#I first took it the first way but there's some literacy thing at work that my head hurts too much to understand

[incorrect-web-novels]

[Photo ID: a Tumblr reply from kitsuneluvuh that reads: "No, JC calls him Wei Wuxian, but it's still fun." End ID]

Something something something about WWX calling JC by his birth name and JC calling WXX by his courtesy name

[rewrite-canon]

im going crazy with how people are starting to agree with snow that sejanus was really stupid and deserved what was coming to him. reading the books first should be a pre requisite to the movie idcccc if that takes away the wider audience, the wider audience all have smooth brains anyway.

“why was he colluding with rebels when he could’ve just thought about it pragmatically 🙄” i’m in your fucking walls. sejanus was never dumb, snow just kept pushing that perception of him through the book to deflect the fact that sejanus was an actual good person. snow thought himself the personification of good and benevolence, which was why everything he did had to have some half-assed excuse as to why he was justified in doing it. it was why he was actually tweaking in the woods when lucy gray left him, because he wanted to rid himself of her but he didn’t have an actual reason so he convinced himself of the most random scenario ever to justify trying to shoot at her. so we can establish that snow was an evil broke boy who clearly wasn’t good— then sejanus was a direct confrontation of snow’s own shortcomings towards that (i don’t think i have to detail how sejanus was genuine, it was obvious). coriolanus and sejanus are like the direct opposite characters of each other, and snow knew and took pride in this to an extent. which is why snow couldn’t admit that sejanus was good to himself, thus sejanus was deemed ‘stupid’ to protect his own deluded self actualisation (but this also includes other aspects like how the war made the plinths rich and the snows poor, leading to resentment and jealousy from snow).

“but that still didn’t mean he wasn’t doing dumb things throughout the book” was it really that dumb? a rebellion will always include some level of risk but i don’t hear anyone calling heavensbee stupid because it actually worked out for him. plus sejanus is district, so if we use our common sense of who he is as a character and emotional intelligence of his situation, it’s pretty easy to see why he would get in touch with rebels. he’s literally always yearned for the districts, he never once cared about his money or safety, which isn’t stupid, it’s sad. this was his way of dealing with the guilt of profiting from his people’s suffering— again, not stupid. you could argue he was reckless, especially when he went into the arena, but most people who simply cast him as a ‘dumb character’ ignore how troubled he is and fall into the very filtered lens of snow who was just concentrating on his stupidity.

sejanus’ growing radical actions had nothing to do with stupidity and everything to do with feeling helpless and like nothing was changing. he tried minor/low-risk things such as attempting to change the perception of the districts in the capitol, advocating against the hunger games etc etc. of course it didn’t work, so his options grew limited to more radical courses of action. its a natural line of thought— activists literally do it in real life when they feel as if their cause isn’t getting enough attention (eg. setting themselves on fire). sejanus is a desperate character who is so selfless in light of snow’s constant self-preservation. snow will always put himself first and be paranoid that he will be betrayed like he’s betrayed others, so he never understands sejanus’ disposition to help and trust people, so he labels him dumb. omg. like. sejanus is so not-stupid i’m actually gonna start freaking out!! this is defamatory leave my boo alone!! plz go read a book and work on media literacy i am begging!!!

[gelakaien]

I disagree when people say there is no romantic subtext in itafushi because, I do think there is. I also disagree when people say there is too little [of romance] to base itafushi on it because that's really not true.

It starts with Megumi saying his type is someone with an unwavering humanity. Which is the very literal meaning of Yuuji's name. It slowly develops from there.

I also don't like how people say itafushi is one sided. IT'S NOT. He cares too much. Fushiguro is always the first one he notices in any room he's in. Even in the time he was hiding his death, he would mention Fushiguro now and then. Fushiguro just doesn't leave his mind, never did. He thinks he's very reliable, he SPECIFICALLY told Sukuna to not say anything to HIM about the fingers-resonance thing in the aftermath of the bridge fight. And the scene at the lake, where Megumi told Yuuji he'd kill him if he died, he defintely took it in a serious way, not just because he said "I better not die then" right after, but like, he even referenced that to Megumi in Shibuya. As a way of reasurance. As a way to say "I won't die on you, I will come back to you." Also thanks Mappa for making this even more gayer with the finger guns thing.

Hell, he even knows Megumi's favorite popcorn flavor and he teached him how to make meatballs. They barely knew each other for a few weeks??? And he was so overly excited to learn he'd be his closest roommate. Sure, you can say he's joyful with anyone and he is indeed, but towards Megumi, it's so much more intense. And yeeessss that could be because they are best friends alright but you can't deny it can work both ways, can you?

Since I touched in the best friends topic, I will quickly say how much it bothers me people refuse to ship two guys because they are two guys the same holds true when it's two girls but I'm mostly talking about a m/m ship. I saw someone yesterday talking about itakugi being endgame and like, sure there was some disapproval, but not as aggressive as it would be if it was an Itafushi post. Because when it's about itafushi, they easily jump on you saying "ThEY arE bEST FrIeNDds, CaN't tWo gUyS bE fRIeNDs anyMoRE??!?!? tHIs is jUst fRIendSHiP sTOpInG mAkInG iT gAy/wOkE!" well, it's funny because these exact people would immediately ship a guy and a gal even though there's so much little going on between them (take Ozawa as an example, sure she is cute and all but people saying they have more chemistry than itafushi is just... lack of literacy, like wtf???? how come a girl that appeared in ONE chapter and then NEVER AGAIN god knows if she is still alive - possible have more chemistry than two guys who went through good and bad shit together since chap 1?). But if it's a m/m, then it's a immediate no-no...? This is not about chemistry, friendship or whatever, there is a very clear name to this, the instict to immediately shut down the idea of two guys or girls together in a romantic way. You know very well what is called, don't you?

Anyway, back to Itafushi.

In the whole Shinjuku fight he's been thinking about Megumi, he went through possible ideas and plans TO SAVE Megumi. He's willing to become Sukuna's host AGAIN to save Megumi. Of course they (including Yuuji) need to defeat Sukuna, stop the Merge and save the world blah blah blah, but until so far, the core of his actions is moved by one objective: to save Megumi.

In post Shibuya he felt so conflicted about whether or not he had the right to live, and when Megumi asked Yuuji to save him, Yuuji's eyes shined again with life. They were devoid of any light until then.

Megumi means so much, so much to Yuuji, he treasures him too much. Way too much!! He would feel lonely without him.

