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floralkittygambler · 3 years

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RadioDust is the Healthiest Toxic Ship for Angel so far

@honesthazbinarchives Briefly. I’d like to go into this more in the future BUT these are the main points I said I’d do. Heh ‘stay tuned’ for why HuskerDust is toxic [haaaa funny fuckin reference n shit like Viv herself aint overdone it]. Yer dont even wanna know the lack of enthusiasm in tryna do a playful ‘cringetopia’ joke - wasnt as fun as anticipated. Anyfuckinways, the shit. Before we begin, disclaimers n whatnot, no hate intended, dni if you’re a bit of a knobhead [either stan or extreme anti], an all that nonsense. I dont own the characters no shit. In this I’ll discuss how RadioDust aka SpiDEER (thats right, yer stuck w my shit humour now) is both the healthiest ship for Angel we’ve seen so far but still rather toxic. Idc if you hate me for it but dont fuckin waste yer time telling me. Great. I dont care. Yer fuckin hard n whatnot for harassin strangers online. Big dick energy to you. This will be slightly messy, my apologies, it’s a quick summary of many points.

Alright. Firstly, out of the entire male cast Angel interacts with over all platforms, Al is given a fair bit of mercy in terms of sexual advances. In fact, a swift ‘no’ and Angel doesn’t do it again - unlike most of the other cast [pent’s is covert, husks is overt]. One thing I like is that Angel himself admits to their chemistry (claiming that whilst he thinks Al’s a prick, he thinks Al dislikes him which saddens him as he’d at least like to be friends as he feels they have good chemistry - according to the VA via Hunicast’s 1yr anniversary), there’s no further efforts to jump on his dick but a clear curiosity/interest in what Al can do. Lets go to the basics, both are of similar age [allegedly in their 30s, though Ive heard Al may be up to mid 40s] as well as created near the same-ISH time (as in, Viv’s oldest characters, at least for HH). Likewise, Viv admitted to knowing fuck all on either of their eras (and to make that public wasn’t really a wise choice BUUUT if you felt the need, it’s better worded with interest “Right now I’m working towards educating myself more on their time periods to improve their portrayals” <-- crucial if yer want that ‘realism’). Because of their real-world ages, Viv confesses they’re her favourites (even if you didnt know, she makes it pretty clear). It could be a nice ‘homage’ to their impact in her life but not too relevant otherwise. It could fulfil the need for self indulgence that she’s unhealthily leaking into the canon - which will ultimately make the series shit. No sugarcoating there. As for their ages, a relationship can work whether the gap is large or small HOWEVER there are many ethics and conflicts to each. And being an adult into kids is always fucked up. With that being said, studies have shown that closer ages often work better due to the often similarities in mindset, maturity and life goals (older folks are more likely to want to settle, younger often have more ambitions), likewise there tends to be an unbalanced power-dynamic if the ages are too far, which can lead to various types of abuse. Dont get me wrong, being with someone much older (AS LONG AS NONE OF YALL ARE KIDS) very much CAN work - but rarely. There’s much more hardwork needed as well as being in the right mindset for both, otherwise it’s bad. More on that in HD. Long story short, both are closer in age meaning both are more ‘relatable’ to one another. There’s common grounds, even in the eras there’s some higher understanding of one another. Notice how Vaggie and Charlie are similar in age? (Even though Charlie is far older, her appearance and mentality for her race is on par with Vaggie’s, making it far more likely to work out positively) One of the most prominent out of all of this however is their actual interests. So listing; Both like action/chaos/having fun (often at the expense of others), both love cooking and can be food snobs in their own right, both have sadistic AND masochistic tendencies, Al likes performance and theatre whilst Angel loves *to* perform, on that last point Angel was very intrigued and enjoyed Al’s song number/performance naturally, both really enjoy pranks and both enjoy liquor (neither show an actual addiction, but rather an interest in social drinking - no dependencies on it). Again, close eras mean both have a higher probability of understanding the other and their lifestyles better. Both are high on appearance and love themselves, implying self confident mindset (healthy BUT the narcissism isnt) yet enough consideration for how they are viewed. On the parent system, one adores his mama whilst the other hates his pops. Now Ive gone on about how they’re similar. But similarities ALONE is not enough. If it was, then fandom’s would be a lil more harmonious~ A HEALTHY relationship needs compatibility, POSITIVE conversation flow, common grounds, trust, openness and understanding. Even then, some people click and some just dont. It’s like how you can just hate someone for no reason. It just IS. Common grounds and similarity is scientifically proven to be attractive to someone - be it good or BAD. People are drawn to those like their parents in some way usually, likewise we look for people similar to ourselves (from our interests, to humour, beliefs, goals, etc). Science itself states that ‘opposites attract’ solemnly applies in the real world successfully. Though similiarity plays a large role, there has to be some differences too - that person is STILL an individual separate to yourself. Too similar and it’s boring. Too similar and you’ll do everything together without some ‘you’ time. Both Vaggie and Charlie have similar interests/hobbies in dance and music, yet still have enough differences to be identifiable when together. Vaggie is more grounded than Charlie. Charlie gives some optimism and fun to Vaggie. Remember, a partner does NOT complete you - that’s a toxic mindset when taken too seriously, You complete YOURSELF. Whether you have someone or not, you must feel complete in yourself as to not slip into toxic dependency on a lover - to become them, a shadow of them or feel like you’ve lost your identity without them. Sounds harsh but it’s true. Chaggie compliments each other without a dependency. You stand alone yet uplift one another. You don’t always agree but in the end you always have each other’s backs. Love is often butchered in a toxic light in the media. So taking that into consideration, how does spideer work? Well, here’s some examples of good, bad and neutral: - Angel loves animals, Al fears/dislikes dogs. Perhaps Angel could assist him in overcoming this? - Al hates being touched, Angel dislikes being squeezed. Maybe this could help them reach an understanding... Or cause a rift? - Angel was the only one to break Al’s composure, either Angel is the *key* to delving further into Al’s more raw self... Or just another obVOXious pest? (yeah, I said it-) - Neither respect other’s boundaries, meaning both may fuel the other to be overly disrespectful in this area. Not good. - Angel is a sarky/sarcastic fuck, Al loves dry humour. Both seek amusement and chaos. In relationships one needs to see how conversation flows and in the hunicasts, both keep up some good as well as toxic banter. Both could roast the fuck out of an opponent however. - Al is acro/ace, Angel is hypersexual (appears like a sex addict - now I say this as his book has a crossed out ‘fun stuff’ with ‘work shit’ written on it. He’s always fixed on sex from his job to his humour), this could either aid Angel ease up on the sex stuff OR make him overly push it onto Al causing major rifts and discomfort (aces can have sex, ref to ace posts that real asexuals put to understand more but no one wants to be forced into sex is the point here). And we’ve already discussed their lack of respect for boundaries. The positive is that maybe this will make Angel understand how Val is rubbing off on his own behaviour towards men [again, more on that in the HD post]. - Both similar yet different in a way that does suit their compatibility chances but that doesnt mean they will click, it just improves the odds. - Both have similar enemies in Val and Vox, they’re on common terms. Likewise, Al is against the ‘sexual deviance’ of hell meaning he may be oddly supportive and protective of Angel in terms of Val. I dont even think his sadism will override this either. - Al dislikes modern tech, Angel seems to use it as his job requires it. A nice little menial difference. - Only ONE is an addict. Take it from an expert, you NEVER put two addicts together. They’re very vulnerable and prone to slipping deeper into their addictions as well as depending on each other too much that they essentially become very clingy, suffocating and toxic to each other. Seen it in action, it’s ugly. - Both could have a lot of fun and calm moments with each other. - He isn’t immediately smitten with Al but immediately shows a natural interest in Al’s powers and performance, embracing it openly. Leads for a good friendship turned lovers plot. - In Viv’s patreon, she confirmed Angel loves confident guys [sounds exactly like Al] We need to think about where both are mentally. What benefits would a relationship give both? How would they be good and bad for each other? For Al, aside from his outdated views and being a fucking murderer and narcissist, he actually seems in a good mindspace for a relationship IF he opted to be in one. Angel however has a very immature mindset, likewise is in a phase of life where hes bed hopping. IF he were to be in a relationship, I’d say he needs a male equivalent of Cherri - someone with a similar mindset yet some differences, willing to have fun and in touch with their younger side, down to cuddle, open to share and receive love as well as not afraid to publicly be affectionate with him, someone who sees him as more than just for sex, someone fun, someone who’ll let him embrace his cutesy side publicly without shame - Cherri is younger so maybe someone who’s his age or slightly younger perhaps? I think Angel’s not retirement home ready to settle and needs someone on his level that can cuddle and chill as well as feels free and youthful enough to go wild with him. In one sense, he’s got a teen girl sorta mindset (dont put him with a teen though, it’s fuckin weird-). He needs someone positive and raw, someone to let him be himself as well as someone comfortable to be themselves around him. He has a habit of latching onto unobtainable men (in psychology, this is self sabotaging subconsciously): Travis the client, Val a pimp, Husk (emotionally unavailable and needs HEAVY self work - interestingly far more than Angel - plus he’s still onto his last relationship and an addict to gambling and alcohol), Pent who’s the enemy he was currently fighting (inappropriate timing), Alastor who’s not interested in another but his own needs [selfish, VERY bad for a relationship]. Subconsciously he’s self sabotaging on purpose. There’s many psychology books as well as sources online for this, if you’re interested. Either way, Angel is drawn to men either like his father [who dislike him, shun him, or are otherwise cold, abusive or just blatantly dislike or otherwise dont care about him] or anyone with money to fuel his drug addiction/’debt’ to Val. Going with any of these men isn’t a good idea. Preferably, Angel needs someone who he doesnt immediately crush and obsess over. Someone who he doesnt sexually harass or assault. Someone he can build a connection with quickly that can bud into romance (think how Chaggie started as a friendship which clicked immediately). Maybe even someone he doesn’t expect to fall for but does so anyways. It would be more realistic as Viv wants as well as more healthy. That for once he isnt sex or money craved instantly, thus doesnt sexually harass/assault and is given a proper chance to develop and grow a friendship and love. Someone who isnt an addict. Someone with an on-par mindset where they click. Someone open to love. For any chance of a good relationship, Angel needs to be with anyone BUT who we’ve already seen. There’s too much toxicity that’ll be swept under the rug and justified otherwise. Too much shit to fuel homophobes in terms of gay stereotypes. Even though Ive focused a fair bit on Angel, it’s NOT just about Angel. That’s something fans forget. Some he depends on or someone who depends on him in the long term wont last and will be very dangerous to both. Just because you suffer, you dont then deserve to be rewarded with ‘something nice’. You dont get to have everything youve ever wanted. Giving him any of these blokes [minus Val] gives him a pass. Gives him what he wants. I get Viv loves him but life doesnt work that way. True lasting growth comes from learning that. Acceptance and growth. You dont get everything you want and sometimes thats a GOOD thing. He’s not a spoilt kid who gets everything he asks for, he’s YOUR creation. If you really wanted what your creations deserve then you need to research and be realistic with it. Because hes starting to feel like a shitty Gary-Stu at this rate. I live with an ‘Angel Dust’ like person. It used to feel like life gave her everything and most times it did. Everyone loved her and she could get away with murder if she wanted to. But now she’s had to struggle and grow, let go of some ‘wants’ because they werent good for her and she’s becoming better for it. She has a long way but she’s more humble for it now [still got self confidence but it’s less narcissism now, which is more healthy for her]. Also, they make the word anal lol

#stans and antis dni #pros and cons to radiodust #spideer #anti hazbin #viv needs to actually research #vivs been in toxic relationships so she should know better and how these come across #wait until anti huskerdust #ill really be fuckin loathed then #anyways #enjoy?

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wickymicky · 3 years

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So it's not sorting members and biases, but how would you rank weki meki albums (by whatever criteria you feel like doing lol)?

ooooo hmmmmmm............. thats interesting..... okay i’ll try it haha

WeMe - i actually went into making this list thinking that Lucky would be number 1, but the more i think about it and look at the tracklist... actually i think it’s WeMe lol. IDLYG is such a unique debut song and i dont care what anyone else says lol, i adore that song. Stay With Me is pretty iconic too. it’s not necessarily one of my favorite bsides of theirs, but it’s good. Neverland is underrated though for sure, i really like that song. and then Fantastic is honestly a candidate for being my favorite Weki Meki bside haha that song is just so... i dont even know, lol. undercover. superlover.

Lucky - this is one of the most solid mini albums in kpop, imo. Lucky is a fantastic intro, La La La is such an underrated title track, Iron Boy and Metronome both slap... i like the album’s vibe a lot

Hide and Seek - Oopsy is great, and Dazzle Dazzle was included on the album too, and normally when previous non-album singles are included in a subsequent album i think it’s kind of a waste of a space, but in terms of making a list like this, i gotta factor in the fact that this album has two title tracks on it lol. in this instance that’s a good thing. but not just that, Moya Moya is another one of my favorite bsides from them. The Paradise is fantastic too, i really wanna see what other stuff Suyeon writes if this is what we can expect haha. honestly with how much i wrote about this one... maybe i even like it more than Lucky? i’ve been thinking that Lucky is their best or one of their best mini albums for basically the whole time that i’ve been into Weki Meki, so i’m gonna have to put more thought into this before i make a decision that drastic hahaha. for me, that’s a big deal lol, i dont wanna just declare Hide and Seek better than Lucky unless im 100% sure. i’ll ruminate on this

Lock End LOL/Week End LOL - okay, so, this single album is above their other remaining mini album. oops. normally i wouldnt ever put a single album above a mini album (and probably wouldnt put a mini album above a full album), but like... this one has PICKY PICKY and TIKI TAKA lmao... i’ve listened to Tiki Taka more than countless other songs from groups i also love, and i’ve probably listened to Picky Picky more than i’ve listened to some entire groups, lol. and Whatever U Want is ANOTHER favorite bside. Petal Fortune is nice, i like it, but it’s not something i listen to that often. but so those first three songs are incredible and they literally (not a joke) changed my life haha, Picky Picky is my favorite kpop song of all time... but the reason this album isn’t higher is just because tbh i would need another banger song, i think. at least one more. it has my favorite song on it, but it is just a single album, even with the Tiki Taka repackage.

