#and i can’t believe the majority of this fandom now believes he was the victim in 2017 and 2018 too

[mockerycrow]

Talk About Sensitivity In The COD Fandom **Important.**

THIS IS NOT A DEBATE POST. DO NOT BOTHER.

Hey, everyone. After the reveal of Makarov in the trailer (as well as general concern), I think a chat about sensitivity is important. Since the trailer’s release, I have seen a major increase in simping for Makarov posts as well as genuine romanticization of Russia and/or Russian Soldiers. First, I want to talk about the romanticization of Russia and/or Russian soldiers because it’s seriously getting out of hand. I need you guys to realize that Russia is an ultranationalist country and yes, maybe not everyone who lives there believes what their government does, but it’s important to know a big portion of their population does. I have seen multiple posts and edits of this man right here (pictures below).

THIS GUY IS NOT SOMEONE YOU SHOULD LIKE, AND PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT HE DOES NOT LIKE YOU. This is one of the most popular Russian Soldiers amongst the internet due to the way he wears a mask, gear, has an accent, and is buff. He makes videos teaching soldiers how to kill people—innocent people in Ukraine who are just trying to survive. I have seen people straight up ignore when someone tells them what this man has done, so let me put it this way—he does not like you. He wants you dead. He is racist, a homophobe, transphobe, antisemitic, etc. He absolutely hates The West, and he does not like you unless you are a cis, straight, white 100% Russian. Even if you’re a woman, he DOES NOT LIKE YOU. If you American, HE DOES NOT WANT YOU ALIVE.

[This part is not targeted; just a general statement.] Second; there is a serious problem with how you guys address Makarov as a character. There is absolutely no problem enjoying him as a villain because I do too, but you guys have to realize that Makarov is an ultranationalist—which is exactly what Russia is right now, an ultranationalist terrorist state. “But he’s fictional, it doesn’t matter! it’s not that deep!” It actually is that deep. I keep seeing content for Makarov and I can’t force anyone to stop making “fluffy fics”, but I need y’all to have some fucking decency towards victims and people affected by the war. I know people who are affected by the war who feel ill seeing posts painting Makarov in a good light. If you are going to write Makarov, do NOT romanticize him as a character—do NOT paint him a decent or good light, because you can’t. Write him like the bastard he is. And no, this isn’t a “let people write what they wanna write” situation. You can do that, but please be expected to be judged and blocked by me and many others. Makarov is quite literally the characterization of everything that is wrong with Russia, and what HAS been wrong with Russia. Makarov is not a bad boy, a rebel, etc, he’s a fucking terrorist. Please be for real. “But the military in general is bad, so why does it matter specifically around Makarov?” Please see above my previous reasons. Thanks.

The overall message of this point is to be fucking respectful. There are actual people dying and slaughtered for no reason other than ruined pride and a lot of Ukrainian folk seek comfort and distractions in the internet and their fandoms. This ruins it for them and quite frankly, sometimes how Makarov is being written? It’s completely insensitive. Anyway, below are a few links where you can directly support the efforts and the people of Ukraine. Peace and love, and please write with critical thinking.

[showtoonzfan]

At this point, I think the major problem with Stolitz….or…just Stolas and Blitz as characters in general is just that they’re NOT “flawed characters”, like everyone keeps freaking saying, they’re honestly just horrible people and nothing else, and the fandom can’t see that. I of course know that in Viv’s world, characters like Stolas and Blitz……sigh…..were born in hell and were innocent uwu beans until something bad happened to MAKE them into the people they are now, but it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t excuse their actions in the present. I really believe though that the fandom doesn’t really know the difference between being “flawed” and just being a shitty person all around, at least in this scenario. For example, Stolas not learning how to love, or understand his daughter is his imperfections. He cares about his daughter, but doesn’t understand or is able to listen to the stuff she’s interested in, referring to how he thought she would be interested in going to Loo Loo Land, even though she’s a teenager now with other interests. This is something that would make him flawed, he’s not perfect, and he’ll make mistakes. What’s important is LEARNING from those mistakes and growing, and yet, neither him nor Blitz do any of that. Octavia and Loona seem to just be the tools for these two characters, something so the writers and fandom can go “B-BUT THEY’RE NICE TO THEM!”- yeah….and what else do they got going on for them? Nothing.

Stolas may care about Octavia, but he didn’t care enough to actually try to fix the relationship with his wife, or even his daughter for that matter. He also didn’t change anything regarding his scandal with Blitz, treating him like a plaything the entire time. He then just went right back to fucking him in episode 5 until he got called out for his bullshit, and even when he DID, he acted like victim. Blitz meanwhile treats his employees like utter shit, as well as his past partners, and when he comes to Loona he’s overprotective when she’s a grown woman. Still, the way Blitz and Stolas feel towards their daughters don’t excuse anything. They’re both horrible people in their own ways at the end of the day, and they need to stop pitying themselves and actually work to be better. I think the fandom doesn’t realize that you can have redeeming qualities as a person and still BE a horrible person, cough…Bojack Horsemen. But yeah I’m tired of the fandom and writers babying these two characters and excusing their actions, acting like they’re hopeless beans who don’t know how to love or communicate, therefor they’re just “good people deep down”- like….no.

[kimisicecream]

The most impressive thing Ferrari has ever done is somehow convince the entire world of F1 that Kimi Räikkönen is the only driver they ever did right by when in reality they did him so fucking wrong.

[luvfae]

Could we get a my favorite Henderson with overprotective!Eddie where something happens to reader and he saves her and comforts???? My soul kinda needs this now… the more drama the better haha

MY FAVOURITE

HENDERSON

PART THIRTY THREE

fandom: stranger things

parings: eddie x f henderson reader

warnings: bullying, swearing, name calling, violence, bloody nose, crying

masterlist

You had never been a victim of bullying, in fact for as long as you could remember you had been popular, but dating Eddie Munson took a jab at your reputation. Not that you really cared, you loved him and popularity wasn’t going to carry you through life, but Eddie was.

Nobody really cared that you were dating Eddie, by now it was old news, but there was a handful of people who simply couldn’t believe it and two of those people included Jason and Tara.

Jason was convinced that Eddie had possessed you and aside from shouting bible verses at you in the corridors and telling you to repent to Jesus, he wasn’t all that bad. But Tara on the other was horrible, she had always been horrible, but now it had heightened.

You still sat with your friends at lunch majority of days, but on the odd day off you’d sit with Eddie and his friends and today was one of those days.

You excused yourself to the bathroom and that’s when Jason and Tara cornered you in the empty corridor.

“There’s still time, Y/N, let us help you,” Jason said. You rolled your eyes at him, attempting to move past the two teenagers when Jason grabbed you, holding you still. “We care about you!”

“You don’t care about me Jason,” you scoffed. “The only thing you care about is your reputation. You don’t want people thinking that you once had a crush on the satan worshippers girlfriend. That I picked Eddie over you,” you said.

Jason shook his head at you, when in reality, that was the truth. It was embarrassing to lose a girl to Eddie “The Freak” Munson.

“I, for one, don’t believe in Satan, I just can’t comprehend why you’re with him,” Tara said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Do you know how lucky you are? How many of the jocks would so willingly date you? Not all of us cheerleaders have that.”

“I’m with Eddie because I love him,” you sneered.

Tara scoffed. “I’m just so sick of you parading around school like you’re top shit, rubbing the fact that you truly can get whoever you want in my face,” Tara said.

“Maybe if you weren’t such a horrible person people would actually want to date you,” you spat.

Tara glared at you, her hand balling into a fist and before you could even react she was connecting it with your nose. You cried out, blood gushing out of your nose.

“Tara!” Jason yelled, wide eyed at what his friend had just done. “You said you were going to rattle her, not punch her.” Jason let go of you and you fell to your knees, holding your nose.

“She pissed me off,” Tara said, grabbing the back of your cheer dress and pulling you up to your feet. The girl pushed you against the lockers, death glaring you. “Do you still think Munson will want to be with you when he realises you’re nothing but a dumb whore?”