And I don't care the way the translators chose to word this, we can safely assume that to Yuuji, Megumi's absence means loneliness. He would feel a void in his heart (I, the person writting this, am telling this in a romantic way, but you can assume that as platonically too if you like) without him. Megumi MATTERS to Yuuji, and Yuuji MATTERS to Megumi. Hell, Megumi even puts him in the same level of importance as Tsumiki, his sister, the only family he had the whole life. I'm not even gonna dive into the topic of "megumi wanted yuji to marry tsumiki" bc i think that is pure nonsense. plus she's dead. meaning they would never marry anyway.

In conclusion I think there is a lot of room for romance to flourish between these two, it might not be now, it might not be the objective of the whole work (because in the end it's a shonen, so yeah), but it's defintely not weird to think about. Love is a central theme since JJK 0.

Unfortunately people on twitter are mega stupid and I had the unpleasure to see a lot of hate towards itafushi because we apparently are in the wrong for thinking about two guys kissing no matter how much gay chap 266 was. And apparently we are in the wrong for taking Megumi and Yuuji's exchanged to a romantic level even though that shit was gay af (i personally don't talk like that to my best friends but okaaay whatever right) Which prompted me to come to another space (hopefully away from those ppl) to deposit my thoughts.

[abattre]

It's actually so disappointing that Naruto's narrative took the route that it did. Kishimoto created an incredibly interesting world and premise, and ruined it by having everything amount to a shallow message of forgiveness that undermines almost every meaningful element in the story. And it's like,, I want to appreciate the world outside of the plot, but the moral framing of the story makes it virtually impossible because of how disingenuous it is. It completely undermines the audience's understanding of the tragedy and horror of the world so that Naruto becoming Hokage and being the most powerful person in the world by the end doesn't come across as distasteful as it actually is.

Like it's made abundantly clear throughout the story that the village system, and Shinobi society as a whole, is incredibly flawed. Kishimoto goes out of his way to show us that Konoha's council is made up of objectively horrible people. We see first hand how the council's short-sighted ideas of what 'protecting the village' means results in devastating tragedy for people both in Konoha and outside of it. It's clear in how Danzo and the rest of the council act that their atrocious behaviour is them just blatantly abusing their power to maintain their authority. The council has no remorse in anything they do; human experimentation, genocide, slavery, and blatant exploitation is all fair game to them if it preserves their status quo. And instead of maybe, like, addressing Konoha's skewed morality in a sensible way and setting the village up for reform, the narrative just tries forcing the audience to perceive Konoha's genuinely heinous actions as necessities. Which, you know, will work when you're like 8, but once you've grown up and developed some reading comprehension and critical thinking,,, it just feels annoyingly manipulative.

At its core, Naruto is a story that attempts to deconstruct morality. Like this is abundantly clear in how Kishimoto is constantly paralleling the dichotomy of good and evil literally every chance he gets. In the end though, this dichotomy just doesn't work in the context of the Naruto story because the narrative framing of the village being the good guys is just hysterically ridiculous. Konoha is an awful place, that does awful things, and is run by awful people that refuse to change anything because it benefits them for the village to remain awful forever. To anyone with a developed sense of media literacy the village cannot in any way be framed as morally good, so when the story resolves itself with Naruto becoming next in line to govern Konoha under the same unchanging authoritarian regime, with the same council supporting him because of his sheer physical prowess and complete dedication to their twisted ideology,,, it's honestly just an incredibly underwhelming conclusion to a story that made itself out to be more profound than it actually is.

If I had to guess, I imagine Kishimoto just didn't think through how negatively the world he created would reflect on the plot. Ultimately though, you can't write a moral story that's so deeply entrenched in real world social inequity and decide halfway through that because you don't know how to fix these things your story's going to have to be about how they're actually okay to be doing and perpetuating,,, like that is awful and also a terrible lesson to impart on an audience of children. With how serious the issues are in Shinobi society, trying to resolve things with the power of friendship was always going to fall flat. These broad scale injustices can't be brushed aside in that way without undermining their severity and diminishing the understandable impact they had on the characters that experienced such extreme oppression. That's essentially the trap that Naruto's conclusion falls into though, and so the story just ends up feeling incomplete and unfulfilling because none of the issues brought up are actually addressed or discussed with the gravity they deserve.

[eww-y-tho]

Colin VS Toxic Masculinity and Why Penelope Had to Reveal Herself as LW

I made a previous post with my two cents on why the idea of them both figuring out a solution to LW was an inferior concept to just Penelope figuring it out on her own, but it was small and I want to go more in-depth.

So, in order to grasp ✨my perspective✨ of the story, we first need to talk about Colin's struggles with toxic masculinity and his inferiority complex.

Naturally, Colin is a hopeless romantic with demisexual tendencies and a more prominent softness compared to other male leads. He's a bit dense (I say with love) until he figures out what he wants and how he's going to get it, and then he is a man of frankly ridiculous action. He's a sensitive boi who has a difficult time fitting in with the other men in his life and being taken seriously by his family, as he puts it himself. An empath, lol.

Honestly, Colin being a "rake" was an integral point of his character arc, and if you haven't picked up on that text by now, I would ask where your media literacy is. Violet put it best, he's putting on armour to protect himself from the way that society treats his character, and naturally, he develops a small, albeit persistent inferiority complex because of this. He doesn't feel like he's providing enough to the people around him because of toxic masculine standards.

I honestly think it's been with him since s1, and Pen is the only person who could bring these thoughts to the surface, which is why it comes to a head in s3 p2.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In his efforts to fit in, he does some questionable things, such as the 2x8 comment, which he regrets as soon as he realizes how much damage it has done to his relationship with Pen. He hangs around with douchebags that he can't stand because he feels a need to conform and "be the kind of man society expects him to be."

But he also absorbs toxic masculine tendencies in the process. His gut instinct of general envy that a woman, Pen, is more successful than him (I hate to put it that bluntly, but that's how I took it), asking for her to quit LW because of these reasons, completely disregarding Pen's autonomy and her perspective by blindly charging forward to stop Cressida's blackmail, among other smaller things.

It's kind of ✨subtle✨, but I know it's there.

Pair that with his inferiority complex and you have a man who is trying to put down Penelope to his level, if that makes sense. By this point, he's already conquered the idea that he needs to conform by the way he cuts off his toxic friend group, but he isn't completely free from the systemic perspective.

Therefore, the idea that Pen would need him in order to find a solution to her problem confirms that toxic masculine trait. Let's be real, Penelope didn't and doesn't need Colin in order to help with LW's problems. She's managed without him before and will continue to manage it by herself. This is not to say that Penelope doesn't have an issue with accepting help from others and feeling the need to handle her problems alone because of her old situation, but she takes the emotionally intelligent move by LITERALLY voicing what she needs from Colin and their relationship.