Kiss Kicks - okay now things are getting controversial. Crush isn’t my favorite title track and i’ve made no secret of that lol (but i do still love it, dont get me wrong), but i love True Valentine. ive been saying various bsides are “possibly my favorite”, but i think if i had to actually pick one (and only one) favorite bside right now, it’d probably be True Valentine. but so the controversial thing about this placement probably isnt the fact that Kiss Kicks is so low... because it’s only a single album with just three songs on it.... the controversial thing is that this album is above-

New Rules - sjdklmvldsfg,sf;lg. i LOVE Cool. it was my fifth favorite song last year, which is like super high praise from me lol, i put a LOT of thought into my top 10 list. being in my top 5 is like putting it in the S Tier lol. but uhhhhh idk... i’m just not feeling any of the bsides. Just Us, the one that the members wrote, is nice and it’s meaningful but it’s not something i’ve listened to very often. i dont even remember D-Day (that’s my bad, i should listen to it again). and Sweet Dreams... i know a lot of people like it, but... and this is gonna be a controversial opinion... i just can’t get into it. i could elaborate on that but i’ve written enough already lol... i don’t hate it, it just doesnt really work for me, it’s hard to explain.... well anyway lol. I do love Cool though

i could edit these to be more readable, it’s really clear that i’m just talking to myself in a stream of consciousness, but i’m not gonna proofread lmao this is just a tumblr post. i just like to ramble about the things i like haha, thank you for giving me an opportunity to do so hahaha. i already think about this kinda stuff on my own, without posting it lol

#i think i literally have listened to picky picky more than ive listened to wjsn's entire discography #for example #which isnt a small amount by the way lol #ive probably listened to picky picky more than pentagon and everglow and itzy... all of which are among my favorite groups #ive just listened to picky picky a lot #long post #thoughts tag #Anonymous

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somnilogical · 4 years

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davis tower kingsley (listed here on the cfar instructor page) who harassed a cis woman about her appearance another cis women reported this to acdc (the people who wrote the thing about how brent was great) and afaict they did nothing, claims that if trans people and gay people dont "repent and submit to the pope" they will burn in hell, defended the spanish inquisitions, wrote about how the mission system werent actually abductions, slavery, forced conversions and this was propaganda, defends pretty much any atrocity that an authority, "believes" the catholic god exists and does not try and destroy them, submits to them. and so much more.

born into another era they would actually work for the california mission system and say it was good.

said thing that cached out to that emma and somni should repent and submit to the rationalist community. wrote up a rant about "how about fuck you. go lick the boots of your dark mistress anna salamon." didnt send. got kicked by some rationalist, reasoning is probably that what id say would disrupt their peaceful machinations of omnicide, would be infohazards, because... the information is hazardous to their social order.

a few of these things are subjects of future blog posts.

cfar has never hired a trans woman, i have lots of logs of them trying to do what people did to porpentine. claiming emma thinks torturing children is hot, claiming emma was physically violent, claiming emma was indistinguishable from a rapist, claiming ziz was a "gross uncle style abuser", claiming somni was enticing people to rape, claiming that anna salamon was a small fragile woman and ziz was large and had muscles. as if any of our strength or speed had anything to do with our muscles in this place. all of these things are false except relative size difference between ziz and anna which is just transmisogynistic and irrelevant.

if they lie about are algorithms claim that we are using male-typical strategies and then they can fail by these lies and be sidelined by callout posts that transfered 350,000$ from miri despite their best efforts to cover this up. (all benefited by having relative political advantagr flowing from estrogenized brain modules. men are kind of npc's in this particular game of fem v fem cyberontological warfare for the fate of the multiverse, mostly making false patriarchal assumptions that ziz was doing things for social status. like status sensitivity is hormonally mediated, your experiences are not universal. or saying like kingsley is saying that people should repent and submit to whatever authorities in the rationalist region they submit to. NO. FUCK YOU. i will not repent and submit to your abusive dark mistress anna salamon.

i knew anna salamon was doing the edgy "transfems are all secretly male" thing before i talked with ziz. it was a thing, {zack, carrie}, ben hoffman, michael vassar were also in on it. ppl had men trapped in mens bodies on their bookshelves because the cool people were reading it. didnt think she was being *transmisogynistic* about it until i talked with ziz. in retrospect i was naive.)

also? anarchistic coordination ive had with people have been variously called lex's cluster, somni's cluster, ziz's cluster by authoritarians who cant imagine power structures between people that arent hierarchical. like based on who they want to say is "infohazardously corrupting people" emma goldman had to deal with this shit too where the cops tried to say she was friends with anyone who thought anarchism made sense. people she didnt know at all who did their own anarchism. because authoritarians dont think in terms of philosophy, they think any challenge to their power is a disease that needs to be eliminated and you just need to doxx their network.

like if ziz and somni and emma were all actually infohazardous rapists as people keep trying to claim we are and then saying "oh no i didnt mean it i swear" and then doing it again. what would happen isnt that a bunch of infohazardous rapists start talking and working together for a common goal. what actually happens with people of that neurotype is they partition up the territory into rival areas of feeding on people like gangs do.

like they dont get together and start talking a lot about decision theory and cooperate in strange new ways.

not that the people lying about emma, ziz, gwen, somni and others are trying to have accurate beliefs. they are trying what all athoritarians try with anarchist groups. unfortunately for them, ive read the meta, i know dread secrets of psychology and cooperation that they claim are like painful static and incomprehensible, yet despite being "incomprehensible" are almost certainly harmful. if harm is to be judged against upholding the current regime, and the current regime is evil, then lots of true information and good things will look harmful. like ive tested this out in different social spheres what people claim is "incomprehensible" is the stuff that destroys whatever regime they are working in. like someone said i sounded like i was crazy and homeless and couldnt understand me when i pointed out that reorienting your life, your time, your money, to a human who happens to be genetically related to you for 16 years is altruistic insanity. just do the math. eliezer, anna, michael, brian tomasik all once took heroic responsibility for the world at some point in their lives and could do a simple calculation and make the right choice. none of them have children.

pretending that peoples "desires" "control them", when "desires" are part of the boundary of the brain, part of the brains agency and are contingent on what you expect to get out of things. like before stabbing myself with a piece of metal would make me feel nauseated, id see black dots, and feel faint. but after i processed that stabbing myself would cure brain damage and make me more functional, all this disappeared.

most people who "want" to have children have this desire downstream of a belief that someone else will take heroic responsibility for the world, they dont need to optimize as much. there are other competent people. if they didnt they would feel differently and make different choices.

you can see the contingency of how people feel about something on what they get out of it lots of places. like:

<<Meanwhile, a Ngandu woman confessed, "after losing so many infants I lost courage to have sex.">>

but people lie about how motivation works, in order to protect the territory of saying "well i just need a steady input of nubile fems so i can concentrate and be super altruistic!" or "i just need spend 16 years of life reorienting around humans who happen to be genetically related to me and my friends so i can concentrate and be super altruistic!" when neither of these are true. these people just want nubile fems, they just want babies. (the second one has much much less negative externalities though. you could say i am using my female brain modules to say "yeah the archetypically female strat, though it has the same amount of lying, is less harmful". but like it actually is less directly harmful. the harm from gaslighting people downstream of diverting worldsaving resources and structure to secure a place to {hit on fems, raise babies} is ruinous. means that worldsaving plans that interfere with either of these are actively fought. and the knowledge that neither of these are altruistic optimizations, neither is Deeply Wise they are as dumb in terms of global optimization as they seem initially, is agentically buried.

this warps things in deep ways, that were a priori unexpected to me.)

this is obvious, but when i talk about it, the objection isnt that it doesnt make utilitarian sense, the objection is that "im talking like a crazy person". authoritarians say this to me too when i assert my right to my property that they took, act like im imposing on them. someone else asked if i could "act like a human" and do what he wanted me to do when i was thinking and talking with my friends. all of these things authoritarians have said to me "act like a human" "talk like a normal person i cant understand you" were to coerce my submission. they construct the category of "human" and then say im in violation of it and this is wrong and i should rectify it. i am talking perfectly good english right now. you can read this.

anna salamon, kelsey piper, elle, pete michaud, and many others all try to push various narratives of somni, emma, ziz, gwen and others being in the buckets {RAPIST, PSYCHO, BRAINWASHED}. im not a rapist, im not psychotic, im not brainwashed. before ziz came along, people were claiming i was brainwashing people, its a narrative they keep reusing.

porpentine talks about communities that do this, that try and pull trap doors beneath trans women:

<<For years, queer/trans/feminist scenes have been processing an influx of trans fems, often impoverished, disabled, and/or from traumatic backgrounds. These scenes have been abusing them, using them as free labor, and sexually exploiting them. The leaders of these scenes exert undue influence over tastemaking, jobs, finance, access to conferences, access to spaces. If someone resists, they are disappeared, in the mundane, boring, horrible way that many trans people are susceptible to, through a trapdoor that can be activated at any time. Housing, community, reputation—gone. No one mourns them, no one asks questions. Everyone agrees that they must have been crazy and problematic and that is why they were gone.>>

https://thenewinquiry.com/hot-allostatic-load/

(a mod of rationalist feminists deleted this almost immediately from the group as [[not being a good culture fit]], not being relevant to rationalism, and written in the [[wrong syntax]]. when its literally happening right now, they are trying to trapdoor transfems who protest and rebel asap. just like google.)

canmom on tumblr talks about the strategic use of "incomprehensibility" against transfems. and how its not about "comprehensibility". i have a different theory of this, but her thing is also a thing.

<<Likewise, @isoxys recently wrote an impressively thorough transmisogyny 101, synthesising the last several years of discussions about this facet of our particular hell world. But that post got just 186 notes, almost exclusively from the same trans women who are accused of writing ‘inaccessibly’.

Perhaps they’d say isoxys’s post is inaccessible too, but what would pass the bar? Some slick HTML5 presentation with cute illustrations? A wiki? Who’s got the energy and money to make and host something like that? Do the critics of ‘inaccessible’ posts take some time to think about what kind of alternative would be desirable, and how it could be organised?>>

https://canmom.tumblr.com/post/185908592767/accessibility-in-terms-of-not-using-difficult

alice maz talks about the psychology behind the kind of cop kelsey piper, david tower kingsley, elle and others are:

<<the role of the cop is to defend society against the members of society. police officers are trivially cops. firefighters and paramedics, despite similar aesthetic trappings, are emphatically not. bureaucrats and prosecutors are cops, as are the worst judges, though the best are not. schoolteachers and therapists are almost always cops; this is a great crime, as they present themselves to the young and the vulnerable as their friends, only to turn on them should they violate one of their profession's many taboos. soldiers and parents need not be cops, but the former may be used as such, and the latter seem frighteningly eager to enlist. the cop is the enemy of passion and the enemy of freedom, never forget this>>

https://www.alicemaz.com/writing/alien.html

anna salamon wrote a thing implying that ziz, somni, gwen suffered some sort of vague mental issues from going to aisfp. (writing a post on this.) alyssa vance tried to suggest i believe cfar is evil because im homeless. but sarah constantin, ben hoffman, {carrie, zack}, jessica taylor (the last three who have blogged a lot about whats deeply wrong) (not listing others because not wanting to doxx a network to authoritarians, who just want to see it contained. and the disease of "infohazards" eradicated.) are not homeless and ive talked with many of them and read blog posts. and they know that cfar is fake. jessica (former miri employee) left because miri was fake.

anna and others are trying to claim that theres some person responsible for a [[mass psychotic break]] that causes people to... independently update in the same direction. and have variously blamed it on ziz, somni, michael vassar. but like mass psychotic breaks arent...really a thing, would not be able to independently derive something, plan on writing a blogpost on it, and then see ben hoffman had written http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/engineer-diplomat/ and i was like "ah good then i dont have to write this." and have this happen with several different people.

like this is more a mass epistemic update that miri / cfar / ssc / lw are complicit in the destruction of the world. and will defend injustice and gaslight people and lie about the mathematical properties of categories to protect this.

they all know exactly what they are doing, complicity with openai and deepmind in hopes of taking the steering wheel away at the last second. excluding non-human life and dead humans from the CEV to optimize some political process, writing in an absolute injunction to an fai against some outcome to protect from blackmail when that makes it more vulnerable.(see:

https://emma-borhanian.github.io/arbital-scrape/page/hyperexistential_separation.html

hyperexistential separation: if an fai cant think of hell, an fai cant send the universe to hell in any timeline. this results in lower net utility. if you put an absolute injunction against any action for being too terrible you cant do things like what chelsea manning did and i believe actually committed to hungerstriking until death in the worlds where the government didnt relent, choosing to die in those timelines. such that most of her measure ended up in a world where the government read this commitment in her and so relented.

if chelsea manning had an absolute injunction against ever dying in any particular timeline, she would get lower expected utility across the multiverse. similarly, in newcombs problem if you had an absolute injunction against walking away with 0$ in any timeline because that would be too horrible, you get less money in expectation. for any absolute injunction against things that are Too Horrible you can construct something like this.

a lot of humans seem to be betting on "nothing too horrible can happen to anyone" in hopes that it pays off in nothing too horrible happening to you.

the end result of not enacting ideal justice is the deaths of billions. at each timestamp saying "its too late to do it now, but maybe it would have been good sometime in the past". with the same motive that miri wants to exclude dead people from the cev, they arent part of the "current political process". so you can talk about them as if they were not moral patients, just like they treat their fellow animals.

