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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 2 days

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Also, I would like to add that Malleus’s blatant disregard for the autonomy of others and fits of rage is DELIBERATE on his end. Being one of the top five mages in the entire world, I am sure that he KNOWS there is a large disparity between his power/social and the rest of the peers/subordinates etc. His sheer and utter confidence in his abilities to get what he wants and general disregard for others isn’t only an indicator of his awareness about this disparity, but is also a reflection of the abuses of his power AND social status as a whole.

In light of his age, imagine the amount of times he has repeated these mistakes despite others advice and criticisms against his choices. Only Ace has been able to overcome others general reverence and fear towards Malleus when it came to calling him out. He is not an innocent person who is ignorant about the ways of humanity verses faes, and is certainly not the innocent character the fandom (especially those who are infatuated by him) think he is.

[Referencing this post!]

***Standard disclaimer: In sharing my thoughts, I do not mean to disparage Malleus fans. Furthermore, me disliking him should not detract from your own enjoyment of the character. If you do not feel comfortable reading about this topic (ie critique of Malleus’s character), then I encourage you to scroll on and to not engage with this post.***

My thoughts below the cut!

I do feel that, to some degree, the disregard for others and inappropriate fits of rage come from blatant ignorance (since Malleus did have a very isolated and sheltered upbringing). However, it's also hard for me to believe that in his 178 years of living that he was NOT told countless times by those around him (mostly Lilia and his grandmother, Maleficia) to wield his power and social status more tactfully than how he has. Did he take none of those lessons to heart??? What about the 2-3 years he spent living among the non-fae at NRC? Nothing from then too?? Regarding self-awareness of his strength and social status, Malleus has made it clear on more than one occasion that he stands above others. Right from his first appearance in the main story (in book 2), it's implied he's well aware of his position--so much so that he deliberately hides his identity from Yuu. He also cannot propose to Eliza in Ghost Marriage because he is the crown prince of a nation. Time and time again, Malleus's status is mentioned and it plays into his importance as the sole heir to Briar Valley. He must also know he is powerful, given that he is one of the top 5 strongest mages in the world and can perform incredible feats (like reassembling a stage and walking through Vil's poisonous miasma in book 5) like they're nothing. His grandmother and Lilia tell him the Draconias are powerful and shouldn’t use their magic to harm, but to help those they rule over. Yet he seems to have surprisingly few qualms when turning these powers against people who are only at a fraction of his power (Rook, his dorm mates, everyone in the Scalding Sands trip group, Ortho, etc.) or have no magic at all (remember when he attacked those civilians in Terror is Trending and the other Diasomnia students had to restrain him?). Malleus may be emotional in these moments, but the fact remains that he's making the deliberate, intentional choice to wield his magic in this way. He has the ability to hold himself back (as we see him refrain from fighting Rook in Malleus's PE Uniform vignette, only because he knows Rook is baiting him), but the vast majority of the time he fails to do this. For someone who is acutely aware of his power, you'd think he would... I don't know, keep a better leash on it? And what about his identity? So Malleus is concerned about Sebek insulting Leona (the prince of another country) but he ISN'T concerned about how his own fits of anger poorly reflect on himself, who is the CROWN PRINCE of a country??? Please make that make sense... Why is Malleus so selective 💀

I'm actually quite shocked at how little Malleus's pride and arrogance is pointed out; it's usually Leona who gets those labels even though Malleus is also just as arrogant, prideful, and confident in his own powers. Most of the time, I feel like I see Malleus being called "innocent". Maybe his negative traits on display get overlooked because TWST tries so hard to present Malleus to us as someone we are supposed to like (especially with how often they use his overpoweredness or loneliness is used as a punchline for jokes). Our interactions with Malleus are also so few and so short, particularly early in the main story, that fan project their own ideas about what he's like onto him and that forms a certain “image” of him that may not be the same as how he actually is. Him being lonely makes it easy for fans to perceive him as desperate for company and even easier for fans insert themselves as his “special” friend or S/O to fill the void.

It's... quite ironic, really? Malleus says in Riddle's Suitor Suit vignettes that he is familiar with the concept of "noblesse oblige", which is the implied duty of the privileged and nobility to act gracefully towards those less privileged. Yet... he is sometimes overstepping "fae playfulness" or "teenage childishness/immaturity" and continuously creating situations which put people around him in danger (all of Endless Halloween Night, not holding back his attacks against the Magicam Monsters, all the times he let his temper get out of control, book 7 OB, etc.) When defending the extremes he took in book 7 by citing his status and his UM, Malleus has this to say, which is very telling of his lucidity: "Monitoring? Meddling? Heh, how silly. It's a king's duty to govern, is it not? I'm watching over you. To ensure no nightmares befall you in the fairy tales you now reside in... To ensure you have happy dreams that last forever!" It's implied that Malleus's grandma has told him since childhood that their line has powerful magic to protect their people's smiles--and here he is, overextending those words to people that aren't even his subjects, and twisting the meaning to justify his own brutal rule.

