#I think this fandom has more of a hatedom sometimes than a fandom

[freedfromthegalactichivemind]

Reasons why Spop is one of the worst fandoms:   The 50,000th person complains about the writing, the last-season characterization and oh, noes, ships becoming canon or near-canon that they do not agree with!!!   Someone comes along to defend some of the writing, express a general chill-ness with the ships, but also a chill-ness with people not being into the ships / happiness with alternate ships, to give their own view on what they saw without condemning the OP, just “hey, I see a little difference here.” - along with one’s own complaints about the series writing, but, you know, just friendly giving of opinion as a fellow fan.   Blocked.  I was apparently immediately blocked.  No discussion, no rebuttal.  I wasn’t attacking anyone, I was just opining.   Then again, this is the fandom of “If you like or defend character X whom I don’t like in any way, you’re a bad person who does bad things and I hate you,” fandom.  Meanwhile, I’ve poked into discussions on the Trigun tag and have seen “Analysis of the complex relationship between the protagonist and antagonist as well their relationship with their adoptive mother” and someone comes along to give their own opinion, a little dissenting, respectful, but just how they see it, and the response is “Oh, I never saw that! This makes so much sense!  I still disagree on this point, but thank you!”     *Points to something I said earlier on this blog about better overall fandoms and how I’m glad I’m gravitating more toward them and out of this one.* 

[dotthings]

Also I wish Fandom would develop better self-awareness. Being critical of media is a healthy part of engaging with it, but that doesn't mean that can't grow dysfunctional and I've been seeing the rising culture of hatedom on every platform, in multiple bases, and even antis being rewarded, in some extra large fanbases, with huge followings and monetized engagement.

A tendency in multiple fandoms for a detachment from publicly available information, rudimentary understanding of process, a lack of media literacy, transparent grudgewanking agendas dressed up as "criticism," hatred expressed collectively towards professional script writers, misplaced blame, lack of comprehension of writers room structures and corporate structures. Getting simple production stuff wrong in order to spread more hate. And this steady, increasingly systemic disdain towards the professional writers who write the things that inspire fandom.

This isn't isolated criticism. It's becoming a cultural mindset and it has been leaching the joy out of fandom. Everyone's going to have an arc or an episode or characters they dislike. I'm talking about more and more "fans" collectively taking dumps all over the entire efforts of something they clearly no longer enjoy any more yet hang around just to posture as superior because they don't like it. And they don't shut up about it.

So Fandoms now have en masse flipping to "support the WGA" -- when right before the strike, a whole lot of people were all about thumbing their noses at the work of these professional creatives.

While still consuming that work and being inspired by it. How do people think that inspiration got there the first place? The script fairy?

Right before the writers strike, Fandom culture was leaning heavily into acting like writers don't even exist or as if The Writers, collectively, are the enemy and it's shilling for the man to appreciate anything they do.

Fandom in many ways has not supported these creatives.

Hey it's great people support the WGA now, and maybe the strike is helping some people to realize that this systemized hatedom by default isn't what they want to do. The WGA strike is maybe humanizing the writers for some fans.

Again, this doesn't mean don't speak on specific criticisms. But Fandom culture more and more is about dumping on the very things that inspired it to exist in the first place.

That would include the work of the very writers who are on strike because they are not being compensated fairly by the studios.

How many times have I had to point out on this tumblr when people are blaming "the writers" for things that were corporate decisions?

It's hard not to side-eye the waving around of "support the wga" from fandom when I've had negative experiences being hate trolled countless times in some fandoms just for openly supporting the work of the writers and even informed that I'm a terrible fan if I do.

Darn right support the WGA. And no, fandom is not always right. Sometimes the stories fail, sometimes it's corporate meddling, sometimes a show does get stuck with a toxic creative or two, it happens. But without writers, there's no shows, there's no characters, there's no inspiration for fans.

If you're still out there getting big engagement because of fanwork of IP X or Y while you continue to dump all over the entire collective effort of those stories because it's not whatever it was back when you felt the biggest rush about it, so therefore everything else is garbage, if you're out there using official hashtags, if you're out there doing free promotion, and that includes ceaseless negativity, if you're virtue signaling how superior you are for sticking to the man because you despise the official thing, while continuing to post about it non-stop, I have news for you, you are feeding the same beast maw that benefits the corporations and you're not better than the fans who actually show enjoyment and appreciation of the work being done by creatives.

[hamliet]

Hey hamliet, got a bit of an unusual question for you about RWBY.

How do you deal with the negativity?

Now that Volume 9 is going to be on Crunchyroll first and free an entire year later, there's been a lot of negative talk about RWBY and Rooster Teeth. How RT is dying and a shell of its former self. That the RWBY Sub and Discord is going to pirate the hell out of the show instead of supporting it due to the poor treatment of the staff, calling Geoff's statement about how pirating will do nothing more than hurt the show as bad taste, and pretty much fine dooming the show because all that matters now is RT is supposedly a shit company these days and that's all that matters...

Not to mention you STILL have people like the Judgemental Critter releasing videos about how bad RWBY is. There's so little positive RWBY content on Youtube...

Just, how do you deal with it all, the hatedom for a show you love and worries that it might not be ended thanks to the hatedom and controversies surrounding it? Or do you think I'm just making a mountain out of a molehill?'

Sigh.

Regarding YouTube, I ignore it. Sometimes I think about doing takedowns of the Reddit Dudebros who have made RWBY hate videos, but I also don't wanna give them traffic. Instead I use the site I write for (the non-Tumblr one) to write positive RWBY content, which will go up over the next month. It won't have the same reach, probably, but it's all I can actually do.

As for the production stuff, I have mixed feelings.

I think the long hiatus has soured a lot of the trust in CRWBY, and rightly so. Yes, covid, the WBD merge (and WBD's scorched earth policies in general are creating atmospheres of anxiety and fear for all their subsidiaries), Ice Queendom, and the movies have happened, but the sudden hiatus when your previous volume ended on a literal cliffhanger is not a good look. People are going to rightly get suspicious and anxious, and frankly, I think RT didn't handle it well at all. If RWBY continues, and it better, they absolutely cannot have another long hiatus, and they should be forthcoming about things.

I think Geoff's letter is an attempt to be forthcoming. I don't think it's super clear, though, and kind of made things worse--but I also don't think that is Geoff's fault. I think the fandom, as a whole, has issues that are absolutely not the fault of Rooster Teeth or anyone in CRWBY, and are instead the fandom's issues.

The fandom has a semi-parasocial relationship with the actors and writers, which is great on one hand and yikes on the other, because the fans do act entitled in a lot of ways. Because people involved do say certain things, fans take it as Gospel Truth because Their Friend The Involved Person wouldn't possibly have other motives or be a complex human being themselves with subconcious pain and desires that may or may not align with theirs. But the people involved are all, well, people, and they aren't your friend. They're not a bad person or an enemy; they're just a person you don't actually know. People are complicated. I'm also not blaming people involved who speak out; they're doing what they can with what they know. I just wish fans would accept that what fans know is far, far less than they think.

I don't know how to say this in a way that will not get fans furious at me or think I'm dismissing the issues because I'm really not trying to. I'm just an adult who has unfortunately seen the results of simplistic thinking, and there are not simple solutions to complex problems.

If you watch any anime at all, you're probably giving money to studios that treat their workers way, way, way worse than Rooster Teeth does.

If you consume manga, you're giving money to a company that has worked numerous mangakas into permanent disabilities because of their insane deadlines and low pay. Like, Shuiesha is awful. Ishida lost his ability to taste food.

Wait, I can hear all of you now: JUST BECAUSE X DOES IT DOESN'T MAKE IT OKAY FOR RT TO DO IT! To which I say: you're hella f*ckin' right. I am not making this argument at all, just laying facts out. It absolutely is not an excuse. 0% excuse.

Get your sh*t together, Rooster Teeth.

But it is to say, if you're boycotting RT but watching something else, don't say it's on blanket moral principles, because it isn't. You're going to have to ask yourself why you hold them to another standard. And to be fair, we all have limits and our own boundaries, so it's not possible to judge others. I avoid certain media and consume others.

There isn't a great way to handle this. There isn't a simple solution that will just magically make everything okay for everyone. It sucks.

But boycotts actually, imo, not going to help and fairly likely to make the situation worse. So instead of no pay, you want them to get... no pay or jobs at all? Because it's not like there's a "good" animation studio. Trust me, I work in the arts. Having no job is awful, too.

It's not remotely the same, but I think back to the sweatshops people boycotted in the late oughts--understandably so. But here's a little known fact: thanks to all the boycotting, a lot of those women went into the sex industry, and not exactly willingly, but out of desperation. I know some of these women by name. It is not the same thing here, and I'm not saying it is, and maybe shouldn't even use this analogy, but I am using it as an example of how boycotts as simple solutions are not nearly so moral as you might think, in broad terms.

Regarding RWBY's future, I really hope we get the ending as Monty planned. I want it, and I think we only need 3-4 more seasons for it.

Frankly, I think RWBY is one of the most well-written American animated shows to exist in the past decade.

(Go ahead and argue with me, dudebros. You'll lose.) RWBY is actually very popular overseas, which also helps.

I also think of Monty's quote from when his mother passed away, which seems eerie considering his own untimely death:

“I believe that the human spirit is indomitable. If you endeavor to achieve, it will happen given enough resolve. It may not be immediate, and often your greater dreams are something you will not achieve within your own lifetime. The effort you put forth to anything transcends yourself, for there is no futility even in death.”

Anyways, the finale of volume 9 is airing on the anniversary of my dad's death, which is the same day as the anniversary of the death of the friend who introduced me to RWBY's parent as well (yes, our parents died the same day, years apart). RWBY is one of those stories that gives me life and hope again in how it handles grief. I hope there's a path forward for the story that involves treating workers fairly.