(ben hoffman talks about different attitudes towards ideal justice coming upon the face of the earth.)

https://emma-borhanian.github.io/arbital-scrape/page/cev.html

cev:

<<But again, we fall back on the third reply: "The people who are still alive" is a simple Schelling circle to draw that includes everyone in the current political process. To the extent it would be nice or fair to extrapolate Leo Szilard and include him, we can do that if a supermajority of EVs decide* that this would be nice or just. To the extent we don't bake this decision into the model, Leo Szilard won't rise from the grave and rebuke us. This seems like reason enough to regard "The people who are still alive" as a simple and obvious extrapolation base.>>

https://emma-borhanian.github.io/arbital-scrape/page/cev.html

this is an argument from might makes right. because dead people and nonhuman animals cant fight back.

->"i think we should give planning of the town to the white people, then extrapolate their volition and if they think doing nice things for black people is a good idea, we'll do it! no need to bake them in to the town planning meetings, as they are arent part of the current political process and no one here will speak up for them."

i dont plan to exclude dead people or any sentient creatures from being baked in to fai. they are not wards of someone else. enslaving and killing fellow sentient life will not continue after the singularity even if lots of humans want it and dont care and wont care even after lots of arguments.) and so much else.

the list of all specific grievances would take a declaration of independence.

like with googles complicity with ICE having a culture of trapdooring transfems (for some reason almost the only coherent group that has the moral fiber to oppose these injustices, that is p(transfem|oppose injustice in a substantiative way) is high, not necc the reverse.) who question this sort of thing.

thinking of giving sarah constantin a medal thats engraved with "RIGHTEOUS AMONG CIS PEOPLE: I HAD SEVERAL SUBSTANTIAL DISAGREEMENTS WITH HER ABOUT LOAD BEARING PARTS OF HER LIFE AND SHE NEVER ONCE TRIED TO CALL ME A RAPIST, PSYCHOTIC, OR BRAINWASHED" thats where the bar is at, its embedded in the core of the earth.

kelsey piper, elle benjamin, anna salamon, pete michaud, and lots more have entirely failed to clear this bar. anna and kelsey saying they dont understand stuff somni, emma, ziz and other transfems talk about but its probably dangerous and infohazardous and its not to be engaged with philosophically. just like the shelter people acting as if my talking about their transmisogyny was confusing and irrational to be minimized and not engaged with. just like any authoritarian where when you start talking about your rights and what is right and wrong and what makes sense they are like "i dont understand this. you are speaking gibberish why are you being so difficult? all we need you to do is submit or leave."

and no i will NOT SHUT UP about this injustice. all miri/cfar people can do at this point is say "the things these people write are infohazards" then continue to gaslight others they cant engage on a philosophical level. all the can say is that what i am saying is meaningless static and yet also somehow dangerous.

it doesnt make sense to have and raise babies if you are taking heroic responsibility for the world. doesnt make sense to need a constant supply of fems to have sex with if you are taking heroic responsibility for the world. people who claim either of these pairs of things are lying, maybe expect someone else to take heroic responsibility for the world or exist in a haze.

the mathematics of categories and anticipations dont allow for the thing you already have inside you to be modified based on the expected smiles it gives your community. this is used to gaslight people like "calling this lying would be bad for the institutions, not optimize ev. thus by this blogpost you are doing categories wrong' this is a mechanism to cover dishonesty for myopic gains.

using the above, a bunch of people colluding with the baby industrial complex get together and say that the "beat" meaning of altruism includes having babies (but maybe not having sex with lots of fems? depending on which gendered strategy gets the most people in the colluding faction) because other meanings would make people sad and unmotivated. burying world optimizers ability to talk about and coordinate around actual altruism.

openAI and deepmind are not alignment orgs. cfar knows this and claims they are, gaslighting their donors, in hopes of taking the steering wheel at the last moment.

alyssa vance says paying out to blackmail is fine, its not.

CFAR manipulated donation metrics to hide low donations.

MIRI lied about its top 8 most probable hypotheses for why its down 350,000$ this year.

anna salamon is transmisogynistic, this is why cfar has never hired a trans women despite trans women being extremely good at mental tech. instead the hire people like davis kingsley.

kingsley lied about anna not being involved at hiring in cfar in order to claim anna couldnt be responsible for cfar never hiring a trans woman.

a cfar employee claimed anna salamon hired their rapist, was angry about it. mentioned incidentally how anna salamon, president and cofounder of cfar, was involved in hiring at cfar.

acdc wrote a big thing where defended a region of injustice (brent dill) because of their policy of modular ethics. when really, if you defend injustice at any point, you have to defend the defense and the thing iteratively spreads across your organization like a virus.

miri / cfar caved to louie helm.

not doing morality or decision theory right. among which is: https://emma-borhanian.github.io/arbital-scrape/page/hyperexistential_separation.html and https://emma-borhanian.github.io/arbital-scrape/page/cev.html

and so much more.

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captain-aralias · 5 years

Text

Immediate thoughts about Wayward Son after just finishing and not that much sleep

I’m really hoping this spoiler cut works.

...

RIP Micah :(

So - the first thing I’m going to say is... I didn’t think we would lose Micah. Weirdly this is the thing that is probably the biggest negative for me about the book.

Just yesterday I was confidently saying that I didn’t think Rainbow would do anything that would muck up the way I saw canon and most that’s true. But I am vv sad about Micah, even though - as I read on - I thought: I get why this has happened.

It’s so Penny has a story too, and it’s not just all about Simon. So in this book she not only loses Micah (which it turns out wasn’t that bad because I guess she didn’t like him enough), but she loses her certainty in herself - and has to get it back. And that’s a story.

So yes - I get it. It’s because it’s a book, not a fanfic where Penny doesn’t have to be a character. But alas - I really liked the idea of Micah and Penny, even without knowing Micah at all. I was invested!

On the other hand - now we don’t have to deal with the Penny moves to America forever to be with Micah trope, which never made sense to me because I always thought Penny would stay and Micah would move with her. Which I would guess may be the plan for Shepard. Interestingly he’s totes into magickal creatures, which makes him quite a bit like the Micah I wrote in the Mage’s Heir - but also, I am sad.

RIP Agatha in America

The other thing I think we lost was the idea of Agatha being happy in America.

Even though Agatha’s a main character, this means less to me than the Penny/Micah thing - although I am still sad about it. If ‘Carry On’ had a secrets meme, I would probably write ‘You guys don’t know what you’re missing - the Mage is OBVIOUSLY one of the most interesting characters in this canon’, but after that my second secret would be: ‘I don’t dislike Agatha, but I don’t like her that much’. (Clearly neither of these things are secrets and I just wrote them into a post).

When I read the preview of the 4 chapters on Kobo, the thing I was most disappointed by was finding out that Agatha and a cult were going to be important to the plot. I thought Agatha’s story was over, because she just didn’t want to be part of the story! (That the cult turned out to be a vampire cult turned it around for me a bit, but we’ll talk more about that later).

I still don’t really like Agatha’s story in ‘Wayward Son’. I don’t like that she has to come home, even though I don’t really like her. I liked our idea that she was happy. That said, I DO like the clear plot arc that she’s been given here which is that she rescues herself. And she rescues everyone. Not just a bit, like how Peter Pettigrew was redeemed a bit by holding back a bit (which was one of the most disappointing parts of Potter canon for me - can you tell?). She uses a power that frankly I don’t think most magicians have, and then set a lot of vampires on fire. That’s good! That’s a reason for Agatha to be in the book. She grew!

Simon/Baz

I can see a few people being upset about this in some of the spoiler posts I’ve glanced at (I basically just came on here and started typing after trying and failing to find the Discord so I haven’t read anything in detail). I actually don’t get it. People are saying that Rainbow isnt supporting the gays... because Baz was sort of into another guy? Maybe? Because Simon and Baz didn’t kiss in that final scene?

I actually literally do not get it, so maybe someone will tell me in response to this post! No gays were ruined in the making of this story; they were just sad.

Again - it makes sense to me that they’re having relationship difficulties, given that Simon’s so tuned out. But never in either of their POVs do I get the impression that they aren’t still mad for each other. They both just have other stuff going on that they’re having to deal with.

Personally I quite like Simon being really jealous about Baz and other guys. I can’t remember exactly if Baz thought it was super hot - but I did. I like possessiveness as a trope.

The kissing in the truck is lovely - and clearly the chapter 61 we were promised. Simon flying with Baz - Simon FLYING. I’m pretty sure none of us saw that one coming.

I can’t remember whether it was ever said (even though I’ve read ‘Carry On’ loads), but it may have been implied that Simon’s wings don’t work in ‘Carry On’... but clearly they do. Or he got better.

The future

There are lots of dangling threads from this book

Rainbow is a massive Star Wars person. This book is CLEARLY supposed to be ‘Empire’, it’s the dark one. The one where everything goes wrong, and relationships don’t quite work out. And the next book is set at Watford - hooray! That means we can have the political schenagins I was saddened I wasn’t going to get from a book about a roadtrip set in America.

For me the other dangling threads that I’d pull on are:

The Next Blood are trying to give people magic. So for the first time, I’m thinking... maybe Simon will get his magic back, whereas previously I thought: he’s going to have to deal with it being gone forever, and with the wings (which are clearly now shown to be a good thing. I always wanted him to keep them - but now I’m not sure whether he will ...)

Blue, the water demon, said that Simon gave the world back MORE magic than he took from it. Again - this feels like Simon gets his magic back in book 3. Or does something to bring magic back properly, or change it.

Baz learned about being a vampire!! He learned that vampire bites don’t necessarily kill. I think we all know what this means. (I was really worried when Simon got shot that Baz was going to have to vamp him. Glad he didn’t. I don’t want vampire Simon and vampire Baz - one vampire is sexy, two is a problem). Baz also learned that he might well live forever. What will it mean for his future???

Penny/Shepard - I mean, either that or Rainbow’s going to blindside me with Penny/Agatha after all these years. I mean, she wrote it into ‘Fangirl’ as the thing Cath always read, but I was very much of Baz’s mindset - that bit where he says ‘hey, it’s your ex-boyfriend, and his boyfriend, and a girl you don’t like very much’. I thought yes! That’s exactly how I see it. But now I’m thinking.... why has Penny been texting her so much? Maybe there IS something there... I’m convincing myself more and more with this post. Christ. Well, let’s see.

Something about magic and secrecy maybe. There’s something in that...

Let’s talk about mah fic (the Mage’s Heir) quickly

Since we’re talking about what I’d do with this.

I didn’t think the book would be very similar to Mage’s Heir, because it was set in America and about a roadtrip - but it was more similar than I expected.

It’s about Simon feeling better through being useful and kicking the shit out of dark creatures (the final chapters where he accepts he’s not a superhero don’t feel right to me. I think he needs to re-evaluate that again).

Penny feels out of step with what’s going on... Wayward Son is much more advanced, obviously. Mine is very soft as it’s only a sub-plot.

Baz finds out more about his vampire heritage, and learns that he can definitely bite Simon and that it will be sexy when it happens. (That’s my reading of it, anyway).

There’s an alliance with various sets of magickal creatures. I thought there might actually be a vampire alliance, but the problem is that I guess Rainbow really does think they are legit evil. More to do on that one. (There’s a misprint where Nicky’s surname is given as Ebb - I’m guessing it will be corrected later. Either that or Baz just forgot what he was called, which I can believe.) I think this could be in the third book - it feels to me that that’s what Shepard is for, to tell us that magickal creatures are good actually. For me it’s the thing the Mage got most wrong (in terms of the vampires and the goblins), and the most right (in terms of letting in pixies and centaurs, etc).

I would argue... maybe... that it’s possible the Mage’s Heir might seem more satisfying than this book to readers. Difficult to say this without seeming up-myself, but I’m arguing it because I sort of feel that way about my favourite (that I didn’t write) post Watford fic, which is ALSO a roadtrip in America: There'll Be Peace When You Are Done.

I don’t think that means either fic is better than ‘Wayward Son’. They’re fic. To some extent, even if you don’t expect what will happen in the plot, they give the reader what they expect. A strong focus on Simon and Baz and their relationship working out, relatively minimal other stuff that doesn’t support this as the major plot.

Rainbow sort of talked about this recently on Twitter as well, about books that feel like fic being great. So it would have made sense for this book to read like a fic..

Interestingly, it really doesn’t.

I purposefully used the Mage’s Heir to close off all the loose ends I thought had been left by ‘Carry On’, and ‘They’ll Be Peace...’ closes off its own story about how Simon gets over his trauma and fixes his relationship. ‘Wayward Son’ doesn’t do that at all. It opens up a whole bunch of new shit for our heroes to deal with, and doesn’t close any of it off - because it’s Empire.

Sidenote:

I was told we were going to find out the Mage’s name - I believed it! But we didn’t find it out at all. In a way, I like that. Because one of the things I was semi-worried about (even though I was like - there’s nothing to worry about!!!) was finding out more about Watford and the Mage, which would mean that more of the Watford-era fic we’ve got wouldn’t work as well anymore. And I guess I’m invested in the Simon parentage question. I know - you’re all shocked.

I was surprised we didn’t find it out in this book - again, it makes sense given that we know there’s another book to come and it will be set back in the country where all this shit went down.

The one thing we did find out about the Mage was that he hates America.