What I noticed is... Malleus is often so oriented on seeing the situation from his POV that he fails to consider those from any entity aside from himself. In Endless Halloween Night, he feels sorry for the ghosts who showed up late and were left out of the festivities because he can relate to them, so therefore he wants to make sure they are included. In book 7, Malleus fears his loved ones leaving and projects this fear onto everyone else so he feels right in being the one coming in to be their "hero" and grant them happy endings they never asked for. In his own Dorm Uniform vignettes, Malleus frames the circumstances as, "I wouldn't be mad if you did the same thing to me" instead of listening to his peers' complaints. He centers problems around himself (which admittedly is very frustrating to me), and this is how Malleus tries to understand and navigate the world. This gives me the impression that he has a very particular way of thinking and it's perhaps difficult for him to understand others, even with extensive pointers.

I truly believe Malleus is ignorant about humans and fae. That much matches up with what we know of his history. What I do NOT get is why he continues to remain ignorant when 1) he has spent a few years exposed to non-fae and their ways; even if this pales in comparison to the 175ish other years of his life, he should have some new basis for appropriate social interactions with other races, and 2) most of the major adult figures in his life are exposing to him he should consider others' perspectives and try to learn more about that which he is unfamiliar with. Malleus has so many opportunities to expand his horizons and get to know new people, but he seems to sit around and keep waiting for others take the initiative for him. But he could initiate too, so why doesn't he???? (He has shown he is capable of it, as he approaches Deuce to fix his virtual pet and chatting with Idia about the same pet in the main story; if not by himself, then Lilia can easily assist or invite him into activities such as the Silk City trip.) Even if Malleus fails to socialize in a way that's considered appropriate, at least that's something he can learn from and correct for next time... But why doesn’t he????????? If he did, it would sure help out with his inability to empathize with his peers and could even curb his temper (which would be seen as socially inappropriate). So why exactly does he seem to know so little and make so little effort to try and rectify this???? Why does he keep postulating that his word is above everyone else’s and then get upset when people don’t like him for this very alienating attitude? Aaaaah, it's a sad cycle to witness him devolve into again and again... 😭

P. S. Bless Ace for being the one character who still held it against Malleus for the fucked up “prank” he pulled in Endless Halloween Night (and then convincing everyone the misunderstanding was their faults for “attacking the ghosts first”).

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only-one-brain-cell · 1 year

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The fact that we saw a entire arc of Spencer in prison but not one full episode of him teaching is a crime.

#criminal minds #spencer reid #I don’t know if it was scheduling conflicts with MGG or not #if it was then disregard this entire post #if not then we deserve to see Spencer teaching and being so excited #only for 90% of the class undressing him with his eyes #my favourite thing about the people flirting with Spencer gimic is that he never catches on like sir YOU ARE HOT #he’s so insicure about his looks we never got to see it until he was talking to Maeve #and at that point there was a entire episode where they interviewed sex workers and #“Reid got propositioned by every prositude we talked to”#what was the original post again?????

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sea-buns · 6 months

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Holy fuck, man. What a trip Fearne has been on, huh?

You tell her how grateful you are to have her in your life, you flatter her, you tell her you need her, that you have to do this together. You have her make a promise that has this woman, born of chaos and fey, agreeing through shaking hands and a trembling voice.

You make her deceive your friends; you make her follow where they cannot know; you make her help you into this contraption; you make her feed this thing into you despite the fact that you both have been warned extensively of the risks. You make her watch you crumble and splinter and shatter and fracture and burst and implode. You make her watch you die, over and over and over and over, for a minute in agonizing bullet time.

You make her do all these things, because when she tries to back out, when she tries to not be the one who let you do this—how could you do this—

you tell her, "YOU PROMISED."

Because if there's one thing you know, it's that the fey do not break a promise.

#cant wait for her to fucking pissed for a very long time. shes really packing the entire human experience in a very short period of time.#critical role #cr spoilers #c3e77 #fearne calloway #ashton greymoore #bells hells #just gonna get ahead of the um actually mfs and state that i am aware that its not confirmed that thats why ash brought up the promise #but boy howdy would it make for some great drama down the line huh?#edit: apparently i did not get ahead enough cuz ive had to turn off replies #since ppl were somehow interpreting this mini introspection piece as me infantilizing fearne??#anyway the first line is now changed to something a bit more neutral. after sleeping on it i do see how it was a bit aggressive at the top #other than that im not sure how else to reword without completely disregarding the core of the post #i might make more posts addressing this but im not sure yet. i wanna try to approach it in the best way possible.#but if it helps any the point of the post was not to say fearne had no agency. she had plenty of moments where she tilted one way or the #other. the POINT was to just shine some light on the emotional pressure she had been put under.#hasnt your friend ever asked you to keep a secret or promise that felt wrong or unsafe or made you anxious?#it has nothing to do with the amount of agency she had. ash wasnt holding a knife to her throat and forcing her to follow against her will #all i was trying to do was take this detail about his reminder of the promise that i thought was interesting and have some fun writing an #overview of the kinda stress she was under BEFORE theyd reached that scene. this entire ep was everyone discussing how grateful they were #for this family theyd made. and while im not saying ash was PURPOSELY emotionally manipulating fearne..#there is a level of unintentional manipulation when you pair the severity of his request with the convo theyd had 2 seconds prior #as well as the desperate need they all have to save each other NO MATTER WHAT.#ash was giving incredibly strong energy of a friend who peer pressures you into helping them do something that you know in your gut WILL #cause problems. hes a fucked up guy. theyre all fucked up guys. even if he didnt mean to “force” her into anything the pressure was THERE.#<- i feel like all of this overall gets my message across. i think maybe ill clean it up later into its own post.#im gonna try not to rush myself to get it done tho.#im under no obligation to explain myself. especially when ppl approach the misunderstanding by being rude af. but i do think it CAN #be clarified so id at least like to try to some degree

