#And she victimizes herself

[bugstung]

Never open up to a white cishet woman who thinks she's better and a good ally because she's a" feminist"

[lgbtlunaverse]

Obsessed with characters who portray themselves as worse than they are. Who are lying to everyone including themselves about it. People generally assume if someone's lying about themselves they're trying to look better but sometimes they're trying to look worse. They attribute agency to where they had none, add intent to accidents, try to convince everyone that this is something they did instead of something that happened to them.

[powderseas]

starclan's puppet

[whetstonefires]

The reason I keep banging the Jiang Fengmian drum so hard is not that he did nothing wrong--he's definitely in contention for best parenting in this book but that bar is in the ground--but because most of the takes I see about him are so extremely bad.

If you want to slag him off for trying to make choices that would hurt no one, and winding up properly protecting no one as a result, that's valid! That's an interesting and text-based critique, which opens into his parallels with Lan Xichen!

If you want to blame him for being weirdly over-invested in Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng being bffs, that's fair, that definitely contributed to the weirdness between them. If you want to say he was a poor communicator, that he fundamentally misunderstood his son, that he failed to be emotionally available in a way his kids could get much use out of, even that he should have figured out a way to stop Yu Ziyuan from creating such a hostile environment, all of that is fair game!

If you want to tackle how the worst thing he did to his kids was die I am so interested in how Wei Wuxian went on to abandon A-Yuan by going to his death, and how that might be tied to how his primary adult role model tied him to a boat and went off to a fight he knew he was going to lose.

After his parents had already left him like that once before, presumably less intentionally.

But no, instead I keep seeing that Jiang Fengmian didn't care. That he never expressed affection. That he actively participated in Yu Ziyuan's fucky game of forcing proxy conflict onto the boys instead of constantly trying (and failing) to shut it down, or that he ignored her bad behavior because it didn't affect him, or that he fought with her constantly, or that he was too much of an unmanly coward to stand up to her when she wanted something.

All of which are directly in contradiction to every scene he's in, and several of which manage to invert or erase the actual conflicts between him and his wife that were the source of all that tension.

And which are really interesting, because some of the most intractable elements are ideological--Yu Ziyuan is fundamentally a conservative and Jiang Fengmian seems to want to be an egalitarian, which ofc matched poorly with his hereditary authority as patriarch of a large sect.

The fact that the bit where we get to actually see him failing to parent Jiang Cheng consists of him gently and firmly trying to correct Jiang Cheng's ethics when what was actually needed in that moment was reassurance for the well-founded insecurities that were causing him to be a little bitch, only for Yu Ziyuan to charge in and make everything fifty times worse, is so much more interesting than literally any version of this family dynamic I have seen in fic. It's to the point I'm relieved when writers kill Jiang Fengmian off, because it means they probably won't feel the need to character-assassinate him too badly.

The number of people I've seen come right out and say some variation of 'men can't be abused' is killing me here. No, Yu Ziyuan wanting to hurt her husband does not constitute sufficient proof that he abused her first and deserved it! That's not how anything works!

[hecksupremechips]

Honestly shoutout to Steven Universe for the representation of malachite and abusive relationships because it holds up really well and is still like one of the only abuse narratives I’ve seen that portrays how like. Abusive relationships aren’t as simple as “evil abusive person was constantly Mean and Bad to nice victim” like. Lapis is a realistic victim. She refused to leave the relationship because she longed to have connection with someone and she liked feeling as though she could have control for once, even though she really didn’t. She wasn’t nice and innocent, she felt anger and resentment and liked taking it out on Jasper. And despite how horrible it was, she deeply misses Jasper because it was the longest and deepest relationship she’s ever had with anyone and she didn’t know how to function without it

But Lapis is still a victim and we’re meant to care for her and understand where she comes from. She chose to stay with Jasper to keep others safe from her harm, and because she thought she herself deserved the abuse as a way of making up for everything bad she’s done. Jasper reminds Lapis over and over that she is a monster and that’s why they should be together, because Jasper is the only one who understands her. And when Lapis finally rejects their relationship, she mostly states it through what she herself felt and has done, saying that she didn’t like the person she became in that relationship and she never wants to feel like that ever again. It’s messy and complicated, just like how actual abuse is

Anyways yeah talk about a very good abuse narrative thanks steven universe

[aerithisms]

i've been rotating shadowheart saying "stop being so gentle" in her dark justiciar sex scene in my head ever since i saw it bc it is so. SO devastatingly sad. here is a woman raised in a cult to believe pain is good and suffering is good and all the agony she suffered as a child and still suffers now in the name of her goddess was right. and then somebody comes along who loves her and they treat her with tenderness and she can't fucking bear it and she begs them to stop because if she thinks about the fact that being loved and cared for doesn't have to involve pain then she'll have to question what the point of all her suffering was and she's committed too many sins to look back now.