“What is going on here?” You heard his voice fill your ears and relief flooded through your veins, glancing over at your boyfriend. “Y/N?” He asked, a concerned look on his face at the sight of blood running down to your lips.

Tara took a step back, glaring at you and immediately Eddie pulled you away from the menacing girl. “What did you do to her?” Eddie asked, his eyes narrowing at both Jason and Tara.

“Put her in her place,” Tara spat.

“What is wrong with you people?” Eddie asked, holding you tight in his arms. “Y/N is nothing but nice to all of you and you treat her like absolute shit.”

The two of them remained silent as Eddie ran his fingers through your hair, glancing down at you. You stuffed your face into his chest, you felt safe there.

“This is bullshit,” Tata scoffed, turning on her heel and stalking off.

“Munson you-“ Jason was cut off.

“Jason, get out of my fucking face before I do something I regret,” Eddie snapped, glaring at him.

Jason huffed before following after Tara, leaving you and Eddie alone in the empty corridor.

“Hey,” Eddie said, hands resting on your cheeks, forcing you to look at him. He frowned at the sight of you. Tear stained cheeks, smeared blood covering your nose and mouth.

“I just don’t understand how they can be so cruel,” you sniffed. Eddie shook his head, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“They don’t deserve you,” Eddie said. “Ignore them. You’re worth more than that.”

“It just hurts,” you sighed. “It hurts even more knowing that I made people feel like this all those months ago…”

“Hey, I forgave you, i’m sure with time everyone else can too,” Eddie said. You smiled up at him, he always knew what to say to make you feel better. “There’s that smile. You’re so beautiful, do you know that?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, princess,” Eddie said. “Let me clean you up,” he smiled, taking your hand.

© luvfae 2022

[cassianfanclub]

Ding-Dong, the Illyrian Plot is Dead

Nothing makes me laugh more than serious talk about the next book centering on Az having his “Eat. Pray. Love.” moment up in Illyria. Let’s look at why it makes zero sense

1. Az, like other victims of abuse, doesn’t need to make nice with his abusers in order to heal. Az was tormented, tortured, imprisoned, and abused by these people his entire childhood. They abused his mom for the entirety of her life. WHY does Az need to heal his relationship with them? Why would he even want a relationship with them? Leave him be. He can heal by coming to terms with what happened to him and his mom and understanding that their treatment was not a reflection of his self worth, that he matters, that he’s safe- no one in Illyria can give that to him.

2. There was, contrary to some people’s belief, no plot set up for Illyria moving forward. Everything we learned about Illyria in ACOSF was meant to lead us up to the climax of the novel- the BR. In order for the Blood Rite to hold the weight that it did, we needed to have a better understanding of who the Illyrians are: their culture, history, gender dynamics, etc. That includes learning more about the Bat Boys and their history with them. Imagine if we didn’t understand the significance of Emerie winning, imagine how random it would have been for them to be kidnapped if we didn’t understand what type of fae the Illyrians are, imagine the BR if we didn’t know just how dangerous it was. The ONLY part of Illyria that we learned about in ACOSF that holds any weight moving forward is the hint we received about something being under Ramiel, that’s it. Post-BR, they could have discussed all the work that needs to be done in Illyria, etc. Instead, they giggled about how pissed the Illyrians will be. That’s it. That’s not a future plot, that’s just an obvious conclusion to the events of the Blood Rite.

3. But…but girl power. And Valkyries! Yes, the Valkyries will continue to train and I’m sure they’ll recruit more Illyrian females now that Emerie is a Carythian. However, the majority of females currently training are priestesses. Priestesses that are dealing with a ton of trauma and only recently felt safe enough to venture to the training ring that’s on top of their home. Are Nesta, Emerie, and Gwyn going to abandon them to go train in Illyria? OR would the logical next step be to bring more Illyrian females to the training ring atop HoW so they can train with everyone. So that everyone can be comfortable. And wouldn’t it be better for them to train away from the misogynistic, controlling eyes of the Illyrian males? Doesn’t it make more sense for them to train in Illyria only once they are Valkyries and can actually hold their own against the Illyrian males? I’d say so.

4. Az already has a job and it’s not coaching Valkyries. He’s the Spymaster of the NC. And he’s got a lot on his plate considering there’s drama with other courts, a death lord that’s actively trying to break out of his captivity, uncooperative territories on the continent, devious human queens, managing a spy network, etc. I can’t imagine he’s going to have the time to prioritize training, especially since Mor will now be with the Valkyries and be there to help, let alone traipsing up to Illyria to hang out and “heal.”

5. It makes no sense for Az to go to Illyria, it makes EVEN LESS sense for Gwyn to go there. Gwyn’s back in the library. I know that’s apparently triggering for some in this fandom, but it’s a canon fact. She’s going to continue to do her trainings, and help Merrill with her research. That’s it. She’s only been comfortable around Cassian and Az for a few months, why in god’s name would she go to ILLYRIA of all places. Surrounded by asshole, misogynistic, abusive gym-bros. That seems like the perfect place for someone still healing from her own trauma.

6. If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe Nesta and Cassian who actually set up the plot moving forward

Yes, they’d have to figure out what to do with the entire Dread Trove now that they possessed all three objects.

But Nesta smoothed his bunched brow, as if she could see those worries there. “Later,” she promised. “We’ll deal with that later.” Including the remaining queens, Koschei, and a still-looming war.

They set the plot quite nicely, no? And who is the only person set up to actually move those plot points forward? Elain. It’s Elain’s book, it’s Elain’s plot, it’s Elain’s love story. Now, we do have something we can agree on- Az will have a POV in the next book, it’s just that it will be with the girl he actually likes, the girl who is actually set up to carry the book: Elain 🌸🖤

[opheliabloo]

if you have been overwhelmed by despair and guilt after the last 48 hours, i encourage you to focus on being the good part of the fandom instead of letting the loud, reprehensible minority taint the experience of what could potentially be a source of passion going forward. post about the recent lore, make crazy conspiracies about the upcoming dream team meet-up worthy of the shiniest tinfoil hats, post about the fics you’re writing or the art you’re drawing. no amount of condemnation will change the opinions of those already willing to do such reprehensible things like doxx minors and abuse victims for their own personal gain. if you have genuinely had your fill of this fandom or this content, leave and leave guiltlessly — this post is not a criticism of your actions, nor is it a criticism of those who were dissatisfied with dream during some or all of this. Moving on does not equal forgetting this ever happened. it just means allowing ourselves to breathe now that the situation has reached its conclusion.

this community is filled with some incredible talent, and i never see any lack of amazing art on my dash. as a fic author myself, i have a special appreciation for all the stellar writers here, from the likes of Heatwaves and Passerine to the hilarity of Mangoball and the fics that never go viral but sit in my head rent free for fucking DAYS lmao. over the last two days ive seen countless anons asking the people i follow if they’re okay and reminding them of how much their blog brings them joy, posts of people urging others to step away and focus on themselves if they’re doomscrolling. kindness whispers where cruelty yells, but the kindness in this fandom is not lost on me. ranboo found his foothold in this fandom in a major way, and now he’s off having the time of his life. hundreds of thousands of people all gathered onto a single tommy twitch stream to watch him face off against dream like it was some massive sports game. Quackity makes literal lore movies for us and gets so excited for the community’s reaction he tweets about it hyping it up for days. the analysis posts are always so interesting, the memes hilarious if not a little cursed. it’s a disservice to us all if we forget how good a community can be in SPITE of its flaws. dream obviously cherishes his community if he’s willing to stick around through all this, so never believe that the entirety of the fandom is irredeemably toxic. you’ll drag yourself — and your passion — down too.

tldr; take a breath, relax your shoulders, and let the bad times make you focus on being the good in this fandom that drew us all here to begin with. we can’t control when bad people do bad things, but we can curate our own enjoyment of this online community and lift each other up with the support and kindness ive already seen exemplified over the last couple days instead of wallowing in the despair and guilt of thinking the community is a lost cause. the best way to improve this clown circus of ours is to make an example of what good behaviour looks like. take care of yourselves, take a break from this fandom or this content if that’s what’s best for you, and indulge in your passion in whatever way is most fun for you. <3

[pooopopop]

An Incredibly Important Topic Being Obscured by the Standom Phenomenon, And the Damaging Repercussions of the Self Help Industry. 