[xxlittle-miss-horrorxx]

I think I may make a side blog just for Helluva Boss

Now it’s not really gonna be so much of a critical blog (even if I may critique things here and there) but idk I still have a very love and hate relationship with said series. It’s actually more of a blog of an AU of how I would change things. Like redesigns and such.

I don’t fully hate it since I had fond memories with season 1 but idk something about season 2 misses the mark for me… the last episode was so bad that even my friends who love the series thought it was too much. (Actually like me, they also can’t stand season 2)

Also, I don’t wanna discuss these spindlehorse allegations. I feel like it’s not fair to jump the gun since there’s more sides to the stories and I keep seeing screenshots that provide no context at all. And just talking about that is super exhausting… like sorry guys, I rather not have people bother me about that.

However, I still like the characters I just wish season 2 didn’t assassinate them. I actually love Blitzo being an cynical asshole and he’s a favorite of mine BUT ahhhh I would prefer if he faced consequences. I’m very mixed with Stolas, I enjoyed him through season 1 since idk the morally grey with him was entertaining but eh…. The woobification happened and once again being neglectful to Octavia :””) so yeah but I had ideas I have in mind.

I think the issue with Helluva Boss, is that it should had stayed as an episodic edgy adult cartoon than forcing it to have a plot driven story. A thing with cynical characters CAN work but you should let them face consequences when they do dumb stuff. It’s kind of why I enjoy MTV’s downtown so much since that show too has cynical characters but don’t always get things easily handed to them. But now it’s like giving me the odd feeling I had with Aggrektsuko and SVTFOE when they force a ship to show that it ruins all logic 🙃🙃🙃

That being said, I have issues with the fandom and hatedom.

I really don’t wanna engage to much with the fandom since holy shit there’s so much toxic positivity there, i remember people getting angry at me for disliking Loona. (When I had my reasons) and I had to give my reasons why the show had a misogyny problem with women. Because god forbid a fan can’t have different opinions.🙄🙄🙄 I am nervous to share self ship art of my oc with Bl*tzo since oooof st*l*tz shippers may take it personal. (Even tho I plan to have blitzo and Stolas be in a friends with benefits relationship since I think that makes more sense with them )

And while I don’t really 100% believe these allegations since I think there’s missing truth, I hate how these Stans would attack Erin and Ken like guys please fucking stop. We need to have innocent until guilty, not just with Viv okay? I’ve detached myself from Viv since I’m not fond of her childish behavior but I don’t wanna jump the gun with her still. (Please don’t bother me about this I’m aware of Ken and I do hope they recover, it’s just that’s so exhausting )

As for the hatedom and antis… oooof I’ve seen antis go too far and would harass Viv and her writers and such because of a bad episode and all of that. Don’t get me wrong, I know Viv enables bad fandom behavior and even shit talks people that review her stuff and I am against that… but sometimes these haters stoop to her level. Hell one “critical” blog even went on how Viv blocked them and was all “suspicious I think not” well when you constantly got o their pages to harass her and her team, well no shit they’ll block you. And idk this person just has a very unhealthy extreme hate for Viv…. They watch her every move and look way too deep into things…

It’s just idk I hate because these people get lumped with criticals. Some critic blogs are fine I just hate they’re now lumped with antis that go too far.

Also maybe it’s me, I’m planning to create an Indie project soon and I just rather make a side blog for this stuff. I think it may be unprofessional for someone like me to dwelve into the hatedom and fandom and it’s better to surround yourself with small friends you trust.

So yeah don’t expect me going anti or Stan, it may be a bit critical but it’s also me doing fun AUs and enjoying things I do like about the show. The more you stay in toxic positivity or toxic negativity, it’s gonna eat you alive.

I’ve been encouraged by friends to just do my own thing you know :3

So I just rather be the casual fan who just forms her opinions on things so I don’t have to interact with fandom as a whole :””)

[chaossery]

Unpopular opinion maybe, but Himiko Toga has got to be one of the most underrated and underappreciated characters in BNHA.

I mean, on one hand, she has this surprisingly vocal hatedom that sees her as nothing more than some freaky yandere and a crudely written hypocrite to boot. However, I'm also talking about good chunks of her fandom. Those that only like her for her cute design and her "yandere" appeal, but never bother to look at what's beyond the surface.

I don't know, it just kinda stings.

First, because Himiko is without a doubt the best-written female character in BNHA. She is the most proactive and plot-relevant out of all of them and has the best character arc and most in-depth backstory.  

But also, because her story hit really close to home for me personally. (In fact, way more than the Todoroki subplot did. I'm an only child with rather devoted parents, so… There's that. However, being treated like crap for something that's beyond your control, trying to be "normal" and trying to fit in at all costs since everyone tells you that you need to be "normal" and need to fit in, even if it means suppressing your true self, and then eventually hitting your breaking point because you just can't continue to live a lie like that… Yeah, I can feel that.)

Sometimes, it just feels like Himiko gets way less appreciation and sympathy than Tomura or Dabi, even though her anger and her issues with hero society aren't any less valid than theirs. And I don't think that's fair at all.

[irkimatsu]

Caught up on Hazbin Hotel! It's a fun ride! I don't have nearly enough words for it - there's someone in my circle way, way better at that when it comes to this - but I did want to ramble a little bit:

-Charlie. CHARLIE. I am about 60% here for Charlie. You could have told me nothing about this show besides "the Princess of Hell is basically a shoujo protagonist" and you would have gotten me from there. Is my love for Charlie proof of my namby-pamby hippie ways of love and kindness and forgiveness? Probably! But it's fine. I love Charlie. I want to know her dreams of redemption are possible. (Sometimes I really need to know that you really can be redeemed no matter how badly you've fucked up...)

-I'm also really loving Husk. How much is the personality and how much is the character design? No clue. (I'm a furry, baby~) He's a good straight man, though, and someone that most of this hotel's residents are gonna need, especially Angel. Glad I'm not the only one on the Husk/Angel train, looking forward to where that's going

-Sir Pentious is a pathetic baby man and I love pathetic baby men. (My main fandom is still an anime about six pathetic baby men, after all.) While there's other characters I care more about as a whole, I fully expect to be laughing my shit off every time this guy's on screen. Idiot. <3

-God damn the music is good, just as I expected after years of Helluva Boss. Standouts so far are "Poison" (obviously, even though that scene fucking hurt to watch - which isn't a complaint, it did what it was supposed to); "Stayed Gone" (Vox is such a petty bitch and damn do I see why a friend of mine favors Alastor, he's effective as hell); and "Loser Baby" (maybe because I literally just watched it and boarded the Husk/Angel train, but hey, it was fun, and a desperately needed cleanser after "Poison". You know "Poison" was rough when a cheerful song about how much your lives suck is a cleanser.) There hasn't been a dud yet, though! Gonna have to loop the soundtrack to commit everything to memory, though that might wait until the whole season's out. Don't want to not give later songs a fair shake because I was too busy looping the earlier ones.

-If I have to complain a little, I do admit to being lost on some things, and I don't know how much of that is "I'm supposed to be lost, they'll explain later", "I'm dumb and didn't absorb things properly", or "that was explained in side materials". I hope most of it is those first two and not the third - side materials are fun, but I do think the show should be able to stand on its own. Even with the pilot - is that on Amazon? I don't know because I watched the show, um, elsewhere. I have my doubts about it, though, since so much changed between the pilot and the main show, as it tends to happen with pilots. If it's not, that does feel like a bit of a problem, since I think this show has its best chance of success if someone sees it turns up in their recommended section, knows nothing about it but thinks it looks cool, and tunes in there. Treats for the dedicated fans are great, but continuity lockout makes it hard for newbies to care, and I'd rather this didn't turn into "well you're not a real fan because you didn't read all the side comics and blog posts". No elitism, please! Let people who don't live on the Internet enjoy the funny demon show, too!

-Twitter is annoying and my engagement with this show in public will probably be slim-to-zero because this show's hatedom is one of the most obnoxious I've seen in a long time. It's fine to hate the show, obviously, but god, all the reaching for straws to prove that everyone who watches this show is evil and supports all the crime in the world. It's okay, you don't have to like the violent Hell show where people say fuck. It's not for everyone. You don't need to prove you're better than everyone else for not liking it. It's fine, love, it's fine. Of course there's stuff to criticize, every show can be critiqued, but "it's gross for Niffty to make sex jokes because she's tiny"? Go away with that shit.

I hope at least some of this was coherent. Looking forward to more!

[into-september]

A few years back, people smarter than me were discussing how one of the fundamental flaws of tumblr was how reblogs are copies of the original post, not just passing it around. Any edits the OP makes won’t make it into any reblog chains, which makes this a platform ripe for things to get passed around with comments framing the original content in wildly different contexts than they were meant to be read in. 

Yesterday, I wrote some words about the nebulous definition of “salt” and the MLB fandom’s tendency to have a lower-than-usual barrier for what goes into that definition, and how I’m sometimes hesitant about posting... pretty much anything that isn’t overwhelming positive takes about the show. The hatedom existing for the show from outsiders and for certain character from insiders has left a lot of people with some kneejerk reactions to any criticism that I GET, I honestly DO. But as it happens, a part of my enthusiasm for this dumb show gets its outlet in me having opinions about its creative choices. Much as I love it and much as I overwhelming think it excels at what it’s trying to be - sometimes they’re not altogether successful. And I occasionally find it tricky to navigate a community where my criticism of the work of professional writers is potentially interpreted as hate of fictional characters. 

Today, I posted a dumb meme that was making fun about the inconsistent characterisation between the NYC special and “Kuro Neko”. I left no comment on the post proper but pointed out in the tags that this isn’t meant as salt. And what do you know but within two reblogs, people were missing the joke and feeling the need to prove me wrong. 

