#for the record this isn't a condemnation of either character | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

skallyeen · 1 year

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GLaDOS's insults are interesting. Because they're so clearly prejudiced, right? She's making fun of Chell for being fat and adopted. These are scummy things to make fun of someone for, and things that would realistically be punching bags for prejudiced people interacting with this character.

But I don't think GLaDOS actually holds the sentiments she's expressing. Rather, they're a means to an end.

I get this mostly from her lines in co-op on the subject:

"Did you know humans frown on weight variances? If you want to upset a human, just say their weight variance is above or below the norm."

She calls Chell fat not because she thinks she's fat or that she personally finds anything wrong with weight variances, but because she knows calling humans fat makes them feel bad, and she's bitter about being killed and wants to make Chell feel bad.

Same goes with her being adopted. As soon as it doesn't emotionally or pragmatically benefit GLaDOS to make fun of Chell for being fat or adopted, she actively refutes Wheatley's attempt at bullying her for these things:

"And...? What, exactly, is wrong with being adopted?" "Also: Look at her, you moron. She's not fat."

She walks back her previous derogatory assertions as if they don't mean anything to her, because they don't. She never believed them in the first place.

She treats Rattmann's schizophrenia much the same way. She uses it to try and manipulate him, to make him doubt himself enough to come out of hiding where she can kill him, the same way she tries to make Chell doubt herself and turn back when she's escaping the facility back in Portal 1. The ableism she expresses is not a genuinely held belief, but a means to an end that she has no qualms about using.

Whether that makes it better or worse, I have no idea! I'd say worse on account of the intention to cause doubt or hurt to the target. But it's a very unique combination of values, isn't it? You're much more used to seeing the inverse: people being insulting, with no actual malicious intent, as a result of unchecked biases. Like, for instance, friendly little Wheatley unintentionally being super condescending about Chell's brain damage and muteness.

#for the record this isn't a condemnation of either character #in the 'therefore you shouldn't like them' sense anyways #like obviously these are immoral intentions and actions #but so is murder #moral slights are nothing new for her #i just found this really interesting #glados #yeenwords #portal #portal 2 #character analysis #portal analysis #skall got into the ramble jar again #i do think glados is legit ableist in regards to wheatley #but so is the writing itself #so it's hard to make a character judgement off of that

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alienwithaguitar · 1 month

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Does anyone else think this Wilbur thing has been blown way out of proportion? First of all, I am in FULL support of Shelby and am not defending Wilbur. As a victim myself, I sympathize with her story, and I will never discredit her experiences. But this community is going to extremes that make me so fucking uncomfortable.

What people forget is that Wilbur has a record label. He CAN'T say whatever he wants. There’s a reason he made a statement not an apology, why Lovejoy hasn’t said anything, why he never mentioned Shelby by name, why he didn’t apologize- because making promises can get you in legal trouble. One of the first things you learn about car accidents is to not apologize, even if it's your fault, because that will be used against you in court. Admissions can even get you in trouble for things you didn’t do, if the other party decides to push for that. He’s almost certainly not allowed to apologize because his record label can't risk the legal trouble. We can excuse Quackity for making poor statements for the same reason, so why can't we keep that energy here?

Wilbur has always been an unstable man. As a long time fan and someone who heavily relates to YCGMA’s themes of being awful and feeling like you’ll never get better, he struggles with a lot of mental problems. His persona has been built around manic, destructive tendencies and that’s something that’s been a part of his brand for YEARS. He's brought up drugs and alcohol use in the past, and one of his closest friends recently passed away, which certainly only added to things. Mental health isn't an excuse, but it is a REASON. (Listen to Mammalian Sighing Reflex and tell me it doesn’t resemble compilations of artists deteriorating as they lose their sanity)

I don’t understand how anyone can actively want him to kill himself. Or wish that he gets worse. You can’t claim to be an advocate for mental health and helping victims if you don’t want EVERYONE involved getting serious help. Wilbur needs therapy, he needs to atone if either of them want to heal. Nobody has to forgive him, or welcome him back into their life, but he absolutely deserves the chance to fix himself to ensure this doesn’t happen AGAIN.

