#like literally none of the discourse they make up matters irl it's all just moral posturing

[epicspheal]

So something that's been popping up on Twitter about disliking Carmine, Kieran and/or Nemona...and I'm going to at least address the Carmine and Kieran plotline later in an analysis But I just wanted to say that the community needs a friendly reminder that people can dislike any character of a franchise. Not every character is going to be everyone's cup of tea. Sometimes they may remind them of an experience IRL and that sits with them. Maybe they wanted different from the character's arc. Maybe that character archetype just doesn't vibe with them And it's okay Yes, there are numerous instances of characters being hated because of bandwagons or having massive double standards and stereotypes heaped on them as justification for why they're disliked. No one is denying that. And yeah sometimes people dislike the characters because they weren't paying attention to their story line at all. Or maybe they didn't care for the character but chose to make a bad faith "this character that isn't actually problematic, is actually very problematic" take to justify their dislike of the character. These are all very real things that happen in fandom, and it will unfortunately eventually happen to character you dearly love. And it sucks to see, trust me I've been there. But also sometimes none of that is the reason. Sometimes people have reasons for disliking a character that aren't steeped in bandwagon hate or double standards. And maybe they did pay attention to the story line and understood and still didn't like the character or story because it really isn't their cup of tea. And they just simply dislike the character without going into bad faith takes. This is also very true, and way more common than people like to admit when it comes to dislike of their faves.

Trying to make every instance of dislike of a character "nitpicking", "media literacy", "contrarian" or "double standards" doesn't do discussion of characters any favors and is a bad faith assumption of people to just go straight to that every time you see an instance of people disliking said characters. Yes it's good to push back at certain narratives to offer a different perspective especially if certain narrative perpetuate harmful stereotypes or are in bad faith. That's one of the reasons this blog existed to begin with, but that I doesn't mean I don't recognize that someone could look at the points I talk about with various characters and still come away not caring for the character. And I get, it hurts to see dislike of comfort characters, or characters you identify with, especially with the latter as it can feel more personal (if they don't like this character, then they won't like me). But also you have to realize that with 8 billion people in this world...we're not all going to vibe with each other. Obviously some people we're not going to vibe with because of pure differences in morals...and sometimes we find certain people flat out annoying, or boring, or awkward or whatever and it's not that these people are morally bankrupt we literally just don't vibe. And it's okay. There's always other people who will enjoy you and your comfort characters the way you/they are.

I just had to put this out there before I even touch the Kitakami sibling discourse because I want to make it clear that I am sympathetic to people who dislike either character (even if I personally like both of them) because while yes there are some absolutely wild takes on them, also there's been plenty of valid expression of negative views that are just getting lumped into "HATER" territory. And if seeing someone dislike a character you really like gets to you...you can always block them. I cannot stress curating your fandom space enough and if you deeply resonate with a character and seeing the takes (no matter how mild or wild they are) gets to you it's okay to not engage with those people.

#pokemon #pokemon sv dlc

[miggydiaz]

for the salty ask: 3, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 27 for spn

I had to do this one today because I have a LOT of Supernatural feelings and so a lot of these are even longer than my CK one. But thanks for the ask @wonderwolfballoon!

UNPOPULAR SUPERNATURAL OPINIONS AHOY: INCLUDES ANTI-DESTIEL SENTIMENTS AND OTHER UNSAVORY ELEMENTS

3. Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? 100000000% I have unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion in the SPN fandom. SPN was the fandom that taught me to make JUDICIOUS use of the blocking feature tumblr offers in order to curate my experience. I would actually encourage anyone and everyone to use the blocking feature if they disagree with people. Honestly, we don’t owe anyone our time or energy, especially on the internet! It is much healthier than sending or responding to hate, IMO. 7. Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?* This is actually a hard one for me to answer, so let me start by saying -- I have not seen a SINGLE episode since 9x05? I think? Whichever episode was the Dr. Deanlittle one where he talks to animals. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the first 5 seasons, and they are all I watch anymore and I pretend nothing else exists after that (except The French Mistake because that episode is hilarious). But uh... I guess the simple answer is when I was originally watching it, I really loved Dean. He was brash, snarky, rough around the edges... but kind of soft in a I’m too toxically masculine to deal with my softness sort of way that I love seeing characters grow out of as they mature. But when I go back and rewatch now, much older than I was in 2006 when I first started watching, I see how awful a lot of his older behavior truly was. I still love Dean, and I will be a Dean girl until I die probably, but sometimes you gotta remind yourself that your faves have been problematic in the past so you don’t put them up on fandom constructed pedestals.

10. Most disliked arc? Why? AND AS A BONUS, MY ANSWER to 11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? I could write a literal essay about all of the problems I have with the later seasons (the ones I watched, which encompasses 6, 7, 8, and a few episodes of 9). But by far and away, the thing I hated most, was the Men of Letters.