Maverick and terrorists. No sense of community, no common goals. Half of them using their magic to wash the dishes, half of them living like debauched sultans. I blame the vernacular. Wholly unstable! Too much in flux! Their dialect is like a river stripped of its natural bends and shallows - their spells expire before they even master them. My heart is always with the rebels, Simon, in any struggle. But America is a failed experiment. A chaos country where mages have lost all sense of themselves. Where they live off the Normals like parasites-like dark creatures.

I’m not sure, having read this book, what that means for my idea of the ways he’s right and wrong. When I read that bit I was like - man, this is about how he’s a hypocrite again, boo, like how he’s a sexist. But then I read the rest of the book and I’m thinking... maybe the Mage is right and America is legit terrible for magic.

We only see it being bad (even Micah was bad!! RIP Micah). It has its own Humdrum just because it’s BIG, and almost everyone wants to kill our heroes. Maybe it’s a helpful sign of what the UK might become unless it changes. (Metaphorical, ain’t it?)

Things I loved

- the ren fayre. I mean, I loved all of this scene. Even though I am still a bit anxious about Simon just hacking people’s heads off without working out whether they are really really REALLY evil (I’m still like - maybe Lamb just isn’t that bad REALLY? If you spoke to him more??? He’s just racist. IDK) I loved the fight, I loved Baz not being that good at sword fighting, and being very good at fake olde english. i didn’t actually get round to putting it into the meme, but one of my prompts would have been ‘simon/baz, swordfighting’ - so thank you Rainbow. You delivered.

- Baz teaching Simon to drive <3

- Baz having to pretend to be a super glam vampire in a den full of vampires. It didn’t quite play out exactly how I would have liked, but when I realised that was what I was going to happen, I almost clapped my hands in real life, I was so happy. I like that the plot was about vampires, even if the cult stuff still didn’t work for me even at the end. Cults are boring.

- Dragon lady. Dragon lady calling Simon ‘kitten’. (But I don’t want him to ACTUALLY turn into a dragon)

- All the boring mudane stuff at the beginning where they’re on a plane and Simon’s watching shit movies.

- More info about how magic works, the dead spots (not even CAUSED by Simon’s magic. Maybe this is something we could use in terms of getting the magic back that the Humdrum stole. Martin Bunce should come and investigate). Baz is too British for America. (Poor Baz, he hated this holiday so much. It was terrible, I agree)

- I liked the vampire showdown at the end, as I said. Simon kicking people and flying, and there was a bit where Penny had no plan and Simon had the plan and I was like ‘OMG SIMON YOU HAD THE PLAN’. It was great.

- Baz chose clothes for Simon. Baz wore nice clothes.

- Baz drunk. Simon jealous.

- I liked Sheperd, even though I was angry at him for not being Micah. (He could have been Micah!!)

- Baz’s mother’s scarf and the fact that Simon saved it for him, because he knows it’s important.

Things I didn’t like/conclusion (for now) -

There’s not much I actively didn’t like, to be honest, except the Micah stuff, and the fact we had to deal with a cult. I guess I thought Simon and Baz would have fixed things up by the end, but once I hit the end and saw there would be a sequel I realised why that hadn’t happened.

BUT I think it might have been a mis-step to not even hint at the sequel, even though it feels like a spoiler. Because I think where people feel disappointed, it’s not just that it’s not like a fanfic - is that it didn’t do any of the things we expected. Simon didn’t even get over his trauma - which is fine. It’s the second book of at least three (probably three), but none of us knew that when we were reading it, which probably made other people anxious as well.

In general, I think it’s a more difficult book to like than ‘Carry On’ - because it’s pretty depressing throughout. There’s not much joy in it, which makes it hard to get jazzed up about. I thought the chapters we got in the preview were going to be the most depressing ones and Simon would cheer up once he got to America. And he DID - but everything else went to shit, and the way Baz and Penny hated it made it not fun, even though it was interesting.

Interesting in the right way, though? Don’t know.

I’m not sure how much fic I’ll be able to get out of it.... I guess I’ll have to think about it.It doesn’t feel as world-changing important as ‘Carry On’ It’s so clearly half of a story, so harder to write more on from since it’s really not clear what will come next (my guesses aside). I guess that’s the other thing we lost - post-Watford cuddling and first-time fics. Because we know they haven’t had sex by ‘Wayward Son’ and we don’t - yet - know how they’re going to get their relationship back on track.

There aren’t so many open spaces as there were in ‘Carry On’ which gives you eight years of open spaces to play in, as well as all of the future.

So yeah - I don’t know. I definitely didn’t dislike it. And I’m excited for the next book.

I’ll listen to the audio book, and read it again a few times, and hopefully talk to some people about it a bit more. And see what I think.

#wayward son #wayward son spoilers

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bum-callout · 6 years

Text

the full regan tea!

i know this is long as HELL so there will be a tl;dr at the end for those who dont have the time to read it or just dont want to.

disclaimer 1: screenshots will be added to this as theyre located. a lot of this persons accounts/messages have been deleted, so some are hard to find, unfortunately.

disclaimer 2: no witch-hunting of this individual is encouraged. this is merely a warning to people who interact with them and something to document and fully address their lies over the past three or so years.

a little context:

this callout regards an individual who will be referred to as “regan” and they/them for the duration of this post to avoid confusion. a list of their known aliases is located here.

they currently go by alayne, and are most active on quotev, where their most recent urls are @jonestxwn (which is super disrespectful already lol) and @yearzer0. their old tumblr is @colacans, but if they have a new one, im unaware of it.

all victims names have been changed to preserve their privacy. here is a list of people mentioned:

gail: gail refers to the main victim of regans manipulation and their partner of several years. they started dating some time in 2015 or 2016. the broken heart emoji in some screenshots refers to gail. gails alters are also changed to “gail” for privacys sake.

jake: jake is another victim of regans, albeit a more minor one. jake met regan in 2015 and started dating them. jake is also often lied about as regan. the game controller emoji in some screenshots refers to jake.

skylar: ex-qpp/partner of regans. last testimonial is from them.

taylor: an ex friend of regans who theyd had various and sundry drama with over the 3 years of bs.

jay: an ex of regans that they parted on rough terms with.

any other censored names: people who i was sure would only be mentioned once.

gail and jake:

this is, without a doubt, the most important part of the callout, and unfortunately the part with the least viable screenshots, due to deletion of accounts/messages. gail has since deleted most of her messages from regan, but the ones that ive found/been given screenshots of are here (with gails explicit permission).

gail:

regan was incredibly shitty to gail during their 2-3 year relationship. i would go so far as to say regan was abusive. as will be seen in the actuallydivine section, regan blames a great deal of things on gail, and has never permanently taken the blame for anything in their rocky relationship; it has always, according to regan, been something wrong with gail.

here are some examples of regan exhibiting abusive behaviour (tormenting gail because its “funny”), admitting to their own shitty behaviour, and mentioning cheating on her. its interesting to note they were also dating jake at this time, but they cared about him so little they didnt even mention the effect cheating might have on him.

i find it interesting that regan admits to being shitty towards gail as far back as 2016, but has gone back to claiming they did nothing and that gail is the one at fault. perhaps it is a bit far to claim that regan is a pathological liar, but with their behaviour, i would not be entirely surprised.

another thing to mention regarding gail is that regan claimed gail pushed them into the habit of regan calling gail “daddy,” and then saying they were ace and it made them uncomfortable in the first place, when nothing could be farther from the truth. regan has publicly in front of their followers, almost 100% of whom were minors, talked about their R*PE KINK, and often called gail daddy unprompted on the feed and elsewhere. before anyone comes for me, im not claiming that they couldnt be asexual, but i am doubtful because of the fact theyve claimed that once or twice before and decided they werent, AND because of the fact they only used it to pin the blame on gail for this.

this doesnt even touch on the amount of times they threatened to kill themself.

jake:

regan and jakes relationship went as such: they met in 2015, when jake was 13 and regan was 16, and started dating. hopefully you can understand what is wrong with that, as a relationship with that age gap is ILLEGAL in every u.s. state. there was sexual conduct involved, making regan (arguably) a child predator. there is also a statement that regan dated another 13 year old when they were 17, but that is as yet unproven and the 13 year old in question is not contactable to confirm this. to the best of my knowledge, both of their current partners are also minors, despite the fact they are 19 as of october 2018.

regan was also extremely shitty to jake during this time, constantly “bullying” him (their own words) in a way that they found funny, but was clearly extremely upsetting to jake. they also pushed him aside for at least half of their relationship, as they were poly and their other partners (mostly gail) were more their focus.

above is a conversation between jake and regan. regan came to him and asked him “what [they] ever did to [him]” and after respondingg and explaining why exactly he had beef with them, he discovered that them saying they wanted “no drama” was absolutely bs, as they had been posting a psa trying to get he and gail deleted for no reason that same day. afterwards, regan messaged jake asking for a truce, which jake refused, as he was furious with them and felt that they were not in a position to ask for a truce when they were doing things like this just hours before.

misc:

this is mostly just them talking shit, but some of the stuff they say is clearly lies if you consider evidence. they constantly paint themself as the victim when they are a 19 year old abuser who takes advantage of people regularly.

(this last screenshot refers to jake changing his username to a pun based on the phrase “lies and slander”; its unclear whether regan sent this pretending to be someone else, or had someone they know send it.)

i think its also interesting to note that this screenshot and later ones where regan is friends with jake are taken merely a month apart, and then, two months later, theyre back on their bs. something about that seems super fake to me.

actuallydivine:

regardless of your opinion on actuallydivine, if you look at the lies section, you can see regan blaming gail for all their actuallydivine stuff and saying it was all a lie. yeah. bs.

mental illness:

i know this is a bit of a controversial subject, but a lot of stuff regan said/did concerning mental illness (ESPECIALLY involving their system/alters) was really shitty imo.

this is a good example of something shitty they did alter-wise. this was something they claimed OVER AND OVER AGAIN, saying shitty things they did were always their evil headmates, and constantly killing off and creating new headmates (that were mostly actually just them under a new name) as an excuse for their behaviour and a way to reset for being a shitty person.

heres them listing their mental illnesses. now, if you look in the lies section, regan says they faked their headmates (aka their osdd), so thats more proof theyre a liar. they also at one point bashed self-diagnosis, and yet they admit to self-diagnosing here. Hmm. something else to note is that in the first image, they seem to be claiming that their therapist diagnosed them, when diagnoses are made by psychiatrists, but that could be a simple oversight on their part.

lies:

self-explanatory, but this section is mostly regan saying or implying theyve changed and are now a better person.

as you can see in the above screenshots, all taken at different times in the last two years, theyve done this thing over and over and OVER where they claim theyve changed, theyre better, something has changed their view, and that is simply not the case, and never has been.

this last one is from this month (october 2018). sound familiar?

these arent so much blatant lies as it is implying theyre any different now. also, funny to acknowledge that 2015 them was a piece of shit, when they really dont act any different now.

some other ridiculous things they lied about:

their height, at least three separate times.

their zodiac sign.

killers:

regan is very much a ‘true crime’ kind of person, and i do, in some aspects, mean the fetishize-y kind. theyre borderline obsessed with serial killers, and have expressed sexual attraction for ted bundy. however, thats not the only true crime-related bullshit theyve pulled.

yeah. regans factkin with JIM JONES. and they made one of their urls “jonestxwn” like.. how disrespectful can you be? if they were a columbiner, i would not be surprised. for those who are not aware, jim jones is the cult leader who caused the jonestown massacre, which resulted in the death of 900+ people through mass suicide. its where the phrase “drinking the koolaid” comes from, as the poison was mixed with a koolaid-like product.

miscellaneous:

you thought regan could not be any more of a freak? you were wrong baybee!

even without context this is a gross thing to do. however, context makes this worse: the individual in question, while they were NOT a good person, was around jakes age, if not younger, meaning that they were at least 3 years younger than regan at the time, and were most likely probably 13-14, judging by the time period when regan was interacting with them, so regan was 3-4 years older than this individual when they manipulated and fake dated them.

just gross. its of note that regan turned 18 in 2017, so they were an adult or close to being an adult when they said this.

hmm. kind of fetishize-y, but not the worst thing ive seen from regan.

GROSS? stay away from children.

honestly this ones just funny all things considered.

this isnt the only time theyve referred to themself as a fujoshi, and some of those times were when they identified as female. yikes!

yet another one thats just funny. they are genuinely a narcissist, and regularly refer to themself as some kind of genius (not to mention their god complex, which THEY THEMSELF refer to as such).

another one like that mentioning their headmates and the fact they are, and i quote, “the smartest person alive.” come bless us mortals with your 300 iq, o god regan.

OK MR KING OF EVIL LMFAO.

they were also into ddlg but i have no screenshots of that, as after a certain period, they prefaced a lot of their posts with stuff like “hehe im not into ddlg but i sure love calling my partner daddy!” despite having said, and i quote, “ddlg is my main kink,” at one point.

another point against them, which i have proof for but didnt feel was relevant enough to this: they love tearzah, and claimed to have been in a relationship with them. although tearzah (and melanie martinez... AND reinagoth) are people who they are a massive hypocrite about, as they acknowledged they were shitty and refused to support them, and then, mere months later, decided “nevermind, dont care, i love them xoxo.”

testimonials:

this is fairly self-explanatory; its testimonials by anonymous people who interacted with regan in the past detailing what they know of them.

to add some extra context to the one directly above, this individual is younger than jake by a year.

more of these will be added as i receive more.

conclusion:

i apologize for getting kind of unprofessional at the end, but this is a subject im emotionally involved in. again, i DONT advocate witch-hunting of this individual. theyre a shitty person but harassing them will do nothing constructive.

spreading this would be appreciated, though, as this person is genuinely a danger to those around them and has continued to lie about gail and jake up until extremely recently, if they are not still doing so.

tl;dr:

regan is an abusive person who takes advantage of minors, blames the people they abuse, and constantly lies about everything they can, among a plethora of other shitty-but-less-unforgivable things.

