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#idk like I said there's no real point to this post I'm just very frustrated

spectrum-core · 2 months

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STEPHCLAIR IS BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD

Alternative title: a very angry (and tired) Full Stop fan's thesis.

ok, so me being the stephan/sinclair comparison's strongest hater is a bit i really like to lean into, but for the sake of keeping things semi-serious i will try to keep the actual essay content as free of me ranting my frustrations as humanly possible (which i mean commitement to the bit aside this will be hard bc it is frustrating to see people calling them both the same character, at best it shows a very surface level understanding of either character and at worst it shows just reducing them to cookie cutter meme fandom archetypes neither character actually fits into, so bear with me if i slip up and make unserious comments from time to time)

so before i start the actual essay let me say this: this essay doesnt even scratch the surface of how much i hate this comparison you guys cant even possibly fucking imagine ive been obssessed and i mean OBSSESSED with the full stop office since 2021 and im glad i wasnt in the limbus prerelease fanbase because if i had to see people comparing my beautiful boy and beloved best friend to a guy we had no info about other than "hes based of the guy from demian" i would have turned into the joker this is not even about saving my own mental health this is about sparing the entire pjm fandom of the monster i would have turned into

spoilers for ruina and limbus, universe terminology heavy and surface level references and interpretations of demian by herman hesse because imma keep it real with you guys the first and only time i read that book i was still in high school and i barely remember shit.

Table of contents:

Stephan - a summary

Sinclair - a summary 2.1. Emil Sinclair in Demian (1919) 2.2. Emil Sinclair in Limbus Company (2023)

Addressing common arguments

1.- Stephan - a summary

And of course I will start with Stephan, because I love him very much, just like Liwei he's one of my favorite pjm characters (yeah i like him more than your favorite popular character don't ask) so it's not surprising that i have A Lot to say about him, right?

And of course, I do.

As I said in the serrated duo post, a core part of my perception of the Full Stop office depends on the fact that they are poor. Mentions of money are common all across many factions in the game, yes, but the Full Stops are extremely constant about money, how taking a wrong turn means losing more than they can afford, how they can't afford to drop their weapons because they were too expensive, how even getting the permissions to be able to buy and wield these weapons was ridiculously expensive and so on. Of course, Stephan is the one talking about this the most (something I will elaborate on later), but Liwei and Tamaki also make a few ocassional mentions to it in their dialogue and keypages and considering this is a shared business it just makes sense that this is something that affects all of them.

These are just some few of the callbacks to money that Stephan alone does in his dialogue, without focusing in keypage text or what Liwei and Tamaki have to say about it.

And idk man, at least to me the difference between social classes is an important aspect for their characterization, specially because of how constant the concern with money is for Stephan. From this point alone comparing them feels like erasing a core aspect of Stephan's characterization, a lot about Stephan (and the Full Stop office as a whole, let's be real here) starts making more sense once you read the office as lower-middle class (and I'm saying lower middle class because they can afford some place to live and their weapons, but to me these guys are the types who precisely because of their need to keep bullets at all times can't pay for water or electricity all the time and sometimes they simply can't afford food or if they do they can spend a week straight eating nothing but unsalted pasta).

Now, going back to Stephan being the most outward about his complaints with money, he is in general the most outward about all problems the office is facing, to the point in which he doesn't mind inconveniencing everyone else with his rants, being one of the few guests who interrupt Angela's introductory speech and getting into Tamaki's nerves (something he's well aware he's doing, as these two know each other) at least two times through the course of their pre-battle cutscene, even Roland comments after the reception on how he wishes he would always have been as open about his problems as Stephan was.

However, it's worth nothing that he doesn't spend the entire cutscene crying about his miseries, and he only starts losing hope at three key moments: when they can't kill Eileen inmediately (making them waste more bullets than needed), when Argalia shows up (forcing them to retreat and making them fail their mission, meaning they won't get paid for this after they already lost a ton of money, as well as turning the situation into something much more dangerous than what they had signed up for) and once they enter the Library (an Urban Plague grade threat they have little to no information about, when him and Tamaki are almost out of bullets so Liwei is essentially the only fixer with some chance of putting up a fight and, you know, making it out alive).

Now, while it's true that Stephan is someone who dislikes danger, he isn't someone who isn't used to seeing gruesome events, his instinctive reaction to seeing a guy getting his head put into a meat grinder was cracking jokes and calling the concept of thought gears "a load of horseshit", which is something that falls in line with him being a somewhat experienced Fixer (sure, grade 5 isn't amazing but we can assume it's still either in the higher side of average or barely above average, and for someone specialized in firearms, which are far from the best weapon in the city, getting that high means he must have some experience and skill, right? more so considering he's been at this for 5 years at most) who has seen a fair share of horrid shit and can be unfazed by (most of) it as long as his own safety isn't on the line.

Another point is... he dislikes danger and is always wary about money and expenses, to the point in which he enjoys checking his bank account (or at least he believes so, if we go for the theory of the artbook profiles being more a mix of what the characters perceive themseves as/would describe themselves as to others, which is a theory i go by, I see him as someone who's convinced he does that for fun instead as out of desperation), but this seems to be more a generalized feeling of impending doom at everything rather than something that can be traced back to a particular traumatic event (anything can be dangerous, anything can cost him money), dude's from the backstreets after all, he's seen shit and he's used to assuming the worst. How I see Stephan, he's a guy who already expects bad things to happen but once things go wrong he starts freaking out about how this time They're Screwed For Real, but he never really tricks himself into believing "maybe things will turn out just fine this time?" or who thinks "well, we've done this before, surely we can handle it again."

This is not very related to Stephan as a character in terms of personality but I think it's still an important point to make as it is particularly related to body mods, his physical condition and his body shape.

So we can easily say that Stephan is a strong dude, at least if compared to real world standards without the fancy and insane body mods we see people in the city have access to. He carries that huge rifle around with his bare hands, something that Tamaki doesn't do and that not even Stephan himself in earlier iterations of his dessign did, and his main talent (which based of my theories is something that can be assumed as "something he's proud enough of to consider it the thing he does best") is physical labor.

Pictured, Tamaki's talksprite, carrying a rifle almost as long as she is tall with a strap supporting the weight on her shoulders, like a normal person.

Also pictured, an earlier iteration of Stephan's dessign, carrying the same rifle his current version does, but also holding it with the help of a similar strap supporting the weight on his shoulders.

And finally, Stephan's current dessign, holding that shit with his bare fucking hands in an exhibition of his brute animal strength, what the fuck is wrong with this man (affectionate)

And Stephan's artbook profile, the important part here is his speciality being physical labor, not only he's strong but he aknowledges this.

However, I made a point about the Full Stop office being poor, right? Even Roland says that "giving a whole office augmentation procedures is cheaper than keeping a decent supply of bullets in stock" (not the exact phrasing).

At least personally, I see this as Roland essentially saying "it would be cheaper (and more efficient) to get body mods for everyone in the office and buy another (cheaper) type of weaponry instead", but as things stand, the Full Stops can afford to either buy more ammunition and maintain their weapons, OR to get body mods, and since their whole deal is firearms... well, they can't really Stop investing in them, meaning they have no body mods At All and they got their grades purely out of their own physical strength.

Similarly, Stephan makes a similar point about how body augmentations are required for people to be able to run while carrying their weapons around (specifically talking about the rifles he and Tamaki use).

And... you know, the whole point is that they couldn't run carrying their weapons because they were too heavy, Argalia mocked them for that, Liwei urged them to drop their weapons, something they refused to do because of the prices.

Lastly on this point, while it's true that Ruina talksprites have a very bad case of Long Anime Legs (to the point in which how Roland's legs take about 2/3 of his height is a common joke), if we focus only on his head and torso, Stephan looks pretty Wide, and not only because he's wearing thick, fluffy and multilayered clothing, as other characters wearing similar clothing styles still look thinner than him.

This is all to say: I don't think this guy is a twink, or thin at all. He's a prime example of the strongman build to me and this is yet another hill I'm willing to die on watch project moon turn him into a beanpole once he inevitably shows up in limbus and me turning into the first real world distortion as a consequence.

Finally, Stephan is very notoriously the most informal member of the office, not only being the only one who doesn't wear any sort of formal clothing fully prioritizing comfort and practicality over looks but also completely disregarding formalities with his attitude at work (again, he interrupts Angela's introductory monologue, and again, his first two lines when being introduced are him cracking jokes), being the only member of the office to swear on screen and using several informal expressions and metaphors through both the reception dialogue and his keypage story.