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moxley · 5 months

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sorry curating my internet experience means going through and blocking most people who have done the most embarrassing thing imaginable (signing a petition to make r*phael romanceable)

#tal.png #i do not care that this post is mean. i really don't #it's fuckin sad go outside #you are saying it's a petition-worthy cause to demand that a studio use their money and resources to create an entire new storyline.#just for you. on top of every other free patch the game is already putting out #and frankly in total disregard of the things that still need fixing #the entitlement is so real and i flat out refuse to let that shit be on my dash LOL

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pankiepoo · 4 months

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have you ever written any analysis of anything ii? would love to see it :-] especially any regarding fan's relationships to other characters

idk if it counts but i did write the personality section for fan on his wiki :D

I dont have any clear written analysis of anything except how fan would react upon meeting bot but I think a lot about many of his relationships and how he works but nothing specific I can think of rn but I would consider myself to know him Very Well to a point I Could probably write an analysis on him but I'm Not the best at it <- guy who is terrified of how it'll be received by the public

(iii neg in the tags oops)

#pankie ask #if anyone is interested in the fan and bot thing i could post it again <- guy about to rant in the tags #i kind of immediately deleted it because i got terrified of how people would perceive it since it goes into iii neg and criticism territory #in summary it's about how he'd have trouble with it and probably freak out and get reminded of egg (which I illustrated like a while ago)#and id be very disapointed if fan blindly accepts bot when they meet since it'd kind of disregard his entire struggle and it feels like tha #would be more in favour of fanservice for the whole family thing they're trying to push which wouldn't make sense for fans character #he only took care of egg because he could project onto it and use it to potray himself and his thoughts he wasn't even that good at it #i dont get how he could be able to take care of bot and plus test tube wasn't even the one who cared for egg as much as he did #so her taking care of bot is more of her just doing it because she has to be a parental figure #which doesnt make sense to me when bot can fully function without test tube since they're an adult who has shown to be more mature than her #and i pray to god bot doesnt stick to fan and test tube and interact with cabby goo floory or mephone more in the finale #I DIDNT MEAN TO RANT HERE BUT BASICALLY fan wouldnt be able to handle bot because bot is the embodiment of change and fan sucks at adapting

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aq2003 · 8 months

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there comes a beautiful time in life where i have to ask myselg th question, "did i accidentally project too hard onto the character that i only relate to a little bit and in doing so hugely missed this one entire aspect/interpretation of the characters . am i stupid"

#ARE THEY STUPID!#dr who #this is about ten specifically his relationship w martha lmao #m being so serious i genuinely did not. see the 'ten was on purpose leading martha on to make her think her feelings were requited' angle #until going out into the wild and reading the tumblr posts. like i genuinely did not. at ALLLLLL. its like a brick hitting my head #bc the ENTIRE time s3 ten came off to me as 'doing stuff w no romantic intent behind it but would consistently get misinterpreted as such'#cuz IIIIIIIII have done this. IIIIIIII have run into this problem before. and it sucks so incredibly bad.#i actually do want to think my og interpretation still holds water cuz like. well i could gather all the evidence but #first one that comes 2 mind would be him going 'it's like when you fancy someone + they dont know you exist' to martha. in episode TWELVE #two routes; either ten is needlessly cruel and callous even after a season's worth of building up trust and friendship w her #or he is on super 'i dont think she has feelings for me and this is a very unhappy coincidence of a line' cocaine #Or the 'she fancied me' line in s4 to donna. either he is disregarding all the good and positive impact she did him. or the fact that this #went over his head the whole time made him look back on that time w discomfort <- I DID THIS. I MIGHT HAVE BEEN PROJECTING #THIS ONTO HIM. AM I STUPID.?.?????#you know how mikage rgu can either be read as an incel or a gay man lost so completely in the sauce #ten is like in this same ballpark. i think. of 'emotionally manipulative and disrespects women' or 'aroacespec and missed the cues'#funniest possible options to pick from. ten my brother how did you set yourself up like this #absolutely not denying that he was toxic and unhealthy during s3 in like 500 ways btw. but well. ths is the one concwpt that #flew over my head. so completely. and i can kind of see it now but i also still find it hard to incorporate into my belief system #bc its like. brother I'M aroace and missed the cues too lol #tangential note we can trace many problems down to a writer's room filled w white people not giving #martha's character the respect/agency she deserves for the existing narrative she has. bc they pulled this w mickey too both in series 1+2 #if they wanted to portray ten as manipulative then him and martha should've been given more screentime #together where martha (or anyone else) calls him the FUCK out on this. and ten would need to suffer narrative consequences of doing smth #as fucked up as that rather than his happy stable dynamic he has w donna. if they wanted to portray him as oblivious then marthas character #shouldn't have constantly been boiled down to an unrequited crush (particularly her dialogue in the s3 finale - there's a LOT more reasons #why she would choose to leave/why their dynamic was unhealthy besides ten not returning her feelings)#if you read all these tags you may be entitled 2 financial compensation #ten and martha #aspec doc tag