[finelythreadedsky]

keep thinking now about the idea of the ancient greek stage building as a doorway into death, which is separated from the stage (the space of the living) by the screen of the skene. cassandra calls it as much ("the gates of hades") when she enters the house of atreus. by convention characters cannot die on stage but must exit, usually into the skene, to be killed. cassandra's just extra explicit about it because of her foresight, but every entry into the stage building is a step into death. and then some people come back out of it!!!

[booplesnotts-art]

She likes to watch

Mya draw your oc consistently challenge (impossible)

It’s never a good thing when Lucille smiles. There’s a warning around the castle for the maids; whenever Lucille smiles, it means danger

[redbuddi]

the James Somerton thing really shows how hard people are willing to go to bat for a white cis guy who seems to say all the right things and makes content they like no matter how much everyone else has proof of them being a bad person. That is, until a more popular white cis guy who says all the right things calls them out.

This isn't a criticism of Hbomberguy at all, but of everyone else for refusing to listen to the voices of the people James hurt until Hbomb made it cool. This happens all the time and is still happening and it drives me insane. Y'all need to do better.

[yellowjackets-1996]

I REMEMBER THE SICKNESS WAS FOREVER.

[aingeal98]

Dick gave up his childhood to be a vigilante. Jason gave his life for Robin and his innocence for Red Hood. Tim lost his father due to being Robin. Damian gave up a life of wealth and royalty, along with his grandfather's approval, to be Robin. Duke gave up We are Robin in order to be the Signal.

Cass had nothing to give and so had nothing she could accept in return. She has always been the way she is, since the day she was born. In the end she traded her life for acceptance, her own acceptance of the love around her. But in terms of vigilante mantles, there was nothing she could sacrifice or change in order to become Batgirl. She was Batgirl before she was Cassandra, before she had words to describe the burning need in her veins to save every life she could.

And before that, back when she was just a little child with an innocence she will always long for... Well back then she wasn't given any choices. She was simply molded into the weapon her father wanted, and the choice she made to reject that was not for any mantle or approval of a fellow bat. Her first ever choice, her first step towards building her own moral framework, was driven solely by her own soul. Zero external influences, just the blood on her hand, the body in front of her and the sick certainty in her stomach that this was Wrong.

[strawglicks]

Misty isn't selfish for wanting friendship with toons.

Misty is selfish for her lack of consideration of toons, their feelings, their perspective. She only focuses on herself and how she has been hurt.

She feels hurt by Bessie's actions, claiming "there was no reason" for her to do such a thing. But toons and cogs are at WAR. Bessie didn't see Misty, she saw a COG approaching her and retaliated. She did not see them as an individual, she saw them as the enemy that's been terrorizing and colonizing their land. And rightfully so.

That being said, Misty did not have ill intentions approaching Bessie. Because of this, they feel hurt that she responded in such a violent way. Misty can feel hurt, but they need to understand why toons feel the way they do towards cogs. They are at WAR. And Misty just doesn't seem to realize that.

She feels entitled to play with toons and garner sympathy from them despite their ongoing battle against the cogs.

It's all about "you still tried to hurt me" and "i've done nothing wrong". Misty truly believes she is the victim and thinks she's entitled to sympathy from toons. But she's not.

Misty genuinely wants friendship with toons, which is why she feels so hurt when they reject her, even if they are right in doing so. Much of her dialogue implies she really is oblivious to the gravity of this war and why the toons, obviously, don't want to engage with her:

Misty may want to befriend toons with no bad intentions, but that doesn't erase what the cogs are doing to the toons' land. And the toons are still justified in fighting Misty. She is a cog at the end of the day.

Misty is so focused on her own, personal pain that she is completely disregarding that a WAR is going on. She disregards what the toons endure due to Cogs Inc. and thinks, just because she doesn't personally hate toons, that they owe her friendship.

