.. i have to admit my reasons for loving lucius aren’t really as serious as my reasons for loving snape. his character hasn’t had any profound impact on me, i mostly just think he’s fun & has a lot of unexplored potential.

as a preface, i’m team ‘fictional preferences aren’t a reliable indicator of real-world morals.’ also this is probably going to be a bit of a mess. it got much longer than intended and turned into a more meta than anything else but anyway--

i’ve always been partial to villains (my fave hp character has been snape since i picked up the first book, and back then it was because he was such a bastard) so lucius being a bad guy doesn’t bother me. a lot of the criticisms of his character are variations of “but he’s a death eater!!!” which just makes me go …and? it’s like saying you can’t like bellatrix because she’s a voldy-fanatic or that you can’t like voldemort because he’s.. voldemort. i know people actually do say those things but to me it doesn’t make sense. a character being a de or in the order has no bearing on whether i like them or not.

i’m not going to argue against lucius being a bad guy, but i do think he’s kind of terrible at it, at least compared to his cohort. i don’t think he’s sadistic like other death eaters or as fanatic, either (which i think comes to light in his dh arc). to me, he’s the ‘order people around, then stand back and watch as they do your bidding’ kind of villain. i’d even argue that this line

“Lucius, my slippery friend,’ he whispered, halting before him. ‘I am told that you have not renounced the old ways, though to the world you present a respectable face. You are still ready to take the lead in a spot of Muggle-torture, I believe?” (GOF, ch. 33)

is a reference to it. he doesn’t delight or participate, he leads. i do think he’s killed and tortured (he probably got some kicks out of it, too) but i’ve always interpreted him as a character whose usefulness comes from his connections (and if we want to talk headcanons, i think he’s got a good strategic eye). we know the second war differs greatly from the first; from what little information we get about the first war, it seems that death eaters were making a much more controlled and effective effort that resulted in actual changes to wizarding society. (to digress a little, i think that’s what a lot of death eaters actually signed up for, not the killing/torture and harry potter business, otherwise voldemort’s numbers in the first war don’t really make sense.) but in that context, lucius is a valuable player to have because he’s got the connections, diplomacy, and resources to infiltrate places like the ministry and encourage the right parties to support voldemort’s plans. it might not exactly make him likable, but it’s something i like to think about.

the above quote touches on some other things that make me interested in him. while definitely a blood-supremacist, i’d argue that lucius’ loyalty to his family/to himself far outweighs his loyalty to voldemort. i’ll talk about the malfoys in a bit, but on the topic of choosing to become a death eater, i think he was swayed by what voldemort was selling—a society of only purebloods, where he’s promised glory. joining voldemort is perfectly aligned with his own goals, but when that’s no longer the case, he’s got no issue dropping voldy and claiming he was coerced; he doesn’t scream his loyalty like bella and willingly ruin his life (and his family’s life) to serve his lordship. as to why that makes me like him, i kind of just always like the self-preserving prick character. it’s a big part of why i love narcissa, too. (and why i think they’re perfectly matched, but more on that here).

also, what i mean when i say he’s fun is like… okay so lucius is the kind of person where if i met him irl, i’d spend every second in his presence thinking about how much i want to punch him in the face. he’s that rich, snooty asshole who knows he’s above the consequences us mere mortals have to worry about, but it makes him fun to write. he can do whatever he wants because he knows he can get away with it and i always have a good time when i write him in fic (even when I’m torturing him).  

the other thing is that i think lucius’ character is a bit like snape’s in the sense that it’s been warped by fanon (jason’s portrayal is part of it too, though i do love it). my biggest pet peeve about the discussion around lucius is how most of it revolves around draco, and how the people who want to defend/woobify/redeem draco immediately jump to ‘lucius was an abusive father.’ i always sort of want to ask why they think that, but i know it’s not really worth the effort.

(there’s the argument that raising a child with extremist views, even with good intentions, constitutes abuse on its own. but imo that’s a different conversation & not really relevant bc people don’t tend to use that as an example of lucius being a bad father, they jump right to him being verbally/physically/emotionally abusive.) 

anyway, my point is

“My father’s next door buying my books and mother’s up the street looking at wands. […] I think I’ll bully father into getting me one and I’ll smuggle it in somehow. […] Father says it’s a crime if I’m not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree.” PS, ch. 5.

that book!lucius  

“My Lord,” said a voice, desperate and cracked. He turned: there was Lucius Malfoy sitting in the darkest corner, ragged and still bearing the marks of the punishment he had received after the boy’s last escape. One of his eyes remained closed and puffy. “My Lord … please … my son …” DH, ch. 32.

doesn’t really

“Wouldn’t it be … forgive me … more prudent to call off this battle, enter the castle and seek him y – yourself?”

“Do not pretend, Lucius. You wish the battle to cease so that you can discover what has happened to your son.” DH, ch. 32.

support the fanon

“[…] Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy running through the crowd, not even attempting to fight, screaming for their son.” DH, ch. 36.

there’s a bunch of other little moments that give us an insight into the malfoy family dynamic (like the fact that lucius actually listens to draco’s rambling; eg. “… everyone thinks he’s so smart, wonderful potter with his scar and his broomstick —” / “you have told me this at least a dozen times already.” – or his reaction to buckbeak; “father’s not very happy about my injury- […] he’s complained to the school governors. and to the ministry of magic.” - or the fact that draco constantly defends him).  i don’t think it’s enough to suggest that the malfoys were a happy-go-lucky family, but everything put together paints a picture, and it’s not one of a cold, abusive household. i won’t bother pulling apart the ~lucius abused narcissa~ fanon, because i do that a bit on my narcissa post and it essentially boils down the same thing. 

basically i think lucius is unfairly lumped into the category of death eaters who are incapable of anything ‘good.’ like, yes, he’s terrible, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t or can’t love his family. to say so directly contradicts a lot of his canon material (looking @ you, cursed child).  but anyway, my interpretation of the malfoy family dynamic is a large part of why i love lucius as a whole (bad guy who loves one (1) thing is a good trope and that is a hill i will die on) and i think the way his loyalty to the cause™ battles with his loyalty to narcissa and draco creates some interesting scenarios to consider. overall i think there’s a lot of unexplored potential with him.

i’m ending it here bc i can feel my attention span starting to slip, but tl;dr 

also one last obligatory reason: he’s sexy (and i’m saying this as a lesbian)

#tomjr #lucius #meta #mine #lucius malfoy #a thousand words later... #i've missed stuff but i'm tired now so

[orsino-the-enchanter]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent (the mere existence of a post-canon verse is diverging from canon)/ fandomless / complicated

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO. It depends on what you mean as popular. Whoever has ever played DA2 knows Orsino because he’s important to the plot (especially in act 3) but the opinions on him are conflicted. like they are on any morally gray character. Still, he is a side character who has like 5 scenes in the entire game, so I believe he’s not getting the attention he deserves.

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. Orsino certainly is not everyone’s cup of tea, I can say that much. Physical appearance-wise he is very attractive for what he is: a stressed/depressed middle-aged DA2 elf who has seen SomeShit™ in his life. He has aged way more graceful than what he could have, but still, he is in his late 40s/early 50s, which can be a deterrent factor to some; also, the elves in this game have distinctive inhuman-like features that people either love or hate. Personally, I think that there is harmony and beauty in his features, which makes him weirdly pretty to look at and i love the fact that they gave him an hourglass body shape. However, Orsino’s true beauty lies in his personality and his calm, collected, polite demeanor. His voice is another huge bonus.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. I mean... he’s a First Enchanter who keeps his knowledge on blood magic and necromancy a secret, there are hints that he’s a somniari mage throughout the game, he has some very badass scenes where he kicks the asses of bigger/stronger opponents than himself when he’s outnumbered AND he has one of the 2 boss battles in the finale of the game. There is no doubt that he is a force to be reckoned with in battle.

Are they underrated? YES / NO / IDK. I think he’s criminally underrated not just by the fandom, but even  the creators of the game, who gave him no backstory, only a handful of scenes and butchered his character just to add another boss battle.

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO. Meeting him along with Knight Commander Meredith and Viscount Dumar earns you an achievement (the “friends in high places” one). He is one of the main antagonists in the third and most crucial part of the game and you can either choose to side with him or oppose him.

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. Lots of elements in the storyline depend on the protagonist’s political views on what’s going on in Kirkwall, and since Orsino is a prominent political figure, he is relevant to the protagonist’s views. He can be either an ally or an opponent, depending to what the protagonist’s views are. Also, he had been involved to the protagonist’s tragic loss of their mother -albeit indirectly-, since he was an informant of the murderer.

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO. He’s a controversial but VERY well-known public figure, to the point where he can be recognized in the streets -even if people have never seen him before, they can recognize the staff he carries, his distinctive robes and the fact that he’s an elf (an elven first enchanter is news in itself, so he doesn’t go by unnoticed). The protagonist has heard of him -along with rumors and gossip surrounding him- before he had the chance to meet him in person. He has such influence and people skills that he even carried out a rally to overturn the Knight Commander’s rule of the city and almost succeeded.

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. Depends on who you ask. Mage sympathizers see him as a brave advocate of his people’s rights who wouldn’t hesitate to put his life on the stake for them. The common folk and the city authorities see him as a potentially dangerous troublemaker and rebel.

How strictly do you follow canon? — I try to follow canon mostly in my canon verse, while taking some artistic liberties due to the lack of a concise backstory. In post-canon verses and au’s, I have taken all the insights on Orsino’s personality, views and way of thinking and I have adapted them to fit each verse’s context.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.  —  For him ‘mage’ is not just a term describing his abilities, it is also a term describing his personality as a whole. He has that elegance, cultivation and mystical charm about him; he is morally grey yet charismatic; witty yet cunning and certainly not one to be toyed with. Despite the exterior of a powerful yet restrained scholar he maintains , however, there are many layers to him and each is darker than the last. He can be both the erudite conversation partner you’d like to have an existential conversation with over a glass of good wine, a trusted advisor you’d confide your problems to and a force to be reckoned with who would obliterate you or your enemies in battle, depending on the situation. Still, the First Enchanter has some very vulnerable sides too, but he tries to keep them to himself.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  — In the main verse he’s a minor character; with not as much involvement in the protagonist’s life as other characters (such as the companions). He’s also kind of secluded and not in touch with whatever happens in real life -not just because he lives in the Circle, but because he has been institutionalized, like any other person who has been brought there from a very young age. Also, there is the age gap which can make him a bit harder to reach than someone younger.

What inspired you to rp your muse?  —  When I played DA2 for the first time, Orsino piqued my interest because he was the very definition of a tragic figure.  He was the only voice of reason in the madhouse that is Kirkwall; yet he was fighting alone for a just cause that was doomed. He had the whole city and the authorities against him; still, he did not give up trying to protect his people; and he did his best to refrain from violence until the bitter end. His death -a suicide, no matter how you cut it- was equally tragic as the life he led; it was seeing the bringer of hope for mages losing all hope himself and deciding to go fighting and not on his knees. That, combined with his sarcasm and sophistication convinced me that I had to do justice to this poor underappreciated soul and dig deeper into his character -even try to write an alternative ending for him. Hence, this blog was created.

What keeps your inspiration going?  —  My amazing roleplay partners with all the good work they put into their characters and the love they have shown me and my character so far. I love you guys <3

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO / I SINCERELY HOPE I DO? i have my doubts sometimes, but i think i do ok. Still, I would love to have more feedback to see how i can improve even more.

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO / SORT OF Headcanons, metas, the works.

Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO. I am not sure what is meant by ‘drabbles’ but sure, I’d love to write more of those.

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO. All the time, especially before going to bed. That is where all those rp ideas come from.

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO / SORT OF? Again, i don’t really get much feedback, so i am not that sure if I am doing any good and if my Orsino sounds genuine

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO / SOMETIMES. I like how i have written some threads more than others, I’m not gonna lie.

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO / SORTA. I am a sensitive person in general, but not someone whose feelings are easily hurt/triggered or someone who takes things that are not my business to heart.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  —  Criticism is welcome only when it is constructive; in the sense that there are clearly stated arguments as to what I do not do right and suggestions on how to improve. If someone sends me an ask like “i don’t like x just because” or anon hate, I am just going to ignore it.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  — YES!!! YESS!!! YESS!!!!!!! I cannot stress enough how helpful it is for me to receive suggestions and questions that help me explore sides of my character i have not thought about so far! Even if your questions are the randomest things ever, i’d still LOVE to answer them. I have received some asks like “what would Orsino do in x situation” in the past and they were SO fun to write!

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  —  Of course! As I said, so far the opinion is supported beyond the ‘just because’, I will be happy to consider it. Anything that helps me broaden my perspective is welcome.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  —  same as the above.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  — I do not really mind; i am the first person to recognize that Orsino is a controversial figure and people may hate him for whatever reason. I might not agree with the hate, but each to their own I suppose.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  — If they do not do it in the typical ‘grammar nazi’ style i’m chill with it. Grammatical errors tend to happen more often than not, just because i almost never proofread. *shrug*

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?   —  I think so, yes. As I said, I am not easily annoyed, triggered or have my feelings hurt, and i am very excited to interact with new people. Still, i do recommend reading my verses/about/rules pages, if anything, to know what to expect from my portrayal and activity patterns.

tagged by: stolen from @theharellan tagging: @of-enormous-girth @oftevinter @the-old-and-the-hapless @soldier-of-visus @lathsuledin @redtemplarcommander​ @hisfavoritewolf​ @the-champions-of-the-just​ @lowtownbutcher​ @elderone​ @sworntoprotect​ @altuspavus​ @starkhavenprince​ @aqun--athlok​ @hornedchief​ @iamcole​

#meme

[edream93]

Come With Me and Take The Ride (This Is Where You Wanna Be)

Okay so like a month or so ago, someone in the Descendants fandom posted a post asking for someone to write a Huma Greatest Showman AU. I unfortunately didn’t write down or remember who so I can’t tag them and this might not even be what they had in mind but...I hope they enjoy this oneshot if they read it!

You can also find it here on AO3 or FF.net. Please like, reblog, and/or leave a comment!

She watched as three young children played across the busy city street. Their patch worked clothes hung limply on too thin bodies and she knew without a doubt that they probably hadn’t had a decent meal in days and more than likely wouldn’t have one tonight. And yet, their smiles shined brightly, like they had no worries or fears in the world. The two older siblings danced with laughter out of the small grabby hands of their toddler younger sister, their moves exaggerated and deliberately slower to give the giggling young girl a chance.

Even dirty, starving, and probably with very little to call their own, they had each other.

Her stomach twisted at that thought. She blamed the slightly moldy bread she had earlier.

“CJ!”

She sighed turning her attention back to her growing irritated companion. “I’m listening, Fred.”

“Really?”Freddie Facilier arched an unconvinced brow, hands stubbornly on her hips. “Then what I just say?”