#regan

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baconpal · 6 years

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Whats your opinion on the Monogatri series?

fuck man, i was gonna draw tonight, you cant just give me an ask that i could write for hours about

idk how long thisll get but just in case, usual read more time but tl;dr very very good series, absolutely recommend to any seasoned weebs out there

I fucking love the monogatari series for so many reasons. i’ll just shit out bullet points of cool shit

1. gigantic but segmented: it’s one of the longest animes i’ve watched, but if someone wanted to just watch some i’d just tellem “hey just watch bakemono and stop there for now” and they’d still watch some great content and be mostly satisfied as everything wraps up well and doesn’t have any kinda sequel bait or cliff hanger. You can watch as much as you want when you want, even down to the various arcs, even out of order if need be, so it’s incredibly convenient, which means a lot to me (i say as i marathon HxH and Ippo)

2. Fuck the Order: there’s about 3 main orders that people like to preech, novel order (the order the arcs were released according to the light novels), anime release order, and chronological order since the story isn’t told chronologically in either case, and that can get confusing on top of none of the arcs being numbered outside of bakemono and bakemono 2 (which almost nobody recommends you actually watch consecutively) BUT the part I love is ANY order works and is interesting in its own way, the order that events are presented to you can change the impact of various scenes and events, like the ending to koimono is a lot more terrifying if you have no clue that kaiki is a healthy happy boy a year later, and owari becomes a bit more confounding if you know ougi is also doing fine (even if a bit boyish), and when you watch kizumono can drastically change how you feel about araragi and shinobu’s relationship, like when they were super duper tense in nise i always felt kinda whatever, but now that i’ve seen kizu its kinda like “fuck man how arent either of you dead already”

Basically its cool as shit since everything is written without regard for order

3.Character Development (and lack there of): All the characters in the series develop pretty well, and sometimes experience multiple large character shifts that improve them from the absolute pieces of garbage they are in bake (lookin at you Hanekawa, though you were pretty alright in kizu) Senjougahara is also worth note as she’s the primary girl and is thus around a lot despite having very few arcs centered on herself

but one of the most powerful parts of all the characters is they all also never change their true worst traits, and those who don’t really are my favorite characters, and those would be Senjougahara, Hachikuji, and the main man himself, Araragi. Senjou never really is able to drop the autistic girl sitting on the fourth wall deep down within her, Hachikuji continues to constantly fill roles and play parts that don��t belong to her, up through the very end of the series where she becomes a fucking GOD for NO good reason but FUCK it i love you hachikuji, and lastly Araragi, one of the best protaganists ever, who matures quite a lot over the course of his life and all, but from the begining of kizu to the end of owari, he is just completely incapable of letting someone pathetic go without help, even if it means completely sacrificing himself and I love my stupid boy so much

4. Who’s the protag anyway?: So araragi is the protag, duh, but not all the time, and the differences in how the show works when it changes is always very interesting, as it reveals a lot about both araragi and the characters who take his role; namely, Hanekawa, Nadeko, and my fucking BOY Kaiki. Hanekawa interacts with the story much closer to a novel (to the point of analyzing chapters and such), Nadeko sees everyone around her as bubbly colorful nobodies, and Kaiki sees everyone as normal fucking people which is only strange and jarring because when Araragi is the protagonist, anyone who is unimportant to him literally does not exist or physically manifest on screen. Some would call it a lazy choice, and maybe it is, this is shaft, it wasnt the first time they did it and it wasn’t the last either (side note; i like mekakucity actors fight me pussy) but even moments full of “background characters” like Araragis freshmen highschool dilemma, everyone in class other than the 2 cute girls he knows are just depicted as names and random photographic images of shit and its very telling of his character despite never being directly said in the novels or script.

5. FUck man this shit looks good: Art is important shit dude, and monogatari consistently looks good, even if the backgrounds can be incredibly simple at times, they are STYLISH and effective and thats all they need to be, and despite being a show mainly about people talking, the characters will move and be in as many weird cool perspective shots as they need to in order to fill out a scene. Whenever the show ISNT just people talkin, the animation does not slack off. The few fights of the main series are absolutely to my taste, I love Araragi V rainy devil, and thats pretty much the only straight up fight in the show, but the Kizu movies are 3 hours of pure kino holy shit, even araragi buying some porn to beat he meat is animated excessively well and with cartoon abandon.

I know that stylish substance is still just a shaft thing, but it’s always on point in monogatari, also NO CG CHARACTERS outside of a few random shots in Kizu, which is a definitely worth pointing out considering mekakucity’s original television run exists.

6. FUck man this shit sounds good: The voice acting is impeccable, I love everyones voice so much, but the music is also of very high quality, and guess what it does that thing that i always fucking mention cus it’s awesome and should be used whenever possible anywhere: Motifing. Every character has a theme in some way due to every major character having atleast 1 opening centered on them (there’s an OP for every fucking arc and its insane they’re all fully animated too its bonkers) and theres usually a couple remixes of each persons theme used at some point, especially as like, bittersweet slow classical songs at the climax of an arc being a remix of the OP for that arc.

Kizu is also noteworthy for motifing the EDs into the other songs, remaking songs from the anime for specific classic interactions (looking at you, sharp and friend or foe) as well as just being super interesting in its use of vocal accompaniment, like the shoowap-doowap kind of stuff they throw in is very fun.

7.FUck man this shit IS good: I said early that the show is mostly just people talking, but fuck man i love listening to these people talk to each other. Everything they talk about is super entertaining and full of multiple meanings and just so much to take in that any amount of rewatching will always have me finding more to love, but since its a weeb show with references and puns and stuff, I would recommend making sure you’re atleast a decently powerful weeb who can at least UNDERSTAND some Japanese and knows a bit about anime before getting into it, also make sure you can read decently fast. It’s not Tatami Galaxy levels but stuff can move quick. (bit far into a post like this to make a recommendation but hey)

oh no i wrote for an hour about this shit bless the poor souls of any mobile users who still follow me

#long ass post #Anonymous

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wendynerdwrites · 7 years

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Im glad that u also like archer. Ive been rewatching it (im on s2) and i feel guilty as a feminist for liking it so much :( i know a lot of the jokes are supposed to be ironic but i still feel bad for laughing, and my bf has made comments abt "how can u laugh at that as a feminist" (he isnt one, hes using it as a gotcha). How do u feel about this? Any advice for separating myself from toxic fandom to just be able to enjoy something problematic? Love ur blog btw happy friday 💋💋

Thanks, and don’t worry, anon: You’re not a bad feminist.

It’s funny you ask this, but I used to have an entire essay series on this exact topic, and on Archer, particularly!

My philosophy is: don’t ignore the problematic, examine it. Use it as a springboard for analysis so you can learn more about the issue conveyed. Use your problematic responsibly! Because, let’s be honest, there ARE no unproblematic pieces of media. So just use it to educate yourself instead. For instance: my love of West Side Story (starring Natalie Wood as the Puerto Rican Maria) got me to learn more about the issues of white-washing.

Being a feminist is not about being perfect, it’s about learning and being open to examination and learning. Use your fandom for good!

Laughter is the balm for the soul. And listening to your boyfriend telling you how to be a feminist… less so. Kind of the opposite.

My old articles are lost, for the most part, but under the cut, I’ve pasted them for reference and included a great video on satire that also very easily applies to this discussion (just substitute feminism with the Holocaust)

Our Faves Are Problematic (And So Can You!)

Nothing and no one is perfect, so isnt it about time we learn how to call out the things we love?

We are all familiar with guilty pleasures: those things we like in spite of ourselves, that we are ashamed to admit we enjoy. Usually the term is applied to something we enjoy despite a perceived “lameness”, or because we’re not the right demographic for something. For instance, I still have a deep, abiding affection for Sailor Moon: that colorful, stock-footage-laced Japanese phenomenon that still gets me shouting “MOON PRISM POWER!” when I’m in the right mood. Yes, childhood is over, and yes, the show’s American dub did give me incest panic as a child, but I can’t help but love it.

But then there is the more difficult brand of guilty pleasures guilty pleasures that involve actual guilt instead of “mild embarrassment”. I’m talking about problematic faves the stuff that we love despite it containing clearly objectionable material.

willing18

(Image copyright Vertigo Comics)

…This is a panel from Bill Willingham’s Fables. The character there is Bigby Wolf, one of the main (anti) heroes of the story and the character the writer identifies with most. The person Bigby is waxing poetically on pro-Zionism to is someone literally called “The Adversary”.

Fables also happens to be one of my favorite comic book series on the planet.

Safe to say the issues surrounding Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East are a bit more complicated than that. And my own feelings on the matter are far more complicated. But this glorification of Israeli military policy is… um… in very tame terms… uncomfortable. After reading this, I resolved to only check Fables out of the library: a way for me to enjoy these comics in a legal way without financially supporting these ideas, however indirectly.

There are other problems with Fables: a lack of ethnic diversity, some murky racial and class commentary, and instances of some objectionable tropes, but there is a lot to recommend of these books as well. The stories are fantastic, the art brilliant, the characters well-fleshed out, and there is a definite progressive take on issues like gender and sexuality. But as much as I love this series, there is no getting around the fact that these stories have issues.

No excuses.

But it’s not just Fables that has disappointed me in the past. I am now and forever a Trekker, yet despite how horribly sexist episodes like “The Turnabout Intruder” are, or the very troubling anti-Semitic coding of the Ferengi. The Star Wars prequels famously had racist caricatures with the Trade Federation and the infamous Jar Jar Binks.

In the world of media, there’s no shortage of problematic content. From the novels of Robert Heinlein containing pro-fascist commentary, to HBO’s Game of Thrones misogynistic adaptation decisions, there’s nothing that is quite free of some messed up messages, subtle and blatant alike.

Now, when we talk about such media, we don’t merely mean triggering factors (i.e. the presentation, portrayal, or discussion of potentially traumatizing issues like domestic abuse, racism, hate crimes, substance abuse, or sexual assault), but rather how these matters are portrayed. A piece of media, such as Marvel and Netflix’s excellent Jessica Jones series, can portray certain issues (such as sexual assault, domestic violence, and mental illness) in a respectful, progressive, and sensitive light. Thus, while the content of the show can be triggering, the skill with which they portray these matters keeps it from being problematic.

In contrast, something like Game of Thrones, which portrays sexual assault in a thoroughly insensitive, exploitative, and misogynistic manner, is highly problematic.

Unfortunately, progress has been a slow-moving process, with many issues such as race, gender, sexual identity, mental illness, substance abuse, and violence only being examined in a more nuanced way fairly recently. As a result, almost all media is problematic in one way or another. Especially since even today, the majority of executives crafting, publishing, and greenlighting books, shows, comics, movies, and other forms of media are in fact cisgendered, heterosexual white men.

So what do we do?

Good news: here at Fandom Following, we don’t believe in dropping something you like just because it’s problematic. Why?

Because knowing, examining, and yes, even appreciating problematic content can be incredibly important. While certain content can be damaging, it can also teach us a great deal. Not only about current issues, but also about how to go about discussing these matters, and constructing narratives in general.

The racial issues in things like Star Wars and Star Trek can teach us much about how coding works, and how to avoid reinforcing stereotypes. The exploitation of women and rape on Game of Thrones can open up a dialogue of how to portray these things properly and improperly.

There are three tricks to enjoying problematic media: 1) Recognizing that there is an issue, 2) Being ready for a dialogue, and 3) Not ignoring or silencing the complaints about said issues.

Well, we here at Fandom Following have decided to tackle this issue head on with a series called “Our Faves Are Problematic (And So Can You!)”, where we will be exploring specific media franchises, creators, and works and, specifically, the problematic content they contain. In this series, we’ll be examining the issues, talking about why they’re important, discussing what this piece of media did wrong, how to approach the issue in a more progressive way, and the best ways to go about discussing the issue itself. Various writers will be contributing to this project, and we’re excited to present this feature to you!

So let’s get down and dirty, people. We all have our problematic faves. Let’s talk about them.

My Face is Problematic: Archer

Honestly, doing a post like this on Archer, a show which is deliberate in its dark humor, is a bit hard for me. Not because I like the show, but because I think there’s true validity in the argument that humor and narratives about really messed up, problematic stuff has its place. The show exists to be as outlandish and absurd as possible. The extremes and the awfulness of the characters’ personalities and their actions is the point.

I VUZ BORN IN DUSSELDORF AND THAT IS VY THEY CALL ME ROLF!

Joking about awful things, awful circumstances, and awful people is hardly new ground for comedy to cover, nor does it send a poor message, necessarily. Mel Brooks wrote a movie in which one of the characters was a Nazi, who wrote an overblown pro-Nazi musical produced by men deliberately trying to make a flop. Springtime For Hitler, as it exists in our universe, is not problematic. The Nazis are the butt of the joke, in which any pro-Nazi sentiment can only function if it is wildly fabricated and over-the-top, and even then, it will still be taken for satire. Because Nazis are utterly terrible, they built their movement on total bullshit that they dressed up in shiny boots and Hugo Boss uniforms and German exceptionalism and “glory”. This song-and-dance number about “Don’t be stupid, be a smartie, come and join the Nazi party” only ever deserves to be a joke, as the Jew who wrote it can tell you. Nazis fucking suck and it’s hilarious that anyone would ever suggest otherwise.

There’s justice in reducing Nazis to self-parody, and doubling down on that by making a joke about them being reduced to self-parody. Especially when said self-parody and depiction of it is crafted by the very people Hitler tried to destroy. No one enjoys or masters mocking Nazis like the Jews. Plain and simple.

