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arkus-rhapsode · 6 months

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I want to talk about Crimson Flower and 3H as a narrative

So... after FE3H discourse makes the round every other week, I end up thinking about it for a bit until I realize, hey maybe its better to not focus on a 4 year old game at this point and occupy your time with something else. Everything has basically been said about it at this point and you know where you land.

But this time my thoughts were just getting too strong for me to ignore, so that's why I'm writing this both get it out of my system and maybe just be another voice in the crowd that some people might want to listen to on the divisive topic that is Crimson Flower route.

Now I really hate that I have to put this disclaimer up front, but I feel like the well of this discussion has become so poisoned that I have to before I make my piece. I want to say that if you enjoy Crimson Flower, if you love Edelgard and believe she did nothing wrong and this is the right route, if you are a Black Eagles stan and you genuinely do not have any issues with Crimson Flower route as a whole-that is perfectly fine.

This will be a somewhat critical examination of the narrative choices about the execution of CF, which I feel like whenever 3H, specifically Edelgard is discussed, there is often very disingenuous arguments people make. Which I believe can create more defensive fans of a particular aspect of a story that we should be able to criticize freely. Which perpetuates this never ending cycle of discourse of legit criticism and defense against that criticism becomes drowned out by trying to decouple these very disingenuous claims from legitimate flaws. So I at least want to make it known that I am going to try my best to be in good faith with this post about this tricky subject.

I also want to just say, this is also going to be mostly an examination of narrative. The thing that I personally enjoy the most in an FE game, but we need to genuinely acknowledge that narrative isn't the only reason why people may like Fire Emblem. The ability to form parasocial relationships with fictional characters and being able to experience something the genuinely brings you emotional fulfillment is not invalid. Being able to enjoy fighting against establishments or ideologies you in the real world disagree with through the experience of a video game is not invalid. The same way someone who plays this game for the experience of gameplay isn't invalid when their primary enjoyment stems from the actual mechanics rather than the "logistics" of the story. The point I'm trying to make is that everyone will engage in media in different ways and will enjoy it other ways and that you don't want to invalidate those feelings someone had with their personal experience. So this is going to be about me and my experience as someone who primarily enjoys narrative.

I am just one guy with opinions who is going to layout what I had an issue with and how I think for me that could've been improved upon. You don't have to agree with me on that, and I'm not saying my way is legitimately better. This is all opinionated.

Buckle this is a long one

First things first Im gonna say Im not going to be using any information given in Three Hopes that may contradict what Im about to say. As in my opinion Three Houses came first and does not include the content from Three Hopes so I should think that Three Houses can stand on its own merits and the content that was provided.

Next thing is I want to catch people up on what in my opinion are the points I think CF did for me that ultimately left me unsatisfied

The post time skip Fodlan was too different and felt contradictory to Byleth's role

Edelgard's Characterization in CF in comparison to the other lord's in their respected routes

The role of Rhea

The role of Those who Slither in the Dark

SO the first thing is probably the thing I'm mostly going to have to defend if I haven't lost you already, but Fire Emblem Three Houses as a narrative provides us with a five year time skip in the game that depending on the route will change who is control of the monastery at this point in the war, with each route providing a lord the chance the forge their campaign. However, something I don't think is brought up enough is talking about the liberties that CF takes with their time skip vs the other three routes. Azure Moon, Verdant Wind, and Silver snow all paint a post five years Fodlan as one where the monastery territory has been abandoned, Rhea has been captured, the Alliance territory is split between an imperialist faction and an anti imperialism faction, and the Kingdom has been split with Cornelia making an alliance with the Empire to create the Dukedom of Faerghus as the houses of Gautier and Faldarius hold up the Kingdom.

There are obviously minor changes like Dimitri camping out in the monastery in Azure Moon rather than in the care of Kingdom Allies, but for the most part there is a consistently defined world between the three routes. However, Crimson Flower's post Fodlan is much different. With a grid locked Fodlan after five years with just the church territory falling under the control of Adrestia, Rhea wasn't captured and instead made it to Faerghus, The Alliance is still feuding amongst itself, but most importantly than all, Faerghus is a complete kingdom with Dimitri as King and no Cornelia's Dukedom.

So there are two main reasons why this bothers me.

The first is that Three Houses as a game wants to present you with three options at first, with the idea that your choices will effect the outcome of the war when Byleth returns, however there's enough consistency to imply that this is what Fodlan would be like regardless of whose House you would join, with the primary effect being your class making it to the church for the festival which in turn will make the monastery your new territory for which route. However, Crimson Flower decides to do away with the consistency, implying that the effect Byleth had on the situation is far greater than that of any other route resulting in a drastically shifted Fodlan. So this is more of a problem with FE3H as a whole with the consistency of choice. Fire Emblem has never really had a BioWare style choose your own adventure type of game. There's only one real choice you're given in the case of 3H and that's which house you side with, which you are essentially locked into. Black Eagles is really the only route that offers a choice beyond that with choosing to side with Edelgard or Rhea which will effect who the class sides with in the time skip. The reason I bring this up is that it essentially means that you the player are for the most part on rails for a predetermined plot where all the choices for the series have already been made. So the Fodlan post five years being consistent makes some sense as essentially mostly everything that happened in White Clouds was the same with the acceptation of the class. However, the Crimson Flower one not being consistent and being so radically different based on a game with so minimal choice feels more like an act of narrative convenience. That this is what happened because of a writer fully independent from me the player had decided that this is how Fodlan shall be for this story because it fits what they want to tell.

Somewhere I had once read that FE3H shouldn't be treated as one story, but since its a bunch of routes they're all a different universe. Everything might look the same but everything is fundamentally altered that you should accept it as an independent universe. And I can't necessarily say that's wrong as the concept of multiverses is to create a world/scenario that allows to explore familiar characters in unfamiliar settings and you could say that Byleth effect on Edelgard in picking this universe was just so much greater that it would result in such a different universe.

I personally disagree with that which brings me to my second point as I believe this one is going to be a more philosophical point on game design. But I feel like the effort to make three routes so consistent with each other with one so different seems to deliberately undercut the core themes of the game. Offering you a choice that this is who you get to spend your happy schools days with and it is what is going to result in them returning to the monastery one the day of your return. That is the true effect of Byleth on the characters. But as you play through white clouds you can't change what happens to other characters which will result in a brand new scenario. Byleth's presence can never stop Dimitri from going blood mad, Byleth's presence can't stop Claude from discovering the Immaculate One research, and Byleths presence can't stop Edelgard from declaring war. And that is a good thing for this type of on rails route story. Byleth while a player insert who can help their lord in the future, right now everyone is on a path that Byleth can only lightly change. With the characters acting independently of what Byleth and the player desire. And the post time skip Fodlan is a sign of that. Its Five Years without Byleth. This is what these characters would do, that they were always capable of doing and that is why Byleth's return and effect on them is important. This also gives us the ability to observe what a lord is like now after the war, and Byleth's effect on them but also see what a character could be like without that Byleth effect on them. Without Byleth Dimitri stays mad, without Byleth Claude always flees Fodlan, without Byeth Edelgard... well lets put a pin in that.

The only other true choice the player can make beyond the initial one is the side with Edelgard or Rhea which radically alters her. Which honestly feels kinda defeating in a game that has locked Byleth so much on a path and the one time it can deviate actively alters everything. It just feels very hollow as there are parts that make you realize how great the effect Byleth could have on people's lives could be if the game actively wanted to integrate choice with the plot. But it didn't. It wants to make one early choice then lock you in that route for several chapters then remove Byleth and then have their return effect real change on the future of Fodlan. Except for this one route. Its why Crimson Flower feels so much like an asterisk compared to the other route. And I don't just mean the lack of chapters, but this feels like a route that can only exist because it was the one that the developers bothered to create something overly deviating from everything else.

Which brings us to Edelgard's role in Crimson Flower as a whole. Now lets just get this out of the way. Im not going to be talking at all on the morality/realistic implications of what Edelgard is doing. I feel like the "Is she a fascist/authoritarian" conversation is not really helpful to talking about FE3H as a work of narrative and mostly exists to create a bunch of petty beef. This is also not going to be a deconstruction of ever minute detail of Edelgard as a character. This is an examination of her as a character in the narrative that we are presented. This will also involve comparison's to Edelgard and other series lords and I want it to be known that this is not a talking down to the only female lord in the game as being something "lesser" than her male contemporaries. I believe there is genuinely sexism when discussing Edelgard as a character, so I want to say that I am approaching Crimson Flower and Three Houses as a whole in a good conscious that there is not a "right route." That this is a game that where all choices have their pros and their cons. Because that's why we like this entry, right? That 3H would provide us some genuinely complex lords who were all capable of doing great and terrible things regardless of gender?

That's why I had such a long winded discussion about why the change in the post time skip Fodlan is so important both for narrative consistency, but also just generally keeping with the tone, but also it reinforced that Fodlan and its lords while all righteous in their own way can be dangers in their own way. Well that's when I return to the pin about Edelgard. So first I want to go through how the lords are characterized in non devoted routes.

Dimitri in non AZ routes is portrayed as someone so damaged by loss that his who response is to avenge and fight. To never stop making those pay for the damage it has brought on his kingdom as well as any lives lost during the tragedies in places like Duscar and Remire.

Claude in non VW routes is portrayed as a brilliant individual with a lot of charm but seems to be hiding something from everyone. He's a lot smarter than one could assume and that he has some mysterious tie to the kingdom of Almyra that he departs after leaving his land to the stronger kingdom that has come so far, be it Dimitri or Edelgard or the Church.

Edelgard in non CF routes is portrayed as a conspirator to overthrow not only the church but all rule in Fodlan as she believes the Crest based system is flawed and that the only way to enact systemic change is through a single rule. And while she is aware her ideals have costs, she believes that those costs are worth it when weighed against perpetuity of the crest system.

Now I want to talk about what happens to those lords as you play them in their routes.

Dimitri in AZ is portrayed as someone burdened by loss and his quest for vengeance has led to a neglect for his own health and his own actions. That his kill everyone attitude will perpetuate more loss of those he loves and that he needs to learn to rely upon others. That is his true responsibility as king.

Claude in VW is portrayed as an individual who is outside of Fodlan's system who has observed it more as a third party and believes it can be a great place if people work through diplomatically. He too is not a fan of inequality and racism and wishes to make a Fodlan that is more accepting and able to work through negotiation. While he still leaves Fodlan at the end, this time he has been able to implement real systemic change and make one that is sustainable beyond that of a ruler.

In CF we find out that Edelgard is a traumatized girl who was experimented on for the purposes of Crest Research. This makes her a conspirator to overthrow not only the church but all rule in Fodlan as she believes the Crest based system is flawed and that the only way to enact systemic change is through a single rule. And while she is aware her ideals have costs, she believes that those costs are worth it when weighed against perpetuity of the crest system.

Hey wait a minute, that's the same?

So this is where I get to the most glaring flaw for me in this case of narrative and why I think altering the post time skip so much did a lot of damage. Edelgard is a good character and a fascinating one, but in the practice of her narrative, her character journey in her own route isn't like the other lords. Rather she is "right" from the start of the time skip and with the world altering in ways to justify why she is that way.

Now look, I know right now someone could be saying I can't read, that its clearly stated in the text that Edelgard says without Byleth she may have turned into a complete monster to see her goals through to the end. This is referring to how in non CF routes she is on the backfoot getting beaten back and forced to take more drastic measures as whoever Byleth comes closer to ending her ideals. Unlike Dimitri or Claude there's not really a psychological arc she is working through with her sociological arc. Dimitri's arc is almost entirely hinged on him as a character changing in his route. And while Claude the character is also mostly the same, you get an understanding of how his continued participation in Fodlan's politics is so important as he effects sociological change. Claude also does the less stuff that could be considered questionable in Fodlan. He neither initiates the war nor does he intimate greater conflict that is tied into a character arc like Dimitri. Claude action's through the war are mostly to keep the Alliance fighting against each other with avoids giving one side a greater advantage. The truth is Claude real "flaw" is that by being an Almyra he is from a race outside of Fodlan that is inherently untrustworthy in society so his continued prescience in his expanded campaign is done with changing that mentality.

Now one could look at everything I said about Claude and say "well isn't that Edelgard though? She's not the one who needs to change but rather society needs to and this is you making it a fruition?" And I would agree however, then why did post time skip need to change and not Edelgard? So going back to the altered Fodlan, the Fodlan post time skip we see in non CF routes has what can be argued Edelgard's biggest moment of political conquest, making an alliance with Cornelia inside of Faerghus using her authority and influence to expand and bring over a chunk of the kingdom underneath Edelgard's wing. And this makes sense with what has been proposed before us-Edelgard had released a manifesto to lords that would side with her and become her allies in the war to come. This act of subversion is something that benefits her goals for conquering all of Fodlan. However, this is one of the key alterations in CF's time skip. Faerghus is not broken in half, with Edelgard having not empowered Cornelia over the five years. In fact, you do battle with Cornelia with her as a kingdom general.

So if Edelgard isn't a character who is subject to change, why did the world change? Well there is speculation in universe that perhaps Rhea fleeing to Faerghus didn't give her the ability. But I do believe the most likely reason is that narratively the writers of 3H wanted to avoid a scenario where while Byleth was gone Edlegard may have empowered and individual like Cornelia. One of the most objectively evil characters in the game. Now I won't go into to detail if I believe Edelgard knew Cornelia was a TWSITD or not, but as it is presented to us, she seems unaware. Instead I'll focus on the primary point is where they don't want to discuss that while in her route Edelgard was capable of doing something that would potentially cast her in such a negative light. After all, the point of her campaign is the while the bloodshed is worth it to make a new Fodlan free of crests, she's willing to show lenency to those who bend the knee. Again, an action not unreasonable for her character. However, I feel like this not happening in CF genuinely robs us from exploring the flaws of Edelgard's path/showing us what Byleth's effect on her truly is.

This is compounded by my issues with how CF is the only route in which you have an active choice beyond class. That by choosing to side with Edelgard when given the option in the tomb would result in this much radical history alteration. But also all of Byleth's effect on her not being as much conqueror over the last 5 years was all done pre time skip. That all that change was done at that moment rather than being something that prompted her to return to Garreg Mach where they'd remeet Byleth and then that would get them to claim it as a base of oppositions in their future war. In CF, Garreg Mach is already claimed rather than the formation of the Dukedom with no real progress. So it makes it seem as though Byleth's real effect on altering this lord's path was always possible in the short time they knew them before disappearing over five years. Of course this is again a bit miffling given that CF is the only route this is a possibility. We can't Change how Dimitri will act in the pre time skip. That he will make choices without Byleth even if they feel urged to remeet at Garreg Mach. But in the case of CF, Edelgard has apparently been changed despite the only real difference in white clouds fighting beside her in the tomb and against the church pre timeskip. But that has sociologically altered so much of Fodlan.

And maybe you genuinely believe that one extra change is enough. Perhaps that one extra choice is enough justification for such a radically new scenario. For me personally, I find that unsatisfying and feels more like the writers traded in a level of consistency for this new scenario that greater justified being on the side of someone who is portrayed as a more active antagonistic force in other routes (Reminder this not me saying the Empire route is an antagonist route. All routes are antagonistic relative to which side you are on).