I originally started posting to this fandom out of spite and in defense of a friend I talk to privately, whose incredibly smart and thoughtful but has an anxiety in them born out of OCD and Clinical Depression, which keeps them from posting publicly themselves. In conjunction with that, this friend is disabled due to EDS and Chronic migraine, but in spite of (or maybe because of,) this friend is educated in Sociology and Religion. Over this weekend we watched a conversation go over in the fandom that frightened them and I feel inclined to address it, though even if I share their frustration I’m not as educated on this subject so I will be relaying their points as best as I can. Here is the discourse as portrayed by the loudest and most passionate users in the fandom:

Firstly, let’s get two things out of the way. A single person flushing a single bottle of pills is a non-issue, it’s ridiculous to say that it is a major contributor to the environment. Second, it’s outright evil and counterproductive to shame a person for addiction and substance abuse, not that Misha is even guilty of that. Now,

What Misha did was irresponsible and ill-advised, that is stopping your prescription cold turkey AND telling your audience, an audience admires you far too much for their own good, about how you did it as if it was a triumph. Being on an opioid (Hydrocodone or Oxycodone) for two weeks after a major invasive surgery like a hip replacement is not an addiction. It also isn’t withdrawal that caused black spots and suicidal thoughts. Withdrawal is not something that only lasts two days. I am not accusing Misha of lying, what we believe he is is a victim of scare tactics and the rhetoric of his surroundings, the withdrawal symptoms he felt were in all actuality most likely caused by rejecting the use of medication as prescribed by a doctor and suffering the physical pain of deciding to “grit and bare it” while you’re in recovery and the emotional pain experienced by telling yourself you are a failure for wanting the pain to stop bad enough to indulge in taking a pill. That being said, if you should fear that you are beginning to struggle with addiction, you should 100% CALL YOUR DOCTOR. Crisis calls and Crisis appointments are a real thing and you should never fear reaching out for help. Addiction is not illegal, being in possession of prescribed medication is not illegal, of course you will NOT BE ARRESTED FOR IT. What IS something we advise you to be cautious about it telling your doctor, nurse, or EMT that you are experiencing suicidal thoughts. Though it shouldn’t be this way, you could likely be put in a less than ideal situation, so you are better off never going cold turkey on any medication so that you can best avoid getting to that point. NEXT, It’s important to note that Misha never said he has a disability. What @THEEwinchesters is implying here is that Misha has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which is pure speculation on his part. You should not diagnose people you do not know, celebrities the least of which. My friend is forgiving and would like to say that he probably doesn’t want anybody to ask him to elaborate because it would put him in a triggering position where he will have to defend and prove the diagnosis which is a struggle you already have to go through with a doctor in your own journey to get yourself officially diagnosed, but I don’t think that’s an excuse- if anything I think he should know that’s why you DON’T simply decide things for yourself in regards to strangers. You can’t base a diagnosis on being able to relate to somebody you like, and vice versa. But on the other side, Addiction is an illness. Depression is an illness. Both of which, now, Misha has opened up about dealing with. He seems to us like the type of person who rejects the idea of being ashamed of sickness and disability (in theory, more on that later); in fact, he’d likely claim EDS if he had it, and wear it proudly as an act of raising awareness and get Gish or Stands involved in it somehow. Since the OP tells you not to ask, we have to assume he is basing his diagnosis on is the fact that Misha is very flexible, a symptom of EDS. However, you see, Misha’s brother is a fitness trainer and yoga teacher. Which is a helpful Segway to the main topic that my friend had so much to say about…

IN the episode where Misha plays Castiel as a hippie, he is characterized as a spiritual leader and Sex Therapist(?), or at the very least pretending to be while he is indulging in his humanity. The portrayal seems to be based on Misha himself and his brother, even has a little shrine to Buddha making a cameo.

BUT- while it’s weird and not Cas, the biggest vice he indulges in that is explicitly condemned by the meta is… prescriptions. He pops some pills and Dean takes a look at them, and they are prescription amphetamines, which are prescribed to treat ADD. Vyvanse and Adderall. This being a vice is explicit, and its no coincidence that Misha also considers taking painkillers after a surgery to be something he had to overcome. He’s opened up about self medicating, dropping acid, smoking weed, Vicki’s book calls ecstasy a tried-and-true drug for threesomes (to use with caution, after condescendingly referring to XR drugs as “designer”), and partakes in glamorizing our rampant drinking culture enthusiastically. What Misha is victim to, and what everybody surrounding him is victim to as well, is the Self Help industry. It’s a vile thing that capitalizes on the shame of physical and mental illness, poverty, and in doing that it villainizes our most vulnerable people telling them that it only takes hard work and discipline to feel good. It teaches you that wanting medication is taking the easy way out, and that suffering from ailments or circumstances is a moral failure.

You catch this? Of course, it IS a Buddhist proverb, but there’s a reason that using this proverb is something they have in common and it isn’t because Jared co-op’d it. He is an obvious victim of the Self-Help Industry too, take a look at who he follows on Instagram.

The Self Help industry deeply intertwines itself with religion, as yet another powerful motivator to shame it’s clientele. It’s almost a religion in itself, with it’s heavy promotion of following philosophies, spot lighting failures, moralizing personal wellness, and predatory tactics that are designed to appeal to you when you are at rock bottom. They incorporate Buddhism, Christianity, and secularism all wrapped up in this New-Age pseudo-spirituality centering a philosophy of personal empowerment. There’s an abundance of Prosperity Gospel Preachers, who have been under scrutiny for decades, exposed again and again as hypocrites and heretics, who are practically entirely responsible for creating the fundamental strategies for MLM schemes, and the ever enduring holistic/alternative medicine business. However, what goes less scrutinized are the abusive self-help speakers and communities that disguise themselves behind New-Age flower-y garble, “witchy”/occult aesthetics, and the current most prevalent (and imo most offensive) offenders, Orientalists. The overlap is inescapable for White, American Buddhists. Though OprahWinfrey identifies as a Christian, while she was the countries biggest pop culture icon she caused a tidal wave that flooded the country cooking American Christianity, New-Age paganism, and fortune cookie Buddhism in a fat pot of gruel She sold as “Umami”. White Buddhism went the way of prosperity gospel, white-washing the concepts of Karma and Dharma by ignoring their cultural roots (they are spiritual concepts born and bound to a caste system being in place), to turn them into profitable currency, and leverage for the argument that you are deserving of the suffering you experience, and traditional medication is not only lazy but it robs you of the opportunity to become a greater person by overcoming your suffering on your own merit. This is why Misha considered it a triumph throw out his RX and misidentified lingering recovery pains and bad frame of mind to withdrawal, because he considers pain medication to be an indulgence that he has to atone for. It’s why there’s no shame or significant repercussions you can blame on self-medicating/experimenting with illicit drugs + psychedelics. In contrast, the latter is a task he took upon himself and learn from, which makes it “kosher” so to speak. New Agers and Secularists were appealed by the same belief system when it was packaged and resold to the general public as Energy Exchange and the Law of Attraction when it was introduced to them by Oprah and her large scale promotion of the book, The Secret.

Joe Rogan laughs at it, but he went and reinvented the wheel, with what he’s coined as “The Winner and The Loser Mentality” and preaches to his audience. The pages Jared follows, ways2well, market their brand on Joe’s philosophy a ton, reposting clips from his podcast with a proud co-sign. On a post featuring Jared, they promoted another kind of anti-pharmaceutical pseudoscience movement, “Functional Medicine”.