Joking about awful things and how terrible they are can be a good way to process things and not allow them to hurt you anymore. Comedy, at its core, is a defense mechanism against horror and pain. There’s a reason slapstick is a classic subgenre of comedy that people have built entire careers around. Laugh at terror and pain to make it go away. Unfortunately, some of the things we manage to find humor in can really make you wonder if were all just terrible and have no limits.

Angela’s Ashes is a memoir by Frank McCourt about his impoverished, abusive, dangerous childhood in Ireland. In it, he chronicles his own starvation, life-threatening illness, abuse, and suffering at the hands of alcoholism and brutality from adult authority figures. He was a child laborer who went days without food while his father drank away the family’s money and abused the rest of the family, who often came down with horrifying illnesses as a result of the terrible conditions he lived in, and spent his formative years suffering along with all the people he loved. Three of his infant siblings die within the space of a chapter. We get a glimpse of the time when his father, overjoyed at the birth of his daughter, finds the will to stop drinking, stop mistreating his family, go to work, provide for his family, and just generally be a better person so that his children don’t have to suffer. For a short period, the McCourts have food, heat, and happiness. Then the baby promptly dies and Frank’s father is back in the pubs, once again squandering any pay he manages to acquire on alcohol and returning home at three am to scream at and beat his wife while his remaining children try to cover their ears and sleep on the cold ground.

Along with being praised for it being a both an unflinchingly brutal depiction of poverty and a testament to the triumph of the human spirit, the book is also praised for its humor.

Remember: Angela’s Ashes is a true story written by the very man who suffered through all of these horrible things. And it’s considered a pretty funny book. And the author who, once again, is the person who actually suffered all of these horrible things, actually did intentionally try to make people laugh as they read about that time he was in the hospital with Typhoid Fever and enjoyed it because it was the first time he’d been in a place where he was fed regularly and got to sleep in a warm bed.

Hilarious.

That being said, there’s satire and dark humor, and there’s just gratuitous, shock-jock bullshit. There are jokes that are terrible simply because of what they’re about and how they’re handled. George Carlin said that anything can be made funny, even rape, if you imagine Elmer Fudd raping Porky Pig.

If we can build entire films and musicals about how any pro-Hitler sentiment can only ever be taken as satire, isn’t that proof that you can joke about anything?

Yes, you can, but that doesn’t mean you should try, that the joke is funny, or that it’s alright, necessarily. Maybe Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, and Springtime for Hitler prove that anything can be made funny and that’s okay. But if that’s true (and no, I’m not saying that it is), that still doesn’t mean every attempt at making something funny is either acceptable or funny.

Springtime for Hitler is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for any attempt to make a terrible subject the object of humor. Standards need to exist.

Unfortunately, the line between good or acceptable dark humor and simply gratuitous, insensitive, inherently problematic jokes can blur. The excuse of humor can only go so far. Yes, make light of Nazis. But there’s still a point where “humor” is used an excuse for people to act like assholes. And it’s an excuse that is used all too often. Radio Shock Jocks have been using that excuse to help reinforce racism and rape culture for quite a while. Whether certain dudebros like it or not, there’s a point where it stops being gross-out and just starts being gross.

Which brings me to Archer, the animated spy comedy on FX that premiered in 2011. Like many comedy series like Seinfeld or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a major part of the premise is that certain characters are, quite simply, terrible people. These characters and their abhorrent behavior is the joke. And, as the show is about spies, these terrible people are often put into highly dangerous, outlandish, and traumatizing situations.

So, the main characters, by virtue of their profession, spend a lot of time killing people in cold blood. Or trying to seduce or manipulate enemies. Or engaging in clandestine operations of sabotage that harm a lot of people. Horrible, violent things are going to happen, things violent enough to serve as narratives on their own. But most of the characters are as awful as the situations they encounter, so the horror is amplified. And it’s a comedy.

Indeed, in the first episode of the fifth season, we get the whole main ensemble recounting all of their actions and experiences working for the spy agency ISIS that we’d witnessed over the course of the show’s run at that point. Drag racing with the Yakuza, knee-capping the Irish mob, encountering human traffickers, 30 year affairs with the head of the KGB that only ended when the guy was blown up because one of the ISIS members had choke sex with the victim’s cyborg replacement, actual piracy, paying homeless people to fight for spectators, defling a corpse, defiling a different corpse, sexual assault, kidnapping the pope, blowing up oil pipelines, “smuggling Mexicans”

Yeah.

There are comedic arcs about cancer, illegal immigration, kinky S&M bondage murders, cocaine addiction… a lot of stuff, basically.

Now, take those situations, and add in characters who get aroused by things like homeless people, being choked, sex with food, and the thought of their mother dying. Who spend their weekends starting fires, making hybrid pig-people, rubbing sand into the eyes of their employees, competing in underground Chinese Fighting Fish tournaments, and calling in bomb threats so that they can get a table at a fancy restaurant. You get the idea.

And it’s all totally awesome and hilarious and god damn it I kind of love these characters.

This show has a season-long sub-arc about one of the main characters getting so aggressively addicted to cocaine that she not only consumes (literally) half a ton of it in the space of a few months, but almost gets her head chopped off for buying amphetamines from the Yakuza with counterfeit money. It’s one of the most incredible things the show has done.

Pictured: An absurdly self-centered man feeling genuine dismay and concern over his friend risking her life to achieve an unrealistic standard of beauty.

The title character has a butler named Woodhouse who practically raised him. One of the first interactions we witness between them is Archer not only threatening to rub sand into Woodhouse’s “dead little eyes”, but making him go out and buy the sand himself and check if they grade it, because he wants the sand to be coarse. He’s also done things like make the man eat a bowl of spiderwebs and deliberately keep him in the dark about his brother’s death and funeral.

Another character is a mad scientist and possible clone of Adolf Hitler who kills a young intern by giving him a drug designed to turn him gay. That’s one of the less disturbing things Dr. Krieger has done.

Frequent gags on this show include one guy repeatedly getting shot, another character repeatedly getting paralyzed (it’s complicated), people trying to remember the inappropriate puns that they wanted say as one-liners, the horrific abuse and neglect Sterling Archer has received from his mother his entire life, and basically everyone being a sex-maniac.

There are plots revolving around mind-control, drugging people, and hypnotism. You can imagine the paths some of those episodes go down. Yes, there is a character that has tried to sexually assault one of her sleeping co-workers. And later deposited two unconscious, naked coworkers in a bathroom stall with an octopus, in an episode that has already made tentacle hentai jokes. Yes, the openly gay character on the show is often the target of jokes about him being gay or a woman from his coworkers. Yes, the female lead, a black woman, is referred to as a “quadroon” at one point by one of the characters.

Yes, the following exchange of dialogue does take place in an early episode:

“Oh my god, you killed a hooker!”

“Call-girl!”

“No, Cyril, when they’re dead, they’re just hookers!”

And yet… Oh my god. How it manages to play around with stuff in an amazing fashion. For one thing, it is amazing how often this show skewers micro-aggressions and fucks around with stereotypes. And, despite how unabashedly messed up it is, the writing in it actually manages to be oddly pro-social progress in ways that most modern media doesn’t even seem to be aware of.

I take pride in my sex work and I will not put up with your bullshit!

For instance the “hooker” referred to in that exchange? (spoiler alert: she wasn’t really dead) She’s Trinette, and she an unbelievably refreshing and strangely progressive depiction of a sex worker. While she’s a minor character, every time she shows up, it’s awesome. Trinette is a sex worker who is unashamed of her job, a woman who truly does take pride in and enjoy her work, who does not put up with poor behavior from her clients, and is just generally awesome. She call people out and makes them pay for any mistreatment she receives, from calling out micro-aggressions by insisting on her preferred terminology for her profession (“Call-girl, you puke!”), shaming men for their sexual misdeeds (“How can you cheat on Lana bare-back?!”), demanding restitution for any injuries or threats she’s suffered (Threatening Archer into giving her his car after he fakes her death and stuffs her in a rug to fool Cyril into thinking he killed her), and determining her work and clients (“What about Trinette? She said that? Damn it!”). When she has a baby, she gives it her last name along with his father’s (“Magoon-Archer”) and she unapologetically proud of her Irish heritage. She’s easily one of the most functional characters in the show, and every one of her appearances on the show manage to defy at least one whore-phobic trope a minute. She’s the best.

Then there’s the show’s handling of race, which is mixed. While arguably the most important female character in the series (the show, despite its name, is very, very much an ensemble, especially as the series progresses. But in the early episodes when they focussed on fewer characters, she was the one who got the most screentime) is Lana Kane, a highly-competent (for ISIS) African American woman who is really, really well-developed, there is also the fact that she’s the only POC in the main cast. Granted, part of that IS the point. One of the earliest episodes is “Diversity Hire”, where, aside from Lana, the spy agency is so overwhelmingly white that they hire a “diversity double-whammy!” Conway Stern, a black Jew.

“Sammy Gay-vis Junior!”

Now, granted, that doesn’t sound great the way I describe it, but there are so many great moments in this episode alone. For instance, when Mallory Archer, terrible woman and owner of the spy agency mentions their lack of diversity, Cyril, the tragically white accountant and “nice guy” puts his hands on Lana’s shoulder and says he thinks they’re pretty diverse, a statement Lana finds hilarious. Cue Sterling Archer, other horrible person, telling Lana she’s “black-ish”, then responding to her offense at this with “Well, you freaked out when I said quadroon!”. The framing of this entire discourse is that Cyril and Archer are fucking idiots and Lana is of course taking offense because, duh, she should. The episode proceeds with a lot of references and discussion about racism, highlighting casual racism in a nuanced, funny, and organic way. For instance, Archer’s relief that Conway didn’t sleep with his mother. While Archer freaks out about anyone sleeping with his mother, regardless of race, Conway believes it’s racism on Archer’s fault. And in no way does the narrative act like he’s overly-sensitive or irrational for thinking that. Because the stereotype about black men seducing white women and fear from white men about this is still a very real, pervasive thing that has somehow managed to survive in our “enlightened” times. Of course Conway encountering a guy who displays a downright violent fixation on whether or not his new black coworker is sleeping with his mother will assume it’s a race thing. Because why would anyone be so preoccupied with such an idea? In that situation, it’s almost certainly based on the long-standing paranoia white men have about black men’s sexuality “conquering their women.” It’s one of the most common varieties of anti-blackness in existence.

Of course, since it’s Archer, who has kidnapped a LOT of people under the suspicion that they were having sex with his mom, we know this is the one case that it isn’t racism. It’s Archer’s disturbing, Oedipal relationship with his mother. He even kidnapped and threatened his role model, Burt Reynolds, for dating his mother. When he says “Not in a racist way” to Conway in this episode, it’s actually true. He’s just honestly that screwed up where his mother is concerned.

Conway’s conclusions on this, regardless, are still framed as a totally understandable. To the point where the episodes suggests that it would make no sense for Conway to think otherwise. Part of the joke is that no, Archer isn’t a horrible racist at all. He’s way too screwed up for his actions to be motivated by racism.

And before anyone asks, no, this wasn’t the “episode that acknowledges that racism is a thing.” You know the ones… The episodes that talk about race and why racism is bad to prove to the audience that they’re not racist, then proceed with the rest of the show, which never acknowledges race and racism again. There are frequent instances of highlighting racism, from violent outright bigotry to common micro-aggressions to clueless white people demanding how the thing they just did/said could POSSIBLY be considered racist! They’re not racist! How is THAT racist?! Cue Lana face-palming.

I just really, really like this. It doesn’t just end there, either. Racism is called out pretty frequently on this show, and not in a cliche, strawman way. Nor is it treated like something that only exists in the form of aggressively bigoted bad people shouting slurs and holding cross burnings. Nope. The “heroes” of this show just say shit that you could easily imagine someone saying in real life, shortly before getting defensive about any racism on their part. It’s treated as a common, pervasive thing that Lana and other PoC have to deal with every day, and the offense they take at it is treated as nothing short of sympathetic or justified (even in the cases of misunderstandings, like with Conway). This includes Mallory telling Lana to “put [the race card] back in the deck!” as reminder of how much of an unapologetic douche Mallory is.

It’s made clear: people say and do some super racist shit on a regular basis with realizing it or meaning to, and regardless, it’s still uncool and people have every right to get upset and call you out on it. See: Ray’s bionic hand at the end of season six.

Lana’s reactions and how they’re framed is usually pretty awesome. Mostly they come in the form of small, reasonable confrontations, which are never framed as an overreaction on her part. The fact that she “freaked out” when Archer called her a quadroon is framed as “well, duh, of course, she should.” Then there are instances like when she, Archer, and their child visit a high-end nursery school where they encounter a pretty obvious racist. The guy ignores and dismisses Lana at first, then expresses surprise at the fact that she’s the mother of the child (despite the baby being black), remarking about the “times we live in” and telling Lana “good for you!” when she informs him that yes, she is the mother, not the nanny or the maid.

Not all of the racism stuff stems from Lana being back, either. They skewer bigotry against Latinos on a pretty regular basis. When an Irish mobster rants about Latinos (he doesn’t refer to them by that name) “taking American jobs!”, Archer immediately calls bullshit, recalling actual history of the Irish being accused of that exact same thing during the mass immigration of the Irish to America during the potato famine, and it’s just as shitty and bigoted to say such things about immigrants now as it was in 1842. He is extremely irate about a mission ISIS is assigned to do on behalf of border patrol to arrest people who just want to get a job, and he ends up siding with and befriending the Mexican illegal immigrants he encounters. All of this while aspects of certain Latinx cultures are often highlighted, often very favorably (“Ramone is Latino, so he’s not afraid to express affection.”)