This is where we get my first what I would've done to make it more narratively satisfying for me. Keep the same post time skip Fodlan as the other routes. Keep Edelgard having brokered a deal with Cornelia to establish the Dukedom and have Byleth find out about it. Be some that either Byleth or another character close to Edelgard questions the extremity of. Then have Cornelia do something evil like she's experimenting on people for TWSITD or maybe she's just abusing the power. Then have Edelgard clean it up. Have Edelgard realize that while she still wants to make her dream of a crestless Fodlan a reality she can't just back lords or nobles that are willing to go along with her for more power. She can still keep the Dukedom territory, but instead she'd be now more understanding what it means for there to be a ruler with a noble soul. So she continues her campaign of conquest but has realized that if she's going to be emperor, she can't just empower people arbitrarily.

In my opinion this not only would tie together some more TWSITD plot while also paralleling it to Edelgard's past and how there was no authority figure to step in and help her all those years ago. But now she is that authority figure. And while it doesn't call her method in question and like Dimitri and Claude she can continue her expanded influence over Fodlan, but now we actively see that Byleth has helped show her that her allies aren't just those pledging loyalty, she actually needs to empower those who are good. She gets to have her fight with Cornelia level and this won't stop her from killing Dimitri in the future.

Like I said, this is what I'd do. And in my opinion it would give Byleth's presence in CF more purpose beyond the bond with Edelgard is nice and fun. But also stay consistent with each route. Showing that there are flaws in Edelgard's sociological plan, but not undercutting what her actual goal is. You can still believe her quest is just and the only right one with her taking an active role in not making the mistakes she perceives Rhea as doing.

And if you are still with me up to my third point, lets talk about Rhea.

So Rhea as a character can best be described as a neutral evil throughout White Clouds. She doesn't really do anything but there is a lot of ominous foreshowing and presentation that Rhea may be up to something or at the very least complicit with many of her policies and tendencies. And when I say "evil" I don't mean she's bad (please don't skewer me Rhea fans). I mean that if the crest system is flawed and the church is emblematic of the systems maintenance of that flawed system. Then Rhea as the face/founder/head of that church bares some responsibility even if all she does is passive.

In all other routes, Rhea is captured by the Empire. Imprisoned in their capital. Anytime she is seen after she is characterized as somewhat docile or defeated, having been imprisoned for so long. VW goes a step farther to reveal what she did as Seiros and all of her actions leading to this point presumably all thanks to be imprisoned and rethinking her life over. CF is the only one Rhea is allowed to be an active player, she is now portrayed a ranting self righteous warrior priest who swears vengeance upon Byleth for being the reincarnation of her mother but not being a proper vessel as she intended and fighting against her. Naturally, if Byleth being the potential for the reincarnation of Sothis siding against her is what her drives her mad, that is believable, however much like the altered Fodlan Rhea in this version is not captured. This is now for Rhea to serve as Edelgard's true climatic opponent. With her symbolically killing the representation of the church and the power of crests being slain by Byleth and Edelgard. Its very poetic. But once again we reach my issue of the time skip altering so much in CF.

As stated before, Rhea was presented as a neutral evil, in doing so she's not really a direct antagonist in any route. Except of course Silver Snow. Where she is deployed as a weapon against Byleth. In this case killing the immaculate one symbolically is cleansing the church of Rhea and allowing it to pass into the hands of the new archbishop. However, Rhea in that fight is under control. Rather than be conscious as an opponent, they make her more of a beast without choice. Thus making this less a flawed character meeting their end and rather a forced confrontation by the evil cult of evil. Now Rhea I think being kept a neutral party was ultimately a good choice. We are given enough about her to understand she has done things questionable and should possibly not hold the authority she has. But she also has not instigated any open any hostility. As such Rhea is more a symbolic player. By making her an active player, CF has to make Rhea more domino and more a threat. She can't portray constant neutrality in a war. But by making her the active antagonist, it makes her less of a symbol and more if just a rotten character who Edelgard is justified in wanting dead. And much like Cornelia and the Dukedom, this alteration comes off as an attempt by the writers to never truly challenge Edelgard's plans for Fodlan. That Edelgard has no flaws in her plan and the bloodshed is beyond justified more than just philosophically. Had Edelgard captured Rhea in CF this would lead to some genuinely uncomfortable questions of keeping her a prisoner. And to 3H's credit they were actually willing to make the player uncomfortable already in Dimitri's route showing him as a mass murderer. Once again, I want to express this isn't me saying Edelgard's quest or goals are wrong and the plot should undermine it. This is me saying that for a game that wants to genuinely have nuanced and uncomfortable political choices made by their character, this is the route where they opt to alter the scenario so that Edelgard is the most justified and does less things that one could find objectionable. Flattening a lot of interesting implications this would raise and what Byleth as a force in this route could possibly able to influence.

Now one could again say, well the reason Rhea wasn't captured because Edelgard didn't use crest beasts this time. Edelgard not using crest beasts is a sign Byleth is changing her and thus that greatly alters the future. Once again, I can see that as understandable justification, but again, my issue off only ever being able to effect this lord pre time skip comes in again. If it was possible to get Edelgard to not use crest beasts, then how come it wasn't possible for me to get Claude to have Almyra support? How come I couldn't stop Dimitri before the war? The answer is again as a game the only other narrative choice that could possibly alter the story happens in CF which is the side with Edelgard in tombs choice. And while I'm not against the idea of angry pope Rhea, but I feel making her CF's full on antagonist was almost making a straw man antagonist for your opposition.

As an aside we also know Arundel is still on Edelgard's side and he is Thales so while she might not know his entire deal, I hesitate to imagine he'd stop using crest beasts in the war over the two years Byleth was gone.

If I was going to once again alter CF to be something I would personally find more satisfying. Have Rhea captured and then have Arundel use the same rage stuff he uses on her Silver Snow. This way you can facilitate an Edelgard vs TWSITD conflict AND you still get your symbolic victory of Edelgard and Byleth killing the symbol of the crests and church. Again, Edelgard is able to do what she wanted to originally, but now we are also confronted with the role TWSITD did play in her life and allowing her to rectify it as well as truly killing the old world by getting rid of Rhea and Thales.

And final point TWSITD. TWSITD are bad. They've always been bad. And they genuinely damage the overall story of CF because this is beyond just a narrative choice, its very clear CF as a story wasn't complete. I feel confident in saying that given the numerous chapters missing compared to the other routes, but also the epilogue needs to say "Oh yeah there was totally a bunch of war against them. Totally." I know this point is probably the least controversial when talking about CF, but I still think its a glaring flaw.

So what's the tl;dr?

This is not an "I hate Crimson Flower or Edelgard post" I genuinely have no interest in debating people about characters that like or enjoy. Nor did I want to turn this into a moral argument about the implication CF. I feel like these topics do real damage to any real criticisms one can have for CF as a narrative.

Which for me, CF as a route fails to really mesh with the rest of 3H as a whole. It feels like it takes a lot of narrative ways out to avoid potentially making their lord seem objectionable, despite much of this game wanting to be about how tragically flawed everyone is. Im not saying Edelgard needed a come to Jesus moment of "Are we the bad guys?" No absolutely not. In my opinion we just lack seeing Edelgard change the same way post time skip as others have due to creating an entirely brand new setting that keeping her as a mostly the same character is not questionable. Nor does she have to do anything that could truly be seen as flawed. Things that Byleth's influence may overcome.

Edelgard is a good character and her goals are understandable. I just personally find the narrative bending to accommodate her in ways so different from the other time skips genuinely make it a weaker narrative for me.

If you enjoy CF as it it. More power to you. Please keep loving CF. This isn't supposed to be a dissuading post. This is merely me as one guy who likes a lot of FE because of the stories it can tell sharing why he personally didn't enjoy this one. Maybe I helped put it words for some who might feel similar. But this is just my opinion

If you have something you'd like to add or reply in the replies or tags please flee free, but for the love god, please be cordial about it. There is so much toxicity and disingenuous takes around Fire Emblem Crimson Flower and Edelgard and Rhea in general, that I would like for us to please be able to talk about this in good faith.

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #black eagles #edelgard von hresvelg #crimson flower #rhea #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #claude von riegan #rhapsode rambles

38 notes · View notes

foxstride · 1 year

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I posted 668 times in 2022

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I tagged 640 of my posts in 2022

Only 4% of my posts had no tags

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My Top Posts in 2022:

re: frecklewish discourse

guys, i know you see Warrior Cats as owned by HarperCollins. but do you really think one of the largest publishing houses in the world is going to care about emails when they have millions of authors, and many more millions of books?

Erin Hunter (the authors AND editors) are part of Working Partners Ltd, aka Coolabi. They're the ones who deal with the official website. They are the ones hiring for the website. They are the ones WRITING the articles. Warrior Cats is one of their franchises.

HarperCollins will not care. As long as books get sold, they will not care, because it is Coolabi's actual franchise right now. Everything being done on the website? Not going to bother HarperCollins. It does not make them money.

Here is Coolabi's website: https://coolabi.com/about-us/

Here is the WarriorCats.com FAQ that specifies who is running it (note the footer too): https://warriorcats.com/contact-us/frequently-asked-questions

Here is the contact email for Working Partners Ltd attached for enquiries: [email protected]

Here is the contact email for Coolabi who own Working Partners Ltd: [email protected]

And just to be clear, Coolabi is also the company behind the Roblox game.

43 notes - Posted January 9, 2022

Introducing... The Warrior Cats Rarepair collection!

@addershine and I have made a rarepair prompt meme collection on AO3 to help create content, especially for ships! As @mallowstep has said, there's a severe lack of romantic fanfiction in the WC fandom and we'd like to encourage others to give it a try!

The collection is dedicated to helping boost rarepairs so shippers have more content and the fandom has more fics to devour.

So what is a rarepair? We're defining a rarepair as a ship with less than 10 works in their canonical relationship (/) tag. You can find more information on the collection page! Adder even made a whole spreadsheet of all current Warrior Cats rarepairs for reference!

If you write fanfiction or create fanart, you can add your fanworks into the collection or claim and fulfill prompts from other people. Anyone (must be signed in) can add a prompt - you're welcome to claim your own as well, and prompts can be fulfilled as many times as people like!

Because it's a celebration of my birthday, every anniversary (13 February) we'll post an overview of the last year, a sort of present to myself and to the fandom that I've been in the longest.

If you have any questions that aren't on the collection's intro or FAQ, please feel free to send either myself or Adder an ask. If you need an invite to join AO3 to participate, you can either sign up for the AO3 waitlist or contact one of us (off-anon) so we can get you an invite - we'll send this in a private ask or DM.

Also if you want prompts for a specific rarepair, send me an ask and I'll personally write a request on there with multiple prompts for you AND others to fulfill!

88 notes - Posted February 14, 2022

Nice work, fandom. Instead of protecting a minor, you harassed them and sent them death threats until they decided to leave Tumblr, further isolating themself.

When a minor is defensive about their relationship, providing support and resources is ideal. You don't tell them they DESERVED to be groomed because they like problematic ships. You don't harass them over and over again with the same messages.

We need more resources available to help minors identify grooming, but we also need to be decent people. That doesn't happen by telling minors that they don't know what's happening to them (it doesn't work - for anything). That doesn't happen by suicide baiting.

Every person involved in the suicide baiting, the harassment, and the blaming of proshipping on a minor who needed SUPPORT - NOT HATE... You are disgusting.

You are the people who need to be removed from the fandom to protect minors. You are the ones who have driven a minor into further isolation.

Start considering how your actions affect people.

114 notes - Posted January 18, 2022

You are 100% valid if you are uncomfortable with shipping certain ships, writing or reading plots, or anything else

Just please remember that your preferences are not the same as others and you cannot impose them on anyone

625 notes - Posted February 16, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

"your fave ship is problematic" yeah, I want to make it worse

"that character is irredeemable" that's why I love them

"how can you even write that" watch me

6,322 notes - Posted February 12, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #yeah this checks out

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localcactushugger · 3 years

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Is anyone else amazed that Hawks was only "undercover" with the Leauge for 6 months at the most.

Not only that, one and a half of those 6 months were spent just trying to gain enough trust to infiltrate.

I know it seems like much longer since Hawks made his Manga debut 2 years ago. But he had such a short amount of time on this mission. Hawks was introduced in the manga with his role being the "double agent". We literally have not seen Hawks outside of his "spy" role. Even when he is interacting with other characters outside of the Leauge, his "mission" is still happening in the background.

It seems Hawks made contact with Dabi right before the Hero Billboard chart, this is when he starts trying to infiltrate. His interaction with Dabi in the warehouse begins immediately after Endeavors fight with High-End:

During this time, Dabi is testing out a High-End Nomu for doctor Ujiko. Which means by the time Endeavor fights High-End, the My Villain Academia arc is already happening. Hawks is assumed to be one of the "members" Dabi is trying to recruit:

The Leauge has already made contact with doctor Ujiko, and the Doctor sends Dabi to test his High-End Nomu out on Endeavor (even though Dabi didn't know it would be Endeavor) while the rest of the Leauge battle Machia. At the time, Dabi still doesn't trust Hawks at all and he keeps the hero at arms length. While Dabi and Hawks are sharing ominous phone calls, the Leauge is hauling ass and it take's Shigiraki a month and a half to finally beat Machia. (The MLA is "defeated" too):

After a month and a half of phone calls (while the Leauge gets their asses handed to them by Machia in the background) Hawks is finally allowed into the Leauge when the battle of Dekia City is finally over. Dabi let's him in because Hawks "kills" Best Jeanist.

But there's a problem. By the time Hawks is let in, The Leagues numbers have drastically increased. They have an army at their side, multiple High-End nomu, and are now called the MLA:

Hawks blames himself, saying that he was "too late". That so many civilians would be alive now if he had been faster. He couldn't round up the Leauge when they were a small group, and now they have an army. A powerful one:

He's in too deep now. And you can see the stress on his face. I bet he never expected to be part of an army. He was simply tasked to round up the Leauge members while they were a small group, but the MLA was completely unexpected. Still, he decides to improvise and do the best he can with the shitty cards he's been dealt. It's not like he has another option at this point.

So he slips a coded message to Endeavor ASAP. Basically saying "yo, in four months shits about to go down. Ttyl I'll keep you posted lol". He can't tell the guy in person now, because to make things harder, he has camera's on his wings. (and even though he's being watched by camera's, he also gets followed by guards at the mansion):

After Hawks relays the massge, he stroles around the mansion with his bodyguard and heads towards the cafeteria. With a little eavesdropping (courtesy of his feathers) he also finds out that the Leauges plan is to "Destroy Everything" in four months:

After he relays the massage to Endeavor, he listens to the Leauges plans of destruction as his thoughts run a thousand M.P.H.

Because now "capture the Leauge" has turned into "Holy shit I now only have 4 months to take down a full fledged terrorist organization/army from the inside-out by myself while I'm being monitored 24/7 with absolutely no privacy & also a full time job as a hero + a public image to maintain. And I can only contact my fellow pro's about this mission through code because if the villains find out I'm a double agent I could be killed and Japan could be destroyed. Also some heros have even joined the MLA so who on my own side can I trust? Only a select specific few for now I guess."

If you thought things couldn't get worse your wrong.

Because around 2 months before the raid Hawks' heart (that wants to be free & has a genuine desire to help people) takes shit a bit too far when it makes him get attached to a certain powerful villain.

