#the fact that this could be considered a problematic opinion... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rabarbarzcukrem · 11 months

Text

The eternal opposing relationship between the two sides of a mirror

or: In defense of Shiori

I feel like Shiori is one of the most controversial characters in Utena. Some love her, others despise her. And I don't have a problem with people having strong opinions on her character. What bothers me is the tendency to exaggerate her most negative traits, focus on her most harmful actions, completely ignore any redeeming qualities she might have and then paint her as a one dimensional villainous caricature, a mean straight girl who plays with the lesbian's feelings for the sake of it, without anything deeper going on.

I'm aware of the fact that some people refer to her like that in endearment or in a satirical fashion, and I'm not saying that you can't consider her your favorite problematic evil girl representation. I'm only trying to make people realize that it's her complexity that actually makes her such a compelling character.

I've seen people call Shiori all sorts of names, some of which were baffling enough to make me wonder if they even remembered what happens in the show, and weren't just judging a version of the character that they made up in their head.

So, let's look at the things Shiori actually does, throughout the course of the story.

Disclaimer: I'm only going to take the series into the account here, because I think we can all agree that everyone's characterization and personality differs at least slightly in the movie. Background characters also get a lot less screen time to explain their motivations in order to fully focus on Anthy's journey and struggles, which is understandable.

1. She "steals" the boy from Juri.

This is her biggest crime, which seems to define her from the very beginning. Even though Juri didn't actually have any romantic feelings for him, this action is detrimental to their relationship - it breaks the trio apart, isolates Juri from the pair, is an act of betrayal against her and proves it was done with full awareness that it would hurt Juri emotionally.

Shiori is a deeply insecure person, who constantly feels inadequate and beneath other people. The only reason why Juri seemed to actually like her that Shiori could think of was pity, and even when she found out she was the object of her romantic affection all along, she still struggled to comprehend it. Her self loathing and constant perceived inferiority make her desperate to gain any sort of control over her life and relationships, but they're also the exact reason she feels that the only way she could ever do that is by hurting others. She's always one step below and incapable of crossing that distance, therefore the only way to become equal to people is to bring them down to her level, by humiliation.

When she "steals" the boy from Juri, she achieves that. For a moment, she feels good about herself and leaves Ohtori thinking that she has found the answer, the solution. But she's wrong. From that moment on, it becomes more and more apparent to her that what she did was never out of love for the boy, even though she doesn't let herself acknowledge it fully. Because the truth is, Shiori actually regrets hurting Juri, which she admits herself during her elevator confession.

When the guilt starts getting to her, her confidence high wears off, and she ends up feeling ever worse.

That's why she breaks up with him and comes back. She's not ready to leave yet, not ready to progress. There's still something binding her to Ohtori - Juri, and Shiori's unresolved feelings for her.

2. She tries to set things right with Juri and to fix their relationship.

Even though at this point Shiori still thinks that Juri only ever associated herself with her out of pity, she still makes several attempts to get closer to Juri, who understandably (albeit coldly) turns her down ever time. This is a very clear sign of conflicting feelings Shiori has for Juri - jealousy and admiration, resentment and longing, hate and love. After all, Shiori admits that the two practically grew up together. Their friendship may have always felt fake to Shiori, but she clearly cherished it deeply.

3. The Black Rose Arc.

First of all, we should establish what is the purpose of this arc and how it functions. It explores the motivations of background characters and shows their worst side to the audience. The characters that end up in the elevator are the most unstable, vulnerable ones, with the least power in the system, in unequal and/or exploitive relationships with the duelists and their agency under threat. Mikage offers them a way to gain that power by making them follow their most toxic, negative emotions. And despite all other characters doing exactly that, from what I've seen Shiori is the one that gets the most hate for it. I don't think she should be judged any harsher for what she did under the influence of the black rose than, let's say, Wakaba or Kozue. Especially because the reason all of them ended up in that elevator is because they recognized that these urges were harmful and were seeking help and counseling.

What this arc does do is reveal how Shiori's inferiority complex drives her to act against her own desires. Even though she longs for things to be different, even though she is not happy at all with how her relationship with Juri looks like, she is unable to fix it, because that would require her to consider her own affection for Juri. And she can't do that, because it would mean admitting that she's not stronger than Juri, that she hasn't beaten her, that she's doesn't have control and an advantage over her. Although she tries to keep up this smug, self-assured facade, the reality shines through.

They key to understanding Shiori is noticing that she specifically doesn't want to acknowledge that Juri's feelings are reciprocated, and the obsession is mutual. If you paint their relationship as one sided, you're actually falling for her act.

4. She enters a relationship with Ruka.

Ruka is a handsome (arguable), respected boy who appears out of nowhere and starts showing interest in Shiori. It's obvious that for an insecure girl, who in addition struggles with confusing repressed feelings, this would be something unthinkably wonderful. The affection and praise she gets from him is exactly what her low self-esteem craves. You might be wondering why she didn't perceive Juri's feelings for her in the same way. And a part of the answer might be that, post nameless-boy-incident, Juri was nothing but cold to her. She might have been pining after Shiori from afar, but in the end she's distant and untouchable, and they're divided by their messy past. Meanwhile Ruka is a clean slate, seems openly affectionate, engaged in their relationship and he pays attention to her. But I think the main thing that makes Ruka so different from Juri is the fact that...he's a boy. Because, as Revolutionary Girl Utena establishes, gender plays a crucial role in interpersonal dynamics. Attention from a boy is fundamentally coded as romantic, desirable, necessary and most importantly: increases the girl's worth in society's eyes. It makes one a princess. Meanwhile Juri's advances could only be seen as an invitation to friendship, at best. But Juri's status and beauty make her special, while Shiori is not. Therefore, it can only be pity and mockery.

Of course, Ruka only uses Shiori to influence Juri and dumps her as soon as he achieves his goals. It's true that Shiori could have listened to Juri's warnings, but then again... why should she? From her perspective, Juri's her ex-friend that doesn't want anything to do with her, who only suddenly comes to Shiori when she's finally happy and fulfilled, and encourages her to end it. She doesn't know the wider context of the situation, nor does she remember the Black Rose arc. Juri's warnings don't sound sincere to her.

And so, Ruka gets rid of her in the coldest, most indifferent way, not explaining anything or showing even the slightest sign of compassion. Before that though, he makes an interesting remark, about Shiori putting on an act and polishing somebody else's sword.

Honestly, I don't really know how to interpret it in any other way than Shiori actually having feelings for someone else, despite trying her hardest to conceal it. Are my shipping lenses not allowing me to see any different possibilities? Am I going crazy? I don't know.

Nevertheless, Shiori begs him to stay, devastated. Her life got turned around so suddenly, she found appreciation, status, comfort and stability, and now all that's been taken away from her as abruptly as it was given. It's a public humiliation.

I once heard someone say that this would be the perfect moment for Juri to step in and defend her. And to be honest, although it may be true, I'm not completely sure. It may have been the one display of open care that Shiori needed from her, but it might as well have been interpreted by Shiori as Juri affirming her superiority over her and feeling sorry for her again. We will never know. In my opinion, so much of their relationship is going on in their own heads that the only thing that could ever cause positive progress is communication (which neither of them seem to be a fan of).

Instead, Juri only tries to console her after the fact, when Shiori's at her absolute lowest. In the context of all the assumptions Shiori holds and Juri's previous indifference, it quite understandably comes off as a sneering attempt to gloat.

That's about it. You may have noticed that I've summarized all Shiori's appearances into 4 points, and only one of them includes an instance of Shiori hurting Juri voluntarily, out of her own free will, not influenced by anyone. I'm not saying that she was forced to taunt Juri during the Black Rose Arc, I'm not trying to diminish the suffering she's caused or trying to paint her as a perfectly good person. I am trying to make it clear that she is not some cunning plotter, dedicating every minute of her life to finding ways to make Juri suffer that some people seem to take her for. I am trying to humanize people's perception of her a little bit. Especially considering the fact that last scenes of her include those when she waits for Juri and follows her so that they can go home together, and then joins the fencing club. If this doesn't show that she's capable of change, I don't know what does.

She's not an innocent princess, that's true, but she's not just an egoistical, manipulative liar either. She's a bit of both. After all, if Revolutionary Girl Utena is supposed to teach you anything, then I think it's that we're all just people, and the complexities of human experience make it impossible to fit anyone into a box, assigning them definite labels like "princess" or "witch".

And if you look at a teenage girl who, like all people in Ohtori, struggle under the system of patriarchy and heterosexuality, and all you see is a wicked, sinister witch, then you may have just fallen into the trap that the narrative had set for you.

#Shiori: I may be pathetic but you're the one who fell for me lol #no fr you don't need to make up reasons to hate shiori there's plenty enough right there in the text #rgu #revolutionary girl utena #shiori takatsuki #juriori #I guess #she's so fucked up I love her #like girl feeling delighted after finding out your bestie has a crush on you is not very straight no matter how you justify it #moje

465 notes · View notes

am-i-the-asshole-official · 2 months

Note

aita for dividing up my sideblogs by fandom and not being clear about the fact that theyre all the same person?

this has never landed me in any kind of drama or arguments yet, but its been on my mind for a long time so i want some second opinions. basically, i have a good handful of sideblogs and each one is for one specific fandom (or sometimes a few interconnected fandoms). the reason is not only for categorization (i really like keeping things categorized) but also because… i dont want to get called problematic and for every single sideblog to get that label too.

i dont think id get called out for the stuff i ship, because none of it is that uncommon or problematic. but its the fandoms im in specifically. there are some fandoms im in that some people really, really hate, most often because of rumors/assumptions about certain contents of the source being problematic, or a generalized annoyance at the people in the fandom. if i like someones art or writing in one fandom, i dont want them to have to know im in a fandom they hate for a stupid reason. im not guilty about that.

what ive been considering though is that some of the fandoms im in people hate or cant stand for pretty valid reasons. like, some of the fandoms im in do have actual racism, misogyny, and other shitty ideals in their sources, and while i understand how these things are harmful and dont agree with or tolerate these ideals in my fandom experience, i understand that there are some people who just dont ever want to be near that fandom or someone in it for those reasons. i understand that some people have had shitty experiences with certain fanbases and cant tolerate interacting with someone in those fanbases.

i think its reasonable to say that i shouldnt be interacting with people if they say they dont want to be interacted with by certain fandoms. theres no fandoms im personally uncomfortable with, but if there were, i dont know if id necessarily be okay with being circumvented without my knowledge just so people could look at my posts. and, despite saying earlier that im not guilty about interacting with people who hate fandoms im in for stupid reasons, i also dont know if im qualified to judge what a stupid reason is or not! someone saying they hate a certain fandom and not saying why isnt "not a good enough reason".