Read about why that’s snake oil, here. The Self-Help industry exploits people and causes real, quantifiable harm. Oprah’s promotion of The Secret resulted in the death of a devout member of her viewership when she decided to stop treating her cancer with traditional medicine, because she had been sold on the idea that she had it within her to overcome it herself. I suppose, ultimately, she must have simply had a loser mentality. We recognize Misha and Jared as susceptible to their environment as anybody else can be, and we do truly sympathize with them, Jared in particular seems live in, what we will call… less compassionate surroundings, and suffers more for it if his public outbursts and on record emotional breakdowns are anything to speak of. (or… at least my friend does. Me, less so. Lmao) But it would be an absolute tragedy if any of you ended up hating yourself for needing medication to get through life, if any of you thought that having treatment resistant depression means something about you as a person. Medication is not a treat, it is not an indulgence, you aren’t at fault for your own pain and misery. You aren’t being punished. You aren’t any less valuable. You deserve to feel ok. You deserve help. Pills are not short cuts. Medication is not cheating. Please do not hold any of these men up so high that you think you need to trust their judgement and subscribe to their beliefs. You really do deserve better.

[thejudgingtrash]

Unpopular Opinion;I'd rather have show!Annabeth as a kid with dark hair and eyes. Honestly,the whole "grey eyed blonde Athena kids" was odd in the books,and would be even worse in live action,IMO. While I like seeing fanarts of show!Annabeth with blonde hair and/or grey eyes,I don't see why this detail has to be faithful to the books. Besides,I feel the same about Percy,if to a lesser degree.

Yeah.

Sorry for answering this so late, I’m not really active on Tumblr therefore I tend to forget to check whether or not I’ve received some asks and I tend to take a while for answering them anyways. Also, this is going to get very long and rambly, so prepare yourselves!

My opinion on this whole casting situation and book accuracy is: I legit don’t give a fuck. More than that, I just side-eye people that were freaking the fuck out.

I essentially cut contact with 98% of this fandom (aside from few core groups) and left Tumblr last year because it’s a toxic mess and I try to avoid other PJO related social media branches (with the exception for AO3 for dumping my Percabeth fics, next one coming up soon <3) because they’re more than often even WORSE (!) than this hellsite but I still can’t escape casting news. So it’s incredibly hilarious to see so many people freaking the fuck out over something they have little to no control about.

My wonderful friend @mapendo-c essentially brought it to the point with this post but let me add my two cents to this entire situation:

2020 was hell on tumblr for the black crowd, let’s not act like it wasn’t (it was hell for black people in general if you care enough to remember). From harrassing the black PJO Tumblr side, to straight up lying to us, to doxxing, to us being called slurs in DMs and asks, to receiving open death threats and being sent lynching videos, we had it ALL. Some people that were directly confronted with this shit victimized themselves and fled the scene to this day, literally going out with a bang. Congratulations for that, BTW.

And that was only because a few people started to create PJO artwork that involved Percy of Color. Being more open to otherness. Critizing the white status quo and branching out. Questioning the constant projection onto these characters. That set a chain reaction into other endeavors and arguments but alas, this is already enough babbling. 

The fact that we had over 17 years of artwork and fics and videos and movies filled with Cocaine White Percy wasn’t enough for some of you. No, you had to break the spirits of those that are a minority and do not look like you. All of that shit was so unwarranted and unnecessary.

And then when you got warm to the idea of Token Black Percy (in 2021 might I add), you were delighted to see that he would be indeed white in the TV series as announced in the past few months. But oh wait… What was that?? Is it a bird, is it a plane? No?

ANNABETH ISN’T WHITE.

The whole world just got hit by a big rock and the apocalypse is nearing. The way some of y’all acted… Doing the same exact vile shit that you were doing in 2020 to a twelve year old, because she got the role of her life (so far) in portraying a major fictional character… The fact that y’all lost your goddamn mind without having even seen Leah act is MIND-BLOWING.

The same people accusing the black side of the fandom of likely being aggressive towards White TV Show Percy (before casting confirmation which also — newsflash — didn’t happen) are now the same fucking people freaking out about Leah as Annabeth. Tale as old as time.

I said this two years ago and most of y’all stank bitches proved me right: “Let’s be real: if Annabeth Chase would be black for example with the way she behaves, 85% of the fandom would hate her, cry for Perachel and Percabeth would be the least popular ship. I don’t trust people who are saying the opposite.”

As if anything else was about to happen… if I’m to believe certain Twitter threats and Reddit posts (taken with the biggest grain of salt ofc), some people where close to unaliving themselves because we all seemed to collectively have forgotten that Annabeth stans (this is coming from a core Percabeth shipper, so don’t come for me!) are fucking INSANE. Imagine loosing your shit on a harmless decision like a differing casting choice. Some of y’all need psychiatric help, ESPECIALLY looking at you 

“I can’t be racist, because I’m neurodivergent” crowd!!

I absolutely do not get why people get worked up about this. The minute a live version (aka NOT animation) project was announced, all of you should have collectively kissed the idea of a 100% book accurate adaptation goodbye, just as with the movie version. 

Do I think the show version will be closer to the books? 

Yes. 

Do I think it’ll be a 1 on 1 adaptation? 

Absolutely not. 

The announcement of the blind casting and therefore going for talent approach should’ve cemented the fact that this show won’t be book accurate at all.

How difficult is it to understand for some of you that the image of Annabeth, Percy, the storyline and everything else that you made up in your mind will NEVER be depicted on screen??? This is purely from a logical standpoint. I know Disney has resources and shit but they aren’t infinite. They have to break even eventually. I guess none of y’all have absolutely any idea how the medium of film works behind the scenes. 

Even Riordan’s (as the author with actual authority) initial version is impossible to bring to the screen. Trust me, there will be other things omitted or added to the show. You can either tune in, or don’t. It’s as simple as that. That is the only thing you can influence.

Coming to the next point: do all of these changes even matter?!

Stripping Annabeth and Percy of their default hair/eye/skin color doesn’t really change anything that significantly imo?? 

If you are reducing Annabeth and Percy to their appearance and not the character, what they have as traits and could represent that’s on you, sweetie.

Additionally, most of y’all are ignoring the polar opposite: the nuances and depth Black Annabeth (less so White Percy tbh) could add are entirely forgotten. How they could enrich the story, bring other perspectives in and give in Annabeth’s case the opportunity for black girls that are sexualized and treated like complete shit everywhere else on the planet (anti blackness and misogynoire say hello!) a chance to see themselves portrait in a multi-dimensional character but NOOOOOOOO!

Y’all act as if Californian Dream girl blonde, tall, tanned Anna Bethany “my father went to Harvard and I’m a descendant of Scandinavian royalty and only white people live in Sweden” Chase lives the same life and is equally as oppressed as characters like Hazel or Beckendorf. You know… the little black girl that lived through segregation, got cursed, killed and resurrected and has Hitler as her fucking half-sibling, and the token negro who was one of the very FEW diverse characters in the OG book series that got BLOWN THE FUCK UP as a plot point.

Like GIRL?! (Nella Rose voice:) ARE YOU NOT EMBARASSSSSED?!

I’m not saying that Annabeth doesn’t have her fair share of issues, all I’m saying is SHE’S NOT FUCKING OPPRESSED. Her problems are not the same in comparison to Hazel, Piper, Leo, Beckendorf, Reyna and others. I know white women loooove playing the victim (see: current real world issues where instead of listening to the warnings of black and brown women and people decades ago, they just sat around until they were on the receiving end for once), but no. This is not the fucking same.

Don’t act like it.

“Oh but the dumb blonde stereotype...“

DOESN’T EVEN FUCKING MATTER?!

Not only that, you could use that for show Percy for all that I care now that his actor won’t be forced to dye his hair/wear contacts. Percy gets treated by all fronts like an idiot (thank you, Annabeth), let him be the one proving people wrong about the dumb blond thing.

As if there aren’t other white female (main) characters that you can latch yourselves onto if you feel like projecting. And you still can, because the OG book series is still a fucking thing!! This is all about the show!

Like you, @mrhomerxsimpson have said, the OG descriptions sound unrealistic and would look tacky in the live action. Fanart ≠ real portrayal of characters. Having sparkly glowing sea green eyes would look weird in reality. The focus of Annabeth’s on her gray eyes… this is readable but would likely transfer poorly onto the screen.