Calista Jane Hook, rolled her eyes. “Something along the lines of ‘blah, blah, blah, CJ is the best. I wanna take my pretty little lips and-”

A netted fingerless glove covered CJ’s mouth, hiding the satisfied smirk that grew on CJ’s lips at the minute but telling way that Freddie’s cheeks darkened. “Hush, you brat, before I make you sleep on the floor tonight,” Freddie growled.

Moving Freddie’s hand from her face with one hand, her other hand using their close proximity to creep slowly up the outside of Freddie’s thigh. Freddie’s cheeks darkened further, a glint in her amber eyes that promised much pain in the near future for CJ (or perhaps it was pleasure, it was always hard to tell with Freddie sometimes).

Before CJ could say something that she thought would sound very much sauve and get her out of trouble with her adorably grumpy maybe-something-more-than-a-friend, a familiar tailored red coat caught CJ’s eyes, immediately causing her to suddenly push away from Freddie to get a better look. Freddie squeaked enraged but CJ ignored her as she watched a familiar red leather clad back slip through one of the nicer bar establishments of Auradon City.

Freddie quickly caught sight of him too, demeanor quickly changing from enragement to concern hidden behind a disinterested facade.

“You need me to go with you?”

“No,” CJ tugged on her own red jacket, well worn but easily one of the nicest things she owned. “I can handle him,” she paused taking in Freddie’s darker skin and the three short white marks under each eye that seemed to glow eerily in tandem with her breathing, announcing her non-fairy magical lineage for all the world to see.

Though frilly flowery words were never part of this longtime...thing with Freddie, in the quietest moments of the night, when CJ’s mind was buzzing with wondrous ideas while everyone else slept on, she would turn on her side in the bed that they shared, taking in Freddie’s relaxed features. Within the depths of her heart, CJ knew that Freddie was one of the best things in her life, even if the hierarchical system around them thought differently.  

Looking from CJ’s face to the sign in the bar window, CJ shook her head. ‘No Non-Fairy mages or creatures allowed!’ it read in glittery fairy ink.

“I can definitely handle this,” she said once again, not completely certain if it was for Freddie’s sake or hers. “Besides, I’ll need you to pay my bail if things go bottoms up.”

Freddie stared back at her with an unreadable look before she snorted, leaning back with practice casualness against the brick wall behind her, arms crossed. “I guess we’ll see if I like you enough to do that, chere,” she smirked before the corner of her lips turned down in a deep frown. “Just make sure you don’t get into any mischief with them spirits. We got a show later tonight and we can’t have our charismatic leader puking her guts in a paid customer’s hat again!”

“When you say no mischief with spirits,” CJ grinned already halfway across the street, walking backwards, “are you talking about drinks or…” she wiggled her fingers making a groaning sound. “Because you know they might have both here!”

“Figure it out Hook!” Freddie laughed, the sound crisp and clear like fresh fallen autumn leaves. It was a drastic difference from the much more muted atmosphere of the bar that CJ walked into.

The room was dark, windows covered with thick dark materials that blocked out the early afternoon light. Only the wall of bottled liquid behind the bar counter, some sparkling, some glowing, provided the only source of color in the otherwise dull room. Seven older men sat in a dark corner, a few of them already looking like they had fallen halfway into their glasses, looked up at her entrance, bloodshot eyes staring a bit too long at the red leather of her coat in drunken recognition. Thankfully, they lost interest in her quickly, one starting to sing an old mining tune, the ones still conscious enough joining in.

The smell of pixie dust, rolled and smoked in big cigars by some of the one of the patrons, a fuzzy looking...blue being with droopy but intelligent eyes, hung heavy in the air, the smoke curling from their dark blue lips and into the air in magenta and lavender colored ringlets of smoke. The smell alone burned CJ’s throat and she wondered idly if the contents of the cigars had been cut with iron as she sat down unceremoniously at the bar next to the familiar red clad frame.

“Whatever yer doing here, I want no part of it Calista Jane.”

Pouting at the use of her full name, CJ made a small hand movement in front of her and a glass of shimmery brown liquid, flecks of gold with streaks of iridescent blue shimmered at the top. A small ball of light hovered expectantly over the drink, hindering CJ from taking it before she tossed a handful of coins and a few old thimbles onto the counter in payment.

Once the little fairy barkeep had moved onto another customer down the way, CJ took a long sip before speaking. “Can’t a girl want to see her dear old big brother without there being some ulterior motive?”

“Not when she’s a grubby little half pixie that likes to cause more mischief than she can handle, like ye, she can’t,” he murmured refilling his shot glass with an already half empty bottle of unassuming clear liquid that was probably the strongest drink the bar had, hitting it back with little reaction, refilling the glass again like clockwork. “Also, ye must not know the meaning of being disowned if ye think anyone here wants to see ye show yer face around here again.”

CJ took another sip of her drink, ignoring the way her hand clutched tightly around the glass at his last comment. At least some things hadn’t changed, she thought as she took in his appearance. Perhaps she was just a sentimental sucker but she found herself grounded in the familiarity of her brother, Harry Hook.

His dark hair was messy as always as if the wind had ran her fingers through it and the usual kohl around his eyes was smudged much to thick for this time of day, indicating her probably hadn’t slept in his bed last night. (CJ internally frowned, not wanting to know whose bed he had slept in.) Nicely tailored paints were tucked into nicely buffed black boots. His shirt had a few buttons undone and looked wrinkled, but in a way that she knew had the noble ladies and gentlemen he often surrounded himself with yearning to rip it off him. CJ knew with just a look that it was probably made with the softest material imaginable, its worth more money than she had seen in the last year or so. The only piece of clothing that wasn’t new and definitely not from one of his many admirers was the familiar and almost identical to her own red leather trench coat that seemed to clash in just the right way with Harry’s much finer clothes.

He’s still a sentimental sap. CJ observed. I can work with that.

She finished the rest of her drink, ignoring Harry’s impressed whistle as she downed most of the glass in one go. It burned down her throat in a devastatingly delightful way and she had to remember Freddie’s earlier warnings about not getting sloshed before a show. But was it really her fault that Harry was so irritating that he drove her to drink?

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Hook family drinking habits!” he giggled self deprecating around his own drink before tossing it down just as fast as CJ had done.

“Well then I’ll get straight to the point. I want you to be my business partner, Harry.”

He paused, hand holding his refilled shot glass, frozen half way at his lips.

Good. Caught him off guard.

“I need someone with your flair for dramatics, eye for detail, and who I can trust will at least yell before trying to stab me in the back.” She watched him unfreeze, throwing the shot back easily as if there hadn’t been an introduction. “The show is good,” she continued. “More than good, but it can be better! It will be better. With your help.”

Harry snorted. “Ye don’t want my help. Just my influence. Influence that brings a lot of heavy pockets with it.”

Smiling innocently, CJ batted her eyes. “Well you said it, not me, but since you’re offering, that kind of influence would be extremely beneficial for my-”

“No,” Harry cut her off, raising the bottle to pour himself another shot only to see that the bottle was empty.

“No?”

“Uh huh,” Harry frowned, looking up and down the counter for their fairy barkeep only to not see the telltale ball of light. “In this context, I believe it means, ‘to deny’,” he jumped over the counter, eyes glued to the bottles of lined spirits - some pixie, some regular, all worth more than CJ had ever made even during their most successful shows so far. “‘To put an end to before it even begins’,” he waved his hand in a dramatic dismissive fashion before seemingly picking a bottle indiscriminately and reaching somewhere under the counter for a clean shot glass with little searching. He was familiar with this bar apparently. No surprise there.

“Trying to follow old Da to an early grave?” CJ sneered when after two times of refilling his shot glass he pushed it away and drank directly from the bottle. The fairy barkeep finally appeared, chiming angrily at him before seemingly giving up and going back to their other customers as if this wasn’t that unusual of an occurrence. Harry sprawled himself across the counter in that disheveled but pretty way that he could always pull off, bottle dangling precariously from his ringed fingers.

“Awa’ an bile yer heid!” he drunkenly whined. “Who gave ye the right to start meddlin’ in my life again? Haven’t seen hide nor hair of ye since ye shucked off old Da’s inheritance, like ye were too good for it. And now ye think ye can just waltz back into my life?” He leaned towards her, his eyes bright and focus despite his obvious inebriation. “I said no,” he said firmly. Blue eyes hard like glass. “I don’t want anythin’ to do with yer silly little freak show or with you.”

CJ pouted, pulling out her final card.

“Harriet would have helped me.”

It was a testament to how long she hadn’t seen her brother, to how their paths had greatly diverged that she found herself caught off guard when his hands darted out quickly and grabbed her forcefully by the collar. Harry dragged her so that she was half on the bar counter, her face close to his, all previous tired drunken irritation gone and replaced by pure 100% Harold James Hook fury.

Her mind flickered back to the children she had seen playing outside and realized what the feeling she had tried to hide actually was: jealousy. Those children had never been the Hook siblings. They probably actually got along.

Harry’s grip tightened on her collar, his eyes sobering until all she could see in his two blue pools were anger, shame, and sadness swirling together until all that was left was rage.

“Harriet. Is. Dead,” Harry seethed, “And it’s because of you.”

They glared at each other before he released her with a none too gentle shove.

Harry turned back to the bar, grabbing another random bottle, uncorking it sharply with his teeth, and drinking straight from it.

At that point they were obviously drawing attention from most of the other patrons but CJ didn’t care. Her hands clenched at her side. Harry wasn’t the only Hook sibling with anger issues.

“How long are you going to keep blaming me?” she seethed quietly before jumping onto the counter and forcefully tugging the bottle out of his hands and throwing it onto the ground. “HUH?!” she shouted. “Don’t you think I tried? She was my sister too, you know! I tried to stop her! But Harriet Hook always did what Harriet Hook wanted to.”

She jumped down in front of him and shoved his back none gently against the wall of alcohol, bottles rattling, crashing down around them. Neither of them paid the other bar goers that quickly got up and left or the poor barkeep fairy that dropped dejectedly in the air at the mess any attention.

“At least she died doing what she loved. She was fearless! She would never hide behind the fancy skirts of the highborn faes and noble killjoys and their rules on ‘appropriate’ forms of magic. All magic was beautiful to her and she wanted to show that to everyone and Harriet was the only one who believed that I had the imagination and vision to make that happen.”

CJ brought herself closer to Harry, so that their noses squished together bruisingly, tears growing but never falling from her eyes.

“You’re just as guilty as me for her death, Harry. We needed a third for the spell and you didn’t show up because you were too afraid of Daddy Dearest.”

Again, Harry shoved her away. Instead of retaliating with rage, he turned from her and moved with tired steps to sprawl back on top of the counter. “The spell would have have been shite either way,” he murmured into the wood. “Fairy blood doesn’t run through me veins like it does with you...like it did with ‘Ettie.”

CJ stepped over the shards of broken glass, stepping closer to him. Her own rage, just as quickly as it had come, had cooled into something less intense but just as driven. “Three is always a powerful number. You just being there would have been enough, Harry. Spells always worked out better for Ettie and me when you were there.”

Harry snorted, a wet sound that he tried to cover with a weak laugh. “Power of three,” he muttered, using the back of his arm to to wipe under his nose quickly glancing at CJ, all the hot air blown out of him. “Not so powerful with only two fuck ups left.”

Sighing, CJ rolled her eyes. Obviously this was a waste of time. She hopped back over the bar counter, ready to leave when she heard Harry sigh, calling out to her.

“C’mon. Let’s take a look at this circus of yers and see if it’s worth my time.”

Pausing, CJ allowed herself to smirk before she smoothed her features out and turned back to him.

“Oh, once you see it you’ll never want to return to your drab old life again.”

Harry rolled his eyes at her confidence from where he was still sprawled along the counter before heaving himself up and jumping down to his feet, reaching for the top hat he had sat on the bar stool next to him.

CJ grinned ecstatically, rushing out the door.

Already grumbling to himself, Harry made to follow her but was stopped short by one peeved fairy barkeep chiming angrily in his face.

“Alright! Alright,” he hissed, not even bothering to count the bills and coins and thimbles that he tossed onto the counter. “If that doesn’t cover all it, send the rest of the bill to…” he paused in thought before a squished up dissatisfied face came to mind. “Lady Mal. If she asks, it was her associate, Jay made this mess,” he winked before rushing out into the street, hat firmly on his head as he searched the crowded streets before a distinctive head of always knotted looking blonde hair.

“Come on!” CJ crowed, appearing at his side. She grabbed onto his arm and moved them through the crowd with such speed and dexterity that only someone who had fairy blood in their veins could manage. It was like their feet barely touched the ground, and with the excited buzz and chime that was unconsciously being emitted from his sister, Harry wouldn’t be surprised if that was true, CJ bursting with enough happy thoughts for the both of them.  

It wasn’t long before they appeared before a tall brick building with banners proclaiming “The Greatest Show on Earth!” and many different depictions of what Harry assumed were each of the acts.

He didn’t have time to take in the banners as CJ quickly tugged him to the side and back of the building, entering through the back door and into a space where there was a flurry of motion and movement of people and animals rushing back and forth, either preparing for their acts or helping others get ready for theirs.

“Wow, you actually managed to get him.”

Harry looked up to see Freddie Facilier looking down at them from her perch on a railing of the backstage stairs that led up to what Harry assumed was where some of the circus members handled the above lights. It had been awhile since he had seen her and she looked just as smug and mischievous as she did as a young child all those years ago when CJ had first snuck her into the house when their father hadn’t been sober enough to be aware. The top half of her face was painted into a white skull, covering her natural facial marks and she wore a dress of greens and golds and purples that would have looked gaudy on anyone else but made Freddie look every part like the shadow bayou queens she descended from, a small worn black top hat with a red trim and a purple feather perched on top of her head.

Though he had grown up with her long enough to think of her as another bratty younger sister, when he made eye contact with Freddie, Harry felt as if his shadow was crawling up his back, squeezing his neck slightly in warning. He blinked and the feeling instantly disappeared. When he looked down, his shadow moved on it’s own, making a slow slashing motion along its throat.

Freddie smirked innocently when he glared back up at her, her message clear: Break her heart again and I’ll have my friends on the other side hurt you.

“I told you I would, Fred!” CJ grinned as she bounced on her toes, a slight golden glow around her, completely unaware of what just happened before tugging Harry suddenly up the stairs, pass Freddie who hopped off her railing, shuffling her cards as she made her way to the stage entrance. Harry used his free hand to rub his neck as words continued to bubble from her CJ’s mouth in excited little squeals that verged just on the edge of sounding like chiming bells.

Harry was just about to tell her that he couldn’t understand half of what she was saying when she got excited like this when she suddenly stopped them on one of the highest platforms of the stairs, pulling aside a curtain that led to a balcony.

For a moment, as he stepped forward, all Harry was aware of was the bright glow of the stage lights and the sound of the decent but small crowd below. Up along the catwalk several of the stage hands worked in unison to turn over a large bucket that was designed to rain down water on the center stage. The whole building seemed to quiet as the sound of rain falling and the smell of sea salt filled the space. Even though Harry could see from his position that the stage hands had poured all the water that had been in pail out, it still rained down below onto the stage, a soft rumble of thunder accompanying the noise.