but also… what they dont know wont hurt them?? its not like im befriending any of these people. i barely talk to people directly online (its just not my thing, im not a very social person), i basically just reblog and leave compliments on art and writing. its not block evading, because ive never been in a situation where someone tells me on one sideblog to not interact with them and then i interact with them from a different sideblog. since the sideblogs all only interact with the same fandom, nobody from other fandoms even knows they exist.

sidenote that this is purely about fandoms themselves, not about shipping problematic things or specifically engaging with problematic fandom content, because thats really not my thing.

tl;dr i have a lot of sideblogs, and sometimes ill interact with someone who says they hate a certain fandom despite being in that fandom. they never know im in that fandom and im not befriending them. aita?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

68 notes · View notes

amourduloup · 2 months

Note

Sorry if you've already talked about this before, but what do you think about the notion that horror is generally bad because it has a misogyny problem, and that exploitation / r&r films are problematic and the ppl who watch them are suspicious? i don't really know how to explain what i mean too well but i know you usually have very nuanced takes about this kind of thing 🤍

i think i understand what you mean, no worries 🖤

honestly i don't think horror has a greater misogyny problem than any other film genre, though how the problem presents itself may be different. it's maybe more blatant within horror but not necessarily worse. movies have a misogyny problem across all genres, i don't think horror is special in that. horror films do inspire some strong reactions though, so i can understand why it prompts more discussion in that vein.

rape & revenge is a particular case, and it's difficult to discuss. i have a lot of thoughts about it, but i find it hard to put it down in writing because they're not very cohesive. i actually did a little research and asked around for material about r&r because i wanted to give an informed opinion but i didn't find much. it'd be easier for me to discuss particular movies anyway, because i don't think i've explored the genre deeply enough.

there are some &r movies i really really love and i know some people watch them because they find the degradation of women titillating -- that upsets me but it doesn't stop me from enjoying or admiring the movie itself. some r&r movies are, in my opinion, really interesting and engaging and i'd go so far as to call them beautiful and thoughtful. of course for each of those you'll probably find a greater number of misogynistic drivel -- but i can't affirm that for sure because so much of my experience has been guided by what other women have watched, enjoyed and recommended, so i've probably avoided whatever didn't have much to offer. but then that's always really subjective -- for example, i don't care for i spit on your grave but my mom sort of loves it. i don't think her opinion is any less valid than mine, and i find opinions differ a lot when it comes to r&r.

i do have a question that i'd like to pose to you but also anyone else reading this, which is -- what you think of when you think of rape & revenge? do you consider only exploitation movies or do you also consider titles like the virgin spring or kuroneko? because of course there's a lot to be discussed about exploitation films, and how some directors managed to make genuinely interesting works while trying to remain commercial and please a certain audience. like, there are things in r&r exploitation films that i could do without but i can still admire the final result. but then sometimes i think of like, thriller: a cruel picture and how the pornographic scenes impact the movie in a way that i personally find interesting because it makes it all the more brutal, and the director really managed to make it all very non-erotic and even cold and distant... sort of going through the motions in a way that imo fits perfectly with what's going on.

but there's just so much to discuss about exploitation and about r&r specifically, a lot of my thoughts are not very cohesive or well informed. i'm curious to know how others feel about it, especially other women, and i'd love to discuss it more. but it's hard to give a solid opinion because i can see the matter through many different angles. like, of course the fact that r&r often targets a male audience while exploiting the suffering and degradation of women is a problem and reflective of a bigger one. but many r&r movies have genuine value and, more importantly, have real value to a lot women.

#idk i could go on and on without ever giving a final opinion ksksks i think there are many sides to this #and mostly i'm interested in women's varied opinions on these movies but like #i can say i've taken a lot from some r&r movies which remain personal favorites #asks

34 notes · View notes

pomplalamoose · 4 months

Note

Hey bae 🙏 do you think we could get something about turning sith!luke to the light side?💗

Hiii dear anon, thank you for your ask🩵

It's been a while since I received one and I'm sooo excited, especially since I get to talk about Sith!Luke, my beloved

I wasn't sure what exactly you wanted but I hope you like this discussion of possible scenarios anyways <33

• when it comes to turning Sith Luke back to the light, I think it really depends how and why he choose the dark side in the first place and what interpretation of him we're talking about

• if, for example, he turned during the original trilogy, you'd have to approach him differently than it would be the case if he grew up raised by Vader

• while his struggle to remain on the right path for himself and the galaxy is often highlighted in the movies and books, trilogy Luke never strays too far away from what Obi-Wan and Yoda taught him

• he certainly has his darker moments in which he considers everything he loves lost, but ultimately, even then, he'd rather sacrifice himself for the greater good than reach for the power Vader, and later the Emperor, offer him

• "Never. I'll never turn to the dark side"

• "Soon I'll be dead and you with me"

• so should he fall or, for whatever reason, deliberately make the decision to join the dark side, I see two possible ways in which this could turn out, his stubbornness and wish for justice and equity being one of the more important factors

• 1) he's convinced it's for the best and in favor of many

• it's hard to resist a seemingly easy solution in times of crisis, especially if it's offered in a tempting way and Luke is by no means unreceptive to manipulation

• however I do believe he'd realize his misconception rather quickly and so the most prominent thing keeping him from pursuing the light again wouldn't be his ignorance but his deep shame

• because of the weight he carries he's very hard on himself and no less so as a Sith

• consumed by the dark side he'd probably be less focused on improvement but on self doubt and hatred instead

• he may even go as far as to remain in this situation willingly as a way to punish himself

• not only would he think himself deserving of being miserable but also think it's for the better if he never comes near his loved ones again, afraid to hurt them

• here his stubbornness hurts him decidedly more than others because obviously there's still good inside of him, he just isn't allowing it to be there in favor of another misconception and self doubt

• ("I don't deserve to be around my family after what I did.", "Because what if I'm truly evil and don't know it?", "What if they fall victim to one of my mistakes and get hurt?")

• in this case it'd definitely be possible to make him see reason

• Luke is able to and eager to learn from the past, as well as adapt to a new point of view

• if he can believe it's for the best to join the dark side, he can believe the opposite once more

• it may need patience and coaxing, much affection, assurance and insistence but through your love (romantically as well as platonically) he'd be able to find himself again

• 2) his opinion of the galaxies political situation changes to such an extent that he's convinced his fall to the dark side is genuinely important in order to implement a just system

• I will be honest, I have no idea how that would even happen but let's stick with the idea anyways because we're taking about Sith!Luke here

• (maybe he was brainwashed???)

• in this scenario I imagine it to be rather difficult to make him reconsider

• not only is he now convinced of what he's doing is inherently good but also of the fact that the people not sharing his opinion have some devious plans to make those he's so set to protect suffer

• Luke firmly stands by what he believes in and while that is a wonderful attribute to have it's rather problematic when it's used for harm

• that man is ready to fight for his convictions and I see him defending them in a way similar to how he resisted the dark side in RotJ

• he's still Luke though and not stupid, I belive it still possible to reason with him especially if you're someone he admires or otherwise holds dear

• in order to get him to listen to you though you'll need time and patience to get under his skin

• now let's take a quick look at the interpretatiom of the Sith!Luke I write about

• to some extent he's still the same person as trilogy Luke but while they share certain traits, they turned out like opposites due to the circumstances they were exposed to during their lifes

• basically my Sith!Luke is a "What if Luke and Leia were raised with the dark side by Darth Vader"-version in which he grows up in a galaxy after the Empire defeated the Alliance and thus doesn't know anything about Jedi since they just,,,don't exist anymore

•(granted, this is a rather dark AU but I saw no other way in which Luke would act like he does in my fics, without any hope of him changing his ways)

• (there are of course works that discuss a different outcome, exploring Luke turning to the light side despite being raised as Sith, so it is of course a possibility if that's what he's set up to do)

• (I, however, like to center my Sith!Luke around the idea of just that being unthinkable since it's so far fetched and ooc for a person so full of light and good)

• (please keep that in mind when continuing to read, xx)

• this too is the only case in which I think it wouldn't be possible to turn him to the light side because the concept in itself is a foreign and outdated one

• it does exist, yes, and Luke is aware of it too, after all he's well studied and educated, has to be if he is to be the successor of his father

• but it is nothing that seems worth looking into further since the classical "fight" between good and bad is a thing of the past

• because while Luke may not agree with every political stance his family takes he knows he'll be the Emperor sooner than later, able to make changes as he likes

• in this regard, depending on the role you take on in his life, you might be able to slightly influence his decisions and/or his treatment of a certain group of people

• if you're important enough to him he'll listen to what you have to say, though he won't necessarily implement it into the system

• you are well advised to approach such attempts carefully though since you don't want him to suspect you of disregarding his status and position

• or, even worse, want to alienate him from his family and loved ones

• because no matter the universe, Luke would move worlds for those he cares for and accordingly (mainly Sith!Luke) grows easily suspicious when someone so much as questions their behavior, motives, etc. or insinuates to be against them

#ask #luke skywalker #luke skywalker x reader #star wars return of the jedi #luke skywalker x you #luke star wars #dark luke #dark luke skywalker #sith luke skywalker #sith luke #star wars #star wars fanfiction #star wars a new hope #star wars empire strikes back #star wars legends #star wars alternate universe #star wars headcanons #fanfic

36 notes · View notes

venus-is-thinking · 9 months

Text

A Narrative Defense of Eden Culprit Theory

Hello everyone!

As I’m sure many of you know, I, among others (notably @accirax, @1moreff-creator and @thebadjoe) believe Eden to be the culprit of the Chapter 2 murder case. I’ve seen a fair number of people say they aren’t convinced for one reason or another. While I fully understand people who don’t buy all the evidence/the insane contraptions we’ve come up with or people who are in denial, I was a little surprised at how many people I saw say that it would be bad writing for Eden to be the killer here.

While others are fully entitled to their opinions on who the killer is, I want to address this claim. Personally, whenever I’m reading a fangan, I always believe that I shouldn’t consider any killer to be “bad writing” until I see how it’s actually written. After all, there can always be a key twist you’re not expecting to make it actually make sense. Plus, in Eden’s case, I actually fully believe that all the building blocks of a narratively successful killer are already put into place. So, in this post, I’m going to attempt to back up my claim that Eden being the second killer actually makes narrative sense, and it isn’t bad writing either.

Because fangan writing is subjective and what any given author believes is the right move varies, I’ll be doing my best to support my claims with similar content from the canon game trilogy (given that that’s a pretty standard baseline) and from what we’ve already seen of DRDT thus far. That should (hopefully) give us some fair perspective into the sorts of narrative decisions the creator would want to make.