If you can seriously say that you want him to get worse, and you don’t care about his mental health, then you DON'T care about victims. Leaving a destructive man to rot alone WILL lead to repeat events in the future. As someone with multiple diagnoses for debilitating mental illnesses, when I was at my lowest, I hurt myself. I hurt other people. Mental illness isn’t cute shit you put in your bio. It's terrifying, isolating, exhausting. And if I wasn’t given a chance at therapy and healing, I could have continued hurting people for the rest of my life.

These tweets just confirm none of you actually care about mentally ill people, it's all situational and performative. This is the most clear cry for help I've seen and you're feeding into it. Most of you will never understand what debilitating mental illness is like, how easy it is to hurt people you care about. You can hate him, be pissed, wish he never did it, deplatform him, I AM TOO! But nobody involved would be happy if he killed himself. These are real people, not characters in a soap drama. Actively wishing for him to kill himself is disgusting. If you care at all about Shelby getting closure, Wilbur needs to understand what he did wrong and fix it, so she can move on.

Also the lying I’ve seen is so stupid. The spotify stuff is fake. Anyone who’s a casual fan of Wilbur has known for a long time that’s not his spotify account. It’s a fan account that posts unofficial versions of his songs. So easily debunked and yet people still hold it against him??

Again, I'm in FULL support of Shelby. I fully condemn his actions, and as a victim I'm so proud of her for speaking up. But at the end of the day, we’re people. I'm glad many of you have never had the kind of debilitating downward spiral that leads to you hurting yourself and others, but if you think that makes it okay to wish an unstable man takes his life, then you can’t say you’re a mental health advocate. Take care of yourselves, please think twice about your own morals if you're sitting around hoping fans and creators commit suicide.

If you are one of the people actively waiting for him to kill himself, I pray that you never find yourself hurting others at your lowest, and I pray that people show you the kindness you didn't give to him.

#not a wilbur defense post #but its still important to consider #wilbur #wilbursoot #wilbur soot #shelby #shelby shubble #shubble

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pro-sipper · 3 months

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What do proshippers generally believe about shipping real people? Stuff like creator x creator or celebrity x reader?

That it falls under the umbrella of "you should be allowed to write anything you want". Once again, it's not my personal thing. There's no real life pairing I read for, and the whole "blank x reader" is not appealing to me at all.

But I have no problem with people writing that stuff, or knowing it's out there. I saw someone a while back say that it's basically just writing about another character, and I agree with that. No matter how much a creator posts or how open a celebrity seems with their personal life, we're still only seeing a tiny snippet of their lives. We have no clue who they are when the cameras aren't recording because we just don't know them. And whatever someone chooses to write about is mostly stemming from that particular persona that they happen to put on for the world and that's it. It's completely separate from our reality because they're basically just writing about another made up character

The problem I have, and it's what I imagine most proshippers also take issue with, is when people start blurring the lines between fiction and reality. To me, there's a world of difference between posting something on ao3, and speculating on secret relationships in the comments of someone's youtube video. Or between talking about something on tumblr, and tagging the person directly on twitter.

I just don't understand people who condemn rpf and talk about how gross and invasive it is, but think it's funny to tag celebrities on twitter to bring up (what they think is) cringe-worthy fanfic tropes that people have written them into. Or people who print out fanworks to shove into an actor's face at a meet and greet and ask them what they think about it. That's where the lines get crossed, to me.

I think ao3 and tumblr still have an air of mysticism to them. A little secrecy, a little privacy. In the sense that someone in the public eye would have to put in a little work to find this stuff for themselves. They'd have to go to the site and search themselves up to find anything. As opposed to just about anyone in the world being able to force this content in their line of sight with a simple @ on a site like twitter.

So to me the problem isn't that this content exists. The problem is when people don't know how to keep fandom stuff private. Write all the rpf you want but remember at the end of the day these are real people, not your blorbos. You don't know them. It's inappropriate to say these things to them personally (which yes, also includes tagging them on twitter or in the comments of their videos). But it's also inappropriate to run up to them with other people's content just to say "look what these FREAKS wrote about you!!" And I think people either forget or just genuinely don't care about the latter.