Suddenly, one of the stage lights fell on a built platform perpendicular to the one Harry and CJ stood on. Harry watched as a strong looking blonde man dressed as if he were sunshine personified in loose fitting gold pants and a tight sleeveless matching vest stepped until he was just at the edge.

“Is he one of them flying acrobatics, I’ve heard about?” Harry looked curiously to CJ.

“He is trained in that,” she grinned, still at her spot by the balcony entrance. “But that’s the later half of the act.”

And with that, the blonde man jumped off the platform with no ropes or nets to catch him, audience letting back shocked screams and yelps below.

Harry rushed to the edge of the balcony, sure that he was going to see a blonde pancake on the ground but instead he was able to see just as the magic sustained rain stopped, all the water coming to the center to create a pool shape, the blonde diver diving safely in with a splash that had the children of the audience squealing with delight and the adults grumbling in their soaked clothes.

“Here comes the main star of the act,” CJ grinned appearing next to him.

The blonde diver waved at the audience before swimming to the top of the pool, the water only rippling slightly as his head broke through the top. The water began to warp around him, breaking its shape and twisting until the blonde man was no longer in the water but sitting on top of it, the magical liquid taking the shape of a giant seahorse under him.

The children in the audience laughed and a few of the adults cheered as the blonde rode the water seahorse like a cowboy around the stage at a lively pace, sometimes almost looking like he was about to be bucked off but not quite.

“What is he?” Harry questioned. “Part merfolk?”

“No. Watch.” CJ’s grin grew as if she knew the best secret that he didn’t.

Frown set deeply, Harry continued to watch as the water seahorse and its blonde rider continued to float around the stage.

Suddenly, the seahorse began to float higher and higher, it’s bucking getting slightly more erratic the higher it got. The audience gasped as it looked like the blonde was loosing what little grip he had, if had any grip at all with the water. He was just about eye level with Harry when the water of the seahorse under him suddenly fell out, breaking its form. Gravity only took a second before it had the blonde hurtling to the ground.

Again, the audience gasped and Harry found his heart in his throat as the blonde flailed in his descent, growing closer to the ground...until he wasn’t because the water that had fallen back to the ground already shot back up underneath him. Instead of catching him and turning back into the seahorse as Harry assumed it would, the water and the blonde continued their trajectory upwards, a rope swinging towards them that the blonde caught with practiced ease, reaching out towards the floating water with one hand just as an arm formed from the liquid. Within seconds the water was no longer an amorphous blob but a fully fleshed young woman.

Harry watched with rapt attention as the blonde grinned, allowing the direction of the rope he was holding onto give him the necessary momentum to toss his partner impossibly high into the air until she was just above the height of the balcony.

The girl seemed to hover as she flipped and spun with precise movements in the air, knocking the breath out of Harry as if a wave had crashed on top of him. He took in her teal and white partially braided updo that wrapped and swirled around her head like a windswept crown and the way that the blues and greens and golds of her outfit caught the light like the rising sun bleeding into the sea. It was only when she arched her back, preparing to dive through the air before her decent that her brown eyes caught his. In that second, she grinned, a mischievous mesmerizing little tilt upwards of her lips that felt like she was sharing a secret just with him and would have him dreaming about those sparkling teal painted lips pressing against his skin for weeks to come.

And then she was descending, falling with such control that she had to be using magic, catching the bottom half of a swinging hoop that the blonde was now standing on the top half of. In tandem, they both swung their hips causing the hoop to swing in a large circle above the stage. The girl laughed delightedly, a full and confident sound, as the hoop as it circled around also began to spin quickly as she pulled herself up on the hoop only by her arms her legs together, toes pointed down.

The sound of thunder cracking shook the building just before what looked like lightning seemed to hit the hoop. Just at that moment, all the stage lights flickered off and the girl’s laughter were abruptly silenced, causing the audience to gasp again as they were plunged into darkness. Surely no one could survive being hit by lightning like that.

Put only a second passed before the stage lights turned back on with the blonde boy and the teal haired girl standing safely in the center of the stage, both smiling proudly hand in hand as they took their bows to the enthusiastic clapping of the audience.

Harry was glad he was leaning against the balcony railing. CJ would never stop laugh if she knew how weak his legs felt.

“W-who is she? I mean,” Harry coughed, trying to cover up his mistake. “Who are they?”

“Uma and Gil. One of our most daring acts, as you can see,” CJ said proudly as if it had been her act that he had just witnessed. “Those two were amongst the first to join. Ettie,” she paused losing slightly before continuing. “Ettie picked them out herself. Once they joined in, a handful or two others followed immediately after them,” she said snapping her fingers. “Just like that. Like they were waiting to see what would happen with those two.”

Harry nodded, his gaze still watching as Uma and Gil took another bow before turning and making their way backstage. He tapped his finger thoughtfully against the wood of the balcony, mind already filled with brown eyes and matching wicked little smirks.

“I’ll join ye for eighteen percent.”

“Eighteen percent? Of my show?,” CJ scoffed as if insulted. “I’ll give ya seven, and that’s being generous.”

“Fifteen,” Harry fired back turning towards her.

“Eight,” Cj growled.

Harry tutted, wagging his finger as he pulled a flask out of the inner pocket of his jacket, taking a long sip that seemed to make CJ fume more. “Twelve,” he burped.

Red bleeding into her face, CJ stomped her foot with an angry chime. “Maybe nine!”

“Ten!”

“Fine!” CJ shot out her hand. Harry took a moment to grin to himself. He reached out, giving her hand a hard shake.

“No need to frown, Callie. Ninety percent is still a lot for ya,” he patted her on the head.

Crossing her arms, CJ muttered something under her breath.

“What was that?” Harry frowned.

“I said I only have eighty now.”

“What happened to the other ten?”

“That belongs to me.”

Harry turned to see Uma in all her teal and blue and green and gold glory leaning against the entrance of the balcony, her gaze sharp and appraising as she looked him over, taking in everything. From this close, Harry could see that an actual crown made from woven nets and starfish and shells and a few beads was securely tucked into her hair. Dramatic gold eye shadow was slightly smudged and a layer of sweat shined across her skin.

Harry fought the urge to bow down and kiss her feet.

After what felt like a long moment Uma looked away from him, apparently bored with her appraisal of him and either not seeing or ignoring the way Harry deflated.

“So this is your brother? The infamous Paramore of Auradon?” Uma said to CJ. “Didn’t know that those snarky fairies and snobby gentle stiffs liked to share their beds with a guy who looked,” she paused to sniff the air delicately before frowning, “and smelled like he was impersonating a dead skunk.”

“I’m sure I can persuade you differently, darlin’,” Harry dragged his own gaze teasingly up and down her body, lingering on her lips as he bit his own in a way that had Lady Audrey nearly ripping off his pants after the concert he performed at the other night before her husband Lord Chad Charming had pulled her away with a huff, a flirty wink thrown over his shoulder at Harry when his wife wasn’t looking. “That is, if you give me a chance and maybe somewhere a little more...private to make my case.”

Uma growled, and Harry found her anger just as much of a turn on as her smirk. He could only imagine what his body would do if she ever gave him an uninhibited smile.

“How about you give me a chance to drown you?” she snapped back.

CJ rolled her eyes before moving pass them, yelling over her shoulder for them to find a room as she made her way down, to prepare to close the show. This made Uma’s face squish up in a way that Harry found adorable before she stomped away, muttering curses and promises of his death under her breath.

It was at that moment that Harry decided that maybe he would like this circus of CJ’s after all.

#disney descendants #harry hook x uma #cj hook x freddie facilier #the greatest showman au #cj hook #harry hook #freddie facilier #uma descendants #gil descendants #if i ever continue this i made things difficult with adding this magic heirarchy #but I didn't want to be a line by line copy of the film #edream93 fanfic #edream93 fanfiction

[the-desolated-quill]

We Need To Talk About James Gunn - Quill’s Scribbles

This could prove to be the most controversial Scribble I’ve ever written on this blog, and the sad thing is it really shouldn’t be, in my opinion.

First off, a couple of disclaimers because I know some people are going to accuse me of ‘bias’. I’ve never been very fond of James Gunn as a filmmaker, it’s true. I thought the first Guardians Of The Galaxy movie was okay at best and I absolutely hated the sequel, but I confess that’s less to do with any inherent flaws in the films themselves and more to do with the fact that I just don’t like Gunn’s style of humour. Oh don’t get me wrong. There are still legitimate problems, which I’ll go into later when they become relevant, but I’m big enough to admit that my dislike for his brand of comedy and storytelling is merely due to my own subjective tastes (the same is true of Taika Waititi and Thor: Ragnarok).

Okay. So. Let’s talk about James Gunn.

As I’m sure most of you know, in July 2018, an alt-right conspiracy theorist called Mike Cernovich unearthed tweets made by Gunn between 2008 and 2012 where he made offensive jokes and remarks about sensitive topics such as rape, child abuse and paedophilia. While James Gunn did apologise and vowed to ‘do better,’ Disney, fearing the public backlash, fired Gunn as director of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 and dismissed him from any role in producing and expanding Marvel’s planned ‘Cosmic Universe.’ The result was the public backlash Disney were trying to avoid in the first place. They received a lot of criticism from various entertainers and filmmakers, as well as many media outlets such as Collider and The Independent, the cast of Guardians wrote a letter urging Disney to reconsider their decision with Dave Bautista in particular being very vocal in his criticism, and there was a massive outcry from fans who petitioned for Gunn to be rehired. Guy Lodge, writing for The Guardian, asked the question ‘Was James Gunn the first undeserving victim of Hollywood’s new zero tolerance policy?’ Now I’d argue the answer to that question is a definitive no, but apparently, and surprisingly, that’s not a very popular opinion among liberals. So I’d very much like to challenge them as we explore James Gunn’s moral character and ask ourselves why he’s being defended so passionately.

Before we go any further, I think it would be a good idea for me to show you some of the tweets that we’re talking about, just to remind everyone what we’re dealing with here.

Now I hope we can all agree that this is objectively disgusting. Only an amoral, depraved and utterly moronic individual would find offensive tweets like these even remotely funny. But I should make it clear that, by James Gunn’s own admission, these tweets represent who he was rather than who he is. In his apology, he described himself as a ‘provocateur’ during the early days of his career, making shocking statements for the purposes of ‘satire.’ But it’s okay because he’s a better person who has grown and matured fully and will never do this again. Fair enough, you’d think. He admitted what he did was wrong and apologised profusely. That was a very honourable and decent thing to do.

Except we’ve seen this song and dance before.

In 2012, roundabout when Marvel announced they were making a Guardians Of The Galaxy movie with James Gunn directing, an old blog post of Gunn’s resurfaced entitled ‘The 50 Superheroes You Most Want To Have Sex With.’ The original post has since been deleted, but cached versions still exist here and there around the internet if you know where to look. Here are a few quotes from said blog:

[on natasha romanoff, the highest ~debut] “considering she’s fucked half the guys in the marvel universe, that’s quite a feat”

[on batwoman] “i’m hoping for a dc-marvel crossover so that tony stark can turn her; she could also have sex with nightwing and still be a lesbian”

”Many of the people who voted for the Flash were gay men. I have no idea why this is. But I do know if I was going to get fucked in the butt I too would want it to be by someone who would get it over with quick.”

Needless to say, this was quite offensive and causing bad PR, so James Gunn issued an apology:

“A couple of years ago I wrote a blog that was meant to be satirical and funny. In rereading it over the past day I don’t think it’s funny. The attempted humor in the blog does not represent my actual feelings. However, I can see where statements were poorly worded and offensive to many. I’m sorry and regret making them at all.

People who are familiar with me as evidenced by my Facebook page and other mediums know that I’m an outspoken proponent for the rights of the gay and lesbian community, women and anyone who feels disenfranchised, and it kills me that some other outsider like myself, despite his or her gender or sexuality, might feel hurt or attacked by something I said. We’re all in the same camp, and I want to do my best to make this world a better place for all of us. I’m learning all the time. I promise to be more careful with my words in the future. And I will do my best to be funnier as well. Much love to all – James”

Sound familiar?

Now of course it’s unfair to judge the man based on past actions that he himself apologised for. What matters is the present. Whether or not he has demonstrated to a reasonable standard that his work has grown and matured and that his offensive idiocy is a thing of the past. So let’s look at the Guardians Of The Galaxy movies.

While the first movie received critical acclaim, a few people (particularly fans of the source material) complained about how Gamora was treated. The so called ‘most powerful woman in the galaxy’ was reduced to a love interest, an occasional damsel in distress and there were a few odd occasions where she was objectified and degraded based on her sexual history. The most prominent example of which is when Drax describes her as ‘a green whore.’ The context being that he was ignorant of how offensive he was being despite trying to compliment her and call her a friend, and this was played for laughs in the movie. The second movie has more examples. Gamora’s role still paled in comparison to the role she played in the comics, and a new female character called Mantis was introduced whose power level from the comics was also significantly reduced for the movie and whose character was effectively reduced to be a punchline/punching bag. There’s also a scene involving Drax where he frequently describes her as ugly, saying that "when you're ugly and someone loves you, you know they love you for who you are. Beautiful people never know who to trust." Again this is played for laughs. Except I’d argue that an adult man constantly fixating on a woman’s appearance isn’t even remotely funny. 

Another disturbing aspect of the Guardians 2 was the way it seemed to romanticise and excuse abusive relationships. Obviously there’s Drax and Mantis, but the biggest example is Star Lord and Yondu. The first movie did a reasonably good job establishing what drew Star Lord and Gamora together. They were both trying to escape from abusive father figures. The second film does a complete U-turn, calling Yondu Star Lord’s ‘David Hasselhoff’ and giving him a gratuitous and overly sentimental funeral as though he were a noble hero. While I’m sure the death of Yondu would emotionally impact Star Lord to a certain extent (he did raise the kid after all), to say that he’s like ‘David Hasselhoff’ because he’s a better dad than Ego the Living Planet was seems like a very low bar to clear. By that logic, Hitler was a good person because he didn’t kill as many people as Stalin did. It’s tone deaf, lacking in nuance and just a little bit insulting.

Bearing all this in mind, has James Gunn grown and matured since the period between 2008 and 2012? That’s for you to judge. I’d personally argue he hasn’t. Sure he’s no longer as extreme or provocative as he once was, but that’s not necessarily proof that he’s matured. Rather he’s just gotten better at hiding his immaturity. And in my own subjective opinion, based on his work, I think Disney made the right decision in sacking him. Now let me be clear, I don’t think Disney sacked him in order to take a moral stand as a lot of the problematic elements in the Guardians films have carried over into other MCU films. Gamora is still treated like shit in Avengers: Infinity War, and Thanos, who, like Yondu, was clearly established in the first Guardians movie as an abusive father figure, has been woobified and turned into a kind of sympathetic anti villain who actually cared about his daughter and only killed her because he had no other choice (as opposed to, you know, because he is a maniacal despot who’s a few Oompa Loompas short of a chocolate factory). The reason Gunn was fired was because of bad PR. Disney had dealt with this shit before in 2012 and they weren’t prepared to deal with it again, so they dropped the baggage, as it were. It’s a very common occurrence in Hollywood. Which is what makes the public backlash against this decision so puzzling to me.