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daisyachain · 5 months

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Restorative or Transformative?: Homoerotic Subtext, The Closet, and Ciphers in Pop Culture. The nature of commercial art is that it’s sometimes bad and inconsistent. Notably it’s also misogynistic. One way in which audiences try to reconcile massive plot holes or gaps in character motivation is by reading secrets or hidden information into a plot.

Commonly, male characters are interpreted as closeted gay or bisexual to reconcile the absence of women from commercial narratives with the generally stunted and poorly-written male characters that form the focus on said texts. This reading has become especially common among a non-heterosexual milieu. Rather than transforming the original text into some radically different new form, this closeted interpretation seeks to make the original text stand on its own as a story rather than a Swiss cheese of dumb writing decisions.

This interpretation only works for a specific type of pop, usually genre fiction. Any story in which tortured male leads eschew women in favour of male-male bonds (because female characters are constantly killed off, written sparsely, or written out, because the production team keeps casting their male buddies, because actors demand to keep having scenes with their bros, whatever) can become a sounder structure if you put one of them in a closet.

The gay interpretation is the natural consequence of shoddy misogynistic writing from ventures like Supernatural, Naruto, all the biggest hits. It’s also the natural consequence of more benignly misogynistic writing like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes or The Lord of the Rings, where women aren’t necessarily rejected but are simply absent from the worlds of the protagonists. When the emotional crux of the story falls on male-male interactions, this reads as romantic because society at large priorities (definitively heterosexual) romance as the pinnacle of human connection. Two forces are in conflict, the primacy of heterosexuality (read as: romance) and the primacy of men.

Anyway. All that is to say that the typical gay or bisexual reading of male characters in pop fiction comes from a very real place. But, in some places, that’s the default interpretation. Angst, insecurity, secrets, double lives, fatigue, disappointment, restrained passion, stunted personal growth, anyone living in the closet can tell you that it impacts and defines your whole life to know that you live in a way fundamentally incompatible with The Proper Way that life is structured around down to tax law and superstore prices (which assume a heterosexual nuclear family unit). Characters in fiction also tend to have personal problems because that makes them interesting and tasty.

If you’ve grown up on stories with the specific type of misogyny that can be papered over with a closeted interpretation of the male leads, carrying this interpretation over to any male character will make sense more often than not. Even a bit of angst or insecurity? Well of course that makes sense if a character is closeted.

Except that’s hurt a normal part of fiction, and sometimes the closeted interpretation takes away from the point of a character. If a male character is on another axis of marginalization, the closeted interpretation imposed by the slash reading community downplays or trivializes the effects of that marginalization in the plot by overwriting it with another type of marginalization. Alternately, sometimes a character’s heterosexuality is a part of the story. There are some sorts of critiques or investigations of misogyny or masculinity that don’t work if the character has an ‘opt out’ of the cisheteropatriarchal perspective. Not that gay/bisexual men aren’t except from misogyny, but misogyny masculinity and heterosexuality are so tightly linked that it sort of defeats the point if you interpret that character outside of heterosexuality.

All that is to say—the closet interpretation is a quick and easy spice to apply to the weaker parts of action-adventure genre fiction to make it taste better. It draws from a large enough sample of art that it’s pretty widely applicable. Because of that, it’s part of some people’s [my] default interpretation package just because the semi-dull macho show at least gets less dull if you imagine there’s a reason for there to be no girls besides simple hatred. That then forms its own problem where the interpretation that works with your average genre work gets then blanket-applied to all genre works and obscures the places where the closet interpretation doesn’t fix the work, and actually makes it less interesting.

#kelsey rambles #I’m as guilty of it as anyone.#just thinking about Johnny Storm and like. bisexual ass character. deeply bi guy. but.#what IF he’s just heterosexual. what then. wouldn’t that almost be…more interesting #if he’s Like That and not closeted? what twisty gnarled psychological torments would a good comic have to explain him #and on the other hand. that one post I saw about how miles/hobie totally misses the point that their relationship is about solidarity #spider-punk and spider-byte’s alliance with miles are the same thing and to read it as romantic erases the important part #and on a third hand. when speaking of miles’ story. the stupid fucked Bendis running joke/subtext with Ganke #to have Miles be gay would possibly take away from the messy and interesting part of his character that is being a person with nothing #to hide. a totally honest genuine straightforward kid who is forced to start a double life by an outside actor #but at the same time it’s dumb and a cop-out to throw in that much bait and that much of a genuinely charged tense friendship #and then go ‘lol jk. nothing to see here’#the other thing is the semi joke in atsv about ‘coming out’ as spider-man #the most important thing about Miles having to hide is his relatively precarious position as a black kid. he’s not afforded the leniency #that Peter Parker would expect if he got unmasked. Miles is more cautious because he is in more danger because he’s Black #so to paint that struggle with the gay brush is to disregard the character’s raison d’être. while also #using that sort of language and structure deliberately puts a gay lens over that character and ignoring that or kicking it to the side #feels a bit cheap. to borrow the look and not the substance #way too many tags and it’s past my bedtime. thesis statement is:#miles morales is a character whose history is fraught with plenty of real gay subtext and whose character struggles are entirely divorced #from any sense of gender performance. he’s subtextually bi but that’s got so little to do with his story that it feels almost wrong to read #that into him because there is so much other interesting stuff going on with him