I’ll be going through various points at which I think something could or could not be bad writing, so hopefully that’ll provide some much needed structure to this theory.

Topic 1: Motive

I want to say this early: I do not think Eden is secretly evil. I think that in the context of killing games, “good” people can end up being killers, and I think that’s where Eden’s headed. I understand why, if some people have only seen Eden killer theories in the context of her being evil, they don’t like it. I don't like it either. I think it completely misinterprets her character.

For now, though, I want to talk about what motive she does have. There’s the fact that Arturo is threatening her, obviously. If she feels there’s a genuine threat to her safety, it would be decently reasonable to decide that, if her priority is her life, she’d rather try to get away with a murder than let herself be taken out by Arturo.

There’s another potential motive out there for Eden that might be enough to push her over the edge. That being, we know she cares a lot about her friends and relationships outside of the killing game too.

A lot of people, I think, have seen the theory floating around that goes “Eden is trying to leave to get back to the girl she kissed.” I’ve also seen it mentioned that this could be problematic, given that it could be saying “being gay = becoming a killer,” but I think there are several reasons why that doesn’t hold up.

First of all, we have a lot of canonically LGBT cast members. Nico is nonbinary, Whit is bisexual, and in the most recent Q&A, other characters such as Ace, Veronika and Eden herself were also all confirmed to be LGBT+. Given that Eden isn’t the “token gay character,” I think it’s a lot safer to make her a killer without sending the message “if you’re gay you’re a killer.”

Secondly, I think that there’s more to Eden’s motive than just whoever that girl is. I think the girl will likely be part of it and be relevant, given that it’s Eden’s motive secret. Because it’s the Chapter 2 motive, the motive secrets should play into things in general. But, it’s not like that girl is the only one from Eden’s past that she cares about, right?

Eden cares about her family, as we see in the scene where she talks to Levi. We know that Eden cares about her friends, as we clearly see within the killing game. We know that Eden cares about this girl. I think it’s safe to say that, for gay reasons or not, Eden has a lot of people she’d fight to get back to.

Rather than using her motive secret as the only way of justifying the “Eden wants to return to her previous life” motive, why don’t we look at other secret Eden content?

I’m talking about the secret quotes. I assume most people have heard about them by now, but basically, if you go to the characters’ profile pages on the main tumblr account and inspect elements, each character has a secret quote that you can find. Eden’s secret quote is “You can’t go back, no matter how hard you try.”

We haven’t really seen much of Eden trying to go back yet. I guess you could say that when she makes breakfast with Levi, she talks a lot about trying to get the group back together and back to normal, and that isn’t unrelated. Still, I think it makes a lot of sense if Eden is someone who’s focused on the past. After all, Eden’s talent is clockmaking. To the extent her talent influenced her personality/character themes, it seems like time is an important thing with her. Trying to turn back the clock and return to her life before the killing game would make a lot of sense thematically.

I suspect that Eden’s secret quote relates to the fact that she tries to go back to her previous life by escaping the killing game. “No matter how hard you try” definitely sounds like she goes to pretty extreme lengths, but she still fails in the end. That would be when she’s caught as the blackened and executed; she never gets to go back. It’s precedented for secret quotes to directly relate to how characters died; both Min’s “I wanted to save you” and Arei’s “Because that’s what friends do” tie into the way in which they arrived at their death. I could definitely see it being the same for Eden.

Interestingly, there’s another reason to consider that Eden might be extra-motivated to leave the killing game. That point is that Eden has been shown to be the main person fighting against the killing game. For example, she and Hu brainstormed ways to deal with the Chapter 2 motive.

That doesn’t really tell us anything though, right? It’s just trying to manage the killing game from within. That’s not it, though. It’s actually a repeated thing that Eden is constantly looking for ways to obstruct the killing game.

Even the plan to bore out the killing game, the one Veronika tells us couldn’t work because she’d get too horribly bored, originally came from Eden. I fully believe that there’s a reason we’re being told every other scene that Eden is working towards ending the killing game is that Eden has extra incentive to want the killing game to end, and that’s to try to return to the life and loved ones she left behind.

I also think it’s worth mentioning that, in the canon games, every single second killer commits their crime due to previous attachments that go beyond the killing game. Mondo kills because of the promise he made to his now-dead brother Daiya, Peko kills because of her allegiance to Fuyuhiko, who wants Mahiru dead due to the death of his sister Natsumi, and Kirumi kills because she’s actually the Prime Minister and needs to get back to her duties. Hell, Ryoma is even Kirumi’s victim because he doesn’t have previous outside attachments, which makes him feel like a more understandable victim for her crime. If you throw in “Eden has a lot of meaningful relationships back home and, here in the killing game, she misses them so badly that she’d kill to go back,” I don’t think it feels out of place.

This is pretty niche, but there’s also something I want to look at in relation to Xander and Min. Notably, the pinned comments by the official account in their bonus episodes.

Xander’s is “Someone who wants to hold onto the past.” Min’s is “Someone who wants to move on from the past.” While this trend doesn’t have to keep up, I think it would be interesting if every killer/victim pair had one of each. Arei pretty clearly wants to move on from the past where her sisters and classmates ruthlessly bullied her. Eden wants to hold onto it, hoping to return, but she can’t go back, no matter how hard she tries. Just an interesting thing to point out.

But Eden’s motive isn’t the only thing stopping people from believing she’d be a reasonable killer, right? There are other things to consider, too.

Topic 2: Story Arc

To be clear here, “Story Arc” refers to how Eden fits into the larger narrative and story of DRDT. I’ll be talking about her individual story and growth later on in the section labeled “Character Arc.”

For the most part, the larger narrative, at present, seems to be relating to Teruko and how she navigates her trust and relationships with everyone else. Eden is certainly a key factor in that, given that Teruko has basically acknowledged that outright.

Teruko actively tries to avoid being friends with Eden, given the fact that she’s very nice and it’d be easy for Teruko to be friends with her. To Teruko, that means she’d be opening up the door to get hurt to easily when Eden inevitably dies and/or betrays her. Wouldn’t it only be proving Teruko right if Eden were to become a killer?

Yeah. It would. And that’s the point at the story we’re at.

I don’t think it would make any sense for Teruko’s beliefs to be strongly challenged in Chapter 2. Like, at some point, I’m sure Teruko will figure out why it’s a problem to not trust anyone. After all, her secret quote is “It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust no one at all.” However, at this point in the story, things are going as she expects.

Think about it this way. Teruko believes that trusting people is opening yourself up for betrayal, and those who she gets close to will betray her and die. Let’s go through the people who have died so far, one by one, and see how they match up against that.

Xander: Was Teruko’s closest friend. Betrayed her by trying to kill her, then died. Check. Min: Was Teruko’s biggest supporter after she got stabbed. Betrayed her by actually being the killer, then died. Check. Arei: Previously shared Teruko’s worldview that being nice will just screw you over. Opened up and became friends. Had that friendship used against her to kill her. Check.

It definitely seems like, thus far, we’re validating Teruko’s worldview, basically as much as possible. No killer would validate her worldview more than Eden. That would make Arei an even closer parallel to Teruko (the person who she most tried to befriend was the one who tried to kill her in the end), and it would introduce another would-be friend as a killer.

Eden: Was Teruko’s biggest supporter after the first class trial. Betrayed her by being the second killer, then died.

It looks an awful lot like Min’s, right?

In a more predictive sense, there’s also the popular theory that Charles will be one of the Chapter 3 victims. If that holds true, it’ll be another example in the same wavelength.

Charles: Was more like Teruko and didn’t trust people, avoiding them to stay safe. After rejoining the group and beginning to trust people, he died.

If that prediction is right, it’d mean that the trend continues past the point of the second victim to the point of a third victim, which would mean that the second killer would likely fit into the pattern.

But that’s a whole lot of my opinion, right? After all, maybe Levi or someone who isn’t particularly related to Teruko is the killer, so Teruko stays mostly the same, too.

I do want to take a moment to acknowledge a bigger critique of this. It’s possible that some people might say that Eden killing here would be too repetitive in regards to Min and Xander. There are some key differences, though.

Eden was Teruko’s friend after she started being mean and closed off to everyone. Min and Xander never really got the chance to react too much to Teruko’s antagonistic antics because they died before she was really pushing people away. That means it would carry more significance. Teruko has also spent more time with Eden, so their relationship is a little bit more developed. Eden is also someone that Teruko actively tried not to get close to before she killed, which wasn’t true of Xander or Min.

Plus, I’d argue that it’s also supposed to feel a bit repetitive. This is what happens to Teruko, all the time. This is her life. It makes it feel more real and understandable how she reacts to Xander and Min if we as the audience begin to see and understand, oh, it really is like this every single time.

Besides all of that, though, there are a few more thoughts that lead me to believe that someone closer to Teruko might be the killer this time around.

One of the biggest points in favor of this interpretation is the MonoCredits.

MonoCredits are introduced in the scene where MonoTV asks Teruko to caulk the bathrooms. Then, she immediately uses one in the next scene where Charles is confronting her about her more antagonistic ways. At first glance, it seems like MonoCredits may have been introduced solely for that Charles interaction, and as a reason to plausibly get Teruko to help MonoTV out so that she could talk to it, too. However…

MonoTV gave Teruko two MonoCredits. That means she still has one. I wouldn’t blame you at all if you forgot this small detail– and that’s part of why I think the killer will be closer to Teruko.

MonoCredits, and the fact that Teruko received two instead of one, are a pretty unimportant detail. I wouldn’t expect the creator to necessarily expect the audience to remember that Teruko still has one once we get to, like, the Chapter 4 daily life. I think that, because of that, Teruko will probably end up using this second one sometime soon, so that the audience will have that “oh yeah!” moment when it comes up, rather than an “oh… I kind of remember that…?” moment.

There’s a very specific scenario in which I think Teruko might use it, too.

It’s pretty specific, but it’s already happened once, right? I think the most plausible situation for Teruko to use the second MonoCredit, if I’m right about it being this chapter, would be if she ends up in a similar situation before the execution again.

I can totally imagine Eden hugging Teruko and apologizing for betraying her trust, and Teruko, in the middle of freaking out, tells MonoTV she’s using a MonoCredit to get Eden away from her, which would then immediately launch into Eden being executed.

I think that could also be the right kind of push on Teruko’s character arc; her desire to get away from Eden led to Eden dying that much faster. It’d be something that could haunt Teruko a little bit and make her start thinking about how she pushes people away and what the potential failings of that are.