Hawks quckily finds out that Twice is easily the second most powerful villain in the Leauge after Shigiraki. He's an S ranked villain and he'll kick your ass with the power of friendship anyday. He's a great guy, but him and the Leauge are still planning on doing horrible things within the next 2 months. Twice is going along with it because he wants to stick by his friends, which y'know, is a cool motive. But considering that fact that the people Hawks is trying to protect ALSO have friends, and family's, this makes shit difficult and sends Hawks on some major guilt trips. (I would show all the panels of Hawks sadly smiling as Twice calls him a "good guy", but alas- Tumblr has informed me that I've reached my 10 image per post limit)

And tbh who wouldn't feel bad about suddenly getting attached to such a golden retriever of a man and then realizing you'll have to double-cross him at some point! I'm not surprised Hawks would feel this way, especially considering the fact that he never wanted to take on this mission in the first place.

Hawks is very much a people person, and he HATES lying even when he has no other option. This is a man who got "shivers up his spine" when he had to put on a serious face while handing Endeavor a book with coded messages inside. He literally felt icky and thought "this is low even for me" just because he had to use a deadly expression so that Endeavor would get the gist.

And when the Commission made their "proposal" about this mission, Hawks' first reaction was to call them out on their B.S. for asking him to put civilian lives at risk. He even admitted that he was feeling bad about sending Tokoyami away while talking to Deku, Shoto, and Bakugo. Hawks felt guilty about not being able to spend more time with his student, but considering that things with the MLA were starting to get riskier, and that Hawks literally handed Endeavor a book with a coded message inside about an uprising 2 seconds later, I can see why he wouldn't want to risk Tokoyami being around him. The fact that the camera's on Hawks' wings caught his interactions with Endeavor & the students also makes the creep‐factor worse. The MLA saw everything AND talked about it in a meeting later. Continuing to train with Tokoyami would put him at risk.

I love the complexity of Hawks' character, he's incredibly intelligent, logical, and intuitive. But at the same time throughout this entire mission his heart is constantly battling with his mind. Even when he knows he has to grit his teeth and do something shifty, his heart never fails to put up a fight with his logistics. Honestly it's been a pattern for a while that Hawks' sympathy always "Trips him up" in some way, so idk why I didn't see it coming around to bite him in the ass later.

(Tbh it's hard for me to see Hawks as a this super "Morally Gray" person that the fandom likes to paint him as because of a mission that he only spent 6 months on. I personally, kinda see Hawks as a "good person" who works for a "morally gray" agency. But that's a whole different meta)

Basically, Hawks getting attached to Twice wasn't a surprise. But considering how powerful Twice was, along with his role in the League's destructive plans (He was a lieutenant in one of the MLA's "Units") the discourse going on in Hawks' mind makes sense. By this point Hawks has already figured out all of the MLA's "Units" along with the three "bosses" that support the lieutenants of those "Units". It's noted that those "bosses" are extremely powerful and can match the strength of the heros as well. It took Hawks an entire month just to figure out all of the "Units" members. (I would show the panels explaining all of this but I'm at my photo limit)

All of these members were tasked to follow their lieutenants and bosses, and the plan was to attack all of Japans major cities at the same time. Once the cities were destroyed and chaos had set in, Redestro and feel good inc. Would distribute support items to the remaining citizens in the name of "self-defense". It would create a country full of discourse and destruction where Redestro and Feel good inc. Would rule from the shadows. But Shigiraki would be the main leader. He would become "king" and sit upon a "throne of rubble". (At least this was the MLA's plan, Shigiraki himself just kinda wants to destroy everything. But I suppose this would make things easier for him to do that.)

needless to say, the stakes have been upped excessively. But it took Hawks an entire month to gather this info.

This post is honestly just me marveling at what an M.V.P Hawks is

My guy literally only had 4 months to take down an entire terrorist organization for the inside-out. AND he was being monitored during that entire time. He figured out the MLA's intentions within the first month of being there. And it took him another full month to go into detail and figure out all the members, bosses, and lieutenants, for each of their "Units". Hawks even went as far as to immerse himself in the MLA's ideology, and he had in-depth discussions with the MLA's members. HELL HE EVEN FAKED HIS CO-WORKERS DEATH JUST TO GET IN.

AND HE PRETTY MUCH IMPROVISED ALL OF THIS SHIT!!! The original plan was to capture the Leauge when they were a small group! But by the time Hawks managed to infiltrate, The Leauge already had an army! They were a full-blown organization! And Hawks just kinda rolled with it??? He just kinda bullshitted his way through??

Like, "okay I'm now apart of an army I guess. The Leauge is now an entire organization and they're planning on destroying Japan in March. Let's see how this goes. I'll just have to make this work"???

LIKE HOW THE FUCK IS HE NOT DEAD! WHAT A FUCKING MADLAD

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the-young-and-forgotten · 3 years

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A Glimpse Through The Years ~ Third Year

| Masterlist |

September 1st 1993 - Third Year

Your father shook out his notebook as you pulled your suitcase down the staircase, struggling. “Daaaad” you complained “HELP. PLEASE.” You head snapped towards him as he gasped, completely ignoring you. You drop the suitcase and walk towards him. “What could be more important than your daughter almost being crushed to death?” Your eyes fall on the front of the newspaper and your heart plummets. “Oh”

There was a picture of Sirius Black, grinning evilly, baring his teeth. Underneath was a caption reading “BLACK STILL AT LARGE”. Your dad notices the look on your face and puts the newspaper face down, standing up to go help with your suitcase. “Hogwarts will be well protected honey.” You roll your eyes “I know dad. I was shocked he could’ve gotten out of Azkaban.”

You could tell your dad was desperate to get off the subject as he tried to make a joke about how heavy your suitcase was. You laugh falsely, indulging him.

The drive to the station was quieter than it had ever been. Not that you minded much. It did give you time to think. How did Sirius Black break out? Why after 12 years did he pick now and What the hell does he want to do now that he’s out? All of these questions captivated your thoughts for the entire journey.

Your father beeped his horn to shake out of your thoughts “y/n, we’re here.” You lean over and give him a huge hug, promising him good grades and tons of Hogsmeade sweets. You collect your case from the trunk, running into Kings Cross Station. You wave to your dad for the last time running off to where the portal for Platform 9 & ¾ is located, a big grin on your face.

Another year at Hogwarts was starting. Sure, the school years so far have had its up and downs, but that's what you get for being in the same year as Harry Potter. You grab a spare trolley and quickly throw your belongings onto it, running full speed at the pillar between platforms 9 and 10.

You emerge onto platform 9 & ¾ a small smile gracing your face. You stand on your tiptoes, looking over the crowds of people and spotting Theo and Blaise talking with Draco. Your eyes light up as you push your trolley towards them. Over the summer break, you had been consistently conversing via letter with Blaise and Theo, making the three of you pretty close friends.

“Hey boys!” you say grinning. Theo gives you a hug as they both greet you. You look at Draco and smile sweetly at him “Hey Dray.” He blushes a little and moves to hug you as well. “Have you guys been doing okay?” Theo slung an arm around your shoulder “Yep! Mother was freaking out about big ol’ Black but I’m not fussed.” “I saw you with your mother Theo, you were scared shitless.” “Hush!” he said, placing a finger over your lips and glancing around. No one needs to know that!” Blaise laughs as the two of you start walking away, taking long steps to keep up with you. “Sounds like something he’d do..”

Draco runs to catch up, walking in silence beside you. Linking your arms through his, you shove Theo off, telling him to “Stop leeching off my trolley, I know what you’re doing Nott.” You and Draco walk ahead of your trolley (Theo somehow ended up pushing it), the bickering coming from Theo and Blaise acting like background music.

“What’s wrong Draco.” You say, breaking the silence between you two. He startled, blushing. “Oh! Nothing Y/n, I was just..” “Lost in your thoughts?” “Exactly.” “...” “You know you can tell me anything right?” “Yeah, I know.”

You take a deep breath, ready to interrogate him further. But before you could get a word out, he straightened up suddenly, standing on tiptoes to look over the heads of the crowd. “Hey look! I can see Crabbe and Goyle! I gotta go! See ya!” He runs off with his trunk, quickly disappearing into the crowd. Confused by his sudden disappearance you stand on tiptoes, searching for his friends as well. But you see nothing save a sea of new first years. Frowning, you walk back and join in on Blaise and Theos squabble, walking onto the train.

You fling open the door of your dorm, slumping down onto your bad, extremely tired. The train started to have malfunctions that turned out to be dementors that started feeding on your energy, making you weak with tiredness. Then, as per year, Dumbledore's speech had dragged on a little too long, making you almost fall asleep in your food.

And now you were back in your dorm, dead tired. Eyes heavy and brain-fried, you drift off into a dreamless sleep.

The first week back, as always, was a pain. Long lectures, mountains of books and homework and one too many headaches. Now, because of the escape of Sirius Black, the school was even more on edge. Students talked in low voices about the dementors, pointing out to the black, barely visible creatures standing at the edge of the borders to their friends. Gryffindors kept freaking out the First years, laughing as they jumped with fright. Teachers scolded students more harshly than before, glancing nervously at the dementors. Hogwarts had become cold, filled with fear. Cold but not boring. You ran down the hallway with Theo and Blaise running for the Divination classroom, drastically late. You burst through the trapdoor just as Professor Trelawney was explaining the significance of cups. Sneaking along the back of the room, the three of you slumped down at Dracos desk as he raised an eyebrow. “Long story” Theo said “Don’t bother asking,” Blaise added. “We exploded part of the potions cupboard.” you blurt out. Theo and Blaise sigh, giving you looks. You shrug at them as Draco holds in his laughter “How did you manage that?” “Theo doesn’t know how to use his damn wand” you glare at the boy in question, who turns red and shakes his finger at you.

Professor Trelawnley suddenly approaches your table and picks up your cup, peering closely at it, her eyebrow rising. All conversation halts as you shift uncomfortably, wondering what she is seeing. “Ahh dear, you have a somewhat tragic future ahead of you.” She turns the cup and hums a little. “In the close future you are going to lose someone close to you, this will warrant discourse in your life, but be careful of cutting them out completely because you never know what they decide.” With that, she put down the cup and left your table bustling to the front of the room. You looked back at your friends disbelief and confusion written all over their faces.

You jumped down from the divination classroom, the last one to exit. “What's next?” You ask Blaise as he pulls out the timetable “We all have DADA together… that should be interesting.”

Draco pushes open the door of the classroom and you all file in. The desks were all pushed to the back of the room, leaving a big empty space with a sole cupboard in the middle of it as a scarred middle aged man leant against the side of it, reading a book.

He looked up at the sound of the door closing and snapped shut his book “Ah, the last stragglers! Right, let's get down to business.” He gestured for the class to stand in front of him as he moved to the front of the cupboard. “I'm Professor Lupin and I will be your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for this year. We’ll be learning all about the creatures in the magical world and today we are learning about the boggart! Now, can anyone tell me what a boggart is?”

As the class was entertained by the explanation of boggarts, you felt someone poking your shoulder. You follow the hand to its face and glance at Theo who wordlessly gestures to Draco.

Draco had a blank look on his face and seemed to be shaking? You share a concerned look with Theo and go to ask Draco what's wrong before Lupin tells the class to line up in front of the cupboard, separating you from him. Oh well, you can just ask him later.

You were halfway through the line watching as Ron defeated his fear. While everyone cheered for him, you watched from the corner of your eye as Draco walked up to the Professor and said something to him. Lupin nodded and Draco headed out of the room. You, Blaise and Theo all look at each other with concern before continuing on with the lesson. After watching Blaise beat the banshee and Theo defeat a severed head, it was finally your turn.

You nervously step towards the cupboard and hold up your wand defensively, ready for what the boggart was going to create. Slowly, a figure steps out. Quick as a flash, you point your wand at it, and scream “RIDDIKULUS!” at the top of your lungs before anyone could see what your worst fear was. The boggart starts spasming as Lupin steps in front of you, putting the boggart back into the cupboard.

He dismisses the class not before he scrutinises you for a second. You ignore this and run out of the class, barely having time to grab your bag in the hopes of finding Draco.

You ran through the corridors, but he was nowhere in sight.

One day, in DADA class, Snape took the lesson for Lupin. Your teachers mysterious illness was a monthly occurrence, something you were keen to know about. You sat there pondering on it as Snape argued with the Gryffindors. What could be so serious that he had to stay off for at least a couple of days? You snap back to reality at the mention of your books. You pull it out and puzzle over the chapter he had assigned you to read. Werewolves? You weren’t supposed to cover this yet…

You shrug and start to read through it, engrossed in the knowledge it was feeding you. The signs and facts of spotting a werewolf were vaguely familiar to you though you couldn’t think of why. You glanced up briefly seeing Snape gaze at the class with a smirk, who looked like he was plotting something. Now that you thought about it, why did he pick this chapter? He knows they weren’t up to it, what could be his real intentions? At that moment, Snape looks at you and you shift your gaze back to your book pretending to read even though you had already finished.

The lesson slowly crawls by and he finally dismisses you, everyone running for the door. You stepped over the threshold, still thinking about that chapter and how familiar it seemed. Your eyes widened as realisation struck you in the face and everything clicked. No wonder it was so familiar to you. Professor Lupin… was a werewolf.

Days later, the match arrived. Hufflepuff against Gryffindors. You hurried along the corridor, disastrously late for the game. You glance out the window, noticing the horrible weather ‘Ugh, glad I'm not on the quidditch team.’ you think, picking up the pace.

Your breath starts hitching, as your mind reels on the thought of the game. ‘All negative thoughts...’ you realise, eyes widening. ‘Oh no…’ you run to the window, grabbing onto the railing and gasping at the scene ahead of you.

You shivered as you watched several dementors move towards the quidditch pitch, frozen in shock. You shake yourself to snap out of it, taking a few steps back. “I gotta warn someone…” you mumble, thoughts wild “I gotta- DUMBLEDORE!” You take off down the corridor, running as fast as you could to the quidditch field.

You push through the teachers, tugging on Dumbledore’s sleeve. “De-dementors” You puff out, struggling to speak. He looks at you with a hard gaze before standing up and hurrying down to the court. You go to follow him, not knowing what else to do.

You feel a hand tug on your sleeve and turn to see Hagrid pulling you back, shaking his head slightly. You sink down onto the bench beside him, trying to calm down from the adrenaline still coursing through your body. “Dumbledore’ll take care o’ it, don't you worry” You jump at his voice, but nod along what he said. “I know… I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.” He looks down at you, smiling broadly “Dumbledore let a student be hurt? I wouldn’t spare it a second thought”

Several agonizing minutes go by before you hear any news. Without any insight as to what had happened, the school was sent back to the dorms. You could hear students all around you grumbling.

Amidst the voices you heard your name being called. Shoving through the crowd was Theo and Blaise “Finally! We were looking for you everywhere! What happened? Do ya know what's going on?” Theo pressured you.

“The dementors got into the school” you told them bluntly “probably lured in by the emotions coming from the stadium” They stare at you in shock, waiting for you to say you were joking. When none was forthcoming, they screamed “WHAT” together, busting the eardrums of everyone in a 20 meter radius.

As you walked back, you filled them in on what had happened to you during the game, making them stiff with shock and hardly believing it.