#proship #proshippers #pro ship #proshippers please interact #proshipper #proshipping #rpf #real person fiction #asks #anonymous #sip rambles #i know its so much crazier in this day and age than when i was a kid #with social media and stupid stuff like tiktok basically being a requirement of the job it seems #and celebs posting constantly and having a quick way to interact with fans #or content creators whose entire brand exists on social media apps like tiktok #who seem to be posting 24/7 and broadcasting their whole lives #and i know most of those types of creators mostly have younger followers who probably do very easily get sucked into #feeling like they know that person like thats their friend #and i also dont think that type of creator really discourages those feelings bc... they want followers and $$$#but idk just write your fic and read it or dont do either and just leave celebs alone irl please please please

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dr3amofagame · 3 months

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ctechno was not the nice dude everyone wants him to be

oooh interesting take lmao. im gonna insert a courtesy "c!techno is generally a good person and does good" disclaimer bc like, c!techno is generally a good person that does good and cares about people and gets ridiculous amounts of hates for stupid things all the damn time, for the record, but also ... i cant say i dont get what you mean in part?

i think there's a phenomenon with c!techno sometimes where people can make him either too much of a paragon or strip him of too much agency in a way that's weird to me. i mean like, "he's canonically 3 years old" jokes aside, this guy isn't someone whos just doomed to be taken advantage of everyone unless they "respect his boundaries 🥺🙏" and can't assert himself at all and whatever, yknow? like, he can AND DOES assert himself when he thinks it's necessary. he can AND DOES act like an asshole sometimes!

like c!techno is a full, well-rounded character. he gets too angry sometimes and does shit he regrets. he has to make efforts to change. he has feelings, he gets hurt, he lashes out. he's too dismissive sometimes because he copes with shit through humor. he isn't perfect, and that's ... a good thing? it's a good thing that he's a full well rounded interesting character with flaws. but at the same time, pointing out said flaws and treating them as flaws isn't damnation!

like, for example, right, it's perfectly understandable for him to feel used and betrayed by c!tommy. was he also kinda mean to c!tommy in the aftermath in a way that can be pointed out? i mean. yeah of course! and like, of course he was grieving and hurt and in a lot of emotional pain when c!ranboo died and did that probably play into his attitude towards c!dream post-prison break? absolutely! was stripping a guy that is literally being chased down by his literal torturers and a server of people who want to kill him of his armor and telling him he can keep a weapon For A Favor and then going "awwh we didnt get him to use his necromancy powers :/" absolutely still kind of a generally asshole-y thing to do? i mean, YEAH ???? like, if they werent doing that bc of some kind of plan, that was still kind of a jerk thing to do? in a way that's very understandable, because c!techno is a character that becomes more of a jerk when he's stressed and in emotional turmoil. and this isnt about damning him or condemning him ... but i don't see the point of erasing said moments either.

shrug anyway i think c!techno overall was a pretty damn nice dude and a good guy and im kind of trusting that u dont mean this in the same way as certain c!techno takes ive seen back in the day that felt like crucifying him every time he made a joke that broke the fourth wall aSKFJLasf. c!techno should've been meaner, actually, for the record. and it's so awesome that he put c!sam in a prison and cask of amontillado'd that guy, GOD BLESS

#my asks !!#dsmp hot takes #uhhh idk should i tag c!techno critical ?#ill do it but i dont think im being critical AJKLSFJASL he's a good guy he's also like. a guy and not a perfect paragon #disk horse #c!techno critical