That being said, there are still a lot of issues in the show. The lack of diversity is definitely an albatross around this show’s neck. Especially so many seasons after the “Diversity Hire” episode. While I do praise Archer for not treating racism as a thing that is rare and only needs to be addressed in one twenty-minute block of time, it is telling that the lack of diversity at ISIS is never addressed again.

Then there’s the approach to sexuality. The show loves gross-out sex humor, especially regarding Krieger. And the depiction of sexuality is actually pretty mixed. On one hand, the openly gay character in the show adheres to a lot of stereotypes about gay men: he mocks Lana about her “knock-off Fiacci drawers”, his go-to alias is “Carl Channing”, his free time is spent at raves, and he loves to make effeminate poses. He’s also a frequent target of homophobic jokes and remarks. His outrage at this is treated as being every bit as valid as Lana’s, but it doesn’t change the fact that their main gay character is basically ALL of the stereotypes, as are a number of the other gay characters.

“Alright! Were off to get our scrotums waxed!”

Then there is the sexual assault. Which, once again, is called out for being what it is, in defiance of many common biases (such as the idea that female-on-male sexual assault isn’t a thing). But this show is way too flippant about this.

While I consider Archer to be very sex-positive, allowing every character, regardless of sex, age, or orientation, to be comfortable and expressive about their sexuality without judgment (a lot of jokes, yes, but not any that come off as particularly shaming). Almost every character, male or female spends a fair amount of time naked or scantily clad. We see Archer stripped down just as often as Lana. And the fan service isn’t relegated to just women who adhere to the typical youth and weight obsessed eurocentric standards we all know and hate.

Pam, who is a big woman (and often the target of fat jokes, which the show always treats as nothing short of detestable) is a total sex goddess who grows to be utterly confident in herself as a woman to the point where she’s giving Mallory (one of the most desired women on the show) advice. When she reveals that she keep ingesting cocaine because it’s made her thin with big boobs, Archer is utterly dismayed, telling her she was way better off the way she was, acting horrified that she’d risk her life to be “hot”, and just generally freaking out about Pam’s desire to be thin. It manages to avoid being cliche or empty given that Archer considered Pam the best sex he ever had before she got thin, to the point of blowing off assignments just to have sex with her, because she’s just that awesome. After she gains the weight back in season six, she’s still sexy, making Archer’s jaw drop in the episode “Edie’s Wedding.” She’s also unapologetically pansexual, which is awesome.

Mallory, meanwhile, is still actively sexual and treated as desirable. While sex and sexuality are always sources of gags and jokes on Archer, never do the jokes about Mallory’s sexuality ever come across as ageist. Sure, some characters make ageist comments on the show, but it’s never treated as valid. Mallory is still treated as being extremely sexy and confident about it. While Mallory is generally a horrible person, her enthusiastic sexual agency is never once treated as a flaw or something disturbing or gross. What’s disturbing, gross, and worthy of ridicule is her son being so preoccupied and reactionary about his mother having a sex life. It’s clear: if you have a problem with Mallory having a lot of sex and enjoying it, you’re the one with issues.

Even the one young, thin, white woman in the main cast gets to be unapologetic about her kinks. It’s really only a problem when her desire for choke-sex motivates her to lead a KGB cyborg to the ISIS safehouse. Or when she coerces Cyril into sex. And generally acts like a violent, awful person.

Essentially, there’s no tolerance for shaming women for being sexual. All of it, regardless of preference, age, size, or race, is nothing but fun and should be enthusiastically represented. “Can’t talk, got a pussy to break!”

Being a predator is shameful. Having belly rolls is not.

Who on Earth finds this funny?

But, then there’s the flippancy about sexual assault. There ARE gags about Pam and Ray dropping their pants when encountering an unconscious Cyril. And sorry, but the framing of it is all manner of screwed up. There’s tons of sexual coersion as well. Another one of the most problematic instances comes in an episode of season two, where Archer is repeatedly sexually assaulted by a sixteen-year-old German socialite. The show goes out of its way to make it clear that Archer explicitly refuses consent, that he’s being violated, yet the show treats this as funny.

While I get that this is a comedy show and that in-depth exploration of the trauma of sexual abuse isn’t going to be something they can spend a lot of time on, the option they should have gone with is, you know, not base an episode around a german schoolgirl raping the main character. It’s not funny, guys. It’s not necessary. It’s actually just uncomfortable and off-putting.

The show mentions things like alternative gender identities, emotional triggers, and sexual exploration in ways that treat these things as totally valid, which is good. It also frequently portrays poor people as jokes in and of themselves, which is a lot less good. While materialism is lampooned frequently, it’s not treated as a joke in and of itself the way poverty is.

The way the show often portray legitimate abuse for laughs also often goes overboard. While the show does a good job of exploring and following through on all the ways Mallory’s abuse screwed up Archer, there’s a point where the volume of “abuse humor” gets to just be downright gross. Dark humor is one thing, not being able to go an episode without a “Haha, ten-year-old archer was abandoned in a train station at Christmas!” joke is, uh… Not great.

Archer is an awesome, immensely watchable show. But it’s not one I always feel clean watching. It’s a show that celebrates extremes, yes, but there’s a point where certain lines are crossed and it’s just problematic rather than gallows humor.

Archer is one of those series that really makes me struggle to distinguish the gallows humor from the simple tastelessness. To give pause to the idea of problematic content being the “point.”

The line blurs with Archer. A lot. It often manages to distinguish itself with the things it gets right, especially since they often do well on things that most shows, movies, and books are often terrible at. And that’s enough to buy it some goodwill for when they screw up.

But seriously, guys, please stop treating sexual coercion and child abuse as bottomless gag wells. I would have really preferred to have Pam and her awesome sexuality without her sexually assaulting Cyril and Ray. It’s not funny or clever or edgy. It’s just gross.

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#archer fx #your fave is problematic #anon #feminism

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kaialone · 7 years

Text

I’m gonna ramble about Ganon(dorf) for a bit

Proceed if you’re interested (I wrote a lot)

Okay so I don’t even know how to start this, I’ll just go.

(note that I’ll mention the timeline in this, please dont think that I dont know that the timeline could be changed at any moment should nintendo feel ike it, I just like semi-going by currently established canon. Also please note that I got no problem with people who dont feel like following the timeline for any reason, to each their own.)

I kinda really like the fact that Ganondorf is said to be a reincarnation of Demise, because, idk, somehow the idea of powerful demons needing to reincarnate into human form for some reason, and then once they have this form and live that life they start having human feelings and emotions and start struggling with what they want to be and maybe end up becoming good guys, is just somethign I really enjoy.

(If that sounds weirdly specific, Great Demon King Piccolo from Dragonball is one character with that kinda arc that I love.)

And then of course, one of the most interesting things about Ganondorf, imo, is how in the three different timeline branches, you got one incarnation of Ganondorf who turns out very different in each branch.

Something I always like is to just kinda, look at the different “last words” Ganondorf has in each timeline branch, and what they really mean for each of them:

"The wind... it is... blowing."

“I am the Evil King, Ganon...”

“The history of light and shadow will be written in blood!”

(though this gets a bit muddled in the Downfall Timeline, as technically Ganon died in ALttP, but was revived in OoX,´, which I see as his true death for now, but then again we dunno if any Ganons after that where him revived or reborn so *shrug*)

But first we should talk about the guy that “grows up” to be these other three.

I mean, personally I think no matter how you look at it, OoT!Ganondorf did lots of bad stuff, and wasnt a good ruler to the Gerudo (I dont mind different interpretations at all though), but I do think his initial intentions were good like we hear him talk about in WW, but lets not get ahead of ourselves here.

OoT!Ganondorf doesn’t really end up helping the Gerudo once he actually takes over Hyrule (all the Gerudo are still over in the desert, cept for maybe Iron Knuckles) and its heavily implied all the Gerudo were brainwashed to some extent (The carpenters note that the Gerudo seem nicer, post-Twinrova’s defeat), and Nabooru, who was very respected among the Gerudo, was explicitly against Ganondorf, but then brainwashed into submission.

Like even if you think Twinrova did all that without him knowing, not noticing your parents brainwashing your people doesnt exactly make you a good leader.

Adding to that, if A Link to the Past’s backstory is to be believed (and the timeline is not said to split until Link falls in the final battle) then, Ganondorf entered the hiding place of the Triforce alongside fellow thieves of his, and ended up killing them all so he could have the Triforce for himself.

Buuut before you think I’m just gonna talk about how bad OoT!Ganondorf is, like, I still think he genuinely wanted to help his people (at first) and that everything WW!Ganondorf says does represent his true feelings, and that at some point, he just really wanted to do something good.

I think its interesting to think about why that presumably changed for a while, wether you think its the usual getting mad with power, getting to close to the “dark side” or whatever with all the dark magic going on, or being groomed into this role by Twinrova, or all of that, or something else entirely.

I mean, he definitely did some bad stuff before that too, but in the context of Ganondorf being a reincarnation of Demise, I wonder if it could be possible that either seeing Link and/or Zelda or laying eyes on the Triforce ended up having some effect on him, like awakening some part of Demise within him so to speak, contributing to him losing sight of his initial goals and getting more about power in general.

Notably post timeskip Ganondorf seems to use a lot more monsters/dmemons to do his bidding than before, but this could easily just be the difficulty spike for the player.

Idk if this sounds cheap to people somehow, but I remember a popular theory being that the Triforce of Power turned him evil so, its not that different imo.

Of course, in the final battle we see OoT!Ganondorf become Ganon, presumably for the very first time, but honestly? The transformation itself isn’t that important to me, as it just feels like a visual representation of the downfall Ganondorf had undergone already anyway.

And then, when he is defeated, he infamously curses Link, and ZELDA, and THE SAGES, vowing to kill their descendants once he breaks free from the seal and all...

...which leads into who is everyone’s favorite Ganondorf, and rightfully so, WW!Ganondorf.

Before going into the present day of WW, there is its backstory, which is very interesting to me, cause you just gotta think, how do we go from a guy like OoT!Ganon to WW!Ganon?

At some point after OoT but before WW, Ganondorf’s threat became reality, he broke out of the seal and tried taking over Hyrule once more.

But I cant help but wonder how it mustve felt for him. I picture him for years, decades, centuries maybe, sealed away, picturing his revenge, imagining how great it’ll feel to get free and eradicate the descendants of Link and Zelda, and finally making Hyrule his.

But when he was freed, he likely found a Hyrule that was different from how he remembered it. Notably, there would be no hero, nor descendants of his for him to exact revenge upon. And while we know that a princess seems to have had existed at the time, who knows if she was “a Zelda”, if you wanna call them that.

I just imagine it wouldve felt a lot less satisfying that he imagined, heck, probably wouldve felt more like he was robbed if his chance to take revenge.

And who knows what even happened to the Gerudo by that point? I know lack of them in Wind Waker doesnt mean they are extinct, but for all we know they couldve left hyrule altogether? (Like they seem to have done between OoT and TP, and mightve done post OoT in the Downfall timeline, if you dont think they went extinct)

Overall I could see what Ganondorf mightve pictured/wanted to be his most glorious moment, his long awaited return, mightve just ended up feeling kinda empty.

Not that I think he wouldve done a complete 180 already because of that, but I could see it leaving him in a bit of a shock.

Adding to that, now just as he is about to conquer Hyrule for real, the gods decide to destroy it, essentially. Or at least, thats how Ganondorf felt about the situation, given how he speaks of it in the game. Its like the gods are playing with him, everytime Hyrule is just within his graps, they take it from him.

The flood mustve felt especially terrible for him, cause the way he saw it, it mustve been something like the goddesses saying “we’d rather just end hyrule and kill all its people than have you be its ruler”. What a slap in the face, to put it lightly.

After that, getting sealed away again, and all the stuff I mentioned above, probably gave him time and opportunity to reflect upon his life so far, and the future too.

I dont think that in WW, Ganondorf was just “going through the motions”, and just trying to finish what he started because he had no choice at this point. I do think he still genuinely wanted to try and conquer Hyrule, its just that he has had some time to think about it, a bit more about why he wanted it, and about what he did wrong before, and regretting those mistakes.

Like for example, he really doesnt seem like he wants to harm Link and Zelda anymore, if he can help it. He could be hating them, still furious for what happened during OoT, but he doesnt seem to be.

One of these days I wanna talk about all the contrasts and parallels WW seems to draw to Zelda games that came before it, especially OoT, but for this bit I just wanna mention this one thing.

How in OoT you confront Ganondorf, who smugly plays his leitmotif on the organ, the sound of which growing louder the further you approach his chamber. His back pointed at the entrance which he knows the hero will emerge from. Zelda, encase in a crytal, hangs above him like a trophy, like the hero bait she is to him at this point.

And then in WW, his leitmotif plays in his final dungeon, but actually grow more quiet the closer you get to him. That already makes you feel like, while it invokes OoTs atmoosphere, it actually turns it on its head. And then, when you do cofront him, “Zelda” is instead peacefully sleeping in a bed, (presumably Ganondorfs bed?) with him calmly sitting by her side, watching over her. He doesn’t face Link directly as he enters, but isnt completely turned away from his either.

Of course this scene still has some creepy atmosphere to it, especially when he starts reading her mind, but maaaan, the contrast to OoT (and games that came before it) just GETS ME everytime I just think about it.

Ahhh, I could go on and on like, you all know this stuff, you all thought about him in this game so much, didnt you?

I really hope nintendo will choose to give another Ganondorf this kinda depth, and maybe even just play with the idea of Ganondorf taking on a different role than “final boss” in a Zelda title. I would love that.

Now, let’s turn the clock wayyy back to when Ganon fought Link, and talk about the timeline that occurs when Link is actually killed by him.