The final reason I have is just, like… overall despair. Chapter 2 is usually a pretty emotionally devastating case for the cast. Taka loses Mondo and Chihiro meets a pretty tragic end; Peko dying launches Fuyuhiko into his grief → survivor arc while Hiyoko mourns Mahiru; Kirumi leaves the group feeling guilty about killing the Prime Minister, plus Ryoma’s death as a result of him loving no one and no one loving him is pretty sad. Chapter 2 is typically a chapter in the canon Danganronpa games where things get worse, not better.

Then, Chapter 3 is used as a processing point where characters that aren’t in it for the long run are usually killed off, and Chapter 4 prompts the characters to start really moving towards the finale (Sakura’s death spurs people to want to fight and makes Byakuya realize why emotions are important, Gundham’s sacrifice sets the tone for Nagito’s insane Chapter 5 play and Gonta’s mercy kill in Chapter 4 directly leads into all the Kokichi “I’m the mastermind” stuff that happens in Chapter 5).

I suspect DRDT will follow a roughly similar pattern. Because of that, it would make sense if the creator wants to pick a very emotionally devastating second killer, frequently due to the relationships that character has with the cast. Eden is the perfect pick for this position.

Eden has also gotten A LOT of focus this chapter. Getting focus doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to die right then. After all, Charles, for instance, got a lot of focus in Chapter 1, but he’s still alive. It’s difficult to tell when a character is getting content that impacts their character moving forward and when a character is getting focus because their story is about to end.

In DRDT’s case specifically, though, the creator seems to heavily emphasize a character shortly before they die. Excluding Teruko, Xander was the most visible character in the Chapter 1 daily life. They focused on Min heavily during the Chapter 1 investigation to make sure that she got enough content in before her death. Between her fight with MonoTV, her heartfelt conversation with David, and the conversations she had post-death confronting David about his secret and defending Eden from Arturo, Arei got a lot of focus just before dying, too.

Eden is one of the most heavily featured characters, and to me, it feels more like one being set up for immediate payoff rather than long-term.

For example, David’s personality has shifted in a way that’s very interesting. People will want to see how his relationships with other characters are impacted and get to know the “real him” more before any potential death. Because of that, it makes sense that David’s heel turn is being set up for later, rather than being focus on him before he dies in Chapter 2.

Eden, on the other hand, has shown us pretty much everything she can with this perspective. If she’s already spent two chapters being nice, happy and supportive, where does she go from there that’s narratively interesting and different? The only answer I can really come up with is “becoming less nice, happy, and/or supportive.” If that’s where her character is heading anyways, then doesn’t it make sense that being a killer could be a succinct way to do it? We already have enough people running around who don’t trust people, and it would feel odd to add Eden to that contingent.

There’s one more story reason that Eden being the killer would make sense here. Check out the Chapter 2 title screen.

It’s pretty faint, but if you look after the “Glitters,” you can see faint text. It’s easier to see if you crank up the exposure.

You can tell what it is if you squint hard enough. Here’s me tracing it:

“A Good Person.”

The original chapter title is “All That Glitters,” which is pretty clearly a play on the saying “All that glitters is not gold” (RIP to anyone who just heard “all that glitters is gold in All Star by Smashmouth and didn’t question it. I was with you there). That seemingly applies a lot to this chapter, with appearances of success not being what they seem. It relates to the fact that J’s celebrity wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and David’s persona was too good to be true.

The good person interpretation is interesting, too. If you input “A Good Person” into “All That Glitters,” you get “A good person is not gold.” Now, there’ve been a lot of characters who’ve claimed to be or mentioned wanting to be good people over the course of this chapter. However, I think the person most at the center of that is Eden, who’s been called a good or kind person by a lot of people– at the very least, I know Teruko, Arei and Levi do this.

Eden being the killer would be another way to show that people can’t be infallibly good. Again, I don’t think Eden’s gonna pull a 180 and suddenly become evil, I just think she’ll show a little more nuance. Her being suddenly evil does about the same thing for me as her being undeniably good; it reduces her character down to one trait rather than making her a full human. I don’t want her to be a pure cinnamon roll, I want her to be herself.

Given this chapter title, I honestly think it’d be weirder if Eden didn’t do something notably Not Good this chapter. There could be other options, too, but Eden being the killer seems by far the most likely to me.

Topic 3: Relationships

I want to talk about Eden’s relationships to others in the cast. I’ve already mentioned Teruko a good bit, so I’m not really going to keep going over that. There are two others that I want to touch on.

One, Eden and Hu are known to be friends. They wash dishes together every night, and they generally seem to rely on each other for companionship and mutual help with steering the group in a more positive direction. Hu is someone who hasn’t gotten that much character arc focus, so I think she’ll probably be a bit more of a spotlighted character in the next daily life. Hu has already lost a friend and trusted co-leader in David, but I think it’d be even more interesting for her if she loses both of those people at once. With David in full-on evil theater kid mode and Eden dead as the killer, Hu will be forced to grapple with the fact that both of the people she trusted to help her guide the group not only aren’t helping her anymore, but did so in a way that betrayed her and her trust.

That’s very speculative, though. The main relationship I’m here to analyze is with Arei, the victim of the case in question.

Arei and Eden have a very complicated relationship. At first, they were pretty neutral. Then, after the cake scene, Arei appeared to be jealous of Eden and her friends for, y’know, having friends. Later, when Eden tries to invite Arei, Arei goes off on Eden and Eden runs out of the room crying. Finally, when Arturo threatens Eden into silence over his secret, Arei shows up and promises to defend Eden and do whatever it takes to assure her that her friendship is real.

This is pretty much the entirety of Arei’s character arc. Because we know that Arei is the second victim, I want to examine that in the context of the canon games’ storylines in Chapter 2.

Chapter 2 frequently deals with the concept of bullying. Kirumi’s kinda doing her own thing here, but if you look at Mondo/Chihiro and especially Peko/Mahiru (and all the lore behind that one), it’s pretty standard. Chihiro is someone who I’m pretty sure has been bullied, and Mondo fits the bully role well enough. SDR2 is the big one, though, with Mahiru being bullied by Natsumi, Sato killing Natsumi because of that, then Peko killing Sato under Fuyuhiko’s command in revenge, and THEN Peko killing Mahiru in the killing game as even more revenge. So, let’s look at bullying in DRDT Chapter 2.

The big and obvious one is Ace and Nico. Ace bullied Nico, and eventually they snapped and tried to kill him in revenge. That means that the creator, at least in this case, opted for a situation where the bullied kills the bully, rather than the other way around.

Arei also bullies Eden notably in Chapter 2, and now she’s dead. I’m not saying that it has to be the same thing, but I think it would be interesting to parallel Ace and Arei and Nico and Eden. Ace, with his fear of death, would have to process just how close he came to being a victim, seeing the same thing play out with Arei, who actually did die. Nico, who’s trying to dodge any actual blame for their crime, would see Eden get executed for doing roughly the same thing.

That’s something to address, though. What does this all mean for Eden? After all, Eden and Arei were friends now. It seems uncharacteristic of her to kill Arei for any reason. If I’m going to focus in on Eden’s character relationships, I really have to address that part.

Well, my answer is pretty simple. Eden simply didn’t believe her relationship with Arei actually changed. This might seem like an unfair claim at first, but if you look into it, it’s actually quite supported by the game.

Arei certainly thought Eden didn’t believe Arei’s sudden change of heart. She even goes as far as to call Eden out for it in the moment.

That’s not a very good argument though, is it? It disregards everything that happens afterwards, what with Arei explaining more and Eden hugging her and saying that her promise means “more than she knows.” It’s possible Arei convinced Eden during that second segment, so there’s not really any reason to believe that Eden didn’t believe her anymore.

Except…

Charles gets cut off by Whit here and immediately shuts up, which is played off as a joke. It is a joke, but I’ve noticed the DRDT creator is very good at putting in jokes that actually convey important information moving forwards.

The fact that the creator put in not one, but two references to Eden possibly not believing Arei makes me think there’s more to it than making a joke or moving dialogue along. Whit even phrases it as “you wanna do that later?” which might be a hint that we actually are going to come back to that point of conversation later.

For the record, I do think it’s also possible that Eden sort of half-believed Arei. She might’ve been committed to a murder plan by that point or something, so even if she thought Arei was being genuine, it’s possible she intentionally tried to convince herself Arei wasn’t genuine. That gets more into character interpretation, though.

Topic 4: Character Arc

This is the biggest one, in my opinion. If Eden is going to die here, what does her story say? Ignoring the big plot beats, Eden should get to have her own character arc, and if this is its conclusion, I want to look at where it went.

In the prologue, Eden is noted to stay positive, but she seems to be the most scared of the killing game itself. Here’s her slide from the official Prologue Recap video:

In Chapter 1, we honestly didn’t see too much of Eden. What we did see was mostly her being nice and friendly. It was also established that Arei picked on her. Here’s her slide from the Chapter 1 Recap video:

Notably, the creator paired all the characters up for Chapter 1. We already know Arei is going to be important to Eden’s story, whether she’s the killer or not. They did pair up Xander and Min though, so it’s not like it’s impossible that they paired a victim with their killer.

Anyways, that means that, going into Chapter 2, the things the creator wanted us to remember about Eden are that she’s nice, cheerful, and one of the people who defended Teruko. Through Arei’s slide, we’re also encouraged to remember that Arei picked on Eden specifically for baking. (Arei also manipulated Levi in that scene pretty heavily, but Eden is the one they want us to remember.)

Where does Eden’s character arc go from there? Well, I’d say that she basically doubles down.

Eden basically spends the chapter trying really hard to prevent conflict and stay friends/befriend everyone. She blackmails Teruko for the sole purpose of actually getting to hang out with her, she washes dishes with Hu, she makes breakfast with Levi, and she invites Arei to clockmaking to make sure she isn’t left out again.

That means that Eden’s story in Chapter 2 is that she’s trying to be the one to get everyone through this hard time.

Because of that, killing seems rather counterproductive. After all, Eden’s been trying to end the killing game on her own terms, right?

However, it’s possible that the message the creator wants to send us is that the cast isn’t currently capable of being entirely positive and friendly. While David pretended that the point of revealing all their secrets was so that they could get along, that was a lie. Eden being the killer would fit the messaging: with this cast, in this killing game, friendships aren’t a possibility right now.

Would it be a change in Eden for her to kill now? Yes, of course. That’s how it goes with killers beyond Chapter 1; something changes that prompts them to kill. Like I examined earlier, I believe the motive of getting back to her previous life, in combination with the constant fighting, Arturo's threats against her and her apparent inability to actually make a meaningful change in those around her, would be enough to get her to break and kill in this Chapter 2 position.

I’ve talked about motive, overall narrative, Eden’s relationships and her character arc. That’s pretty much everything, but there’s one more big point I feel I need to touch on.