I can understand being upset that the director of your favourite franchise has been fired, but can we try to get some perspective here? What happened to Gunn is nothing unique. This kind of thing happens all the time. A filmmaker does something controversial or has been revealed to have done something controversial in the past, the studio sacks them in an attempt to save face and everyone gets on with their lives. The situation with James Gunn is no different. The only reason I can see why people are so passionately against this is because of how these tweets were unearthed in the first place. Because the discoverer of the tweets, Mike Cernovich, is a member of the alt-right, the liberal community seem predisposed to dismiss this out of hand, which I think is incredibly dangerous. Okay, yes, Cernovich is a Nazi and almost certainly didn’t do this out of the goodness of his heart, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. It doesn’t change the fact that the tweets still exist and that they’re still incredibly offensive. And all the things I’ve heard people say in defence of James Gunn sound very similar to things the right would say about the likes of Brett Cavanaugh and Donald Trump. ‘It was x number of years ago.’ ‘It’s not relevant to who he is now.’ ‘He’s changed.’ ‘You can’t judge someone based on their past mistakes.’ I mean... come on guys! Either everyone should be held to the same standard or nobody should be held to standards at all. You can’t just change tact just because the person in question has the same political ideals as you. What are we saying? It’s okay for liberals to hold conservatives accountable for past actions and behaviour, but the right can’t do it to the left because apparently it’s not as funny when they do it? It’s classic ‘them and us’ mentality and it’s got to stop.

So, why am I bringing all this up, you may be asking? This happened over six months ago Quill. Aren’t you a little late to the party? Well a couple of days ago, it was announced that Warner Bros and DC Films had hired James Gunn to write and direct a sequel to Suicide Squad.

Well... sequel isn’t quite the right word. Apparently it’s more along the lines of a reimagining. Titled ‘The Suicide Squad’, the film is going to follow a whole new cast of characters and effectively start from scratch. No doubt this is part of WB and DC’s attempts to salvage the DC Extended Universe after the critical and financial disaster that was Justice League, as well as a response to people’s criticisms of the previous Suicide Squad film.

Writer/director David Ayer’s version of Suicide Squad was... let’s be charitable and call it problematic. Many people criticised the film for being misogynistic, borderline racist due to the one dimensional characterisation, and particular outrage was directed toward Ayer’s attempts to romanticise the relationship between the Joker and Harley Quinn. So it’s quite ironic that WB and DC are relying on James Gunn - James Gunn?!?! - to fix Suicide Squad when similar criticisms have been made toward the Guardians Of The Galaxy movies. That’s like hiring Harvey Weinstein to investigate sexual harassment claims.

And do you know what the funny thing is? We’ve been in this exact same situation before. In February 2017, news media started to report that WB and DC were eyeing Mel Gibson, the Oscar nominated director of Hawksaw Ridge and professional arsehole, to direct Suicide Squad 2. I even wrote a Scribble on it then. I heavily criticised WB and DC for caring more about snagging an Oscar nominated director to bolster their failing franchise than about holding certain ethical standards of decency within the industry. Oh, sure, Gibson has said many sexist, homophobic and antisemitic comments for years and has never at any point showed any hint of remorse for the amount of offence he’s caused, but he just made a good movie about Spider-Man fighting in World War II, so it all balances out, doesn’t it? We’re good, right? We’re cool. Gibson’s cool now. Yeah?

And now here we are seeing this play out again. James Gunn, a man who has said some incredibly offensive things over the years, is being hired by WB and DC to helm a new Suicide Squad movie and conveniently ignoring all the problematic shit surrounding him because he’s the guy that made those sci-fi films about the talking raccoon. People love those films. Let’s get him on board.

I’m getting so sick to death of actors and filmmakers getting away with shit and avoiding the consequences of their actions. James Gunn and his offensive tweets, Mel Gibson and his shitty behaviour, Kevin Hart and his temper tantrum when he was expected to apologise for being a homophobic prick. And the few times there are consequences for said actions, people of influence within the industry end up undermining it. WB and DC hiring James Gunn so soon after he was sacked by Disney, and Ellen fucking Degeneres ringing the Academy and persuading them to let Kevin Hart host the Oscars. Thankfully, and to his genuine credit, Hart turned it down, but seriously, what the actual fuck Ellen?! You’re LGBT, aren’t you? Why are you giving him a free pass? Do you have short term memory loss like the fish you voice in Finding fucking Nemo? Jesus Christ!

Finally, to people saying that Disney treated James Gunn too harshly for the tweets, may I remind you that when ‘The 50 Superheroes You Most Want To Have Sex With’ resurfaced in 2012, Disney still kept him on! He still got to write and direct two Marvel movies before finally getting the sack. And he was in talks to lead production in all future ‘Cosmic’ Marvel movies going forward before the resurfaced tweets made that impossible. Too harshly? I think he got off extremely lightly, frankly. I think he’s grotesquely lucky he’s still got a job at all. Let alone a job where he continues to direct tentpole blockbusters. For someone who was treated ‘too harshly’, he’s sure done alright for himself, hasn’t he? He’s not Oliver Twist begging movie studios to give him a film, cap in hand, ‘please sir, may I have some more?’ His position hasn’t changed one iota. That’s what we should be pissed off at. Not that he’s being unfairly punished. That he’s not being punished enough roughly seven years after the fact.

So what should we take away from all this? That we need to hold everyone accountable for their past actions and behaviour, regardless of whether they share our political beliefs or whether they were involved in films we actually like, and that the industry needs to do a better job of upholding the consequences of said actions. And regardless of whether you thought Disney were right to sack James Gunn, it cannot be denied that WB and DC handing the keys of another profitable franchise over to him so soon after this controversy is an incredibly irresponsible thing to do.

#anti james gunn #suicide squad #the suicide squad #guardians of the galaxy #dc extended universe #marvel cinematic universe #disney #quill's scribbles

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

okay, y’all, i’ve gotta back on my tl;dr bullshit soapbox about something:

so, the other day, i was just mindlessly scrolling through my corporate & capitalist hellscape facebook™️ (i.e. LinkedIn) and came across this totally trite mostly bullshit meme that was shared by some corporate executive search man (whose name i decided to crop out bc eh):

so i obviously agree with the last three points on this list, bc god yes my life would’ve been a bit better if I didn’t get all my dialogue about mental health only from teen mags and horrible portrayals in teen tv shows (and also this hellsite). and hell yeah everyone, and I mean EVERYONE needs to learn that failure is okay many situations (like failing a class in uni or school) bc everyone fails at something sometimes. and dealing with failure is HARD. and time management is something that I’m pretty sure everyone lies to fuckin hell about on their resume, bc lots of people really suck at it, myself included. so yeah. that needs to be taught. and i also agree with the “how to manage your health” point. bc thats becoming ever more prevalent and important with career burn out etc.

but entrepreneurship? people management? conflict resolution? creativity? how to manage money? public speaking? like y’all. three of those ARE taught/learned in school, who the fuck wrote this meme? 

for anyone who actually paid attention in maths class, (which is probably very few people outside of the top performing classes), there WAS A WHOLE FUCKING UNIT that focuses on financial maths (in australia anyway). I ignored this unit as well as maths in general at school, bc I generally hated maths and was convinced that I was somehow never going to get a job. but i remember the gist of the overall topic and its subtopics. one subtopic teaches you how to calculate your wages in various contexts (overtime, double-time and a half, holiday payments, im pretty sure maternity leave pay was jammed in somewhere? idk if other countries would have double time & a 1/2 like australia though). another subtopic teaches you how to calculate interest on bank loans and credit rates on credit cards. a third subtopic teaches you how to calculate savings (obvs in terms of discounts in shops)....im sure there was a bit about budgeting in there somewhere? im pretty sure there were some questions were about tax payments somewhere as a subtopic enrichment exercise? but you get my gist. are these not money management skills? in some sense? like if i could find one of my old maths textbooks or old maths books i’d give an example of a question, to make my point stronger. but the problem, like i said before, is that a load of people (myself included) just zone out in maths in high school and stop trying with it. they forget what they’ve learnt, and just remember how much they hated algebra and how they’ll never use it again. maths was one hell of a fucking strong bitch, guys. but maybe i’m wrong.

creativity? excuse me? have people forgotten about art classes? drama classes? english classes? music classes? need i go on? okay don’t get me wrong, most of these classes did focus a lot on memorising quotes or facts about people (artists/writers/poets/composers/dramatists etc) or specific  periods/movements in art or theatre or literature for example.... but the amazing sculptures/paintings etc people created in art for their final projects in year 12, or even in year 10 were works of their imagination. the scripts people write in drama or maybe english (if you had a fun teacher who did a screenwriting unit, for example) are creative asf. especially in year 12 when they do their major projects, where they may produce a monologue or a short movie, and then there’s a group piece. drama students might even make their own costumes for these performances. LIKE AIN’T THAT A LOT OF CREATIVITY RIGHT THERE Y’ALL????? and english. lowly old english. THEY HAVE A WHOLE FUCKING TOPIC ON CREATIVE WRITING FOR FUCKS SAKE. the original music people might create for their final projects too in year 12? does that not count as creativity? like yes, i know a lot of these things do still have to meet bs assessment criteria (especially in catholic schools, where the main things are you don’t offend the catholic education office and jesus/god lmao) to be considered worthy of a mark for your year 12 exams. but FUCK. HOW THE FUCK AREN’T ANY OF THESE SUBJECTS COUNTED TOWARDS BEING CREATIVE???????? like fuck your corporate creative ideation or w/e bullshit, Callum. drama and english even lend themselves to improvisation in some instances, like public speaking, which is examined further, below.

next, we move on to public speaking. this shit is basically taught from the first goddamn day of “show & tell” in kindy/kindergarten, and this fucker has the gall to say that it’s not fucking taught in schools? someone call in miley cyrus/hannah montana to throw the fuck down in this motherfucking hoedown BC THIS STUPID-ASS MEME-FUCKER HAS NERVE. i hated public speaking. absolutely hated it. even though it was ironically one of the places i ended up excelling in in english classes. even when i fucked up in my english speeches with like “oh, fuck.... said nelson mandela,  i’ve seem to’ve lost my palm card. wait, shit! there it is... excuse me while i pull it out of my ass. whoops, sorry miss” *bats eyes and finger guns at my year 9 english teacher who has her head in her hands and is done with my shit, while the class laughs at my gaffe* i’d still end up with like 73% or like 26/30. it was baffling. but for people who weren’t the class clown/smart alec like i was from years 7-10 (and like i actually wasn’t once i moved schools).... public speaking is like the leading cause of anxiety, right? like by the time i got to doing speeches/presentations at uni i was having panic attacks... the thought of presenting to my classes made me fucking sick with fear and anxiety. nearly every subject i did at uni (even when i tried to avoid subs with public speaking assessments) and throughout school had some type of presentation/speech whatever you want to call it project/activity in it. even fucking SPORT/PDHPE at school and even philosophy at uni. and these fuckers are saying its not taught in schools. FUCK  OFF. like yeah, i get that they actually mean it in the professional sense.... where people can give the sappy bs motivational speeches or an insightful ted-talk worthy 20-minute presentation... or a great sales pitch. but like??? save that for mike “my dad phoned in to EY and i have a job waiting for me after uni” mcfuck in a business major or law degree? or for clubs like toastmasters? fuck. ok enough of the skills we learn in school. let’s move onto the businesslike-sounding ones of “people management”, “conflict management” and fucking “entrepreneurship”. like. what the fuck? okay in some sense people management and conflict management could potentially be used in managing friendships and relationships in your personal life. but like. i can feel the business underpinnings and i dont like it lmao. like why do you want fully functioning adults straight out of school, franklin? and there’s extra credit conflict management subjects at uni??? or at least my home uni had it... and i never did them bc they were intensive courses during summer break lol. but the one that pissed me off the most was entrepreneurship. LIKE ARE KIDS NOT FUCKING ALLOWED TO BE KIDS NOW????? well  apparently: “NO! YOU MUST ALWAYS THINK OF MONEY MAKING WAYS TO BE RICH! YOU MUST BE ENTREPRENEURIAL!!!!!! YOU MUST GENERATE BUSINESS IDEAS FROM THE TIME YOU CAN FUCKIN’ WALK!!!!! AND SPEAK!!! CHILDHOOD AND BEING A TEENAGER DON’T EXIST WORKER BEE!!!! CAPITALISM FOR ALL!!!! WORKER BEES!!! CAPITALISM IS YOUR FRIEND!!! OWN A BUSINESS BY THE TIME YOU’RE 8 YEARS OLD!” like it’s insidious asf. and it doesn’t acknowledge that most entrepreneurs are already privileged people anyway, who usually have some type of money to start off their venture (or that’s what it feels like anyway). and yeah throw all the “THIS BOY IS AN ENTREPRENEUR AT 18!!! 18!!!???? BY STARTING HIS OWN BUSINESS AT 12!!!! WHAT A CHAMP! 😁🙃” clickbait news stories at me, but i don’t fucking care. the concept and perceived over-importance and almost preaching mindset of entrepreneurship is slowly becoming insidious and toxic asf. call me paranoid. but that’s what it feels like.

but with those last three topics, i want to make a point that school curriculum’s (in australia at least, and probably worldwide) are so jam-packed already with sport (which is pointless and shitty), geography (ok how to read maps is important, but i never bothered to learned to do it properly), history, science, english etc etc etc..... that like.... where the actual fuck are the gonna jam the above bs (people management”, “conflict management” and entrepreneurship) into the curriculum???? and also teachers are already over-worked enough as it is, they don’t need another load of shitty subjects pushed onto them. and they sure asf don’t earn enough (especially in the states) to have this bs pushed into their subject schedules either. keep them at uni, where they should be. or just in the workplace/in the general public where they belong. and if people suggest that you could probably push these subjects into the year 11/12 business studies programs or elective commerce courses in years 9/10, save your goddamn breath. like i remember looking at business studies hsc papers in years 11/12 to see what they did.... and it was pretty chock-a-block anyway. and my experience of my year 9 commerce was horrible, to say the least. let kids be kids, for fucks sake. they shouldn’t have to be fully functioning adults in the workplace, by the end of high school, for fucks sake. AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS NOT AN ESSENTIAL SKILL????!!!! FUCK OFF WITH THAT SHIT, WILHELM. anyway. that’s my rant over about how i hate how corporate people are trying to be #relatablewiththeyouth🙃 with their shitty versions of “10 things i wish we learned in school” memes.... and failing.... without realising that this is why millennials are suspicious and cynical about meme usage by corporate people/corporations.

#life #about me #shut up ilona #ranty mcrantrant #ilona rants about shit #warning: a too long didnt read/tl;dr post #for lazy tumblr peeps who never read long posts is ahead #BEWARE!!!’ #and strap in for the ride #but yeah tl:dr ahead #learn to read long form posts you fucks #it was in my replies #so read my tags y’all

[ryouverua]

Trial 6 -  ”hello, world!” (6)

Time to pick up the fallen torch.