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feywhimsy · 1 month

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thinking about halsin and his relation to trauma. how he was able to heal from the terrible thing that happened to him, how it doesn't control him, how he can acknowledge it but he doesn't hurt how he used to. how it doesn't consume his every waking thought. it's incredibly healing to be able to see a character who has immense grief and trauma still able to be hopeful, still able to make a change, and be able to interact with the things that hurt him in the first place.

#i'm lowkey sick so i'm sorry if this post doesn't make sense #the brain fog is real today #but do you get it?? do you see what i'm saying?#once i'm feeling better i'm gonna write more about everything i love about halsin bc there is a LOT #i saw some people saying in the poll that halsin lovers are just like “him Good :)” which i DO do #but it's mostly because i'm fucking exhausted from work literally all the time #and it's not worth trying to change the minds of people who are always going to disagree with me no matter what i say #however. halsin love blast #i swear it seems like some of these people are purposefully ignoring things that are clearly stated in the text #halsin #moxie.txt #btw i'm not saying that halsin isn't without flaws! literally the entire point of bg3 is that everyone has flaws!#but the blatant disregard for what's in the text sucks :)#also no hate to the orin lovers i respect you #it's the halsin haters that bother me! <3

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giratina-plushie · 7 months

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so as it turns out i like making adopts and people like them enough to give me money for them so i wanna make more and tumblr likes polls so poll on what theme to do next

adopts in question will be like my last batch in that they will be symmetrical and using the same base i made for myself + have my general design sensibilities but they won't necessarily be futuristic. previous batch for reference:

reblog 4 sample size etc etc you know the drill

#adopts #poll #look im allowed to slap some tags on there these things + comms are my only income #also i may disregard the results of this poll entirely. no promises #also also if this post is incoherent i had a blood test this morning and they took both my blood and my ability to think clearly

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xceanlynx · 6 months

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This gotta be the last time I'm talking about it.

In my humble opinion, the "Boston is/isn't being punished by the narrative for being promiscuous" discourse here on tumblr/twitter/tiktok is starting to boil down to if you believe the producers intended for us to feel pity/sympathize with Boston or not - which is just a more convoluted way to say authorial intent vs. death of the author, i.e. a never-ending discourse. Let me try to explain my train of thought:

I, for one, prefer death of the author. To me, it doesn't matter if authors had a certain intention or not: if it wasn't 100% crystal clear, any grounded (as in with evidence) interpretation is just as valid as the original intent. Once the story is public, it is ours to interpret.

This is how I choose to interpret media, that's the way I think makes more sense to my beliefs. There is no "wrong" way to do it. If someone thinks the authors opinions and intentions matters when interpreting, that's fine, that's just not the way I and other people prefer to do it.

So when it comes to Boston's development and narrative, to ***me*** (gotta be very clear again), it doesn't matter if the authors wanted us to sympathize with him. It equally does not matter if they hated Boston and wanted us to despise him. It does not matter what they wanted to do. To me, what matters is the media they put in front of us.

And, to ***me*** and many others in the audience, there was a harsher punishment for him based solely in his sexual habits. I'm sure you can find the think pieces and evidence in many posts here on Tumblr, but I'll give you my main 3 points (and 1 side point).

You can skip them if you're as tired as I am:

Boston's friends constantly judging him by his sex behaviors - while the other presumed slut Top (I say presumed because, other than Boston - arguably, since Top was practically coerced by him - he never showed interest in people other than Mew) was given praise since he wanted monogamy now;

Boston was recorded non consensually twice + having said recordings spread by others (even being threatened to have his recording shown to his presumed homophobic father);

Atom falsely accusing him of sexual assault because he didn't want a relationship with him. Side note: this one gets me the most because some people use this storyline to justify the "narrative wanting us to sympathize with him" opinion. Look, I'm sorry, but if they wanted us to do that, Boston would have had no consequences for his false assault, and Atom would have for his false claim. Instead, we got Boston choosing to not graduate (a punishment first inflicted on him by his friends for his, I repeat, false accusation of a crime) and Atom confessing his own crime to his sister and receiving a "oh, you did bad but I'm proud you're out now" as a response. We got absolutely no catharsis from this storyline;

Boston is the only character to have an absolutely miserable final scene. Yeah, it was Nick's final scene too but he wasn't miserable, he was free from that really toxic dynamic. The only promiscuous character is the only one to get absolutely nothing by the end - as in visual media, what we actually saw with our eyes. I know he is most definitely better in NY, but we never got to see it. The classic show, don't tell wasn't used (and with a miserable ending scene like that, we needed to be shown, not just told by other characters that he is doing good);

Actually, scratch that: Boston wasn't the only one shown pursuing multiple people at the same time unapologetically. Do you know who the other one is? Boeing, a non character, plot device of a villain that also got a bad ending. Do y'all see my point?