And in the context of the current fandom climate, maybe I can’t say I was surprised, except possibly by how quickly that went. It’s not like I’m any level of internet famous enough to have a reputation to lose, but having my post passed around as something it legitimately isn’t (or was meant as, at least) irked me enough to verbalise, at length, the point I’d hope to make to people who know me well enough to know that it was tongue in cheek, or at least not out to read it in the worst possible meaning. It’s not that I think the people getting defensive will ever see this, or bother reading it if they do, but heck - this is apparently how I like to spend my evenings these days. 

So to talk storytelling:

A year and a half ago, we got the NYC special where Cat Noir giving up his ring leaves Marinette so destroyed that she legitimately can’t imagine being Ladybug if he’s not at her side; she verbally defines Ladybug’s existence as dependent on Cat Noir’s, something we’ve only seen implicitly during the season finales. In what was probably the most heartbreaking sequence in the show’s history, we witnessed her complete collapse at his absence - and yes, there were Circumstances, such as her immense guilt at Robostus’ attack on Paris and Adrien’s departure, but still. That moment was such an immense confirmation of how important Cat Noir is to Ladybug. 

And then there’s “Kuro Neko”, which I really enjoyed! It was a fun episode! I’m sure it’ll be a lot sadder in all the right places when I get to hear Adrien in a voice I can take seriously too, but like. Guys. Her reaction to finding the ring was to look upset, and then promptly reject Plagg’s suggestion to just ask Cat Noir to please come back already. Her focus during the entire debacle is on finding a new Cat Noir, and the emotions she displays, beyond some vague sadness in the very beginning, is annoyance and determination. No more little Miss I Do My Crying In The Rain here, sir! 

We can hope she spent all night crying about Cat Noir being gone, we can desperately want it, but if she did, it wasn’t important enough to be confirmed and made a point out of on screen. You know, unlike the NYC special, or the aftermath of him mentioning That Girl He’s In Love With, or her moping after breaking up with Luka, or even her denial about Adrien in “Mr. Pigeon 72″. Or like Adrien’s sad breakup montages (he had like two of them in this episode alone)

It could be easily remedied. Give us sad flashback montages. Cut a few other frames and add ten seconds of her looking wistfully at the moon. Have her hesitate a real second before going “nah, better get a new one”. Have her wipe away a single, mournful tear while looking at the last rose he gave her. They made it amply evident that Adrien was upset. They made it a point that Nathalie was upset on Adrien’s behalf. Since they put that on screen but did not show us Marinette being notably sad about it, the text leaves us with one answer: she wasn’t.

At the point where we’re going “they didn’t need to SPELL IT OUT FOR US, we KNOW that she was heartbroken”, then here’s the question: if they didn’t need to spell it out for us, then why spell it out when it was Adrien? Why spell it out the last time Cat Noir gave up? 

(answer: because Spelling It Out is how events happen in visual storytelling, and certainly in a story written for a primary school audience)

When I point out this difference between the two events, it’s not out of hate for Marinette. I know there are people who somehow find joy in watching this show even though they hate her guts, but the lord only knows I don’t understand them. I wouldn’t be writing 40+ K fanfic about her if I hated her. I wouldn’t be writing love letters about her if I hated her. I know the difference between fictional characters written by real life people, and real life people who have real choices and agencies over their lives. 

In this particular case? My point was that Marinette’s reaction to Cat Noir leaving in “Kuro Neko” looks weird after the NYC special. It’s not a big deal next to the rest of the episode; unless you know that the NYC special ever existed as a basis for comparison, there’s nothing really unexpected about Marinette’s reaction here. Other people have written clever things about how she often doesn’t seem to think about Cat Noir as an actual human being, but rather as this fairy-tale creature who conveniently shows up to help her in battle. The case could arguably be made for her being in denial about how this means she’ll never, ever meet him again. (which we know is a concern he has, re. “Hack-San”) We know that there were a number of episodes where the writers had to cut a lot to fit it into the 23 minute frame, and this absolutely feels like it could be one of them. 

And if that was the case, then either Marinette’s feelings about Cat Noir leaving were victims of that limit, or they’re setting up a later story point about how she doesn’t comprehend the reality of losing him for real. 

[bestworstcase]

What is your opinion on all the hate RWBY gets? Does it really deserve the reputation it gets as a garbage piece of media that screws up at every possible turn or is it better than people give it credit for?

not to be facetious anon but why did u ask me this what about me splashing the fevered soup of my rwby brainrot all over this blog constantly led u to wonder if i maybe secretly think it’s garbage GKFHDJS

um on a more serious note i think a lot of rwby fans could rly benefit from ignoring the hatedom because Frankly there is nothing exceptional or uniquely vitriolic about rwby’s hatedom that is just What Hatedoms Are Like and the general posture of the online rwby fandom circles that i’ve been kind of perusing by cruising through tags and keeping an eye on what people say on my posts strikes me as almost—like i get the feeling sometimes that some folks who really do like the show have also nonetheless bought into the hatedom narrative of, oh rwby is an amateur mess written by people who don’t know what they’re doing really, and that leads to this bizarre sort of attitude that anything good must have been accidental?

bc the thing is while yes the amateur passion project of it all does show in the writing, mainly in the awkward pacing and clumsy worldbuilding in the first couple volumes, but this is a story that has excelled at set up and execution since its inception and, idk maybe blitzing through the first eight volumes has just given me a fundamentally different perspective on how the narrative is put together but it is ludicrous to me to see so many fans of this show engaging with it like they think the writing team is just kind of making it up as they go along—as if the story didn’t introduce salem by using her as a narrator three whole volumes before we even got a glimpse at her, as if the first three volumes aren’t deliberately structured to offer oblique glimpses of the conspiracy that reveals itself fully beginning in the fourth, as if v2-3 weren’t screaming the fall of atlas from the rooftops. how do you watch eight volumes of this and come away thinking that rwby is not a story that was meticulously and lovingly planned?

hdhdjvk i’m just a little frustrated that when my posts break containment there are inevitably a large handful of people who reblog them with tag commentary to the tune of “well i don’t believe this was purposeful and don’t trust the writers to do it but it would be so cool if this were right” like. god. maybe if you stopped drinking the hatedom koolaid and paid attention to what’s happening on screen you would feel more optimistic about the competency of the writing???

[shihalyfie]

Hi :) If it's not too much trouble, could you please share your take on why they'd continue the Adventure brand after tri. was such a flop? (and a tangent: what does "dark history" even mean?). We got Kizuna, the reboot, and a 02 movie. Logically, it doesn't really make sense they'd keep investing in it.

This is a thorny topic, and I'd like to reiterate that although I've ended up making more posts related to this series and the discourse surrounding it recently (probably because it's even more on the mind now that another movie is on the horizon and a lot of people are apprehensive for various reasons), I do not want this blog to be making a brand out of being critical of this series. I’m writing this here and in public because I figured that there is a certain degree I need to clarify what I mean about audience reception/climate and how it might impact current or future works, and I’m admittedly also more than a little upset that I occasionally see Western fanbase criticisms of the series getting dismissed by people claiming that the only people mad about it are dramamongering or ignorant Westerners (which could not be further from the truth). However, this is mainly to address this and to answer your question, and is not intended to try and change anyone's existing opinion or impression of the series as much as it's me trying to explain (from my own personal reading of the situation) what practically went down with critical reception in real life; no more, no less.

The short summary of the matter is:

The series was a moderate financial success (albeit with some caveats; see the long version for details) and definitely outstripped a lot of prior attempts to revive the franchise;

However, the overall Japanese fanbase-side critical backlash from tri. was extremely and viciously negative to the point where even acknowledging the series too much could easily result in controversy;

Kizuna’s production and the PR surrounding it very obviously have this in mind with a lot of apparent “damage control” elements.

The long version is below.

Note that while I try to be diligent about citing my sources so people understand that I’m not just making things up wholesale, I’m deliberately refraining from linking certain things here this time, both because some of the things mentioned have some pretty crude things written there -- it’s not something I feel comfortable directing people to regardless of what language it’s in -- and because I don’t want to recklessly link things on social media and cause anyone to go after or harass the people involved. For the links that have been provided, please still be warned that some of them don’t really link to particularly pleasant things.

I am not writing the following information to suggest that anyone should agree or disagree with the sentiments being described. I know people tend to take "a lot of people like/hate this" as a signal of implication "it is correct to like/hate this" when it's not (and I especially dislike the idea of implying that Japanese fanbase opinions are the only correct ones). There's a reason I focus on "critical reception being this way" (because it influences marketing decisions and future direction) rather than how much this should impact one's personal feelings; this is coming from myself as someone who is shamelessly proud of liking many things that had bad critical reception, were financial failures, or are disliked by many. As I point out near the end, the situation also does seem to be changing for the better in more recent years as well.

Also, to be clear, I'm a single person who's observing everything best I can from my end, I have no affiliations with staff nor do I claim to, and as much as I'm capable of reading Japanese and thus reading a lot of people's impressions, I'm ultimately still another “outsider” looking in. These are my impressions from my observation of fan communal spaces, following artists and reading comments on social media and art posting websites, and results from social media searches. In the end, I know as much as anyone else about what happened, so this is just my two cents based on all of my personal observations.

A fanbase is a fanbase regardless of what part of the world you're from. There are people who love it and are shameless about saying so. There are people who have mixed feelings or at least aren't on extreme ends of the spectrum (as always, the loudest ones are always the most visible, but it's not always easy to claim they're the predominant percentage of the fanbase). That happens everywhere, and I still find that on every end I've seen. However, if I'm talking about my impressions and everything I’ve encountered, I will say that the overall Japanese reaction to tri. comes off as significantly more violently negative on average than the Western one, which is unusual because often it's the other way around. (I personally feel less so because the opinions are that fundamentally different and more so because we're honestly kind of loud and in-your-face people; otherwise, humans are mostly the same everywhere, and more often than not people feel roughly the same about everything if they’re given the same information to work with.)