“So you saw a dementor up close?” Theo asked. You were back in the common room and playing a game of chess. You moved your pawn before nodding. He leant over the game and shocked you with his closeness “WHAT WAS IT LIKE?!”

You push him away, glaring “It wasn’t fun at all Theo” He sits back sighing “I know, sorry”

You stare off into space again before responding. “I looked out the window and felt like a shell. I couldn’t feel anything. Completely numb.” You curl in on yourself, replaying the scene in your head. You felt a hand place itself on your shoulder as a distinctive voice asked what was happening.

Looking up, you see Dracos concerned face. A smile stretches across your face at the sight of him. You hadn’t seen him in so long. He notices you staring at him and gives you a weak grin. You shuffle over and pat the spot you just created. He shakes his head and remains standing. “Uhh actually I was hoping we could take a walk?” You get up and follow him out of the common room, trying to ignore Blaise and Theo’s unsubtle sniggering.

“Whats up, Dray?” you say as soon as you step out. “Just wanted to talk. We haven’t been hanging out much lately..” the two of you walk in silence for a bit before he mumbles something you barely catch. You look at him curiously as his face becomes flustered under your gaze. He pretended to muss up his hair trying to hide his red face. “I missed you” he says, still mumbling “Like, a lot.” You smile at him and link your arms through his “I’ve missed you terribly as well you know?”

He trips over his shoelaces and laughs it off nervously eyes darting to you as you laugh with him. He clears his throat, and opens his mouth to say something. “Sorry I haven’t been around around lately-” You clap a hand over his mouth to shush him. He looks at you in surprise, noting your determined stance. “I have no care for your reasons as to why you stopped hanging out with me. Just long as you keep our old promise okay?” Draco nods and you remove your hand from his mouth.

He stares at you for a little too long for it to be accidental before turning away and jogging slightly ahead. You run after him, laughing as you catch up.

He watches you laugh as the sunlight from the windows you were passing reflect on your face, making you look angelic. He smiles and blushes again and re-links your arms. He pulls you along and starts talking aimlessly with you about anything and everything, wasting away the hours.

The next few weeks were perfect for you. It was nearly the end of this school year.

Even though the idolized “golden trio” were being as obnoxious as ever, Draco had started hanging out with you as well which made you forget about their behaviour.

The golden trio just kept getting more suspicious. From subtle glances and hushed whispers has your curiosity piqued. You could see it was affecting Draco too, but neither of you made a move on that.

A few days go by and you watch as Professor Lupin leaves the school, his secret now out. You were sad to see him go as he had easily been the best teacher you could ask for. As you waved him off, you saw Draco smirk out of the corner of your eye and you frown wondering if he was somehow connected to all of this. Days go by and Dracos snobby side comes out momentarily, shouting about how glad he was that Lupin was gone. You keep your distance, not wanting to be caught up in the strings of hate he was causing.

Finally it was the last day, the Great Feast was just in a few hours. You race down the staircase, still disappointed from the last match. You knew it was likely Gryffindor would win, but maybe, just maybe, Slytherin could snag it this year, you were, after all, in the lead right now.

But alas, that was not what fate had set out for you. You and Draco watched in disgust as the Gryffinddors celebrated and the room was clad in red and gold. They mussed up Potter's hair and almost broke his glasses. “Why are they winning again?” Draco asked “Because Potter fell off his broom and they all took pity” you snap back. Blaise rolls his eyes at your petty disgust “Pretty sure its ‘cause they won the damn Quidditch Cup” “Shut up Blaise” You and Draco chorus.

You sigh and pick some confetti off your plate, sitting down. “Well, I call it favouritism.” The Slytherins within earshot nod at your words, all silently cursing the Gryffindors. Minutes go by and you eat your food in silence before you speak up, glancing at Draco. “That petition is really starting to look tempting eh?” “You sure are right Y/n”

Waking up the next morning to Pansy’s obnoxious laughter was a pain, you rolled off your bed and lumbered around, gathering the stuff you had prepared last night. You stumble down to the Great Hall where Theo, Blaise and Draco were waiting for you. They laughed at your tired state, teasing you all the way to the train.

You slept for most of the ride, catching snippets of conversations that didn’t interest you at all.

Hours later, you were woken up by Draco gently shaking you, holding out your bag for you to take, you smile at him and grab it, racing off the train.

One foot off the train and you feel a pair of cold stares coming from across the platform. Looking up, you stare directly into the eyes of Lucius Malfoy who looked at you with disgust.

Rolling your eyes you turn to Draco, whose face had turned grave. “Well I guess this is goodbye Dray…” you say reluctantly “Yeah…” The two of you stand there awkwardly for a bit before you drop your bags and throw your arms around him, drawing him in close. You feel his face turn red and you chuckle softly. “I’m gonna miss you” He was quiet for a moment before responding “Not as much as I will” He lets go of you and keeps his face hidden as he walks off to his parents.

You feel Blaise and Theo creep up behind you, staring at his retreating figure. “You reckon he’s gonna be okay?” Theo asked “Yep. The Draco I know is stronger than you can guess.”

Blaise smiles at you and gives you a quick hug, signalling to his parents he was coming. “Well, I will take your word for it Y/n. You know him best” You hug him back before he runs off.

Theo looks at you for a second before scooping you up into a bear hug, laughing “Write me?” he says, letting you go. “As if I won’t” You retort, winking. He grins wildly, as he passes and salutes you. “Well i'm off! Take care Y/n!” You salute back shouting after him “see ya, you big oaf!”

Theo’s laughter rings in your ears as you run towards the pillar, knowing that the muggle world is waiting for you, just beyond the wall.

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bogkeep · 3 years

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hmmmmmmmmmm maybe i’ll write an Introspective Musing Post about my relationship to religion and their depiction in stories because i’ve pondering about this topic lately

so for those who are reading this and DON’T know what’s been going on... there’s this webcomic i fell in love with some years ago, about six years actually, that depicts a post-apocalyptic fantasy/horror adventure set in the nordic countries. it had, and has still, some very uncomfortable flaws regarding racial representation, and the creator has historically not dealt very well with criticism towards it. it’s a whole Thing. my relationship with this comic has fluctuated a lot, since there are a lot of elements in it i DO love and i still feel very nostalgic about, and like idk i felt like i trust my skills in critical thinking enough to keep reading. aaand then the creator went a teensy bit off the deep end created a whole minicomic which is like... a lukewarm social media dystopia where christians are oppressed (and also everyone is a cute bunny, including our lord and saviour jesus christ). which is already tonedeaf enough considering there are religious people who DO get prosecuted for their faith, like, that’s an actual reality for a lot of people - but as far as i can tell, usually not christians. and then there’s an afterword that’s like, “anyway i got recently converted and realized i’m a disgusting human being full of sin who doesn’t deserve redemption but jesus loves me so i’ll be fine!! remember to repent for your sins xoxo” and a bunch of other stuff and IT’S KIND OF REALLY CONCERNING i have, uh, been habitually looking at the reactions to and discussions around this, maybe it’s not very self care of me but there’s a lot of overwhelming things rn and it’s fantastically distracting, yknow? like, overall this situation is fairly reminiscent of the whole jkr thing. creator of a series that is Fairly Beloved, does something hurtful, handles backlash in a weird way, a lot of people start taking distance from Beloved Series or find ways to enjoy it on their own terms, creator later reveals to have been fully radicalized and releases a whole manifesto, and any and all criticism gets framed as harassment and proving them right. of course, one of them is a super rich person with a LOT of media power and a topic that is a lot more destructive in our current zeitgeist, and the other is an independent webcomic creator, so it’s not the same situation. just similar vibez ya feel as a result of this, i have been Thinking. and just this feels like some sort of defeat like god dammit she got me i AM thinking about the topic she wrote about!!! i should dismiss the whole thing!!! but thinking about topics is probably a good thing so hey lets go. me, i’m agnostic. i understand that this is a ‘lazy’ position to take, but it’s what works for me. i simply do not vibe with organized religion, personally. (i had the wikipedia page for ‘chaos magic’ open in a tab for several weeks, if that helps.) i was raised by atheists in a majorly atheist culture. christian atheist, i should specify. norway has been mostly and historically lutheran, and religion has usually been a private and personal thing. it turns out the teacher i had in 7th grade was mormon, but i ONLY found out because he showed up in a tv series discussing religious groups in norway later, and he was honestly one of the best teachers i have ever had - he reignited the whole class’ interest in science, math, and dungeons and dragons. it was a real “wait WHAT” moment for my teenage self. i think i was briefly converted to christianity by my friend when i was like 7, who grew up in a christian family (i visited them a couple times and always forgot they do prayers before dinner. oops!), but like, she ALSO made me believe she was the guardian of a secret magic orb that controls the entire world and if i told anybody the world would burn down in 3 seconds. i only suspected something was off when one day the Orb ran on batteries, and another day the Orb had to be plugged in to charge. in my defense i really wanted to be part of a cool fantasy plot. i had no idea how to be a christian beyond “uuuuh believe in god i guess” so it just faded away on its own. when i met this friend several years later, she was no longer christian. i think every childhood friend of mine who grew up in a christian family, was no longer christian when they grew up. most notably my closest internet friend whose family was catholic - she had several siblings, and each of them took a wildly different path, from hippie treehugger to laveyan satanist or something in that area. (i joined them for a sermon in a church when they visited my town. my phone went off during it because i had forgotten to silence it. oops!) ((i also really liked their mother’s interpretation of purgatory. she explained it as a bath, not fire. i like that.)) i have never had any personal negative experiences with christianity, despite being openly queer/gay/trans. the only time someone has directly told me i’m going to hell was some guy who saw me wearing a hoodie on norway’s constitution day. yeah i still remember that you bastard i’ve sworn to be spiteful about it till the day i die!! i’ve actually had much more insufferable interactions with the obnoxious kind of atheists - like yes yes i agree with you on a lot but that doesn’t diminish your ability to be an absolute hypocrite, it turns out? i remember going to see the movie ‘noah’ with a friend who had recently discovered reddit atheism and it was just really exhausting to discuss it with her. one of these Obnoxious Atheists is my Own Mother. which is a little strange, honestly, because she LOVES visiting churches for the Aesthetic and Architecture. we cannot go anywhere without having to stop by a pretty church to Admire and Explore. I’VE BEEN IN SO MANY CHURCHES FOR AN ATHEIST RAISED NON-CHRISTIAN. i’ve been to the vatican TWICE (i genuinely don’t even know how much of my extended family is christian. up north in the tiny village i come from, i believe my uncle is the churchkeeper, and it’s the only building in the area that did not get burnt down by the the nazis during ww2 - mostly because soldiers needed a place to sleep. still don’t know whether or not said uncle believes or not, because hey, it’s Personal) i think my biggest personal relationship to religion, and christianity specifically, has been academic. yeah, we learned a brief synopsis of world religions at school (and i remember the class used to be called ‘christianity, religion, and ethics’ and got changed to ‘religion, beliefs, and ethics’ which is cool. it was probably a big discourse but i was a teen who didnt care), but also my bachelor degree is in art history, specifically western art history because it’s a vast sprawling topic and they had to distill it as best they could SIGHS. western art history is deeply entangled with the history of the church, and i think the most i’ve ever learnt about christianity is through these classes (one of my professors wrote an article about how jesus can be interpreted as queer which i Deeply Appreciate). i also specifically tried to diversify my academic input by picking classes such as ‘depiction of muslims and jewish people in western medieval art’ and ‘art and religion’ when i was an exchange student in canada, along with 101 classes in anthropology and archaeology. because i think human diversity and culture is very cool and i want to absorb that knowledge as best as i can. i think my exchange semester in canada was the most religiously diverse space have ever been in, to be honest. now as an adult i have more christian friends again, but friends who chose it for themselves, and who practice in ways that sound good and healthy, like a place of solace and community for them. the vast majority of my friends are queer too, yknow?? i’ve known too many people who have seen these identities as fated opposites, but they aren’t, they’re just parts of who people are. it’s like... i genuinely love people having their faiths and beliefs so much. i love people finding that space where they belong and feel safe in. i love people having communities and heritages and connections. i deeply respect and admire opening up that space for faith within any other communities, like... if i’m going to listen to a podcast about scepticism and cults, i am not going to listen to it if it’s just an excuse to bash religion. i think the search for truth needs to be compassionate, always. you can acknowledge that crystals are cool and make people happy AND that multi level marketing schemes are deeply harmful and prey on people in vulnerable situaitons. YOU KNOW???? so now’s when i bring up Apocalypse Comic again. one of the things i really did like about it was, ironically, how it handled religion. in its setting, people have returned to old gods, and their magic drew power from their religion. characters from different regions had different beliefs and sources. in the first arc, they meet the spirit of a lutheran pastor, who ends up helping them with her powers. it was treated as, in the creators own words, ‘just another mythology’. and honestly? i love that. it was one of the nicest depictions i’ve seen of christianity in fiction, and as something that could coexist with other faiths. I Vibe With That. and then, uh, then... bunny dystopia comic. it just... it just straight up tells you christianity is literally the only way to..?? be a good person??? i guess?? i’m still kind of struggling to parse what exactly it wanted to say. the evil social media overlord bird tells you the bible makes you a DANGEROUS FREETHINKER, but the comic also treats rewriting the bible or finding your own way to faith as something,, Bad. The Bible Must Remain Unsullied. Never Criticize The Bible. also, doing good things just for social media clout is bad and selfish. you should do good things so you don’t burn in hell instead. is that the message? it reads a lot like the comic creator already had the idea for the comic, but only got the urge to make it after she was converted and needed to spread the good word. you do you i guess!! i understand that she’s new to this and probably Going Through Something, and this is just a step on her journey. but the absolute self-loathing she described in her afterword... it does not sound good. i’m just some agnostic kid so what do i know, but i do not think that kind of self-flagellating is a kind faith to have for yourself. i might not ever have been properly religious, but you know what i AM familiar with? a brain wired for ocd and intrusive thoughts. for a lot of my life i’ve struggled with my own kind of purity complex. i’ve had this really strange sensitivity for things that felt ‘tainted’. i’ve experienced having to remove more and more words from my vocabulary because they were Bad and i did not want to sully my sentences. it stacked, too - if a word turned out to be an euphemism for something, i could never feel comfortable saying it again. i still struggle a bit with these things, but i have confronted these things within myself. i’ve had to make myself comfortable with imperfection and ‘tainted’ things and accept that these are just, arbitrary categories my mind made up. maybe that’s the reason i can’t do organized religion even if i found one that fit for me - just like diets can trigger disordered eating, i think it would carve some bad brainpaths for me. so yeah i’m worried i guess! i’m worried when people think it’s so good that she finally found the correct faith even if it’s causing all this self-hate. is there really not a better way? or are they just trusting she’ll find it? and yeah it’s none of my concern, it’s like, i worry for jkr too but i do not want her within miles of my trans self thANKS. so like, i DO enjoy media that explores faith and what it means for you. my favourite band is the oh hellos, which DOES draw on faith and the songwriter’s experience with it. because of my religious iliteracy most of it has flown over my head for years and i’m like “oh hey this is gay” and then only later realize it was about god all along Probably. i like what they’ve done with the place. also, stormlight archive - i had NO idea sanderson was mormon, the way he writes his characters, many of whom actively discuss religion and their relationship to it. i love that about the books, honestly. Media That Explores Religion In A Complex And Compassionate Way... we like that i’ve been thinking about my own stories too, and how i might want to explore faith in them. most of my settings are based on magic and it’s like, what role does religion have in a world where gods are real and makes u magic. in sparrow spellcaster’s story, xe creates? summons? an old god - brings them to life out of the idea of them. it’s a story about hubris, mostly. then there’s iphimery, the story where i am actively fleshing out a pantheon. there’s no doubt the gods are real in the fantasy version of iphimery, they are the source of magic and sustain themselves on slivers of humanity in exchange. but in the modern version, where they are mostly forgotten? that’s some room for me to explore, i think. especially the character of timian, who comes from a smaller town and moves to a large and diverse city. in the fantasy story, the guardian deity chooses his sister as a vessel. in the modern setting, that does not happen, and i don’t yet know what does, but i really want timian to be someone who struggles with his identity - his faith, his sexuality, the expectations cast upon him by his hometown... i’m sure it’s a cliché story retold through a million gay characters but i want to do it too okay. i want to see him carve out his own way of existing within the world because i care him and want to see him thrive!!! alrighty i THINK that’s all i wanted to write. thanks if you read all of this, and if you didn’t that’s super cool have a nice day !