And let’s not forget the trashy exotic portrayal of Cinnamon Toast Hazel and Kaleidoscope Eyed Piper. Let’s just let people and characters of color chill for a while. Please.

I’ve said it ages ago and I’m too lazy to look it up but I think that as long as Percy and Poseidon reassemble each other slightly, the show will be fine. And if these people can act. Also important.

Which brings me to my final point/question: How are some of you unable to understand that different adaptations of the same enterprise can coexist and be just fine?

Book Annabeth 

≠

Movie Annabeth

≠

TV Show Annabeth

There is a reason why you can filter the universe (book, tv show, movie, etc.) in which your story is set on AO3 and FFN. Because not all universes are the same!!!

Rowling is trash but as an easy to understand analogy: if you think about the Harry Potter franchise…

is Emma Watson automatically Hermione Granger for you? Is Daniel Radcliffe automatically Harry Potter?

Because whenever I’ve read a HP Fic they’ve NEVER come up in my mind. Emma Watson is Movie Hermione, but she’s not THE Hermione. She isn't any better or worse than Stage Adaptation Hermione. Watson certainly isn’t the Hermione in my head.

Dr. Who is a sorta weak comparison but there are a million different Doctors sooo what??

Can’t you separate different versions of the same medium? The same core story just with different faces for the same role? Am I in the minority with this??

Book Annabeth is Book Annabeth, Alexandra Daddario is Movie Annabeth and Leah will be TV Show Annabeth. And none of that is in conflict with each other.

If you still want to create moodboards and artworks with Surinamese!Percy, Haitian!Grover and Desi!Annabeth, no one’s stopping you!

If you see Aryan, Walker and Leah as the new default and want to create artwork with their likenesses, also fine!

If you want to go all white like Burdge and Viria have over ten years ago… lame and side-eye worthy but ultimately your decision.

If you want to do all of the above, go ahead!

Just chill and wait till next year when the show finally hits before y’all start throwing tantrums, jeez. Oh wait. Too late!

Peace out.

TL;DR: It really doesn’t fucking matter how TV series Annabeth or Percy look like. Their actors need to act and that’s about it. However, I agree that the book portrayals (at least to a certain degree) would look tacky on screen. Also, this fandom is trash. 

Stop being dickheads and I’m out until November or so for my new finished fic.

[thefools-journey]

So. Some of you may be wondering why we haven’t written a whole ton about the secondaries or what have you. Here’s the reason: we were waiting for them to end before we really dug into the problems we were noticing. We felt that it was only fair to wait for the routes to finish so that we had an understanding of the writers’ vision. Who knew, we thought, maybe they would see the problems themselves and course correct, maybe they are building to something we can’t quite see yet and these issues will have actual payoff, maybe-

In light of Muriel and Lucio’s endings, and the general mess that has dominated Portia’s route for a year plus now, we are breaking our silence. We are actually going to talk about this shit show.

The fandom at large has talked about a bunch of issues with the secondaries but for me, the cardinal sin, the thing that really all the issues lead back to, is this: the writers lost sight of the tarot themes which so strongly defined and held together the primary routes. Let me explain.

The primary routes each center around three thematic cores:

The Love Interest’s Major Arcana and its Reversed/Upright meanings

The MC’s Fool’s Journey, both how it can go right and how it can go wrong

A question about the MC’s identity and their relationship to said identity

Asra’s route asks: Who was the MC? How does the MC navigate a past they cannot and will not remember? What do they owe a past they cannot remember? How do they handle the revelations of what Asra, Nadia, Julian, etc did? How do you right the past? Can you?

Nadia’s route asks: Who is the MC? The MC has no past. Are they the Fool only? Are they actually the same person they were? How can they tell? Who are they, really? Are they an imposter? No one can answer these questions for them.

Julian’s route asks: Who will the MC become? How does the MC see their future? Is there anything worth fighting for for that future? What will become of them and their loved ones? 

Now, if you notice, these themes are expertly woven throughout the primaries. Asra’s past dominates his route, Nadia is also missing memories and trying to construct her identity both with her family and with Vesuvia, and Julian’s fear of the future drives his flailing for control. Asra has to learn to take a broader view of his actions to get his Upright Ending, Nadia has to learn to trust herself and those around her for hers, and Julian has to learn how to let go for his. These lessons are the issues their cards stand for. The primaries are so dang elegant and delicate in their handlings of theme it is honestly awe-inspiring.

Thematically, the secondary routes have completely lost their hearts. First of all, the MC does not have strong, core questions which need to be answered. They just don’t. I suppose the writers did not want to retread old territory (which is weird considering how tightly bound the primaries are; it really tricks you into thinking you’re living the same events but from different angles depending on your route) but they did not replace the old with anything new. Muriel’s route is, on the surface, about discovering and owning his past, the good and the bad. Why not tie MC’s self-discovery to that story? Or they could have taken the angle that Muriel’s route is about convincing him to be present and active in the world while MC builds an identity for themself outside of Asra, the shop, and the memories they cannot retrieve. Why not tie the investigation themes running through Portia’s early route back to MC and their past? Portia has the unique angle of being as in the dark as MC about all of this, why not discover the past together? And for goodness’ sake, Lucio has no future when his route begins, why not tie that to his need for growth, responsibility, and MC’s own future between the Fool, the Devil, or something mortal and in between?

Secondly, the routes lost their tarot backbone. We have a primer on how to get specific endings for each LI and it still holds, but the writers did not follow through on the thematic coherence of each secondary. The Hermit is looking for something, be it perspective, insight, a solution to a problem, whatever. The key here is that the Hermit must find or learn what they are searching for, this thing must change their understanding of the world, and finally, they must bring this lesson back to the world from which they retreated. Can someone please enlighten me as what exactly Muriel learns then teaches the world around him? Nothing Muriel learns from Morga, MC, or even the Hermit ties back into anything. The Devil warns that you are out of control and exerting a lot of manipulative, destructive behavior on the world around you. It asks you to take responsibility for yourself and your actions. So can someone tell me why Lucio’s route actively avoids any interaction or reflection on two of Lucio’s biggest victims: Muriel and Julian? Why does the route only try to make amends with the “easier” of his victims in the cast? The Star is first and foremost the card of clarity, the light at the end of the tunnel. Perseverance, if you will. Yet Portia’s route has been the muddiest of the trio; the writers drop the investigation aspect of her route in favor just handing her and MC information they could have easily found and muddying the waters with Tasya (she blows up the palace but it’s all okay bc she has a secret daughter Julian never thought to bring up or mention) and the complete removal of the Devil as antagonist. 

So that leaves just the Fool’s Journey trying to hold this stool up with only one leg. And well...it doesn’t go well. At best, the secondary route books pay the barest surface level homage to the themes of the individual cards. At worst, they ignore the cards completely. Muriel's Moon book has nothing to do with illusions or delusions or lies or even an Alice in the Looking Glass upside down world. Portia's back half is a complete and utter mess, starting with her Temperance book being so badly mangled that Muriel's aftermath book does it better. Lucio's route too bungles the Tower and the Star. There just isn't enough here to carry the routes alone.

Add to the core loss the loss of intertextuality. The primary routes are very good, even great but they too do have their moments and mistakes. What helps strengthen them when the cores stumble is how the trio is woven together. Things you learn in Asra's route can inform the way you play Nadia's, for example. Julian's route informs what is going on in Asra's route and slots some missing puzzle pieces together. Nadia's route tells you of the power struggles she is facing and informs the other two routes' handling of Julian and his trial. On and on, the three routes support each other because they are built out of the same basic plot beats, just tackled in very different ways. Now, the writers are allowed to try and write whatever they want. They apparently wanted to be more experimental and less tied down to an overarching plot with the three secondaries. Okay, fine, they are allowed to do that. The problem is that they sacrificed one of the key strengths of the primary trio and didn't replace said strength with anything else. They also, on some level, harmed the very premise of the game, which is that only the player's choices and route selected change the overall plot. Instead of feeling like legitimate possibilities or offshoots of the same timeline/plot, the secondaries feel almost like Arcana AUs. The secondaries throw out all relations to the primaries and each other as quickly as possible and for what? 