Trial: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

K.... K1-b0? This - this must be you, right?

I’ve been waiting for this moment since the beginning of the chapter 3 trial! Finally, the explanation I’ve been craving! If - if the inner voice is coming into play now - it might actually be a benevolent force, right? Maybe? At this point we just need something to keep us moving forward...

Yes!!!

..... Oops.

“And please choose the right answer this time.”

Okay okay, jeez -

K1... K1-b0? W-Why not - ?

...... remedy the situation. Not save... but fix...???

Voices??? It’s plural now? Does that include me, the player?

K1-b0! Your moment has finally come, with no more lasers or explosions required! hopefully

WAIT

WE’RE OFFICIALLY IN HIS POV NOW???

This is incredibly late game for a protagonist switch b-but okay! also oh god what does that say about Sweetcheeks’s condition -

I’m glad we haven’t completely lost Shuichi. ): He really does look like he’s not with us, though. How can we help him? I joke about how much I love this sprite, but it’s awful seeing him like this.

But apparently Shuichi’s been relegated to the sidelines entirely now, because K1-b0 is entirely focused on Jun - Tsumugi. Oh boy, I almost started thinking of her as Junko. I will not let her hide behind her characters, damn it!

Yes! Yes, exactly! She can’t have it both ways!

YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE ANNOYED YOU APPARENTLY WROTE HIM TO BE THIS WAY!!!

Ooh? Yeah, the text is changing at the bottom...

U U H   I’M SORRY YOU CAN’T JUST DROP A BOMB LIKE THAT SO ABRUPTLY -

TSUMUGI LET HIM HAVE HIS COOL MOMENT

HE LITERALLY JUST GOT HIS MOMENT IN THE SUN DON’T JUST UNDERCUT HIM OUT OF NOWHERE 

no seriously she didn’t even give him a chance to build up momentum

The way she’s able to just dismiss him so casually like that, just completely trivializing him, is absolutely brutal. also what plotline lol -

I-I mean I’m joking, he has had a ‘coming to terms with his status as a robot amongst humans and accepting himself’ plotline! Sorta! It’s just been pretty.... well, behind the scenes. I just wished we got to see more of you and Miu together at the very least.

Wait -

He’s been the actual audience’s surrogate? That.... that means his ahoge....... really is the connection to the outside... but also, the only thing holding him back from going kamikaze??? It’s basically an outside force that’s been suppressing his free will?

Oh shit... is that why the game switched us to this POV, for that reveal? Well-damn-played, DRV3!

.....

wow this is getting worse and worse, huh

ALSO OH NO WAY TO SMASH HIS FRAGILE SELF-ESTEEM INTO PIECES

“You know all those hi~lar~ious asides everyone had at your expense about you being no more important than your average kitchen appliance? Guess what - ! They were r i g h t!”

Somehow I wonder if it would have been better if it was the mastermind’s will. At least it would assign him some sense of importance, even if that stinging feeling of betraying his friends would be there. At least he wouldn’t literally just be the subject of some nameless audiences’ whims - as it is, he’s basically been relegated to the status of ‘plaything’.

From Chapter 3 onward, when I was thinking about it, I wasn’t sure originally if I should consider it a force for good or evil - it seemed to be generally benevolent and since he didn’t take any actions against anyone, it was generally okay for me to discard it as an extension of ‘a mastermind whose goal was for everyone to be at odds with each other/kill each other’. He was always one of the most willing to cooperate with the others, too! I even considered if any of his actions had indirectly caused tension or murder, and I couldn’t find any instances where he did. But if he’s been at the beck and call of a third party, who’s been directing him for the sake of entertainment? Well, that’s a completely different story. In that context... everything makes... a lot more sense...

.... Except for his Chapter 5 actions??? He nearly got Shuichi to take him out twice??

Wait, actually - oh, this does change how I might look at him from this point on. How often would he consult the voice? Do the decisions override his own every time? Does that mean he can only make a move at the behest of the audience????

THE WAY HE PUT IT IS EVEN MORE DEMEANING

fhgh I guess that answers one of my questions

THE GIMMICK....

every production buzzword thrown in makes my stomach drop more

S-Shit the last time he had his ‘short-circuiting’ sprite was when Kokichi did his mastermind reveal in tandem with the ‘outside world’ reveal - D:

A.... Are you trying to make them feel bad for you, because I don’t think it’s working -

omg I just realized there would totally be twitter threads and reddit posts and stuff dedicated to this, and I’m trying to imagine the rage!posts that would swarm them as users ran to the internet to bitch about how ‘the robot totally isn’t responding to us anymore!’ and ‘I bet they’re rigging it so the ending goes the way they want! What a cop out ending!’ and hell, one of those more topical ‘let 👏 us 👏 control 👏 the 👏 robot 👏 you 👏 cowards 👏’

K1-B0 WAS THE CAMERA?!?!

..................................

glances at my computer monitor, then back here

ahahaha I am officially part of the outside world!mastermind tomfoolery oh god I’m so sorry everyone

Wait.... wait. Wait! So the Nanokumas’ footage is for the mastermind’s exclusive use? Really?

I... I was under the impression that if this audience was watching everyone, they’d have access to everything....

Then how different would this all look from only K1-b0′s eyes?! Did he know about Kaito’s training, for example? About Kaede and Shuichi’s practical inseparability in the first chapter? Wow, how different would this entire thing look from K1-b0′s exclusive POV?

I’m sorry what?

okay okay she’s going off on a despair rant which is - y’know, great, you do you and whatever - but I think it just turned my brain off a little bit. Like I just got catapulted back to DR1.

A-Are we really turning back to the whole ‘Junko persona’ idea? That she took on that role specifically, and by taking on the role as ‘Junko Enoshima’ she feels obligated to follow it through to the end? B-But...... but??? For a show??? That’s... no, that can’t be right, that’s weird, that’s stupid, that can’t be right....

You gotta admire her dedication to the craft I-I MEAN NO

WHAT THE HELL TSUMUGI

THAT IS NOT A GOOD ENOUGH MOTIVE

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT KIND OF REASON

SHUT THE FUCK UP KOMAEDA AND DON’T LOOK SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS oh that actually felt pretty good

i say this as someone whose previous favourite was komaeda it was very love/hate don’t @ me

Oh hey, the opening music is on! Is this the big turnabout we’ve been waiting for? It’s.... so.... weird that it’s coming from K1b0 now? Also wasn’t this sort of the plot of the DR3 anime via the Ultimate Animator or -

I??? I guess??? Weren’t they all just screaming DESPAIR at Shuichi a minute ago??? Isn’t it their comments on the screen???

Inspirational and all but -

I’m GoINg to cHOkE anD DiE

ULTIMATE HOPE ROBOT

FJKGHSDKLFJ

WHAT ARE YOU KIDDING ME

oh shit well there’s text saying Hope now so I guess something has changed out there

I believe it’s called déjà vu.

No seriously, am I hallucinating? Is this not what led to the whole final vote in DR1 or am I going crazy? Is this... what is.... happening........???? And Shuichi has just completely BSoDed in the corner??? Like, is he disassociating right now? Where is he?

It’s interesting that she looks happy here compared to angry Junko. She looked excited earlier when K1-b0 challenged her too (her new jazz-hands!sprite, lol) too, and her voice is on the brink of. Uh. I’m just going to say it’s getting very.... passionate. Is she just that confident or...?

Oh hey their sprites mirror each other. Parallels. :D

I like how Tsumugi is having Makoto say this part ~

But this brings up a good question... how exactly is this so-called final battle going to work? If they can’t fight for the right to leave, then what can they do?

alksdfj Himiko and Maki have also been so quiet this so time - I almost forgot they were there. K1-b0 and Tsumugi are basically the only ones doing the talking and between all the cosplays it feels like there are way more people here than there actually are - which is the point, I think? It really adds to that oppressive, ‘everyone is against you four’ atmosphere.

“- DETAILS DETAILS anyway it’s happening I don’t really care, now about that special vote ~”

This -

This is literally DR1?!?!

This.... this is strange. There has to be incentive to vote one way or the other. Is she going to tie ‘vote for K1-b0’ and ‘you’ll be forced into a world where you can’t/shouldn’t exist’ together vs ‘Vote for Tsumugi′ and ‘stay inside forever’? That’s.... what happened in the others, right?

Shuichi, mentally clocked out but occasionally checking back in so he doesn’t miss anything important: Wow this is absolute bullshit

Yeah... there’s no way they weren’t going to find a way to tempt you to vote for K1-b0. Okay, lay it on us.

YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE THEM KEEP GOING?!?!

“Ugh why did I let myself get lured back into the conversation by my bitchin’ ‘Lazy Parallel World’ theme song I’m going to mentally check out again because everything hurts and I want to die -”

There.... there aren’t....??

THAT’S NOT ENCOURAGING omg I missed that catchphrase it always made me laugh

I??? I don’t know if I can trust that??? If you can literally make flashback lights to override their old memories - if you can force it on them, whether they’re willing or not - if you can delete the last 24 hours, you could make them do something again??? T-Though if Tsumugi is gone... but then again, there’s a whole team of people behind this apparently! Her being gone means nothing!

“So you cannot leave this place.” Is it? Is it literally, physically impossible to leave this place? That’s the real question. the impossible is possible all you gotta do is make it so... s o b

HOW EVIL CAN YOU GET

HOW COULD YOU NOT EVEN GIVE THEM A POSSIBILITY OF RETURNING TO THEIR ORIGINAL SELVES

WHY WOULD ANYONE MAKE SOMETHING LIKE THAT WHY WOULD THAT BE OKAY FOR A PUBLICLY TELEVISED TV SHOW

For that matter this whole damn series sounds like a snuff film, if actually people are involved. Dear lord, even if they are actually adults - and I desperately hope that if this is true, that the outside world is actually like this, and watches this for fun, then they have a ‘18+’ rule for auditions (actually considering the love hotel exists they must be at least 18 ggh) - even the survivors.... have been killed, in a sense. Their previous selves have been killed. They were dead the moment they entered the world...

So either 16 people consented to ‘dying’ in an existential sense as well as possibly a physical sense, or 16 people were kidnapped and ‘killed’ for the entertainment of the world. I.... I actually... do at least believe, no matter what, that there is a depraved audience viewing this from somewhere. There’s no way there isn’t - this feedback via comments, the scene with that kid Makoto watching this at the beginning of this chapter - those are true. And they were more than okay with the idea of these people dying for their entertainment, even the so-called winners.

You can only create new identities, not recover them... I, I dunno. Somehow that’s so much more soul-crushing than a lot of the other things that have come up this trial.

t-the way his voice is breaking skdlfjgh -

W HA T!?

WHAT THE FU -

WHY?! WHY?! WHY MUST IT ONLY BE TWO, EVERY TIME?! WHY HAVE YOU BEEN SO DETERMINED TO ONLY HAVE TWO PEOPLE SURVIVE TO THE END?!

H.... How the hell.... are they supposed to do that?! Is that how you’re doing it?! Putting the burden of the decision on them, in order to break them?!

H-HE LITERALLY SOUNDS LIKE HE’S GOING TO BREAK DOWN SOBBING ANY SECOND I CAN’T TAKE MUCH MORE OF THIS

She is really trying to push that point, huh... but there it is. They can escape to the ‘outside world’. That is a cold comfort at this point, but...

They...... I don’t. I don’t know. I wouldn’t be able to do this - look my classmates in the eyes and condemn them. I guess this somehow managed to be worse than DR1.

K1-B0 NO

fml of course the only potential option would be students choosing self-sacrifice

I... I’m glad Shuichi is showing concern. I’ve noticed it a few times, how finally in the last chapter or so that he’s been observant of K1-b0′s well-being where the others haven’t been.

But I’m getting distracted - that’s not the point! FML I know he’s been shown those extremist tendencies towards the vague ideal of hope and destroying the despair, I - between this and the ‘destroying the school’ rampage he went on - what is he aiming for? You’re saying that you’re trying to defeat despair, but what is that? Is hope just the opposite of despair? Is despair just whatever Tsumugi says it is, so we’re immediately opposed to it, as the representatives of hope? Are you fighting for them to escape? Why is everyone surviving together ‘living despairful lives’ if Tsumugi is gone and they aren’t trying to kill each other anymore? What makes it that way? Why is this considered ‘defeating despair’? What does that even mean?

I... I guess K1-b0 would be punished anyway if they voted for him, but.... still....

Ugh, I get it. I get that kibou is hope, and that K1-b0 is therefore hope, and that we’re fighting for him to win or... something.... uhghghgh

DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE SHUICHI

This was such an uncomfortable parade of ~ideal waifus~ sdlkfjsdf especially when we were getting into the ‘super tiny/cute’ territory because I have absolutely no interest in that whatsoever also I accidentally deleted Mahiru’s cameo sorry -

.... I wonder if this would’ve been more effective if I was the target audience for this? Either way, ending on Junko was still an offsetting choice, right? Right??

..........

Wait for that matter, who was this aimed for? Who out of Maki, Himiko or Shuichi would have fallen for that? Even if you believe that Maki or Himiko have an interest in women, nothing about the types they showed or may have shown interest in the game (Maki @  Kaito, Himiko @ Angie, Tenko and hell, even Kokichi) would lend them to the girls Tsumugi just cosplayed as? And even Shuichi’s strongest interest were in Kaede and Kaito - so who is Tsumugi trying to appeal to here?!

Oh shit we’re going into a mass panic debate! Okay, okay okay - !

.... Oh. Oh boy, I have to shoot down every mention of despair. Uh, okay -

OMFG I missed the screenshot but Monokuma started shilling their merch and their website I cannot even deal with how they’ll occasionally devolve into corporate shilling it’s so good -

But!!! We’ve got better things to do than get caught up in Monokuma’s commercializing of the class trial!

MAKI

NO MAKI WHY

ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE UP FOR LAST CHAPTER IS THAT WHAT’S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW

omg

are you telling me

you’re not even doing this out of guilt

it

it’s spite

you’re doing this out of spite

you’re sacrificing yourself purely ou t of spite

MAKI HOW MANY TIMES ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE MAKI, AGAIN??? AGAIN?!?!?!”

“LET ME KILL SOMEONE SAIHARA IT’S MY DAMN TALENT FFS -”

DOES THIS SCREENSHOT SAY ‘SHUICHI LOOKS YUMMY <3′ YOU’RE RUINING THE MOMENT

okay I’m not going to feel right until I write down the new set of comments

Makiiii

my darling assassin T_T

Hope lives on!

Shuichi looks yummy <3

Well said!

Another hope loop?

Hope is contagious!

Two steps forward...

Don’t lose to despair!

Don’t tempt Maki’s fate...

That’s my Maki.

Hope must go on!

Maki, darling...

;_; I’m gonna cry...