Topic 5: Eden’s Breakdown

This is what I assume makes people have the biggest problem with Eden culprit theory from a writing standpoint. After all, this is a very emotional moment and feels very important for Eden’s character arc. If she’s the killer, it would all be a lie, and it would invalidate everything we learned about Eden from this moment.

Except, I don’t think that’s fully true. It’s very possible to have a killer have an emotional breakdown moment mid-trial that makes them seem more innocent, but actually very much relates to the fact that they did kill.

Even if she is a killer, I still believe Eden is a good person. Because of that, I think that she is genuinely haunted by Arei’s death, as well as Min’s. In fact, we know she’s haunted by Min’s death, before any of this Arei trial stuff happened.

Given the fact that Eden runs out of the room crying after this, I think it’s fair to say that Arei’s words stuck with Eden. Because of that, pairing it with Eden’s breakdown in the trial, we can conclude that Eden feels guilty for both Min’s death and Arei’s death. Because Min’s death wasn’t Eden’s fault, it’s easy to disregard both as her blaming herself for things out of her control.

It could be genuine this time, though. If Eden is the killer, at least some of that speech has to be fake (ex. When I saw that note, I knew someone must’ve overheard our conversation). However, what’s really interesting to me is what happens after the main part of Eden’s breakdown.

David goes on a little rant about how the victim would have to be incredibly stupid to actually fall for the note– or they’d have to be Arei, who wanted to be friends so desperately that she’d believe anything “Eden” told her. Afterwards, Eden says this:

This is Eden agreeing with David’s rant. The non-killer interpretation of this is that Eden is just repeating the same thing, saying that Arei died because of her and her weakness. But, if you look at it from a different perspective, the phrasing is… a little odd?

In her speech earlier, what Eden said boiled down to “I couldn’t defend myself, and because Arei was nice to me and tried to defend me, she died.” Then, David says, “Because Arei wanted to be your friend, she died.” That’s basically the same information and logic, right?

But Eden asks it as a question. Even though she said “it’s all my fault” earlier, this time she asks, “it really is my fault, isn’t it?” That means that there was something Eden didn’t know in David’s rant.

This could be several things, but I think the most likely thing is that, in my opinion, this is the point at which Eden realized that Arei was genuine about wanting to be her friend. Before this, she still wasn’t sure that Arei was being real, and that allowed her to proceed forward with her plan, keeping it together. However, once David, who got to see Arei in her breakdown, confirms that, yeah, Arei did that because she genuinely wanted to be Eden’s friend, Eden realizes that it was her fault.

Arei wanted to be her friend, but now she’s dead, and it’s all Eden’s fault.

Interestingly, immediately after that last line, Teruko starts talking, bringing us back to mystery-solving mode. However, if you look at Eden while Teruko’s talking, she’s sobbing.

Most of the time when a character is shown to the side, they’re left in whatever pose they were last in. For example, look at MonoTV making the :| face back there despite it having no relevance to the current point of the trial. In fact, MonoTV has that face for the entirety of Chapter 2, Episode 10. The last time MonoTV talked was in Episode 9, where…

Yeah, same face. It doesn’t change from there. My point is that, switching Eden’s sprite from the face-on, holding her wrist sprite to the sobbing and wiping her tears sprite is a conscious decision. They want to make sure we know that Eden is sobbing after that interaction with David. While that could be prolonged guilt from generally feeling at fault for Arei’s death, I think it makes more sense if it’s her coping with the fact that Arei did want to be her friend, and she killed her.

Conclusion

Well, that’s my defense of Eden culprit theory from a writing perspective. Hopefully it was fun to read, whether you agree with it or not. Again, my point here isn’t to shame anyone who disagrees or anything, it’s to provide reasoning for why Eden could be the culprit and to defend the creator’s decision if that is the truth of this case. I’d love to hear about any and all other killer theories as well in order to have the greatest chance of catching the real criminal.

#drdt #danganronpa despair time #drdt spoilers #fanganronpa #theory #thh spoilers #sdr2 spoilers #v3 spoilers #eden tobisa #arei nageishi #long post #drdt theory #thanks for actually reading gang #hopefully this gave some better perspective on why i believe eden could be the killer #and those who believe eden did it bc of evidence but not narratively hopefully this helped #i just feel bad if this is what the creator is doing and people call it bad writing #because it isn't and we haven't seen enough yet to deem it bad writing even if it was #but yeah. eden stuff

67 notes · View notes

kitkatopinions · 4 months

Text

Just saw this today

And for the record, I don't know the person who posted this or anything about them or the 'fix-it' thing that they left this on, but I do want to talk about this.

Because never have I ever in all my time following RWBY and being involved in the community ever seen ANYONE not ONE PERSON even someone I've blocked use dialogue like "drain the swamp" in regards to RWBY or "make RWBY great again" just as a first of all. Like this feels like the very definition of 'make up a guy just to get mad at.'

Second of all, how hard to people have to try to justify that their opinion is the Morally Correct One and anyone who doesn't adhere to it is an Evil Heartless Immoral Monster? Doesn't it get tiring? I can't believe I have to say this, but writing fix-it fanfictions???? Is not a 'conservative' or 'liberal' stance????? Whether or not you want to think a cartoon is one hundred percent perfect has nothing to do with what political parties you follow?????? And honestly, this is rich, fucking rich considering A. that one of the founders of Rooster Teeth is like a 'conservative centrist' if I remember correctly lol and one of the prominant anti-Rwde people compared not liking Trump to wanting to murder people lol.

It's just fucking ridiculous. I think I get what this person is trying to say - that venom towards a show with (supposedly) representation for women and specifically queer women is something they affiliate with bigoted Republican Trumpian types. But this is willfully ignoring that a LOT of the people who criticize RWBY are queer people, and/or women, and/or disabled people, and/or people of color, and it's willfully ignoring that the criticism is of a bigoted corporation and writers that are majority cishet men some with trackable histories of bigotry writing for a show that's problematic at best and only somewhat recently has been able to provide the bare minimum in SOME representation. Although I won't speak for all fix-it fics and have had some problems with some RWBY fix-it fics in the past, a lot of people who write fix-it fics for RWBY are intending to make RWBY three times as diverse and have more and better representation. And I am just so fucking sick of the fact that Miles 'Said the N Word as A Twenty Six Year Old' Luna is held aloft along with the likes of Rebecca Sugar or held up higher than her and queer women like me will be compared to TRUMP SUPPORTERS if we dare to say 'actually I think that RWBY could be improved.'

I really wish that I could get a gif of Neku from The World Ends With You saying 'screw that' because that's how I feel. Like honestly, what the fuck is that stance, bro? People need to go touch grass about this RWBY issue before the 'actually it's morally wrong to think a cartoon could be better in any way' mentality infects the entire internet.

#rwde #vent post

39 notes · View notes

bloomeng · 3 months

Text

my personal hot take bout izzy conversations is that you can critique his writing and his actions and i’m following but as soon as the word abuser gets thrown into the mix i’m not listening anymore

from my pov it really just sounds like ppl are mad that he threatens the sanctity of their ship which is a dumb reason to dislike a character IN MY PERSONAL OPINION and i’m not even saying that’s the reason why ppl have this opinion just that from my outside perspective it looks like ppl are reaching bc they feel like izzy threatens gb

which is a ridiculous notion considering gb is canon and was never not going to be canon and shipping izzy with either/both of them threatens nothing in canon and it’s literally just normal fandom behavior aka playing in the fanon sandbox.

it’s all so childish. the whole reason the canyon exists is childish (not the ppl who made it that’s really just curating a space online which that’s fine) like didn’t know it was ok to bully ppl who like a fictional character—who, side note, is way less problematic than most controversial characters??— you don’t like simply bc you don’t like him.

if you don’t like izzy hands. cool, i would’ve agreed with you five months ago. you’re free to enjoy gb with the majority of the fandom. shit talking a subgroup of the fandom is like the equivalent of high school mean girl behavior.

and the fact that izzy is the guy they picked to hate is so weird to me. i remember watching s1 and being like oh yah this guy is gonna be popular on the socials. he’s like the blueprint for the pathetic cringe fail moody loser older guy that fandoms eat up like hot cakes. he hasn’t even done anything egregiously wrong; fantasy violence, off screen mentions of killing peoples, saying mean things to the crew bc he was an antagonist. maybe if you were edward teach you could be personally upset that your closest… whatever they are… turned you into the british. when i tell you there are genshin impact villains more diabolical. least when ppl were arguing over hisoka from hxh i understood there were levels of nuance at play. but with izzy it makes me feel insane, like is this ppl’s first day in a fandom?

which tired argument bc liking villains doesn’t mean you condone their actions, but really what has izzy done that’s so unmoral that liking him makes you a bad person… in the eyes of the internet? it can’t be the violence bc that’s a dime a dozen literally it’s implied buttons has killed ppl with his silly teeth and no one hates him. (this is all a rhetorical question) it’s embarrassing to watch ppl make up things about him in order to justify why they hate him. like i’m telling you it’s ok to find him cringe and not like him. there doesn’t need to be a moralistic reason to dislike a character. they’re not real. well i mean in this case i guess he was real but like izzy hands from ofmd isn’t the real man who died hundreds of yrs ago.

which by the way criticism towards izzy’s actions on the show is perfectly fine it’s judging real ppl for liking him that’s the issue.

but as i’ve learned it’s too much to expect media literacy from the internet.

#ofmd #our flag means death #izzy hands #vent #txt

31 notes · View notes

twojackals · 9 months

Text

The End

This is a long one, but here's the takeaway: 1) Kemetic Orthodoxy / House of Netjer is no longer a safe place for anyone to 'be human' apparently (so if you want to be Kemetic and not be human, by all means, have at it), and 2) I am no longer a member of the House of Netjer Kemetic Temple or the Kemetic Orthodox religion in any capacity (including Remetj). I have formally resigned, and am better for it.

The issue

So let's talk about being religious or spiritual, but also being human. Because apparently, those two things can't exist in the same space, at least if you're a member of the House of Netjer.

Personal Support... or lack-thereof.

We used to have a space, up until a few days ago, in the HoN spiritual organization called "Personal Support". It was a place where people could discuss their personal feelings, trials, tribulations, and seek support from fellow members. Basically, it was a place to be human, in the presence of your fellow Kemetic Orthodox followers.

A couple of days ago, the administration decided to pulled the Personal Support channel (and also a political-esque channel called current affairs) because people's feelings cause too much trouble. Well ok, that's not entirely true. The real reason is "because HoN members can't act like fucking adults and just scroll past things they don't like", but let's put that aside for now.

