#*sigh* discourse

[catofoldstones]

we already have people bitching about how “i can’t stand Chani, she’s so annoying 🙄” and “Paul chose Chani to be the mother of his children, Irulan is just at the sidelines eating dust as she should”, like brothers we cannot do this again. We can’t Chani v Irulan our way out of this one because the problem is Paul and the Empire. Gosh, we truly are never getting out of the patriarchy.

[brsb4hls]

Ok, but if you wanna circle that Siken quote around, maybe post the whole thing?

The second part is the important one.

Also, for those who still can't seperate fiction from reality and are obvi already pestering him, because he dared to name that ship:

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

???

Both WWX and LWJ are highly ideal characters, so there wouldn’t be too much dispute on their moral standing. They’re perfect as the protagonists.  - MXTX's end notes (chapter 113.5), EXR translation

I'm not one to say word of the author is word of god – I definitely lean more towards Death of the Author in that regard. But an important part of that is that you look at what happens in the novel – and, from WWX's actions in the novel, it's pretty clear that this is supposed to be the case. Even if you don't agree with that statement, there's no doubt that acting on his morals is something extremely important to him, and those morals lean heavily towards doing the "right thing" in his perception. That is not "neutral".

Examples of this: WWX was not killed for being the only person to do the right thing and defend the Wen remnants for people to say he's chaotic neutral. He didn't risk his life alongside LWJ to protect both innocents and people who participated in the first Siege, during the second. He didn't go to save Su She from the Waterborne Abyss (at no personal gain), defend Mianmian (at no personal gain), join LWJ in going wherever the chaos is post-canon when they night hunt (despite preferring more difficult, exiting ones – though of course, spending time with LWJ plays a very large role in here too!), etc and do so many other things in the novel, for people to say he's chaotic neutral. He doesn't say this for no reason:

"But, let the self judge the right and the wrong, let others decide to praise or to blame, let gains and losses remain uncommented on." - Chapter 75, EXR

He says it because it's an important part of his philosophy (it fits with his actions, and, from a writing standpoint, would you include that with no indication of a lie otherwise?)! Because judging the right thing, and doing the right thing, is important to him! That's not chaotic neutral!

"He does whatever he wants pretty consistently" well... yes? That is how decisions work? Morality isn't determined by whether you act independently or adhere to other rules – that's where chaotic and lawful come in, but not evil or good. If you do what you want to do, and what you want to do is help people, that's not neutral! It's good!

There's more to the tags, but I won't go into that right now since it's a different point. I would like to say that are multiple posts talking about how WWX doesn't just act disrespectfully/arrogantly for no reason (he knew he'd have to "keep his status in mind" if he wanted to run wild, he was hardly the only person being rowdy and breaking rules in Gusu yet nobody says the same about people like NHS or JC who did that too, post-SSC he was playing up these traits so nobody would look deeper into his reasons for things, ie not having his GC, etc. He enjoys running wild, yes, but it doesn't mean he does it mindlessly!), such as the one I just reblogged, because that's a point that needs adressing here as well. Please don't try to search up these tags and harrass anybody, as it only leads to harm – I just really, really disagree with this take. The WWX of MDZS is neither stupid nor chaotic neutral...

[polaris-stuff]

I get hating the arc with Nexus, I do too, but I'm honestly somehow more disappointed with Old Moon's return. Everything is normal. That's it, we're back to some status quo. Ignore the fact that Moon has said it's been like an hour for him, and the last thing he remembers is his family falling apart. Don't worry about how he somehow is a better brother now, don't worry that most of his main flaws are gone, the best version of Moon was always the original, ignore all the time's Sun has projected onto New Moon about this Moon's negative traits.

(I am salty we lost New Moon to this. Don't care what Dark Sun is doing, Nexus bothers me so much because why did everyone give up on him so fast.)

Sorry for ranting you make a lot of good points.

It's okay 🥺💖 Ty for saying I make good points, it makes me happy <33

I still don't believe that anyone in the family is actively not wanting to know what is happening or what happened with Nexus. I think the only ones who know that Nexus was launched into space are Sun and Old Moon, (plus Monty, Ruin and Puppet, but they are not part of the family tho).

It's just weird.

"Our brother started acting strange and hiding things from us, we confronted him but he said mean things so we instantly decided not to do anything else for him." (????

And that was just before Nexus almost killed Earth. There I completely agree with Earth for not wanting to know more about him, but it still saddens me to see how the family replaced him so quickly. New Moon was a good brother, probably the best brother Sun has ever had outside of Earth or Lunar, but something strange happens with him and Sun immediately thinks "Moon can hurt us." When New Moon has never had a history of violence against any of his family. New Moon LOVED his family SO MUCH.

And Sun saying "all Moons are toxic"? Sun, New Moon was nothing more than a loving and caring brother who cared about you, why is he suddenly toxic? Because "he grieved in the wrong way"? Because apparently everyone moved on with their lives after Solar's death but New Moon was the most devastated by that? You saw him cry his heart out in your arms until he fell asleep and even after that you only get jealous because Moon called Solar "his brother"?