This is what I got from his character development. This is what was shown to us, Boston being constantly berated within the narrative by the fact that he is a slut. In these points I did give my personal opinions, but the core of it was based on actual scenes from the series. Don't get me wrong, I believe there was a way for the narrative to simply portray him as a villain - if they focused more on the betrayal aspect of topboston car night than on the broad aspect of Boston sleeping around. But they didn't do it. They chose a language that in the real world would be slutshamey without a doubt.

And don't fool yourself, there is real slutshaming happening in this fandom. It may be directed at a fictional character, but the behaviors criticized are real. Real people can be slutty like Boston, and they should not face criticism because of this. Wanna hate on Boston? Please hate him for being a shitty friend, or for sleeping with Top, or because he lied to Nick. Not because he sleeps around.

I still don't know the crew's intention with his character, and I don't claim to know. I do have opinions on what the directors/writers/cast actually think of a character like Boston, but again, it does not matter when it comes to us as audience and what we think of it.

Am I saying this way of ignoring the intention of the authors is the correct way? NO. I just urge you to remember that we do not have all the information on the intentions of the crew. Actually, we have more evidence of them simplifying Boston's character as just a "slutty villain" (eg. Jojo's comment in a podcast - I believe it was the LoveCast? Don't quote me) than we have evidence of them wanting us to sympathize with him. Am I saying that this is what they had in mind while producing the series? NO. And even if it was, IT DOES NOT MATTER what they had in their heads. What matters is the finished product, and the finishing product, to me and many others, was a slutshamey narrative.

You can still have your opinion, disagree and all with whatever I said here. You aren't inherently wrong for thinking the authors had the intent to make us sympathize with Boston, as I said, we don't have access to their original thoughts. What I do not think it's cool is that there are people simply dismissing valid criticism, calling them absolutely wrong, as if the very skill of interpretation is static and monochrome. If everyone understood that, I guarantee there would be way fewer condescending posts here on Tumblr, on Twitter and Tiktok.

That's it. I'm done talking, this will be my last post about it. I doubt anyone will change my mind on this, especially the last paragraph part, but feel free to share your opinion.

#only friends #only friends meta #only friends the series #ofts boston #only friends boston #ofts #this is going to be my last post about this #i'm tired of this discourse #i don't care if you hijack this post as long as you stay respectful #i probably won't respond tho because I am not lying when I say I'm tired #I also had an entire paragraph about the argument of boston being “real life rep” and “based on a real person” but I decided to disregard i #felt too obvious to even attempt to explain my toughts #sorry for the wall of text #fuck all english mistakes I won't be bothered to correct them

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priestofchaos · 1 year

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gotta love how all debt solutions are literally just: get unpoor idiot

#Like gee thanks I never thought of that #but also eat my entire ass #I'm so tired #vent #disregard #I hate being poor #considered making a donate post but my hopes are literally rock bottom right now x.x

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robobee · 11 months

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the only thing funnier than Maggie fumbling Henry's entirely random character shift bw bllb and trk is that henry is just straight up in the DID trenches the entire time but nobody ever notices

#his curse of being hot means that people entirely disregard entire character changes #< this whole post was in the Drafts Dungeon but actually i dont think it should be #SORRY if this is insensitive i just think its hilarious if every time they talk to henry its a different alter but they just diall it up #to him being Canadian or something #declan does know though hes impossibly sweet about getting him out of situations and Never mentioning it to near-baseline henry bc hed #never hear the end of it #henryposting #trcposting

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canarydarity · 1 year

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Hard to tell how indicative the bones on the floor are of anything about the catacombs themselves being how, every few minutes, Pix kills another skeleton adding to the collection. He swipes his sword through the one before him, and it collapses so readily into a pile of bone—like it was made to, like it was just waiting on his sword—that he has to wonder, not for the first time, what was holding it together to begin with. The bones rattle and clatter against those already littered around, and Pix sighs at the further disturbance to the scene as it was when he had entered; accounting for the damage likely done by mobs was going to make this hell to study.

He grabs another torch and sets it inside one of the empty sconces that still adorn the walls, readjusts his grip on his sword—he can hear more lingering around the next corner; the low hiss that means a spider is near, the groan or two of a zombie.

Pix picks up a chunk of cobble from the ground and tosses it down the hall, waits. Sure enough, out scuttles a spider. He disposes of it quickly enough, but it seems he’ll have to venture down the dark hall to goad the zombies. He glances at the clock he placed in his hotbar before embarking on this mission (it’s hard to tell how much time passes underground—something he learned quickly in his line of work). There’s still a good amount of daylight left, and he wants the catacombs cleared; he has other projects he has to move on to, things he needs to finish; he’ll just get through a few more halls—it won’t be an issue, surely.