This is not something I can say lightly, and thus would not say if I didn’t really get this impression, but...we're talking "casually looking up movie reviews for Kizuna have an overwhelming amount of people casually citing any acknowledgment of tri. elements as a negative element", or the fact that even communal wikis for "general" fandoms like Pixiv and Aniwota don't tend to hold back in being vicious about it (as of this writing, Pixiv's wiki refuses to consider it in the same timeline as Adventure, accusing it of being "a series that claims to be a sequel set three years after 02 but is in fact something different"). Again, there are people who openly enjoy it and actively advocate for it (and Pixiv even warns people to not lord over others about it condescendingly because of the fact that such people do exist), and this is also more of a reflection of “the hardcore fanbase on the Internet” and not necessarily the mainstream (after all, there are quite a few other Digimon works where the critical reception varies very heavily between the two). Nevertheless, the take-home is that the reputation is overall negative among the Internet fanbase to the point that this is the kind of sentiment you run into without trying all that hard.

I think, generally speaking, if we're just talking about why a lot of people resent the series, the reasons aren't that different from those on the Western side. However, that issue of "dark history" (黒歴史): there's a certain degree of demand from the more violently negative side of the fanbase that's, in a sense, asking official to treat it as a disgrace and never acknowledge it ever again, hence why Kizuna doing so much as borrowing things from it rather than rejecting it outright is still sometimes treated like it’s committing a sin. So it's somewhat close in spirit to a retcon movement, which is unusual because no other Digimon series gets this (not even 02; that was definitely a thing on the Western end, but while I'm sure there are people who hate it that much on their end too, I've never really seen it gain enough momentum for anyone to take it seriously). If anyone ever tells you that Japanese fanbases are nice to everything, either they don't know Japanese, are being willfully ignorant, or are lying to you, because there is such thing as drama in those areas, and in my experience, I've seen things get really nasty when things are sufficiently pushed over the edge, and if a fanbase wants to have drama, it will have drama. This happens to be one of those times.

(If you think this is extreme, please know that I also think so too, so I hope you really understand that me describing this sentiment does not mean I am personally endorsing it. Also, let me reiterate that the loudest section of the fanbase is not necessarily the predominant one; after all, as someone who’s been watching reactions to 02 over the years, I myself can attest that its hatedom has historically made it sound more despised than it actually is in practice.)

My impression is that the primary core sentiment behind why the series so much as existing and being validated is considered such an offense (rather than, say, just saying "wow, that writing was bad" and moving on) is heavily tied to the release circumstances the series came out in during 2015-2018, and the idea that "this series disrespected Adventure, and also disrespected the fanbase.” (I mean, really, regardless of what part of the world you’re from, sequels and adaptations tend to be held to a higher bar of expectation than standalone works, because they’re expected to do them justice.) A list of complaints I’ve come across a lot while reading through the above:

The Japanese fanbase is pretty good at recordkeeping when it comes to Adventure universe lore, partially because they got a lot of extra materials that weren’t localized, but also partially because adherence to it seems to generally be more Serious Business to them than it is elsewhere. For instance, “according to Adventure episode 45, ‘the one who wishes for stability’ (Homeostasis) only started choosing children in 1995, and therefore there can be no Chosen Children before 1995” is taken with such gravity that this, not anything to do with evolutions or timeline issues, is the main reason Hurricane Touchdown’s canonicity was disputed in that arena (because Wallace implies that he met his partners before 1995). It’s a huge reason the question of Kizuna also potentially not complying to lore came to the forefront, because tri. so flagrantly contradicts it so much that this issue became very high on the evaluation checklist. In practice, Kizuna actually goes against Adventure/02 very little, so the reason tri. in particular comes under fire for this is that it does it so blatantly there were theories as early as Part 1 that this series must take place in a parallel universe or something, and as soon as it became clear it didn’t, the resulting sentiment was “wow, you seriously thought nobody would notice?” (thus “disrespecting the audience”).

A lot of the characterization incongruity is extremely obvious when you’re following only the Japanese version, partially because it didn’t have certain localization-induced characterization changes (you are significantly less likely to notice a disparity with Mimi if you’re working off the American English dub where they actually did make her likely to step on others’ toes and be condescending, whereas in Japanese the disparity is jarring and hard to miss) and partially due to some things lost in translation (Mimi improperly using rough language on elders is much easier to spot as incongruity if you’re familiar with the language). Because it’s so difficult to miss, and honestly feels like a lot of strange writing decisions you’d make only if you really had no concept of what on earth happened in the original series, it only contributes to the idea that they were handling Adventure carelessly and disrespectfully without paying attention to what the series was even about (that, or worse, they didn’t care).

02 is generally well-liked there! It’s controversial no matter where you go, but as I said earlier, there was no way a retcon movement would have ever been taken seriously, and the predominant sentiment is that, even if you’re not a huge fan of it, its place in canon (even the epilogue) should be respected. So not only flagrantly going against 02-introduced lore but also doing that to a certain quartet is seen as malicious, and you don’t have as much of the converse discourse celebrating murdering the 02 quartet (yeah, that’s a thing that happened here) or accusing people with complaints of “just being salty because they like 02″ as nearly as much of a factor; I did see it happen, or at least dismissals akin to “well it’s Adventure targeted anyway,” but they were much less frequent. The issue with the 02 quartet is usually the first major one brought up, and there’s a lot of complaints even among those who don’t care for 02 as much that the way they went about it was inhumane and hypocritical, especially when killing Imperialdramon is fine but killing Meicoomon is a sin. Also, again, “you seriously think nobody will see a problem with how this doesn’t make sense?”

I think even those who are fans of the series generally agree with this, but part of the reason the actual real-life time this series went on is an important factor is that the PR campaign for this series was godawful. Nine months of clicking on an egg on a website pretending like audience participation meant something when in actuality it was blatantly obvious it was just a smokescreen to reveal info whenever they were ready? This resulted in a chain effect where even more innocuous/defensible things were viewed in a suspicious or negative light (for instance, "the scam of selling the fake Kaiser's goggles knowing Ken fans would buy it only to reveal that it's not him anyway"), and a bunch of progressively out-of-touch-with-the-fanbase statements and poor choices led to more sentiment “yeah, you’re just insulting the fanbase at this point,” and a general erosion of trust in official overall.

On top of that, the choice of release format to have it spread out as six movies over three years seems to have exacerbated the backlash to get much worse than it would have been otherwise, especially since one of the major grievances with the series is that how it basically strung people along, building up more and more unanswered questions before it became apparent it was never going to answer them anyway. So when you’re getting that frustrated feeling over three whole years, it feels like three years of prolonged torture, and it becomes much harder to forgive for the fallout than if you’d just marathoned the entire thing at once.

For those who are really into the Digimon (i.e. species) lore and null canon, while I’m not particularly well-versed in that side of the fanbase, it seems tri. fell afoul of them too for having inaccurately portrayed (at one point, mislabeled) special attacks and poorly done battle choreography, along with the treatment of Digimon in general (infantilized Digimon characterization, general lack of Digimon characters in general, very flippant treatment of the Digital World in Parts 3-5). If you say you’re going to “reboot” the Digital World and not address the entire can of worms that comes with basically damaging an entire civilization of Digimon, as you can imagine, a lot of people who actually really care about that are going to be pissed, and the emerging sentiment is “you’re billing this as a Digimon work, but you don’t even care about the monsters that make up this franchise.”

The director does not have a very positive reputation among those who know his work (beyond just Digimon), and in general there was a lot of suspicion around the fact they decided to get a guy whose career has primarily been built on harem and fanservice anime to direct a sequel to a children’s series. Add to that a ton of increasingly unnerving statements about how he intended to make the series “mature” in comparison to its predecessor (basically, an implication that Adventure and 02 were happy happy joy series where nothing bad ever happened) and descriptions of Adventure that implied a very, very poor grasp of anything that happened in it: inaccurate descriptions of their characters, poor awareness of 02′s place in the narrative, outright saying in Febri that he saw the Digimon as like perpetual kindergartners even after evolving, and generally such a flippant attitude that it drove home the idea that the director of an Adventure sequel had no respect for Adventure, made this series just to maliciously dunk on it for supposedly being immature, and has such a poor grasp of what it even was that it’s possible he may not have seen it in the first place (or if he did, clearly skimmed it to the extent he understood it poorly to pretty disturbing levels). As of this writing, Aniwota Wiki directly cites him as a major reason for the backlash.

In general, consensus seems to be that the most positively received aspect of the series (story-wise) was Part 3 (mostly its ending, but some are more amenable to the Takeru and Patamon drama), and the worst vitriol goes towards Parts 2 (for the blatantly contradictory portrayal of Mimi and Jou and the hypocritical killing of Imperialdramon) and 4 (basically the “point of no return” where even more optimistic people started getting really turned off). This is also what I suspect is behind the numbers on the infamous DigiPoll (although the percentage difference is admittedly low enough to fall within margin of error). However, there was suspicion about the series even from Part 1, with one prominent fanartist openly stating that it felt more like meeting a ton of new people than it did reuniting with anyone they knew.

So with all of that on the table: how did this affect official? The thing is that when I say “violently negative”, I mean that also entailed spamming official with said violently negative social media comments. While this is speculation, I am fairly certain that official must have realized how bad this was getting as early as between Parts 4 and 5, because that’s where a lot of really suspicious things started happening behind the scenes; while I imagine the anime series itself was now too far in to really do anything about it, one of the most visible producers suddenly vanished from the producer lineup and was replaced by Kinoshita Yousuke, who ended up being the only member of tri. staff shared with Kizuna (and, in general, the fact that not a single member of staff otherwise was retained kind of says a lot). Once the series ended in 2018 and the franchise slowly moved into Kizuna-related things, you might notice that tri.-branded merch production almost entirely screeched to a halt and official has been very touchy about acknowledging it too deeply; it’s not that they don’t, but it’s kind of an awfully low amount for what you’d think would be warranted for a series that’s supposed to be a full entry in the big-name Adventure brand.