#rambles #i wrote this for me and theres no obligation to read it

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lowkeyorloki · 3 years

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quick and random q for no reason at all other than my own interest :) what's your opinion on 'separating the art from the artist'? (like should they be separated in your opinion)

Hi anon! Thanks for the ask, I love discussion and discourse. You’re welcome to approach me for my opinion on anything - the only reason I’d refrain from answering would be if I felt like I didn’t have enough information on the subject to give an appropriate response. I’m a HUGE proponent of differing opinions and conversation.

Also, just because we delve into morals a bit here, I’m an Ethics minor. It feels relevant to say that.

Ultimately, I think it depends on what the art (or media) is. I used to see this as a very black and white issue, but as I’ve gotten older and become a little less extreme in all my beliefs, I’ve realized this is something that resides in the gray area (like most issues).

Basically, if there’s a way to consume the media in an educational way, I think that’s worth pursuing. For example, I HATE the book 1984 by George Orwell. I think the writing style is tedious, I think Orwell had a superiority complex, and I think the portrayal of Winston’s treatment of women is absolutely abhorrent (mostly because Winston is supposed to be the good guy, and his views towards women is never said to be a bad thing). I used to think because of that last reason, the book shouldn’t be taught in schools.

Now, I would absolutely support swapping the book out for a novel written by a woman or POC, but that’s not what this conversation is about. When I really started to analyze the text, I realized that going over Winston’s behavior with a class and explaining why what he did/thought was wrong would be hugely beneficial. It would teach young boys not to internalize sexism like Winston does, and it would lay the foundation for them to see, recognize, and address shitty behavior. Furthermore, then the lesson of censorship of 1984, which is a super important one, isn’t completely wiped away and rendered useless. In my mind, there’s two lessons being taught this way.

It gets a bit different when 1) we aren’t taught about the media, ie, the audience is given no guidance, and 2) the creator of said media isn’t dead. A lot of times, for me personally, the deciding factor of whether I’m going to keep consuming something comes down to if the creator/art is problematic or morally corrupt. Because morality is subjective, it’s hard for me to defend that point. What you find problematic I might find to be an actual bad thing, and vice versa.

But let’s talk about things within the context of the Loki fandom, because this is a Loki blog. It’s no secret that as a general statement, reader insert fics are written for a very specific audience, and more often than not, authors end up alienating POC readers for adding descriptions of y/n’s “pale skin” or “blushing cheeks” etc. etc.

There have been a lot of Loki authors who have had readers kindly approach them saying, “Hey, this detail makes it really hard for me to see myself in the fic. Would you mind taking it out?” And so far, I have only seen authors react defensively. They’ll launch into a speech about how what they create is free, how they ask for feedback that’s constructive, and overall create a victim mentality. Now, those points are valid, but only if you’re getting HATE. Hate and genuine feedback are very different things, and I’ve never seen any author get hate in this situation that we’re currently talking about.

In cases like this, I unfollow these authors and I never like or reblog their fics again. I could absolutely continue to consume their writing: it’s not like those descriptions are going to appear in every single fic they ever write, and I’m also not directly impacted by this issue (I just have. You know. Empathy). However, I will not support someone in any capacity when I observe them belittling and hurting other people for going to them with valid and kindly presented feedback (ESPECIALLY if the group giving constructive feedback is marginalized). If I were to consume those author’s works, if I were to boost their note count in any way, I am telling them the following:

Your behavior is okay.

And I don’t think it is. When I observe people hurting others and refusing to correct their behavior, I’m not going to give them that implicit reassurance that they didn’t do anything wrong.

The crux of the “should we separate the art from the artist” argument for me is that we usually (usually) should NOT separate the two because in some way, the artist benefits from your consumption. And if what they have done is genuinely harming people, they have to be held accountable. More often than not, the only way to do that is limit your consumption so there is an impact on their (job, hobby, morals, mindset, etc. etc.).

Of course, I always support and encourage talking to the artist first in some way. It’s when they reject help and education I think it’s time to stop supporting them.

Let me know what you think of my answer, and anyone else is free to weigh in as well :)

#ask #this is SPICY #hot take #yeah basically it's situational #how much outreach has been done? is the artist trying to educate or correct themselves?#you know #loki fandom #loki imagine #loki x reader

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rutilation · 4 years

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In honor of the wailing and gnashing of teeth that has occurred in the last few days for fear of potential incoming Joshua discourse, I have decided to get ahead of the curve and start discoursing about him before the anime even airs!

(--because he’s an interesting character who I didn’t really understand until several years after finishing the game.)

So, I got into the game around 2010, and while I comprehended the broad strokes of Joshua’s character, he seemed more like an inscrutable trickster than a person with relatable emotions, and his reasons for setting the plot into motion were as opaque to me as his reasons for backing off at the last second.

In particular, a big sticking point for me was his assessment of Neku. He considered him “the worst person in Shibuya” and chose him as a proxy because of that. And for years I thought that was the most ludicrous aspect of the game. If the very worst person you can find in your bustling metropolis is a grumpy teenager who only has the potential to commit murder when under duress, then how could you possibly think that it’s beyond salvation, you utterly incoherent moron! But, several years afterwards, I realized why he saw Shibuya as unsalvageable, and why he held Neku in such contempt, and the disparate elements of the character started to click into place for me.

For as much as Joshua likes to put on airs, his motivations aren’t rational in the slightest. When Joshua says that Shibuya has grown shallow and static, he’s really talking about himself, and is projecting all the things he hates about himself onto the surrounding environment. He singles out Neku not because this run-of-the-mill moody teen is objectively the worst person in Shibuya, but because he sees Neku as a younger, more naive version of himself, and in a classic example of the narcissistic element of self-hatred, being like him is the most irredeemable sin Joshua can conceive of.

Then, I started thinking about what he actually intended to accomplish with his whole plan, and specifically, the duel at the end. I don’t think Joshua had any intention of presiding over a remade Shibuya. I think he was banking on Neku killing him and taking his place, and all that stuff about hijacking Shibuya from the composer during week two was for the sole purpose of planting that idea in Neku’s head. In life, Joshua was friendless, miserable, and myopic. He had hoped that by entering the world of the reapers’ game, he might find a sense of fulfillment. But in the end, this mere change of scenery didn’t do anything to address his underlying malaise, and life felt just as empty as it did before. Thus, he sets his plan in motion, intending to pass on his awful torch to a fellow awful person.

What he didn’t count on was Neku growing as a person and gaining hope instead of losing it. Joshua wanted to end his own world, but the outcome of all his scheming was that it opened up instead. Instead of validating his grand act of self-destruction as planned, Neku refutes Joshua's worldview in a way he can't ignore or dismiss.

When I first saw the secret ending, my reaction was something along the lines of: “Aww, I guess he’s not totally heartless after all.” But looking back on it, I can’t really see it as anything other than tragic. Joshua can’t lie to himself anymore, can’t continue to protect himself with a shield of apathy and cynicism, but because of the permanence of his past choices, he can’t actually free himself from this isolated and claustrophobic world he’s created either, and that prison is made all the more painful now that he realizes how much he’s missing out on. All he can do in the secret ending is watch forlornly as that younger version of himself grows up, makes connections, and moves on, while he’s still stuck at a dead-end.

(There’s a moment during the credits of KH:3D in which Joshua is perched above the rest of the cast on a giant letter, parodying his fondness for sitting on buildings. The others soon take notice of him, and hassle him into coming down and joining them. When I noticed it, it warmed my heart a bit, and made me hopeful about the trajectory of his character, regardless of whether or not a sequel would actually materialize.)

But all that being said, what I just wrote isn’t what the fine folk in the TWEWY fandom mean when they refer to Joshua discourse. As far as I can tell, the true discursive quandary is thus: “Is Joshua, in fact, Komaeda?” Well I have bad news for you guys because, in my humble opinion, he kind of is?

Now, I realize that knowing enough to write several paragraphs about such a cursed character can be seen as me telling on myself, but in my defense, your honor, I didn’t get into danganronpa until a few years after its popularity peaked. Whatever discourse wars were waged over Komaeda and his zipper-shoes back in 2013, I was not a part of them. With that out of the way...

You know those posts that get passed around here every so often about how the concept of gifted children sucks? How it puts too much pressure on them? How it encourages them to see themselves as instrumentally rather than inherently valuable? How it leaves them anxious, depressed, and bereft of ways to cope? Well, that’s the underlying allegory of SDR2, and underneath all the wacky shenanigans that comprise your average danganronpa title, that’s what the cast is contending with. This is true of it’s protagonist, and especially true of his rival.

in much the same way that Joshua is the worst parts of Neku exaggerated and taken to their logical conclusion, Komaeda plays precisely that role for Hinata. Both characters serve as a cautionary tale for the respective toxic mindsets that these games are denouncing.

Now that I think about it, Komaeda almost seems like an evolution of the concept, because he intuits from a fairly early point in the story that the protagonist’s very essence is a refutation of his worldview. He insists on viewing Hinata as being far above him, but in actuality he realizes Hinata is in a similar situation--see his comment in one of the FTEs that Hinata feels like a miserable outsider like himself. And if someone even a little bit like him is capable of experiencing happiness and connecting with others, what then? The gap between how Komaeda wants to feel and how he actually feels is a subtle but reoccurring thread throughout the story. This, I think, is why he seems to regard Hinata with both attraction and revulsion, treating him as simultaneously an avatar of his repressed will (hence why he attempts to bolster him in the class trials,) and an object of scorn (hence the smattering of passive aggressive jabs before chapter four, and the outright antagonism from that point forward.) While Joshua fools himself until the the end of the game, Komaeda, master of doublethink that he is, seems at times self-aware of the fact that he is a foil in the literary sense, and that awareness partly informs his neurosis. His take on the character type feels a little more post-modern, I suppose?

Anyway, it wouldn’t surprise me if Joshua were an inspiration for Komaeda’s character and role in the story. But even then, I suspect that the question is less, “Is Joshua, in fact, the same sort of character as Komaeda?” and more “Is Joshua, in fact, going to become a contemptible meme like Komeada?” To which I say, probably not. *knock on wood*

For one thing, while TWEWY will certainly experience an uptick in popularity once the anime starts airing, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will capture the nerd zeitgeist enough to turn one of its characters into a meme that transcends the story from whence it came. Furthermore, there’s more to being a tumblr sexy meme man than merely belonging to an archetype. Komaeda’s spiritual successor in DRV3 is kind of popular, but isn’t an inter-fandom joke in the same way he is, and neither are Kaworu from Eva or Ryo from Devilman, for that matter, and those are the grandfathers of the archetype in question. In addition, the other infamous tumblr sexymen that come to mind, Sans and Onceler, aren’t a part of the white-haired-anime-rival-boy archetype, and Sans isn’t even a conventionally attractive twink. I posit that the alchemy determining which characters and media tumblr loses its shit over is more varied and complicated than it appears at first glance. (Not that I actually want to devote much brainpower to that particular field of study, lol.)

Uhhhhh... in conclusion, thank you for reading my words and also the DR3 anime is trash.

#the world ends with you #twewy

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multimetaverse · 4 years

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HSMTMTS 1x05 Review

Homecoming was a historic ep that was a giant leap forwards for rep on Disney and an overall delightful ep. Let’s dig in!

I was blown away by Seblos this ep, I never expected Disney to go this far this soon but what great scenes we got. It was so refreshing to see Carlos and Seb acting like normal teens, just like any straight couple. They have good chemistry and Frankie played Carlos’ nerves when asking Seb to the dance perfectly and his celebration after Seb said yes. I liked when Seb mentioned that homecoming would mean dancing together in front of all the non theatre kids, a little reminder of how much of a safe space the theatre can be. Really powerful to see Carlos tell Mr. Mazzara that he thought he made a mistake asking him to dance with him publicly and to see Carlos be brave enough to go dance on his own. And then when Seb arrived we got the shot we see in every teen movie where the love interest arrives at the big dance and sees the main character and smiles, it’s amazing that we saw that with two guys on a Disney show. Also impressive that Seb apologizing to Carlos was done in just one take as Tim revealed on instagram

Tim Federle has done an amazing job so far and good for him for going right into text. He’s said in interviews that no one from Disney ever asked him to cut any scenes or shy away from certain topics, which doesn’t mean much since he’d be saying that regardless of how much he was being censored, but we can see with our own eyes that he really is telling the truth. Now I do want more development for Carlos and Seb as characters as well as Seblos as a ship and I do think we’ll get that especially since Joe Serafini has been promoted to a series regular for S2, which is a very good sign that Disney is all in with Tim Federle’s plans. What an exciting time, there will soon be two main gay characters on a Disney show played by openly gay actors on a show created by an openly gay man. Tim has spoken of how Disney + is in some ways an open frontier and that he’s willing to take big jumps and I can’t wait to see what the rest of S1 and S2 has in store for us

Things have changed a lot since the High School Musical movies came out. It’s well known that Ryan was meant to be gay even though he could never actually be gay. Lucas Grabeel has spoken of how Kenny Ortega told him that Ryan was a lot like his High School self. In an interview with EW, Tim Federle was asked about the censorship of Ryan’s character and he noted that he wasn’t there for the movies and doesn’t view what he’s now doing on HSMTMTS as making up for anything that the original movies weren’t able to do. Which is fair but regardless in some ways tonight's ep does make up for the censorship of the movies

While reading an article on HSMTMTS I came upon a link to a story from October 2008 about Ryan and how he was clearly being coded as gay that featured some revealing quotes from Gary Marsh, from an interview conducted in summer 2008:

Regarding the fact that there are boyfriend-girlfriend relationships in the HSM movies, Marsh interjected, “Yeah, but that’s not about sex,” as though having two boyfriends equals full-tilt boogie. And as to why there can be boyfriend and girlfriends but not two boyfriends, he could only note, “It’s just not something that we’ve ever had the opportunity to portray. It hasn’t been a place we’ve gone.”