I think Misty is probably the main reason for the fandom's villainization of toons and woobification of the cogs. But it's not the fault of how she's written, it's the fault of people who feel bad for a character and suddenly think all their morals have to align with that character. Now, they all have to adapt to Misty's way of thinking: that she is an innocent victim who has done nothing and doesn't deserve any of the treatment she's gotten from toons, and that toons are just evil monsters who attack her for no reason.

THIS COULD NOT BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.

You can enjoy a character, like Misty, and feel bad for her. It's obvious there is some real suffering happening here, but it does not justify her view or lack of consideration for others. They are so focused on their own pain that they never think of others. They are so focused on being the victim that no one else can be a victim.

This line of thinking is so flawed, and when a big chunk of fandom REPEATS it, it leads to wild mischaracterization and woobification of. colonizers.

You can like characters who are bad people and disagree with their actions. Misty is not a good person. I think they are suffering, they are hurting, but that cannot be the end of the story. There are others, like the toons, who are suffering and hurting as well. And that should not be erased for the sake of your blorbo. You can still love Misty while condemning her way of thinking. I do myself.

There's the opposite end as well, where people acknowledge this character is not a good person but suddenly think they have to hate the character as a whole because they are morally bad.

Misty Monsoon is very flawed as a person and suffering from her own victim mentality, which hurts others as well. But I love this character. They're fucked up and just want a friend, but they're going to need to be more considerate and aware of their own poor actions if they want to earn that friendship and respect from others. Give and take.

[howinkonvenient]

more normal spinel fans: what if she's still heartbroken about pink diamond abandoning her and has breakdowns about it isn't that so sad

me: what if she's so insecure about her duty of being a best friend that in her efforts to prove she wasn't a fuckup she learns the painful way that she even never knew the first thing about her friend to begin with

she can't name anything pink was interested in or what she liked to do outside of the games spinel played with her

cause spinel never really got to know her (because she was made explicitly as a toy that pink couldn't break and was made by the diamonds who do not know how friendships work (a friend isn't something you create it's a relationship that you develop overtime) except she's also super sheltered and struggles to relate to people outside of the fun and games she's supposed to be facilitating)

and pink never really spent the time to know spinel either (because she was obsessively nonconfrontational and didn't yet see gems below her as capable of being fully realized people, and this was immediately after losing her real friend and she had her walls up pretty high as a result anyways)

mmm the pain of being such a terrible friend that not only were you made to replace a pearl to begin with, your friend had to replace you with another pearl, of all gems

and she was right to, you think, angrily, bitterly

what if she feels an unreal level of guilt about having a near world destroying meltdown and how she tried to kill a kid directly even tho she knew she was never in the right for it. that self destruction forever ruining her chances of becoming friends with the one person kind enough to reach his hand out to you (even tho he really shouldn't have)

do you think that would fuck up all her future encounters beyond a level where she can handle it, do you think in her desperation to be the good friend she needs to be she might repeat her mistakes all over again?

anyways......

[bittergirlsworld]

I can't find on me to hate Byeong-In because if you think about his point of view that So-yong tried to killed herself because of how unhappy Cheoljong and the palace life made her and how their family made her so miserable at the point to drive her to depression. He had every single reason to hate all of them, and I always felt that it was very ambiguous the way they wrote So-yong feelings towards him. She kisses him back for some seconds till she snaps. She tells him that in her dreams, sometimes her husband looks like him. She trusts him the most and he was the only one who notice that So-bong wasn't So-yong and STILL protected her anyway. His love towards her mixed with how used and mistreated he was by their family although he was a political genius makes all his actions very understanding. They don't know you like I know, youngest minister of War.

[rocketco-official]

what's everyone's pronouns? for pride month.

They/Them. I refer to myself as a man. Happy Pride, from the Rocket Corporation.

⚠️ They Is Good. He Is Okay? She Is Eh

🕶️ He/Him but I am wholly unbothered if you call me anything else.

💥 get/bitches you get no bitches, ballista (He uses He/It)

🏺 yeah

[covertblizzard]

Maybe I'm being sensitive but this whole scene just frustrates and annoys me because like

comparing Steph and Tim so callously with comments that he's "better" and a "quick learner" after her death

having Cass lowkey victim blame Steph for her own death "But she chose--" and "She messed up." plus trying to convince Tim that it's not Steph's fault

the "Maybe it's time I gave you a lesson" like I don't really have a good reason for this one it might just be a personal thing but the tone of that whole sentence makes me feel frustrated and talked down to