And for good measure, he's a compilation of Stephan being the creature he is.

The literal introduction of the characters, also known as the moment in which Stephan became one of my favorite characters because he's Just Like Me Fr

Very normal behavior for someone who hates blood and violence and isn't used to seeing it. This man is more than capable (and willing, assuming money is involved) to murder kill.

Which, I mean, this attitude is very different from what we see from Sinclair.

2.- Sinclair, a summary

In retrospect I probably should have made this one first because I'm gonna be honest with you, Sinclair is one of the sinners I care about the least (I still like him and think he's pretty cool mind you I just don't vibe too much with most of the tropes making up the character) so what I have to say about him is less me grasping for straws and subtext because I don't care enough about him to be bothered with a super serious and in depth analysis like I did with Stephan and more things we can explicitly see about him in game and things that happen in the novel Demian.

And if I can have a small parenthesis here, people saying that one of my favorite pjm guys Ever is in any way similar to a guy who despite being pretty cool is just Not the type of character I fully vibe with... really, it gets annoying fast. Anyway back to the serious analysis now.

2.1- Emil Sinclair in Demian (1919)

To be able to understand Sinclair as he is depicted in Limbus Company, it is important to first be familiar with the source material of the original iteration of the character, that's it we're doing your high school homework by compiling several literary analysis of a symbolic psychological early 20th century autobiographical novel i hope you guys signed up for this (and if you didn't, though luck! i will do this anyway, I love literary analysis).

In the novel, young Emil finds himself torn between the worlds of light (which can be equated to the Garden of Eden, but it's more tangible meaning for our protagonist is his childhood home and family, a serene and well structure/organized space where he can be innocent, untainted by the evils of the outside world) and darkness (basically all the scary shit that goes on outside, where people do evil things for the sake of it), he finds himself tempted by the violence of the outside world, particularly through the actions of his classmate Franz Kromer, which eventually leads him to consider that due to being exposed to this tainted world of evil he no longer can return to the world of good and innocence.

Here, the character of Demian acts as a guide, someone who helps Sinclair to trascend this binary perception of good vs evil and to see himself as someone worthy of happiness because him witnessing the world of evil didn't taint him as a person but rather merely showed him another face of the world, Demian here mentions the Mark of Cain as a symbol of mental strenght and freedom, considering that bearers of this mark are capable of making their own choices and should be able to go beyond their assigned roles, being able to embody aspects of both worlds. This is to say that Demian's view is less focused on good vs evil, instead taking a more order vs chaos approach (without giving an explicit moral character to either).

In the book, the symbol of a bird breaking out of the egg is frequently used to represent Emil's personal growth, the egg represents safety and innocence, but a bird must eventually leave the egg or it will die, and getting out of the egg is a process than can be seen as violent, as a bird must fight to get out of the egg, and getting out of the egg represents birth but also an irreversible change, it can be seen as breaking out of the world of light and getting permanently in the world of darkness since a broken shell can't be fixed, but it can also mean achieving the enlightment and personal balance to not feel permanently bound to a condition, place or state of being and therefore growing as a person by learning to see himself as a whole human instead of supressing his "evil side" by only forcing the "good side" to surface.

Max Demian is here to show this second meaning of growth/self improvement (while also explaining that Sinclair is permamently growing and must always keep this balance between all the parts conforming the whole being that is himself rather that trying to make parts of himself antagonize each other). This idea of personal growth being one of the core themes of the book.

2.2- Emil Sinclair in Limbus Company (2023)

With Sinclair's source media analyzed (at a very surface level, mind you), we now can start talking about the depiction of Sinclair in Limbus Company, how it parallels the book, why the book symbolism is important for this instance of Sinclair and so on.

When we are first introduced to Sinclair in the game he's clearly nervous, he doesn't know what he's supposed to do as he hasn't worked for a similar company before and he isn't used to the gruesome sight of the bus eating people, this does fit inmediately in the motif of a naive person with limited experience about the world (well, to be fair to him most people won't be seeing man-eating buses at a regular basis, but the average backstreets dweller would be familiar with equally violent situations).

With this said, despite Sinclair's obviously nervous behavior... he isn't really a pessimist like Stephan was, in fact, almost every chapter (counting cantos, intervallos and the short mini chapters such as the Dante's notes update episode) have at least one key moment with him trying to rationalize horrible stuff as something much less violent, or simply going "but I thought this thing didn't work like this..." when confronted with the more horrible realities in the city. He thought the G corp veterans were really going to let them pass without a fight, he thought the people being controlled by headhens were just actors wearing mascot costumes, he thought mermaids were the beautiful half-woman half-fish creatures he heard about in fairy tales, and there's more examples but I don't really feel like looking for The Entire Fucking Plot Because This Guy Is An Actual Protagonist Instead Of A Background Guy Like Stephan Was to make my point clearer than it already is. And it's only when he realizes that the real world doesn't fit his expectations that he panics.

Well, there is one exception to this pattern: his own canto. Here, he panics inmediately as soon as K corp's nest is mentioned and spends the first half of the chapter pleading to turn back while saying that they are going to get killed. So what is different here with the rest of the plot?

Obviously, the fact that is related to his very own very personal very specific trauma. That is to say, unlike Stephan who is wary of anything that can put him on danger or cost him more money than it should, Sinclair has a very specific traumatic event that makes him act Like That (sure, he gets scared and nervous outside that, but these are more normal "I'm unfamiliar with this and I don't fully know how to react, this is normal behavior in a human being" reactions than outright "I am Actually Terrified due to being reminded of an actual traumatic event, this reaction is a textbook definition of post-traumatic stress disorder").

HOWEVER, Sinclair being someone who's deeply traumatized and kind of a scaredy cat when it comes to violence and unfamiliar situations... it doesn't mean that he's incompetent or a bad fighter. Almost all of his identities are terrifyingly good fighters (at least in their lore), Los Mariachis fear jefe Sinclair, Cinq director Sinclair is someone most association members are terrified to duel even during training, Blade Lineage Sinclair is considered a talented killer (it's also worth noting that save maybe for the mariachi one, in none of these mirror worlds Sinclair is precisely happy of being recognized as "the guy who's very scary when he fights people", unlike Stephan who I don't think he particularly likes killing but has a more "as long as I get paid..." mentality about it), the only "not very good at this" Sinclair id I can think of is the molar boatworks id where he's more a mechanic than a fighter so he fears he's lagging behind in that aspect. Hell, even the Canon Timeline so to speak (which is to say: his base identity) has him carrying that huge halberd, going on a frenzy attacking some already mutilated inquisitor's corpse, piercing through Guido's armor and dealing a fatal blow that finally killed him for real. To compare, Stephan is good at physical work, but we don't know about his close combat capacities other than the fact that he dislikes it, for Sinclair however we know he's terrifyingly good at physical combat.

Now, I've seen a lot of people call Sinclair a twink and while it's one of these words that nobody agrees on what it means, let's give it the benefit of doubt and say "alright, for the duration of this analysis let's settle on a twink being a young looking (regardless of actual age), thin man with almost no facial/body hair".

Since Sinclair is a rich guy (not just Any Rich Guy though, we're talking of someone whose family had ties to a Wing, probably not some elite guy like Daniel or Hong Lu, but not a self perceived "mediocre" nest dweller like Samjo either), and pressumably not very experienced in combat in most mirror worlds (we know he has no prior experience in the base one where he joined Limbus, at least), let's say that he has enough body mods for him to be much stronger than he looks like despite being thin, he does look thin and young and much to my dissapointment he also has no facial hair, so yeah, under this very broad definition of the term he is a twink.

However if you start adding personality archetypes to the definition he stops being one almost inmediately, as we've been shown time after time that his "submissive" attitude is mostly a result of him not knowing too well how to impose himself and just going along with what the rest say or do, but he's starting to grow tired of that ever since Hell's Chicken (even if he clearly still isn't great at that), as it should be more than obvious for anyone who even just googled "demian herman hesse literary analysis", Sinclair is undergoing a lot of changes even now, and the game is doing a good job at portraying that.

Honestly I also think he'd be hotter with a sleeper build but really, I don't care enough about him to argue about that.

And for the last point, precisely due to his upbringing as a rich guy AND his traumatic experience with Kromer, Sinclair is not only a very polite and mild mannered guy (again, unlike resident creature Stephan), but also he tries to take as little space as possible, both literally and metaphorically, as Dante notices near the end of canto 3 when they finally comment on how Sinclair never talks about his own problems until it's too late because he doesn't want to bother the others as they probably have it worse (again, unlike Stephan "i don't mind loweing team morale and making everyone in the room uncomfortable as long as i get to vent" Full Stop office).