It is probably the height of arrogance to suggest fixes for works whose behind the scenes I do not know. At the same time, some small, obvious changes could have salvaged Muriel and maybe Lucio's endings (rip Portia). Instead of having the Hermit appear as a disappointing cameo, why not have him say something cryptic to Muriel, then have MC start trying to seal the Devil. Then let Muriel use his forget me mark to cloak MC and hide them from the Devil's attacks. Protecting MC by hiding them from Lucio, keeping him focused on Muriel, seems to me a simple third solution between Muriel's desire to run and his desire to never fight again. It lets him stand up to Lucio and let him have it while holding onto who Muriel has become. The Reversed End would have MC try to draw Lucio's attention at some point, disrupting the sealing, and eventually leading to Muriel killing the Devil. With Lucio's Upright End, I just have to ask: why doesn't MC fully claim the power of the Fool instead of the Devil? We don't need the other Arcana involved in this fight; we have three routes that demonstrate that. Just have MC pull Scout into the conflict, then have Lucio tell MC he believes in them, then add his power to the mix. You got yourself a full Fool who leaves Scout guarding the realm until they and Lucio's mortal bodies fail and they return to the realm to be together forever. Boom, you're done, you can even add some ambiguous lines so that players can decide how happy their MC is with this arrangement, send me the check.

Here is the bottom line. Our group is full of aroace, and several combinations therein, individuals. We are the last group who should have gotten into a dating sim of all things. But the Arcana did something with the primaries that was special; they wrote a compelling plot with dazzling lore, complex characters, and strong themes wrapped up in a dating sim bow. The writers know better and we know they know better. I do not know what happened with the secondaries, especially around books 10-11, which is where minor issues slowly start spiraling into major ones, but it is clear that Nix Hydra needed some more planning before they released these routes. Hopefully they will learn.

TL;DR: Nix Hydra fired their tarot consultants about eighteen months ago and it has wrecked their secondary routes until they were just embarrassments. They never intended for the secondary routes to even exist and once they had to make them, they scrambled and threw out everything that made the primaries work.

- Mod Telos

[blockgamepirate]

Technoblade’s purpose in the political narrative of the Dream SMP

I can’t sleep so I decided to finally write the post I’ve been struggling with for literal months, except way more casual because I can’t be bothered anymore and also I’m sleep deprived.

So the thing is: to me the DSMP storyline has always been primarily political, probably because I was introduced to it through Wilbur who was definitely going for political, and also because I’m just generally interested in political narratives right now. Obviously I appreciate the character work and the personal relationship stuff, that’s what makes it more interesting than just dry allegory, but when it comes down to it, this story is about politics to me. So that’s the angle I’m going to approach it from.

Also not to spoil the conclusions here, but I’m an anarchist, that’s my lens.

(Obviously all of this is about rp from here on out unless otherwise specified)

Basically the situation as Techno joins the server is this: L'Manburg exists as an autonomous nation and is de facto independent although not officially recognised by the Dream SMP. The self-appointed president Wilbur Soot decides to hold an election and rig it in order to consolidate his power over the nation he founded and he gets his VP Tommyinnit to join in on the plan. Their scheme fails and they end up voted out instead. The new president, Schlatt, immediately establishes himself as an authoritarian figure and exiles Wilbur and Tommy.

A couple of points on what the election arc demonstrates:

1: the appearance of democracy can be used for distinctly undemocratic purposes.

2: even if the elections aren’t rigged, the electoral system could be massively flawed and end up favouring a party that in fact didn’t have the popular vote

3: even if the winning government (the coalition in this case) has the majority vote, that doesn’t guarantee that they’ll actually act according to the popular will.

4: the supporters of the losing parties basically just have to let the majority overrule their wishes, espcially since apparently L’Manburg doesn’t have an established role for an opposition, yikes. That’s actually a MAJOR oversight in the system but I’m not gonna go into that too much.

5: frankly as an anarchist I am just deeply cynical towards representative democracy, and just because you have a token appearance of choice and consent doesn’t mean that it isn’t a hierarchical and authoritarian system. And to be fair, from my point of view this applies even to so-called liberal democracies and progressive parties. Full disclosure: even if L'Manburg was the ideal example of a representative democracy (which it very much isn’t) I would still be opposed to it because I fundamentally do not believe in top down systems, even electoral ones.

6: despite all these flaws, all the characters seem to implicitly accept the electoral system as legitimate. There’s criticism against the actions of individual characters acting within the system, such as Quackity calling out Wilbur for trying to rig the election, but nobody is questioning the system itself.

So at this point I’m sitting there, watching all this go down, and thinking “man, this would be so much more bearable if there was an anarchist point of view being represented in the story.”

And hey, look who IMMEDIATELY SHOWS UP.

Okay, I’m not gonna lie, early installation Technoblade is not the best representation of anarchism. I was mostly rooting for him out of sheer contrarianism initially. I didn’t really even care if it would be another Killmonger/Magneto/Zaheer situation because I’m used to reading against the authorial intent when it comes to these things. Sometimes any representation is better than no representation, even with political ideologies. That’s not to say that him just straight up spouting this hobbesian notion of a “dog-eat-dog world” didn’t grate on me, obviously it did.

That kind of worldview of humanity needing authority in order to prevent chaos and conflict is literally antithetical to anarchism and is the favourite talking point of authoritarians, the least anarchist people there are. It’s literally what people use to argue AGAINST anarchism. I think it’s mostly because cc!Techno obviously wasn’t particularly educated on anarchist thought and was just basically having fun roleplaying with his friends at this point. Which is frustrating but fair enough I guess.

Cynical ideas about human nature are pretty deeply rooted in the mainstream, unfortunately, most people just consider it common sense. And like I said, it’s a huge talking point in the propaganda against anarchism.

(… even though in fact these arguments were originally used against proponents of representative democracy. Hobbes himself was very much a monarchist, the idea of letting normal people vote for their representatives would have been terrifying to him. Like surely the world would descent into a free-for-all war, all against all. Imagine letting commoners have OPINIONS, the horror.)

So yeah, that stuff was pretty ehhhhh. It was basically what I’d expected though: cc!Techno isn’t an anarchist and we just don’t get accurate representation from non-anarchists, ever. What I dared to hope was that Techno’s character would at least stay consistent about his opposition to ALL governments. I was pretty sure that he would, even though it seemed like the majority of the fandom at the time was convinced that he would switch over to Schlatt’s side or something. It would have been a really shitty twist, I would have ragequit immediately. I mean what would have been the entire point of his character then? He might as well have been a random mercenary. Why even have his character be an anarchist if you were just going to make him work for a government?

(ftr this is kinda my biggest problem with the Hypixel Skyblock revolution event lol, honestly I think that was a worse depiction of anarchism than early DSMP Technoblade. I mean the speech was good, but… still became a government official, tho. booooooooo, cringe)

And yes, I was rooting against L'Manburg, obviously, and I would have even if it had meant having to deal with another badly written anarchist villain character. I never understood why people saw L'Manburg as the good guys, they were nationalist and exclusionary and their whole existence was based on trying to scam people for money.

I mean they were definitely funny, they were great entertainers. I have no problems with people rooting for them because they’re fun to watch; I did that for a bit too. But people were starting to get really into the story and talk about Wilbur and Tommy, the corrupt politicians, and the country that literally excluded people based on nationality as the heroes, unironically, which was wild to me. And when Wilbur started his “villain arc” well: people called it a villain arc, as if he hadn’t been pretty much a bad guy from the beginning, constantly just out for money and power and taking advantage of the people around him and then pretending to be the victim when challenged. I mean yes he got worse, but I wouldn’t call it a villain arc, more like just a mental breakdown arc.