If someone, like Gary Marsh, believes that lgbtq relationships are inherently sexual then that means they don’t believe they’re appropriate for children. It’s no surprise then that it wouldn’t be until 2014 that Disney Channel had two lesbian moms appear on Good Luck Charlie and it wouldn’t be until 2017 that Cyrus came out to Buffy. Clearly Gary has for whatever reasons evolved in his views or there wouldn’t have been any rep on Disney Channel in the past 11 years nor do I think that he would make a comment like that publicly today but he probably does still believe that to an extent and I’d imagine other senior Disney executives do as well

A few things are helping Disney + push boundaries, being more of a PG than a G rated service, not being exclusively targeted towards children, and being a curated service so parents can easily avoid showing their kids shows with lgbtq rep. And perhaps most importantly, the cold hard reality that if Disney + is to become financially viable then it has to appeal to a broad audience and provide the same quality or better than people could find on Netflix or other streaming services so the kind of censorship we see on Disney Channel just can’t fly

There’s been a lot of discourse regarding Seblos and Tyrus and HSMTMTS and Andi Mack and I’ll take the time to say my piece now. It’s not entirely fair to compare the ships and shows since they’re taking place under very different circumstances. Tyrus was a heavily censored ship that was only given permission to canon when the series finale was written whereas Seblos is already canon in the 5th ep. It’s true that TJ was written in a way to subvert gay stereotypes which was important but it’s also true that for most of the audience they didn’t know that he was gay until the bench scene itself so there wasn’t that much trope subversion going on. And who knows how he would have been written if they were actually allowed to have him be openly gay before the series finale

Carlos and Seb may fall into some stereotypes but Tim Federle has spoken of how when he was in High School he would have loved to play a character like Sharpay but wouldn’t have had the confidence to do so and he wrote Seb wanting to play a female role with his own past experiences in mind. He’s also spoken about how Carlos was based off of a close friend of his and he put some of himself into Carlos as well with Carlos telling Mr. Mazzara that he was meant to be on Broadway being something Tim told one of his own teachers in High School. Frankie and Joe have talked about how they see a lot of their own experiences in Carlos and Seb as characters and in Seblos as a relationship. Tim has spoken a lot about how important authenticity is to him and while Carlos and Seb may be stereotypical to some people it shouldn’t be discounted that others can see their lived experiences in those characters

For Andi Mack it’s important to separate Cyrus’ story from the Tyrus story line. It’s unlikely HSMTMTS could have pulled off Cyrus’ coming out story line, the shows are just too different. We’re almost certainly not going to see a One in a Minyan style ep on HSMTMTS but would we have seen such an ep on Andi Mack if they didn’t need to pack all of Cyrus’ S3 story line into one ep? We also can’t forget that 3x11 was written shortly after the cancellation and it was written as a potential end to the gay story line since they didn’t know until months later if they could go with canon Tyrus or not. Even with the limits it faced Andi Mack did a great job with Cyrus’ coming out story line and I think eps like 2x01 and 2x13 and 3x11 will be fondly remembered and will stand the test of time

When it comes to Tyrus though it’s fair to say that the bench scene was a historic and important moment but also an underwhelming one. Andi Mack didn’t live up to the promise that Cyrus was no different but it was never going to be able to with Disney’s restrictions, they were willing to focus on Cyrus as a gay character but not Cyrus as an actively gay character. One thing that will make Seblos go down a lot better than Tyrus is that we aren’t going to see Carlos bearding himself like Cyrus did. It won’t age well at all that Cyrus got to go on dates with Iris and kiss her twice and refer to her as a his girlfriend and even come up with a mashup name for them but Terri probably would have done things very differently if she had known that all Cyrus would be able to do with a boy was hold hands in the series finale. We can also tell that HSMTMTS won’t be facing an increase in censorship later on since Seb will be a main in S2 whereas Disney cracked down hard after S2 for Andi Mack, probably because the story was shifting from Cyrus having a hopeless crush on a straight guy to a reciprocated crush on a gay guy

Since Seblos is textual from the start it will be much easier to write and also much easier to fix things when the writers inevitably make mistakes. I think a lot of the defensiveness coming from certain corners of the Andi Mack fandom is because deep down people know that the bench scene wasn’t enough pay off for the long dragged out Tyrus no burn we got; especially with all of the drama and angst they had. Development is important but it doesn’t take two thirds of the series to set up a silent handhold. I think it’s very unlikely that for HSMTMTS we’ll see the drastic decline in quality that Andi Mack had for most story lines after 3x11. The bench scene would have been better if we hadn’t gotten the worst writing of the series for TJ and Cyrus as characters that did a real disservice to them and to Tyrus as a ship in the eps before the finale. The Tyrus story line was never going to get a great ending with Disney’s restrictions but it is also true that Terri’s choices made things a lot worse than they had to be

It’s insane that they introduced Kira as a homophobic character who was manipulating TJ but also was clearly into him; how do professional writers come up with that? It’s just not a mistake Tim Federle is going to make. Trying to do an external homophobia story line was an obviously bad idea but so was giving TJ an out of nowhere internalized homophobia plot in 3x13 and 3x15 before dropping it in 3x18. Cyrus’ coming out story line helped a lot of people because it showed the correct way for friends to react when someone comes out to you but for TJ they never did anything to help people dealing with internalized or external homophobia, the message was effectively ‘’deal with it on your own kids’’, which is sharp contrast with how openly his dyscalculia plot was handled. I don’t think HSMTMTS would be effectively able to deal with homophobia either but I think Tim probably realizes that and won’t attempt it

There were a lot of little things Terri could have changed that would have helped. Don’t insert Kira into their plot. Don’t have Amber kiss Jonah or say she’s love him so at least she could have pointed to another character who never got to kiss a guy or talk about feelings. Put the Jandi bracelet scene in between the Muffy and Tyrus confession scenes so we don’t go straight from a Muffy kiss and handhold and verbal confession to the bench scene. And just write the bench scene better so it’s more in line with the Tyrus dynamic like how the Muffy and Jandi scenes did a good job capturing their own dynamics. Of course, we’re not going to see Seblos end so subtly so all these problems just won’t arise

Tyrus was important because it happened and may well be the only lgbtq rep we see for middle school characters played by actual teenagers for a very long time. But it’s also true that Andi Mack’s legacy will probably rest a lot more with Cyrus specifically, especially him saying the word gay, whereas HSMTMTS will be remembered more for normalizing lgbtq relationships with Seblos. I’m glad Tyrus happened but I’m also glad that Seblos will be a much smoother story line and will break boundaries for years to come. Anyways that’s my two cents

I really liked the Gina development this ep. Her doesn’t do cash line was interesting, hinting at financial problems? Moving 5 schools in 7 years is rough and I’d like to hear more about that. I’m glad that we got confirmation that she didn’t have an actual plan and was just winging it because her actions really did not make much sense. Tim Federle had said that love triangles will become love squares and it does make more sense to have Gina be into Ricky than EJ since there’s no real drama if she’s into EJ because Nini is totally over him. I do think Gina was being sincere in the scene with Ricky in the car (which Tim said was Big Red’s car that he lent Ricky and that Joshua and Sofia did that scene in just two takes). I also think that she needs Ricky as a friend not a lover and Ricky would not be happy if he ever found out that she was the one who initially stole Nini’s phone

Miss Jenn and Mike Bowen and Benjamin Mazzara love triangle? We do know that Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzara spend Thanksgiving trapped together which is obvious set up for feelings to develop. We also got Mr. Mazzara doing a 180 and being nice to Carlos this ep which seems like a ploy to get him on the audiences good side

Loved the friendship moments we got this ep. Big Red and Kourtney are great friends. Ricky taking Big Red to his first dance was sweet and I love that Big Red showed up in a old man suit jacket that looks like it was from the 70s. Ngl I thought Ricky was wearing pajama pants for most of the ep. Glad we got a glimpse into Kourtney and Nini’s past, they’ve been friends at least since the 7th grade. I hope Kourtney stands up to the mean costume designer senior

I liked seeing Nini grappling with her self confidence after finding out that she got the lead role at summer camp because EJ poisoned the original lead. She does have the talent but that kind of revelation would leave most people shook

Glad that Ricky and his dad had a honest convo this ep. It’s just the two of them now so they need to stick by each other

Ashlyn has been an unexpected delight so far, I liked that she was the only one to go and support Carlos and she was rocking that suit

Ricky’s office stare after Gina dumped punch on EJ’s head was too funny

Born to be brave was a great song and the choreography blew me away, such a talented cast and crew they have

All of the costumes looked great this ep, kudos to the costume designers

RIP Seb’s cow

Looking Ahead:

Miss Jenn faces her tribunal, I’m curious to see how much she faked on her resume

We get photos of Seb comforting Carlos which I think comes after he finds out that Miss Jenn is suspended. In the medley trailer there was a clip of Carlos hugging Miss Jenn at a coffee shop so maybe that’s next ep since there’s no need to meet at a coffee shop if she’s not suspended

The cast has talked about how we the audience we’ll be going back and forth on team Ricky vs team EJ all season long which at this point seems like a lie. I’m sure EJ’s redemption arc starts soon and if he’s still going to panic attacks I’d imagine that will soon be brought up but Nini is totally over him and I can’t see her being torn about her feelings for EJ in the final 5 eps of the season

With Seb being a main in S2 that will make things more difficult for the writers to juggle and I hope they are thinking about how to balance the different characters. I also wonder what the long term plan for EJ is since he’s the only senior and if S2 takes place spring semester of his senior year then what are they gonna do with him in S3?

We know that in 1x10 breaking free has EJ, Nini, and Ricky so I wonder if EJ starts off playing Troy for whatever reason before Ricky shows up. Since Ricky thinks Nini is over him I don’t think we’ll be seeing him make a move unless he gets some kind of signal from Nini

Wonder what was up with that Sharpay’s mom credit on imdb, just some random imdb troll? If so, what a coincidence that she picked what happened to be a big Seb ep

I don’t know if this will have impact on the show going forward but this marks the point that Tim Federle took over as showrunner after original showrunner Oliver Goldsmith departed. Oliver wanted to take the show in a more mature direction but Tim disagreed and Disney sided with him over Oliver

Until next week Wildcats

#HSMTMTS #Seblos #Carlos #seb mathew-smith #Ricky Bowen #Gina Porter #Nini Salazar-Roberts #Kourtney #Big Red #Ashlyn #EJ Caswell #Mike Bowen #Miss Jenn #Benjamin Mazzara #HSMTMTS Reviews

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arecomicsevengood · 3 years

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Brandon Graham’s RAIN LIKE HAMMERS

I have a bunch of thoughts on Brandon Graham, and how people loudly do not want to engage with his work anymore. Some of these thoughts I’ve written down in long unfinished drafts, where I really try to get into talking about how we can create community that’s genuinely safe. But I also don’t really think he did anything wrong by pursuing sexual relationships with people. It seems like a lot of people are mad at how he handled himself when he got called out? There’s a lot of meta-discourse that emerges about what’s a bad way to apologize, or how it’s bad to insult one’s accusers instead of apologize to the victims. I hate that stuff! It’s a distraction. The actual conversation about how we can support young emerging and marginalized artists without subjecting them to older men whose interest in them might be parasitic and disingenuous is actually really interesting and I would love to have an actual conversation about it, because trying to write an essay about it (especially where you don’t really want to talk about anything that didn’t happen to you because that’s “not your story to tell,” so everything is general to the point of meaninglessness) is an overwhelming prospect.

So I would like to talk about the work! Rain Like Hammers. I bought the first two issues, out now from Image. Maybe issue one occupies a sort of self-pitying sad guy space that people particularly don’t want to read from Brandon (because they’re projecting defensiveness onto it) but it’s interesting to me for not really being an emotional register he’s worked before. It also is, I think, self-contained? The second issue launches two new plot threads which seems like the actual subject of the rest of the series. The issues are really affordable: Each weighing in around ~56 pages, full color, double the size of a normal comic, for five bucks. Best bargain this side of Fantagraphics’ Now anthologies which honestly leave me depressed. (And I have a lot of thoughts on the Harvey James controversy, which overlap with my thoughts on Brandon but are meaner because James seems like more of a hack.) I’ve read enough of Brandon’s comics to know he tends to work in full-bleed spreads so I knew I wanted single issues rather than a trade. The issues say they’re “M for Mature” as a rating on the back but there’s nothing offensive in them? Those Farel Dalrymple Proxima Centauri comics had some bad language in them and were rated “Teen-Plus” and while none of this matters, it’s still weird everyone is self-designating their audience and a comic as wholesome as this isn’t pitching itself to a younger audience, probably because such a thing is considered strictly theoretical. It could all culminate in an extended orgy sequence for all I know, but for now the vibe is light and gentle whimsy, with considerably less of the objectification of the female form that mars the man’s Instagram. I’d recommend it.

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kuriquinn · 4 years

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For the Future of Fandom

I decided to make a whole other post for this, just to drive the point across.

As creators, the most important motivation for us to create art is an inborn desire to do so. We will create things whether or not we share them with the wider audience because that’s what we do. We were born with this drive to convey our emotions with whatever means possible, be it writing or pictures or sculpture or whatever. Our art is for us.

But more often than not, we want to share it with others. Be it family or friends or an entire world of the audience out there in cyberspace or at conventions and such. And we do that because we want to know what people think of our work.

We’re not putting it up to be ripped to shreds, or copied by other people, or as an ego-boost for ourselves (trust me, there are easier ways to get those than the uncertainty of posting our creations for the masses to consume). It’s a, “Hey, I did this thing, I think it’s cool/that you’d enjoy it, what do you think?” kind of move.

Which makes getting feedback on our work probably the second most important part of being a content creator. It’s the motivator, the thing that makes us go, “Wow, people really liked what I did last time, maybe they’ll like *this* too”.” and keep creating.

The less feedback we get, the less we get the message that people want to see more of our work. And that makes a lot of creators decide to forgo the uncertainty of posting things/sharing their work online, and instead keep it to themselves or a select few chosen souls who they know they can get honest and consistent reactions from.

Feedback is SO important to us.

But I also understand that some content consumers have trouble with leaving feedback. Some are too shy to leave more than kudos and likes (and ao3 is awesome for having the kudos feature!), either not knowing what to say or worried they’ll say the wrong thing or worried they can’t express themselves properly in a foreign language or just being hugely intimidated interacting with the author(s) of their favorite stories.

There’s also a generational thing.

When I first entered the world of fandom (like 20 years ago, omg I’m old!), it was practically second nature to leave a comment on every chapter/every story/every piece of artwork you liked. It’s just what we did. It was understood to be part of the fandom process.

That being said, every comment was not positive, and there was a LOT of unnecessary flaming, abusive, insults disguised as “constructive” criticism. And those kinds of reviews put some content creators on such a defensive that when someone came along with the genuine wish to leave feedback, even if it was well-intentioned “you did this aspect so well, but I’m not sure I liked this, but I’m still going to keep reading because the other thing you did was awesome” kind of criticism, those creators got defensive and snappish. They responded with annoyed review replies or passive-aggressive rants in the next chapter of their stories.

And the only thing that accomplished was making content consumers very wary about leaving any type of feedback. Which made feedback itself dwindle, and new consumers coming into the fandom didn’t get to see the absolute waves of reviews and comments and feedback that used to be left on fanworks.

So now, 20 years later, the older generation of creators is trying to figure out whatever happened to all the comments, while the younger generation coming into it doesn’t understand that feedback used to be the actual norm. The onus for this disconnect doesn’t fall only on content consumers or only on content creators, it’s something that has evolved badly.