She needs his companionship, she needs his love, she needs a rock she can come to at the end of the day and be able to depend on. She does not need him to do anything for LW, as it is a part of her identity and an accomplishment that she is proud of and will not let go of. Colin cannot make the demand that she drop everything she's worked for for him.

And that's how relationships work in the real world. You have things you are willing to let go of, and some things you are not. Your partner has to accept those boundaries you have set or leave the relationship, and you shouldn't have to abandon those things in order to get the person of your dreams, because that would make it a toxic relationship from the start and will most likely end in you losing parts of yourself in your partner.

Anyway, all this is to say that Penelope had to get out of her situation by her own means and with full autonomy on what she wanted to do to finish off her character arc.

And Colin needed to realize that his envy is a baseless emotion that simply has no value compared to the woman he knows her as. A strong, independent woman who doesn't need him to do things for her. He also needed to humble himself and see the way that LW is not competing with him, but a part of her. They both demonstrate that what they need from the relationship is not transactional in nature, but rather a shared bond powered by love.

I understand the idea of wanting them to both find a way out of the blackmail as a team, but again, that's explicitly not what they need from each other, and why I think this perspective is again a misunderstanding of their character arcs.

I think I've articulated this the best way I can, but I do know I wanted to say some other things. I'm tired tho, so yeah, ending it here.

Hopefully, this made sense.

Bai!

[lover-of-mine]

https://www.tumblr.com/lemotmo/755374254590246912/can-we-take-a-minute-to-talk-about-how-todays-bts

This is spot on. The BT fandom has worked so hard to completely try and twist the narrative 9-1-1 has put forward. I’m not surprised Oliver is blocking people and not promoting the ship because there isn’t anything worth promoting and if I were him or a showrunner I would also be annoyed that a small amount of fans are trying to hijack a storyline. BT fans act like the general audience loves Tommy when I genuinely think the general audience just does not care one way or another about Tommy. Because the show has not given any reason to care about him. The only people that care so strongly (either liking or disliking him) are fandom people online who are stuck in discourse. That is not the majority of viewers. We’re going into season 8 - we don’t have a guarantee of how many seasons are left. Now that they’ve moved networks and we’re given the green light they’re going to focus on the storyline that wraps up their main characters arcs in the most satisfying way (which based on everything we’ve seen in this show is Buddie) not trying to start from scratch for both Buck and Eddie with new relationships. And if they DID want to pair Buck and Eddie with other people they would’ve actually tried to develop Buck and Tommy in season 7 and they very purposefully didn’t.

clickable link for the post because it's very spot on

The thing with the cameos is that it turned a narrative that was supposed to be about Buck and turned it into a narrative about Buck and Tommy. There is nothing in canon that backs up the idea that Tommy is anything other than just some guy. The show didn't restart at season 7 and if they wanted to make Buck and Tommy something with a fighting chance, Tommy would've existed in the narrative beyond the coming out plotline. Taylor's storyline was complete with beef with lafd personnel and a canon tragic backstory. If they wanted to make people care about Tommy they would've. They made it with Taylor with 4 episodes. You want me to believe they couldn't do it with Tommy after 6? Lou was putting out headcanon after headcanon and people took that as gospel as if he was reading scripts and had input from writers when Lou said in an interview that they didn't even tell him what label Tommy was supposed to have when they filmed the kiss. The show created a very clear narrative that shows that the relationship is not that serious. And if we are taking word of god as canon, Tim said that it's a "level entry relationship" and used the word "first fling" multiple times. First implies a second and fling is as unserious as it can get. The actual show is saying something, the creator of the show is saying the same thing. But sure, the actor they are paying and prompting has more say than the actual source material 🙄🙄. This story is about making Buck bi. Nothing else. If they wanted to make this be a Buck finally found his person, they would've developed Tommy into someone who's at least a little bit likeable, not continuously make him look worse every time he opens his mouth. If Oliver really is frustrated with this and blocking people because people hijacked the storyline he's telling, he has every right to be. He wanted to tell a nice story about Buck being bi and now he's caught having to dodge people who want him to walk up to the creators and say they have to marry Buck and Tommy by 802 or else he walks, when he clearly just wanted it to be about Buck's identity. Somehow Buck got pushed to the background of his own story by this very loud group of people while being aided by an actor who's creating a pr nightmare. The story is about Buck exploring bisexuality not about Buck falling in love with Tommy and it's painfully clear. The fact that people can't see it because someone paid a dude 100 and something dollars to say they are "thriving" is madness and shows the lack of basic media literacy.

[bixbythemartian]

Okay, I wasn't going to say anything, but I've seen posts about this get passed around. And it's probably too late to push back on this, anyway, but I'm so frustrated I feel the need to say to say something. This is coming from a place of love- I just hate seeing this going around, and I want to offer some perspective on the matter.

First of all, regarding that poll where the user did not know how to pronounce 'Miette'- if you look in the replies, it doesn't take long to discover that the OP was genuinely confused about the pronunciation and, when corrected, was working to get it right. That poll came from a place of innocent ignorance. I hope the OP took it down and stopped reblogs and turned notes off or whatever, because some people said some awful shit. I hope you are the kind of person who is kind and understanding, in the face of such ignorance. Or, if you can't be that, I hope you can at the very least be quiet. (And props to the people in the replies who patiently and kindly explained things to the OP.)

Second of all, I've seen a lot of posts talking about literacy rates, and I'd like to point out that English literacy has very little to do with figuring how to pronounce a French fucking word, goddamn. The OP just didn't know. The dunking, the pointing, the laughing- rude, unnecessary, not helpful.

Thirdly, in response to the complaints of 'they don't even teach phonics in schools these days'- that's bullshit. Because the odds are very good that they didn't teach phonics in schools when you went to school, either.

When I was a kid, it was called Whole Language. It was the new hot literacy technique, and a lot of schools adopted it. It used cueing techniques and sight words and was very similar.

If you're a millennial, you might remember the commercials for Hooked on Phonics, and you might conclude that teaching phonics in schools was perhaps not common, if you think about that for a bit. If it was worth it to sell a whole reading tutoring program for struggling readers based in phonics, perhaps it might lead one to conclude that phonics weren't as common as other methods, right? You might not have been taught phonics to start. What you do know about phonics, you might have picked up in the past 20-30 years, right?

Okay. Lets go back further, you know Dick and Jane? It was based on, more or less, the same sight words principle, and those primers date from the 1930s, although I don't think that teaching technique came really into vogue until the 40s.