Okay, this is where I am going to recognize my love of certain characters is at FUNDAMENTAL ODDS with how that character develops later and what history and background we get later on them. I RECOGNIZE this character is problematic, and I would NEVER STAND for his shit IRL, but fiction is complicated and nuanced, and fantastic circumstances do not make for normal behaviors. That being said, with all warnings I could possibly give, and with the full understanding that what I am about to say is basically fandom blasphemy of the highest order...

I like John Winchester’s character.

I know, I know. If you wanna stop reading and block me now, you are free to do that. I will not hold it against you. I am not about to apologize for anything he has done. I just need to contextualize why I have such an issue with the MOL storyline and it starts with the simple fact that I liked John Winchester as he was originally presented.

To me, and with the full understanding that I am answering this from the perspective of someone who DOES NOT regard anything past season 5 as personal canon, John Winchester is the perfect example of a truly complicated character. Here’s a parent who, if we take the pilot and the original s2 Djinn episodes at face value, could have been a great parent, who then got shoved into a fantastically impossible situation and made terrible choices that he thought were necessary in order to keep himself and his sons safe. That does not EXCUSE the heaps of abuse that he piled onto Dean in any way. We know John and Mary didn’t have a great marriage. But we also know from the pilot that John was at least a caring and present father, mostly,  for the 4 years he got to parent in a normal world, and that if Mary had lived, John would’ve been a softball playing dad who raised his kids and had a loving marriage with his wife. (Again, I need to reiterate, I did not watch anything past the early episodes of s9. If there is later canon that negates this, I do not know about it, nor do I want to because I don’t think of anything past 5 as canon) This is all important to me because these things emphasize that John was “NORMAL”. He was a mechanic, from a family of mechanics, whose father didn’t bail on him (a man in the episode where Dean is transported back in time to Lawrence tells John to ‘say hi to your old man for me’ or something to that effect). He was just a midwestern dude. Giving John Winchester a fantastical background through this Men of Letters bullshit made me SO MAD. First of all, I hate when later canon negates previous canon. I cannon TELL you how much I hate it. And the later seasons of Supernatural are riddled with stuff that doesn’t make any damn sense in the context of original, Kripke written canon, which is exactly why I stopped watching. That’s not ~Evolution of the show.~ That’s conveniently forgetting stuff that made your show and its premise so successful to begin with in order to keep filming episodes so you can keep making money. It’s the sacrifice of art for capitalism and yes I know this is a stupid TV show but as a writer myself it PISSES ME OFF.

/rant

ALSO, the idea that this toxically masculine family was set on this path by Heaven, and inherited this curse that put them on this path from their mother was such a good plot twist in its heyday. We spent four seasons thinking of Mary Winchester as a victim of circumstance, whose fate could not have been avoided because she was the mother to Sam, who is effectively cursed. And then, we learn that its BECAUSE of Mary that this ball even got rolling in the first place. IDK if you were around for that time in the fandom but at least in my circle, this was a big fucking deal. There had been so much (rightful) discourse about John before this, and what kind of parent he was, that Mary became almost deified in the same way Dean deifies her. And then we find out that this whole story gets set in motion by a decision she made because this was the life she found herself in. This was great. It was interesting. And even though the MOL doesn’t negate any of this, it does give John this weirdly fantastical that isn’t necessary. Let this guy be just some Joe Schmoe who fell in love with a kick ass hunter and had no idea any of this even existed. Let Mary and her want to be ‘normal’ be a complicated moral choice that fundamentally altered the paths of her husband and sons. It’s good tv!

Also, I fucking hate the bunker. The best episodes are Dean and Sam having moments in the car, or while in motel rooms on their cases, or whatever. I don’t mind them having a home base. I’m fine with that. But if a building could ever be a Mary Sue character, the bunker is it. I hate all of the MOL storyline, starting with this place.

I may not even tag this as Supernatural, I don’t need angry later season stans in my inbox.

15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

There’s nothing good about anything that happened after season 6. It’s all a bunch of retconning bullshit. Season 6 had its moments where it was interesting, so I cut it a little bit of slack, but as far as I’m concerned, the show ended in season 5. I’m not sure that’s necessarily unpopular, but it does feel that way on tumblr, so. 

16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

Aside from ending it in season 5?

Oooh, I’m about to blaspheme again. I am definitely not tagging this as Supernatural.

I would never have introduced Castiel, and I would’ve given that entire storyline to Anna. Or, alternatively, I would’ve flipped their story lines.

Look, for whatever it’s worth... I agree with the idea that Dean Winchester is a repressed bisexual. His Dr. Sexy love, the entire storyline with Benny in season 8, etc. I just don’t think he feels romantically about Castiel. And like, that’s okay! Just because you’re not into someone who is into you doesn’t mean you owe them a relationship or anything, no matter what the fandom thinks.

