#or when a pacifist character is written as dumb

[windona]

The way people talk about pacifists, in media, in fandom, in life can be so damn infantilizing. "How stupid and naive, to say violence isn't the best option." Whole episodes to show that a group of pacifists in the face of danger are dumb, unable to protect themselves, unable to handle violence, needing to be taught that their pacifism is wrong and that violence is the good and best option. Others showing them as passive, on the sidelines. People talk about the right to commit violence, when violence is right, but then there are those scoffing at the idea of a right to not commit violence.

As if being a pacifist is easy. As if committing to those ideals in the face of danger, in the face of one's own rage, is always easy. As if groups of pacifists weren't born of civil wars and raging pain, as if pacifists haven't been committed and dedicated to making the world better. As if they can't be brave, running through storms of bullets to deliver goods to make people's lives easier. As if they haven't been abolitionists, medics, and worked hard to improve things instead of just letting the horrors of the world bowl them over.

#pacifism #this is a Quaker written post #I just get tired when I see an episode about stupid pacifists #or when a pacifist character is written as dumb #it's hard to stay true to pacifist ideals #and that struggle also forces you to look at options outside of blow for blow #to fight for a peace that isn't that of a graveyard

[showtoonzfan]

Now I want to talk about Charlie cause good GOD. I never cared much for her in the pilot, I’ll admit that. I always called her boring compared to the other characters because of how developed they were compared to her. However the show takes everything that the pilot build up for her and just made her 10x worse to the point where she’s INSUFFERABLE to watch.

When I got to the very end of the season, I realized that she barley did anything progressive or had an impact on any character, at least what we’ve seen on screen. I understand this was the first season, but what exactly was her arc and what exactly did she do? Nothing. Throughout the season she wasn’t a leader, the most she did was help Sir pen with lessons and have that fight at the heaven trial. In the end they try to act like she overcame some arc about learning to lead and take charge but…she didn’t really. She was helped constantly by people around her, mainly Vaggie/Alastor/Rosie and she never really did anything on her own that was enough to signify her independence as the MAIN character or even the princess of hell. I love how she needed to be TOLD that her girlfriend cared for her…like wow. Vaggie also states that she’s “done so much and touched so many souls”- and all I could think about is how I actually wish we saw that on screen. Husk said she “wants to fix everyone’s problems but her own” and I never got that vibe out of her??? If she was more like Luz from the Owl house where we constantly saw her avoid her own emotions and problems and focus more on helping other people, then it would make sense but guess what, we don’t see any of that because the show is so disinterested in ACTUALLY focusing on Charlie shining at the front and helping people. They scrapped the main premise of her wanting to help sinners and instead used up all the time they had to introduce new characters. It’s all tell and no show as expected.

She’s painted as someone who’s desperate to save her people but when she’s not the focus and actually helping someone, she’s a whiny frustrating crybaby who needs to be coddled or steered in the right direction, and it’s SO hard to watch how her character is treated like a child who can’t do anything. This character has existed for 200+ years canonically but she isn’t written like that. She’s dumb. The fact that she’s such a doormat that she can’t even realize Angel is being abused by Val or even DO ANYTHING about it is fucking baffling, she’s THAT useless. There were so many moments in the show where she could have used her authority or powers to save trouble, but she just doesn’t do it because she’s useless, and I’m tired of people trying to say she’s a pacifist to excuse the shitty writing. She’s also basically Viv’s self insert in a way, an unfunny woman child who’s a hypocrite. Like Charlie is the equivalent of dry white chicken. There’s no seasoning or flavor to her character, she’s SO bland and boring that Lucifer and Alastor end up being more important than her and having more screen time, she’s ATTACHED to them and it really shows, rather than her being at the front. And I know we’re on season 1, but you’d think that Charlie’s childishness would actually be a character flaw and something she needs to overcome and grow up about. But this isn’t really seen as an issue and more of a quirky thing cause Viv thinks being a woman child is funny, the “fuck you you old bitch” scene made me cringe so god damn hard. Everyone has already said it, but Charlie cursing so so forced and unnatural for her character. I don’t like how she’s supposed to be a cinnamon roll but then at the same time swears and acts feral at times. It doesn’t fit.

During the fight scene in the end, she also does absolutely nothing. She made a whole deal about how she wants to defend her people and get back at the angel’s, but aside from throwing Adam and hitting him once, she needed to be protected or saved, Lucifer ended up actually doing the work and it was so hilarious. Speaking of that, Charlie’s daddy issues arc was also rushed, her and Lucifer reuniting and then making up within the same episode was a mistake. Then you realize that her daddy issues was mainly all Charlie had to her in terms of depth and what was explored in the show. I’m so tired of Viv giving her characters daddy issues, it’s getting old lol. But regardless of what Charlie has to her, in general the show just doesn’t focus on her. She’s not the main focal point of the show when she should be. SHE’S the one who wants to redeem sinners, the hotel was her idea. Even tho the pilot was a mess I still felt like she was determined to take the lead due to her beliefs. And yet she still feels like a side/background character who only occasionally gets focus here and there but certainly not compared to the others. The potential is there but due to the favoritism of the writing she’s such an empty and boring character and stayed like that till the very end.

#vivziepop critical #spindlehorse critical #hazbin hotel critical #anti vivziepop #Hazbin hotel #Hazbin hotel Charlie

[arceespinkgun]

Slowly getting deeper into my reread of MTMTE and man, issue #34 feels like the worst. Not the most incomprehensible or with the most poorly-written dialogue or whatever, but from a thematic standpoint I feel like what it was trying to convey is the most disgusting out of the issues so far. I do remember people being pissed about the character death in this issue, but I feel like it's a lot worse than that, and that it's so bad it ought to be dissected. Rant below the cut:

Okay, so there is some of the usual dumb bullshit and writing oversights that I keep seeing, like how did nobody notice Vos was missing his face until they found it on the floor? Why did First Aid just let Trailcutter start to donate all that energon when he's just said it was a huge risk and that it was a bad idea? Sure, it's Trailcutter's choice, but he didn't even say anything? Was there really a possibility that Rung would sign-off on what's essentially a lobotomy? That seems OOC based on how he's been characterized so far. That message in the flashback over the intercom—does JRo think people say the quiet part out loud to that blatant a degree? And how contrived was it that nobody noticed the electric chair in that pile of stuff and that Kaon just happened to be there to kill Trailcutter?

But all of those are minor issues that pale in comparison to the overall themes here. Trailcutter is demonstrating a belief in the sanctity of life by putting himself at risk to save Vos. This is something I feel like is sorely lacking among the Autobot faction in this continuity and JRo's work especially—a break from horrific war crimes and shit is a relief. Then Trailcutter gets immediately punished for it in a horrifically gruesome way, getting his "brain" and "spinal column" ripped out. Already, I don't like what that's implying from a narrative standpoint.

Then in flashbacks, we see a young Megatron talking to Terminus and then nearly being lobotomized, escaping due to a technicality. I hate this. First of all, JRo tries to sell us on Megatron being sympathetic by suggesting that he was 100% pacifistic and it was Terminus who told him there's only room for one guy at the top and to use his fists and all that. This is stupid for many reasons, not the least of which that this is totally pulled out of JRo's ass and doesn't fit with any previous portrayal of the character, but also, it's a cheap trick and stupid because violent revolution against an oppressive system is not something inherently unsympathetic.

More importantly, though, I hate that these flashbacks are here at all. What JRo is clearly doing is trying to deflect a potential reader response of, "Holy shit, the people who are essentially the Decepticon police force that Megatron personally trained just killed a nice, innocent guy! He needs to answer for this!" by showing us how much trauma Megatron went through in his past. Even aside from the fact that I don't personally care what trauma a guy who committed genocide and ran prison camps etc. experienced in his past, it's not relevant to the horrible thing that happened to Trailcutter in the present!

Even worse, JRo pulled this only like... a few issues after Megatron messed with Trailcutter's mind without his consent and it was portrayed as a joke! It was portrayed as both a joke and a favor because Trailcutter was an alcoholic! Trailcutter even pointed out that he had "rights" in that moment and Megatron explicitly ignored him... as did a huge number of witnesses! So with that context, choosing the issue in which Trailcutter is brutally murdered by the DJD to show Megatron's mind being altered as a traumatic, serious, life-altering event is so fucking gross.