If you are alive, today, in the United States, the likelihood that you were not taught phonics in school is well above non-zero. Especially if you're a millennial.

The notable exception is the 1970s. And during that period of time, there were probably plenty of schools that still used fucking Dick and Jane. And plenty of schools that were starting to adopt Whole Language, because while it was popular in the 80's and 90's, it was developed before. So, Gen X, you didn't get out of this unscathed either, though you had a better chance of getting a phonics-based reading program, I think.

'Kids these days' are not less literate because they were taught wrong. A great deal of us who are alive and speak English as a first language were taught wrong.

(I also think this is the common way English as a Second Language is taught and I'm sorry if you learned sight words, it's so much less intuitive than phonics, and English phonics aren't particularly intuitive. But I know a lot less about this, and I'm not sure.)

The reason some younger people struggle with language and words that I, for example, don't, is that I've been reading and speaking the language a lot longer. That's it. That's likely the same thing for you.

Please quit mocking people for their lack of information, for a start. I don't blame you for not knowing this about the literacy programs, for example. I had to do a lot of research on this. Right? Odds are good, you didn't know this.

And you are hitting people who struggle with literacy for other reasons- English as a second language, for example. The people who deal with dyslexia, there's plenty of autistic people who struggle to communicate fluently in their first language, and many more people who struggle with learning, speaking, and otherwise communicating in English for a huge variety of reasons.

Even if you're right, you're hitting people who had no choice in the language method they were taught from. They were five.

I don't think people mean to be unkind, generally (some do, but we block and move on), but it's really frustrating to a lot of snark circulate without the greater context of 'actually, a lot of English speakers of all age groups were taught English this way, especially USAmericans' and 'hey, what does English literacy have to do with pronouncing a French word, anyway?'

Okay? Okay.

Love you bye

[lurkingshan]

Okay now that Halloween is over and my head is clearer, I wanted to add some thoughts to the great posts @waitmyturtles and @bengiyo shared debriefing Only Friends and unpacking this desire by some in fandom to declare that it has no message and therefore we can't be upset with the creators for what they chose to put out into the world via this show. Let me just say upfront: I find that claim preposterous and completely contra the basic tenets of media literacy and analysis.

Turtles already gave a great overview of the foundational truth here: media is communication, and all communication contains messages, both explicit and implicit. For the first 11 weeks, I believed that Only Friends was attempting to take a neutral POV on its characters' morality, asking us instead to think for ourselves about the moral complexities and implicit messages of the situations the characters were in, and wondered if the lack of a very explicit perspective from the show was making folks uncomfortable. But then, in the final hour, the show shifted its tone to provide an extremely explicit POV on the characters and its themes (with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the head), with a heavy focus on punishing Boston, and that POV was so rooted in heteronormativity, sex shaming, and frankly, anti-queer sentiment, that it took many of us aback. As Ben put it so succinctly in his post: NOT A SLAY.

I want to unpack this more because it’s important to understand that there are ways to write the events of the final episode as essentially the same without embedding that explicit moralistic POV. If the intent was to maintain a neutral presentation of events that does not cast judgment on Boston, you would not do any of the following:

Have several characters explicitly judge Boston for being a non-monogamous slut in dialogue with no counterpoint voices

Make Boston spend the episode apologizing to every character while receiving no apologies in return for the wrongs done to him

Insert a random episode of Boston acting on impulse in a way that is not actually consistent with any of his previous behavior to make a sudden point that he can't change

Have Nick, who has been explicitly singled out as the one person who understands and loves Boston, change his mind and dump him in a frankly condescending way while Boston begs him for another chance

End Boston's final scene of the show with him devastated, alone, and defeated while the rest of the characters are happy and thriving

There is absolutely nothing neutral about those choices, fam. And they were in fact choices that the creators of this show are responsible for. They could have had the basic events of the finale stay the same, but changed the dialogue and framing of these interactions, and it would have completely changed the message being sent. For instance:

Instead of having Sand say Nick deserves better than Boston because Boston kissed someone else, he could have focused his comments on helping Nick understand whether he wants monogamy and why

Instead of having Boston grovel to everyone, they could have had all the friends just decide to forgive and forget all their mutual trespasses, or had the rest offer Boston sincere apologies in response to his own

Instead of Boston randomly deciding to make out with Boeing and lie about it, they could have had him invite Boeing to meet Nick for a threesome and have Nick react to that

Instead of having Nick dump Boston, they could have had them mutually decide they want different things and decide to part ways

Instead of Boston crying and dejected on the concrete, we could have seen him say goodbye to Nick on positive terms and walk away with his head held high to the life waiting for him in NYC where he can be his authentic self

Do you see how that works? All of the events of the story are the same, but the message it delivers is completely different. This version of the story would tell us that even though Boston's current friends don't really get him, and even though Nick is not ultimately comfortable with an open relationship, there is nothing inherently wrong with the way Boston wants to live. But they didn't give us this version; they gave us the stigmatizing and shaming one I described above. And that is absolutely something we should hold the creators responsible for, even if it makes us feel some kind of way about our drama heroes.

I have been giving this show the benefit of the doubt for weeks because I had a lot of faith in Jojo and Ninew not to put art out into the world with such a terrible message, a faith that was rooted in their previous work, including Gay OK Bangkok, 3 Will Be Free, and The Warp Effect, all of which featured queer ensembles and strong sex positive messaging. But no creator is infallible and mistakes were made. We will never know how much of the final messages in Only Friends were intentional versus a result of sloppy and rushed storytelling, or how much was the creators’ original vision versus studio interference, but ultimately it doesn't matter. We have to deal with the show we got, and we should be putting a critical eye on the people who delivered it to us. I know I will not be going into any future Jojo/Ninew shows with the same kind of faith, and I will not be pretending this one wasn’t a huge letdown from these creators.

[etinceelle]

The more I'm on internet and the more I see harassment and call out posts every single day on various fandoms/artists spaces for all possible reasons and honestly I don't even know what to say outside of the fact that this is so freaking dangerous and wild to put labels and accusations on people you don't even know, or to not even try to understand and seek knownledge about the situation outside of what you want to see and understand. There are real predators doing illegal stuff who need to be stopped and yet people having fun and imagining things for ocs, various characters and ships are being accused of the worst things ever and it follows them everywhere. Tiny things are took as obvious signs of predatory behavior or racism or whatever and this is supposed to be fine.