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moorishflower · 2 years

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see the thing about Dream is

the thing is

it's very tempting to look at Tom Sturridge and go ah yes my sad scrungly wet cat anthropomorphic personification, because he does have Those Eyes and That Hair, and then it is very tempting to look at some panels of Dream in the comics and go ah yes my depressed weird friend who lives in a void, except sometimes i feel that this is too humanizing, especially if you're talking about Dream pre-1300s

and i think in the comics in a lot of his pre-Hob Gadling interactions with mortals you can see that he is balls to the wall batshit insane

his track record with loving mortals is absolutely bonkers

>Nada, Queen of the First City, pursued Dream and then when she discovered who he was went "oh shit, humans loving the Endless is forbidden by my people, we definitely shouldn't" and Dream confronted by a mortal he couldn't have went grabby grabby hands, convinced her to fuck him anyways, and then condemned her to Hell afterwards because the sun nuked her city and Nada, grieving, said she didn't want to be Dream's Queen (on account of the sinning)

>Killala of the Glow, an alien lady precursor to the Green Lanterns who punches through to the Dreaming by accident and Dream falls in love instantly, he knows her for basically 3 months and invites her to a cosmic entities convention to show her off, does not tell her that all of these people are literal quasars and planets and shit. she freaks out understandably, seeks comfort in the arms of the sun of her world (encouraged by Desire), and Dream, seeing them embracing, just fuckin leaves her there "the sun'll get her home," he says, "they're going to the same place, i'm not crying YOU'RE crying"

>Alianora, who was sent by Desire to help Dream fuck up some old gods, was given her own private island and also one of the Dream-Stones (for show fans, the ruby is a Dream-Stone!). i sincerely believe the only reason that Dream lost interest in her is because she spent so long in the Dreaming that if she tried to wake up she would die, and Dream is absolutely fascinated by things that can change (prob because that's his tragic character flaw is he can never change himself quite enough)

he don't got a great track record with his non-mortal lovers either (Thessaly, An Witch, and Calliope, the Muse), but over and over again with mortals, brief and ephemeral and changing, Dream cannot regulate himself. he burns super hot, super bright, and then either gets sucked back into work, or the fact that he has 0 Chill puts his lover off entirely. he has no concept of compromise and he's unable to not throw himself wholeheartedly into love. having Dream love you must be like being loved by a hurricane or the core of the earth. can you imagine what that would be like? having the attention of something that huge and fathomless and ancient focused on you like a laser? it would be like being crushed under a mountain.

this is why i think Hob Gadling is such a fantastic foil to, and the Premier Ship Of, Dream. Hob Gadling also throws himself wholeheartedly and joyfully into every new thing, Hob is out there living his best life and telling stories and i think he mentions doing cocaine in like the 90s in one of the comics? but, point being, Hob doesn't ever let immortality go to his head. he is the most mortal mortal that ever mortaled, he just happens to have a concept of eternity that, no matter how infinitesimally, actually approaches what Dream is.

it's just that the dynamic you get now, with a mortal who understands the true concept of endlessness, is "Hob I have brought to you a brooch forged from the heart of a dying star, pearls harvested from oysters that have never seen the sun and never will, sapphires infused with the waters of Eden"

"oh that's gorgeous dear how thoughtful I'll put it on the shelf with the Polished Sphere of Crystallized Auroras and Hope"

and then Dream fucks off to do his job for like 8 years and Hob isn't too fussed because he spent like 6 centuries waiting for this weird wet cat of a man to fuckin introduce himself, he can wait a few years for them to meet up for dinner again

anyways i wrote all of these as a partial explanation as to why Dream is so fuckin weird and turbo in Husbands, and it's because he's a sad scrungly pathetic cat man AND he's also an enormous endless eldritch creature that has no concept of emotional regulation but also a terminal fascination with the changeability and fragility of mortals that translates into absolute fucking insane love

#the sandman #the sandman meta #dreamling #dream of the endless/hob gadling #dream/hob #the sandman (2022)