Inconsistent characterization (of which Megatron in this series seems especially affected by, as do Cyclonus and Rodimus so far) also doesn't help, since again, just a couple of issues ago Megatron both said he "trained" the DJD to be "thorough" and that they are "the greatest monsters" of all. It's like JRo can't decide how accountable Megatron is for anything, or just picks an interpretation scene-by-scene based on whatever he wants him to say.

I feel like it's especially bad from an extrinsic perspective, since Megatron is one of the franchise's most prominent characters. In no way was he lacking in any sort of exposure. But you know who is underappreciated? Trailbreaker, a funny, sweet guy with a really cool ability, whose original bio seems to position him as a self-conscious disabled person. He was on the Ark and yet gets almost no attention. And not only did this series really do his design dirty (they took away his dark face and cute stripes!) but it also did this to him?!

Because I read this series back when it came out, I remember that Megatron eventually uses Trailcutter's forcefield ability against the DJD in a later issue. In another context, that might be nice poetic justice. But instead, I feel like it comes across as disrespectful to the guy's memory and like literally stealing from him and using him because of everything I've pointed out. Worse, it became yet another way to make Megatron look "cooler" because I remember that other characters pointed out that you can't just use someone else's power like that, and Ravage is like, well it's because Megatron's just so special, if anybody could figure out a way it would be him. Terrible.

#JRo's work has such horrid messaging and I feel like on Tumblr especially it's often looked at uncritically #Or like... critically but just barely like about only minor things #but it shouldn't just be left unaddressed when it was this egregious a lot of the time! #transformers idw #Trailcutter #Trailbreaker #Megatron #my analysis #negative

[gerrysherry]

I would read a prequel miniseries about Marc's early life to fix whatever Bemis did written by an actual Jew

.....but I actually want it to be volume 1 Marc who grew up in 60's chicago in a time when Hippies and beatniks were common and bigots could ban Jews and Irish and POC from their establishment and that was legal and his Dad survived WW2 but doesn't talk about it.

Elias trying to raise two sons along with the rest of the small religious community. Elias having nightmares that he'll lose his sons like he lost his wife to illness and his family to WW2 and he's too traumatize to express it in anything other than constantly wanting his kids to assimilate and be smaller so they won't get killed. Marc and Rand thinking he wants them to conform because they're dumb teens who want to rebel.

Rand exists and is a foil to Marc (in either the MCU more innocent direction or the Comics more malicious direction). And he's dyslexic because Rand is dyslexic to me, sorry. This is bad when certain parts of the city don't allow Jews (or POC for that matter) and explain this via sign.

One of Marc's friends is an Irish Catholic girl named Sinead. This in part to remind the audience the Irish weren't white in the 60s either. People assume they're dating. They're not. She's also trying to be a good child to her very religious parents but her parents are quite different from Elias in not just in religion

Marc's girlfriend Elizabeth is actually one of the aforementioned hippies. Yes, part of what keeps them together just how chill she is. Obligatory joke when she is delighted to discover that 'Shalom' means 'Peace'. She's a character in her own right but yes she's "holds Marc back from a fight" love interest rather than the "helps him beat people up" love interest but I think him joining the Marines to stick it to his pacifist father and girlfriend is in character for Marc.

Sorry I just goncharov'd a moon knight run but wouldn't it be neat?

ART of Sinead and Elizabeth coming soon.

#moon knight #marc spector #randall spector #elias spector #my writing #my meta #moon knight comics

[cto10121]

finally finished a reread of these violent delights by chloe gong, an r&j au retelling in 1920s shanghai, r&j, bencutio. while I did take ample notes this time, I can’t stand another wrist cramp, so my good/bad/ugly review style will have to do. spoilers, of course

so a quick summary: juliette cai and roma montagov are heirs to gangs in shanghai, the scarlets (chinese) and the white flowers (russians). They were once childhood lovers, but when roma betrays her by calling a massacre on scarlet servants, including juliette’s old nurse, juliette is sent away to new york. she has now returned with a heart full of hate towards roma, now her true enemy, but of course things are not what they seem. now there is a monster loose in the streets and a mysterious plague spreading that makes the infected try to tear out their throats. and so r&j investigate and reluctantly team up, settling for a truce. cue mystery sleuthing with UST and whatnot. their friends/cousins rosalind and kathleen/celia (rosaline and celia) and marshall and benedikt (mercutio and benvolio) also do some sleuthing of their own. got it? all right, let’s go

the good:

no r&j hate dumb!!! gong actually has more of a clue about shakespeare!r&j’s personalities and dynamic than most authors, which shows somewhat in her characterizations of her modern analogues. roma and juliette are characterized as perfectly competent characters and reasonably smart (except when they are artificially handed the idiot ball by gong—I’ll get to that). most importantly, their love is taken seriously. most retellings are frankly hostile to r&j themselves, or privilege/favor one over the other. while gong clearly positions juliette as the protagonist, her retelling affords both pairings basic respect, and honestly, i’m just relieved.

speaking of which, no romeo hate dumb!!! i’m crying in relief. actually, roma is hands-down the best of the two, no joke

some passages are nicely written and impressive for a college-aged writer. the structure, plot, and overall characterization sucks, but that is to be expected. this could have been worse for a YA debut

the multilanguage vibes were nice, though i must bemoan these modern authors’ refusal to give translations and just rely on context clues. you are writing to an english-speaking audience, not all of whom knows chinese or russian. do not assume shit and please be considerate to these readers

the rosalind and celia/kathleen naming is actually a clever way of combining both r&j!rosaline with as you like it!rosalind. an easy set up for future sequels too. so very canny of you, gong

er, that’s it

the bad:

marshall and benedikt were shadows of their canon selves and really had nothing to do in this story. gong’s half-hearted attempt to pair them up really did not convince. i’m actually stunned that reviewers say they had more chemistry than roma and juliette. that brief scene with marshall and kathleen at a communist rally had more chemistry than any of the supposed benmars scenes. ymmv obviously

the mystery was both very painfully obvious and not very well set up. in short, the paris analogue, paul, was behind all of this. really, now. the connection between the monster and the plague was so obvious i was surprised the characters treated it like a big revelation.

as much as i liked roma, i still have to lament the fact that gong just…sanded off all of the edges YA-style and made him too gosh darn perfect. roma is a hardened gangster heir just as much as juliette and yet when dangerous circumstances demand that he fight, he barely even uses his gun. it’s always juliette who is quick to draw and use the gun. also, his characterization as a lowkey pacifist is a distortion of shakespeare!romeo’s attitude towards the feud. also, also, it just makes juliette all the worse when you have a down-to-earth roma who only fights when he has to. roma and juliette believing that they could change the feud as children is also a distortion of their shakespearean counterparts’ attitudes.

speaking of edges sanded off, marshall!mercutio also not being very trigger-happy even compared to benedikt. benvolio is literally the closest the play gets to an actual pacifist, but benedikt is much more reckless than marshall or even roma. le sigh.

the book’s anti-colonialist politics disappearing when it comes to the russian white flowers, even though the russians also participated in the colonialism(tm). roma and his family may have been long-time immigrants, but still. would have been a nice dynamic with juliette throwing that in roma’s face and roma throwing the fact that he is an immigrant in a majority-chinese society to juliette’s face and then the two deciding all of it was ridiculous and twitter politics anyway. would have been a nice point.

this is just a personal taste of mine, but the shanghai setting just didn’t work for me. too violent, no real 1920s flair or enlivening detail, and no real sensuality. the mantua brothel was as erotic as a damp noodle. compare that to shakespeare’s verona and the french musical’s vérone. hell, even hungarian retj had a more compelling setting

also a quibble, but i did not like roma and juliette’s first meeting as 15-year-olds at the bund, how it was written, anyway. it was very juvenile (they played a ball game???). meanwhile shakespeare!r&j were kinkily engaging at a pilgrims-saints flirtation. ugh

the writing. a lot of telling and exposition that bogged down the pace. instead of baking juliette’s and roma’s histories within their interactions, gong preferred to info-dump. understandable, as this was her debut, but…well.