I don't even mean to bring back the topic of my own story but experiencing dog piling and rumors and serious accusations for months because of a follow is just completely wild when I think about it. With some distance, I think I could have handled everything better when I spoke about it publicly. But I never should have wrote this post in the first place.

Block button exist and report button exist as well for serious problematic elements. My take is that no one deserves harassment and cruelty. But when you say "I'm against harassment and I don't want this person to be harassed", people take it as you defending "problematic" elements and completely distort it anyway. It's honestly exhausting and stupid.

Everyone has something that make them uncomfortable or that triggers them and I have my own standards as well. There are things I consider seriously weird but we don't know people and we don't know any of the intention behind the art. The way you explore something, how you do it, for what reason is what should matter. There are so much things you don't know. Nothing is black and white. I honestly think that as an artist, your art is connected to you, but the themes you work on are NOT reality. Again it's about the intention and how you go about something. I just think media literacy should really be teached at school because wow.

I just thought about expressing myself on this because it's just too serious and harming a lot of people who did nothing. I got attacked over a FOLLOW for someone who did nothing but imagine a future AU for characters and I think that's insane. Everything should be analyzed case by case. There are a real dangers who need to be exposed but this is never a reason or a justification to become cruel or to wish harm to anyone and assume the worst on people you never met. Just take a breath, go outside and learn how to block people, because that's insane the amount of people I had to block because they were being shitty but didn't block me or were still even following me.

I'm trying to not let my emotions get the better of me but that's honestly insane many others and myself got caught into this. The only thing I always did is drawing Nuts and Dolts because that's the only ship I could ever care about in RWBY. Being against harassment is not about defending "bad" people. It's so easy to judge people and make your little assumptions harming REAL people like that.

[dronebiscuitbat]

Give Me a Reason: Chapter 4 - "Tessa"

Uzi came home from school that day exhausted, both socially and physically. And was ready to jump for joy when she realized her dad was still at work. Leaving her to have the house to herself. Although she shouldn't have been been expecting anything different, Khan almost lived at his job; installing security systems for JCJenson.

The rest of her classes were normal, not counting her Computer Literacy class which she shared with N and he'd done what he'd done all day, sit right next to her and just… talk. Sometimes she didn't even have to reply and he'd still take it as an answer and keep talking to her. It should have been annoying, but it never felt that way.

But even though it wasn't annoying, it did drain her social battery to the point that it was empty, and now all she wanted to do was rot in her room watching anime. Plus… she had something squirreled away for when she had the house to herself.

She threw her backpack down by the door and ran at a dead sprint to her bedroom, where she kicked off her boots and hoodie and threw herself onto her bed with a content sigh. Although it was broken by a loud mewl, Salem; who had been taking a nap on her bed, had been interrupted and wasn't exactly happy about it.

“Sorry buddy, just had a long day.” She reached up to scratched the black cat's chin and he purred, seeming to accept it as an apology, he licked her face with his scratchy tongue and she immediately grumbled and jerked away.

“Ew! Sandpaper licks!” She yelped to herself and lifted the cat up in her hands, dangling him in front of her face before she sighed and buried her face into his fluffy underbelly and sighed. Salem didn't react in the slightest, only bleped.

“You know what sounds good right now buddy?” She pulled back and asked him, a smirk on her face as she shook him gently.

“Breaking into my stash, hell yeah.” She stood up and sat the poor cat down, who only returned to his previous activity; napping.

She looked around like she was afraid someone was watching before heading over to her desk and opening the bottom drawer, at first glance, it was full of nothing but old folders and sketchbooks, but a quick brush of her hand reveled that the drawer had a false bottom, that she quickly removed and pulled out a baggie of dried, green leaves, a lighter and material to roll a blunt.

A gift for herself, bought with allowance she'd gotten from her dad. She'd been rationing it all summer, knowing she'd need it way more during the school year and now she had no more reason to wait.

It didn't take long for her to roll up the paper into a blunt and light it up, reveling in the smell that permeated her room almost immediately, she stuck it in her mouth and took a huff, some of the static that had been building in her head all day dissipated as she gave a relaxed sigh.

Now, what was the best thing to watch while high…?

Meanwhile…

Tessa’s car pulled into the front of the school exactly fifteen minutes after it ended, it was a dark grey, like wet slate, and a pristine little BMW sedan that had never once been damaged.

“Tessa!” N gave her a wave as he came up to the passenger window before opening the door, throwing himself clumsily onto the plush leather of the seats, a feminine, accented voice giggled at his entrance.

“Have a good first day then?” The woman driving the vehicle asked, she was a young thing, 23, with shining green eyes and long brown hair held in two separate small pigtails near the front and a proper bun in the back, right now, she was dressed in her work attire, a white labcoat partly stained with something unknown and a green dress shirt underneath. Black slacks and weathered, black leather boots.

“Yeah! I mean… I got a little lost in the halls. But I met someone who was really nice! She let me sit beside her and ramble! Oh! And she really liked your tuna sandwich! And! She let me borrow a-” He suddenly stopped his excited talking, his eyes going wide as he realized.

“Aww biscuits! I forgot to give Uzi her pencil back…”

Tessa threw her head back and laughed, before shaking her head and beginning to pull out from in front of the school.

“Uzi? Like… the little submachine pistol?”

“Mmhm! She's cool, she has purple hair!” N smile got wider as he framed his face with balled fists. An energy which seemed to bleed into the woman driving, because her smile grew as well.

“You think she's pretty don't you?” She asked, smirking while lifting one brow up, driving through the small town of Copper, it used to be a mining town, but now it was the home of one of many JCJenson appliance factories.

“T-Tessa!” N's face filled with blush his eyes growing wide as he suddenly gripped the seat underneath him.

“What? Do you?” Tessa’s smirk grew wider, as he voice took on a teasing tone, if anything his blush grew worse as he leaned forward, his hands moving forward to clutch the air in front of him.

“I-I, No! We've only just met! Don't do that!”

“Oh but you were blushing! You have a little crush? On your first day?” Tessa loved her little brother, she did, but lightly teasing him was also something she took great joy in, he was always so animated with everything he did.

“No! Tessa stop that! I don't have a crush on her! I just thought her hair and piercings looked cool!” He crossed his arms and looked away from her while his blush cooled.

“Oh I know, Nathaniel! I'm just teasing you!”

N grumbled, while he knew that, he didn't really appreciate it, how could he have a crush on someone he just met? That was weird wasn't it? Sure, he thought her hair was pretty and her laugh was fun, but those were so… shallow. He was more into personalities, not any kind of physical attribute.