The reason is, simply, that if they do acknowledge it too much, people will get pissed at them. That’s presumably why the tri. stage play (made during that interim period between Parts 4 and 5 and even branded with the title itself) and Kizuna are really hesitant to be too aggressive about tri. references; it’s not necessarily that official wants to blot it out of history like the most extreme opinions would like them to, but even being too enthusiastic about affirming it will also get them backlash, especially if the things they affirm are contradictory to Adventure or 02. And considering even the small references they did put in still got them criticism for “affirming” tri. too much, you can easily see that the backlash would have been much harder if they’d attempted more than that; staying as close as possible to Adventure and 02 and trying to deal with tri. elements only when they’re comparatively inoffensive was pretty much the “safe” thing to do in this scenario (especially since fully denying tri. would most certainly upset the people who did like the series, and if you have to ask me, I personally think this would have been a pretty crude thing to have done right after the series had just finished). Even interviews taken after the fact often involve quickly disclaiming involvement with the series, or, if they have to bring up something about it, discussing the less controversial aspects like the art (while the character designs were still controversial, it’s at least at the point where some fanartists will still be willing to make use of them even if they dislike the series, albeit often with prominent disclaimers) or the more well-received parts of Part 3; Kizuna was very conspicuously marketed as a standalone movie, even if it shared the point of “the Adventure kids, but older” that tri. had.

(Incidentally, the tri. stage play has generally been met with a good reputation and was received well even among people who were upset with the anime, so it was well-understood that they had no relation. In fact, said stage play is probably even better received than Kizuna, although that’s not too surprising given the controversial territory Kizuna goes into, making the stage play feel very play-it-safe in comparison.)

So, if we’re going to talk about Kizuna in particular: tri. was, to some degree, a moderate financial success, in the sense that it made quite a bit of money and did a lot to raise awareness of the Digimon brand still continuing...however, if you actually look at the sales figures for tri., they go down every movie; part of it was probably because of the progressively higher “hurdle” to get into a series midway, but consider that Gundam Unicorn (a movie series which tri.’s format was often compared to) had its sales go up per movie thanks to word of mouth and hype. So while tri. does seem to have gotten enough money to help sustain the franchise at first, the trade-off was an extremely livid fanbase that had shattered faith in the brand and in official, and so while continuing the Adventure brand might still be profitable, there was no way they were going to get away with continuing to do this lest everything eventually crash and burn.

Hence, if you look at the way Kizuna was produced and advertised, you can see a lot of it is blatantly geared at addressing a lot of the woes aimed at tri.: instead of the staff that had virtually no affiliation with Toei, the main members of staff announced were either from the original series (Seki and Yamatoya) or openly childhood fans, the 02 quartet was made into a huge advertising point as a dramatic DigiFes reveal (and character profies that tie into the 02 epilogue careers prominently part of the advertising from day one), and they even seemed to acknowledge the burnout on the original Adventure group by advertising it so heavily as “the last adventure of Taichi and his friends”, so you can see that there’s a huge sentiment of “damage control” with it. How successful that was...is debatable, since opinions have been all over the board; quite a few people were naturally so livid at what happened with tri. that Kizuna was just opening more of the wound, but there were also people who liked it much better and were willing to acknowledge it (with varying levels of enthusiasm, some simply saying “it was thankfully okay,” and some outright loving it), and there was a general sentiment even among those who disliked both that they at least understood what Kizuna was going for and that it didn’t feel as inherently disrespectful. (Of course, there are people who loved tri. and hated Kizuna, and there are people who loved both, too.)

Moreover, Kizuna actually has a slightly different target audience from tri.; there’s a pretty big difference between an OVA and a theatrical movie, and, quite simply, Kizuna was made under the assumption that a lot of people watching it may not have even seen tri. in the first place. An average of 11% of the country watched Adventure and 02, but the number of people who watched tri. is much smaller, in part due to the fact that its “theater” screenings were only very limited screenings compared to Kizuna being shown in theaters in Japan and worldwide, and in part due to the fact that watching six parts over three years is a pretty huge commitment for someone who may barely remember Digimon as anything beyond a show they watched as a kid, and may be liable to just fall off partway through because they simply just forgot. (Which also probably wasn’t helped by the infamously negative reputation, something that definitely wouldn’t encourage someone already on the fence.) And that’s yet another reason Kizuna couldn’t make too many concrete tri. references; being a theatrical movie, it needs to have as wide appeal as possible, and couldn’t risk locking out an audience that had a very high likelihood of not having seen it, much less to the end -- it may have somewhat been informed by tri.’s moderate financial success and precedent, but it ultimately was made for the original Adventure and 02 audience more than anything else.

I would say that, generally, while Kizuna is “controversial” for sure, reception towards the movie seems to be more positive than negative, it won over a large chunk of people who were burned out by tri., and it clearly seems to have been received well enough that it’s still being cashed in on a year after its release. The sheer existence of the upcoming 02-based movie is also probably a sign of Kizuna’s financial and critical success; Kinoshita confirmed at DigiFes 2020 that nothing was in production at the time, and stated shortly after the movie’s announcement that work on it had just started. So the decision to make it seems to have been made after eyeing Kizuna’s reception, and, moreover, the movie was initially advertised from the get-go with Kizuna’s director and writer (Taguchi and Yamatoya), meaning those two have curried enough goodwill from the fanbase that this can be used to promote the movie. (If not, you would think that having and advertising Seki would be the bigger priority.) While this is my own sentiment, I am personally doubtful official would have even considered 02 something remotely profitable enough on its own to cash in on if it weren’t for this entire sequence of events of 02′s snubbing in tri. revealing how much of a fanbase it had (especially with the sheer degree of “suspicious overcompensation” Kizuna had with its copious use of the 02 quartet and it tagging a remix of the first 02 ED on the Hanareteitemo single, followed by the drama CD and character songs), followed by Kizuna having success in advertising with them so heavily. Given all of the events between 2015 and now, it’s a bit ironic to see that 02 has now become basically the last resort to be able to continue anything in the original Adventure universe without getting too many people upset at them about it.

The bright side coming out of all of this is that, while it’s still a bit early to tell, now that we’re three years out from tri. finishing up and with Kizuna in the game, it seems there’s a possibility for things improving around tri.’s reception as well. Since a lot of the worst heated points of backlash against it have a very “you had to have been there” element (related to the PR, release schedule, and staff comments), those coming in “late” don’t have as much reason to be as pissed at it; I’ve seen at least one case of a fanartist getting back into the franchise because of Kizuna hype, watching tri. to catch up, casually criticizing it on Twitter, and moving on with their life, presumably because marathoning the whole thing being generally aware of what’ll happen in it and knowing Kizuna is coming after anyway gives you a lot less reason to be angry to the point of holding an outright grudge. Basically, even if you don’t like it, it’s much easier to actually go “yeah, didn’t like that,” not worry too much about it, and move on. Likewise, I personally get the impression that official has been starting to get a little more confident about digging up elements related to it. Unfortunately, a fairly recent tweet promoting the series getting put on streaming services still got quite a few angry comments implying that they should be deleting the scourge from the Internet instead, so there’s still a long way to go, but hopefully the following years will see things improve further...

In regards to the reboot, I -- and I think a lot of people will agree with me -- have a bit of a hard time reading what exact audience it’s trying to appeal to; we have a few hints from official that they want parents to watch it with their children, and that it may have been a necessary ploy in order to secure their original timeslot. So basically, the Adventure branding gets parents who grew up with the original series to be interested in it and to show it to their kids, and convinces Fuji TV that it might be profitable. But as most people have figured by now, the series has a completely different philosophy and writing style -- I mean, the interview itself functionally admits it’s here to be more action-oriented and to have its own identity -- and the target audience is more the kids than anything else. As for the Internet fanbase of veterans, most people have been critical of its character writing and pacing, but other than a few stragglers who are still really pissed, it hasn’t attracted all that much vitriol, probably because in the end it’s an alternate universe, it doesn’t have any obligation to adhere to anything from the original even if it uses the branding, and it’s clearly still doing its job of being a kids’ show for kids who never saw the original series nor 02, so an attempt to call it “disrespectful” to the original doesn’t have much to stand on. A good number of people who are bored of it decided it wasn’t interesting to them and dropped it without incident, while other people are generally just enjoying it for being fun, and the huge amount of Digimon franchise fanservice with underrepresented Digimon and high fidelity to null canon lore is really pleasing the side of the fanbase that’s into that (I mean, Digimon World Golemon is really deep in), so at the very least, there’s not a lot to be super-upset about.