More importantly, to me L'Manburg represented so many things I hate about the status quo in real life, and seeing the fandom mostly unquestioningly accept it as good just pissed me off. Still pisses me off tbh. I mean, to be diplomatic I could say that I understand the emotional attachment and the way L'Manburg was built up mirrors a lot of how real nations are built and how they create a sense of patriotism out of symbols and a sense of honour and loyalty, and it’s actually really fascinating how it even works in a Minecraft roleplay. Says something about the human mind I guess. Doesn’t mean I have to like it though.

Anyway, I just wanted to see literally any kind of opposition to power, even if it had to come from a character that was unquestionably a villain, which I fully assumed Techno would be. Because political narratives so often just leave us out, or at best barely mention us. And even from a narrative point of view, adding an anarchist perspective to a political story just objectively broadens its scope and actually challenges people who are used to only arguing along the lines of conservative or liberal, welfare state or privatization, nationalism or multiculturalism, etc. Even if the original work dealt with it poorly, at least it would give me the excuse to rant about it on Tumblr, which is kinda why I revived my old Minecraft sideblog for this. (That and pig!Techno fanart.)

Also how can you have a story so fundamentally about power without its counterpoint: the rejection of power?

(Yes, Dream SMP as a whole is definitely a narrative about power, it’s a huge theme for Wilbur, Quackity, Dream, Eret and the Badlanders at least, as well as obviously the anarchist characters from the opposite direction.)

So yeah, the build up to November 16th for me was mainly about the anticipation for what Techno would do, how would Techno’s character respond to the seemingly inevitable formation of a new government. THAT was the point of interest for me, that was what I was the most invested in. Would we get an actual anarchist opposition as a new side to the conflict or would they just awkwardly drop that whole angle? Or even have him team up with Schlatt like a complete sellout? There was so much potential but I worried they might just waste it.

And I was right to worry since apparently in the original script Techno wasn’t supposed to do anything, he was just there to help fight Schlatt and witness the explosion along with everyone else.

And WOW that would have been so incredibly boring

Not even just from the political perspective, just talking about the narrative in general terms here: imagine November 16th without Techno’s plot points. Not only would it have been boring for Techno’s character but it would have been equally boring for basically everybody but Wilbur and Philza. An anticlimactic fight followed by a big explosion that pretty much everybody had seen coming already. Yes, the button room scene is dramatic and heartbreaking… for Wilbur and Phil. But nobody else was there to see it. For everybody else, it was just a big explosion. It would have been such a huge disservice to anyone watching the other POVs.

Techno’s intervention gave everyone an ACTUAL climactic fight, it allowed characters other than Wil and Phil to witness some actual drama happening and to participate in it, rather than just waiting around for the explosion, while also foreshadowing the explosion. Even better, it provoked SO MUCH discussion in the fandom AND gave a perfect hook for future conflicts to arise. Wilbur’s end was tragic but it was, at the time, final. L'Manburg would have still suffered a catastrophe but it would have been left with just the same exact antagonist as before: Dream.

And at this point Dream’s core goals had barely changed, just his approach was now different. Yes, that makes a difference for the plot, but it doesn’t really change much in terms of ideological conflict. Especially since there really isn’t that big of an ideological difference between Dream and Tommy, because arguably neither of them are particularly big on ideology in the first place, they just have conflicting goals and use different tactics to achieve those goals (well, the tactics aren’t always even that different *cough Spirit cough*).

Techno’s conflict with Tubbo and especially Quackity (and honestly most of the other characters in general) brings in so much more depth to the story, just by introducing another angle, not to even mention how much it brings to focus questions about power and violence. These are themes that exist in other characters’s storylines too but nowhere in the same way or as central as with Techno.

I’m getting kind of ahead of myself here, though.

The real twist of November 16th was the fact that Techno WASN’T a straight up villain, actually. It was a twist to me anyway, because with all my cynicism I just didn’t see it coming, I didn’t expect him to actually start making reasonable criticisms. I didn’t expect him to drop the hobbesian arguments entirely and start making points that actually sounded like anarchism.

I have to assume that cc!Techno must have seen some of the criticisms of his character and been inspired to adjust because the difference is pretty notable.

(Sidenote: I’m just forever kinda sad that Techno’s “I may seem like the villain here” monologue was cut from the video and most people never heard it.)

And I felt SO validated by the way, because it works so well in the story! Everyone is mostly content with the restoration of a status quo of some sort, Schlatt is gone, this is supposed to be the good ending, and then Techno calls them all out and turns the narrative around completely: This was just a coup d'état. This was just the previous political leadership retaking power by force. Why is everyone celebrating the same exact system that lead to Schlatt’s authoritarian rule in the first place?

What he does there is force the audience to question the narrative they’ve been presented so far, that they’ve accepted without a thought. It might not convince them, but they can’t just ignore it either.

Whatever you wanna say about the discourse around Techno on that day, in the ideological narrative THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART. Not who betrayed who or when is political violence justified, that’s about personal relationships and morality and it’s mostly all more relevant to the aftermath than the event itself. In my opinion, the REAL point in the moment is that the characters and the audience were comfortable with the ending only to be presented with a completely new perspective on the events.

It also recontextualises the finale, including Wilbur’s actions! It’s a much more ambiguous end to the Pogtopia vs Manburg arc and to Wilbur’s original run as the head writer. Wilbur’s “even with Tubbo in charge I don’t think [that ‘special place’] can exist again” is vague enough to be dismissed as just part of his paranoia and internal conflict, but with Techno, there’s a concrete question: what if Tubbo, given the same powers as Schlatt, will turn out to be just a new Schlatt? And suddenly you have to wonder what Wilbur meant by his words too. And was all this foreshadowing something about L’Manburg’s future?

Okay I’ve only made it to November 16th and there’s so much more DSMP to talk about but the post is getting too long and I’m starting to lose my energy. Will I ever make a part two? No idea. But I’ll try.

Standard disclaimer: I’m not the spokesperson of anarchism, other anarchists might disagree with my reading

[zuko-always-lies]

Ah, a Zuko realist. Now this is refreshing.

When I first watched ATLA, Zuko was easily my least favorite of the major characters. Apart from the obvious (him hunting the savior of the world for status and personal gain), the guy was consistently selfish, rude, and pretty much acted like the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Toons…but not for the sake of comedic value. After being exposed to the fandom for a while, I kinda got sucked in to the “Zuko is an awkward turtleduck” stuff and it took me a while to realize that his fanon character has totally been perverted. And the real tragedy is that he has a ton of depth and some major redeeming qualities…the fandom has just chosen to ignore the fact that he’s morally conflicted and warped him into an infallible Traditionally Masculine Hero. It’s just a relief to see another person (there aren’t many) who seems to acknowledge that canon Zuko has totally been obliterated and replaced by something that doesn’t resemble him at all. (Any thoughts on why Zukophilia has become so rampant?)

Sorry for taking my time answering this, but I very much agree with you. Fanon Zuko has nothing to with canon Zuko. The person who I think has done the best analysis on canon Zuko and some of the less savory parts of his character and less well-written parts of his arc is @seyaryminamoto . I reblogged a ton of her posts within the last couple months and I tagged them all with "seyaryminamoto" if you're interested. In fact, I'm going to try to link all of them here: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x. To make it clear, I don't 100% agree with seyaryminamoto on just about anything. @wingsfreedom and @eshusplayground are also people who have had some good takes on Zuko, particularly this post. And if you haven't read this post by me on "power hungry Zuko," you might find it interesting.

Now, to get into the substance of your ask a bit more, I'll be honest, the first I watched the series I just saw the narrative framing surrounding Zuko and didn't think deeply about him. Honestly, I liked him in a way I can't now, since the fanbase flanderizing him kind of poisoned his character for me. It's hard doing meta analysis of a character when you haven't finished a series, and most fans never give that level of thought to a character. Unfortunately, the way that Zuko is presented and framed leaves meta-analysis as the only way to get a good grasp of his character.