But the new corner he rounds remains dark even as he places a torch behind him to mark the way back. The groans can still be heard, but a zombie is yet to lumber his way, and so he has to wonder what's beyond his admittedly limited sight. Pix shuffles another foot or so forward, a torch in his non-dominant hand now as well, hoping for light, for vision. The research part of him—the logical academic—knows that it shouldn't still be this dark with the torches placed behind him nor the one in his hand, and that part is so much louder and more important than the one that knows this means something is wrong, the part that says turn around.

The torch is lit, he can feel the heat of the flame as he observes it flicker in and out but cast no shadow on the wall behind—a wall Pix can’t even see but knows is there all the same. The circle of light provided extends no further than an inch or two out from the flame itself—comparable more to that of a birthday candle than a lit hand torch. If he hadn’t been staring directly at it, he would’ve assumed the fire snuffed out.

He feels his eye twitch and his brows furrow. Academia liked concrete answers, things that could be explained and reasoned away—unequivocal proof. But Pix had always had a soft spot for the inexplicable, the ineffable. It was nice when he studied something and found an answer, it was riveting when he didn’t. How much more exciting to study it again and again, a riddle that begged not to be solved. (How much sweeter the prize if he were the one to figure it out in the end).

His interest was piqued. He could feel it, the way his attention focused and his surroundings blurred and left him; his body on standby, his sword hand lowered almost subconsciously.

In other words, it was entirely his own fault when the zombie grabbed him. Panic is never a good thing to welcome into a fight, but it likes to show up uninvited anyway. Pix's entire career revolves around studying human behavior, about how human nature cannot be fought against though it oft leads us to our own downfall and ruin. He finds it uncanny when he's reminded that this is a phenomenon from which he is not exempt.

In haste, he elbows the zombie behind him and turns, back now to the darkness—the one not even his torch could dent. It’s an ugly bugger, eyes soft and misshapen from decay and skin so leathery it’s as if it's been treated and is ready for use as a saddle or armor. Logic replaced by horror, before he can run it through it advances, arms out, and Pix drops his sword to reach back, holding it at arm's length itself; their arms interlocked, pose not unlike meeting an old friend again for the first time in a while. His hands grip the woven fabric of what's left of its shirt, too old and worn to be from any time close to recent, and, despite the very real danger, his mind takes the time to process the period-accurate fabric, the hand-stitched design. He blanches again as he looks into its horrible milky eyes—this zombie was from the capital.

Not sentient enough to know why it’s not actually getting any closer to Pixlriffs, the zombie makes a noise that sounds frighteningly human in its frustration and steps forward, and in his distraction, Pix lets it. The push seems to make his brain function yet again, and he shoves the zombie backward a good few paces away, but the momentum sends him stepping back himself, and his foot finds not purchase but, instead, the disturbing lack of solid ground, and with nothing left to do, he falls.

He hits the ground with a thump and a crack and a lot of other sounds he would rather not describe as he feels they were likely very undignified. Winded but, it appears, still in one piece, he grabs another torch and strikes it against the wall, holding it up above him when it lights and shines this time as torches normally do. He buries the part of himself that is disappointed at this—the part that wants to panic and complain finally louder, now, than the part that says hmm.

He didn’t fall too far, it seems. Now that the torch is lit he can see the gap he’d fallen through, just under a dozen feet or so above where he lays. It's obvious even looking from below how the stone floor had crumbled away, taking maybe one or two hits too many over time from overcrowded mobs or shifts in terrain or pressure aboveground. He tilts his head back but sees only another dead end behind him, and ahead looks like a further, deeper hall of the tomb he hadn’t uncovered yet, though the path is obstructed by debris from above; a net of spiderweb blankets the pile of stone and dirt, but no spider seems to be left guarding the web.

His friend above seems to have lost interest now that he’s fallen out of sight, and its moans and groans get further away by the second.

No immediate threat, Pix lets his head fall back onto the ground and takes a breath. He knew the crypt would be full of mobs, he knew it’d be hard, but still…

No, it’s worth it. It will be worth it. He has a job to do.

At least he isn’t defenseless—it’s more than he can say for the dungeons. Not a weapon to his name, fists wrapped in tape so red you’d never believe it’d been white to begin with; knuckles so raw and scraped and beaten by the time he’d made it out that they’d scarred that way—permanent marks of the fighter he was, of the fighter he’d proved to be.

There was a fear there, too, at that very real and physical understanding of permanence. His studies proved expert in providing examples of what was permanent and what wasn’t, and where people weren’t, things were. He’d spent enough time studying what could be learned about a person by the things they left behind to begin to wonder if anyone at all would’ve remembered him if he’d died in those dungeons—not a singular weapon or item for him to leave behind and tell his story.

Pix stops wallowing. He sits up and reaches over his shoulder for his pick; he isn’t shocked to find that the shaft had snapped in two from the fall, it having been strapped to his back. He sighs, tossing it aside as useless. He’ll make another.