[firelxdykatara]

not gonna lie I would love to hear more about the drama and infighting that went on in The Vampire Diaries fandom if you have the time (and also want to use that time to give your experience with the fandom, which from the snippets you've told sounds Not Fun so I get it if you don't want to lol)

oh god, there was like, SO MUCH, i just

i really feel like tvd is one of those fandoms that is so hard to describe without a lot of ‘you’d have to have been there’, but it really felt like this huge and all-consuming beast for about five years until the show finally imploded and the fandom basically turned on it en masse. (you ever see that post going around that’s like ‘if you ever want to know what true regret feels like, ask someone who once called tvd their favorite show’? still a mood, all these years later. basically the entire fandom thought the show should have just bowed out with whatever shreds of dignity it had left at the end of season 6, and became more of a hatedom than a fandom for the last two seasons. when you have an entire fandom cheering news of your show’s cancellation, i think that’s a sign you done fucked up, julie.)

first and most infamous, of course, are the ship wars. which are pretty much inevitable in any teen-centered drama, and i really think the CW fucking thrives on them, but it was particularly egregious in TVD’s case because not only was the base premise of the show a love triangle, but the two main romantic leads were brothers that the show constantly pit against one another--in pursuit of elena’s affections, but also because it kept up this insistence on the ‘good brother/bad brother’ dichotomy which stopped making sense after about season 2 (by which time we have found out that the good brother was never as good as he appeared, and the bad brother has been growing and isn’t nearly as bad as he pretends to be)--and the question of which brother ‘deserved’ elena (and no, what elena wanted very rarely factored into these discussions, especially in the team stefan camp because they turned on her when what she wanted was no longer The Good Brother, but i’ll get to that in a bit) was hotly contested.

i’m not kidding when i say the shipping wars were vicious. i started watching tvd shortly after it began to air, which was late 2009, and kept up with it fairly sporadically over the years. i didn’t come onto tumblr until 2011/2012, and by then, the fandom was already pretty much a garbagefire. there were anti ship and anti character blogs, any time something bad happened for one ship the rival ship would invade the tags to gloat about it (seasons 3 and 4 were especially rough, and i’m not gonna pretend delena fans weren’t just as bad about tag invasion and shit, but as that was my side of the road i saw a lot more of the stelena shippers being assholes, which soured my opinion on the ship a long time before i started rewatching and realized the red flags were there from the start), confessions blogs were popular also toxic as fuck (so much fighting happened in the notes of those posts, good gods), and this was right around when twitter’s popularity was on the rise and the line between Celebrity and Fan was thinning, so the fandom was absolutely atrocious to much of the tvd cast and crew.

(some of them deserved a lot of the later backlash, but in the early years a lot of it was ‘how dare you write the story in a way i dont like, you terrible fucking person’, and gods don’t get me started on the dobsley vs nian Thing)

i think what really encapsulates my feelings on the tvd fandom as a whole, though, is the way they (to this DAY) treated elena gilbert, which can be summed up in one meme that gained a lot of traction around season 3 if i remember right: that gif of pam from true blood, with the text altered to read “i’m so OVER elena and her precious doppelganger vagina!”

i swear at one time i had over half the active tvd fan accounts on tumblr blocked, because i got to a point where i would no longer tolerate elena hate, and she was (and still is, in what remains of the fandom; you’ll see a lot of ‘elena was one of the worst things about the show’ takes from ex-fans, too) one of the most widely despised characters in the entire fandom. because she -checks smudged writing on hand- was a traumatized teenage girl who -reads off a crumpled notecard- couldn’t always perfectly sort out her own feelings and -squints at the ceiling- sometimes made mistakes or bad decisions. (except a lot of the fandom also insisted that she was a mary sue who had no character traits or flaws or faults and it was like....make up your fucking minds???? is she a calculating conniving bitch whose somehow manipulating these centuries old vampires to tie them around her little finger or is she a boring flat character with no depth and no flaws??? jfc)

there was this massive double standard, too--like, stefan and damon could fuck whoever they wanted and that was fine, but elena was constantly raked over the coals for the crime of developing romantic feelings for the two men who had become constants in her life and whom she cared for deeply, and oh my GOD the slut shaming that happened when elena slept with damon was fucking wild. (and also happened in canon lmfao. like the show had one of elena’s best friends basically call her diseased on screen for falling in love with someone other than stefan. it was gross and ridiculous and the friend in question was also being a giant hypocrite at the time since she was happily flirting with someone who was directly responsible for the deaths of like four of elena’s loved ones and her own boyfriend’s mother but that’s beside the point) but like elena was called a slut and a bitch and a whore for ‘cheating’ on stefan (she hadn’t, and she had in fact broken up with him on screen the episode earlier) and ‘immediately’ jumping into bed with damon, even though none of them said fucking boo when stefan had one night stands or damon had fuckbuddies or whatever.

shit, caroline didn’t get any of this treatment when she started falling for tyler while dating matt! which isn’t to say i think she should have, just that i think it’s fucking ridiculous that elena was absolutely demonized by the fandom for daring to have feelings for two guys at once and eventually acting on them--despite the fact that the entire premise of the show was a love triangle. it’s not a love triangle if both sides don’t eventually get explored, and the crew had been pretty explicit about the fact that delena was going to happen at some point--but when it did, a huge chunk of the fandom absolutely threw a fit.

and a lot of these elena haters were alleged stelena stans, and i say alleged because they hated her so much for not wanting stefan’s dick anymore that it was clear they were really stefan stans and only wanted stelena to be endgame because they wanted stefan to ‘win’ at the end of the day, because ‘he’s the good brother’ so he deserved elena more.

it was all very gross and very misogynistic and very sex shaming (apparently delena was a ‘shallow’ and ‘superficial’ relationship because they had sex after two years of unrequited feelings slowly becoming requited and then pining for ages on both sides, and because they had a lot of on screen chemistry that the show capitalized on for years so of course they did a lot of making out and shit but it’s not like stelena didn’t have its fair share of making out and sex scenes, stefan was just too much of a coward to let elena top i’d apologize for that joke but i’m really not sorry because it’s true), and when i say it was egged on by the crew, that’s because they refused to let the love triangle die back in season 4 when it should have.

they insisted on stringing stelena fans along, dropping little bread crumbs to keep them invested, like dreams of a future where they were married and revealing that stefan was also a doppelganger and he and elena were descended from a pair of star-crossed lovers (a plot that ultimately went nowhere, to no one’s great surprise), and then fucking like. julie plec turned around and threw nina under the bus after she chose not to extend her contract and pretended that stelena might have happened again if she hadn’t left the show, which....i mean frankly i wouldn’t put it past her, but it would have been shitty writing. then again, she thought having a vampire pregnancy where a uterus was magically transplanted from a witch into a vampire that could somehow......carry the babies to term.... made sense and was a good way to accomodate candice’s RL pregnancy rather than like literally ANYTHING else, soooooo. but anyway julie saying that around like, end of s6 sparked off a new wave of nina hate and elena hate and ship wars bc they SEers took it as ‘confirmation’ that stelena was REALLY meant to be endgame and it was all just a hot fucking mess

another thing is that, while tvd was in its prime before the anti/purity culture shit started picking up any real steam, there was still this pervasive attitude throughout the fandom that if you liked Damon, you were A Bad Person. liking damon was apparently grounds for insults and harassment, and apparently he was The Worst Person on the Show even though literally nothing he does on screen is any worse than shit we know stefan has done (and frankly every other vampire too, but i mention stefan specifically because he was always held up--in the show but especially in the fandom--as the Good Brother while damon was the Bad One, and if you liked damon more then that had to mean your morals were dodgy and you clearly couldn’t appreciate what a heroic and saintly figure dear stefan was and....oops, i’m sorry, my salt keeps leaking -cough-).

meanwhile klaus quickly became a fandom darling despite not even really having much of a redemption arc (on tvd anyway, he just became more ‘affably evil’ as the show went on and more inclined to work with the main characters rather than try to kill them; i have no idea what went on over on his show, though), and like i can 100% appreciate liking villains and not caring that they do dodgy villainous shit, even just liking them bc they’re hot and wanting them to kiss a main character bc they have insanely good chemistry (yes i ship klaroline, no i won’t apologize for it, they could have been Really Great), it’s just really the double standard that gets me.

and all of this, incidentally, required ignoring some truly gross shit stefan was responsible for wrt his relationship with elena, that frankly it has always bothered me never really got addressed in the show. i get why elena herself would never be able to actually call him on it, but the fact is that he stalked her for months after he first saw her and thought she was katherine (meanwhile it only took damon .5 seconds to realize she was someone else entirely, but that’s another topic entirely), and then he deliberately inserted himself into her life because, in his words, ‘i have to know her’. he never gave a thought to how his presence in her life might affect her (or rather, he did, and tormented himself about it in his internal monologue, but never let this actually dissuade him from disrupting her life), and elena would wind up blaming herself for every tragedy that befell her friends and loved ones as a result of getting mixed up in vampire bullshit even though none of it was her fault--she literally blamed herself for existing but most of the fandom didn’t give a fuck about that lmfao--and stefan did shit like find out that she was adopted and then withhold this information from her until she got pissed about another secret he was keeping (her resemblence to katherine) and drop it on her to try and distract her from her very reasonable anger, and like... i should stop before this becomes a whole rant about how much i hate stefan fucking salvatore, but the point is, he did a lot of really sketchy shit he never answered for and elena never really took him to task for, and the fandom just kept eating up his insistence that he was the Good Brother and therefore he deserved to have elena, and if she didn’t want him anymore it was because she was a heinous bitch who didn’t deserve him.

uh.....i think i got off track there. and there’s probably a lot of shit i missed, like i think i was incandescent with rage for most of seasons 5 and 6 so i missed a lot of the interfandom shit cause i was too busy being increasingly pissed off at the show itself, but if nothing else this should give you an idea of how much of a goddamn cesspit the fandom was while the show as in its prime. there’s a reason both the show and the fandom have such a lousy reputation lmfao.