I can tell you from experience, the pulling of that channel was on people's minds for years, and it tended to be less about what people posted, and more about the fact that people couldn't fathom just letting people talk and express without reporting content perpetually that they simply didn't like. It's a moderation burden, I definitely don't disagree with that, but not because of the content (at least not by-and-large, I would not blame the content to a degree of at least 90 - 95%).

At the time I was still a moderator, I was dead-set against removing that channel and the current events channel, as I believe spiritual spaces are human spaces first and foremost, and humans have emotions, and humans need and want to express those emotions among people they trust. Spiritual spaces should be one of those trusted environments. But there are still a lot of people (particularly old-guard) who want the space to be "strictly spiritual" with very little actual humanity in it unless it is related directly to Netjer.

That bugs me. A lot.

[Side note: They consider the "prayer requests" area to be a suitable replacement. Ah yes, a blessed tots-and-pears to you as well.]

What the hell happened (and why it's at least partially the community's fault)

One of the biggest reasons this was done in my opinion is because the moderation team is too constrained in what it is socially permitted to do by the community. This has been an ongoing problem for a very long time: the moderation team is unable to properly act because they are perpetually burned at the stake by the community, and no one does anything about that. Bullies run rampant as I've discussed in numerous previous posts. Essentially the moderators aren't given enough leeway to truly moderate, and that restriction actually doesn't come from the top -- the Board and even Tamara Siuda has always been supportive of the moderators doing what needs to be done, but the community is intolerant, and therein lies the real problem.

For example, part of problematic content in a place like "Personal Support" is violence in content, or illegal activity in content. The response to such posts should be swift: the first moderator to see it, should record and delete it. Logs are also automatically kept that cannot be deleted or modified by moderators anyway, so there is always a record of what really happened. In any other large spiritual or religious community, this is how moderation works: you act, and ask questions / flesh out the situation later. Protection of the community is paramount, and this also helps to control bullies who like to use things to their advantage to attack organization spaces and people. They start to learn that they aren't more powerful than the administration, which sadly wasn't true in the House of Netjer, and still seems to be the case.

But that's not how our moderation works. In our moderation system, the moderators are so petrified, so frozen, by the potential response by the community, they have absolutely no teeth. They will leave content sit will they discuss it for a week (exaggeration to make a point) and then, maybe, it will get removed. By that point, the damage is already done. What's worse is that if they do remove content, the community can go into an uproar, and the moderators are basically forced by a combination of the community being out of control, and direction from the higher-ups (*coughs*Tamara) to not keep curtailing conversations as it makes things worse (well it wouldn't if we had have set our boundaries and stuck to them to begin with, but whatever), to let that go on without intervention.

What I'm describing here is a community that has no idea how to accept being told "No", and what ends up happening, is that good things are taken away, to make moderation "easier" and to save face (something the House has always prioritized above all else). They want the place to not need moderation, so their solution is to remove the "human" spaces they think is causing all the uproar, where they perceive people could perpetually get themselves into trouble.

This is not the way.

Community Insults: allowed to stand in plain sight

This whole situation was then exasperated by a member calling out the personal support content as "adolescent angst" and calling people talking about abuse by friends/family "adolescent hyperbole", before finally stating that "mature adults" can't tolerate this stuff. Well last I checked, "mature adults" can keep on scrolling if they don't like the content, and moderators can reinforce that community standard by reminding people they don't have to report every iota of a thing they don't like, they can simply move the fuck on. I'm not saying some of the content wasn't angst or hyperbole, but I can say it is incredibly offensive to have a member say that in front of other members who are literally struggling with mental health on a daily basis, and really needed that channel to find support from their fellow members.

This exchange caused no fewer than two members to leave in short order, and honestly it is hard to blame them. Meanwhile, other honest, truthful feelings posted about the situation were removed.

The Johnson Amendment

This was all coupled by a lot of misinformation on the Johnson Amendment, and the reason for removing the current-world-affairs space as well as curtailing certain topics and feelings people can express via that means. So let's talk about the Johnson Amendment, what it is, and what it isn't.

What is it, what is prohibited:

The Johnson Amendment is a tax law. It explains that tax-exempt organizations cannot participate in, or intervene in favor of or against, any political campaign or political candidate. This means, for exmaple, tax-exempt organizations cannot collect political contributions on behalf of a person or campaign, or make statements to support candidates from any official organizational office (eg: from the pulpit for example).

The Johnson Amendment targets the organization and its official offices and officers, not general membership.

What is NOT prohibited:

General membership discussing politics, even in official spaces such as Churches

Voter registration drives

Voter educational activities

Preaching and teaching on social and political issues of concern

Publishing material that outlines political issues for voters

Political forums that do not explicitly endorse candidates or groups

How many organizations have gotten in trouble under this law?

Since it's implementation in 1954, one single organization ahead of the 1992 election was dinged. It was due to them taking out advertisements in newspapers calling on Christians not to vote a certain way (a clear violation of the amendment). In otherwords, your violation of the Johnson Amendment has to be pretty on-the-nose to get in trouble.

Where the problem lies for HoN:

HoN needs to get over itself. They are not about to become the second case in history to fall to the Johnson Amendment, particularly based on the content we used to have (which was not a violation ever of the Johnson Amendment). But the House has enemies. I'm not talking about critics (which are natural and necessary), I'm talking about people who actually want to direct harm toward the organization, its officials, and its membership. And there is that anxiety that is born of potentially a bunch of people getting together to report molehills, and eventually turning it into a mountain.

So I get it, I really do: No one wants to live in or inflict that anxiety. But there has to be a balance. Spiritual organizations serve people as a whole, not just "parts" of people. So as the House 'takes things away', I'd love to know more about what the House will be doing to give some balance to that situation.

Decisions like this do feel a lot like taking away the humanity of Kemetic Orthodoxy. We had one space where people felt free enough to just 'be an emotional human', and it was taken away. That does hurt on some level, it hurt people enough to leave, and I think taking it away rather than reformulating the idea of the space was probably not the right call.

Religious groups. have. social. spaces. online. You can go to huge religious forums and see things like spaces for different life stages, age groups, hobbies and interests, history, physical health, mental health, ethics, morality, news and current events, the list goes on. The fact that we can't figure out how to do that, with a fraction of the membership of other organizations, is concerning. We can't seem to figure out how to serve the community without restricting heavily the same community we serve.

I kind of hate that.

Final Thoughts

The House of Netjer no longer has any idea what it means to be human in my book. In previous opinions, I've often stated I felt the House of Netjer was still a safe space for people of the Kemetic persuasion to be, and I would even continue to recommend it to others.

That opinion has changed.

The House of Netjer is not a place you want to be if you want to be a Kemetic Polytheist, and definitely not if you want to be human while doing it. The House of Netjer is ableist at the very least and is in the habit of protecting bullies and liars. They've also shown to be American-centric, racist, and classist over the years as well, things which I wish I would have paid attention to a long, long time ago. My feelings right now is that everyone who has ever donated a dollar to this organization has been duped by Tamara Siuda into paying for her living expenses, and not much else.

If you're wondering why I'm saying this while still being a part of Kemetic Orthodox membership: don't worry -- I'm not. I've formally resigned from the ableist organization called "House of Netjer" who has been traumatizing people, or allowing them to be traumatized, for 20+ years.

I do wish a lot of people the best within the organization, and I wish them all the luck in the world for reorganization. They are having voting soon to put at least I think two fresh faces on the organization's board, so if you are still in the House of Netjer and still holding out fucking hope it's going to be anything other than a shit-show: choose and vote wisely. Some people are listening to you more than others.

#kemetic orthodoxy #house of netjer #netjer #kemet #kemetic #kemeticism #polytheism #paganism #rant #feelings #humanity #support

58 notes · View notes

sheydgarden · 1 year

Note

Question: I am ethnically Jewish, though not culturally (complicated family history). I read your book on the roots of Antisemitic origins of Solomonic magic and wanted to ask:

If working with the Ars Goetia as entities themselves may be problematic: could reframing and restructuring the paradigms to re-imagine the listed demons and create new demons to work alongside be a better solution? I do enjoy the recent demonological work I’ve started but seeing some of the origins, it makes me wonder if my workings could be adjusted by basing my rituals in values I personally have and reframing it away from the work found in Solomonic Texts.

You had said in your Zine you yourself had worked to strip the Antisemitism from the Solomonic Imagery and parts of the practice and I was wondering if you had any advice on that process because I do find it fulfilling to ritually work alongside entities like this but am wondering how to do it in a better way?

hi! i'm gonna answer this one publicly so that i have something to refer folks to here when they ask me this same question (which i've gotten before), hope that's cool! also, apologies for the length of reply, but that's what happens when you open this particular box with me, haha.

i'm just gonna give it to you straight (and this is my opinion, of course, i know there are plenty who disagree with me! but you asked me) - i don't think there's anything you can do to "Solomonic" magic to render it not antisemitic. the antisemitism isn't a nasty veneer you can scrape off to get at some good stuff underneath - it's baked in. the entire premise of a book about a "powerful Jewish magician" who worked with Christian demons (who themselves are just a mish-mash of names & concepts from various cultures) is antisemitic. in the case of the Lesser Key specifically, we're talking about a book most likely written & distributed by Christian clergy (that's who had access to the education & tools required!) who were at the same time actively contributing to Jewish genocide. it's the foundation of the thing.

when i talk about my sigil artwork that uses grimoire-inspired imagery, i'm talking purely about holding onto an aesthetic, a visual language of lines. i can take out antisemitic visual signifiers easily because i'm only working with an image out of context. i don't think it's possible to remove antisemitism from the concept or the practice of Solomonic/ceremonial magic, at least not without completely altering it at its core - and then why bother basing anything on it at all? (i'm a Jew, not a western occultist, so i haven't tried)

i think really considering what exactly it is you've been getting out of this might make things clearer for you in terms of how you want to proceed. if it's the "Jewish" flavor, there's a whole world of actual Jewish folklore & mysticism, complete with demons of our own - you mention having Jewish ancestry, but not being culturally or religiously Jewish, so i would definitely recommend making a connection to Jewish community & learning a lot before you dive into any kind of Jewish spirituality. if it's just the concept of calling on entities via ritual work - why these? why not your own inventions? the demons listed in the Lesser Key were pretty much invented during the Renaissance, even if some of their names come from older sources. occultists combined, embellished & invented them to fit into a Christian theology, using a faux-Jewish origin story in order to lend them both more credibility (in a time when Jews were literally equated with demons!) and some spicy exoticism. i'm pretty baffled as to why so many folks still want to base a spiritual practice on that, beyond the fact that they're considered cool and/or sufficiently edgy if you grew up Christian.

if i'm being more blunt here than i was in the zine, it's because we're solely in "personal opinion" territory, and my honest opinion is that whatever folks find enjoyable about ceremonial magic could be better put to use in a framework that leaves Judaism alone entirely (and either honestly calls itself Christian - which it historically is - or creates a new cultural/religious system to operate under). i hope this was helpful - thanks for taking the time to read it!