But that doesn’t mean this is how it has to be forever.

So many people in fandom are newbies who don’t really understand the etiquette of consuming fan works. Especially in the younger generation where so much in their world is accessible for free and with no need to pay it forward. How can we expect a certain reaction/behavior if we’re not willing to teach and encourage it? Sitting back and complaining that “it’s not like the good old days” won’t do anything. We have to actually engage and be active in changing the discourse on feedback culture. Come up with solutions instead of just bitching out the silent lurkers (which discourages then from even trying in the first place).

To that end, I’ve recently been experimenting with something I saw online somewhere, where the author provides a kind of rubric to help the reader out. (And this really appealed to me as a teacher, because I’ve used a similar type of thing in my class for reading responses and student evaluations of lessons and there’s always been a good response!)

The short version is, creators fill it with whatever reactions they hope for and leave it beside their newly posted chapter/picture/photo/poem/etc. as a guide.

Ex.:

I want to know what you think of my story! Leave kudos, a comment or as many of these emojis as you want and let me know how you feel!

❤️️ = I love this story!

😳 = this was hot!

💐 = thank you for sharing this

🍵 = tea spilled

🍬 = so sweet and fluffy!

🚔 = you’re under arrest! the writing’s too good!

😲 = I NEED THE NEXT CHAPTER

😢 = you got me right in the feels

(Feel free to substitute whatever reaction/emojis you want)

And it’s been working!

I started writing recently in a new fandom and wasn’t getting any feedback on a bunch of stories I was putting my everything into. And then I stumbled upon this trick and suddenly I’m getting loads of feedback in emoji form.

And as readers have become more familiar with my work across the chapters? They’ve actually started leaving personally written feedback too!

I’ve had half a dozen readers even comment how much they like the idea because it takes the pressure off them thinking up what to say and can now leave feedback with the same ease as leaving a kudo/like. And as the creator, it’s kind of run to look at your emoji legend and see what your readers are saying in emoji shorthand.

This is just one way to do it.

I’m sure there are tons of other ways you guys have figured out how to improve the exchange of feedback between consumers and creators, without pretty much ransoming your work behind paywalls or “I-Will-Not-Continue-Until-I-Receive-X-Amount-of-Comments” disclaimers.

And I’d love to hear them and repost them to share with anyone else!

The point is, generally, content consumers just need a starting point, dipping a toe in the water to get used to leaving feedback. As creators, it’s not wrong to want to have feedback from our audiences and this way we can gently encourage them to do so across the board.

I highly recommend trying this out. On your next few short chapters or pieces of fanart or whatever, leave an emoji legend with whatever comments you are hoping for (or just copy the ones above) and see if there’s a difference in the feedback you get. This worked really well for me and I’m confident it can work for you too!

Remember, content creation and consumption is not a quid pro quo thing. The minute it becomes that, you lose the fun of it. But by the same token, feedback is the only payment a lot of content creators receive for our hard work.

Obviously, we’ll continue to create whether audiences interact with our work or not.

But we might stop sharing our creations, or stick them behind a paywall.

Enough of the world has been monetized already. If we intend to keep fandom creations accessible to our communities and new generations coming in, we have to look at a way of maintaining it in a cooperative way. And creators shaming consumers for not providing feedback is as bad as consumers shaming creators for not creating on demand.

It’s a new decade. Let’s be better about this.

#fandom culture #creators and consumers #fandom is not passive #fandom is interactive #let's be kind #let's work together #new decade #fandom

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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Sometimes I want to follow you but then I dee that you reblog from people who have terrible misinformed/ ignorant borderline xenophobic opinions about certain things I like and they enjoy dragging the things I like.. Then I end up not following you. Even if I block some of them they'll end up on my tl and who knows maybe you have the same/ similar opinions. So yes I love your metas, but sorry I can't bring myself to follow. This has nothing to do with your existing fandoms or "dark" fics.

Okay?

Sfjskgsgksjsi

Sorry I just really don’t know what to do with this? I’m not like, mad about it lol since this is how tumblr is supposed to work I’m pretty sure, like hey it’s cool you like my metas but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gonna like me The Person and if someone doesn’t like me then why the fuck would they follow me y’know?

In case this is about my posts yesterday about me being annoyed when people like block me but still wanna use my shit, it’s like....yeah that does legit annoy me because I think that’s dumb and I don’t get it. When I don’t like someone I don’t usually WANT to use or peruse content they create because it’s associated with them and I already decided they weren’t someone I care to associate with sooooo.....

But also, that was literally just me saying hey this annoys me. That’s it, that’s the whole scoop. Annoying things are annoying but expressing that isn’t like.....it doesn’t mean I’m going to DO anything about it or even that there’s anything TO do about it, it’s more just haha hey I too am a Person and I am disorderly and my fandom blog doubles as my main blog so here I am having Feelings, let me show you them, RAWR dinosaur emoji????

Idk maybe it’s that it’s 4 am and my brain hasn’t even rebooted enough for me to even figure out why the fuck I’m even awake, lol, but I guess what I’m saying is it sounds like you’ve made an A+ decision for yourself here? I have no idea what mutuals I reblog from that have views you see as xenophobic, without you, like, actually saying what views those are so I can confirm where I stand on them or sit or whatever. But I can tell you that I don’t follow a lot of people period and my mutuals list is pretty short and basically consists of individuals I’ve met on here that I would absolutely go the fuck to bat for, any time, any place, simply because I think they’re super cool people across the board and that’s what you do for super cool people: baseball as an analogy for friendship I guess? I never did get that particular analogy tbh. Or baseball.

Sooooooo tbh I’m like, not the guy to be all that mad that someone doesn’t like me, it’s kinda like lol this is a neat convo I’m just not sure why we’re having it, but what I’m far less keen on is like, just any kinda slight against my mutuals aka friends and friend type people at all.....especially when that doesn’t actually include what it is someone specifically has a problem with cuz Vague Wording is Vague, and when like I said, my inclination is to go to bat for my mutuals, I would kinda like to know what it is I should be swinging at in their defense. Just general FYI for anyone reading this or like future reference or whatever.

(Unless this is about Palestine again slash still, in which case I mean, I already said what I said there and what I said was What We’re Not Gonna Do is make this topic White Guy Sitting Ten Thousand Miles Away From the Gaza Strip Discourse Hour, and the one thing I always am is consistent aka stubborn aka....eh, you get it).

But anyway, my vaguely Point shaped thing here is just that, I am not a pod person or an invertebrate and my opinions are my own and I do not mindlessly agree with things others say even if it is a mutual or friend saying it, but that said, my mutuals are people I am more likely to agree with than not. So absent knowing specifically what posts of theirs concern you as to whether or not I agree with them, all I can really say is if you’re that bothered by some of their opinions in general then yeah, you’re probably best off avoiding me as well in order to keep your dash a place you’re comfortable with, regardless of how you feel about my fandom meta outside of those posts/opinions. Cuz there really is no outside as far as I see it; my fandom meta is me as is my decision as to who I reblog from and associate with as are my opinions and stances on non fandom matters. It’s all just the same me, one network, many shows, but if any of those shows are the equivalent of Fox News in your eyes, then yeah, for sure, screw that one show that has the one guy you really like and just change the channel and find one that’s a better match for you.

It’s allllllll good.

And for the record, if it’s ultimately more just that they bash things you like and seeing that randomly pop up on your dash might bum you out enough that it’s worth it not to follow me just to be safe there, like, that’s totally understandable and nothing to be sorry about. We all do it. There’s a metric fuckton of people in Batfandom that I probably WOULD follow or read or interact with if it weren’t for the fact that I see them talk and joke and reblog a lot with Big Name Batcest shippers and the like, and I mean, lol hey I’m an incest survivor who hates incest with a passion few will ever understand and seeing it pop up on my dash in posts that talk or laugh about it as something fluffy or sweet or harmless would bum me super hard. So it’s like welp, in every other respect it looks like me and this one person could sync up brainwaves and make like platonic soulmates through our next several lifetimes buuuuuuut they’ve got incest-fluff in their general sphere and that’s a dealbreaker for me so guess we’ll never know now cuz I’m gonna keep standing firmly over here. *shrugs* Does that kinda feel like a waste or a shame sometimes? Yeah, maybe, but like. Your priorities are what they are and if you’re happy with your priorities, sticking with them is the clear choice and not something anyone should kick themselves for.

I mean, I might happen to think someone’s priorities are wrong and bad but I’m allowed to just like you’re allowed to think the same about mine or my mutuals’? It’s just...when that’s the ultimate issue, people just having wildly in opposition priorities, there’s just like....not a whole lot to say there beyond ‘hey I think your priorities suck,’ ‘no, YOUR priorities suck,’ ‘well I think your FACE sucks,’ ‘how dare you, I got this face from my MOM, you giant bipedal pitstain, have you no shame’ etc etc ad nauseam.

Anyway, I’ve officially exhausted this topic so exhaustively I’ve now made myself exhausted enough to go back to sleep cuz it’s still not even 5 am lol, and this is all just brain vomit now anyway so in conclusion, it’s all whatever dude, you do you, I’ll do me, we’ll always have Paris, and that’s what you missed on Glee.

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bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria · 5 years

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i guess i’m making a warning

[[honestly, part of me didn’t want to do this, because i personally didn’t HATE my time here. but, since they’re burning their side of the bridge...i might as well do the same

everyone, please take caution in interacting with the blog “mlpserver” and joining their discord server for mlp roleplay. while it’s not the WORST server i’ve had a falling out with, and one of the mods there is incredibly kind and chill and welcoming and she would definitely be someone i’d want to connect with again if possible, the others...are not so much.

one of them literally called someone obnoxious to their face for being excited about joining the server and wanting a character. this was a young kid they were talking to

they constantly added little extra rules and addendums to the server, and people got kicked a few times before they were even official rules, thus not even given a chance to follow said rules when they were ACTUALLY added. felt like the expectation a lot of the time was to read their mind and know some slight was a bannable offense

they outright IGNORED their own rules when kicking people. someone i’m very close with got kicked despite being active and not having anything to reply to thread-wise for the last couple days, when the rules outright said to not worry about replying fast and that only people inactive past a week would be kicked. this also happened to a few others in their recent purging

there was little to no warning you ever did anything wrong until you were just removed. this happened pretty consistently, to several people i reached out to, and including myself. hell, one of the mods apparently just held a grudge based on how i apologized to them once, and i just. didn’t know it was an issue, until today, when i got kicked

anyway. i have long ass chatlogs under here, so. have those i guess?]]

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria um, excuse me? i was in your server, as applejack and tempest, and i want to know why i was kicked. i didn't break any rules, and i'd replied to a couple threads just the past few daysi got no explanation or warning that i'd done something wrong, so. i'm coming here looking for answers

mlpserver We stressed several times that we wanted the server to be fun for ourselves as well as the users, and it was decided that it was best to remove the users who were perpetuating a negative environment and making the mods feel like they were in some form of servitude to the users, and not equal. It took the fun out for us and as such this is our last ditch effort to make the server entertaining and worth us putting effort into, else it'll get deleted.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria ...and i did that?

mlpserver Yeah we were slowly eaten away at, despite carefully worded feedback from other mods about how draining the attitudes of some users could be.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria so even though i and a bunch of other users for sure emphasized that we didn't expect every bit of feedback to be acted on and only wanted to post some ideas up if we thought they might be okay, and absolutely didn't expect mods to constantly be at our beck and call all the time or that they even had to be at all, we're just booted now?

mlpserver Yes because with the frequency and the style of wording that people gave feedback made it seem like an expectation rather than a suggestion

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria the last time i'd even been a part of that discussion i said that it wasn't expectation. SEVERAL users agreed on that point, and that was that, and the last time i'd even been part of that talk

mlpserver Like, people spoke to us with a level of entitlement that I wouldn't speak to anyone with unless I was being intentionally rude. Whenever we gave an answer people would just try to counterargue whatever we replied with Like, our answers were never satisfactory for people and so what could have been a suggestion became an interrogation In your defense, you have actually been on the down low these past few days. Equally, it's just not really enough and we feel this is the best decision going forward for us to be able to enjoy our own server. Since that was the original goal of creating it.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria yeah, i'm pretty sure i acknowledged that being shitty and even apologized if i'd done that in the past while being a part of that discussion booting me for something that was from all appearances resolved already by the active mod at that time and myself is...not great also, i know for sure you hit people who were innocent. castoro was like never part of anything besides plotting and threads, and they're not in the server either we both thought the whole thing was just gone and was worried something happened

mlpserver Castoro was booted for a different reason separate to yours and they're independent cases which can't be compared.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria it's not my place to really ask why they were booted, so i won't. i apologize for just assuming it was the same reason as mine coincidence seemed to line things up

mlpserver if they have concerns then they're welcome to get in touch. We just don't want to entertain disruptive people and as an informal server, reserve the right to be selective in our userbase.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria well, i guess i can't argue about that. as much as i want to. because i'm honestly hurt and, since i thought things were okay and had been resolved days or even weeks ago when it originaly happened and was actually brought up, the fact that i was put on a list to be removed is concerning.

mlpserver Your behaviour hurt us at the time; we never felt that we had a resolution since we don't think that the discussion will have caused any critical thinking or genuine remorse about the way you caused us to feel and even with the apology, we don't feel like you knew exactly why or what you were apologising for, which was concerning for us. There was never a 'list' for removal, it was based solely upon attitude and as evidenced by this conversation, we just don't feel like there's a decent enough level of chill to enable us to feel comfortable or safe having you in our server.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria when you specifically came out and said "hey we're doing this for fun, the way these are being put in aren't making this feel fun, we feel kinda like servants at your beck and call and the arguing sucks" (paraphrasing), it's pretty obvious what the issue is

mlpserver The apology was always "if I have", and as such there was never true recognition of one's own actions, so I never felt like you ever took responsibility for your own behaviour.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria you also kept it a broad statement? you specifically didn't name names so, i apologized for if i was a part of that, and then stated i had never intended to do so

mlpserver Of course we didn't, because it's unprofessional to name names and we didn't want to single anyone out in front of the entire server. It's not fair of us to name people directly on the server; we'd like to have credited people with more intelligence that that and have the ability to recognise when they're being mentioned indirectly, without causing upset to those people who are not being disruptive. With regards to the apology, due to the fact that it was an 'if I have', it shows that you never recognised or accepted the fact that you were one of the users contributing to this situation, and as such made the apology feel hollow.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria i understand that. but also, my wording was clearly because i didn't know if i specifically had done something, and wasn't gonna ask when the mod, myself, and a few other users were talkin' it out if i did, then a bunch of others might have, and it wasn't the place for it

mlpserver There's no room for 'if I did' at this point, and the continued use of this phrase goes to show that you're still unwilling to accept the fact that our decision has been made as a consequence of your own attitude and actions, and for no other reason.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria i never made myself out to be above anything, or making mistakes. if i thought that, i wouldn't have apologized at all, because i would have thought i didn't have to essentially, the way i phrased things deemed me unworthy of staying, because you found my apology "lacking" but made no actual indication you thought that, until right now when you already booted me with no word or even discussion about it until you finalized that decision

mlpserver Similarly to conversations on the server, it appears that there is no answer which I can give which will ever be satisfactory to you and as such I think the best discourse is to end this conversation and go our separate ways.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria despite the fact i was never unsatisfied from a discussion in that feedback channel, even when something i suggested didn't happen, and again, had no indication that things weren't okay

mlpserver I mean, surely the indication that things weren't okay should have been the fact that I had to sit down and address the entire server about how to talk to people respectfully on the mod team? That's just... not a discussion which should need to be held. It should be completely obvious to treat people respectfully, and that includes the mods

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria heck, even when rules were suddenly added and people got kicked, and lies were told, i supported you guys and even said you were doing a good job. i know being a mod isn't easy. i've BEEN there before and no no, i'm talking after that. when you came out and were honest about how you felt, we ALL had sympathy, we all apologized, said we would try to not be like that. from all appearances, everything LOOKED to be okay after that yeah it sucks you had to have that convo, but then we all talked about it and the situation was over it was resolved, by all appearances you can't go back to something that's been over and done with for weeks and say "actually i'm not satisfied with this now" and just boot for that? and expect people to be alright about it and for it to not come off extremely unfair?

mlpserver I am very sorry for not handling this in the best way, but I think that given the nature of past (and current) interactions, the issue stems from your incompatible personality with the server users and as such, even with a discussion the outcome was very unlikely to be different in the long run. I mean, server environment, not users. The issue boils down to your attitude with regards to certain elements of the server and taking criticism, and as such I don't think there's anything more to discuss. Good day.

bestfarmhorsethissideofequestria because your criticism is weeks late and seemingly out of nowhere considering how things actually went down but whatever, man. do what you gotta. hope your server doesn't feel too empty

#callout #warning #signal boost

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elcorhamletlive · 5 years

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MCU Rewatch: Civil War

I love the banter between Sam and Nat. “Someone ever told you you’re a little paranoid?” lol

I also love Wanda floating Steve into the building. “Just like we practiced”. So cute.

lol Redwing. Sam/Nat is an underrated pairing.