[tinysylveon]

s'cuse me while i complain about the rwby fandom for a bit, and why i p much have refused to fully engage in it since the near beginning and even now. i'm putting this in a read more bc i actually have sanity to put mountain long paragraphs of text under read mores. :^)

those shippers in the rwby fandom really irritate me, because they seem to only pay attention to the shipping and get really angry at the writers for not making their ship "canon" or "interact in a meaningful way". sometimes i'm glad meme-based content creators keep their personal opinions to themselves, because i saw someone say they're "deeply disappointed in the current volume for not providing whiterose content", and honestly being so. and don't even get me STARTED on those fairgame shippers. way to come out as transphobic, basically. harassing a damn trans person like that, saying its all their fault your ship never got water. d e e p s i g h

no, the crwby is not, nor ever entitled to, giving you your ship. you know what actually matters in rwby? the plot. the characters themselves. if you enjoy ships? epic. just don't... harass people. don't go overboard. don't let that ship lead you to despise the show, the creators, or anyone relating to it.

however much i despise only paying attention to the ships, i still do think it's childish and stupid to put your ship hate in the ship tag you're hating. i know you want attention, but there are far healthier ways to do that than purposefully pissing people off by posting "yang/blake is fucking stupid and so are the shippers" or something in the designated tag. yike!!!

shipping is fun, but it's not everything. please exercise common sense, self control, and maturity. i know it's hard, but make an attempt.

sure, you can say it's "horribly/badly written" all damn day, but imo, i still think the writing is ok, because i could see foreshadowing even in the very first volume. now, i've tried my best to find some semblance (lol pun) of information that monty planned a good chunk of rwby, or at least had some plot points written out til the end, but all i can find is "he only planned out to volume/season 5", "volume/season 3", and then apparently "volume/season 10". again, this may mean actual scripts and more, OR just plot points, like a lot of us writers do (ive got a beginning, middle, and end for my story rn, but i only have a bit for the points past what ive already written. fun fun, but i digress. anyways.). so that's... completely all up in the air. what i'm saying is, from what we've gotten past three, and even five, i've enjoyed it a ton! i enjoyed rewatching it! i caught all kinds of small things and foreshadowing and i've enjoyed it a lot. call me easily amused or impressed by "horrible writing" (which... that's all honestly based on opinion at this point.), but fuck it. love this shit.

i can see why people are irritated with shippers. i can definitely see why others have granted a name for the peope who hate the show but still follow it JUST to make steven universe-esque critical posts about it call it the "hatedom" (which obv has been happening before steven's verse but hell it feels and looks so much like it. ya'll.. it's not. that. deep. sometimes.). the rwby fandom is so damn messy and i can see why i've been literally avoiding it for years and just happily watching the show.

this entire thing is def why i've been keeping myself from engaging in it and/or even making any content/side fan accounts for it. it's just... so immaturely messy. a whole mess!!!! a whole mess.

if you want to argue with me: don't. i will ignore you. you're literally part of the problem. if you hate these opinions so much, bro, just block me! it's super easy! a few taps/clicks, and you never have to see me again. wild, i know. i can do the same to you. epic.

have a rad day.

[rwbyconversations]

Out of curiosity do you have any thoughts on the rwby fandoms inability to handle even the slightest bit of criticism? Because all fandoms are like that, but I feel like rwby has it worse. I'm thinking mostly of how mad people get about the various video essays that are critical of rwby, to the point where there mere existence is treated like some sort of attack on the fandom. Or how some blogs refuse to entertain the idea that maybe not everything rwby does is secretly genius, and maybe sometimes rwby is just badly written. And I wonder why.

(Also, one of the reasons I like your blog is because you're willing to talk about rwbys flaws, while still liking the show, and without going full hatedom. It's a nice balance, and a rare oasis in fandom tbh.)

If I had to guess, the unique melting pot of reasons RWBY’s fandom are more hyper-defensive than usual would include;

A lot of RWBY fans got into the series while they were in their early-mid teens and have grown up with the show. So it’s been there for them come hell or high water and critique of the series has a more personal sting than it would. 

RWBY has a lot of really, really bad critics. Like, I’m not gonna try and justify or gloss over that, there’s a lot of really lame critics on YT who either have a grudge against RT or just aren’t very good at articulating their criticisms who drag the perception down. 

Monty’s death had a huge impact on the fandom and I’d have to assume that for the people who were around as it hit back in 2015, RWBY has more of a sentimental value to it thanks to the idea that this was his last project and it would be insulting to disparage it. 

RWBY and the fandom have been whipping boys for the wider anime community since Day 1. People tend to forget it these days thanks to some historicial revisionism, but Volumes 1 and 2 were not popular online and lots of people mocked the series back during V1. 

Rooster Teeth is a far more “personal” company than many others like say, the animation studios behind Voltron, JJBA and She-Ra. We get a good idea of who personally animated what scene, we have a better idea of the corporate ladder of the animation block and RWBY is the one of the only fandoms I’m in that keeps up with the crew and who gets promoted/leaves. On the one side that’s good as animators always deserve more respect, but on the other it means there’s a more personal edge to the criticsm. “This person’s mocking this scene but I know who animated that and I must defend them.” So RT and it’s wonderful web of parasocially abusive relationships strikes again. 

Also on the topic of RT, usually people who like RWBY get into RT’s other series so they begin to associate more with the company due to watching the podcasts or the Achievement Hunter videos. So again, giving the company more of a personal identity. 

And uh thanks for the second paragraph. 

[theharellan]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm. tagged by: stolen from @dansiere tagging: @ghiassan, @deathsreflection, @altuspavus, @windrunnerrs (velanna), @hopewrought, @willbeshot, @seahaloed (iron bull), @asterfed​ (noctis), @ anyone who wants to steal it! also multis feel free to choose a different character

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless / complicated (i’m open to roleplaying with non-dragon age characters, and have AUs for other fandoms)

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO. solas is both wildly popular and wildly hated. he’s been more consistently popular than the controversial women in the series, like sera or vivienne, who have only recently begun to get to the point where their tags are less vitriolic (although i’m sure it’s still out there), but there’s still a sizable hatedom that can’t have his name breathed in their vicinity w/o them talking abt how much they hate him. even if you’re currently cosplaying him!

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. again, you have ppl who are super into him and ppl who think he’s ugly. my personal opinion is that i think he’s weirdly pretty, and wish ppl would commit more to his unconventional features rather than try to chisel him into sb more traditionally attractive and that ppl who don’t find him attractive would maybe chill w/ calling him ugly. find him unattractive by all means, but lets embrace the fact that inquisition let their love interests have skin flaws etc and accept that some won’t be our cups of tea.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. its hard to deny at this point tbh.

Are they underrated?  YES / NO / IDK. frustrating as the hate in the tags he has enough fans that i couldnt say he’s underrated w/ a straight face.

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO. he’s the reason the game starts with a bang and not the inevitable dissolution of the conclave b/c the sides are disparate.

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. regardless of solas’ relationship with the inquisitor, there are parallels and contrasts in their stories and he also is the reason they survive inquisition.

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO. fen’harel is well-known and revered, if feared, among the dalish, yet at the same time he’s not remembered for a lot besides locking the gods away-- and the context of that decision has also been lost. as solas he’s relatively unknown until inquisition and especially trespasser.

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. again, polarising!! he has loyal agents and people are willing to speak well of him despite everything, including his enemies sometimes (depending mostly on the inquisitor). 

How strictly do you follow canon?  — generally i try to have a canon basis for my interpretation, even if i interpret the text differently than the author.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.  —  solas is an immortal who is simultaneously jaded and very much invested in the small moments of life. far from being weary of the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, it is systems and orders he is most tired of. he walks an interesting line that feels far less misanthropic than other immortal characters i’ve experienced, yet still he’s quite cynical. as a character who has fought against religious based tyranny before, but in a completely different era, he is in a unique position where what he sees around him is both horrifyingly familiar and yet completely new. it allows an exploration of the wrongs of thedas’ society from an outsider’s perspective. his motivations are complex and multifaceted, often condemnable and yet also understandable. his character arc in inquisition (if befriended, or regardless in the case of my solas) takes him from a dispassionate, disconnected antagonist to someone deeply invested in the people of thedas, deeply conflicted and actively hoping he will be proven wrong again. i think his story is a testament to human (or elven, or dwarven, or-) connection and how even when we resist we can’t resist creating bonds with the people in our lives. i personally see this bond going beyond the inquisitor hence why i play low-approval solas as conflicted as high-approval, if not when it comes to the inquisitor.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  —  solas is selfish and motivated solely by revenge, he’s clinging to a past that clearly no longer exists, if you ignore all the people from it who are still alive. he’s totally unaware of all his flaws and never owns up to any mistakes ever. no, i haven’t listened to a single word solas has said in my life why do you ask. he’s also critical of my faves which means he’s #cancelled, there is clearly no validity to what he’s saying. ksjdf no but in all seriousness i think a lot of reasons ppl don’t find solas interesting are just... weird readings of his character that sometimes have no basis in the text of inquisition, but also there are plenty of perfectly valid reasons to not find him interesting. usually those ppl don’t like... talk abt how much they don’t find him interesting constantly tho. they just chill and aren’t invested in this particular villain. for one thing i think the game missed out on opportunities for exploring how someone who may not have even had a body at the beginning of his existence would feel about gender and sexuality, so making him presumably straight and cis was a boring choice. i also think that the dragon age games being very protagonist-centric hurts solas’ character, there’s no real reason why the inquisitor is the only one who can throw his plans into question but making the player the center of the universe means he’s not allowed to change due to the effects of other companions or NPCs. thank god this is rp and i do what i want.

What inspired you to rp your muse?  —  i have a history degree so when the inquisition companions were being teased, solas describing bias in primary sources from the memories he’s seen got me interested in him. but my first playthrough i didn’t actually take him with me all too often, i think my main party was dorian-blackwall-varric. i liked him, and i think he or dorian were my first friends in skyhold, but my initial interest was in other characters. between his dialogue that appealed to the historian in me tho and how his spirit opinions sort of turned everything i’d felt about spirits in the last two games on its head, i started vibing with him more the farther i went in. like merrill set me up for the “spirits are people” thing and solas hit it out of the park. then temple of mythal happened, and i did bring solas with me there. i found his dialogue fascinating and also suspicious, i’d just finished masked empire like the day before da:i came out so i definitely thought solas was an ancient elf in the same vein as felassan. it was after temple of mythal that i actually decided to make his blog, although like as one idk linchpin to cement my status as solas trash... i was hit BAD by the banter bug on my first playthrough, probably got like a dozen banters total. but then at some point late in the game i took solas to the forbidden oasis and he wouldn’t stop talking to people, and i really loved his banter with the rest of my party at the time.