Ah, and until Sun and Old Moon found out that Nexus was working with Dark Sun, Sun was thinking the whole time that New Moon was floating in space and didn't make a single effort to know if he was okay there (because, btw, machines in space freeze until they are useless, New Moon could have died there, animatronics are not built like NASA rockets to withstand the radical temperatures of space).

Anyway, the family has me disappointed. Even before the whole problem of wanting to kill Earth happened, they had already given up on New Moon.

"You can't force help on someone who doesn't want help." YES YOU CAN. Especially when it comes to a loved family member!! If New Moon didn't want help, them as his family should force him to take it! No letting him sink deeper and deeper into his loneliness until he snapped. Seriously, it worries me how much this fandom uses self-care as an excuse to not help others.

Sorry I ended up rambling, but tysm for the ask. I continue to hope that all this is the fault of a virus and that New Moon will be rescued one day because if not, the whole year we spent getting to know him was for nothing.

[theminecraftbee]

okay, so. let me be a bit clearer about why a lot of the stuff people have been suggesting i should do with lizzie in the joel persona au bothers me:

so like, it's not a great feeling to have a bunch of people are going "you should put lizzie in your au to be joel's dedicated love interest."

it's a problem with lizzie characterization in this fandom in general: SO OFTEN she is reduced to just being joel's wife or joel's dedicated love interest. and man, i like jizzie as much as the next guy, and maybe it's not my space to talk as someone who is much more of a joel main than a lizzie main, but it feels Bad. it feels Bad that very frequently the ONLY reason lizzie is in an au or a fic or something is because joel is there. because people see her as automatically coming with joel as a pair instead of like... as her own person to be involved in something by her own merits or not.

she has other traits! she does her own things! she doesn't just need to be here as joel's Cool Friend or joel's dedicated love interest! and she doesn't need to be here automatically because joel is, as though that's a requirement, either, because that starts to boil down to the same sort of "you see her as an extension of him" feeling. and i'm sure many people are just suggesting her to me because they really like her, and NOT because of this, but the number of un-posted "she should be a childhood friend of joel's" "what if she was the lovers" "what if she were this mysterious person joel has a crush on" "she should be his velvet room attendant"... you see how all of those are putting her in a role that is Inherently More About Joel? and i GET why you want her as a cameo and would be sad if she weren't, but like...

man. it just feels bad how often her ONLY character trait seems to be "joel has a crush on her", and i didn't want to contribute to that.

anyway i have come up with her cameo role that i think is funny but i am putting my foot down on "and her other important trait is of course that joel has a crush on her" because i just. this bothers me A LOT. and i know i'm one to talk given that i don't write her that often and given that, as i said, i like jizzie, but like, man. she's her own guy, guys. she's not solely part of a pair.

that's all i guess.

[eddiewithcat]

going to be so brutally honest here for a second because jesus you guys are really getting on my nerves…

ship wars are stupid. ship wars are dumb.

this whole bucktommy vs buddie thing is pointless.

you are hurting yourselves, and others, if you are constantly wishing on the downfall of someone else’s ship just because you personally do not agree with it.

guess what? the beautiful thing about television is that you can interpret it however the fuck you want!

if you don’t like bucktommy- ignore the posts! get out of the hashtag! block people if you must!

if you don’t like buddie- same fucking thing!

this is getting out of hand and it is making people not feel comfortable voicing their opinions any longer (i, being one of them).

just ship whatever the hell you want and leave the others out of it! we are all just here to have fun, make fun little theories or headcanons or fanfics or fanart etc etc

stop making this unenjoyable for all of us. thanks.

[roxannepolice]

I think one of the most headscratching to me aspects of thoschei fan interpretations - and to be fair, writing, lately - is the chaos-order thing. That's probably because both the writers and the fandom immediately slap moral values on what are fundamentally amoral states. There can be disagreements about which is good and which is bad and which character is which as a result of the moral association, but like. It's always about what the show is trying to tell you is the better way to live because "What would the Doctor do" has become an unironic life coaching advice.

Meanwhile, from philosophical, physical and cognitive perspective it's been spelled out by Eight:

I love humans. Always seeing patterns in things that aren't there.

and Ten:

No, but that's what you do. The human race makes sense out of chaos. Marking it out with weddings and Christmas and calendars. This whole process is beautiful, but only if it's being observed.

and Terry Pratchett:

Things just happen, one after another. They don't care who knows. But history...ah, history is different. History has to be observed. Otherwise it's not history. It's just...well, things happening one after another.

and Hesiod:

First it was Chaos, and next broad-bosomed Earth.

Chaos isn't eviler because scary and ununderstandable nor is it gooder because society wants to me do stuff, man. It's more primordial. It's the objective state of things without a subject to perceive them. Yes, there are patterns in nature, but they are results of working least bad in the evolution's infinite monkeying, not some unique order.

What I'm saying is, when you think of chaos snd order as ontological concepts rather than moral admonishments, it becomes borderline incomprehensible how you could look either at a character who delights in a species obsessed with evoking order out of chaos or a character who's whole shtick is control and scheming and say yup, one of these is totally into chaos.