#asks #antisemitism #FYMA: a lesser key

165 notes · View notes

yellowloid · 8 months

Text

you knew this was coming. buckle up because this is going to be long and boy oh boy do i have things to say. i actually have so many things to say i don’t even know where to start. jesus.

this fandom’s ability to take drama and turn it into discourse that makes absolutely zero sense and involves people that have nothing to do with the original drama never fails to amaze me. the fact that people here are now taking the whole louise drama from a couple of days ago and dragging miles into it by overthinking their way through possible (see: made up) scenarios about people we know absolutely nothing about is astounding. people blaming her for defending herself against haters and saying she’s basically spoiling the end of the tour for us and the band, people being scared that the recent drama will influence miles and alex’s interactions in ireland (which – again – doesn’t make any sense considering their friendship has nothing to do with random people hating on louise on ig and her responding to that hate), which feels exactly like people making up conspiracies about the whole paparazzi drama back in august when i had to read with my own two eyes of people being scared that she staged the whole thing just to “boycott” or steal away the attention from the release of one man band, since it was only a matter of days before it’d come out. which is absolutely insane. (edit: i BET some people will drag miles into the new paparazzi thing. i just know it. mark my words someone’s going to do it)

now don’t get me wrong, you are absolutely entitled to your opinion on louise as a person and as alex’s girlfriend. i don’t really like her myself. she’s a human being and some kind of “celebrity” or rather public figure, so it’s only normal people either like or dislike her. that’s okay. but going from innocuously disliking her to actively villainizing her for everything she does, claiming she’s basically the worst of all girlfriends and basically saying her existence and involvement with alex is ruining everything about the band itself (to the point that you wish they’d do something as drastic as disbanding), alex’s relationship with miles and/or your experience as an am/alex fan is just… odd. it reeks of misogyny. and mind you, i’m absolutely not saying she’s faultless, because she very much isn’t; i can’t stand the way amtwt goes about idolizing her, putting her on a pedestal and acting like she’s an angel (very much like amanda and matt do on a daily basis), because no one is. she did some problematic stuff in the past, not to mention the start of her relationship with alex was ambiguous as fuck, their whole relationship is a big, frustrating question mark and yes, maybe she could handle the hate in a different way than the one she usually goes for. but that doesn’t mean she’s the fucking devil. it doesn’t mean she’s an absolute evil mastermind who brainwashed alex and everyone else in his social circle while also trying to boycott miles and milex in her free time simply by existing in alex’s orbit.

first of all, if we really want to compare her to other girlfriends, let’s at least get the facts right. she’s far from being the first girlfriend who responds to “trolls” or however you want to call them. back when she was with alex, taylor was out there calling people cunts, telling them they didn’t have a life because they spent their time on the internet running fanpages about her boyfriend’s band. she called fans delusional, went off at milex shippers; she called herself ari*n, basically said reverse racism was a thing, and refused to acknowledge she was in the wrong when confronted about it, instead calling people ignorant and basically just going on block sprees. now of course louise has done some shitty stuff too – the rape/racism jokes were disgusting and she also goes around blocking people, but the biggest insult she’s thrown at people is “ignorant” or something along the lines of “get a life”. she hasn’t really beefed with fans to the extent that taylor did – this woman literally called her boyfriend’s fans cunts without a social life because they had fanpages about him and probably left some kind of hate comments on her because they didn’t like her, and she very comfortably forgot that the very people who ran those fanpages were the ones paying for her boyfriend’s bills and her luxurious LA lifestyle. far be it from me to defend louise – because she’s just living that same life in a different font – but if you think she’s toxic, horrible, bitchy, you name it, then i’m sorry to break it to you but you wouldn’t have survived taylor fucking bagley.

with the recent drama, she defended herself much better than taylor would’ve ever done, because she’s not as aggressive. she addressed it and said something that some people aren’t ready to accept – that she’s a human being that has every right to be with him, like all the other girlfriends did. and whether we like it or not, that’s true. she might not be anyone’s favourite (definitely not mine lmao) but 1) just because she’s dating him now, in the present, doesn’t mean it suddenly makes everything his previous girlfriends did (notably taylor) absolutely innocuous, while she’s the wicked witch of the story just because she’s here now – please stop idealizing the past and start being rational about the present; and 2) this should go without saying, but i’ll say it anyway: she still doesn’t deserve to be publicly and constantly harassed on her socials just for living the y/n life she was lucky enough to create for herself thanks to the right connections and whatnot. you can gossip all you want in private, in your group chat with your friends, on twitter, tumblr, whatever space you want – provided it’s a fandom space. created by fans for fans. where none of these people will ever set foot, and if they do, then it’s on them. but not under her own posts or comments on ig, where everyone included her can see. that’s just nasty, and i don’t particularly like to say it but i’m on her side on this. she has every right to defend herself and no matter what you think of her, no matter what she did in the past, she still doesn’t deserve the constant public harassment people put her through. people on ig really need to learn how to be fucking decent human beings.

also about her controversies. the fact that she apologized for liking those “””jokes””” on ig years ago is meagre comfort, yes, but 1) what she did is still “”“less””” problematic than what taylor did, because taylor said all those things herself, louise “””only””” liked posts made by others. obviously i’m not saying that makes it okay, because it certainly doesn’t, but at the very least she apologized for it, while taylor never did – or i mean, she did once she was out of the spotlight, made irrelevant by alex dumping her and finally in her “new me” healing hippie era. we all have every right not to accept either of their apologies, but the idea that celebrities that did some ""“minor”"" problematic stuff in the past don’t even get a chance to genuinely regret their actions and apologize for them and at least try to better themselves is a direct consequence of cancel culture (which is utter bullshit) and in this case – you guessed it! – the result of pure misogyny. because we accept an apology from a man like miles (who, like it or not, did make those inappropriate comments to that interviewer and we can’t pretend he didn’t) but we refuse to accept it from them. and mind you, i’m not saying we shouldn’t accept miles’ apology – i’m his fan too and i do genuinely believe he regretted doing that. i’m also not saying we should accept their apologies just because they’re women. i’m just saying the double standards are through the roof, and that’s really interesting food for thought.

speaking of men. i’m a fan of alex, the band, miles, all of them. i love them. i also know they’re not only human beings, but also celebrities and rich white men. just like we don’t know their girlfriends, exes or whatever, we also don’t know *them*. we can have an idea of what they might be like, but we’ll never know how they really are backstage. like every public figure, their stage/celebrity personas are not a direct reflection of what they really are in private, because to an extent, the way they present themselves to us is part of the business. we are not entitled to their private life, and all we can do is speculate. that being said, the fandom’s tendency to idolize, idealize, and either sanctify or villainize them as well as their social circle is just so… ugh. especially when we go from general am discourse into milex waters, where the fandom theories and fanfiction influence seem to blurry the line between fiction and reality. are we all aware that theories are just… theories, right? that no matter how much they make sense we have no way of knowing if they’re true, and actually we might all be very much delusional? we all know that and don’t actually take those theories as 100% truth that’s set in stone… right? because some people seem to not be aware of that. with the milex theories as well as the ones about the way alex’s relationship with louise started (which, again, is all about double standards but i’ll get to that in a minute).

i do believe there was something between miles and alex; i also believe (unrelated) that alex cheated on taylor with louise and that’s how their relationship started. i don’t believe she’s a beard like some people are so adamant on saying (about that, there’s also some very thinly-veiled biphobia in some of those beard statements but i’m not going to talk about that now). i also believe louise wasn’t the only one alex cheated with - because if we believe that him and miles were romantic back in 2015-2016, then he was definitely cheating. no way taylor would’ve allowed that. she literally hated milex shippers and the idea of what their existence might have been implying. however, some people’s tendency to only see things as radical black or white/good or bad is concerning. people villainize and basically slut-shame louise for “stealing” alex from taylor, or miles, or even alexa despite the fact that they broke up an eternity ago; but fail to hold alex accountable for the fact that he was ultimately the one cheating. she was in the wrong for pursuing someone in a relationship, sure; but he was the one who fell for it and actively did the cheating on his at the time girlfriend. and yet people either ignore that, or just take out all the blame on louise for “manipulating” him into cheating. if (and again, this is just speculation) he really cheated (which probably wasn’t the first time with taylor as well as probably other girlfriends lmao) they were both nasty for it, but he was worse than her. taylor was annoying and rude to fans, but one thing’s for sure – she really loved him and she didn’t deserve the way he ended up treating her. obviously we don’t know how things really went, but my guy here definitely isn’t innocent, yet people throw all the blame on louise for what happened (hence the double standards i was talking about), like he wasn’t a grown ass man who could’ve just kept his dick in his pants but instead decided to be an asshole to the woman he was with.

with milex, roles are reversed. a lot of people here seem to be 100% convinced that theories are 100% real, that what you read in fics is exactly what happened between them, and that by default things can be very roughly simplified as alex = evil bitch who broke miles’ heart and miles = perfect little angel ray of sunshine who never did anything wrong and does nothing but suffer for said bitch who doesn’t deserve him – basically villainizing one and sanctifying the other. like alex is just a depressed and repressed whiny baby while miles is his boyfriend against all odds uwu or alternatively his emotional punching ball. the tendency this fandom has to woobify them in different ways is definitely something. and i’m not talking about fanfiction, because you can characterize them and their story however you want there (it’s fiction for a reason), but here it’s about real life. if you’re going to drag the real miles into the recent drama involving the real alex and the real louise, when – again – he has absolutely nothing to do with it, then at the very least treat all of them like the actual people they are, not some extreme caricatures of what their fanfiction personas are. because those are real people we’re talking about, and it’s essential to differentiate between fiction/theories and reality. regardless of you “shipping” alex with miles, taylor, alexa or anyone else. those are real people. none of them are angels, none of them are to be put on a pedestal. all of them are human and they probably fucked up more than a couple of times in their lives. hell, it would be weird if they hadn’t! their experiences are nuanced because they’re – guess what! - real life experiences, and not being able to recognize that nuance and analyze it at such, instead reducing everything they do or say to either black or white, good or bad, angel or devil behavior is… incredibly naïve to say the least.