What keeps your inspiration going?  —  replaying inquisition, new DA content when the bioware gods deign to grant us a lifeline, but the biggest thing is my rp partners. i wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the people i write with, new and old. my activity of late hasn’t been the best, work and the summer heat has really been sapping me of energy, and does even during years when we aren’t going through a pandemic. but it’s the thought of my rp partners and love of solas that keeps me coming back.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO / I SINCERELY HOPE I DO? i have my doubts sometimes, but i think i do ok.

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO / SORT OF? there is no headcanon too small for me.

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO. but not lately * gestures to the low activity * i’ve been in this cycle where i get anxious abt late replies, so prioritise them, then burn myself out and can’t write the fics i want. i’ve had two i’ve been DYING to write tho i just... need to find the space in my brain to let myself.

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO. i mean it depends on the day. if i work closing shifts at my store it gets very quiet and boring around 8:30 so i spent the next 90 minutes thinking about character stuff.

Are you confident in your portrayal?  YES / NO / SORT OF? 

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO / SOMETIMES. 

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO / SORTA.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  —  i’m going to say ‘no’ because like, i don’t ask for criticism. this is a hobby based on my interpretation of a character, if you think i write solas too soft then you’re welcome to think that, but i’m happy with the balance i’ve struck with his internal versus external behaviour and how he changes based upon who he’s speaking to. if you think i’m erasing straight people by making solas pan then ksjdfs. ok.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  —  yes!!! even if they retread ground already trodden, a) my interpretation may have adjusted since the last time i played or b) a reminder is nice. if it’s new stuff then it’s fun to think about.

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  —  it’d depend on why they disagree. if they just disagree on a subjective opinion about what i took from a certain line, then they’re welcome to their opinion but i don’t necessarily care to hear it. if it is unintentionally hurtful then i would like to know. although rather than a comment i’d rather a non-anonymous message.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  —  same as the above.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  —  if they’re vocal about it i typically just unfollow / softblock if i was following in the first place. people can feel how they want about solas, but i’ve found over the years that if people really hate solas ooc it can often bleed into their ic interactions. it’s really weird seeing your character being brought up repeatedly in threads with others specifically to dunk on, for no reason other than i guess solas is living rent free in their heads, so at least we have that in common. but anyway unfollowing is just the best choice to avoid getting kinda pressed if i’m having a bad day.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  —  roleplay is the wild west of writing, so i think it’d depend on what the error was. coming at me like “you shouldn’t start a sentence with a preposition” would get a laugh, but i don’t edit my replies much if at all and mistakes will 100% happen. pointing out typos is chill so long as you do it politely.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?   —  it depends! i’ve learned that being too easy going actually just means i’m subjecting myself to negative emotions to please people. so i’ve gotten less easy going as the years go by. how does one define “easy going” anyway? does asking that question mean i am objectively not easy going? the longer this thought goes on the more the answer seems to be “probably not,” but i like to think it could be a lot worse.

[sage-nebula]

Gary from the PokeAni.

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

I have . . . kind of mixed feelings on Gary.

On the one hand, I do like him. I think that, although it was handled kind of sloppily, he had good development and is definitely the rival with the most longevity given that he lasted the entirety of the OS (save for his absence during the Orange Islands), and was allowed to cameo in DP. I think that his relationship with Ash has several layers due to the fact that they were childhood friends, then Gary became his bully, and then they became friends again after Gary got his head out of his ass. While I still wish that he would have taken up the position of Viridian City Gym Leader as Green did in the games, Gary’s intelligence and knowledge about pokémon was showcased from the start in the OS (e.g. in “Dig Those Diglett!” he rattles off diglett facts like it’s nothing, and shows derision at the fact that Ash hasn’t been studying the way he has), so it does make sense that he would become a researcher in that respect. I still think he could have done both, but it makes sense nonetheless.

However, although I do like Gary and find that there’s a lot to enjoy about his character, he is not (nor has he ever been) my fave---and I do feel that while there are certain aspects of the the first generation that are over-glorified (moreso with the games than the anime, imo, given how much of a hatedom the anime in general has), there are few aspects of it that are more glorified than Gary “Motherfuckin’” Oak, which made me very tempted to bold “overrated” as well. Yes, the memes are humorous, but there are people who take them seriously and who honestly see Gary as this super amazing badass who was always correct in how he judged Ash, and I can’t agree with that. Hell, after his development, Gary himself wouldn’t agree with that. So I will say that, in some ways, the way that people (not necessarily the fandom, especially since a lot of people who do this with Gary are nowhere near active in the fandom) treat Gary has put me off him a bit.

(And note: I did bold “badass,” but that’s because he becomes one after the Johto seasons begin and we actually get to see him winning battles and using his knowledge to teach others rather than just tear them down. Gary ends up becoming a badass bookworm, but he doesn’t start out that way, and I do not at all see his bullying of Ash as him being badass as some do.)

So yeah, I like Gary, I think he’s a cool guy and sometimes he does make me laugh---but he’s not my fave by a long shot.

[theharellan]

* GETTING  TO  KNOW  THE  MUN :

NAME :  tas NICKNAME :   tas IS a nickname FACECLAIM :   i’ve used amaterasu for a while (my nickname in rp used to be ammy) but now i’m using my pikachu from pokemon let’s go. her name is slash, which is a legacy name i’ve used for my pikachu since i first played pokemon yellow, and THAT pikachu was named after a kid in this n64 game called snowboard kids or something like that PRONOUNS :   she/her HEIGHT : 5′6 BIRTHDAY : september 24 AESTHETIC :   cats doing anything. grey coastlines. mountains. i’m also a big fan of the casual flapper look, though not as big a fan (for myself) of the fancy sequined 1920 look. LAST  SONG  YOU  LISTENED  TO :   while i was doing job apps yesterday i jammed to the complete harvest moon: a wonderful life soundtrack FAVORITE  MUSE (S)  YOU’VE  WRITTEN : solas probably? like through this account i not only met a lot of cool and wonderful ppl who have bettered my life, but i’ve better understood myself and my own morals. also i just have a lot of love for solas as a character despite his flaws. you have to have a lot of passion for the character to be around for as long as i have, especially with the solas fandom/hatedom being as tiring as it is.

* GETTING  TO  KNOW  THE  ACCOUNT :

WHAT  INSPIRED  YOU  TO  TAKE  ON  THIS  MUSE :  i made this account like right after i beat temple of mythal on my first run through of da:i back in 2014. by that point it was pretty obvious solas was more than he seemed and i figured whatever it was that i wanted to write it. i had finished masked empire literally a week or so before da:i came out so felassan and the agent of fen’harel thing was fresh on my mind, so i thought he likely was a) ancient and b) potentially another agent. ironically the latter is the conclusion the viddasala comes to in trespasser. anyway his banter in mythal and around the game rly sold me on him, and as a character he really drove home stuff that da2 had set up with merrill (namely the nature of spirits), along with cole (i had not read asunder btw). and as i got to know him more i just rly appreciated the critical nature of his character. there’s this one faulkner quote i learned from GRRM/the asoiaf fandom: “The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself” and i think that describes a lot of what i find interesting in solas. he’s very much in conflict with himself throughout most of his journey, well before da:i and even the creation of the veil.

WHAT  ARE  YOUR  FAVORITE  ASPECTS  OF  YOUR  CURRENT  MUSE :  

his thoughtfulness. like, we all know solas is capable of being an ass and often falls short of true understanding, but when he does nail stuff he rly nails it. i think this is best exemplified in his banter with a tal-vashoth bull where he figures out a distraction that also reaffirms bull’s trust in his own sanity. overall he has a pretty strong understanding of trauma, talking cole down from a panic attack, etc

also i unironically love the hobo apostate fashion. genuinely. it’s also the most comfortable cosplay i’ve ever worn, bald cap aside.

WHAT’S  YOUR  BIGGEST  INSPIRATION  WHEN  IT  COMES  TO  WRITING : my rp partners. there’s a reason i rp rather than write fic skdjf.

FAVORITE  TYPES  OF  THREADS :   i love all sorts of threads. i like plotted and long-form so long as ppl are prepared to wait i’m SO SORRY ksdjf and i also like banter. it’s easier to write especially when i’m going through a period where writing anything i like is difficult, and keeps me writing.

BIGGEST  STRUGGLE  IN  REGARDS  TO  YOUR  CURRENT  MUSE :  sometimes the perception of him in fandom bothers me when i feel like it’s being applied to my solas. it’s why i’ve grown a little wary of hostile threads, oftentimes it feels like sb isn’t talking to/about my solas but their idea of solas, which would be fine if it didn’t feel like i was mostly being reduced to some kind of verbal punching back. also as i noted i’ve had better luck writing shorter things lately, and writing drabbles has been a struggle when i have so much old stuff waiting that it feels selfish to write for myself. also when a lot of stuff gets dropped at once (generally b/c there’s a wave of accounts that quickly vanish) it’s pretty disheartening, esp if it was stuff i was excited about. so like, most of my struggles are self-motivation issues, besides the aforementioned times where i feel like ooc perceptions get imposed onto me when i write canons.

TAGGED BY : no one but i stole it from @mercysought

TAGGING: @theshirallen, @hopewrought / @resurre-ct, @felandaristhorns / @deathsreflection, @tallowes, @ofthedas, @snowmcid, @valorcorrupt.