He takes the time to remind himself again that he knew it was going to be difficult, and that difficulty was no reason to not continue. But it didn’t just feel difficult it felt…inhibiting. Dissuading, deterring, impeding. It felt deliberate. It felt like, stay out; like, we don’t want you here; like, leave us to our rest.

(it wasn’t, it was something far more sinister. An idea he’d never thought to consider; like a torch was giving off too-little light in the hallway of a dark, long-forgotten crypt, he couldn’t see any farther than what was right in front of his own face. How cliche it’d be, in the end, when it came to pass—the academic too invested in their own research, too dismissive of the present danger posed until it consumed them. He’d have a moment to laugh about it later, when the dread had settled in and all options—or lack thereof—exhausted. While on the topic of permanence…

It was not go away that the tomb was saying, not a driving force out that was being enacted upon the archeologist, but a more frightening call of stay. A threatening but desperate find…become…join…

No, if it were trying to keep him out, why would it keep pushing him deeper? Add this to the list of things he’d realize too late.)

He stands and dusts himself off. The wall is thick and overgrown with glow lichen, and he grabs the nearest vines and tugs one, twice, three times before deciding it won't give and hoisting up. It takes a few minutes and a fair amount of huffing and puffing to get himself to the top and over the edge but he does it, collapsing on higher ground once again and taking a minute to slow his pulse. When he left the dungeons, he dove back into the studies he’d been missing and decided he’d had enough fighting to last a lifetime—this was not without consequence, he’s not nearly as in shape as he used to be.

His sword is still on the ground where he’d dropped it, so he reequips and readies himself to push his way back out; he’d have to make time to come back and clear the rest another day. He would be back, and he hoped he would be welcomed.

“I don’t mean to disturb you,” he says into the quiet blackness of the catacombs. He doesn't dare speak above a whisper, for there were still mobs around and his voice carried enough as it was, bouncing along the empty stone and quiet graves. “I'd like to tell your story.”

There's nothing to hear but for the scuttling of various creatures far off in the dark, the shrill whistle of stray wind through small openings and holes. He raises his voice only slightly, a bit bolder. “Don’t you want me to do that? Will—would you allow me to do that?”

Silence, and then—the rattle and clatter of a skeleton. It sounds like only one; he lit everything up pretty well on his way in, getting out should be easier. Striking another torch against the wall, Pix prepares to go. For a second, the light is brighter than it should be, its circle of light illuminating the hall completely, the hole he’d fallen into, the distance to the other side. He leans back to avoid the heat of the flame, and he sees it.

The other side of the cave-in leads not to another tunnel but to an alcove, and empty it is not. His torch, though many feet away, sheds light on the scene; the heavily wax-encrusted stone above a pile of used candles and burnt wicks, the coin and other offerings of gold overflowing from bowls and chalices and any other orifice they could be piled upon, and her.

He recognizes her immediately. The tapestry covers the majority of the wall, and though it's faded for certain, the lack of direct sunlight has done wonders at preserving what it could. The colors are familiar to his research, the subtle and light greens under warm oranges and yellows. He’s too far, he cannot see any detail; the background, what she's holding, her face—but he knows her. She’s their patron.

The skeleton wanders closer, its bones clicking and clacking down the hall. Pix swallows.

“I’ll return for you, I will.” It’s a promise. She’s holding a secret, he knows she is—he’s going to figure out what. Pix turns just in time to face the skeleton as it rounds the corner, and soon its bones join those on the floor, new and old alike.

His words still echo off the caverns and crevices of the catacombs after he's left and gone, and though not possible to have been heard by human ears, the crypt whispers back good.

~-~-~-~

Far below even the hole the archeologist had fallen in, leagues underneath the surface of the earth, buried perhaps the furthest underground of anything left behind from the ancient capital—so deeply you’d have to wonder if maybe it was done on purpose—the crown sits in a chest, waiting patiently to be discovered. It’s not a matter of if, but a nice decisive and quiet when. Eventually, the echo of the archeologists' words falls upon it where it sits, and slowly it begins to emit a soft glow. It says stay, it says find, it says become, it says join.

It says soon.

#me when i dont write anything for almost an entire month and then inexplicably come back with 2000 words of pixlriffs fanficiton #all of which is completely self-indulgent #if you couldn't tell by tags on my recent reblogs and by this hey im doing so bad about pix being fucking dead and all #the blind academic...to be so invested in your work that it consumes you...#to disregard danger for the sake of being so close to what you believe is an answer #he studied the past so hard that he became it #hahahaha.#good thing he enjoys his work #because now he can never leave.#okay sorry not to write a 2000 word fic and then also write like another 300 in the tags #but also its mY POST!! GET OFF MY LAWN!! IM ALLOWED TO DO THAT! WAH IM SAD!#last thing but i have so much more to say about pixs background being his weaponless playthrough of mc dungeons. so.#someone talk to me about this /please #i lied. new last thing. now that this is out of my head :) hey :) all my fic planning is done im gonna start writing sentinel species #worm writes #empires smp #empires smp fic #empires smp fanfic #pixlriffs #pixlriffs fic #empires season 2 #esmp season 2

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