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sofipitch · 2 years

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I've thought a lot about how to try and phrase this post or even write it because I have talked about this a million different times and seems to have no impact I wonder if it even matters but incase anyone needed evidence of racism in the VC fandom, @sweetazathioprine and I started getting racist trolls the momment we started posting our fanfic The Long Way Home, and it has continued nonstop and I recently posted a fic featureing the AMC universe/timeline whatever you want to call it and it has simply escalated. And it's not just myself who has recieved this, since I know there are enough ppl that hate me or even my cowriter who are willing to say we deserve it but @vivienne1996 also began uploading fic for the AMC show and had to turn off both anon on her tumblr and comments on her fanfictions all together because of all the racist abuse she was reciving. On my fics I delete a lot of it because it contains slurs that would upset someone else who might look at the comments but I have screenshotted them and present them now as evidence that yes the VC fandom has massive racism issue

This isn't by far all of them, tumblr simply has a 10 image limit. I also chose ones featuring a slur since some people can only recognize bigotry when a slur is thrown around. I also get some kind of insult telling me they hope I die or that my writing is terrible. I don't pretend to think I am a good writer or that I'm the only person in this fandom recieving insults but the inceseant insults aren't on any of the fic I wrote before Jacob Anderson's casting announcement.

And again this isn't just me who is recieving this so take what I have gotten and imagine what the others arr getting.

This isn't isolated to just racism either, rampant transphobia has been present. I'm aware in the past fics or art depicting the characters are trans has recieved hate and @hedonisticgene has also been recieving insults based on added diversity to the VC characters. Really showing yall are only here for cis white characters.

My point in highlighting this isn't to make anyone feel bad for me but to showcase that this has been an ongoing problem and I got possibly the record for the most amount of troll comments to word count ratio on my AMC fic. And I worry for the countless number of new people joining, being happy and excited, and then getting these kinds of comments when they go to post fanfic. It's frankly just disgusting and this is what I meant when I first said ppl disliking the race change would lead to racism. And I feel like overall the VC fandom and especially those with a lot of following and big platforms to speak up and condemn this shit have simply remained silent, or been covertly supporting this shit by saying they are the ones being attacked.

I wish I had something more articulate to say but really I feel any kind of intelligent comment stifled by anger. I just feel massively disappointed and let down

#feally debating having reblogs on #i might turn them off later #but i'm not even sure i can handle good natured ones right now i'm so insanely mad #and i know some of you have stood firm on this since the beginning and actually have a backbone and i'm proud of you #and i can't tell you how much it means to me to not feel like 1 of 2 ppl talking about this #if it weren't for the amc show i really think i would have left by now #which is why i want to say something because others deserve better than to be greeted by this #vc #vampire chronicles #iwtv #interview with the vampire #amc iwtv #amc interview with the vampire #*really debating #alright gonna take a cbd and go to bed and potentially log off

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goldentigerfestival · 4 months

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@crestfallencrest replied: Unfortunately I am now being haunted by this Yuri too, WHAT!!!!!!! Im not too familiar with Crestoria so Im not sure what a transgressor is in this context but holy hell this design???? O_O

Basically a transgressor is someone who was condemned by the majority of the world to be a sinner. Everyone in the world carries a Vision Orb with them to use to record things and they can broadcast things other people do to the entire world, spin a narrative and the world decides if they're guilty of the mentioned crime (they can also leave things out, make things up entirely, etc to fit the narrative they're going for if they're lying).

If the world decides someone is guilty, their Vision Orb breaks and is replaced with a mark called the Stain of Guilt (which is apparently physically painful to get), proving they've sinned and are "guilty", and monster-like creatures called Enforcers show up to kill them (they warp them away into another dimension and kill them basically). Since Yuri isn't dead he warded them off and is on the run like the main cast. Enforcers tend to lay off after a while, but if people see the person again and recognize them, they're likely to call for Enforcers again (in Yuri's case I imagine they'd just call for them anyway, recognized or not, because he clearly has a mark).

When the judgment is that someone is a sinner, the person literally hears their voices of their opinions/comments about them in their head before their Vision Orb breaks, so seeing the general design for Yuri I feel like it fits, but I'm still going to lose sleep for the rest of my life wondering what his story was and how they were going to fit him into the main story (crossover characters could be pretty important and Milla's backstory was tied to the at-the-time main antagonist to the whole story). I'm also ruined over the fact that I am craving Yuri and Vicious interaction in general, plus on top of their Crestoria game stories, as well as their knight boyfriends getting Tired just by watching them together.