Having said that, and regarding the recent drama (but also the paparazzi thing), trying to “protect” the real miles from controversies that don’t regard him by babifying him and spitting out his name in discourse where his name has never even been taken into consideration (because, for the millionth time, that drama has nothing to do with him) ultimately ends up having the opposite effect. by putting his name where it doesn’t belong (that kind of fandom discourse) you’re dragging him into it without even having a concrete reason to do so. by trying to “make sure he doesn’t get involved” you’re dragging him into things that aren’t about him when no one was even saying they were about him to begin with. and then people like the ones you find on amtwt that hate him/milex see those posts, and they use it as ammunition to hate on him and milex even more. you claim louise and amanda are feeding the trolls while you’re literally doing the same - feeding miles, milex and yourself as a shipper to the amtwt trolls lurking here who idolize louise and are just eagerly waiting to find a “crazy milex shipper” post to screenshot and bitch about on twt, jumping on the train of you making miles’ name so that they can talk shit about him, milex and milex shippers. it’s like serving it to them on a silver platter. you end up doing the very thing you were trying to prevent.

we can admit that celebrities make mistakes because they’re human beings like everyone else, while also believing they can genuinely change for the better and learn from said mistakes. you can also like/dislike someone without idolizing/villainizing them to the extreme. once again, it’s real people we’re talking about, and real people as well as real life experiences are all about nuance. we can gossip all we want, but we’re never going to know the truth about them, what they do and why they do it. most importantly, they’re never going to be perfect - and holding them to such an unrealistic standard is guaranteed to set you up for disappointment.

#i'm sorry if this is long and rambling but i can't just shut up about this and move on. i know it's just stupid discourse but jesus #i swear i can't with this site sometimes #if you're THAT affected by louise's existence to the point of wishing miles would stop hanging out with alex or alex's friends or even >#> wishing the band would disband altogether then i'm sorry to break it to you but the problem is not them #similarly if you're so fed up and done with alex/am then don't be shy. the door is right there <3 #ramblings

48 notes · View notes

majaloveschris · 5 months

Note

Maja I think I understand why some people believe this marriage is PR but from my point of view it's just people's way to try to cope with the fact that Chris is not the man they thought he was, so they try to paint it like he was "forced" to be in this relationship like he's not a millionaire who can do whatever he wants with his life...see I could write an entire essay about "why this makes sense" but I honestly think it wouldn't matter 'cause people will believe what they want to believe, I guess once the rose colored glasses are off people will finally see the obvious reality in front of them which is, he married a younger woman just like most man in Hollywood and he's happy with his choice otherwise he wouldn't have married her, and he's talking about his marriage and showing off his ring at every opportunity because he wants everybody to know that he is a married man, that's why all the articles about the wedding and so on...now I don't know how long this relationship is going to last due to the big age difference, only time will tell.

I see where you are coming from, and I agree that one of the reasons why it's so hard for some people to believe in this being real is because it would be hard to accept that he is okay with their behavior or that he is just like them.

However, I find it simply impossible that he would've been able to keep his true side hidden. And I don't care how good Disney's PR team is; there is now a way, in my opinion, that he would've been able to act like a whole different person for the last 20+ years, every time, in every situation. I know we don't know him personally, but I think his being racist or antisemitic would've made quite a buzz. And he wouldn't have friends or wouldn't have dated someone if he despised something in them; that is a really determining attribution to the person they are.

If there is a contract, he is indeed "forced" to be with her if he doesn't want to have its consequences, and I'm not talking about paying a certain amount of money, but other things too, which I won't mention since I don't want to give ideas. He could've been, however, pressured into this PR shitshow by his team for whatever reasons. If it's PR and if there is a contract, then yeah, he was stupid to get involved, but that is Hollywood, and people have done way worse things for roles or money than being involved in a PR relationship. So yeah, if it's fake, he was stupid to sign anything or to think it's a good idea.

What you don't understand is that most people have bigger problems with her than her age. See, their age when they met (23; 39) is problematic since she was in her early 20s, and if there wasn't any other problem with her, maybe I would also be fixated on their age gap. But the biggest problem, and why a lot of people don't support their relationship, is her and her friends' behavior. Their antisemitic, Nazi-supporting, fatshaming words and their immaturity are the biggest problems. People (women and men both) get married to younger or older people every single day, and while I don't agree with most of those, here we have much bigger problems.

But why does he want people to know it this much? Why? Why does a relatively private guy need this much buzz around his relationship when he hasn't felt the need for it for years? What are they trying to prove? That they are legit? Or that they are happy?

Considering everything that has happened and how they look when they are around each other, I'd rather believe this is fake than that they are happy together or that he is like them.

#majaloveschris #chris and alba pr #chris and alba relationship #cevans-love

39 notes · View notes

lexygabe · 6 months

Text

queen bee aka elmatagirl critical post

i know this appeal will be useless as hell but i felt an urge to do it so i will try to explain to you how stupid "how me being straight woman has anything to do with my [gay] ships" argument is. and maybe not stupid per se but definitely harmful.

and before we start i am fully aware of the whole defense line elmatagirl will use to justify herself, so even if there are some lgbtq people that followed you and support you and don't perceive what you do as problematic it doesn't mean that my opinions and opinions of most of the supablr are less important. so pls don't use "but my lgbtq followers like what i do and they are not touched by what i say" argument bcs it's not an argument in this case. let's use example of your beloved feminism which isn't a thing we are talking about but you like to bring this up whenever somebody calls you out on what you've done wrong. if there are women who are saying that something is very misogynistic and man replies with: "but i have multiple female friends and they are not offended by that" it doesn't change the fact that by some people it will be seen as misogynistic. it's about finding the golden middle.

the next argument elmatagirl will probably use is that "she has depression and she has severe depression" and i'm sorry but for me it doesn't change anything. for me even if she had multiple other disorders it wouldn't stop me from telling her: miss, you speak bullshit. and maybe now i will be perceived as heartless but idc everybody who lives more than one year in internet know that NOBODY cares what you are suffer from. and i mean nobody. if somebody will like to criticize you (in more radical spacies pour out hate on you) they will do it and nobody cares if you are at your lowest or not and i also don't care. i just think that if somebody is making 0 sense about particular topic they are talking about i have this power as a rando from internet to tell this person they are wrong.

and the last argument that isn't argument but i know elmatagirl will want to use it is anything feminism related. we are not talking about this. we are not talking about what you witnessed as a feminist. bcs it's not conversation we are having now. for me you could even be the one of them the first suffragists but if you were doing something that is considered as slightly homophobic i wouldn't care.

so since we have everything explained i can back to what i wanted to say.

"how me being straight woman has anything to do with my gay ships" i think you all are familiar with phrases: "male gaze" and "female gaze" and it has very good reflection in our case but instead of "male/female" we have "straight gaze" and "gay gaze".

for me and for the other people i know "straight gaze for straight women" are in most cases mlm ships with two attractive men included. and where is the problem? the problem is right there, because said ship was supposed to be for this two male characters (let's not start conversation if this two characters have good relationship/toxic relationship/or fall under proshipping line, bcs that's what i'm gonna talk about in next paragraphs of my essay) AND FOR TARGET GROUPS but instead of being made for target group (let's say lgbtq community by default and if we want to be even more specific so it is for other mlm people) it become pair to make straight women comfortable. and this is the problem because whole the gay couples finally represented in media wasn't made for straight women to feel comfortable in their little cozy beds to think: "oh gay people are not so different than us/oh why gay people are always the most attractive ones", i would even say if you are straight and cis and you are obsessed with gay ships and projecting everything what you feel on these characters (yeah it also applies to making hundreds of fanarts when you are strangely always in the middle, between this two characters), when one of them you headcanon as homosexual (in elmatagirl case this is el matador), then you are fetishizing it.

and what is fetishization? fetishization is excessive fascination/sexual fantasies about things that aren't sexual by definition for example: identity, race, religion or body parts that aren't private. and we are focusing on the first instance.

oh my gosh we have a lot of to talk about here. firstly, i would like to focus on... weird fanarts of elmatagirl and i'm not talking about nsfw ones bcs yeah they are nsfw and even if i don't like them i'm not gonna talking about them here.

there was a famous redrawing of - i don't remember now if this was comic panel or scene from the show but it doesn't matter - el matador.... i don't even know how to put this in words, el matador tied in... el marador tied in this position......

(gabe and their digital painting skills)

and what can i say.... if she just idk make joke about it, then it's okay i probably also made comment about this kind of scene BUT ALSO MOVE ON AS SOON AS THIS JOKE MET WITH LAUGHTER FROM MY AUDIENCE and not started making whole ass fanart with sexual subtext of my favourite gay boys because from context of the show this scene wasn't made to be sexual, it was meant to be funny/visual gag etc.

"why gay men are always the most attractive men?"

it may sound innocent and yeah it is, because i also can say that some gay man is in my eyes attractive and deal with the fact that he doesn't look at me as his possible partner bcs i'm non binary who doesn't identify with - let's call it - "male gender role". but again i move on from this interaction and not run whole page with my two little gay boiiis suggestive content bcs it's suspicious

and again my fellow gay men of supablr can correct me because i'm not mlm, but i think that meeting with this kind of excitement from straight women would be very weird. i can't make example of my situation bcs im bisexual but if i was ever in established relationship with a woman and some dude would say to me that women in lesbian relationships are the hottest ones and then i would discover that he runs whole social media profile with only wlw ships in which he also includes himself i would give him a fucking stroke like man, you are super weird. i don't see you as an ally, i see you as a weirdo.

proshipping/toxic mlm

now we will be walkin on a thin ice so if someone doesn't feel comfortable with this kind of content i want you to scroll till next point written in bold font

proshipping is when a person supports shipping in general. no matter if two or more characters have huge age gap, are related to each other(it also applies to adoptive families), have bully/victim | abuser/victim type of relationship or one of them or more are minors in relationship with an adult(s)

and i want to talk about dingarra here. dingarra is ship between skarra and dingaan and like i said in one of my prev posts this is clearly an abuser&a victim relationship and i'm sorry no matter how many headcanons you made about it it's still abusive relationship. and if somebody make an argument that idk they have each others phone numbers or skarra handed dingaan a fucking toilet paper in episode 293719191 - i'm gonna get violent. i'm not joking i'm gonna get violent.

and if it's wrong to ship toxic ships? surprisingly no, BUT ONLY if you are aware of the fact that they are toxic. like people for a reason ship hannigram and i don't know batman and joker because they like their fucked up dynamic, are into character study or just think that in weird VERY VERY WEIRD way they match each others energy.... BUT NOBODY ROMANTICIZE THIS. ofc there are some people that think these type of relationships are the height of romanticism but still there is common belief that this ship is toxic for fuck's sake

............................

and shador

i don't know where el matador in rookie season is looking like 18 or 19 year old. i seriously can't see that but ofc i am the delusional one

and at the end of the day

being over excited because two fictional males is super duper weird

#supa strikas #supablr #supagram #anti shador #anti dingarra #elmatagirl critical

45 notes · View notes