the ugly:

juliette cai is a complete asshole. cruel, vindictive, violent, hateful, and even a dick towards her own staff. when i first read TVD, i kind of dismissed her as yet another tryhard strong female character(tm) in YA, but reading it again she really goes above and beyond that. every time she saw roma she had to say something about killing him. the fact that gong had the temerity of passing this almost misandrist hostility off as sexual tension was disgusting. had she been a male character, readers would definitely pearl-clutch and call her attitude towards roma abusive or at least 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩. i found myself really hating her and wishing roma had just given her up for good. which leads me to:

the romance. pretty much nonexistent, so yeah, this is an r&j retelling in name only. i would even describe it as a west side story retelling, but as wss doesn’t have the same marketing pull, r&j it is. when i first read it, i did think roma and juliette at the very least had some UST, but on second reading…nah, son. juliette is outrageously hostile and even violent toward roma for more than half the book and roma just takes it out of guilt. all of their interactions boiled down to “you killed my people” “i know pls forgive me i still love you 🥺”. the last straw was when roma finally confessed, through tears, why he betrayed juliette (in short, his asshole father found out and he gave him an ultimatum—kill her or the others) and juliette just…decided to mask her emotions and move on???? so toxic. and then of course when roma explicitly confesses his love at the end, juliette is all *surprised pikachu face* about it. just awful.

the magic realist monster/plague. awful decision. yeah, sure, keep the plague, it was an underrated plot point in the play, but to make it this whole monster ~mystery…nah, son. the plot should have been about the two gangs/shanghai politics and then the plague introduced later. an editor should have sat gong down for a long stern talk.

there was a last minute plot twist revealing that juliette, in a spoiled-brat pique, told her scarlet cousins the location of a white flowers safe house, where roma’s mother was taken to. hence her culpability when the scarlets kill lady montagova. would have been much better had roma known this from the start and so would have had an equal chance to ~hate juliette just as much as she ~hates him. also, it just makes juliette so much worse and she was already terrible. at least roma had betrayed her out of love for her.

in sum, this premise could have been great. the idea of a true enemies-to-lovers r&j retelling is fascinating and would have been interesting to explore. how would r&j react if they knew the other was their enemy from the start? what if they both had good reason to hate each other personally? and then despite it all, they remain deeply attracted to each other? plus the fact that they are two sides of the same coin? that would have been worth reading. there would have been some problems, of course, notably the fact that shakespeare!r&j are so gosh darn attracted to each other they’d just say screw it and jump on each other’s bones ahead of time, but a canny author could do something with it.

alas, no. instead, juliette is the macho meathead with the “badassery” (just assery) and rage(tm) and roma is the second-credit auxiliary. their one steamy scene at the brothel just wasn’t enough. you need to actually write the secret longing, gong. subtext is still text. as in, you have to point at something in the story that indicates these characters are in love even if they don’t want to admit it even to themselves. as it is, there is no real rationale for why roma and juliette are drawn to each other in the first place. there are some vague attempts on gong’s part to do a shakespeare and write the soulmate vibes, but it’s strictly at a telling-not-showing level. in the end, roma and juliette are way too different from each other, with their similarities only skin deep, which is so far from shakespeare’s couple i could cry

so in effect, this is second chance romance disguised as enemies-to-lovers. this can still work, but you have to know what you’re writing in the first place. as it is, this book is mostly just about 1920s shanghai and gong is just not the writer to make the politics compelling or even understandable. it’s just too vague.

#these violent delights #chloe gong #cristina reviews #romeo and juliet #my kingdom for a good r&j retelling #i’ve written one myself and it’s good #i just have to query it further #magical italian-hispanics in love dear reader #but yeah shakespeare’s shipping game was just so powerful it just doesn’t compare

[possumsinpeoplesuits]

The Other Crack the Sky Summary

Trying to write a summary when you have low self esteem is so weird, because I have to like sell myself in ways I never really do? So here's a less serious summary!

Crack the Sky is a story written by the combined powers of sleep deprivation and autism. This Frankenstein monstrosity of every trope Kay finds cool asks several important questions, such as:

What if the Mandalorian was a dork ass loser?

What are the Amish like in space?

How many Cthulhu Mythos references can Kay put in the chapter titles?

How gay can I make this robot?

What if the space marines were pacifists?

How much caffeine can Kay drink before she gets sent to the hospital again?

How many puns can I make into important worldbuilding?

How many warrior women can I make before people realize I'm kinda gay?

What if psychic space elves?

What if dwarves came from space?

How long can I go without excitedly spoiling the story of my own book in a giant infodump?

How many words can I make up/badly translate before this story becomes gibberish?

How grimdark can I make a Spelljammer campaign before I make it into a unique story? Already completed.

How dumb can I make a character's name before their undue importance in the story is questioned?

Why is Kay so obsessed with kriegmessers?

How long can I talk about Finnish mythology before my partner asks for a divorce?

Can I write a single character who isn't neurodivergent? No.

And much more!

#scifi horror #horror scifi #sci fi writing #scifi #science fiction #writeblr #lgbt #robots #autism #neurodivergent #I'm so sorry Finland #writers #writers of tumblr #creative writing #nonbinary #transgender

[jillybboel]

Rant about my favourite lil orange turtle

Tbh rise mickey is probably my fav mickey and here’s why.

I haven’t seen 2003 and from what I’ve seen he’s been decent but man they do him so dirty sometimes. It’s so easy to lose sight of what Mickey is and turn him into kind of a gross pervy guy. His vibes in bay verse are NOT the best and even in 2012 he practically cheats on someone? That seems so not Mickey-ish.

Like Bayverse mickeys comment abt his shell tightening when he sees April? Did not laugh and it just felt like outa place.

They tried so hard to force the funny role on him that they ended up doing him rlly dirty with a lot of his lines.

People think they can make him the fun party guy by writing him as a surfer type and giving him rlly shit jokes. My opinion? His cute artsy self is so much more appealing and feels so much more like mickey. Plus he’s the youngest and genuinely just loves his family and art and cooking. He’s so passionate for all the right reasons and I love it.

This isn’t to say i dislike 2012 at all i love him sm especially in the first two seasons

I just dislike bayverse Mickey a lot (dkm pls hes just kinda icky Im sorryyyy)

Another thing is they sometimes write Mickey off as being stupid which is so not the case. They fixed this sometimes in 2012 but overall he’s often portrayed as a dumb airhead when in reality he’s just a kid at heart with a huge imagination. One of his character traits is being the most naturally skilled of the group (as demonstrated often such as in the 2012 episode where splinter uses Mickey to show Donnie what it looks like to fight without thinking and just trust your instincts) he just doesn’t have the will or the drive to be leader. He’s a pacifist in most aspects and really doesn’t want that responsibility. He’s a party guy.

In rise they do him so much justice in this regard. He’s a genuinely skilled chef, he’s adopted the roll of most emotionally intelligent and vulnerable (which he uses routinely to help his older brothers), he has artistic hobbies that he’s good at, he’s genuinely funny and well written and he more than keeps up with his brothers.

Wholesome Michaelangelo is light years ahead of any other stereotype or trope and I swear I just wanna hug rise Mickey

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt leo #rottmnt mikey #tmnt mikey #michaelangelo #bayverse mikey #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt 2k12 #2012 mikey

[mxtxfanatic]

Welp, I finished it (minus the extras), and now I don’t know what to do with myself 😭

This was such a tight story and I really had no qualms with how anyone was written, how the plot progressed, or how everything ended. With that said, I guess my view on some characters may have changed or been complicated though, so roundup!