3.- Adressing common arguments

Alright, now that I talked about each character, let's see some of the most common arguments I've seen people use to compare them.

"They look the same!" No, they don't. The only thing they have in common is being blonde but even their hairstyles are different with Sinclair having a simple bowl-ish cut with slightly wavy hair and Stephan having curlier hair (not to mention the whole point I made about body types because I'm the sort of lunatic who cares about that stuff). I won't even bother with this argument.

"They have the same personalities!" Again, they don't. Stephan is very cynical with a lot of his attitude being clearly derivated from him coming from a poor background and having stayed there his whole life, he also doesn't care about his cynism getting in the way and bothering everyone else. On the other hand, Sinclair is someone who could almost be described as naive due to having lived a sheltered childhood and only having his experiences with Kromer and his time at Limbus as moments of realizing that the rest of the world is Not Like His Childhood House, still believing that the world is a binary of good vs evil and expecting things to turn out fine or be much better than they actually are, just to be hit with the reality of the city Not being a nice place where people are nice and polite and not trying to kill him, this is not to say he doesn't have his own issues but even Dante notices during his Canto that Sinclair makes a point to avoid bothering everyone else with his personal problems, keeping them to himself even if that makes things worse on the long run.

"Both are opposed and harmed by a lunatic!" This is an argument I've seen a lot and is incredibly filmsy at best, half of the city's population are lunatics and the other half are people who got opposed by them some way or another. Will you say that Ishmael and the rest of the Pequod crew can be compared to the Full Stop office (or really, even mention the other Full Stop fixers instead of just focusing on Stephan because he happens to be blonde and can be compared to Sinclair) because of their situations with Ahab? Or the W Corp crew who got their train targetted by Jae-heon and Elena (or, you know, the train passengers who were turned into Love townspeople or puppets)? What about the Vermillion Cross who got killed by the Reverb Ensemble? Or the Cane office fixers? or the Zwei association section 6 who got beaten to death by Gyeong-mi just because he felt like doing so? Or the Liu association section 1 who had to deal with Argalia taking Philip away? Or the Kurokumo clan members when they were attacked by Tanya? You aren't comparing them to either Stephan or Sinclair, right? Not to mention that in her weird and fucked up perception of things, Kromer was less opposed to Sinclair as she was trying to lead him to join her and her cause, even the last things she says before getting killed are her calling him to follow her.

"Both are compared to birds!" Oh, right, because I forgot that a very directed symbolic comparison to a baby bird breaking out of it's shell as a symbol of rebirth, learning about the nuances of the world and self improvement/liberation that is consistently used in the source material Sinclair comes from is exactly the same as one (1) throwaway line the big bad guy uses to mock not only Stephan but the whole Full Stop gang, right. And if you want to say "but Tamaki compares him to a bird once too", yeah she calls him a parrot because he keeps repeating the same complaints over and over, it's still not the same as a consistent metaphor.

"Both are sad blonde twinks! They're essentially the same guy." Sad? Yeah, everyone in the city is sad but their ways to be sad are polar opposites, and neither of them is the pure cinnamon roll uwu crybaby archetype people tend to lump both into, Stephan was merely having a bad day and people decided to make that his whole personality (when honestly we get more insight on his actual personality before Argalia shows up, when he's making sarcastic remarks and getting impatient because they weren't starting killing people fast enough) but he's still perfectly capable (and willing) to murder people, and Sinclair is just... someone who lacks experience about the real world and how it works and has a tendency to get nervous because of this, but he can adapt quickly to situations once he understands them. Blonde? Yeah, but I guess if that's a point to draw a comparison then we should also compare them to Don Quixote, the Tiphereths, Lenny, Yun, Lulu, Olga, every single npc, librarian, and agent who comes with blonde hair from the generator... Twinks? Stephan absolutely isn't one, Sinclair depends on how you define twink as nobody seems to get to an agreement with that, if you define it as merely "young looking thin man with almost no visible body hair" then yeah he is one, but if you go for any more specific definition than that he stops fitting into the definition almost instantly.

In conclusion: if I see anyone else comparing them I'll start blocking people liberally bc I'm sick of seeing that shit (I do that already tbh but just so you know), now scram

#pjm #library of ruina #limbus company #.🔫#this full stop office shit gets serious #probab ly not exhaustive but ive had this sitting on my drafts for way too long so i needed to post it so people understand how much i Hate #that godforsaken comparison

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joys-of-everyday · 9 months

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SVSSS’s women and MXTX’s commentary on sexism

Every time someone starts with ‘MXTX is great but her women…’, I feel conflicted. I think the way she writes women is secretly brilliant, but that was a conclusion I came to after a long hard think about SVSSS (which was the third series I got into). I absolutely went through the 'MXTX is great but her women...' phase.

So thoughts for my fellow travelers on this journey of enlightenment or whatever. I’m focusing on SVSSS here, because otherwise the post would be more than three times as long. I'm also not... idk how to phrase it... 'starting at the basics' since I think there's plenty already out there on MXTX's strong/not strong presence of female characters. (There’s this for advertisement. Then a somewhat more involved post on Su Xiyan which is brilliant btw. defo recommend.) This is more like... side notes, of things I have yet to see discussed. (maybe someone has discussed them and I've yet to find it.)

1. Ning Yingying, Institutionalised Sexism, and Growth

There were also some incredible female cultivators, but on the whole, these girls’ strength and mental fortitude was lacking, and they often required help… they spent their time playing around instead of actually working. Basically they looked quite hopeless.

What I really have to appreciate about SVSSS is that it slaps you around the face with a giant cucumber so you really can't miss it. This was the passage that made me put down the book and think. Why is this here? What is the point? Idk it just stuck out to me.

So there's a lot to say here about SY's stunning narration, what that says about his internalised beliefs, as well as the portrayal of women in certain genres and how frustrating it can be as a reader/viewer (looking at you, shonen), but I wanted to divest for a second to mention implicit sexism (for no other reason than I happen to care).

In SVSSS, there isn’t much explicit sexism aimed at female characters in world. By this, I mean there is no point at which a character in the world of SVSSS says sexist things to a female character, nor are there moments were female characters are specifically barred from doing anything because of their gender. Of course, it could in part be due to SQQ’s blindness to such issues, but there’s also another facet to this – the abundance of implicit sexism.

The Little Palace Mistress was the Old Palace Master’s beloved daughter. Her martial skills were the product of his hands-on teaching… Meanwhile, Ning Yingying was the beloved youngest shimei who was pampered by the entirety of Qing Jing Peak; she very rarely encountered danger and had virtually no real battle experience.

Ning Yingying is never pushed. She’s loved and cared for, but not expected to excel. The thing with implicit/institutionalised anything is that it’s hard to point to any specific case and go ‘that’s sexist’ or whatever. The effect is only clear when taken over a larger group. Returning to the Immortal Alliance Conference, what do our female participants look like? We have LMY doing her thing, ofc. But QWY? QWR? Their immediate reaction to danger is to cling to the nearest strong person and rely on them for protection. It feels like they’ve never learnt to stand for themselves.

MXTX’s later works often get the ‘there aren’t enough female characters in positions of power’ or ‘all the female characters die’ kind of remarks, but I think there’s something deeper to be said about the kind of commentary it's making on society. Anyway, I won't go deeper here, but the subversion of NYY’s stereotypical role (and so arguably the whole point of her character thematically) is that she doesn’t continue to be the loli icon with IQ 40. When NYY is forced to fend for herself and given the space to grow, she does grow. And isn’t that a nice message?

2. LMY, the Daoist Nuns, and Sex Positivity

Because her face was excessively beautiful, capable of stealing souls, she had to hide it behind a veil all year round, rendering her like unto a flower on a high cliff, unattainable and out of reach.

The women of SVSSS are all about subversions of troupes, and the subversion of LMY’s troupe is twofold. At first, she is introduced as the ‘pure’ one, in contrast to SHL’s ‘sexy’ (commentary on the ‘two types of women: frigid and slut’ narrative). Then she’s the ‘not like other girls’. She’s beautiful but doesn’t care for her looks. She doesn’t care for men but they fall at her feet. She’s stoic and competent, the ideal of a ‘strong independent woman’. And then, right at the end, we learn that she writes very kinky gay porn.