Tessa made a left, off the main road and onto a gravel one, leading into a wooded, secluded area, with it being the middle of spring, the trees all along the long driveway were in full bloom, little white flowers breaking up the hues of greens.

N always liked this part of the property the best, it still held all of Copper's natural beauty, instead of the perfectly manicured hedges and color coordinated flowers of the manors garden. Speaking of…

Tessa stopped in front of a huge wrought iron gate, the only entrance to the tall, spiked fence that led to the rest of the property, Tessa leaned out of the window to press a button on a large stone pillar.

“It's me, let me in.” She sounded tired already, but the voice on the other side was about to add to it.

“Mrs. Elliot requires all passengers to be acounted for, young master Tessa.”

“Oh for- it's Nathan! He lives here!”

The voice on the other end didn't respond, but the gate did open. She sighed and N just looked at her sheepishly.

“You know Mr. And Mrs. Elliot only want our safety, that's just them keeping everyone safe.”

“From what, were not in the big city anymore, I don't think anyone even knows this place exists.”

He didn't have an answer for that, so he just rested his elbow on the door and watched out the window as the Elliot Manor came into view.

The entire building was painted white, with plenty of windows in a style that portrayed it's age, there was a fancy, two door garage on the bottom floor, a fountain and a garden both in the front and in the back. The driveway went from gravel to newly paved cobbled road, which Tessa went over to pull into the garage.

“Alright, we're home!”

Next ->

[every1sno1fangirl]

Happy Hifuumo Friday everyone!

This post isn't late because anything bad happened, but simply because I lost track of time and what day of the week it was because I've been working. At least I have a lot of cool pictures to share though!

Even if it took forever and the pay isn't as good, I'm incredibly glad to finally be working again; It's something I really liked doing and money in my pocket means I can get nicer things for myself and go on these trips without loitering somewhere.

Work has been going good by the way; My boss happens to really like me and the work I've been doing and has really gone out of his way to help me out. Currently the schedule is 3pm-8pm Mondays through Wednesdays and 10am-3pm Saturday and Sunday. But I take the bus...

And didn't really want to be on it so late. He noticed that and since he wants to move everyone to a 2pm-7pm schedule anyway, he told me that I can work those hours instead of losing one to leave at 7pm beforehand. I really appreciated that!

I'm not really used to having a boss I don't have an antagonistic relationship with; I think the only thing he doesn't like about me is that I'm sometimes overly apologetic or grateful and it makes things awkward, which is a pretty big character flaw of mine.

But he actually respects me and the effort I put into things, even when I'm not able to work because of my health conditions, which is always nice. Especially considering some of my co-workers who he had to publicly chastise (While not naming names) for faking the data.

And speaking of getting paid; I was SO excited to see the notification that I got my first paycheck yesterday...only to realize that because of how the pay periods work, it was only for a single day of work, lol.

But money is money, and I plan on using my first ~real~ paycheck on paying off some bills and getting a bike. It'll give me a lot more freedom getting to and from places, especially when the urge to do things like ordering Doordash strikes. (Not sure if it'll be electric though)

It's something that has actually kept my family poor for a really long time that I hate, so I plan on getting the full works of a bicycle with saddlebags/cart to hold food and a little mount for my phone and hi-vis gear and everything. Not sure if it'll be electric though.

Whenever we feel the urge to be lazy and order something, I'm at least going to go pick it up myself for the exercise and so we don't pay what is effectively an extra $15-20 for delivery even with DashPass which really adds up.

And my mom is signed up for a financial literacy class now too. Things are looking up for Pen; I'm doing my best not to be a pessimist and just wait for the other shoe to drop. Until then though, I'm going to keep enjoying myself.

I'm saving some money aside from my paychecks just to treat myself to something nice; I really like going to the movies, so I'll see if any are playing that I'd be interested in. I'd also like going to a bowling alley more regularly.

Sadly where I live doesn't have a proper arcade nearby, or I'd be going to that too.

Either way, things are going good, and I hope things are going good for the people reading this too!

As always, I love you all, I hope you have a great day/night!

[amuseoffyre]

For the past fortnight, work has been getting in the way of me doing fandom related stuff, but it’s also given me a lot more time to turn over “working class northern Izzy Hands” in my brain.

There have been some fab posts going around with the analysis of Izzy in the context of the social history and what it meant for him and the more I thought about them, the more I recognised him in my dad’s side of the family.

I’ll foreword this with a note that this is entirely based on my lived experience around northern blokes of a certain generation. I have no idea what things are like now, but back when I was a wee bit of a thing, this seemed to be the norm.

A big thing about the north of England is that it’s where a lot of industry was based: glassworks, steelworks, collieries, mines of all kinds, shipbuilding. Whole cities sprang up there based around manual labour and manufacture and trade. There was a history of graft and everyone was expected to do their share and pull their weight. (“Your lots days of sitting around doing fuck all are over”)

There was also a certain pride in that work. Yes, it was hard and yes it could probably kill you, but by god you were good at it. And even moreso if you’d managed to make your way up to be in a position that earned you some modicum of respect and authority. Or even just survived that long. (“My name is First Mate Hands or God as far as you’re concerned”)

There was also a very definite pecking order, whether in social circles or work circles. You couldn’t just swan in and expect to be accepted and respected. You had to earn any respect you got and demanding it was a guarantee you wouldn’t get it. (“Pirates my arse”)

I’ve mentioned before on the post I linked further up about literacy and education. For the longest time, literacy in the north was very low because the majority of people left school early because they had to work. It wasn’t an option to stay on and get an education. If you had stayed in school, then you weren’t working and if you weren’t working, your family may not be eating.

There used to be a vibe of Proper Jobs (ie. manual labour of some kind) versus Soft Jobs (clerking, secretary etc). There were careers such as doctor and lawyer that did get considered Proper Jobs, but for the pencil pushers and the paperwork monkeys scurrying around and making notes, they were doing Soft Jobs.

All of these factors are very clearly in play in the scenes between Izzy and Lucius in episode 5. Here’s a lazy and disrespectful younger man whose entire job on the ship is a Soft Job. He gets to fanny about, writing things down, while everyone else has to do manual labour, and then he disrespects someone who is accustomed to a certain level of authority and respect, someone who has clawed his way up through the ranks.

He’s absolutely dead centre in a ven diagram of Things That Will Annoy Izzy Hands. Even more so since Izzy can’t do anything to Stede for fear of crossing Blackbeard, but this guy? Oh, this guy he can take out his frustrations on.