Wanda does not set off the bomb. Rumlow does, and then Wanda only fails to contain it.

There are like. Lots of hypocrites in the MCU, but, man, does T’Chaka takes the cake. lol My dude... I don’t think you’re the best person to talk about indifference.

I don’t want to make this commentary all like “Steve DOES do this thing fandom complains about him not doing”, because this happens through the entire movie, but I want to point out the only thing Steve says to Wanda is that the Wakandans’ deaths are on HIM, not her. Then, when she says it’s on both of them, he doesn’t dispute it.

I’m gonna SPARE you all from turning this into a rant about how much I hate the Accords, but boy oh boy, does the way Ross essentially presents it as “sign it or retire” and the way he refers to Thor and Bruce as “nukes” show a little of who this character is, and how meaningful it was that we’re presented to the Accords by him.

I have a lot of feelings about how Steve is essentially surrounded by his closest friends on the world when he opens the text telling him of Peggy’s death, and his reaction is NOT to tell ANY of them what is happening, but instead leave to cry about it alone, pretty much hidden. Suffering in silence. Sam is with him at the funeral, but did Steve even tell him? Or did he find out in some other way? God this moment makes me so sad.

His red eyes as he carries the casket. So much pain.

I used to resent the fact that the Russos gave the “you move” speech to Sharon, but in context, it makes sense. In this moment it’s what gives him motivation to not sign. I feel like, if it were given to him, it would sounds petulant.

Chadwick Boseman is just SO COOL in this movie. His accent, his expressions. T’Challa gets such an amazing introduction to the universe here.

Also, I once posted that T’Challa breaks the Accords in Black Panther on the Seoul chase scene, but it never occured to me that he totally does it in this movie as well. lol Good for him.

I love Steve’s “come on, man” when he catches the guy Bucky dropped lol.

Wanda and Vision’s flirt is cute.

I can’t get over the way Tony looks at Steve on the pens scene. I can only imagine how shooting it went. “Ok, Robert, now we need you to try to convince him...” “And look hopelessly in love and in pain while I do it. Got it.”

GOD THIS SCENE! I love that Steve totally sees through that Tony is going to try to get him to sign and that he’s trying to appeal to his nostalgia by bringing up the pens, so he starts out pretty defensive; then Tony gets personal when talking about Pepper, and Steve drops his guard. His “I’m so sorry, Tony” is very sincere.

I’m thorn on whether Steve assuming Pepper might be pregnant when she and Tony aren’t even TOGETHER is an indication of him and Tony not keeping much touch, because the movie kind of implies by Pepper cancelling her appearance at MIT that the Pepperony break up was recent. Either way, I feel like the fact that Steve just assumes they’re madly in love and ready to have a baby is a great detail for fics to use.

I feel like people overlook Tony’s highly personal reasoning for signing the Accords. Sure, it’s not the only reason he signed, but it was a strong one.

I also have feelings about how Steve says nothing after Tony talks about Pepper - generally feeling the impact of Tony’s words -, so Tony kind of got through him in a way, and then Tony immediately stands up and creates distance between them, turning away and quipping “In her defense, I’m a handful”. Oh, Tony.

One thing this scene clearly DOES imply is that they’ve never discussed Howard before.

Also, Steve looks genuinely hurt when Tony says he hated him. Awww. And then his smile when Tony goes “no, you don’t”. I love this scene to bits.

I want to make my commentary more insightful then “this is gay as fuck”, but the way Tony says “sometimes I wanna punch you in your perfect teeth” is just TOO GAY TO FUNCTION. He legit looks like he’s actively holding back from jumping him. I can’t deal.

And then with “I don’t wanna see you gone” his voice turns so soft. And it GETS to Steve, clearly. He’s honestly considering signing it.

And then the Wanda exchange happens. There’s a lot to unpack here, but I don’t want to waste time going through stuff people say about it that everyone and their mother already knows I disagree with, so... I’m not gonna dwell on it too much.

I AM gonna dwell on “these documents can be amended”. How? And most importantly, why? Once they’re signed, WHY would 117 countries agree to renegotiate something that’s already going the way they wanted to, just for a couple individuals they clearly have no respect for since they basically pushed the law on them without even trying talking about it while they were being discussed? What reason do they have to add in safeguards at this point? I feel like Tony is totally bullshitting here, or not thinking through what he’s saying.

All discourse aside, I love this scene. And Tony looks in so much pain after it ends, and I love that he puts the sunglasses on even after Steve leaves. Using an armor because he’s upset.

Tony fighting Bucky with the gauntlet is such a cool moment. That is a very cool sequence.

The use of the superserum and the potential other Winter Soldiers is so well-used as a red herring, both by Zemo and by the movie. It sets up the final twist so well.

“I can’t control their fear, only my own” I love this line.

No hate for Sharon, but damn that’s an awkward kiss.

Scott meeting Steve is an eternal mood.

The airport fight is so fun. Such a great use of so many different characters.

It’s bizarre that the movie clearly says Tony was in the wrong, has Tony VERBALLY acknowledge this, and his fandom sitll somehow denies it. lol

T’Challa mentions there are people on the way when he holds Zemo down, so the movie does respond to the question of how did Tony come back from Siberia.

The final scene in the bunker is top notch. It’s painful and hurtful and so well-acted. This movie really hits well on the two buttons of why you’d make superheroes fight. There’s both the fun “what if X fought Y”s stuff, and the emotionally heavy stuff.

Steve’s apology in the letter is... pretty much as apologetic as apologies go. He says “I’m sorry, I know I hurt you, I thought I was going for you but I was just sparing myself”. Sure, he could’ve gone on about his reasons, but... it’s an apology, and not a “i’m sorry, but...” type of apology. I feel like anyone hoping to see Steve grovelling will be disappointed, but also, I don’t think Tony is expecting him to do that in canon, either. I feel like the apology is there, and while things obviously aren’t fine, I don’t think it’s fair to act as if it isn’t.

And it’s over! I actually like this movie a lot. The pacing is airtight - it’s two and half hours long but it flies by. There are so many fun moments, but the emotional parts still hit very well. Also, I feel like a lot of bad discourse about it (especially about Steve) comes from people just... not rewatching it, and forgetting what actually happened other than the main events (the same applies to AoU). It’s a good movie. I agree with the criticism that it’s not really a Steve movie, it’s more of an Avengers movie with slightly more of a focus on Steve, but I think the quality outweights this concern, imo.

#mcu rewatch #cw discourse #(obviously)#anti-accords #(not much but still)

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ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is · 5 years

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ISTJ social developmental phases

I was reading through your posts when i found one with the anon asking about talking out loud. This got me very curious, so i was wondering if there were more social developmental phases that overlap due to the TJ part. This is, however, my own recount as best i can manage. (INTJ)

Teenagehood - i sucked as a person. No development, social or otherwise. Skipping.

College years - i think more of my functions started developing then. Still sucked big time.

Exploration phase > the initial phase where i realised i needed to interact with people, because group work.

Starting out, i had nearly zero social skills. Very limited. College was also a new environment, so i eased up on the ‘danger everywhere’ button. The social skills i had pretty much existed in theory, from reading…

So yeah. I had a bunch of buttons, but did not know what will happen if i poked them. So i went around pressing all of them to see what happened. I faked expressions, interest in things, dodged personal questions. I found out that playing dumb was the easiest guise. Mainly because i literally could not continue a conversation without giving up the gig. It was less of a conversation i was looking for, and more of watching the other person react. Some opinions (lies) made people uncomfortable, some agreements (still lying) would backfire when i was asked to further the convo. Even when i was 'doing’ i was still observing. Ni-Te?

I burned out in 2 weeks. That was the end of the exploration phase. I’m pretty sure ISTJs would be better at the exploration part. I went fuuuuucckkkk itttttt and shut down most of my attempts at socializing.

I just upped and stop caring about getting along. In my defense, i had a pretty good reason for not trying again until my class reshuffled.

See, people started plagarising my power point slides. As well as the slides from their seniors who went through the same modules. It was an open secret, each 'generation’ would pass their 'perfect’ slides to the next. It was 'perfect’ because they downloaded them from the teacher’s teaching version.

So the only guy that did not get the cheat code was me. Cause i sucked at talking to people.

So what happened was that nearly everyone’s work was the same. Mine was original. So i got an A. Granted, it was the first few lessons, so nobody was expecting that much.

As i was presenting the first power point slides, i was also wondering as to why the hell were people panicing so much, spam clicking their mouse, looking at my slides, then at their computer, then at my slides, then at their computer. It kept happening for the first few days. Then someone got the idea that i was hiding some slides away from others. So i got blacklisted by the class and i had absolutely no idea what was happening and why were people so hostile all of a sudden.

That was how i gave up trying to be nice by the 2nd week. Too damn exhausting.

After that, my teammates slipped the rest the slides that i was doing. They would leave for an 1 ½ lunch, and come back to edit the free slides.

That was not the worst part.

The worst part… WAS THAT THEY ADDED GRAMMAR MISTAKES!!!

WHYYYYYYYY!????!?!?!?!?!

As the weeks went on,

Next up is practice phase.

… i think i submitted the first half accidentally

To recap, i want to know if there are overlapping trials and tribulations in developing the Te-Fi part between INTJs and ISTJs.

Aight, here’s the second half.

The plagiarism got so bad, that several websites including webMd banned access from my college wifi.

Only the people who did not depend on first page google survived to tell the tale.

Wikipedia was surprisingly tolerant.

I mean, my classmates left the colour, font, font size, italics, underlines, and that little boxed up number at the side that refers you to the references INSIDE THEIR POWER POINT SLIDES. More than 1 person did that. Actually, more than half the class did that.

I don’t know if this is an Fi thing, or human thing, but i was judging them sooooo damn hard.

And i was still being blamed for having original slides

Needless to say, my relationship with my class deteriorated into mutual hatred. I went back into my INTJ ‘everyone is stupid, people suck’ zone.

I stand by my decision to create a ‘no-friend’ zone.

I went into a YOLO phase, where i steamrolled over everyone and anyone without a care. The only ones where i tried being nice to were those people that actually tried working hard. Or just asked nicely. My decency baseline was honestly, just hard work.

As the weeks wore on, the module became harder, and more people started getting desperate… for cheaper ways to cheat past the teachers grading system like they were blind or something.

My developing Te started crapping up more. Cause i sucked at explaining things, it translated to badly written slides as well. The only redeeming point was that the classmates that hated me would pressure the neutral ones i was nicer towards to explain my slides to them. That was how i got plenty of practice with my Te.

The biggest issue was that my Te still sucked at translating my Ni. And my Ni was all over the place. I kept trying to guess what the teacher wanted to see in the slides.

In the end, half my class lived or died by my Te’s competency and my Ni’s accuracy for the next 4 months until they finally realised that i could not be depended upon.

Hey, not my fault.

My Ni screwed me over less than it screwed others over because i could defend my points (most of the time) and through the teacher’s questions figure out what was the understanding that the teacher wanted. Leading questions are leading. Sometimes i would have an epiphany midway through the presentation, and rewrite my script as i was presenting my slides.

Those people that copied and read off my slides got fucked over so damn hard. Even when i changed nothing, they could not understand where my Ni was going on the slides and got screwed over anyway.

Because i had the tendency to screw over the ‘alpha bitches’ in this manner by accident, within the year i became notorious and universally hated by my entire cohort. People that i never met knew i was an asshole. I was still blissfully unaware until i actually made some friends.

Cue the next set of modules in the second half of the year, where the class rearranged.

One day an INFP and an INTP had a discourse.

I joined in.

We tried to kill each other with theories.

We became friends.

Don’t ask me how that happened. It just did.

That also explains how i have so many enemies in class. If that was how i made friends, i can only imagine how i made enemies.

I still don’t know how i made enemies.

But i did, and it was entertaining to skin them alive when they try to snipe me with questions from the left field. More than one time the teachers had to stop me from explaining how wrong their assumptions were and how the correct line of thinking would have went, followed by the multiple scenarios should they pursue the different lines of thought i picked out in the one question they thought was a good idea to throw at me for fun.

Man, Te really only gets better when you don’t restrain it. I honestly think that letting loose is the only way to learn when you have Te.

Cue months of practise later, i finally (about damn time) can explain things in the way people can understand without blowing my top with frustration, and settle with perfecting how to word things nicely.

Still on the way to that.

Looking back, i don’t see much of Fi in my own development, but i am interested in seeing how Te-Fi manifests and develops in ISTJs.

----

.....I didn’t entirely follow this anecdote and I’m not sure what you are looking for from it but based on the last sentence I can point you to some Te-Fi resources.

A good overall ISTJ development guide is here: https://mbti-notes.tumblr.com/post/120439387597/mbti-development-istj. The level 4 description covers the beginning of tert Fi development.

The MBTI Resources ISTJ page has some items I’d recommend reading with a grain of salt (the tert Fi description was an okay description of tert Fi but fell into a lot of the pitfalls of misunderstanding Si), but it might be useful.

Speaking personally my Te and Si seemed pretty okay by college, so much of my development in college was Fi: understanding that people who had different perspectives, particularly moral/ethical ones, could simultaneously be ‘correct’, as well as developing an identity that went beyond Si and Te. I went to college being basically the smart, dutiful one, and I had my interests but I didn’t really have an ‘identity’ so to speak. That was the bulk of my college and early 20s experience: figuring out who I was when I wasn’t defined by external standards.

#mbti #extroverted thinking #submission

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