I think there's a lot of disappointment around for LMY's potential not being fulfilled, and while I agree SVSSS on the whole wrapped things up very quickly, honestly? I think this is the funniest twist ever.

LMY a fanfic writer, a shipper, a BL enthusiast. The kind of woman whose literature has always been regarded with something between confusion, denial, and disgust: from the rise of shonen ai and Yaoi of the 60s-80s, or slash fiction in 70s, to the popularity of danmei in China. The CP fan, in all its bravery and ugliness. She's not a hero, she doesn't particularly do anything, other than pursue her hobbies. She's neither ‘pure’ nor ‘strong’, but touchingly realistic.

And even better, she’s not alone. There’s the Daoist nuns, who (hilariously) are nuns who in an apparently life-or-death situations suggest dual cultivation??? (Now celibacy was necessary in some Daoist schools but not all, but since Shen Jiu mentions specifically that there’s nothing strictly wrong with him sleeping with prostitutes because they’re not a Daoist sect, it feels like there’s a subversion lurking there.) (idk they have Catholic girl school vibes.)

ngl, I just love LMY. She's very sexy.

3. LPM, QWY, and Breaking Down the Mean Girl

If LMY is ‘not like other girls’ then the LPM is the ‘mean girl’. Also, the ‘girl who tries to break up the MLs’ of a BL. The two troupes are in the same ballpark. Rich, pretty, privileged. Also petty, stupid, and unnecessarily cruel. More generally, the Huan Hua trio - LPM, QWY, QWR all take different elements of the 'unlikable girl'.

I don’t have many deep thoughts about this, other than their abject failure to make a dent on LBH’s devotion to SQQ being really funny (and an excellent post on QWY which breaks down her character and her relationship to og!LBH), but something that snagged with me is the comparison between these extracts.

Why did he act like one of those bitter courtyard complex concubines with too much time on their hands?

This is about Shen Jiu. Ya know, Shen abuses children Jiu.

He very much did not enjoy the sight of a sixty-year-old coot and a young girl in her teens cooing at each other right in front of him.

This is one of two (?) times that svsss mentions a young girl being married to an old coot (the second being SJ's mysterious jiejie). If you didn't know, the situation of women in much of Chinese history is... not great.

The Little Palace Mistress: Bitter, locked-up woman. She herself says that Luo Binghe treats her like a kept pig.

Also, the existence of Wang Lingjiao in MDZS, servant turned lover, who everyone hates (she’s the one stuck to Wen Chao if you’re like me and forgot her name most the time).

There’s condemnation there (none of these characters are portrayed in a sympathetic light) but there’s a hint of pity there too. LPM has lost a father. QWY a sister. And in MDZS, WLJ is plagued by the anxiety of an unfaithful lover who she relies on entirely for her power.

(Someone (irl!) mentioned Beauvoir to me in a (not svsss!) conversation (lol the brain rot is real but not 100% yet) and now I feel like maybe I should go back to the Second Sex for svsss reasons (so maybe the brain rot is real 🤔). Beauvoir writes a lot about 'bad women'.)

Anyway, this is not particularly organised and doesn't really have a point. I might expand some more on something at some point, but that requires me having coherent thoughts, which probably requires me having actual conversations to get a few things straight, so no guarantees. Whatever. Have a great day :)

#svsss #svsss meta #ning yingying #liu mingyan #little palace mistress #qin wanyue #qin wanrong #mxtx meta #the thing I happen to care about is women in STEM #which means my knowledge is super skewed #I have more thoughts about the world building related to this #but it would probably turn into an unrelated rant

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ask-whitepearl-and-steven · 1 year

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"This is not a callout post" yet you proceed to spend a heckuva lot of time calling this person out. This seems a bit of a harsh stance for a social media website where people (a lot of whom are minors, for your fanbase at least) go to unwind and express without the rigour and chastisement of employers, mentors, and IRL peers. This message was comprehensible and wasn't particularly broken...unless one is prone to hyperbole in their answers....

We get it. You're a teacher and justifiably attuned to these mistakes. But there's pedantry, and then there's what comes off as haughtily unfair bullshit.

Idk, I love your work and I usually find your stances here relatable and laudable, but this was rancid to read, especially if this is any indication of how you behave as a teacher.

Alright let's take this one at a time.

"...you proceed to spend a heckuva lot of time calling this person out."

I think this is a misread. None of that post was directed at the asker! I specifically said that this was not about them. I'm not sure if this is a misunderstanding or not, but I very specifically did NOT reference any actual person in that post. Even the message I used is an example was not a real one. It's just a made up one to demonstrate my point.

unless one is prone to hyperbole in their answers....

I admit I am one.

But there's pedantry, and then there's what comes off as haughtily unfair bullshit.

I feel like I want to take issue with this specifically. Pedantry is about minor details and rules. But I specifically said - I don't care about capitalizing stuff. I don't care about most minor issues.

I complained about something very simple that makes it difficult to understand messages overall. The same way that abbreviating too many words would make it incomprehensible to someone not familiar with those abbreviations. It was an explanation of my frustration, not a demand to follow grammatical rules to a t.

It was also not a personal attack on anyone in particular. It was me expressing something that made it difficult for me to understand messages! I would argue that this is not pedantry, but perhaps it came off that way.

I do admit my tone was overbearing on purpose - I ranted, yeah! Not at the anon. Just in general! I'm allowed to do that sometimes, I think. It wasn't targeted at anyone specifically.

this was rancid to read, especially if this is any indication of how you behave as a teacher

I'll answer this one with an earlier quote from yourself:

This seems a bit of a harsh stance for a social media website where people [...] go to unwind and express without the rigour and chastisement of employers, mentors, and IRL peers.

I'm NOT a teacher when I'm at home on tumblr. I want to rant about stuff sometimes. When am I allowed to unwind and express without the rigor and chastisement of my peers?

#chekhov answers #man why do we have to do this today

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beeleafinurself · 2 years

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still on my byler bullshit and I've had something that's really been bothering me and I kinda want to put it out there.

so I've seen a lot of... aggression towards the idea of stranger things having mostly queer characters. it's so new to me and something I had never seen in fandom before. It got me thinking "why are there so many people dead set on mileven being endgame?"

I loved season 1 and 2 mileven, it was sweet and Mike looked at El like she was his world. Now though, it seems less real, Mike seems very disengaged, much more engaged in preserving some sort of relationship with Will (and trying not to seem gay).

This post really got me thinking. Stranger Things, through it's entire run time, has been about not conforming and sticking behind the people who matter most to you.

We all know the eyewitness byler reference, but eyewitness isn't very mainstream, it's another one of those shows catered for the queers, it's a gay show! That reference being made in Stranger Things was targeting a specific demographic; queer people (or fans of queer media).

I propose this goes a bit deeper than that one reference, I propose this show wasn't made for the straight people at all. You may think it sounds crazy, but it really does irk me to even discuss Stranger things with people who aren't fellow "freaks and weirdos." The conversation is typically frustrating, these people just don't understand.

Like with my brother! My brother is my best friend but this instance describes my point well. I was talking about my current DnD character and my brother said "DnD? Like the stranger things board game?" Uh.... no?? I think you mean DnD like the biggest RP table top game ever created??? He just didn't know it! And why would he?! I'm the nerd in this family, not him! But something about him saying that rubbed me wrong.

What the hell am I getting at? I'm saying that Stranger things wasn't for my brother, just like like how his sports documentaries aren't for me. I think that stranger things is one of the most extreme cases of media going outside it's demographic. It was supposed to be a sense8, or a heartstopper, but it went too far outside it's intended audience.

So I guess that's why some mileven fans are viscerally upset by the progression of byler. I think this sort of feels like a reverse queerbait, a hetbait if you will. Straight people usually just get what they want, super popular shows don't have gay main characters! But I don't think Stranger things was wrote to be popular in the first place! It was for the weirdos, the nerds, the gays. Hell, one of S4s villains is a white Christian basketball captain, I really don't think the show was made for other white Christian basketball captains to watch!

Just, I don't want to gatekeep, I hate that shit. But I know that if byler had be advertised from the start so many of the fans now wouldn't have even touched it. So I guess I just feel like these people that weren't even Invited need to calm. Down. You weren't even supposed to be here, don't blame us for you not figuring it out sooner, I've shipped byler since season 2 idk where you've been!

TL;DR:

edit: this is sort of mileven neg but PLEASE mileven shippers give me your thoughts, I would genuinely to hear your perspective!