Jiang Cheng: still don’t like him, but now I think of him as more of a manbaby loser than someone who’s a real villain or threat (even when he was)

Jiang Yanli: an absolute delight until the burial mounds era; denial’s a real bitch

Jin Zixuan: bitch, but also dumb. If only he didn’t side with his corrupt family on instinct. Better luck next time

Jin Guangyao: STUNNING PERFORMANCE, A+ villain, at the end where he chooses death by nie mingjue’s hand all while STILL manipulating lan xichen? *chef’s kiss* may he rest in piss

Nie Mingjue: if only you weren’t a self-righteous hypocrite blinded by your own lust for vengeance, smh. Also, pick better friends

Nie Huaisang: YOU LOVE TO SEE IT. I hope he basks in that resounding victory, our true morally gray king

Lan Qiren: hypocritical bitch, but his tantrums were amusing. Him targeting a child for continual punishment cause he mad at his dead mom? Not so much

Lan Xichen: bitchmade. Pathetic faux pacifist. Loser behavior. He’s lucky jgy fucking hated him cause he earned that coffin ending. Maybe has the most chance at growth over all the other bitch characters? (Am still surprised at how much respect I lost for him at every appearance; no wonder mxtx used him as her example of “not smart” 😬)

Wen Ning: too good, too pure for this world. Also should’ve gone for broke and punched a hole in jc’s chest, you know, just for shits and giggles

Wen Qing: boss shit. Why has nobody drawn her dark(er)-skinned LIKE THE NOVEL SAYS SHE IS??? Should’ve sown jc’s organs together while she was in there, you know, just for shits and giggles

The Wen Remnants: pour one out for the homies, cause they ain’t deserve that shit, but also, how are they better people as CORPSES than the whole of the cultivation world? 🤔 how embarrassing

Luo Qingyang: queen shit, deserved a standing fucking ovation. We stan a side character who appears for only a chapter and EARNS her happy ending (unlike her loser male counterparts 😒)

The juniors: love them, love them connecting with each other, love them connecting with wen ning, love jin ling finally having friends and not turning into his loser maternal uncle (please somebody get him some therapy tho 😭)

Wangxian: 💖💖💖💖💖💖

The cultivation world: 🔪🔪🔪🔪

If i missed anyone, no I didn’t. They simply did not make waves enough to be mentioned 🤷🏽‍♀️

#mdzs #human reads mdzs #I FINISHED IT

[lugiepie]

Hello. I guess my first ask ever goes to you?

I found your tumblr thru looking up stuff in the male corrin tag bc:

I dabble in smash bros (read: I am effing terrible at smash bros because I just started playing a few months ago),

I recently found out that this random character is not only has DRAGON powers but also has both male and female forms, thus making me

intrigued. I am very, very intrigued about this Corrin fellow. (and I like their male form a tad more than their female form too)

So, since I saw a post that you made over two years ago about this character indicating you found out about then thru smash too, I'm wondering if you have any recommendations about finding out more about them. Because I've been looking at it for a few hours now and I'm mostly just confused.

Note: I know nothing about Fire Emblem. I'm not really attracted to anime stuff either -- the closest experience I have with it is pokemon (which I adore because of aforementioned DRAGONS and various other wonderful creatures) -- (sidebar: pursuing your tumblr for more info and seeing your various art stuffs has been an absolute pleasure. Love the sense of humor).

(Hopefully I did this asking thing right, XD)

oh my hello!!!! glad you enjoy my stuff :) always nice to know that i can make people smile

as for finding a corrin encyclopedia? that’s a loaded question- i’d say play all three routes of fe fates, but since you’re not into that stuff i’m gonna instead recommend fe warriors (the first not, not the “new hopes” one that’s coming out later). it’s a bravest warriors game just with fire emblem, and although it’s definitely got some flaws in the wake of its story, it’s overall a pretty satisfying “kill hordes of enemies” game in my opinion. the character interactions are all very genuine too, and the supports between characters are pretty funny at times. also quick note, corrin himself kinda breaks a lot of well established fire emblem rules such as a.) half dragon that can transform into a full dragon somehow b.) uses more than one plot device in his quest and c.) is generally written very inconsistently and makes very dumb decisions in context because of it, hence why a lot of people don’t like him in the fe community. i mean he is as close as you can get to a mary sue in terms of fire emblem protagonists.

honestly though, if you don’t feel like playing a whole game, just try to find blogs that have content that appeal to you. i don’t follow any corrin blogs in particular (i just follow the male corrin tag) because truth be told both the fire emblem and smash community in the west don’t have as much of a liking toward our favorite manakete as they do, say, alm or lyn. i know this sounds like a cop out answer lol but i swear curating this stuff yourself and not just going off of what a random person on the internet says is so much more enjoyable in the long run. on that note, maybe i’ll post more corrin stuff because we do be living in a desert here chief.

though, just a quick note, actual canon corrin is more of a totally submissive pacifist who is afraid of hurting people and basically everything, and the way i portray him is more like “his initial adventure from fates is already over and he learned the hard way that sometimes hurting people is an unavoidable consequence when you’re dealing with literal war”, so he instead is much more mellowed out. and a dog because i think it’s really funny to have this grown man with dragon wings and a tail jumping on counters and just causing general chaos without realizing it lmao.

and yes, there is no wrong way to do an ask :) you could’ve sent me a picture of an overflowing trash can with a raccoon in the background and i would’ve answered it in full, welcome to the hellsite that is tumblr

#ask reply #skyeramoth #long post #male corrin #yes that’s right that goes out to all the lurkers too!! #people who like corrin because he is dumb and weird rise up

[ranvwoop]

TALK ABOUT AMERICAN HEALTHCARE I HAVE AN IDEA OF WHY IT'S THERE BUT I WANNA HEAR THE EXPLANATION ALSO THE ONLY HOUSE THAT"S NOT ON FIRE (YET) FOR THE SAME REASON I JUST WANNA SEE THE ANALYSIS:TM: IF U WANT I WANNA SEE IF I GOT IT RIGHT :D

Hi :DDD. Thank u for asking,,,, I have many thoughts. I am sorry in advance. This is one of those things I will put under a readmore because I am into rambling. IT GOT A LOT LONGER THAN ANTICIPATED IM SORRY. Like. a lot. It was 4 pages in google docs because i dont trust tumblr to save my drafts

Okay a lot of my Ranboo thoughts are about the syndicate / boreal trio / peerpressure duo. But you’re probably aware I am a Them enthusiast first and both a dsmp enjoyer and person second. Because. I really like the syndicate. I also don’t have too too many thoughts on the more recent lore past the experiments. Once the in character monologues stopped, so did my brain. I communicate through monologue to monologue communication.

American Healthcare is actually gonna be the main reason why this is so long bc it works Very Much for like three different reasons. One sorta niche and abstracter reason is a stream that was basically never elaborated on back in March, either the day after or very close to the peerpressure Egg confrontation stream. The egg called him a coward (for some reason my brain can Only come up with the “stop saying i look like chicken little. he’s dumb, and a coward, and i am NOT a coward” vine), and he is not a coward, so he decided to make an action plan to bring the server together by acting as a mediator for all parties and try to make sure that everyone is happy, because he’s the only one that can see all sides, or something. This was where he said the big happy family™ line but other than Ranboo Become Dream?? analysis nothing else really happened and everything went along as normal.

(I also always held a little bit of suspicion on this stream actually and thought it might be the influence of the egg, because it says it can give one whatever they want, and ranboo wants to make everyone happy and this was a totally foolproof way of doing that. Sort of in a similar way that BBH is convinced that his plan will totally make Skeppy happy. But also Ranboo is just like that, but this felt a little more on the nose than usual and he did fall into the egg and made his decisions after being egged on by it, buT WE’LL NEVER KNOW, WILL WE?

… also I really wanted to see more egg conflict at the time. Peerpressure rlly got involved in the egg plot for cameos at the banquet and nothing else. I do not blame anyone and respect the ccs for all of their attempts to weave plots together but also. also…. we.. we coulda had so much…)

That was a little off topic from the point, but… he really just thinks he can save the sick… he can see that everyone on the server is unwell and is wrong but, y’know, look inwardly, the unwell is coming from inside the house. And an inherent problem of the way that the server runs. And if this is still lowkey in effect or not (idk man a) ranboo has monologued a lot I simply chose a one off from march to grow emotionally attached to and b) i think that my brain has shut off once ranboo stopped solo lore streams), it would probably go the way that most choosing to change the system from the inside goes. Which is the point of the song and stuff! He will inevitably decide what’s too far, whether he will either admit it’s a choice or just feel that it’s what he has to do. The, uh, dealing with the devil, to be polite.

in conclusion (but we are not close to done here i’m holding you for a bit longer), i think a lot about that stream and i think that shows what he wants to be, at the very least, and continuing down that path would definitely go into being far more trouble than just a noble goal of wanting to help people, from negotiating with corruption (The lobbyists, the Congressmen and lies bit) and that the server can’t really be brought together and saved like that (When things are more and more this way / Sometimes it's like they'd rather die)

THE LESS. vwoop why have you written an unnecessarily long post about one stream in your playlist character analysis reason is both more literal and piece by piece and also Syndicate, My Beloved, you know the drill. We are going line by line because I have a lot of feelings about American Healthcare, apparently.