Hope vs despair!

one vote for Keebo!

tfw you’re in despair

ALL OF THESE TEARS

Assassiiiiiiiin

I am living for these comments and I would have killed to see the comments for the Chapter 5 trial - hell, the Chapter 4 trial. that’s what let’s plays and YT comments are for I suppose -

tbh I think if that one that keeps lusting after Shuichi comes to help we’re going to need a restraining order

o

o-oh?!

AAAAAAH

NO DON’T

MAKE ME FIGHT HIM

MY ACTUAL SOUL BRO

is............... Is that -

Clair de Lune playing......?!

#Ryou plays drv3 #Kiibo #Shuichi Saihara #Keebo #Tsumugi Shirogane #Himiko Yumeno #Maki Harukawa #spoilers #drv3 spoilers #K1-b0

[bidrums]

Something about episode 4 that bothered me that I really need to get off my chest

So @strangesurvivals​  has really good posts about this that honestly made me realize that was exactly what bothered me and they are very put-together posts, so if you want something that’s not as rambling as mine, go check it out. Check it out regardless of what I put on here, because it’s a great blog and they deserve love and attention.

Here’s what rubbed me the wrong way: the stupid Warlock school subplot and the concept of the Alpha.

In a post I made with my general thoughts on the episode, I mentioned that I thought it was interesting about the concept of Supreme vs Alpha but followed it with saying I wasn’t about to start discourse.

Well, I retract that statement and am going to start discourse.

I’ll probably be crucified for saying that Coven wasn’t my favorite season, but it wasn’t. I love the concept and absolutely adore the characters and agree that the season kicked some serious ass, but I couldn’t really jam with the plot. I don’t know why, since I’ve watched and read very similar things, but I just couldn’t really get into it. Sorry. Even though it wasn’t my favorite season, I definitely screamed when they appeared and loved all the scenes they were in. Because they're characters that I love and actresses that I love, and I knew that would up the stakes more than they were already upped.

And then the plot happened.

I make fun of the fact that it started out like Harry Potter with Michael being recruited, but then Ryan took the Chosen One concept a bit too far and decided to call it the Alpha. And I just, no. Just no. No, don’t do that. Don’t do that to Michael. He’s already the Antichrist. That’s more than enough of a role to fill, and he doesn't need some Harry Potter/Star Wars magic Chosen One that’s destined to defeat the Ultimate Evil (TM) on top of being the Antichrist. It’s unnecessary and it took away from that subplot for me. It felt lazy, it felt forced, it felt contradictory, it just lessened the impact of the Antichrist plot and Michael’s harnessing of his powers. At least, the way Ryan did it. I’ll get back to that.

So Michael Potter Skywalker is taken to a magic school to develop his Amazing Magic Powers because something happens that tells The Powers That Be that he’s Super Powerful- more than any of them. Only one of those Authorities is suspicious and hesitant to take this person is because he can smell Big Trouble because This Kid Ain’t Right. But everyone laughs off Cheyanne Yoda Jackson because holy fuck he pulled some Exorcist shit then curled up in a ball crying on the floor he must be The One With The Ultimate Power (TM) we must take this emotionally unstable child in and harness his magic because absolutely nothing will go wrong with taking him in and teaching him to control his crazy strong magic that manifests himself in murder. Cheyanne Yoda Jackson is just being paranoid, he only impaled a guy with multiple knives and blew a guys head up. He may have Much Anger In Him and acts in a way that looks like he’s Demon Possessed, but have you seen his Midichlorian count? We have to bring him in because he might be able to destroy the Sith and bring Balance to the Force and finally dismantle the ever-present fear of Voldemort’s Reign of Terror! Stop being a spoilsport and train him like the rest of us, it’ll be fine! Oh, and we won’t help him adjust to his power gradually in order to make up for the years of training he lost in order to give him the same foundation everyone else has and the skills and trust of the System to not be reigned by his unstable emotions and Much Anger In Him. Nah, throw him in the deep end headfirst, he’ll be fine. In fact, we’ll raise our expectations and push him harder than everyone else and tell him his Destiny from the beginning so he has all this pressure on him. There’s no way he’ll lash out and have a sense of entitlement.

Now, who are The-Sith-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named that oppress the poor, defenseless Warlocks? The rest of humanity? That was in Coven, and it would be interesting to have a Magneto-type background that ties into his disgust at humanity and proves his “evil motherfuckers” point. Is it the Humans? It’s not? Who is it?

The Witches, of course! Those Nasty, Horrible Women who use their Superior Woman Magic to press the poor defenseless Warlocks who just want to Be Equals and not be molotov cocktailed after those Stupid Women didn’t have the foresight to the potential consequences of trying to foster good relations with the Muggle World and being open about their Mutant status because they’re Mutants, and they’re Proud! We need an Alpha Male to save us from the Uterus! A Level Four! The Manliest Man in all of Manhood who will put those women in their place and take them down from their High and Mighty Egos. In Coven they had thinly-veiled metaphors for racism by having European vs Voodoo magic fights that tried to make us see that the Poor White Girls are just Misunderstood and Blissfully Ignorant that the Voodoo Community is just as Powerful and Valid as the rest of them! And they still have that in Apocalypse, but now they also have Gender Inequality in it, too! But like, not showing the tired, traditional Oppressed Women narrative that a lot of feminists tell. No, it’s the Refreshing alternate view that maybe, there are areas of life where Men are not on top? And that’s bad for them? It’s daring and bold and no one has ever proposed this idea ever! I’m so creative and revolutionary!!!

The Supreme title was interesting to me because there’s always the Head Witch or something like that. But Ryan gave her the title of Supreme, because the one to master all fundamental areas of magic has Supreme Magic that is more powerful. Which makes sense and is pretty refreshing to me, because it felt like an acknowledgement while over-glorifying the title. Because Supreme also sounds like a threat and a title everyone would fight over, so whoever has that title has to constantly watch her back because other people will try to take that for themselves. The title was forged in blood, and it’s a constant reminder of that. And the show does a great job showing how hard and how dangerous that title is. It shows work, it shows strength, it shows earning the title.

That is the complete opposite of the Alpha role. Level Four. Honestly I hate the fact that they rank the students with 4 levels because it’s honestly unhealthy competition in my opinion. But we’re focusing on the Alpha. It’s a stupid concept, it’s a stupid plot device, it’s a stupid mentality, it’s a stupid rank, it’s a stupid title. “But you’re a Christian, isn’t that hypocritical of you because you’re okay with calling God the Alpha?” Actually, that’s not His full title. The full title is the Alpha and the Omega- which is FUCKING GREEK FOR THE BEGINNING AND THE END AND IS A PRETTY ACCURATE TITLE FOR THE FUCKING CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE AND DON’T BRING MY RELIGION INTO THIS I AM NOT GOING TO SAY THAT AGAIN

Anyways, the Alpha thing and why it’s hella problematic. Its real-life counterpart is a hideous mentality that really messed-up men have that leads to entitlement issues that lead to violence- usually against women whose bodies they feel they are owed and believe that their superior “Alpha Male” status demands. Just, it doesn’t matter if that’s what he was imagining- which I doubt given the context- or not, the fictional Alpha Male trope and the real-word damage the Alpha Male mentality causes make this fictional title undesirable and uncomfortable. It also doesn’t imply the hard work that the Supreme title does. Like I referenced in my sarcastic rant, it’s why people hated the Midichlorian thing in Star Wars. I actually asked my dad if they were mad because it wasn’t referenced in the original trilogy. He said, and I paraphrase, “Partly. It’s the implications of them not mentioning it in the original trilogy that we have a problem with. When it first came out, the Force was something that everyone had and that some people were more in tune with than others. But it was in everyone, so everyone with the right training could become a Jedi. You might not be as powerful as the other Jedi, but you can be a Jedi or at the very worst, someone with cool Force abilities that can use the Force. Just not at the level of the Jedi. That was awesome because me and everyone else was saying, “I could be a Jedi! I could learn how to master the Force! Then Episode 1 came out and it said, nah, you can’t. It’s twitch muscles. You have it, or you don’t. Your DNA determines wether or not you can actually use the Force. Everyone has the Force, but you can’t be trained to tap into that power. It was like a slap in the face to the people who spent decades with the fantasy of training to be a Jedi. Since you haven’t had the time gap between movies, it’s less of an issue. But to us, it hurts a lot.” And that’s exactly what the Alpha does. It’s not that Michael is powerful and gradually shows the potential to be the Alpha then proves himself to be able to survive the grueling process to earn that status. It’s just that they see that he’s powerful (which I have no idea how impressive that footage is since we don’t have a great example of how weak everyone else’s magic is in comparison, imo) and assume that because he’s super powerful he’s The One. It just wasn’t as compelling to me as finding out about the Supreme. And yes, the witches do inherently have more magic and yes, the Supreme inherently has more magic, but it’s still like the Jedi. Not everyone is Force-Sensitive, so not everyone can be a Jedi; by extension, not all the Jedi can have the highest rank and there are many nuances and strengths of the people’s Force abilities. That’s something that I thought was interesting in Coven and was a bit disappointed that they didn’t play around with it more, but that’s not what this is about. I’m just showing how the Warlocks could have a similar Nuance even with their ranking system and could’ve had more of a parallel with the Witches.

But they didn’t.

Instead Ryan decided to have some weird social commentary about how women could be as bad as men and whenever they have some area where they’re better than men, they abuse that area and twist the narrative to make themselves the victims; in these areas, the men are now the ones who have to fight tooth and claw to get equal treatment. This is the standard “Women can be just as bad as men given the opportunity!” narrative that hurts legitimate activism to get men the same treatment in areas such as domestic abuse, where the statistics of male victims and the numbers of how they receive justice for it are much different than for women. There was a social study where two actors pretended to be a couple having an argument in public that gets violent, with one partner starting to get more and more physical and the other partner getting more and more in danger of being seriously hurt. When the woman was the victim, people rushed to her aid and got in between them and called him out on his behavior. When the man was the victim, a significantly less number of people did that, and most people laughed it off as the male being “whipped”- or, not filling the male role in the relationship. The power balance is suddenly funny when the woman has more power over the women. Now, I’m not going to go into that discourse, and you have my word on that. Domestic abuse is a horrific epidemic that both men and women face, and statistically women are the victims much more than men. But that doesn’t mean that when men are abused, it’s not that bad as when women are. And so when activist groups push for more awareness of this epidemic and trying to change the narrative of what domestic abuse looks like, we should listen and treat it seriously. But when narratives like the Witch oppression of the Warlocks being used to bring attention to “reverse sexism”- which is bullshit, btw- it lessons actual legit activism and make both activism for male issues and activism for female issues seem less important. Less serious. They become more of a joke and people overreacting than things of actual importance. And it’s just bad writing. There are way better ways to have a Warlock vs Witch narrative that Michael is involved in. Way better ways. Way better ways than “oppressed men might have someone who can overthrow the oppressive women because he’s more powerful and men might be able to reclaim their position of power”.

Honestly, I was mostly annoyed by this is that not only was Ryan- consciously or no- even doing it, but he was doing it where the men were just being whiny and had no real argument. They gloated at Cordelia and tried to provoke her by dangling Michael as “The One (TM) who would overthrow the Witches’ power over them” in front of her to try to get her angry. They act like her refusing to put him through the Seven Wonders is proof that she’s scared of being overthrown. Because cowards act like that. And that when she uses Misty and Queenie as examples of how she isn’t all powerful like they believe and to give examples of how dangerous the world of magic is and how just recklessly going forward can land them in trouble, they just scoff like she’s not really worthy of being the All Powerful and can you believe this chick? She walks around like she owns the place but she can’t even save one of her own kind from being perpetually held in Limbo for eternity with possibly thousands of other souls being held captive and suffering unimaginable things. Some Supreme. She can’t possibly think that’s a good reason to not do the test of the Seven Wonders.

Just- it’s really bad. It’s not a good way to even make this lazy writing a passable attempt. Cordelia telling them about how she tried to save Queenie once she found out she was dead in order- this is what I interpreted from that sequence- to help her pass on or come back to life was a great way to show her character. She’s empathetic, she’s protective, she actually cares about the people she’s supposed to be the authority over. And her regret over not being able to save Queenie hurts because she was supposed to watch over her and be able to protect her from something like that, but she couldn’t. And she is heartbroken because people she loves and cares about are casualties of a dangerous world and she’s helpless to stop those casualties. And when she refuses to let Michael do the Seven Wonders, it’s because she doesn’t want an innocent party that is being put on a pedestal to get killed. She fucking says that she doesn’t want to risk him dying and the fuckwads act like that’s a pathetic excuse!!!!! That was so infuriating for me because it was treated like Cordelia was being unreasonable by the characters and Ryan. I mean, in Coven the Seven Wonders was constantly hammered in as dangerous at every level, and as the stakes are raised, the more it’s hammered in, and the more people get hurt. There are actual consequences, and Cordelia witnessed it from the beginning to the end. So she knows that there’s an 87% chance that Michael will die, and she doesn’t want someone else to die in the process that killed her friends. And she gets more and more angry about people talking over her and ignoring all of her very solid arguments against this until she has no choice other than to give into their provocations and get angry, having to firmly shutting it down and ending it before someone gets hurt and when she gets questioned again, she snaps one of the greatest lines in the season and the show: “BECAUSE I’M THE FUCKING SUPREME!” And the men just look at each other like, “I fucking knew this bitch was too scared of being usurped to agree to our very reasonable proposal to take a vulnerable youngster who’s only just started to control his powerful and unstable magic and force him to go through a dangerous test he has a high chance of dying from just to soothe our wounded egos that we’re grooming several impressionable young men to emulate, women are so unreasonable” and I wanted to punch everyone in the face. 

So the thing I mentioned waaaaay earlier in this super-long post: the way Ryan was doing this lessened Michael’s character was done really badly.  Here’s an idea on how to go through a less-sexist conflict between the two covens that actually makes him more powerful:

Michael is powerful- more powerful than they’ve seen. Cheyanne Yoda Jackson still gets to be suspicious, and they are inclined to agree. After some debate, everyone except Warlock Yoda agrees that it’s probably powerful, unstable magic that is being handled by a teen with anger issues and an obvious propensity for violence. They can teach him to handle the magic and maybe to control his emotions. Everything’s the same until they do their tests. It’s still after a month or two, but this time it’s after he’s had time to adjust and had some basic rudimentary training that everyone has when they first start. They explain that everyone is evaluated at the beginning to get a feel for their magic, and Michael already seems to have some control of his powers. Not much, but it’s impressive considering how insane they are. They start with the mirror. He does it, and they share shocked glances. That’s something that a lot of people have trouble with after years of training. So they hesitantly do the teleporting. Flawless passing, more shock. Then they ask him to waterbed snow, and they have their happy moment before they almost freeze to death. They see how freaked out Michael is and tell him that he has super strong magic and when you push yourself like he did, it’ll get a bit out of hand. Just be more careful and they’ll talk about where to put him then get back to him, okay? Then they talk about how freaky it is that he can do this with little training, Magic Yoda is suspicious, they shoot him down with a lot of irony because Antichrist. Then one of them suggests that maybe, just maybe, they might be seeing a Male Supreme. Use the phrase, “Male Supreme”. It’s less stupid and worrying. There’s banter about how there hasn’t been a male version, it’s only been a woman, you know how many powerful Warlocks have died trying to do the Seven Wonders, he can barely control snow, you think he can come back from the dead? But then they agree and call the Council.