#byler #stranger things #mileven

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thyandrawrites · 1 year

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Blog update

Hi, everyone! I hope the holidays are treating you well. I'm doing okay.

For those of you that missed my announcement, or didn't see my previous pinned post, I wanted to quickly clarify what's going on. You might have noticed that I didn't answer your ask. I'm sorry about that.

I'm stepping down from writing meta and sharing my thoughts on recent manga events, on the fandom, on expectations/predictions for the series, and on any hot topic being discussed by other meta bloggers and doing the rounds in the villain standom. Basically, don't expect me to engage with much meta anymore. I'm taking a break for an indefinite amount of time because I find this fandom too hostile currently; since my anxiety is triggered by any tension, be it real or the product of my brain contemplating a fear and running with it, I have to disengage and just focus on myself. I hope you'll understand.

What does this mean for this blog?

Meta and asks are normally a huge portion of the contents of this blog. Most of you probably followed me for those. And let's be real, meta is my passion so it will likely resume at some point. Idk when that will be, tho. Maybe I'll wake up next week and be relaxed or uncaring enough to brave the thought of diving back into the disk horse pool, maybe it will be in a couple of months, maybe I will switch to another fandom entirely. I don't know yet.

In the meantime, please know that I will most likely not respond to anything meta-related or any ask that expresses frustration, negativity, disappointment or anything in that vein, be it a comment on the series or a request to comment on the takes floating around the fandom.

You're still welcome to drop by my askbox with anything else if you feel like it. I'm keeping it open because I do like chatting to people, and I'm too socially awkward for dms. I'm just trying to limit my chances of ending up being the target of someone writing an essay about why Take X or Y is wrong. There's been a lot of those lately, and they stress the fuck out of me.

That being said, you're also free to unfollow me if you don't have fun here anymore. I don't mind.

Oh, please also refrain from answering this announcement by showering me with support and positivity! While I do wholeheartedly appreciate the sentiment and feel very thankful for your kindness(💙), I don't really know how to answer it. Again, socially awkward! Just to put you at ease, I am aware that for every hostile take there's dozens of people who genuinely enjoy hearing my thoughts and talking to me. I do! I'm not looking for reassurance, I'm just trying to draw a boundary. Writing meta is my passion, and I normally have fun with it, but as of now it's not that fun anymore. That's all. I am taking care of myself and spending more of my time on my fics instead.

Thank you all so much in advance for your understanding, and I hope you have a nice day/night! Take care 💕

#Thyandra.txt

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f0point5 · 2 months

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THIS is no rant towards you, more in general, you are a lovely person and i wish you all the love❤️

I think people are reading into Lando to much. He was bumbed about his perfomrance but ultimately happy with the car. As if Charles never bottled a race (need i remind you? No because we know it happend and we moved on).

Is Lando self critical? Absolutely. More so than others? Yes. He has a net around him, but its also a front. As if the people online dont slander him in the same way.

If he doesnt do the funny stuff he is boring, if he does he is childish. Where is the line? Why is there a double standard?

This is not as an attack against you, you are lovely and i doubt you meant to actually be anti lando (because then you should tag anti-lando) and more be critical which is fine, i'm just frustrated with people excusing other's bottling (Lewis today, Kmag today, every driver every once in a while except for max) and being critical on Lando💕

No, it wasn’t meant to be anti-lando at all.

I consider myself a Lando fan. I think he’s a great driver and he seems like a super sweet person (he just reminds me so much of so many of my friends there’s like a weird familiarity there lol).

I don’t think the bottling is an issue that people should harp on. Everyone bottles it. Hamilton has been bottling quali for like 2 straight years at this point. Checo bottled a rocket ship for a whole year. These things happen. Let’s not forget, Max fucked his first lap in Miami quali, too.

But Lando does have a pattern of being down on his performance while sort of asserting that he should have been higher up the order. Which is a very…idk the word…backhanded way of going about things? It just doesn’t come across as the most mature reaction, and I find it a bit off putting. And that’s personal to me, I find people self flagellating very uncomfortable, the same way I find people boasting uncomfortable. I just think it’s not putting your best foot forward. I also think sometimes he tries to preempt the negative feedback he’s going to get, like if he digs himself out then at least that’s the harshest thing he’s going to hear.

People are too harsh on Lando for a lot of things, like his humour. Even last year when the Sky sports people were commenting on him being “down” or moody, that was so out of line imo (will never forgive them for asking him about it on camera). That said, I don’t think he always helps himself with the way he expresses himself.

I do read into stuff a lot though lol. I’m an over thinker, and I live on vibes and everything gives me strong vibes. I have no real knowledge of the people involved, obviously since I don’t know them. I just go off my instincts. I could be totally wrong, I probably am 😂

But no, it’s not an anti-Lando post at all, he seems like a real sweetheart, just maybe a bit too heart on sleeve at times. For me, anyway.

#lando norris

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hawkogurl · 10 months

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Thank you for that post about the ableism and saneism in the TASM films, especially around Curt and Harry! I have really mixed feelings about those movies, but it's frustrating how much those issues and the weird 'eugenics is real' core of the worldbuilding gets swept under the rug by the fandom. Both of those characters are among my favourites in the comics, and while there are issues there too, it's like, idk as someone whose Spidey niche interest is Connors/Lizard, I'm continuously frustrated that THAT version of the character is the most popular one and the fandom romanticizes the eugenics and ableism in the writing for him - it's not a good critical analysis of internalized ableism if it's never challenged by the narrative, among many other issues; you said it all, re: Harry in your tags, so I have nothing to add there.

god, im glad to hear this. helps me think im not insane for thinking these movies are really tone deaf in this regard. I think its obvious from all my posts that I'm biased towards Harry in the same way you are Curt, but its also the sort of thing where I don't feel as at liberty to speak on it as I do Harry. But reading this was like seeing all my thoughts on Curt put into words.

Even if I find specifically TASM2 uncomfortable to the point I avoid watching it, I don't like, think people shouldn't enjoy them or even that they have to be publicly critical of them or whatever. I think the thing that bothers me most is seeing these very ableist and saneist writing choices and tropes being used as angst fodder with little to no critical thought, just making these really in poor taste writing choices into a weird form of torture porn because the tasteless writing in question doesn't really effect them. (and I think a lot of people can be somewhat oblivious to the fact that although struggles associated with anxiety, depression, adhd, autism are very real, it does not put them at liberty to make calls on or decide if something is offensive when it targets personality or psychotic disorders.) I really don't think you can get more on the nose than literally trying to cure all disability and having your protagonist nod along with the character's ableist ass speech because he needs to be a Smart Guy, or having your character who's canonically schizophrenic in the comics go insane, kill an innocent person, and end up in a straight jacket in a mental institution when it comes to ableist writing. It feels like its parody sometimes. And that's not even getting into TASM Harry and chronic or terminal illnesses, though thats another thing I don't feel super qualified to speak on.

idk if this makes sense, i just got off an eight hour housekeeping shift, brain broken.

#harry osborn #curt connors #tasm #ableism #ableism tw

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thegeminisage · 5 months

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OKAY it's tng update time. i forgot to do it yesterday so today i'm doing four eps. sunday we did "evolution" and "the ensigns of command" and yesterday we caught "the survivors" and "who watches the watchers"

evolution: this one had a slow start and i didn't much care for the guest character of the week but once it got going i actually had fun rooting for him to fail. you SHOOT the nanites? jail for dr whoever! jail for 1000 years!!

wesley was not really annoying in this episode! i was so prepared for the worst when it was like oh wesley's SCHOOL EXPERIMENT has GONE WRONG but it was fine actually!! he was like. normal

i was soooo glad to see beverly crusher again. a season of pulaski really makes her shine in comparison. PLUS she didn't talk about being a woman like the WHOLE time. i mean she kind of did but it was fine except when she got nosey about wesley's dating life lol i mean the woman has been away from her son for a year. also idr whoever was like man not cool beverly for leaving UNFAIR. she got fired. it wasn't her fault. idk if i've ever defended her before. feels weird.