This also comes back to that everyone on the server is doing Really Badly, all of the time, but mostly his time in L’Manburg. For one, he is pretty complacent in everything and doesn’t really accomplish much in terms of actual change, so like Well people die every day / I wouldn't have it any other way / I just think they should feel good while they are alive. An example of this is Exiled Tommy — who I’d also metaphorically put as the dead man just for funsies, since Tommy’s whole exile thing was one of the first things Ranboo experienced on the server—as he did try to be friends with Tommy and keep him company with his letters, but he still has no power over the actual issue at hand. Just trying to make it a bit more bearable. Similarly is Techno, while Ranboo still participated in the butcher army that was trying to kill him, he helped in the meantime until he “died”.

And then it’s the Realization that participating in the system doesn’t really help much, and the subsequent Everything. It could be getting mad at the whole government system and that he didn’t mean to contribute to the harm, or how he fought with Fundy using hs ideology but not in the way that Ranboo thought. It could also be standing up to his hallucination Dream, in that he doesn’t try this hard to be a good person just to be accused of helping with all of the things that he may or may not have helped with. (That is… a discussion for not right now, I don’t know.) And I think this sort of area is also where it’s like they’d rather die is also relevant, cause Doomsday. Nobody could just set aside their governments and just get along, though Ranboo had his own solution to fighting and things.

And then he joins the Syndicate! And the lyrics of the song are directly Government Bad, because government bad. Canon anarchist, has done things that he’s not proud of as a part of the government. The lines it was the government / … It got louder over the years / Until all that I could hear was flies and all.

But honestly I think in the Syndicate he’s still trying to “save the sick”! Because the Syndicate don’t All fit eye to eye either. He’s the token pacifist, and a vote against violence whenever it comes down to it. Not all anarchists are violent but Techno and Phil will probably react strongly when provoked, due to All the past events, and I live in a world where their trauma and issues get talked about as much as everyone else’s. Since everything is decided by vote it’d probably be split between them and Ranboo + Niki, who is in her healing/no longer resorting to murder arc. He’ll help them negotiate and then everything will Be Okay, ideally.

(Also I just like the idea of Ranboo believing that he is helping the people he’s living with because canonically cc!Ranboo has said he just really cares about his family and the syndicate are included in his family shut up but they also just believe they’re helping him and yes it’s self indulgent. I care them. Particularly Endduo, actually, or whatever they're called, I am not bold enough to think Ranboo looks at Techno and thinks I Can Fix Him, but. Philza Minecraft will one day talk about his feelings. One day.)

There’s also radioduo and beeduo as of recent— really I’m just saying I think that Ranboo constantly has a Need To Help People, believes he can do it, and it will come back to hurt him in the end (except for the Syndicate because I’m in denial. The Syndicate can’t fall out if they never stream together :) ).

THIS CONCLUDES THE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE PORTION OF OUR SHOW.

The Only House That’s Not on Fire Yet !! I like this one. This is also blatantly there cause Syndicate. They are the only faction that is not actively falling apart, and this could absolutely be because they never stream together. But I do not care. However we are also going to go through this one piece by piece because we’re nearing 1500 words here and I might as well embarrass myself more. I am writing an incredibly informal essay about Ranboo My _Beloved (i assume his middle name is My, and he’s just one of those people who write his full full name) and this is the third page. If you’re still reading this, I’m sorry. Here we go.

There are lines that just seem like an unwell but recovering person, and I like to sort of think that way about Ranboo in the arctic during the down time. “I feel knotted up today / But in a most exquisite way” and “I feel strangely regular / But honestly I prefer it to / The usual bizarre” are just! He’s just hanging out. He’s doing good. There is the acknowledgement that he’s usually not doing well, and all of the episodes that he’s had in the past, and it’s probably strange to be doing well in the midst of everything, and there’s probably something impending, but now? He’s doing good!

The verses directly after both of those ones are about uncertainty and trust and such, and I feel like that’s not necessarily about just One relationship but all of them. Will cause problems as long as he has an accomplice. He is not confident but he trusts and loves people.

“This suit doesn’t fit me / I made it conterfeitly” I just like to think about Ranboo in his fancy suit, but it’s just a little wrong because he actually has no idea what he’s doing. I also like to think about Ranboo in a cape to fit in with boreal trio and later the syndicate, and emerald duo had matchy blue outfits from the Antarctic Empire… and trying to fit in with them…. or maybe They make him something.. You know. Much to think about.

“Killing me with déjà vu” I think is like. A little less fun, because despite how well things are going, the enderwalk is still not resolved and he had even less answers when I started thinking “this is a ranboo song”. Just as it relates to having a strange sense of reality and stuff, which goes into specifics of enderwalk headcanons, which would make this far longer. Even though I’ve framed it as a negative, there is also the more positive note of “Oh! I just thought of how to change all the hate / Into love with the old switcheroo / Dancing in my déjà vu / You'll be dancing too” which I’d rather explain broken up but I feel like as it’s a full verse it should be together. The first part is connected to my general thoughts of him explained earlier tbh, he’s trying Very Hard to make everyone happy and fix things. And adding the second part to it is just like! He is trying to make sense of everything, and it’s not so scary as time goes by. Since the experiments where he’s been (questionably) trying to be more comfortable and get more answers.

This was very long. I am sorry. I am ending it here and probably not going to do much formatting to make it readable because it is very late o’clock and also this is four pages and 2000 words I am so sorry. But if you read this far then. Uhhh thank. ^v^.

#asks #vwoop.noises #☆graphite☆ #Reader. graphite in particular. i am so sorry. #this is. kind of just embarassing actually #if you notice a tone switch at the end its cause i got tired and didnt want to finish this in the morning #and look at my past sins #2k words of analyzing r*nboo in the direction of some internet songs. not. the thing you want to think hard abot that when you wake up #ok i fell asleep looking at the post page. 10/10 #but uh otherwise thank u for asking (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)

[conduitandconjurer]

how does ur blog personally handle the klaus cult storyline? i saw in ur tags abt how u didn't like it so i was wondering if u were canon divergent about that part of season 2? sorry if this is a weird question lfjdksljfdklsfj

Not even remotely a weird question, and please don’t apologize, Lucky dear <333   Media crit is like My Thing™ so I love this kind of question.

My blog handles the Klaus cult storyline by de-emphasizing it, which is not so much an attempt to duck it entirely as an attempt to encourage others to find it occasionally funny in an ironic sense (more on that later) but mostly to not rely on it as a comedic staple, and even less so as a staple of Klaus’s character.  It’s a symptom not of his growth but of his continued stasis, and probably his biggest stumbling block in the entirety of season two. I don’t go completely canon-divergent and deny that it happened, because I believe there are lessons to learn in the folly of it, and because it reveals character flaws (or perhaps better put, maladaptive coping mechanisms) that Klaus needs to overcome.  

Klaus forming a cult in Season Two is revelatory: revelatory of where Klaus is emotionally himself, and what he needs to change.  It’s uncharacteristic of him, because Klaus is, at heart, beneath the sarcastic bluster and the addiction, a kind and vulnerable person who doesn’t want to control anyone--in fact, I’d argue that, despite his individuality, Klaus is a problematically passive person, who lets himself BE controlled--and cults are ordinarily ways to prey upon and ideologically control socially vulnerable, often young, people, and indoctrinate them in toxic beliefs.  So it’s uncharacteristic,....until you realize that he’s using the cult as one more big way to DEFLECT from his problems, and take the easy out.  Klaus is necessarily weaponizing his queerness and pacifistic tendencies to pad himself with monetary and social support, in the increasingly anti-war, pro-free-love, hippie sixties.  Moreover, he is anesthetizing himself with empty hedonism: this time--instead of with drugs--with the pure, unfettered, casual love of perfect strangers.  

Why (beyond staying alive and safe in a volatile society that is even more homophobic than the 2010s?) Because he thinks the rest of his family didn’t survive the time jump.  The cult signifies an emotional REGRESSION. And why is it ironic? Because in trying to escape his problems, Klaus has circles right back around to them. What is his cult--clawing at him night and day, begging him for words of wisdom, begging for his help, exactly like? The ghosts that haunt him 24/7, knowing only he can see them. The cult  members are displaced and marginalized, desperate for answers, in the same way that ghosts are. And THAT, i will admit, is good writing. THAT is worth not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. 