Most of the Warlocks’ bitterness towards the Witches stems from two places: 1) Fiona was a bitch and took her Supreme status to exert absolute control of the Council and 2) Cordelia just announced the existence of Mutants Witches and Warlocks without consulting the Council, a decision that they feel should have been unanimous. So there’s some banter about the Seven Wonders and Michael and she doesn’t want to hurt him because of how many powerful Witches and Warlocks have died and he sounds like he’s emotionally and magically unstable and he most likely will die. It also makes more sense for them to be snarky at her because of the above two reasons, and they can invoke Fiona’s name which will make those of us who are familiar with Coven squeal at the mention of Fiona and remember that yeah, that sounds in character, as well as having Cordelia react to the implication that she’s being the same sort of Supreme her mother was. Like, that has waaaaayyyyy less sexism and provides a great conflict between the two schools. It also has a less cliche Chosen One story arc shoved into Michael’s already-established “I’m the Antichrist” story arc and still shows just how powerful and scary he is.

Again, that’s my idea on how it could’ve been better. I just hate that the potential badassery of rivals schools was ignored to have Ryan Murphy pretend to be revolutionary and critical and thinking outside of the box when he’s really condoning a dangerous and sexist narrative that puts characters that are both potentially awesome and badass and established to be awesome and badass into weak storylines that destroy a lot of great character arcs and characteristics of everyone.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#I NEED TO RANT #thank you for letting me rant #personal rant #strangesurvivals #ryan murphy #bad characterization #this had potential #the potential to be badass #so much wasted potential in this season #i didn't want this for my faves #they deserve better #just let michael be the antichrist #that's all the motivation he needs #he doesn't need to be the chosen one #just let him destroy shit #don't make him some underdog #make him a villain you cowards #god this was theraputic #i needed to get this off my chest #it bothered me #a lot #and now i can put words to it #it's relieving

[csykora]

So, a couple of disclaimers: 1) I be a 'new fan' of the 'new hockey', but I grew up (and live now) in relatively rural Appalachia. I hope this gives me the context necessary empathize with the group(s) being pushed aside, here. Please let me know if you see me fail on that front. 2) Private or public, either is fine. | I definitely see what you're talking about with the 'new hockey' making more long-standing fans feel pushed aside, and even divorced from their heritage. (1)

But the fans of the 'new, shiny hockey' didn't make the 'new, shiny hockey' happen. And, frankly, we didn't come to it: hockey came to us, almost aggressively so. So some of the disparagement and confusion of new fans is very understandable, because new fans are a *symptom* of a change (that started with the role of hockey changing in traditional regions) rather than the *cause*. But! I think it is ALSO very understandable that 'oldschool' fans would get defensive, since (2)

the change happened partly due to outside influence (shifting economy, shifting overall family values, shifting overall societal behaviors) but partly due to changes specifically within the traditional hockey areas. And that's- that's gotta sting, right? Certainly new fans are a more accessible target for frustrations than 'the man', when 'the man' works so hard to be amorphous and anonymous. There's still a lot of romanticism and nostalgia attached to hockey in some places. (3)

The very existence of new fans, whose hockey experience doesn't include that nostalgia, means that hockey can be separated from the nostalgia, which I'm sure is threatening. And, frankly, a lot of the areas where people feel like they are 'losing' hockey from their subculture they are also losing other things. But if sports/sports fandom can channel our positive emotions, then it can also channel communal anxieties, yes? Maybe it is easier to focus on 'intruders' in sport than in other areas. 4

All of that is a longwinded way of saying: I completely understand older fans feeling threatened or alienated. But I wonder if they're really threatened/alienated/etc. by the new fans... or is it what those new fans represent? (5)

I don’t disagree with you! The NHL is a business which sells to people who have money.  Practically, the action of blaming any particular fan for that is useless and pointless. (And also ungenerous and unfun).

The thought experiment I went on was about what people’s underlying motivations for that bad action might be, so maybe we can understand why it keeps creeping into circles where we wouldn’t expect it.

The same Feelings Reaction (“this was my thing, so you having it hurts me”) happens for different groups of people. How it plays…depends to some extent on how many other things the group has.

Lashing out is still bad. But sometimes I think the solution is for people to eat their feelings and not say anything, and sometimes it’s for all of us to stop and say, “Hey, I’m feeling forgotten or pushed out of this space when these things happen,” and “Okay, how can we keep different experiences in mind and work to be welcoming?”

Many, many asshole fans are assholes from white suburbs in southern Canada and New England, who feel that they are losing cultural control over something, because they are losing control over it, and they should.

But what I was kind of reaching for and turning over wasn’t old vs. young people*, or white suburban men vs. everyone else, which are both familiar and expected narratives. Why do I see this same Feelings Reaction in young women toward fellow young women?

The ground-in sense of, “I want to be Real and tough and serious,” is a big, big, big part. But it strikes me as pat to say that the only thing women are thinking is, “I want to be like a man!” I think women are more complex than that, and what I see seems to be that the things some women dig into as rugged and practical and real are class-coded as well as gendered.

So kind of the best understanding I have is that we aren’t all feeling like fellows or equals.

Some people have more money than others. That makes a stunning difference in our lives. It’s not those people’s ‘fault’ that they were born in different circumstances. It’s also not a personal attack that other people feel alienated from certain social behaviors, comments and choices that some fans can (seemingly) make without worries.

Class difference is just socially fuckin awkward, you guys. And the awkwardness falls pretty entirely on one side, with the other not even noticing, because that’s how social norms work.

Frankly, I think people may feel disappointed by what new fans represent, and also feel socially alienated from the fans themselves.

The NHL is a business. It doesn’t market to, you know, dirty rednecks and poor people. We know that, but it’s still bitter disappointing to feel it confirmed over and over again. It’s marketing a certain aesthetic, PR image, particular products, to target a certain class of people it wants to sell to. 

When those people react with, “Yes, this looks great, I love this product!” … yeah, of course, it’s just that they like what they like and they’re being marketed to. The irritation that grows up there is, “Okay, but that’s because your tastes are being promoted because of who you happen to be, and ours aren’t. Do you see that?” And usually of course not, people aren’t thinking about their tastes that way, and they don’t know to see economic differences in social norms or how much they can weigh on lower-class people. But that feeling of not being seen is still difficult.

I’ll be honest, in a broader context, I don’t see people passively accepting what’s offered to them as innocent because “they didn’t ask for it”. Oblivious and understandable, yes, but people thinking, ’I just happened to be born with money, and systems just happen to want to offer things to me, so that’s just how it is now,’ is an action that has consequences. I’m certainly not mad at it in something as small-scale as hockey fandom, but in principle, if someone thought about it and ended at that kind of comfortable shrug that doesn’t require them to do anything, I would say that is action by inaction.

(Again, hockey fandom, I’m not spending my time getting mad at suburban college students on the internet, and I’m certainly not going to message them about it. It doesn’t have to be a big symbolic cultural fight, but I think we can still all pause and practice decoloializing our thoughts about little things sometimes. And if someone said, “Well but I didn’t ask for what I have,” to me, I would have a lot of follow-up questions for them about how they see the world.)

By the way, my proposed good actions are, 

“We need to talk about class difference in daily life so we can start building more equitable systems and so we’re all less vulnerable to demagogues,”

“Avoiding annoying people online is always in style! Only follow 5 people like I do!”

and “It would be nice if we can work on casually talking with our friends and acquaintances in fandom and saying things like, ‘Hey, I know you’re from a different background, is it okay with you if I talk about stuff that might mean different money things to you?’ and ‘I’m feeling some feelings and I think you don’t realize this thing means something different to me, I’d love if we could chat about such and such interest we share for a bit and not talk about a particular aesthetic/fan gear/practical and social situations.’”

*I think this is where you’re thinking on the social trends and nostalgia; I didn’t quite follow because I think we're thinking of different communities or social phenomena. 

To me the word ‘nostalgia’ is actually a huge part of what rubs my community the wrong way, because they haven’t gone anywhere.

I’m in my early twenties. The memories I mentioned hockey brings up for me happened in the last five years. That’s still how people play, that’s still how I think about money and food and work and always will be. Next winter I’m gonna be getting pretty fuckin upset again, looking at five and six year olds out on out ponds with no mittens, knowing they’re never going to make the NHL, or college, and good change they won’t finish high school. 

Seeing sappy memorials to The Old Times when people had to scrape by and shoot pucks at bottles in the barn or whatever can be really annoying because poverty culture isn’t dead in 2018, because rural and poor people aren’t dead. 

So that’s just a note/example on how we might see things differently.

[wannawrite]

flirtatious

who?: Wanna One’s Hwang Minhyun genre: 🌸 type: bullet point blog navigator. • Minhyun can’t stand you and your flirty ways but that’s only because he’s shy I have a confession, and, my mutuals/anyone unlucky enough for their messages to be answered by me would know full well that I am a flirty hoe, my apologies for all the bad puns. This was really fun to write and heads up, loads of awful pick-up lines + jokes + puns ;) TYSM anon!! 💖 - Admin L 