FASCINATED with guinans backstory. when she started talking about her son i was like oh q is her son! of course! no, idiot. a real luke-and-clary moment. iykyk. tho technically q can make himself look like whatever and adoptive still counts. it's fine. they have something going on but idk what

the ensigns of command: this one was SOOOOO good what a breath of fucking fresh air

i LOVED data in this! i loved that he got to do stuff and be important and fail and nobody was mean to him and in the end he succeeded. AND got a love interest. wonderful. treat him really niceys. also that meme about the book being shorter if [character] had a gun. that's data. good for him

also i KNOW he knows how kissing works i didn't forget he fucked tasha yar

this episode was surprisingly funny. you get gradually more and more frustrated with the leader until data dead ass pulls a fucking phaser on him. you get more and more frustrated with the sheliak and it's like kind of funny that they keep hanging up on picard, but then picard rules lawyers them and hangs up on THEM and does the fucking white glove inspection while he metaphorically lets the phone ring off the hook. the longer he took to answer the funnier it got, i was genuinely cracking up. idr what post it was that i said i had yet to see picard's spine and so he was utterly unlikable but i saw it in the episode where data went on trial and i saw it here in a much funnier way. he simply had enough it was fantastic

data and the music!!! he was so sad when picard had to leave and i was very pleasantly surprised when picard took the time to not only listen to the recording later but compliment data on it and encourage his creative side. it's so much nicer than anyone was to data in the first two seasons 🥺

the survivors: this one was...okay. not great but definitely watchable. the mystery definitely kept me hooked bc i wanted to know what was going on, but it would have been much better if we'd had the tools to solve it, the way picard did, instead of the answer just being "this guy is just magic." i did like that his wife turned out to not even be real because that's fucking nuts but like. for what purpose. like we were yelling theories like oh her tea is poisoned! the music box is cursed! and meanwhile it's like no he's just magic. there was no trail of clues to follow at all.

poor deanna in this episode lol. points off for having her naked under that blanket. for what purpose do you need to undress her to treat her...y'all don't do that to riker. that said the psychic torture via music box was kind of metal actually like obviously horrible but i like that she CAN be incapacitated

also, wtf was that at the end where he was like yeah i killed every member of that entire species even the ones who are lightyears away because my magic is that powerful. and picard was just like. alright well we don't have laws that can try you so go back to your planet with your fake wife ig. bye!

YOU LITERALLY DO HAVE LAWS. THEY WERE GOING TO BRING KODOS IN TO FACE JUSTICE YOU LITERALLY DO HAVE LAWS FOR PEOPLE WHO COMMIT GENOCIDE. it's fine. i'm normal.

who watches the watchers: our rule for s3 is that we're watching all of them until we hit three duds in a row. this one was DEFINITELY a dud

first of all, the breaking of the prime directive was ridiculously sloppy here. SECONDLY, it is ALWAYS a bad idea to have some culture mistake anybody for god. it wouldn't have mattered if every one of those aliens had been white and picard had not been white it STILL would have been racist but it's even MORE racist because they're worshipping AND KNEELING BEFORE a white guy with a british accent. it's particularly insulting too that these are supposed to be "proto-vulcans"

also, if they really were proto-vulcans they would NOT have been rational as presented they would have been off the fucking wall insane with bloodlust. do none of us remember anything about canon. god.

the fantasy racefaking. THEY LOOKED SO BAD LOL

our main side guy was quite annoying and basically just looking for an excuse to kill deanna? should have let him die tbh

anyway it was a stinker. the longer the fake worship dragged on the worse it became.

that being said, s3 has largely been a blast so far. tbh i talked a big game but part of me didn't believe u guys when you said it got better. but it literally did?! and thank god bc i don't know how much more i could have taken lol

#personal #star trek blogging #tng lb

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struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor · 7 months

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Please don't apologise for the rant!

It was an interesting read and everything you said made a lot of sense!

I feel really disappointed with the direction jungkook's taking tbh. His album and solo projects were the ones I was looking forward to the most since the second bts announced their hiatus and the fact that they were all going to release solo projects.

But now it's less than a month before his album debut and I'm hardly looking forward to it at all, because none of it seems to be the kind of music I could vibe with (even though his solo songs under the bts label were my favourites lol. I recognise that's a me problem but it does feel like outside of twitter a lot of people feel this way, more so than with the other members' solo works).

That might change once we receive the name of the tracks and the features and stuff, but we'll see.

Also, I think releasing 3D was honestly a bad idea because of the timing. Seven was (and is still) doing REALLY well. Super catchy, most people loved it, and it WAS new and unexpected. but the focus shifted a bit to 3D, except not everyone focused on the main version, and you can tell it's not gonna be as big of a hit.

You also mentioned on another post how the concept photos for golden appear to be very similar to seven and 3D and I can't agree more.

When you do the same thing more than once in a short period of time in a row, the hype becomes a little less because the surprise/anticipation factor is less, y'know?

Idk, I'm aware Jungkook was chilling and enjoying his break (and good for him) but that did mean he got less time to release a lot of content, so the whole idea of trying to release 2 big singles and then an album in 5 months doesn't seem like a good idea.

they could've kept it at one single with a lesser known artist (everything you pointed out about Latto is true)

and then released his album 5 months later with a slightly different vibe. Because now by the time 3D will become more accepted and more known by the general public, his album will release and the focus will be on the title track.

The timing and really everything surrounding 3D was bad all round (except for the alternate version and the performance for that because I agree it was 100 times much better)

Sorry I feel like I'm being far too negative and that frustrates me as well, I just...Jk has so much potential and is such a great singer but some of these decisions I feel won't properly help him in the long run, you know?

And especially knowing the album will likely follow the same formula as well. But he's accomplishing what he said he wanted so I guess that's something.

No, you aren't being too negative! If you are, I am too, and you're being more positive than me! The timing with 3D did suck. If you just think of it as a "gift" for the fans who were waiting for more music, then it didn't suck. From a business perspective, it wasn't the best move. The main issue was really the feature imo (though 3D's sound was never going to make a splash). Had 3D been announced as a solo, there would've been some of that shock/surprise factor and a lot more anticipation since we're all waiting for a real solo release. That would've been something to look forward to and to generate hype. A better MV would've helped too. At least 3D is kinda helping Seven in the charts...? It's gone number 1 on Spotify Global twice ever since 3D came out haha.

I'm really hoping that the album will surprise me! Tbh, boring concept photos are a BTS thing. It probably doesn't just happen to them, but I think Dynamite and Butter were the last eras to have exciting promo pics that had everyone talking about them. The concept/promo pics for Proof, for example, were super boring imo. I didn't even care for Jimin's Face promo pics and I remember a lot of people liking them. I don't think Big Hit is the best when it comes to that.

Let's see what happens, anon!

Thanks for the ask!

#ask #bts #jungkook #text #thanks for the ask!

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3vocatio · 1 year

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peeped here out of curiosity (i know u have good takes and rb good/interesting takes + filtered words don’t work when viewing blogs and i’ve filtered every single om tag ever) and uknow what? while there’s aspects of the (supposedly) satan-focused i greatly enjoyed (mostly as writing inspo and just the enjoyment of the moment itself more than its part in the overall narrative tbh) i was endlessly frustrated by the fact that diavolo got the true highlight. i couldn’t place why the hell it made me so annoyed but you’re right—the real main character of the story was diavolo and it annoys the hell out of me that satan was painted as more of the bad guy. despite having the most screen time, satan felt like he was simply a means to an end, with the end being some way to show/remind the audience all of diavolo’s princely qualities that often get sidelines in favor of his usual behavior in events.

like. i greatly enjoyed seeing satan lose his shit to the point of terrifying crowds of demons. i liked seeing him lock himself away after to try and process everything by himself. the bits of vulnerability when mc finally manages to speak to him? love. (not that much of it is actually new info but i do enjoy that it’s there)

but the rest of everything else has me pulling at my hair. especially the ending… i wanted mc to ask for something that would be primarily to satan’s benefit after all the bullshit that happened. (and also satan thanking diavolo for giving mc his stars felt… idk. it felt like it encapsulated how a lot of the story key part felt; reminding us that diavolo’s the actual ‘hero’ here and not satan.)

ahdksjakdja so yknow. just some thoughts i wanted to send you. i didnt wanna log into my om blog even though i probably should for thoughts like this >.>;; once again a majority of my real fun came from rewriting everything, which i guess is something since almost all of the non-bday om content for the last several months hasn’t even gotten me inspired enough to bother rewriting anything.