Is it bad of Klaus to deceive people this way? Yes. Is it irresponsible of the writers to turn a cult storyline into a joke about “haha look at Klaus being eccentric and lazy and conniving again”? Yes.  In fact, the TUA writers have a pattern of irresponsibility and insensitivity when it comes to Klaus as a character. They make a punchline out of his addiction, too. They have characters coded by the narrative as morally superior (Ben, for instance) calling Klaus a loser and a “junkie” (which is a pretty slurry, offensive term for an addict) and shaming him; the writers should not be doing that.  Worse, they equate Klaus’s “usefulness” (read: his intrinsic worth) with his sobriety (he can only conjure when sober, and conjuring is the only “good” thing he can do, which, given t he fact that Reginald raised these kids, isn’t their fault per se, but at some point the writing needs to counter this very wrong-headed, abuse-based rationale, and it hasn’t).  The writers shouldn’t do this, either.  But they do. So am I surprised that the same people who made a punchline out of substance abuse also made a punchline out of cults? No. 

For those reasons, I wish this plot device had never been used (particularly when we talk about squicky things like the sexual flings he’s had with devotees simply because they think he’s some kind of prophet).  I don’t think it’s particularly funny, and I think there would have been other ways to show Klaus diving headfirst into hedonism to avoid mourning his “dead” siblings.  But it happened, and I can’t deny that it’s in-character for a falling-off-the-wagon, emotionally regressing Klaus.  And in its way, it’s a good way to reveal that he isn’t doing any better than he was when he was homeless and strung-out. 

On the other hand, is this a cult on the level of certain religious sects, or Charles Manson?  Of course not.  Klaus doesn’t give a damn if these people exist under his control, agree or disagree with him.  He wouldn’t ask them to do illegal things, or things that cause them emotional or physical pain.  Basically they ride around in a rainbow painted hippie van, travel the world fully funded by a rich elderly lady, probably eat vegan, and live in a gorgeous mansion.  They’re deluded, and that’s wrong, but they’re only deluded about the fact that Klaus is  really not a prophet, and is just spewing nineties song lyrics that haven’t been written yet. In a sense this diminishes the ethical squick, and I can live with it. I still don’t write about it much here, and I continue to decentralize it, because it’s still a dumb insensitive idea about a subject that causes real people real harm. 

#klaus hargreeves #delusionland #meta #headcanons #reference #the seance

[quartings]

Random thoughts about character archetypes I love and hate from stuff I've watched recently:

I hate when a series introduces a pair of "childhood friend" characters, and just says they've been lifelong friends without adding onto that. Like, they barely mention anything they did in their childhoods, and don't even hang out or do fun stuff together on screen. It's even worse when the fandom acts like the series actually did show years of heartfelt bonding moments when it didn't show any at all.

Another upsetting criticism I've seen lately about several things I've watched this year, is how whenever "mastermind" characters are written to have normal flaws or mistakes, the fandom will erupt into hate at the writers for "ruining" the characters. And it's usually because the fandom is in love with the image of this flawless, in-control, attractive, perfect genius image of the character. But personally, I find these kinds of characters very annoying and unappealing. Because we typically never see these characters plan or work out their thoughts, and so all their victories seem cheap and unearned. A series about someone winning every encounter without a scratch because they silently orchestrated everything in their head sounds like the most boring thing imaginable. It's why I dislike horror movies about mastermind series killers- because you have this normal human person somehow planning and building complex 50-step schemes that could easily fall apart from even the slightest human error or random happenstance.

But onto characters I love. I love this slow but growing trend of characters who are optimistic and compassionate not because they are naiive, but in spite of their experiences with the world. And it's not because these characters are weak either- they're often much much stronger than their more generic edgy no-fun counterparts (that get praise from fans despite being really one-dimensional), which makes their choice to be kind even more significant.

To avoid giving away which show/movie characters I mean, I'll use the example of Zoey from the Yogscast. She's not nice because she's sheltered or dumb, she's nice because she knows how important it is to be nice. And while she tries her best to remain pacifist in most games she plays, it certainly doesn't mean she's bad at them. It always amazes me how she's able to achieve things like winning Minecraft PvP tournaments without killing anyone else, or beating people in FPS games without firing a single shot.

I really do hope characters like these eventually grow to replace the current trend of protagonists whose first instincts are to punch people and be grumpy.

#q speaks #/yogscast #analysis #///yogscast zoey #///zoey proasheck

[kingbennyboyyy]

benny’s RWBY rewrite: the white fang

so this is something that’s been on my mind for a while, and i’ve been trying to formulate my thoughts about it. the white fang in RWBY, as it stands now, is a really poorly thought-out approximation of the black panther party, an actual organization that fought for the equal rights and the equal treatment of black people in the united states. the black panther party’s actions have been long pathologized by white society and academia at large, and have been falsely contrasted with the ideals and teachings of MLK. the false dichotomy of violent and non-violent action is reductive at best, and blatantly racist at worst. while there is a whole fuckton to be said about the real-life consequences of these discourses, i’d like to focus on their impact on the writing of RWBY. i’d also like to talk about how i’d change how the white fang looks in order to make things a little less uncomfortable.

content warning for real and fictional racism, antiblackness, violence against marginalized people, and discussions of white supremacy under the cut.

so, the white fang. the RWBY wiki describes the group as “ a Faunus organization in Remnant. Founded following the Faunus Rights Revolution, the White Fang was initially a peaceful activist organization created to improve relations between Humans and Faunus and improve the civil rights of the latter.” more concisely, i would describe the white fang as a faunus rights activist group, whose modes of operation have changed over time. within the story, after the peaceful leader ghira stepped down, the faction as a whole took a notable nose-dive into violence. but why did this happen? why was the white fang written like this?

first of all, all of the following talk comes from the subjective opinion of one black genderqueer writer. i am not the voice of the entirety of my community, and i can bet that there are people who disagree with me. i’m just here to say my piece.

that said, i think that the white fang’s writing grossly misunderstands what oppression looks like to marginalized people. the RWBY writing team obviously wanted to handle racism in some kind of way- they wrote racism into the story. however, it’s incredibly clear that most of the writers don’t really understand how deeply racism runs in given societies. the oppression of the faunus is clearly mirroring the oppression of black people in the united states, and yet there’s little to this oppression other than surface-level discrimitation. ghira’s direction of the white fang doesn’t seem to understand that personal prejudice is a very small aspect of the continued oppression of the faunus. alarmingly, it’s only when “radicals” such as sienna khan and adam taurus take control that actual, structural avenues of racism are acknowledged. this has several issues.

- whether the RWBY writers intended this or not, attributing the acknowledgement of actual systemic issues to violent radicals is inherently a really bad call. the dismantling and destruction of racist structures is the baseline of most avenues of anti-racist thought, but by only assigning these beliefs to people like adam “kill all humans” taurus, you’re telling the audience that only people like adam “i’m gonna kill all my ex’s loved ones b/c she hurt my feelings” taurus think that these things are a reality. make no mistake, institutional racism and structural violence against marginalized people is a thing. by giving these ideas to violent actors, you’re sending a really shitty message. 

- another thing to note is the role of fear in the white fang’s activity. blake is quoted as saying that under adam taurus, people only pretend to respect the faunus because they’re afraid of the white fang. this is also bad. there is an actual line of racist thought that thinks that people who just want equality are a bunch of thugs using intimidation tactics to get special treatment, and by affirming this in-canon, you’re giving credence to these beliefs. in addition, adam’s literal desire to put humans in cages and make them go extinct is also an actual white supremacist talking point. actual fucking white supremacists go on about how the white race is going extinct as a means to manipulate otherwise well-meaning people into committing acts of violence against marginalized people. but RWBY says, “no, the white fang actually wants humans to be wiped off the face of the earth.” i shouldn’t have to tell you how buck fucking wild this is. 