Which, for that matter, a Yuri side story probably would've included Flynn, and we'd probably see how Flynn feels about seeing Yuri's crime if not "crime" broadcast to the world and seeing him condemned to be a criminal worth being killed (they don't use Vision Orbs for all crimes, hence why they have knights who handle the small time stuff. Use of a Vision Orb means you're gunning for the person to essentially get the death penalty, which is what will happen if they're condemned and can't fight the Enforcers off). In Vespy we have Flynn being the one who keeps warning Yuri while the people generally love or appreciate him, but in Crestoria it's the complete opposite just based off the fact that he was condemned. Flynn just having to live knowing the whole world hates Yuri and probably thinking he did do something that bad and being so distraught about it... 😔

I imagine it'd ultimately be something like, Yuri was condemned on either false or not-the-whole-story accusations and Flynn used to be one of those people who took Vision Orb users at their word, only to find out how skewed the system was. Would probably meet up with Yuri at some point to get answers (I don't think he'd go there to arrest him if he was a knight in this verse because bringing Yuri back would quite literally mean sending him to his death) and find out the truth. Don't know if Yuri would be on a mission to destroy all the Vision Orbs to prevent good people from being condemned in the future like Kanata is, but he seems to definitely have had a goal in mind. Sad we won't know because his interests feel like they'd have aligned with the main cast's like Milla's did.

Also I get the feeling that Yuri wouldn't regret his sin because I can't see him not doing it for a good purpose (and he's got the damn mark on display like Vicious, who was essentially also wrongfully called a sinner). It's a shame that he would have to be a crossover character in status too though, because the mix of his canon story and his Crestoria story would've normally landed his ass right into the main cast and him getting a Blood Sin from Vicious (which Vicious gives people when they accept their sin and vow to live with it basically). Heck, he might've even done that as a side character and just helped on the side like Milla helped on the side.

I'm sorry this is so long LOL the possibilities were just... THERE. If you ever have the time I'd recommend giving the game a watch on YouTube from what's been recorded from the game. The main story is fully voiced, and you've side stories for the crossover characters and event stories like the other gacha games. The manga changed up a few chunks already because of the removal of the crossover characters, so I personally would recommend the game before the manga. :O

#crestfallencrest #GTF Reply Posts #i would pay namco to let vicious give yuri a blood sin are u kidding me 😭😭😭

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obamaphoner · 11 months

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there's some things about The Candy Shop War that seemed innocent or didn't really stand out in a meta way when reading it as a kid, but that are a little unsettling now as an adult (I fully read it again today)

the negative attitude towards being fat

a bully calls the main characters the r-slur (this isn't the type of book that tries to frankly depict the challenges autistic people face and condemn that word)

the white fudge was supposed to be unsettling; making all the adults oblivious to the kids' plight is kinda necessary in a book about kids being the heroes, but an addictive substance being introduced to a town in order to subjugate them just has different connotations to me now, and intense neglect being used as a beneficial plot element gets uncomfortable (the kids don't always enjoy this either)

manipulation tactics are used on the kids throughout the story, and we see the fallout of trusting and obeying the wrong people. this theme of trust is acknowledged, and the victims turn out okay in the end, but the subtle moves that were made to coerce children to do tasks for a malicious adult aren't flagged or signaled out as something to watch out for - just the tasks themselves were called out as sketchy.