It explains why Izzy’s ire is focused on him, even though Wee John was having a nap and Black Pete was slacking off just as much. Both of those characters are manual workers (to a given degree, “bottom of the barrel”, after all) but the boy writing the journal, who clearly thinks he’s better than Izzy? Well, there’s someone who needs to learn his place.

(I still have Thoughts on the ‘ooooh daddy’ moment, but I have little brain left to articulate them just now)

And while I was going down that road, my brain took a sharp turn into the realisation of why Izzy dresses the way he does as well. Like the rest of Blackbeard’s crew, he’s in the black/leather combination but unlike them, he is covered from collar to cuffs, neck to toe. Some of it’s worn and repaired, but it’s an outfit that would be seen as Respectable even beyond the pirate world: a full shirt with cravat and a waistcoat on top.

Why would he choose to be so formally dressed? Because “I was honoured to work for the legendary Blackbeard”. It comes back to the pride in his work. He’s First Mate. He’s the second-in-command on the Queen Anne’s Revenge. He has worked bloody hard and survived many things to reach this point. He is representing something both to himself and to the world.

It’s about status: he stands out among the crew, so there’s no question that he’s in charge with his formal clothing. But he also stands out when we see him around other pirates. The only other pirates we see who dress to impress to this degree are Stede and Spanish Jackie. “Make people feel underdressed and suddenly you’re the one in charge” can be applied to all three of them. And it cracks me up knowing how much Izzy would hate that.

All of this is also the reason I’m pretty sure there will be an arc in the coming season when Stede does actually earn some little grudging respect from Izzy. Stede earning his place, doing the work and proving himself feels like it will be a vital cog in the story. Izzy will still deplore him, because he’s a creature of habit and routine, but I feel like there will be at least a grudging “...fine. You’re not a totally useless fucker”, which is high praise indeed.

Now, though, it’s midnight and I’m listing sideways. I shall no doubt have more thoughts, but for now, this will do.

[evilwickedme]

that 88% statistic literally comes from a poll conducted in january by tel aviv university called the peace index survey. if you google anything along the lines of israeli support plus 88% the first result is a nyt article that cites it with a link to the study. it took literally two seconds to find. 88% of jewish israelis surveyed believe that the number of palestinian casualties, including both deaths and injuries, is justified. it also found 94% believe the idf has used adequate or too little force in the war (43% believe it’s too little!). this survey was taken at a time when 20000 palestinians had already been killed and much of gaza leveled 

unless you’re going to claim that tel aviv university is disreputable/has anti israeli bias/is antisemitic, this clearly shows overwhelming israeli support for the level of death and destruction in gaza. the fact that netanyahu is unpopular is completely irrelevant and i’m not even sure why that was included in your post as some sort of evidence that the 88% stat must be untrue. support for the war clearly goes far beyond just the right wing parties

also the fact that so many in the notes of that post talk about the importance of sources but made 0 effort to even look up the original statistic and claimed with 0 evidence that it was made up is. very telling.

Dude, I wrote in the post itself that I might have googled the wrong terms. I googled variatiojs "destruction in Gaza + 88%" instead, because that's how I saw it quoted. I went on a Google deep dive, and still left doubt in my post BECAUSE I COULD HAVE BEEN WRONG.

The post covered two different subjects because I wanted to talk about two different subjects - the fact that people don't understand how the Israeli government works, statistics regarding that, and that since I saw the statistic quoted multiple times unsourced, including in a professionally published piece, I decided to talk about statistics literacy in general. This isn't an academic article - it's my own personal blog.

Also, chill. I cited multiple sources ranging a wide range of subjects, and didn't even conclude that Israelis don't support the destruction in Gaza at all.

Now I have found the source you're referring to and am looking at it. It covers a lot of questions, such as a majority doubting that the war in Gaza even has a purpose (52%). You're right on the 94% percent and the way it's divided.

I however once again point out that the (actually slightly less, but that's frankly irrelevant, I'm just a pedant) 88% you're citing IS DIVIDED INTO TWO CAMPS. Relatively justified is 21.3%, which still has doubts.

I also clarified again and again in my original post and in other posts *that I'm opposed to the war in Gaza*. I've also clarified that I think that people on both sides of the conflict are people even if they have opinions that I find horrific, such as MOST OF THE OPINIONS I cited. My point, overall, was to view people complexly.

Support for Hamas has increased in Gaza and more than trippled in the West Bank since the war started. Does that mean that Palestinians are all evil? That I should avoid viewing them complexly, say they should all die, call for a second nakba? Because I see people on the website and irl calling all Israelis (and really all Jews) evil, saying they should all die, and calling for another intifada.

My post, same as everything else I post, talks about viewing all people as people. And also about citing your sources and showing how I cross reference multiple sources, not that I suppose that matters to you.

I think it's very telling you're on anon, and I think I know the kind of content I'd see on your blog. And that's the last thing I'll say on that.

[yuriswitch]

the fact, that so many Christians and Christianity-influenced fans of Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica see Homura as a villain honestly reveals a lot about what is wrong with the faith, media literacy and the general attitude towards mental illness.

On one hand you have aliens seemingly devoid of any moral system at all, acting purely out of self-interest while pretending to work towards some grand utilitarian goal the results of which will never be experienced by the people affected by the system they created. The Incubators literally rip souls out of children and turn them into a physical object, so that it can store more energy than it took to create it and explode, releasing all of it so that the aliens can then collect the surplus they're after. The psychological effects of that are shown to be equivalent to a perpetual psychotic breakdown shattering the personhood of the victim, dooming them to years of torment that cannot be escaped by any means other than being killed by a magical girl.

On the other hand you have a desperate struggle to protect a sweet lesbian bean girl too devoid of self-worth not to sacrificially throw herself away at the first occasion, time after time after time until it turns out that even a complete rewrite of the universe won't achieve anything permanent unless the Incubators are completely and utterly defeated for good. You have a drastic measure meant to prevent a reactionary takedown of Madoka's universe, taken right after experiencing the aforementioned breakdown.

And then you have imagery of a God and a Devil superimposed on top, contrasting the traits of the characters in a way that should have made it clear the symbolism isn't used in a standard Christian way at all.

But it doesn't matter, because there's so much more discourse on Homura being supposedly in the wrong and evil, accusing her of psychopathy while the actual low empathy villains are doing horrible things for reasons completely unrelated to lack of empathy anyway.