/end yet another rant abt om content shdjssjs

hello...pretend i responded to this first /j

to validate what you mentioned, i also only enjoyed snippets of that event (though as we know, it's been like this for most obey me events for a long time); diavolo aside, witnessing satan compose himself with such sincerity and generousity felt like a blessing tbh. he knows his limits, he knows what upsets him and he should be listened to, even if he gets emotional about it. so what! most of us become emotional when defending something we hold close to our hearts, and satan was no different.

i've said this in the other ask you sent, but you came back right on time as the new lore-focused obm game has been announced! satan was one of their focal points that they mentioned, as well as lore surrounding the (pre & post) celestial realm, solomon, and the attic. it's gotten the entire fandom riled up including myself, and everything looks promising so far :)

i was wondering why the spacing between events in-game have been getting longer and longer, and i'm glad to know it's because they're putting importance on quality over quantity. they began making baby steps in the previous "single character-focused" events, but i'd like to mention that i am very satisfied with the release of simeon's new birthday event, especially when you compare it to the first one for symbolism reasons.

i won't go in-depth about it now unless someone asks me to share my thoughts, but it was the right amount of promising writing i needed to give me hope. for you specifically, satan didn't delve into any cat shenanegains and when he confronted lucifer & brought up a good point, he was acknowleged and listened to. everyone did such a good job...aaaa <3

#﹒❝ birdsong #tbh if you dont wanna use your obm account then by all means--dont!#personally speaking i've found it so relaxing going on account(s) that i feel safe in--it's similar to living a new era of your life #safe isnt really the right word--liberating is more like it #if you feel like taking a longer break than anticipated who's gonna stop u from continuing it #there'll still be people waiting for you..!#besides taking breaks from familiar yet larger public circles is good for ur health #anyways im gonna say it here instead of the main post but rewriting everything becomes fun until the media u rewrite #becomes redundant and repetitive #which is why discussing/criticising those with friends is a lot better #as i said before things are beginning to look a lot more promising so im crossing my fingers hoping that this is s/lmares redemption arc

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anti-katsuki-lounge · 1 year

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Hii, how are ya?about the recents ask on kirishima and as a formally mha manga fan well... it makes me really sad and reflexive to think about the wasted potential and the negative way bakugo affects other characters :/ if only bakugo had actually changed and develop at least the situation would be more understable. Anyways recently re reading the manga i just wanted to say all those ask bring really good points, yet im sorry as an still kiri fan these days and feeling attachment to him i don't completly agree and have to defend him a little </3 can't really speak about other mha media but in the manga at least more clearly in the beginning kirishima wasn't in my opinion the yes man to bkg or dormant to his bad attitude, maybe these instants aren't very significant but they are still there, calling out all might to stop the exercise saying bkg is crazy and wanted to kill izuku, calling a jerk when he turn the other students agains 1-A, telling him not to be rude to shinsou, calling him an idiot for going his own way in the license exam, like idk it's frustrating because back in the day it really seem their relationship was going to be significant and develop so much more, kamino was the first significant step towards a right direction, it had an emphaisis in the story but then..well nothing happened after that, and that's were the problem starts which was really sad cause at that time their bond(never ship them) seem very sweet to me, bkg was still an horrible person and needed to do so much more to improve but in these instants it seem he still kinda had a soft spot for someone and gave a little reciprocity or a "kind" action(giving kr money), encouragement(the rappa fight flasback)at least in "his way" it was the only positive thing he had going on for me and i think so much more had to have happened after all of this, but then hori seem to forget completely about these two so we just had to assume they were friends now because we were told so thought never actually really shown except for the few(i can testify to this) interactions they have which all can paint this bad image of kr's purpose just to be bkg cheerleader and remind us that he "changed".

Excuse my english and all this blabler that became this really long ass essay but just wanted to share this with u, can't really hold some things against kr cause i still love him from a far and i'm sad that his closeness to that gary stue harmed his potential and sweet character that he still is cause he's not the only one that suffer from this bkg influence(that still doesn't make this situation better) will still read and love fix it's were they show him directly confront bakugou and take real actions that make bkg really change, take responsibilty and atone for all he's done

You bring up a very good point and it’s that Ejiro wasn’t always Katsuki’s “yes man”. Same thing with Denki. They vocalized disagreements with things Katsuki did. Sadly it’s once we hit the post-Sports Festival arc that the characters lose their sense of agency. Where they would normally voice their disagreement (even if it was brushed aside) became them supporting Katsuki every step of the way. Like I’ve said before Ejiro has some of the best writing in the series but it’s unfortunately sucked away by Katsuki the leech.

#anti katsuki bakugou #anti bakugo katsuki #anti bakugo #anti bakugou #mha critical

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saltminerising · 1 year

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https://at.tumblr.com/saltminerising/httpsattumblrcomsaltminerisingare-those-real/iwaqorm5iszi

Anon here is literally right and the replies are just ignoring that in favor of "calling them out" or nitpicking or whatever you wanna call it. That's all pretty much exactly what anon said the replies would do, too.

Anon knows exactly what they're talking about lmao and people are like "NO! Actually YOU'RE being aggressive because [insert x nitpicked words that anon already said they weren't personally responsible for your interpretation of, and they weren't gonna exhaust themselves carefully choosing every single one of those words for the benefit of people who were gonna incorrectly assume their tone anyway]".

I mean sorry to the people in the replies, but you proved other anon right. You incorrectly assumed their tone (and intentionally ignored their outright stated tone indication at the end) based off a few incidental words that, yeah, I'll give you that they have some rude implications, but honestly so can literally everything else. It's subjective and affected by your real life region and environment. And assuming anon is neurodivergent (and I am too for the record), they aren't gonna know Every. Single. Fucking. Way. that tone can be assumed for each and every word. I feel like if you know someone is ND based off their ask, then maybe cut them some slack????? Or here's a fun idea, let's not assign tone or intent to other people through text online based off our own subjective feelings about the words, which was the whole point of the original ask.

And just so you know, no, I'm not being angry or intentionally rude, nor am I directing any anger at the people in the replies (the replies are just an example of the problem, I'm not mad at you and I don't have a personal beef with you). Actually, I'm being very frustrated and a bit bitterly sarcastic because this is a very old and very traumatic song and dance for me as a ND person. I'm exhausted of going through the steps and being forced to be responsible for other peoples feelings like other anon has been forced to. It makes me especially frustrated to see other anon being 100% right about it but getting completely ignored in the replies because they didn't revise their ask 20 times to appeal to the goddamn tone police (which was, again, one of their original criticisms and something that they seemed to know was gonna happen no matter what they did).

In conclusion... idk. Let's just be kinder to each other, I guess? By not assuming everyone has a angry or rude meaning or intent hidden under their expressly stated intent? It doesn't hurt to give people the benefit of the doubt. I just..I'm tired lol. People can't perfectly anticipate or be expected to 100% control the way they'll come across to others and it's not anyone's job to overthink and triple-triple-triple check their words before saying them on the chance someone will be offended. (Emphasis on overthink, obviously I'm not talking about just giving messages a once over revision, which everyone should do anyway. I'm talking about being forced to worry about every single possible reaction and guard against them all.)

Post

#long post

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thekidsare-not-alright · 10 months

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very quick "lesson" in rhetorical analysis that might come up sooner or later, idk:

when someone posts something, you're going to read what you think might be a flaw in the writer's logic. that they have spoken without stating every detail, like they left something out. this might be the case! but it also might be that they were writing to their audience. There's a decent chance that they're aware of this detail, but it didn't make sense to include it because it wasn't part of their point/focus. Or perhaps it was something they did want to talk about, but knew that it would be too much information on a conversation-starter post. So when you go to reply, don't make assumptions about what the poster knows -- they might be a couple steps ahead of you, and you should take that into account.

I think a lot of tumblr realizes this on some level (especially when they make their own posts) but then they don't apply it to future interactions, and it's frustrating to watch OPs explain why they "left x detail out" when their main point is completely left behind. Consider why they might have chosen not to mention it or why they might've summarized it differently than you'd expect. They are writing to an audience and drawing on previous experiences with said audience, they are catering to someone (catering here does not mean pandering, by the way).

I'm just some college student not bothering to edit, so this is a terrible explanation and there's never going to be a tumblr post that can substitute for a real lesson in this, nor will it somehow fix the internet, but hopefully it makes you curious! Basically, always put yourself in someone else's shoes, because we tend to give ourselves the benefit of the "situation" whereas we assume others are acting purely on "personality" (situation-personality blah blah). Empathy strikes again!

#I don't have enough of a following to not tag this but I'm not gonna spam tags so. at least a few people will see it lol

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welcometogrouchland · 2 years

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About your post here: I’ve noticed recently a lot more posts in general on tumblr just being condescending and mean to kids for not knowing things and it annoys me too, don’t these people remember what it’s like to be a young teen and not know basically anything? Even when you’re trying to learn? How is it their fault??? So frustrating

YEAH I feel you. I didn't mention it in the og post but those posts do seem to be geared towards teens and kids more often than not I think (that's just based on personal observation tho, which is obvs biased).