To me, this is kinda of the “original” timeline, for various reasons, but I don’t wanna distract from our main man here too long.

In this version of the events, Ganon manages to actually aquire the full Triforce in the final battle of OoT, and causes quite a bit of misery before the Sages finally manage to seal him away in this version, too. But because he is so powerful with the Triforce and all that, it ends up costing a lot more lives to finally get to that point.

Now from that point on, this Ganon seems to just kinda rule the Dark World, a twisted “evil” version of Hyrule of his own creation. And of course most notably, either because of this worlds properties, or his general state of being, this Ganon seemingly always stays in beast form from that point on.

Sadly this one doesnt talk too much (though he is very much capable of doing so), so we dont get much of a grasp on his character.

To me, ALttP!Ganon feels like somewhere in the middle when it comes to Ganons. Despite his bestial appearance, he doesnt seem as blind with power and rage as TP!Ganondorf, maybe cause he doesnt call himself a god or something. But he of course is nowhere near WW!Ganondorf in terms of reasons and having reflecting upon his past.

Either way, it is clear that he is not happy with just ruling his very own personal Hyrule, filled with damned people that have become monsters like him, as in ALttP he does attempt to break his seal and go back to the World of Light

This might just be out of greed, but you could also imagine he might simply be unhappy in this demonic world, or even scared? Given how we see that some inhabitants of this land lose their humanity to such an extent that they’re turning into things like trees, maybe even completely losing their sense of self?

One of the more curious things about ALttP!Ganon is his relationship to Agahnim. No one is entirely sure what they are to one another.

In some of the mangas, Agahnim is portrayed as a human who gets possessed or turned by Ganon in some shape or form, and this portrayal is popular from what I’ve seen.

But in the actual game, Agahnim is described as being Ganon’s alter-ego. The term used in the japanese version is “bunshin”, which can mean a lot of things, including alter-ego or even reincarnation, but in the context of the Zelda franchise, there is another part in the series where it is used. In Phantom Hourglass, Oshus is described as being the “bunshin” of the Ocean King. So, if we assume Agahnim works the same way, his consiusness would have to be exactly Ganon’s, right? Of course that doesn’t mean other interpretations can’t exist, I myself am not even sure what to think.

The usage of the word bunshin does imply that to some extent, Agahnim literally was a part, or offshot of Ganon. So froma certain point of view, we could add his character to Ganons, if we wanted to.

Something that intrigues me though is that in the Downfall Timeline, we never see Ganon in human form again. Could this be related to Agahnim? Maybe not exactly literally but symbolIcally?

Did Ganon split the humanity he had left off of himself, because that was the only part of him that could exit the Dark World before the seal was lifted?

If so, did Agahnim dying have any effect on him? Or did whatever Agahnim was in the end just return to him?

So much to think about here, ahh.

Of cours, ALttP!Ganon then gets killed by Link in their battle. Not sealed away, just flat out killed.

Normally this would probably be the end, but of course OoX happened, in which Twinrova tried to revive him, but didnt quite succeed.

Ganon is revived as a seemingly mindless beast, only actualy talking in his final moments, which is the quote from earlier.

In the japanese version, this quote is written entirely in katakana, which can indicate that its pronounced weirdly somehow, in cases like this likely because he had a hard time forming the words at all.

He also refers to himself as a Demon King in japanese, but that term hadn’t caught on in the english versions of the games yet.

Okay so, as I kinda mentioned above, this Ganon’s story gets a bit muddled from this point on.

Sometime after ALttP, but before ALbW, ALbW’s backstory (which is not ALttP) occurs, during which a hero fights a Ganon, who is then sealed away by him, the princess and the sages, but we dont know if this Ganon is the same, just revived again, or an entirely new incarnation.

But you could argue that it hardly matters, cause he barely does anything in the game, essentially acting as a power boost for Yuga...

However, there is a theory that he might do more than that actually.

So, according to this theory, Yuga actually was completely loyal to Hilda, and its only by fusing with Ganon that he starts wanting to betray, due to Ganons influence. The theory is nice in the sense that it makes Yuga more of an opposite of Ganon than he seems if you take the game at face value, and gives Ganon more to do. Depending on your interpretation, Yuga might just be influenced by Ganon, or they literally fuse into a being that is just as much Ganon as it is Yuga.

But of course that is just a minor theory, and you dont have to like it, naturally.

After that we get HF and AoL!Ganon, who is said to be more of a mindless beast as this point, no trace left of the human he used to be.

A rather sad fate.

Again it is unclear if this is the same Ganon, revived yet again, or maybe (anotehr) reincarnation.

But if its the former, you can only assume that, even if you dont think Agahnim dying had any effect on Ganon, just forcing him to ressurect over and over instead of letting him reincarnate properly, must’ve done quite the number on Ganon.

Somehow thinking about this version of Ganon in particular makes me think about the cursed boars in Princess Mononoke, who where lost to their anger. Especially the moment when the Wolf faces the Old Boar, who we have seen slowly lose his self at this point, and she almost pitifully says “Can’t you even speak anymore?” to him.

It almost feels like Downfall Timeline!Ganon is cursed by fate, in a sense. Not really in-universe either, but out of universe too!

History is already written (the first two games are already out) and thus Ganon has to follow the path that is already set for him, become what he will be in the future (what he is in the first two games), a frightening monster that terrorizes this kingdom of Hyrule for the sake of power, with no humanity in him (him having been human wasnt part of his character at the time the first two games where released)

I wonder if the demons failing to get Links blood in 2 will mark the end of this Ganon? (I hope not)

It was kinda nice to see BotW seemingly do somewhat of a modern take on this kinda idea of Ganon, something that has become little more than destruction of Hyrule in pyhsical form. I could see people place BotW as post- AoL for that reason, even.

And well, rolling back time yet again, we go to the last way OoT!Ganondorf turned out, which is TP!Ganondorf...

....who, compared to the others, actually has a bit more of a complicated “set-up” that kickstarts his character.

When Link gets send back in time at the end of OoT, his Tiforce of Courage breaks apart into the pieces we find in WW, presumably because Link was literally removed from that reality as he possessed it?

Then upon his arrival in the new Child Timeline, Link immediately gets the Triforce of Courage of THAT timeline, presumably cause he is in a state of being where he is meant to have a Triforce Piece of Courage?

Well, regardless of what you believe to be the cause, this is what happens, and as a result, the other two Triforce pieces choose Zelda and Ganondorf to bear them and end up residing in them. Thats how the pieces ended up with the three without the Sacred Realm being entered in this version of the events.

Link ends up warning Zelda and the king of the events that will transpire in the future, and thus Ganondorf loses the trust of the king and is unable to set his plan from OoT into motion.

Its a bit vague, but sometime after that Ganondorf starts a direct attack towards Hyrule, but gets captured and put on trial.

And as you know, as he was about to be executed, the Triforce of Power activated and saved him from death.

Now I am not sure if this is true, but I think up until that point, Ganondorf didn’t even know he had it.

But wether he discovered he had it now, or the moment it fist came to him, one thing I am sure of, he mustve felt so great for it. Cause he has no idea that a time travelling Link caused this to happen, right? From his perspective, the power of the gods just came to him like that because he is that great! And then, he cant even die as a result of this? He is literally immortal? Well, he must be the dang chosen one, right?

No wonder he got all god complex in this one!

Something I´m kinda interested in is how this guy spend years, likely centuries, in the Twillight Realm, and if his form in there is any indication, not exactly in physical form either, I mean isnt it implied he HAD to mae use of Zant like that in order to be able to have a physical form like that?

Ultimately TP!Ganondorf just is a lot like OoT!Ganondorf if you think about it, just kinda taken to a more extreme. He is no longer just human, but has transcended humanity much further than OoT!Ganondorf has, and feels superior to everyone because of it.

He is absolute in his own eyes, he is a god, his eventual victory is certain, his battle with the hero just a formality at this point.

And he sticks to that mindset until the very end, even as he is stabbed and fatally wounded by Link. It only makes sense, he couldnt be stopped by this before, why would it stop him now?

Of course the events that follow are rather vague, and people argue about what it means to this day, but I think it ultimately boils down to Ganondorf biting of more than he can chew, overestimating his own power. Or rather, what he thinks is his own power, cause its not even his.

From the moment he was impaled by the sword of the sage, Ganondorf has been a dead man.

He has only been kept alive afterwards through the power of others, the gods, and Zant as well.

This power was not his, and thus it could just leave him just as quick as it came to him.

The imagine of Zant snapping his neck, to me, either just refers to the fact that with Zant dead, who acted as Ganondorf anchor of sorts, Ganondorf himself dies as well, or it refers to the fact that Ganondorf, who saw himself as a god and superior to everything, was ultimately just as much of a mortal and simple being than the very person who worshipped him as a deity the most.

Yes, you could call Zant the very person that made Ganondorf a god in the first place, in more ways than one, so without him, Ganondorf is a god no more. And he dies just like any mortal would.

Ultimately this Ganondorf story feels like a story of hubris.

Simple, but neat.

(Its interesting like, its almost like, TP!Ganondorf was a human who longed to be a god, and WW!Ganondorf was like a god who longed to be human?)

But, do not think it ends here...

We’ve looked at all the people that OoT!Ganondorf grew up to be, but that isn’t all the Ganons there is, the story of Ganon actually continues further down the Child Timeline.

Yes, this brings us to FSA!Ganon, or as I sometimes like to call him, Ganon II.

I understand that most probably never played this game, and I probably won’t blow your minds if I tell you Ganon doesn’t actually do much in this game but, I still like to think about him.

He’s actually a proper reincarnation of TP!Ganondorf, folowing the latter’s death at the end of TP.

From some dialouge in-game we know a little bit about his past. Like his past life, he was a boy born to the Gerudo people, and was named Ganondorf.

Interestingly, in this game, the Gerdudo dont actually say that every 100 years a male child is born, they that every 100 years a “special” child is born, and of course Ganondorf was that special child. They still mention the “only man” part, but it doesnt come up with the “every 100 years” line.

Notably it also doesnt seem that Ganondorf was supposed to be their king, and it doesnt seem like they ever treated him like a king, they only mention he was supposed to be the protector of the Gerudo people and the desert.

This is just speculation, but perhaps, after what happened to the first Ganondorf, the Gerudo people decided it wasnt a good idea to treat the sole male like a king just because.

The Gerudo in the game tell you that the older Ganndorf became, the more twisted and obsessed with power he became, and eventually he started breaking their laws, too.

When he entered the forbidden pyramid, the Gerudo basically considered him banished from their tribe, but also didnt think he would ever survive in there and presumed him to be dead.

The Gerudo in this game really only talk badly about Ganondorf, which probably makes sense if he really just did bad stuff to them, but its a very stark contrast to OoT where the Gerudo seemed to just let Ganondorf get away with everything, kinda.

Something I wonder about if maybe like, Ganondorf wasn’t exactly treated well by the Gerudo, out of fear of him turning out like the old Ganondorf, or if Ganondorf just turned bad all on his own. Or maybe a mixture of both?

What is sorta interesting is the story of how this one came to be Ganon, which is that within the pyramid, he found a certain Trident, which is implied to have caused him to “awake as Ganon”, so to speak, as he picked it up. This is the inscription found with the Trident:

“Seek...you...the world? Seek you...power? Does your...soul...despise peace and...thirst for... more? Does your soul...cry... for...destruction and... conquest? We...grant you...power to ...ruin...the world. The power of...darkness. Evil...spirit of magic trident. You are...the... King of Darkness.“

The trident feels like it has more out of universe meaning than in-universe (though I do headcanon it to be a reincarnated ghirahim somehow, because I can). The trident being a weapon that franchise-wise is heavily associated with Ganon, and notably Ganon only, as Ganondorf is never really seen wielding a literal trident.

This Ganondorf picks up the trident, and with it the legacy of the interpretations of Ganons that came in the games before this one, so to speak.

I´m sorry for this part being so unstructured, but interestingly, Ganondorf is this game is referred to as “ancient demon reborn”, or something like “instrument of evil reborn” in japanese, hinting that even at the time of the game’s release, this Ganon was probably intended to be the reincarnation of a previous evil, likely a previous Ganon, of course.

What I wonder about is how much this Ganon is aware of that, though. When he grew up, becoming more and more twisted, did he know? Did he know he was the reincarnation of a villain that had previously plagued Hyrule? Did he feel his hatred? Did he know whose it was, or did he consider it his own? Or was it simply his own?

And when he picked up the trident, and transformed into a demon beast, did he understand what this meant? What he was? Did he ever obtain any memories of his past self, even?

Something that hints that this /might/ be the case is Shadow Link.

Now Shadow Link is not actually created by the dark mirror from the evil part of Link’s heart as the english localization suggest. Instead its created from the evil part of Ganon’s heart, using the dark mirror. It is said that through the mirror,the hatred and evil of Ganondorf, throughout time, took on the shape of Link. Likely because the hero is a major subject of Ganondorf’s hatred.

The fact that this happened when FSA!Ganon used the mirror, despite himself never having met Link up until that point, hints that he might, at least subconsiously, harbor the memories of his past incarnations?

But really, as usual there is a lot open to interpretation.

I´m just so intrigued, like in this timeline there is a “second Ganon”, a Ganon that came “after”, someone who had to take on this cruel legacy.

And, with that we have now talked about all the Ganon(dorf)s that have existed in the franchise to this day, not counting stuff like BS Zelda and the CDI-Games.

If you stuck around until this point, thank you so much, you’re too kind!

But also thanks to everyone that just skimmed this or looked it over briefly, I hope this wall of text did something for you.

(Sorry for any typos I... type too fast when I get excited about a topic.)

#legend of zelda #ganon #ganondorf

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briefbouquetcreatorlove-blog · 6 years

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