There's a lot of examples of bias, poor media literacy and broken discourse, but this one really bothers us a lot on a personal level and we don't even have a single fictive from the show

I hope that the upcoming movie manages to handle the mismatch between the actual politics of the franchise and its image, but honestly it's gonna be one hell of a job in this climate

/Oneesama

[karenandhenwillson]

One last post from my side about this

I've been pondering how to do this post for the last couple of days, and also if I should write it at all. My thoughts went from being really vicious and unrepentantly calling out a couple of people to just not bother with wasting my energy on it to feeling very unsatisfied with some of the things that have been said or not been said despite also being relieved about the turn this situation took on Tuesday.

(The rest is under the break because this turned out long. Much longer than I expected.)

I honestly believe that any kind of call out post is always a form of cyberbullying. Because in the end, what you are doing with that in social media isn't informing people about a problem. What you are doing is trying to get people blindly to agree to your point of view by twisting the information you present. And sadly, all too often it works. 

It did work this time, too. I have seen several people state, publicly but also privately, that they saw one of the call-out posts from Monday and reblogged without looking at the publicly available conversation with the artist. When they then looked at it later, they were appalled with themselves to have blindly followed the accusations. I hope for those people and also at least a fracture of the people seeing their posts about it, this is a lesson: Always double check the information you are fed. (And honestly, that goes for news outlets as much as any social media post. But I don't want this post to be about media literacy.)

I'm aware that this is a kind of call out post all on it's own. The version of this post from Monday would have named all the names and at that time I wouldn’t have felt sorry about it. But that's the thing about reacting and posting something while the emotions are high, isn't it? A version from Tuesday doesn't exist, because I thought it not worth the energy and time the would be spend on it.

In the meantime, I have come to the conclusion that while I will be addressing a certain group of people, this post wouldn't have ever been about them, not even the first version from Monday. It's about fandom as a whole, preserving information for those who'll join the fandom in the future or who'll be attacked or witness an attack in the future or those who'll stumble over what happened this last week later on who are completely unaware of it right now. Because thankfully, for the fandom as a whole it didn't go very far.

I'm aware that in a way, I'm contradicting myself, that I might be participating in cyberbullying with this post. I'm rationalizing this for myself by the circumstances that it's a conclusion of a bullying campaign and that I won't feel responsible for those who started it being now attacked themselves. Some people will tell me I'm still wrong, some will shrug about it, others will agree with me. It is the reason, though, that I have decided not to name any names even though it will be stupidly easy to find the names I'm talking about. For that reason, I have cropped the screenshots I'll share about things I feel I need or want to address or blacked out the names on those screenshots.

To everyone who'll feel encouraged to seek out those names and spam their ask boxes or DMs with provocations or hate: Don't do it! It might feel satisfying in the beginning (the thought alone of the Monday-version of this post felt on Monday very satisfying for me, too), but it won't accomplish anything. They have proven they don't want to have a conversation, no matter how much they claim differently. Nothing will make them overthink and judge their own actions. (Also, I hope not providing the names here will make most of those who first like leaving anon hate to have lost interest once they have found the names because it will give them time to think better of it.)

And of course, the people who started this, have repeatedly stated they don't believe a call out post to be bullying. So they really won't be in a position to have a problem with this post. (They still will cry about it and claim the unfairness of it all, no doubt.)

An anon sent this to someone involved in this debate:

I've realised that I will never convince anyone by publicly shaming them. I might be able to silence them, but I won't convince them.

I fully agree with these words. I think everyone involved in this situation should take these words to heart. In other posts of the last view weeks, I already shared some thought about communication and teaching. I’ll elaborate on those thoughts in a later part of this post.

I realized this post is getting long. So I'm breaking it up in several parts and I'll add links to this post as soon as the other posts are up.

The actual call out part of this whole thing

Some thoughts about learning and communication

The usual aftermath

[brekker-by-brekkerr]

hsmtmts s4 spoilers ahead!

so i actually liked hsmtmts season 4. and i never expected to be saying that. from the trailers, i was worried the high school musical 4 plotline would take over and make the story too crowded. i thought they would focus too much on new characters. i had my problems with how portwell was handled and how EJ's plotline was handled in season 3. i was scared they would turn EJ into this guy who peaked in high school. i thought half of the theatre kids would be missing.

but i've never been happier to be wrong. yes, it took me a second to warm up to this season (though I'm looking forward to rewatching it and seeing how these thoughts change) and some choices felt especially out of pocket, and i still have problems with things, but this was still. so good. it honoured the heart of the early seasons and each character was given so much love. i'm so happy EJ Caswell my love was still a part of the show and got to sing and have his moments and story. i'm not super happy with how much of it was more for ricky's benefit and i still think he deserved so much better but i like them being friends. i like where he ended up with gina.

I am so proud of each of these characters and how much they have grown. I'm especially proud of how much Gina and Ricky have matured and how much they've learned from their past relationships

this season brought me the things i said i needed for me to support ricky and gina. yes portwell will forever have my heart and i will read fanfiction about a world where they got together and dream about what should have been but I'm also learning to be okay with the way things went this season. they were respectful of ej and gina as characters (other than taking risotto away what was that >:0), had them communicating and in such a healthy way and gina apologizing, and it felt so much kinder than last season. and the show acknowledged how it's always gina having to go first and put in the work and they had ricky change that! ricky really did show up and not gonna lie that love confession scene at the end got me it was good. they're not going to be my favourite ship ever by any means but that's okay. i can understand why other people love them and i just hope we can all be friends bc there are so many good ships in this fandom lol so we can all calm down and stop bullying each other thanks <3 (seriously the way none of these ships are problematic but people will be saying the rudest stuff if you mention a ship they don't like. like the number of posts i keep seeing calling people stupid and lacking in media literacy for having a different opinion is just so unnecessary)

and i was so happy for gina in this season! having her moment, showing so much strength and growth she was just everything and i love her so much.

i like that hsm 3 had its moment. and i am so so so happy all of the family was back (other than nini I'm sad she couldn't be there but i also didn't think she would be unfortunately). the highlight of everything for me was really gina's goodbye speech to everyone. it was so beautiful it felt like a love letter to every character on the show and i appreciated that so much.

so even though it was messy and imperfect and i love seasons 1 and 2 much much more, this season was so strongly found family and it's the found family i love and I'm happy with the ending. it had me sobbing because these characters (and the interactions I've had with people in the fandom) have meant so much to me. i started this show as a senior in high school and now I'm going into my senior year of college and this show with its found family of theatre kids and the soundtrack have been a huge comfort for me and I'm just happy it ended in a place i could appreciate (especially because i didn't think i would be saying any of this after season 3).

so for every moment of heartbreak this show caused me, I'm still happy knowing it ended with these theatre kids laughing and singing in a limo driving to denny's. maybe i would change some things along the way, but that was the perfect ending.