this book came out in 2007, and it's not very considerate on the topic of race:

it's inconsistent about using the term Indian. at one point somebody is referred to as being "from India", and at another point somebody else is referred to as "a full-blooded Native American." but the book uses the word Indian throughout, in contexts unrelated to either character. I can't argue in good faith that "the wooden Indian" in the candy shop is a statue depicting someone from India and not a 'cowboys and Indians' type of caricature, like from The Indian In The Cupboard (another children's fantasy book)

the main characters are 4 white kids, and there are two instances where they use magic candy to change their races to avoid being recognized while stealing things. one kid turns black, and says "Cool, I was kinda hoping for black." another kid turns Asian, asks if she's Chinese, and gets told "Something like that." in another instance she turns Polynesian, asks if she's Hawaiian, and gets told to do "a victory hula," and "You should do the hula right now." (she does, under the effect of a magical suggestion candy)

the magical suggestion candy made me uneasy. luckily in the lore of the magic system, adults can't use the powers of magic candy. I know this isn't much different from spells in D&D like Suggestion or Command, but the first instance where a kid uses this power, he abuses it: suggesting the hula mentioned earlier, and grinning at getting the results he wanted. but it's an unsettling power.

In general it's still a neat little fantasy story, but these things that hadn't rubbed me the wrong way as a kid certainly do today. each decision, whether deliberate or not, reflects on something about the author. I like Brandon Mull, his books are inspiring, and I'll treasure the magic I felt as a kid forever, but some of these things are disappointing.

and maybe a solid chunk of what bugs me can earnestly be chalked up to a child POV or an intentional feeling of "this is unsettling" that the candy or the world needed in order to set the right tone for the story. I don't mean to blindly defend the author. I want to consider these issues in good faith.

in any case, I just wanted somewhere to record my thoughts on this. happy blogging

(I'll tag the tw's I can think of, pls let me know if I missed any)

#tw racsim #tw ableist language #tw fatphobia #tw manipulation #tw neglect

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yeeyee-alumni · 3 years

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Joel did not doom humanity (no matter how much the second game wants you to believe that)

To demonize Joel’s decision at the end of the first game (saving his surrogate daughter’s life) you need to bend over backwards and ignore any and all context the first game gave us with regards to who the Fireflies truly are. Because the truth of the matter is: a) they knocked Joel unconscious while he was trying to revive a young girl b) they drugged Ellie immediately to tear her body apart for their needs c) THEY DID NOT ASK ELLIE FOR PERMISSION to give her life for their cause, they didn’t even tell her she would have to die (Ellie was making plans with Joel after the giraffe scene, “Once we're done, we'll go wherever you want. Okay?”, clearly indicating she had no idea she would have to die) d) they did not let Ellie and Joel see each other to say their goodbyes e) they were about to walk Joel out into the wilderness without any of his gear/resources, which during the zombie apocalypse is a certain death sentence f) they didn’t hold up their end of the bargain (remember how Marlene promised Joel guns in return for delivering Ellie?) So even if you show them as much goodwill as possible, the Fireflies are still a bunch of assholes. If the exact opposite had happened, they let Joel go all on good terms and then he suddenly decided to turn around and murder everyone I would have called him a terrible person, but that is not what happened. As it stands, the Fireflies are shady and questionable at best. But it actually gets worse:

a) the procedure that would 100% kill Ellie had an incredibly low success rate (the doctor mentioned in his recording that every previous operation with other test subjects had failed) b) the same recording mentions cerebrospinal fluid having been extracted, meaning they were capable of performing a non-lethal spinal tab, but they’re unable to perform a non-lethal biopsy or craniotomy on Ellie? (this may seem like nit-picking, but actually further solidifies my point about how incompetent the Fireflies/Abby’s dad were/was) c) to add to their immense incompetence, mere hours after receiving Ellie they decide to IMMEDIATELY KILL THE ONLY PERSON KNOWN TO BE IMMUNE as oppose to keeping her alive for as long as possible to run every single test in existence on her. But let's paint a picture of the best case scenario, which is Jerry, the absolute legend that he is, actually manages to get a vaccine out of Ellie, what happens then? a) How are the Fireflies, who are nearly extinct at this point, supposed to MASS PRODUCE and NATIONWIDE DISTRIBUTE a vaccine? That is logistically impossible. b) More than likely, they would use the vaccine as a bargaining chip against FEDRA (granted, this is more a guess than a fact, but to believe they wouldn’t take advantage of the vaccine in the fight for political power against the government they’ve been fighting for years is beyond naïve). But let’s be even more generous: turns out the Fireflies are the most altruistic resistance group to have ever existed, they actually manage to produce and distribute the vaccine into every last corner of the country, everyone is immune. What now? a) You might be immune to spores and bites, but your immunity doesn’t help you when a clicker rips your throat out or a bloater crushes you to death, the infected can still kill you in numerous other ways. b) The faction wars going on are not gonna disappear overnight. WLF and Seraphites will continue to kill each other by the dozens every day, one could even argue that introducing a vaccine into the conflict would only cause things to escalate further. c) Numerous cannibals, hunters and bandits still roam the country, they will not abandon their practices overnight and they are arguably a much bigger threat than the infected to begin with. Just because everyone is immune does not mean that the world returns to sunshine, rainbows, and flowers. To imply that it would, means being simplistic and naive beyond reason. It should be obvious by now that Ellie’s death WOULD NOT HAVE IMPROVED ANYTHING. The chances of actually getting a vaccine are slim to none, the chances of vaccinating everyone are even more dour, and even then the overall situation would not improve much. With such bad prospects I wouldn't be willing to sacrifice my child either. (I am aware that an argument can be made that none of these factors had an impact on Joel’s decision to save Ellie, yet they’re still crucial when making a judgement about the Fireflies/Abby’s dad). To summarize: a) Abby’s dad was incompetent and a horrible person (his conversation with Abby in the second game tells us that he would not be willing to sacrifice his own child, but if it’s someone else’s it’s a-okay for him). b) The Fireflies were a malicious and incompetent terrorist group with messed up morals. c) No, Joel did not doom humanity. Subsequently, Abby’s quest for revenge was not justified because the Fireflies and her dad were never justified in their actions to begin with. And this is only solidified by the second game having to retcon the hell out of all these arguments I just painstakingly illustrated and explained in order to even attempt to have Abby’s motivation be seen as justified. Only one example being how it was clearly established in the first game that they had MULTIPLE doctors in Salt Lake City (Marlene: “The doctors tell me that the cordyceps, the growth inside her, has somehow mutated.”; Ellie: “She said that they have their own little quarantine zone. With doctors there still trying to find a cure.”). Yet in the second game we are told by

Abby that actually no, turns out her dad was the only doctor that could have developed vaccine. And it doesn't take mental gymnastics to see why the second game takes it upon itself to alter most of the context of the first one: to (retroactively!) condemn Joel. HOWEVER, a sequel doesn’t get to pick and choose which established facts from the first entry it builds upon or what it gets to retroactively declare as non-canon only to have it fit their preferred narrative. Quite frankly, that’s bad writing. A sequel, in order to be considered well-written, has to not only be a natural continuation of the events, but has to stay consistent with the characters and the world that were previously set up. And if you have to alter much of the context to make it look like Joel condemned the world, isn't that the most obvious sign that he never actually did? And all of this effort for just one goal: to justify Abby’s quest for revenge and yet it still wasn’t and here’s why: Joel killed her dad in order to PREVENT HIM FROM KILLING HIS DAUGHTER. Abby on the other hand WILFULLY SLOW TORTURED Joel for what appears to be hours, prolonging his death for as long as possible, all for her own gratification (and we won't mention how she went through with it despite Ellie's crying and pleading). And don’t even try to make the argument about Abby wanting “justice”, Joel didn’t torture her dad out of revenge or for his own gratification - this is not justice, this is simply sadistic. A man killing someone who is about to murder their child in semi-self-defense cannot be compared to someone wilfully slow torturing someone to death for their own gratification, like Jesus, I didn’t think I’d have to spell that one out. I am aware that the second game tries to do whatever it can, including retconning their own original story, to paint Ellie and (especially!) Joel as evil. And for a considerable amount of the player base this actually worked, and while I cannot find it in me to condemn them (we all experience stories differently after all), I reserve the right to reject arguments in defense of Abby such as “all people are forced to do bad things during the apocalypse” and “does context even matter?”. If the only way you can defend/justify Abby's actions is to remove all context and nuance, then your reasoning is built on quicksand.

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