As for why- tbh that's a topic I have a lot of thoughts on? Mostly baseless speculation since I have no real experience studying this kind of thing and again idk if it's even a real phenomenon or if it just feels like one to me.

Tbh one reason may be that during the pandemic, more ppl began staying inside, on screens, which meant more teens started exhibiting Chronically Online Behaviour™ (bc they literally were chronically online), which means more ppl started losing patience and being snide when trying to steer them away from such behavior (bc everyone's patience is worn thin by a pandemic!)

And like. I know we say it most often as a joke on here BUT genuinely the user base of Tumblr aging bc the ppl originally on it as teens haven't left (for good reason lol) is probably a contributing factor.

It's mostly a good thing but like you said- they genuinely might not remember much about their teen years! Or at least they don't sympathize much w/ their teenage self and that's reflected in their interaction w/ young ppl.

Ppl sometimes don't want to have to put in the extra work that comes w/ talking to someone who has considerably less life experience than you. It's understandable but sometimes ppl just get miffed abt it all.

Also like. This is a broad and complex topic so I'm going to limit myself talking abt it too much but- since early online culture and in especially in recent years, people on the internet seem genuinely think that being annoying or ignorant is truly a justification for being bullied and/or harassed.

Like it takes different forms across different groups and platforms but it's very much a part of the tone of a lot of online conversations. And I am NOT saying that well meaning but snide advice posts are the same as bullying- far from it! They're two very different things and the latter is at least well intentioned most of the time.

But I think needlessly aggressive conversations are a much bigger feature of online spaces than irl spaces and thus they slip into posts that don't even mean it/aren't even particularly invested in the topic at hand, all bc ppl perceive the target audience as ignorant or annoying.

Which isn't to say that it's not a two way street- most ppl online are like this! Oftentimes I'm like this, even when I don't mean to be! sometimes teens are ignorant or annoying and sometimes they're downright mean but. being a dick abt advice isn't going to change that. and I'd argue that normalizing being needlessly mean about innocuous topics is just gonna make them worse in the long run? So. Something something 4D chess.

And like, That's really what makes posts like that so frustrating- they want to be informative or educational but they go about it in such a counterproductive and off putting way! The accusatory tone and condescension just makes the reader defensive and unwilling to learn bc they feel attacked...when the posts entire point to be educational.

my og post wasn't phrased particularly nice either, bc I was angry and upset- and that's probably not gonna convince ppl to thoughtfully reevaluate their behavior! If I went into a post with the intention to do that I'd probably word everything differently.

Sometimes a firm hand is needed or expected when it comes to serious topics and I am NOT advocating for ppl to tone police themselves when it comes to things near and dear to them (truly hope that comes across in this post)

but if someone is complaining about how ppl use their personal blogs, navigate websites that don't work like any other current social media, or any other trivial task that doesn't come natural unless you have experience w/ it...it just feels like a waist of energy on everyone's part.

This has all been a very long winded way of saying- I totally get you and agree. it's just not productive to write out a vent-y rant on the same post as your informational guide and the frustration and embarrassment that comes from being condescended to online isn't productive either. Be mad, for sure, just don't try and teach ppl a skill or lesson while you're mad. There's a reason parents shouting at their kids during homework about how simple the problem is doesn't teach them anything.

#ramblings of a lunatic #asks #leaving this un-rebloggable for now #bc while I'm not against discussion on this post I'm not equipped to deal w/ the post leaving its bubble #and being seen by bad faith debaters who want to interpret my words as offensively as possible #I really really hope this post was clear and articulate! i put a lot of work into trying to cover all my bases and be thorough and clear-#-while still keeping this semi casual and fairly readable #could feel myself making a messy essay (a messay if you will) on this and i was like NO!!! NO WE'RE NOT DOING THIS #long post #vent #kinda? too high effort to be a True Vent but certainly petty enough

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applestorms · 1 year

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alright,

i am well in need of a proper homestuck reread by this point, it's certainly been long enough since i went through the comic as a whole instead of just skipping around to different acts and conversations. to anyone following me rn who would like to avoid possible post spam about this, i'll be tagging everything with "#astronaut reread" so feel free to filter that. dunno if it'll be that spam-y though tbh, i'm trying to be more careful and take my time going through each page and image to really Pay Attention this time round to make sense of all of the theories/analysis i've been reading lately, but that may also make my liveblogging posts longer so. idk we'll see how this goes

initial thoughts: i've always been drawn to the emptiness of early homestuck, the whole aspect of the kids shitting around in their rooms doing basically nothing of real importance (ignoring hs's love of callbacks) feels very true to the experience of being a teenager in the last few decades. it's quite slow story-wise, of course, but it genuinely does set up a lot of the story later on (john's posters all foreshadowing/inspiring later plot points, etc.) and the vibe is just. man idk, i've seen people criticize act 6 for being slow in that nothing really happens since all the characters are just Waiting, but reading through the very beginning again that almost feels more true to the core of homestuck, or at least where it started. and i like it, sometimes it's nice to just slow down, even though i get the frustration w/ that later in the story after the plot has so much more baggage. but more reflection on that later.

john is an interesting character on a meta level in how he represents the most basic entity in homestuck: the first kid, upon which all other kids evolve off of, but what's more interesting about that fact to me is how his original Home plays into that character. maybe i'm biased by nostalgia, but (A1:82) is such an interesting page, it's like the first point where the comic hints at taking itself more seriously by marking just how empty the space surrounding john is, houses all copies of one another and far apart along the streets. not to mention the wind running through the windchime, perhaps another instance of foreshadowing/inspiration? hussie mentions the idea of vriska being tied to the image of the sun that page ends on in the commentary notes, troll gods not yet conceived of but looking down and watching all the same. honestly all i can think of is a section from the start of ch2 of the zhuangzi:

Master Dapple said, “My, isn’t that a good question you’ve asked, Ziyou! Just now I lost myself. Do you know? You’ve heard the pipes of people, but not the pipes of earth. Or if you’ve heard the pipes of earth, you haven’t heard the pipes of Heaven.”

“May I ask what you mean?”

“The Big Lump belches breath and it’s called wind. If only it wouldn’t start! When it starts, the ten thousand holes begin to hiss. Don’t you hear the shsh-shsh? In the mountain vales there are great trees a hundred spans around with knots like noses, like mouths, like ears, like sockets, like rings, like mortars, like ditches, like gullies. Gurgling, humming, hooting, whistling, shouting, shrieking, moaning, gnashing! The leaders sing ‘Eeeeeeh!’ The followers sing ‘Ooooooh!’ In a light breeze it’s a little chorus, but in a gusty wind it’s a huge orchestra. And when the violent winds are over, the ten thousand holes are empty. Haven’t you witnessed the brouhaha?”

Ziyou said, “So the pipes of earth are those holes, and the pipes of people are bamboo flutes. May I ask about the pipes of Heaven?”

Master Dapple said, “Blowing the ten thousand differences, making each be itself and all choose themselves—who provokes it? Does Heaven turn? Does earth stay still? Do the sun and moon vie for position? Who is in charge here? Who pulls the strings? Who sits with nothing to do, gives it a push and sets it in motion? Do you think it’s locked in motion and can’t be stopped? Or do you think it’s spinning out of control and can’t slow itself down? Do the clouds make the rain? Or does the rain make the clouds? Who rumbles all this out? Who sits there with nothing to do and takes perverse delight in egging it on? The wind rises in the north—now west, now east, now dilly-dallying up above. Who huffs and puffs it? Who sits with nothing to do and blows it? May I ask the cause?”

(translation by norden & ivanhoe)

perhaps that's fitting with all the talk of transformation & flexibility/adaptation in that chapter.

you really can't get away from the names "homestuck" and "s(u)burb" with this beginning to the comic. john, as the quintessential homestuck kid, trapped in his house in the empty suburbs, stuck not because of any physical boundaries/walls, but perhaps because of a lack of them. massive roads and sprawling suburbs that make it impossible to get anywhere on foot is a pretty classic image of modern america, so john's desire for breath, for movement, makes sense in that regard. homestuck has always been most appealing to me in how it doesn't shy away from reality, as messy as that engagement often is, and this beginning feels like it gets at some of that emotional core that homestuck started with. it's immediately followed by a joke about pissing/shitting in the mailbox too. classic.

#astronaut reread

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