- there’s also the role of violence in activism. the black panther party has long been attributed with senseless and anger-fueled violence against white people, but this assessment of the party is completely false. in truth, the arming of black panthers was a direct response to overpolicing and police violence against black people. the black panther party advocated self-defense, and acted as its own protective force for black americans. they had guns so that they could protect themselves from the cops, who were assaulting and killing them in absurd numbers. if the RWBY writers wanted to draw parallels between the white fang and the black panther party, they could have very easily done so by actually doing their research.

the question becomes, is it at all possible to have members of the white fang as actual villains within the RWBY universe? i’d say that it is possible, but it has to be done very carefully. there’s several things that have to be kept in mind here, and the entire understanding of faunus oppression has be to restructured in order for this to work. i’ll outline what i would change below:

- firstly, there needs to be more evidence of faunus marginalization past the surface level. this could be evident in a phethora of ways, anywhere from the trend of faunus hiding their animal traits being more common (an important thing to note is how accessible passing as a human is to the faunus), to beacon actually having much more bias than humans are aware of. blake highlighting these biases would be extremely helpful in establishing how deeply anti-faunus sentiments run. the only racists being cartoon bullies and shady billionaires rings too closely to the sentiments that white people have about racism. this is also a comparatively minor gripe, but the whole “becoming the monster people think they are” mask thing is just so... dumb. there are legitimate reasons for faunus to hide their identities during protests, and pathologizing this is just such a shitty thing to do.

- next, the white fang as a whole cannot be a terrorist organization in actuality. people can believe that the white fang are a bunch of terrorists, sure, but this can’t be the truth. for example, it would make perfect sense for weiss to think such things. her being the heiress to the schnee dust company, being fed stories about scary faunus with weapons trying to hurt her and her family would make sense. but the stereotypes humans have about faunus activism can’t be true. in addition, there should at the very least be more than one faunus activist party. the fact that there’s only one in the entire continent of remnant is so fucking stupid. you don’t think that some group of people would be dissatisfied and go and do something else?

- adam and sienna cannot be the leaders of the entire white fang. i’m sorry, but it’s just way too fucking easy for racists to say “oh, the entire thing’s just an excuse for (insert minority here) to ransack property and hurt people!” ilia could have been promoted after ghira stepped down. it would be interesting to see how she uses her ability to pass as human to actually make some changes for the people of menagerie, and the power structures that led to its creation. sienna has the potential to be someone disillusioned by strictly pacifist ideals of ghira, but she can act more in accordance to the actual black panther party, advocating for self-defense and knowing one’s rights. the arming and training of faunus, as frightening as it may be to the humans in power, cannot and should not be depicted at the beginnings of terrorism. there’s potential for actual discussion of the effectiveness of pacifism and respectability politics in activism, but all of that was overshadowed by the gross villification and oversimplification of the white fang.

- finally, adam. i think that adam is able to remain mostly the same, with a few adjustments to the environment around him (along with the previously discussed changes). i don’t think that adam should be the only person whose violent oppression is readily visible. the trope of the oppressed person going “mad with vengeance” is just adding fuel to the fire of the belief that those who speak out against their oppression should be put down. as satisfying an arc blake and yang beating the shit out of blake’s abusive ex was, it did just kind of feel like two people being like “yeah! violence wrong! pacifism good!” the unification of faunus SDC workers shouldn’t be attributed to adam. the advocacy for faunus to be able to defend themselves shouldn’t be attributed to adam. adam needs to be labled extremely clearly as an outlier, and even then this is risky. i think that adam’s group should be miniscule in comparison to the other sects of the white fang, and i think it would be interesting for his dealings with roman and company to be based on the distribution of android soldiers. adam shouldn’t come from a good place. yes, he suffered atrociously at the hands of his oppressors, but as a character and as an element of the story, he should be uniquely evil. for the few actual people in his group, he should rule through fear and violence, and defectors should be common. his brand of violence should be unique: rather than actually aiming to make changes to help the faunus, he should be solely focused on revenge. blake’s leaving him makes more sense in this way: rather than her leaving because of the inherent evil of violence, she should leave him because of his twisting the good intentions of the white fang into a self-serving cruelty. this all has to be contrasted against the well-intentioned actions of the actual white fang. the terrorist logo that appears universally on white fang regalia should either be solely adam’s, or his group should have a different name entirely.

so there. there’s my thoughts on the white fang and the stuff that the RWBY writers were trying to do. what should be taken away from this discussion is this: it is possible to write racism into a fantasy story without it being an absolute garbage fire, but it takes work. it takes understanding racism, the fact that it’s not just cruel people, but people complicit in the structures that uphold it. it takes being mindful of actual racist talking points, and making sure that your work doesn’t play into them. finally, if you’re going to make a main antagonist a member of the fucking civil rights movement, please for the love of god make it abundantly clear that they aren’t the villain because they want equal rights.

i’ve read so many stories where this defanged, platitude-ridden form of activism is treated as the only valid form of activism. in reality, it’s the form that people in power are most comfortable with. people approve of the idealized version of MLK because his activism was one that made white people feel good. the MLK we read about in schools is an illusory one. the real man kept a gun on him because he knew that as much as white media would have you believe that people liked him, he knew that people still wanted him dead. 

#benny's RWBY rewrite #RWBY #story #adam taurus #the white fang

[weregreatatcrime]

CHAPTER 8 COMMENTARY ON KANJIBARA AU FIC find the first post with previous commentary here! Just wanted to keep it from getting too long. Took me a while to get this up but it's fiiine

Just a big ol list of the Little things I love about my fic and some commentary!

First let me fucking say in my fics, the characters write themselves. However NEITHER Draal nor Kanjigar wanted to let this fucking chapter be written. It was a fucking nightmare.

Draal thumps around a lot in the house mostly on purpose- he COULD be a lot quieter but he knows they prefer knowing where he is. Also, he IS very heavy. Wooden floors and stairs don't hold up well.

Barbara's already got Mama mode activated for Draal but starts out trying to avoid it lmao bcz she doesn't wanna overstep her bounds

Me throwing Toby getting bullied for being chubby and the fact that autistic Jim gets bullied for not understanding people at y'all like AYYY WHAT'S SUBTLETY

There's a very poignant, bitter feeling when you're put down by someone and you KNOW it's not fair, but you 1) are so USED to it you're tired of fighting it and 2) know that... you can't do anything to change it regardless. And I figure all of Barbara's sons know that feeling very well.

Don't worry human ears can't reach that far, Kanjigar didn't hear any of their conversation. Actually he probably should've just to get his ass together. But he couldn't, because he's got dumb people ears.

The BITTERNESS Draal feels knowing Kanjigar accepted the help of a historian and a pacifist over his warrior son.

I've mentioned it before but Barbara has RAPIDLY picked up on the trollish habit of physical touch and bopping people and tapping and shit

The fact that Barbara wants to slap Kanjigar but can't because he's still injured

Draal learning? That his view of the Trollhunter? Was wrong?? And toxic???

DRAAL LEARNING?? THAT HE WOULD DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO KEEP HIS FATHER AS THE TROLLHUNTER BECAUSE IT MEANS HE'S A LI V E??? ??

Barbara's been half blind through all of this bcz she didn't put her glasses on

Draal: he's a weak puny human!

Barbara:

Draal: Uh- sorry-

Barbara: no u have a point

Draal digs his claws and fingers into things when he's trying to think bcz he likes to Move when he's trying to think, but also him trying not to damage Barbara's house

Let people hug trolls not by hugging their big chests but by hugging their heads. It's great. It's perfect. It's perfect for nuzzling opportunities.

I tooooootally implied Barbara being into DnD and fantasy lore as a teen/college kid

"Nan-see?"

Btw when Kanjigar got forced into sandals imagine like, a dog being put in shoes for the first time

Also when he leaned in close to talk to Barbara she got. Very flustered. Bcz. She's at mantiddy height. Big. Him Big. Oh Big Man. UH- WAIT WE CAN'T BE HORNY FOR HIM WE'RE MAD AT HIM FOR BEING A SHIT DAD

Nobody remarked on Nancy keeping guns in her china cabinets

"What is... pie?"

Kanjigar is STILL suffering from concussion-ville and is STILL blurting things out that he doesn't want to and Barbara is TRYING to be professional and objective about all this but GODDAMNIT she's basically already adopted another son Kanjigar BE A RESPONSIBLE FATHER-

Barbara's a nerd and she and Blinky have talked enough about humans vs trolls that she understands they have VERY different like, mental/emotional needs. But she is very human! And humans mother hen! We're v strong pack animals yay. Regardless of whether or not Draal is human she's going to treat him like one as long as it isn't dangerous

"If only because otherwise I’ll have a mopey, pouty troll dragging himself around my house and damaging the drywall.” 