But I also think Dean has a big problem when it comes to women. Again, obviously later on in the series, Dean shifts and Charlie happens and Claire Novak and I know all of these things from gifs okay, context is not applicable here because I have none. But early on, Dean struggles A LOT with thinking of women as A) capable and B) trustworthy. He exists in a perpetual state of identifying women along the Madonna/Whore binary. Even Jo, however you feel about her, and to be clear, I loved Jo, but he doesn’t stop thinking of her really as a kid until they’re about to shoot the devil. Up until then, he’s genuinely surprised Ellen lets her out of the damn house.

Giving him a strong, capable woman who rebels against Heaven for HIM would have fundamentally altered Dean’s perceptions of women much earlier on than we get and would have forced him to examine some of that misogyny head on.

Dean has no problems trusting men. This is why the entire Gordon fiasco happens, right? It was less work for him to trust Castiel because Castiel is the inverse of Ruby. Angel to her Demon. Angels and demons don’t really have genders, but for the sake of presentation of vessels, man to her woman. Not even getting me started on the problematic parts of having significant demons mostly symbolized by women (Meg, Ruby, Lilith) and having significant angels mostly represented by Men (Castiel, Michael, Lucifer, Zachariah, Gabriel, Raphael), and how that ties into the idea of Original Sin and yada yada, but just like it’s interesting to have Mary and her decisions be the catalyst for the story, it’s interesting to have this badass warrior angel in Anna who marches down to Hell to yank Dean out, and through her interactions with him, decide to rebel against the ultimate patriarchy, while Dean gets an equally strong female counterpart to Sam’s Ruby, a woman for all intents and purposes that he respects as a soldier and an ally and not just a potential piece of ass.

Also, Castiel fans being literally unbearable is why I left the fandom. Nothing against Misha or anything, and not even anything against Cas as a character (who I very much enjoyed in seasons 4 and 5), but his fans have always been the worst and they try to insert him into everything.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

Castiel/Destiel fans, which even though I also hated the direction the show was going, drove me out of the fandom. Not like, personally or directly, but just the sheer mental hoops they had to jump through in order to make their ship work and I just got tired of seeing all of the contrived meta on my dash. Oh, and the rampant misogyny that came out of those early Castiel fans. I didn’t appreciate it from the Wincest corner, and I definitely didn’t appreciate it from the fans of the new guy. Gross.

22. Popular character you hate?

Oof. I don’t know. I don’t really hate Castiel, because again, I liked him a lot in seasons 4 and 5. Even 6 was interesting, even if I don’t regard it as my own personal show canon. I don’t think there was a popular character in those first five seasons I ever really hated. I didn’t fundamentally hate a character at all until the MOL stuff came around. Um. Yeah, I don’t really have an answer for this.

23. Unpopular character you love?

Pretty much every female character ever. Jo, Ellen, Ruby, Meg... although Meg became more popular as the series went on, Anna. Um. OH, BELA. Bela ESPECIALLY, I recently rewatched season 3 and I cannot emphasize how MUCH I love Bela. She was the best purely human foil ever. Bela is hands down the character I love most that the fandom had frothing at the mouth hatred for. It doesn’t help that I legitimately think Lauren Cohan is one of the most beautiful women on the planet. But seriously, Bela. Hands down.

24. Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not? 

I have! Many of times, and ALWAYS WITH THE CAVEAT to stop at the end of season 5. Not a single one of them has listened to me and almost all of them came to me at the end of the finale and were like WHY DID I WASTE SO MUCH TIME, and I don’t want to say I told them so, but like, I explicitly in neon colored text once told them so, so like, idk what to tell them. But yes! I think if someone is interested in some classic mystery television that has an overarching theme of family and forgiveness and striking out against the boxes that life tries to put us all into, SPN is a great show. But only the first 5 seasons. Also, be prepared for some thematically problematic parts of the show because there’s a lot of cishet toxic masculinity in those early seasons, and we should examine our media critically. There’s also a lot of good though too, and IMO, the good outweighs the bad.

25. How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?

I would’ve ended it at season 5. I would’ve had Sam escape the pit and seen him standing under the street lamp, but then I would’ve had him walking away to leave Dean with Lisa (btw, side note, I DIDN’T like Lisa because I don’t think Dean would ever be truly happy with someone completely outside the life). Not because Sam doesn’t love his brother, but because he *does* love his brother, and because he would want Dean to be happy, even though Dean and Sam’s ideas of what makes the other happy have always been a little bit screwed up.. but that’s a different story.

27. Least shippable character?

Probably Zachariah. God, could you imagine? And... maybe Alastair, but I’m sure there are fics out there that I do not want to think about.

#wonderwolfballoon #I cannot for the sake of my own sanity tag this #I don't need angry SPN fans coming at me #I hope the bold text at the top helps people to understand what's behind the cut