• in your squad, you’re the flirt • a major flirt but that’s only because you can come up with really good jokes using pick up lines • that’s how you make friends tbh • besides, you aren’t a fckboy/girl so it’s fine • everyone knows it’s for fun and laughter so no one actually takes you super seriously • some of your victims do get mildly affected though • your friends literally have to drag you away from poor Choi Minki whose face is redder than a tomato, he’s so incredibly flustered he can barely stammer out words • you wink at him as Kang Daniel and Lim Nayoung take you by the collar of your shirt • Minki can only shyly smile back before taking off the the opposite direction like his life depended on it • “you really have to stop this,” Daniel scolds. “I’m getting sick of it.” • 💡 !!! • Daniel unknowingly gives you the best ideas • no context, you press a kiss to his cheek before saying, “Did that make you feel better?” • normally, any other person would have burst of embarrassment or shyness but Daniel is pretty much your older brother so he doesn’t get affected by these kinds of things • he just groans and turns to Nayoung, seeking more help • “Daniel, could you call Jihoon and Sohye to hurry? I’m really hungry!” She tries to divert his attention and brush away the topic • ah yes yet another thought has popped into your head • you slide an arm around Nayoung’s shoulders and pull her close to your side • “ahh, you’re hungry?”   • she smiles, not picking up on what you’re doing just yet “of course!” • then…she senses a shift in your mood, “wait oh my god n-“ • “lucky for you, I’m a full course meal.” you quickly cut her off and burst out laughing when she collapses to the ground, most likely from cringing • Daniel visibly winces before shaking his head. “That’s even worse than Netflix and chill or ‘let’s go to my house for ramen’. You’re awful.” • “awfully in love with you!” you chime, truthfully you love your friends so much you could die • “okay but, is there anyone you’re genuinely interested in? You can’t just be flirting with random people from classes all the time,” Mina, another friend, juts in, snickering • “no. It’s just a bad habit, you know.” you lie but these are your best friends, they know when you’re lying • “liar!” • its rare for you to lie but also rare for you to crush hard on somebody • apparently, both have happened today, a few months ago when you met someone by the name of Hwang Minhyun • “I knew it! What’s their name!” Daniel badgers. “Come on! Tell us!” • you can’t bring yourself to because you sound like the most unlikely pairing in the entire universe / college • Hwang Minhyun, he majors in law and is the President of debate in Brand New College. In his spare time, he dabbles with poetry and runs a book review blog • basically, Minhyun takes everything in life seriously and does even the hardest things with ease • he may seem laid-back but you know how earnest and hardworking he is. the man lives in the library, a spare bookcase holds a fraction of his things • oh yeah, and Minhyun is also part of NU’EST - one of the most elite cliques on campus consisting of five boys • you had tried approaching Minhyun once or twice but he was hard to talk to and the conversation ceased quickly, Mina had to save you - which rarely happened • for once, it was not you who was causing temporary emotional whirlwinds in someone through flirting • Minhyun had said about a total of three words to you but you were already weak in the knees and messing up your sentences • this year, you were determined to try again, to try to become his friend, to squeeze into his small circle • “so, would you dare to?” Mina’s voice snapped you out of your mini daydream of your crush • “do what?” you completely missed out on whatever they were talking about • “well, I challenged you to flirt with any member of NU’EST for the Autumn, possibly date them then Mina pointed out that you are already friends with Jonghyun and Aron…” • “and you have already flirted…talked, conversed with Dongho and Minki so…” • “all there’s left is Minhyun.” • you felt your heart speed up when Daniel said his hame and you prayed that redness would not fill your cheeks • “why NU’EST? there’s NCT, Gugudan…so many other popular, elite cliques here…” • “NU’EST is the king of elite groups, if you can get with them, you can get with anyone, don’t you have a secret crush right now?” • on any other occasion, you would have put your foot down and said no but this year, this Fall, was different. there was an opportunity for you to get closer to your NU’EST friends and talk to your crush • “okay, challenge accepted.” • bisshhh why did you agree to do this • it starts bright and early the next morning, the sun has barely risen above the horizon when you’re walking to school • just as you’re rounding a bend, an expensive car slows down and the front seat window rolls down • “Minki?” • “Hey Y/N, want a ride to school?” he says with a smile, gesturing for his chauffeur to stop • your shock is evident, mainly because it hasn’t been long since you got to know him yet, here he is being a sweetheart and offering you a lift to school • but you should have noticed that the car was Minki’s classic family Cadillac, one of the Choi Cadillac Collection • before you could open your mouth to reply, the backseat window went down to reveal Hwang Minhyun’s perfect face • “hello, good morning.” he said in a robotic, serious tone • you want to melt into a puddle of goo right there and then • even at the crack of dawn, Minhyun still manages to look breathtakingly handsome • “hyung, slide over and Y/N, hop in,” Minki instructs. he seems to have a knowing smile on his lips • o h  g o o d n e s s  k a n g  d a n i el • tentatively, you slip into the expensive car, feeling the plush leather and getting used to breathing the same air as your CRUSH • “hey, your seatbelt. you don’t want to fall,” Minhyun reminded gently. he was THAT friend who was always concerned with safety • another awful pick up line popped into your head but you bit your tongue • but when would you ever get a chance to sit next to your crush ever again? • “but Minhyun,” • “yeah?” • “I’ve already fallen for you.” • in the front seat, you heard Minki struggling to hold his laughter • a blush filled Minhyun’s cheeks as he let out an awkward laugh, clearing his throat and turning away from you. he frequently pressed his palms to his hot face • though it was a really TERRIBLE line, you felt a bit of pride knowing you worked up the courage to say that to your crush - even if he was clueless about • the ride would have been awkward if it wasn’t for Minki’s non-stop chatter • before the car had even pulled to a complete halt, Minhyun hastily bid both of you goodbye and practically fell out of the car before running to the law block • you sighed, feeling utterly lost • so your crush hadn’t reacted in the best way to your flirting but you had been ‘rejected’ too many times - it never really hurt • “don’t worry,” said Minki. “Minhyun isn’t like this. He’ll warm up to you.” • “yeah, his face seems to be the warmest.” • Minki chuckled. “You’re a good person, don’t worry. Minhyun’s just shy, he’s never actually been with anyone, you know?” • your jaw dropped. • with his good looks, brains and endless charms, you figured everyone in a 10 mile radius would chase after Minhyun and it wasn’t like Minhyun was one to shy away from affection • Minki looked to be deep in thought. • “I think he’s shy because none of his suitors have been so straightforward, or maybe he doesn’t take you super seriously because you, no offence, flirt with all your friends a lot. That’s how we became friends.” • hmm, so sincere flirting? you could do that • after Minki’s explanation and a mini pep talk, you weren’t quite ready to give up on Hwang Minhyun • you lessened your meaningless flirtatiousness with other people and rephrased your lines • for example, when you bumped into him at the coffee shop queue you said ‘hi Minhyun, you look delicious in that shirt.’ • cue Hwang red face and snickers from lecture mates nearby • ‘speaking of delicious, the coffee smells amazing! what’s your usual order?’ • through this, you were getting a lot more information about Minhyun and still maintaining your flirtatious ways • knowing how hard law students work just to keep up, you try to grab Minhyun a coffee and a small snack whenever you know you’ll see him in the library   • if not, you get one of NU’EST to pass him the takeaway bag with a cute cue card in it • a smile blossoms on his face when he reads the tiny notes • ‘you look unlawfully good today, my heart pound is the judge ;)’ • ‘your sweetness is illegal, don’t make me arrest you’ • he finds two packets of sugar in his takeaway bag because you weren’t sure how he liked it exactly • what is studying? anymore? tomorrow’s test who? idk her • but guys please study hard and stay in school! • his heart is going to burst omg • perhaps he was wrong about you • Jonghyun can’t hold back his laughter whenever Minhyun gets SO shy he just hides his face in his books • it’s just a note and small gift from you, why is he acting like this? • ASDFGHJKL • oh, how you can afford coffee and treats all the time? Your friend, Jisung works as a barista and gives you his employee discount • he also has a list of orders Minhyun has ever made since he’s such a regular • and both of them are friends • but Minhyun feels a tad bit guilty, he barely acknowledges you and he doesn’t even have your number • so you’re really shocked when an unknown number dropped you a text one day • ‘good afternoon, this is Hwang Minhyun. I must show my gratitude and thanks for your gracious gifts. Thank you very much, your efforts are much appreciated’ • ‘Minhyun oh my god I’m not your law professor.’ • YOU TEXTED HIM BACK • he went crazy and ran around the whole NU’EST fort, yelling and throwing pillows and whatnot • his phone chimes with another notification that you were face timing him • ‘mINKI I’m goIng tO NEED tO BOrRow youR MAKeUp’ • ‘wAIT! NO’ • with shaking hands, he presses the circular green button to answer your call • you look too calm and collected, earphones in and casually sipping from a mug, probably in a cafe • ‘hi! it’s Y/N, but you probably already know.’ • Minhyun stammers a few times before clearing his throat and answering in his professional tone, trying to prevent redness creeping into his face • you gasp, faking shock • ‘Minhyun, there’s something on your face!’ • *nervous breathing intensifies* • ‘uh…yes. what is it?’ • what if it’s a spider? • you adopt a serious tone, eyes still wide • ‘oh my god, handsomeness!’ you squeal, before breaking into laughter • Minhyun’s words hitch in his throat and he wants to die of embarrassment, especially when you have to witness his blush • ‘ahh,’ is all he can make out • ‘hey, hyun,’ • ‘yeah?’ • ‘what drink would you like tomorrow? let’s hang out. at the cafe, lunch?’ • Are you subtly asking him out? • he can chemically combust with the rate his heart is beating at • ‘uhm uh…anything. up to you.’ • you chuckle at the clear signs of his nerves before nodding. ‘okay! text me if anything! see you’ • he ends the call with a dreamy smile on his face before he just collapses to the ground and groans • ‘hyung, no offence but you were a complete mess around them.’ • ‘I HAVE A DATE’ • two of you yelled that to your friends right after hanging up • Daniel sent a smirk your way and raised his cup of iced tea for a toast • Mina gladly clinked her glass against yours • ‘so…you’re going out with the crush tomorrow?’ • you nodded your heard excitedly, discussing what outfit you should wear and how to style your hair • ‘YOU’RE GOING ON A DATE WITH YOUR CRUSH YOU LUCKED OUT.’ • nothing sinks in until the next day during one of your lectures • the clock reads 12.30pm and your class ends in 10 mins • which means you have 20 minutes to hustle your ass to that cute cafe • o h • someone’s going to meet you at that cafe • naming, Hwang Minhyun, your crush • you run out of you lecture theatre faster than Mnet deleting BTS’ votes for MAMA • it takes you 30 seconds for you to freshen up and polish yourself in the bathroom before racing to the meeting point • Minhyun strolls in just as you have finished placing your order • he beams as he spots you, quickly slipping into his seat by the window • ‘hello,’ he greets cheerfully, battling with his nerves • ‘hyun!’ you beam. ‘my boyfriend’s here today.’ • you watch as his smile falters and a facade frosts over his face • ‘oh? who is he?’ • did my crush really call me to hang out for relationship advice? • you flip open your pocket mirror, facing him so it reflects his face • ‘here he is!’ • his hearty laughter melts away whatever cold that washed over him • ‘oh goodness, don’t do this to me!’ • you bat an eyelid at him just as the waiter arrived with your drink and to take his order • ‘oh? are you okay?’ Minhyun asks when he sees you wrinkle your nose after trying your drink • ‘ah no. they made it a bit too sweet for me today’ :( • ‘sweet? just like you?’ • hI DID MINHYUN JUST FLIRT? • there’s a short silence that settles before you burst into giggles, unable to hold them back • ‘did you just…use a really cliche yet cute line? are you flirting with me? at a time like this?’ • he grows so quiet and red you almost feel sorry for him • i bet he looks like a mochi when he’s blushing full offence • ‘i’m sorry! but hey, good attempt, I’d give you that.’ • * sips tea * • over lunch, there’s positive banter and all sorts of conversation ranging from Daniel’s new cat to Daehwi’s new hair colour to how Aron almost broke someone’s arm in his lecture • Minhyun is just really easy to talk to once you’ve gotten to know him • easy-going, more laid back and relaxed than usual • time flies when you’re having fun and Minhyun has downed another two drinks • you know those really aesthetic, ethereal looking teas? I feel like secretly he might dig those a lot • ‘so when is your next lecture?’ you inquire. ‘i’m done for today.’ • Minhyun nods. ‘Same.’ • he offers to pay to which you don’t protest because your heart has mELTED • okay but Minhyun is lowkey scared you were going to flirt with the cute cashier and dump him • nah never in a million years • he even holds the door open for you what a gentleman • just outside, there’s a signpost directing visitors across campus. you point to it and say, ‘hey Minhyun, can I get directions to your heart?’ • MINHYUN IS SO DONE BUT HE’S IN LOVE HE DOESN’T KNOW • shy smiles and blushing cheeks • not because he kind of took Minki’s Fenty Beauty blush • honestly, being around Minhyun makes you feel like a cheerful, careless child again you can skip and dance and just run along the pavement • it’s energising and refreshing, like a mood brightener • you’re skipping along the sidewalk, slightly ahead of minhyun • hyun is watching from behind, with a satisfied, amused smile pulling at his lips • suddenly, your feet slip but Minhyun is there to save you • cliche! • you grip tightly onto his soft button up in an attempt to stabilise yourself. with the first two buttons open bc why not • ‘woah! are you okay?’ • you catch your breath, still clinging onto Minhyun like your life depends on it • ‘hey your shirt is really soft. is it made out of boyfriend material?’ • ‘u-uh…y-yes.’ he stammers out, helping you on your feet again. ‘husband material, actually.’ • you gape at him, pleasantly surprised ‘are you proposing to me? right now?’ • you wrap your arms around his torso, hugging him tight and he doesn’t protest • ‘hmm, maybe.’ a smile playing at his lips • ‘will you be my boyfriend? for real? since I like to take things slow,’ • Minhyun blushes, he doesn’t know what to say so yeah he’s just going to kiss you and hopefully you get the message • ‘yeah. being your boyfriend sounds nice, is nice.’ • ‘does that mean I can teach you a pick up line or two?’ you tease, heart thudding faster than ever • ‘why?’ he asks, furrowing his brow. ‘I only want to pick you up.’ • pick me pick me pick me up

#wanna one #wanna one scenarios #produce 101 #produce 101 scenarios #yoon jisung #ha sungwoon #hwang minhyun #ong seongwoo #kang daniel #kim jaehwan #park jihoon #park woojin #bae jinyoung #lee daehwi #lai guanlin

[shinelikethunder]

On “romanticizing” unhealthy things in fiction

This is a loose elaboration on @tanannariva‘s excellent post about anti-shippers’ tendency to sling around words like “romanticization” and “normalization” like they’re magic incantations that mean “QED, you are making this happen in real life!” (I’m going to leave “normalization” aside for the moment because my contribution would basically be an incoherent snarl of “shrieking that we need more taboos on offenses that are already taboo enough to lay a heavy burden of stigma on victims, offenses whose root causes lie in beliefs and practices that are already widely treated as normal, is just doubling down on the reasons the entire subject is such a clusterfuck and it’s the fucking opposite of radical or progressive.”) Let’s talk a bit about romanticization, using the original post’s definition of “to describe something as being better or more attractive or interesting than it really is.” In particular, let’s talk about stories whose portrayal of fucked-up, abusive relationships does romanticize them, and where exactly the connection is with real-life abuse apologism.

The thing is that stories, by their very nature, tend to portray things as more attractive and interesting than they really are. When you go through something harrowing and console yourself with “well, at least it will make a great story to tell later,” you’re explicitly planning on distilling the interesting parts from an experience that was a grinding nightmare slog of misery at the time. Many stories are also ways to rehearse the various kinds of shit life might throw at you and transmit models for how people deal with it--and in order to actually be transmitted, they have to be in a form that is interesting, memorable, and engaging.

Also, people fantasize all the time about stuff that’s attractive but too dangerous, costly, or immoral to actually pursue. A cliffside with a spectacular view is attractive. Sleeping in on a weekday is attractive. Taking gory revenge on people who’ve hurt you or cut you off in traffic is attractive. The problem isn’t the attraction. The problem is when people’s idea of the real-life consequences gets skewed. You don’t fix that by telling them to stop finding the thing appealing, you fix that by saying “hey, I know this is fun to imagine, but I feel like we need a reality check on how disastrous the non-fictional version is.”

And of course these two things--dramatizing and fantasizing--are often combined, in the form of stories where obstacles are downplayed or the extent of what people can accomplish is exaggerated. Which is generally OK and understood. Sometimes the execution is criticized for breaking suspension of disbelief or for the implications of what’s downplayed and what isn’t, but even little kids learn pretty early on that just because they read it in a book or saw it on TV doesn’t mean they should try it at home. When they don’t, that’s when the reality check becomes necessary.

In the specific case of stories about abusive relationships... a lot of the most compelling ones are about taking something wild, something that hurts people and would happily hurt you, and domesticating it. Not just taming it, not just making its dangerous qualities work for you, but befriending it and loving it and incorporating it into the fabric of your everyday life. It’s a story that humans find perpetually attractive because that’s what we do, that’s what’s behind a lot of our success, we’re the crazy fuckers who turned wolves into border collies and wild horses into Shetland ponies. The more resistant something actually is to domestication, the more we like stories about the crazy fucker who pulled it off anyway. The attraction isn’t the problem. The problem is that in real life, when it comes to human personalities and relationships that will probably hurt you, there is widespread denial of how dangerous, harmful, and resistant to change some types can be. There is widespread playing-up of the romantic appeal and widespread ignorance of how illusory and manipulative the appealing parts are. And YOU WILL NOT FIX ANYTHING BY DENYING THE APPEAL OR TELLING PEOPLE TO STOP FINDING IT ATTRACTIVE. 

Yes, it is helpful to tell stories about how the cycle of abuse really works, but not because they’ll refute or replace the romanticized fantasy, or destroy its appeal. They won’t. What they’ll do is similar to what an out-of-story reality check or an “abusive relationship” tag will do: they’ll say “hey, when this does happen it’s actually pretty awful.” And they’ll go beyond that to give people models for what shit looks like and possible ways to deal with it. They’ll do that even if some of their edges are filed off and some of their agony is distilled into drama, which is why it’s the opposite of helpful to lump everything you think is flawed/ambivalent/insufficiently realistic into the “romanticizing” category and try to exterminate it all. That actively suppresses resources that might actually reach people who are into the romanticized stuff and have picked up distorted ideas about abuse, whether from the fiction itself or from the culture they were raised in.

(By all means, criticize and discuss the depiction... but with the goal of illuminating nuances the original story glossed over or bungled, not making the bad thing go away. That’s the other thing that’s so nonsensical about focusing these book-burning campaigns on fanfiction of all things: not only does it come with built-in warning labels, it comes with a built-in book club and author Q&A session. You want context, author clarification, cautionary notes about the narratives the story seems to be pushing, alternate narratives, education about the realistic outcome? They’re all just as easy to attach to the work itself as screeds about what a terrible person the author is.)

Basically, the world is full of stuff that’s great fun in stories but wretched IRL for everyone except the 1% of freaks lucky enough to be Into That Sort Of Thing. Wilderness survival. Swordfights with no safety gear. Extreme painplay as kink. Emergencies where a non-pilot somehow has to land the plane without killing everyone. And since society is messed up, “whirlwind romances with brooding, jealous, obsessive antiheroes” are only intermittently acknowledged as part of the “even more miserable IRL than they are thrilling on the page” club. Even when they are, it tends to get vehement blowback from people who feel compelled to defend what they like, not as an id-scratching fantasy but as the highest and best ideal of True Love. That’s what’s out of whack and needs fixing.

You will not fix it by trying to convince people that swashbuckling duel scenes aren’t fun if the characters aren’t wearing safety gear. You will get even-more-vehement blowback if the people who enjoy the romance equivalent of swashbuckling have even the slightest reason to suspect your PSA about safety is a front for an attempt to take away their unrealistic fantasies, replace them with fencing-tournament footage, and make them watch gory cautionary tales about what will happen to them if they leave their protective gear off. The only way to get anywhere is to accept that it’s okay to see the appeal in romanticized depictions of relationships that would be abusive IRL, because the appeal is separate from understanding how the IRL consequences would play out. Work on people’s understanding of the consequences. In the end, all the hand-wringing about the appeal boils down to worrying that it will distort people’s understanding of the consequences. So focus on what really matters.

#anti shippers #antis #romanticization #abuse #fiction vs reality #tumblr 'social justice' #purity wank