[weaselishmcdiesel]

oh you guysss please dont bother pearl

[eddiesfagstache]

don’t want to co-opt @eddiegettingshot ‘s post (because i’m a feminist 🫶) but i have the time of my life with discourse i’m like giggling and kicking my feet and making silly banners about it until someone else on eddieblr is the target and then i’m like WHOA. THAT IS MY FRIEND.

because even though most of the time the shit they send is baseless or stupid it’s like. you are coming speaking about or coming into the inboxes of real people on here with malicious intent. and you are targeting specifically women and/or poc. please please please please just take a moment and think about how and why you view yourself as better than the women who “just dont understand” gay relationships.

[sqwdkllr]

I actually love the federation pov and inside thoughts of the npcs because it gives us a better idea on how truly horrible they are and have a cult mentality. AND it gives more dimension to the villains rather than “federation guys bad”

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

not spop-related but i can't post this on my main blog so.

i do find it funny how most of the fan depictions of belos were far more interesting and detailed than s3 belos. i've seen fanart and fanfics of him where he's a complex villain struggling with religious guilt and then the canon is just like.. lmao yeah he's pure evil. kill him.

[krynutsreal]

VOTE TAKA PLEAPLSLMEAAEE

If he wins I'll open outfit requests for him too!!!!! And have him in a bunny suit!!!! PLEASEEEEWW PLEAPSLEPALRWAE PLEAE...I don't think I'd be able to take the psychic damage of viewing a poll with mondo and chihiro. Not when the fandom is .like that

[stealingyourteeth]

i like to think im funny sometimes

[mumms-the-word]

seeing everyone getting their opinions out there about Gale being 35 (or 35-38 according to one dev/artist) and lots of people being “absolutely not no 35yo has knees that bad or gray hair or talks like that or—“

my brother/sister/sibling in Christ as someone who is not quite 30, my knees are trash (creaking, popping, cracking, weak, aching, some days they’re absolutely useless and stairs/steps will make them twinge for hours) and I also have crow’s feet and chronic pain, not unlike gale himself

my mother had gray hair at 21 from nursing school. my cousin has had streaks of gray in her hair since 9th grade. my buddy has a streak of gray in his bangs and he’s 27.

gale talks like every humanities/academic person in a PhD program who has spent the last ten years trying to get a degree and pretend like it doesn’t wither him inside to hear “what are you supposed to do with that” after someone asks him what he’s getting a degree in

gale acts like the guy who is only just now emerging from grad school or at least extended time in higher academics and has to adjust to the world outside of his rigid academic program where not everyone wants to hear random theories or understands his research (and who is realizing he can finally define himself based on something that isn’t his academic area of expertise)

if he talks or acts like he’s older than 35 it’s probably because he’s an academic, most 20s/30s academics are just Like That (source: me, i’m a grad student/academic with grad school/academic friends as young as 22. I joke that my 27yo academic friend channels Tolkien every time he opens his mouth to explain his theories/thoughts, like he doesn’t talk like a 27yo “normally”)

(what the hell is normal anyway)

All this to say, it’s not unreasonable for Gale to be 35. People age differently. People act older or younger than their age. You’re welcome to ignore the canon age and headcanon your Gale as old or as young as you want him to be. But him being 35 is totally reasonable.

Anyways this is for all the friends who just need a bit of affirmation that it’s okay to believe Gale is 35 💛

[petrichorium]

The disrespect I keep seeing for authors in general rn is just so insane to me, but specifically in that it’s from other authors. There’s genuinely so many ppl on this site who write fic and don’t think an author can pick out plagiarism and I can’t quite wrap my head around it. How do you, yourself, write and not understand that your fingerprints are embedded into every word so deeply you can see them clearly when someone steals them?

You’ve poured your heart and soul into something, breathed life into the clay shell that you molded so carefully and meticulously with your bare hands. Now you stare at the soulless hollow of a poor imitation, these bulging attempts at replicating the slope of the neck and the meat of the calf with unskilled hands—a mockery of your art, so twisted you can hardly recognize it, yet you can see the bones they lifted. Someone has put on your face and your own smile is grinning back at you, and you feel insane and you think nobody will listen, and if you do gather the courage to say it… a whole crowd of people rises up to say you’re wrong, you’re blind, you’re a bully, you don’t own smiles.

Yeah, you don’t. But you do own that one. You made it. It’s yours. What right do they have to wear it? What pride could they muster from such a thing?

[moonlarked]

Oh boy there’s discourse. wow. Hate how this incredibly toxic part of fandom seems to have invaded, but I guess it was inevitable with the new wave of fans (many of you are lovely of course!). Anyway if you know anything about me you know my strong stance on censorship and it’s already been discussed within this fandom by lovely people like quil lately, all I have to say is this: I know a lot of you in this new wave are young. I know kotlc is a kids series. But this isn’t a kids website. We aren’t required to stop creating content and exploring themes because you want us to. It’s fake. It’s fictional. If it makes you uncomfortable, that’s fine. But most people, including myself, who make dark content use tags and keywords so you can filter it out. Be mature. Use the filters, use the block button. If you’re old enough to be on tumblr, you’re old enough to learn how to interact with other fans.