👏Concussions👏 fuck 👏up 👏your👏 ability👏 to👏 do 👏basic👏 things👏 like👏 function👏 like 👏a👏 normal 👏person 👏

There's a GREAT many reasons I can see why Kanjigar would have excluded Draal from his life. Most are pretty flimsy, but a few strike pretty hard. I mean... would it hurt worse if your father was slaughtered in combat like every other Trollhunter before him, or if your estranged father who you haven't talked to in years died? His logic is a bit faulty but there's some points I could see as somewhat valid

(It's totally all three)

#my stuff #trollhunters #tales of arcadia #kanjibara au #draal the deadly #kanjigar the courageous #commentary #my writing

[zhuilingyizhen]

Beware the curse of.... (there's something written here but it's smeared with blood)

w: character death

My first thought was one of those treasure searching-adventure stories, but angst. But then i thought of something better. Gonna make it zizhen-centric bc my boi needs appreciation.

(Gonna make this a weird modern AU w/ a bit of mythical stuff.)

It’s modern-day verse, and jl, ljz, and lsz somehow managed to become friends. (dw oyzz comes later on) They’re their own little friend group! very pure. 

they’re also stupid af, and ljy decides to drag his friends to explore the creepy castle on the hill. bc stupidity.

they go, ljy immediately regrets all his life choices bc he failed to remember that he’s terrified of ghosts.

its not like super creepy (the fact they didn’t die as they entered was a miracle) inside, but all the lights are on so they’re convinced someone lives here bc who tf is paying the electric bills?? 

think beauty and the beast castle-esc.

they walk around a bit, and eventually come across a staircase to a basement. it’s very dark stone walls and firelit (what an aesthetic). they’re about to go into the unknown, when suddenly-

“uh... what are you doing in my house?” 

ljy jumps three feet bc IT’S A GHOST GHOST GHOST, jl is like “shit someone actually lives in this goth’s wet dream home”. lsz calmly introduces himself.

oyzz just wants to know why these three teens are in his house. but also he’s quite lonely so he invites them... in?

he also warns them not to go downstairs bc its very old and beauty and the beast stupid teens who decided to explore some random mansion.

the beast is this adorable dog that keeps zizhen company!! jl immediately falls in love and names her fairy, bc oyzz didn’t really have a name for her. they kinda befriend the lonely boi, and leave bc jc and lwj and wwx (who has always warned them from going to the house up on the hill) were gonna get worried.

it’s all normal and great and not angsty!

also zizhen is a vampire.  

he doesn’t drink the blud of humans tho!! don’t worry. he also doesn’t tell the juniors for fear of being lonely and sad again, even though we all know that ljy would probably be into him still.

so, since every vampire is a vampire, sun is bad and garlic is ew, but he wouldn’t die from them. he’s also extremely pacifist.

the four of them become friends! wwx gets sus but the juniors are very happy and not sad.

everything goes wrong about 6 or 7 months later. jl is trying to find fairy in this wack of a mansion (not as creepy, he discovered). it’s just after new years. jl searches all around the house for fairy, and eventually finds her! she’s near the basement stairs, but she’s acting a little odd. jl tries to calm her, but she ends up running down the staircase. since jl is dumb by association, he follows her. 

meanwhile wwx knows that they’re there bc he tracked lsz’s find my location, like the genius he is. he attempts to go there but new years and snow and stuff kinda get in the way.

meanwhile #2, jl is down in the creepy basement hallway, trying to find fairy. instead, he happens upon a weird room. fairy is nowhere else to be seen, so he enters. the room is shaped like a shrine, completed with candles and all.

it’s a sacrificial room. there’s blood on the walls (title) and jl is very confused, and then door shuts. 

hahaha did i mention that the lans come from a family of vampire hunters?

anyways oyzz figures out that jl is down there (ty modern security systems)  and ditches the lans to go save him before its too late.

the lans are offended and snek-ily follow him.

wwx arrives just as the others do (cue lwj calmly spying on them) and they have this dramatic “what are you doing with my son??” and “what are you doing here??” 

turns out oyzz and wwx made a deal a couple years ago that oyzz would stay up in the castle and be lonely(tm) and not drink ppl’s blood, which oyzz was doing anyways. the deal for oyzz’s benefit meant that the lans wouldn’t utterly destroy him with their awesome music.

oyzz says “wEll my friend is gonna die if you don’t move tf over bitch” w/ less cursing bc he’s pure boi.

wwx is like “wut” and oyzz explains “oh well you see every year i have to sacrifice a life to this weird demon that lives in my basement or else he’ll curse this whole town and make it rain blood”

“i used mice at first, but he says he prefers humans and deer. sometimes i chat with him! he’s actually pretty nice.”

the demon is like jgy or something lol

anyways, sacrificial chamber. jl is kinda there and freaked out by this pale looking red dude who looks like he wants to drink him,

there’s probably some dramatics part here when jl reminds jgy of his friend/sister in law (jyl) so he doesn’t sucky bloody, but instead kills fairy to satiate his need for blood.

jl screams and everyone is bout to kill someone if jl actually died.

but he didn’t. fairy died. surprise. i’m crying.

#jin ling #lan sizhui #ouyang zizhen #lan jingyi #wei wuxian #mdzs juniors #mdzs #the untamed #cql #lan wangji #crack fic #mdzs fic #my fic #anon #ask #addy answers #addy answers asks #fairy #mdzs fairy

[myinterestsvary-writes]

Why do so many people think aang was wrong for having koizilla kill all those fire nation dudes in the North Pole? They were going to commit genocide on a native population they deserve to drown.

So I saw your ask before your comment on my other ask and now I know what you mean. You're talking about the Siege of the North season one finale and the name Koizilla makes so much sense now that I feel kind of dumb even if your ask needed a bit more context, haha.

From this post: https://muffinlance.tumblr.com/post/623569723374829568/what-are-your-thoughts-on-pacifist They did impeccable math to come to a very logical conclusion. They also mentioned that he wasn't in his right mind while doing that - the mass murdering - and also mention his refusal to kill Ozai in the same post, where he gained control of his pacifist self to choose to not kill him, making a compromise with the world to take away his bending as Ozai was only as much as a threat as he was a powerful bender. His political influence always becoming possible in getting revoked with Aang's and Zuko's overwhelming kind, him not killing him possibly causing more hurdles for the Avatar and the Fire Lord to overcome due to the message that theoretically could've sent. Their mentioning of how Aang dealt with Ozai kind of allowed me to keep believing that Aang's character has still always been consistently written when regarding his dearly held cultural beliefs. The Avatar state and status is a direct antithesis to Aang and only stopped being that when he'd gain control of it. Avatar Yangchen telling him he has to be the Avatar over an Air Nomad completely undermines his circumstances as the last airbender.

I could write off their post as irrelevant and noncanon since the writers never confirmed those (understandably debatable) deaths but elaborating on that post anyways, the Avatar State is a trump card Aang for a long time in the show had barely any control over and was used sparingly anyways. He was terrified of it as well and the narrative probably could've had him confronting the fact that he had specifically harmed people in the Siege of the North, but instead the narrative chose to show his turmoil with the Avatar State in general through increments, the most emphasis on that in the episodes "The Avatar State", "The Guru", and "Crossroads of Destiny".

Whether you think those people deserved to drown doesn't matter as much at least in terms of context since it was Aang who was the primary focal point of the dilemma, meaning what he thought mattered a lot in how you should view it, especially when regarding character consistency and development. It was depicted as an empowering moment at the time of the Siege as it signaled the beginning gradual change in the dynamics of the war; yet later on Aang viewed it as something out of a horror movie. He wanted to liberate the North Pole, but he wasn't in control when he did it, he would've figured another way of holding onto his identity if death was a discussed possibilty of dealing with the Fire Navy like he did with Ozai. Making those deaths count then would make Aang's story in my opinion, needlessly more complicated.

All of this was from memory, so apologies if I'm somewhat wrong or if you just don't agree.

One question, did the creators actually call it Koizilla? 😭

#Anon #asks #atla #aang #avatar #I'm not good with story telling terms like antithesis #more specifically the names and practices #but I use them a lot in writing subconsciously #because I read a lot of great stories #avatar aang #koizilla