I think one of the issues with the writing of Zuko's character is that the writers couldn't decide what kind of redemption arc they were writing. I think Zuko's arc unfortunately mishes and mashes between three different types of redemption arcs:

1. Moving from being selfish and self-interested to being selfless(i.e. the Han Solo arc)

2. Escaping from a toxic family environment and forming healthy relationships arc(i.e. the Nebula--from the MCU--arc. This actually requires the character undergoing the arc to be a little selfish)

3. Rejecting the awful values you have been indoctrinated in and becoming a better person through accepting new, better values arc. If I were writing a redemption arc for Azula, this would be the focus.

When you combine aspects of these three arcs together without being careful, you can end up with some very unfortunate implications. And I think it also creates a lot of the confusion surrounding Zuko in the fanbase.

However, by far the biggest reason why people believe "Zuko is an awkward turtleduck" is because it's how the narrative frames the character. The narrative always presents Zuko in the most sympathetic and positive possible light, even though his actions run very heavily against this framing. The two most pivotal episodes for Zuko's character are "The Storm" and "Zuko Alone," and both present Zuko as an awkward, kind, moral, selfless, empathetic, and compassionate turtleduck being harmed by his evil relatives; the narrator is heavily biased in both cases but the narrative never calls attention to it. Zuko's actions in just about every other episode also contradict these traits, but the narrative also never calls attention to that.

There are also some other factors about why Zuko gets woobiefied in the fanbase to the degree he is. First, Zuko is an abuse victim in a very obvious way, so there's the tendency(like with Ursa) to woobiefy him and present him as a "perfect" victim being violently tormented by his evil father and sister, rather than deal with how his abuse and indoctrination led him to engage in toxic behavior.

Second, Zuko is male, so the fanbase is much more willing to ignore it when he acts violently, gets angry, or otherwise engages in toxic behavior. Male characters get so much more slack here.

Third, Zuko is the deuteragonist of ATLA, we always see things from his point of view, and he ends up siding with(and being accepted by) the protagonists, so there's the natural tendency to soften his actions.

Fourth, the narrative ends with the implication that Zuko has become the perfect ruler and finished his growth, so the fanbase is less willing to accept he is flawed.

Finally, it seems like the fanbase is more enamored of the idea of Zuko(abused kid gets on a better path and develops healthy relationships) than they are with his actual character. Certainly, the fact that ~50% of "Zuko meta posts" are written by Azula fans suggests that Zuko fans are more interested in what they project onto Zuko than on Zuko's character as is revealed by his behavior.

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

After reading your opinion on Molly Weasley, i want to know: What are you're opinions on the Weasley family? Besides Ron & Molly that is.

Five characters? In one post? Well, alright, here we go.

The Weasleys as a Whole

I’ve mentioned this before but JKR writes the Weasleys to clearly be a believable but ideal family. They’re all fiercely loyal, progressive per wizarding world standards, love each other and Harry deeply, and have this wonderful off-kilter joyous house where there’s always some rambunctious thing going on. 

Harry comes to associate the Weasleys with family and, personally, I believe a large part of him marrying Ginny boils down to it will make him a Weasley for real. 

That said, they’ve got some major issues. They’re very righteous people who, as a whole, will ice you out the moment they even suspect you do something that disagrees with them. You don’t even have to do it, what you did or didn’t do doesn’t even have to be something terrible or something bad, but god help you if the family decides they’re done with you. 

They’re very resentful of people like the Malfoys. This isn’t just because Lucius is a smarmy, pompous, ass (he is) or that he indirectly almost murdered Ginny but seems to mostly be because Lucius has so much money. All of their interactions seem to boil down to the money. More than this though, the Weasleys seem fully supportive of laws that... well, used against themselves would be a travesty but used against the likes of the Malfoys it’s about damn time.

They’re unquestioningly loyal to Dumbledore. Granted, most people we see in canon are, Dumbledore’s very very very good at convincing people he’s a saint. However, these guys are practically his cult member to the point where they do things like refuse to have Harry over the summer, even before Voldemort returned, because Dumbledore told them not to. 

They also never really adopt Harry into the family. Oh they give him a nice sweater, he comes over every once in a while to the house, he’s very good friends with Ron but he’s mostly treated just like that, a good friend. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this, except the way JKR sets it up we’re supposed to believe this is the family Harry found. It’s just that the family Harry’s found let’s him stay in a house with bars on his window where twelve-year-old Ron tells them, “Harry’s muggle family is really really awful” in a way that should have been raising red flags. Hermione practically lives at the Weasleys, Harry never does.

Now, are the Weasleys evil? No, far from it, they’re ordinary people who act in ways I’d expect ordinary people too. Technically they didn’t have to do anything more for Harry than they did, they didn’t have to hate Lucius Malfoy for better reasons, and they don’t have to be even slightly less worshipful of Dumbledore. They’re people, and they’re fine characters, but the overwhelming worship and love of the Weasleys we see across fandom does get on my nerves.

But you asked for individuals, so here we go.

 Arthur Weasley

Arthur is the epitome of “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” in the worst of ways and is, frankly, a giant awful joke to me. He’s the white kid you see going around with dread locks, a beanie the color of the Jamaican flag, smoking weed, and attempting to speak like Bob Marley 

Only, because he does it with muggle things, we’re supposed to find him funny and progressive.

Arthur is absolutely, albeit unwittingly, condescending in his love of muggle knickknacks. He has no idea how any of it actually works, not limited to how muggles could possible survive without the gold standard, but ardently believes he does because he can enchant the car to fly. Seriously, that he believes he’s an expert on muggle culture, as a pureblood wizard who heads an office in the ministry on it, is the worst part. His love of toasters comes across as, “Wow, look how cool it is that these poor little muggles made all this neat stuff. We should absolutely love the muggles because of it!” And that he heads an office in the ministry called “The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts” which is all about catching down Jackass style pranksters who think it would be hilarious of they enchanted toasters to bludgeon muggles to death...

Goddammit Arthur, why do you exist?

Right, otherwise, he’s got some pride issues going on. Part of the reason Percy is excommunicated is not so much that Percy doesn’t believe Harry, but because Percy dared to do better than Arthur in his own career. Arthur is stuck in his position as head of a joke of a department, he is an underling at its finest, and frankly likely only has that position because he’s a pureblood and the idea of putting a halfblood or even muggleborn at the head of a department dealing with muggles just made the higher ups shudder. (Don’t tell Arthur that though, he likes to think he’s not benefitting from nepotism). 

Arthur goes so far to accuse Percy as Fudge’s secretary as spying on him. Arthur, the guy who heads “Misuse of Muggle Artifacts”. Yeah, Arthur, I’m sure Fudge is really wasting his time using his straight laced secretary to find out all your dirty secrets. 

He also tends to see the world as very black and white. When Skeeter in book 4 writes an article after the Quidditch World Cup disaster complaining about the ministry’s lax security in enabling domestic terrorists to enter (something completely valid and true by the way) Arthur is so personally offended that both he and Percy go straight to the ministry to complain about Rita Skeeter and her daring to assume freedom of speech! HOW DARE SHE CALL THE MINISTRY’S NON-EXISTENT SECURITY AT THE WORLD CUP LAX! (To be fair, she also cited Arthur as having been in attendance at the event, a ministry employee, and having done nothing but, well, this is also true Arthur. You’re in a guerilla, underground, resistance movement. If I didn’t already think the Order was a joke this would kind of highlight it for me).

He’s also very resentful of Lucius Malfoy, and it seems to mostly be about the money. Arthur and Molly have a severe spending problem and actively resent that Lucius is swimming in money. That Arthur is ardently pleased about a law being passed in which the ministry without warrant can ransack Lucius Malfoy’s home... 

Well, Arthur, imagine the slippery slope if the government decides that it would like to search the Weasley home without warrant? In fact, he doesn’t even have to imagine it, as the beloved government in a few short years turns against him and then it’s all about how corrupt the ministry is. 

Arthur’s delightfully narrowminded, basically, and reminds us at nearly every opportunity.

Percy Weasley

Mostly, I just feel bad for Percy. Percy’s the son/brother that nobody likes and he’s painfully aware of that fact. He doesn’t fit in with the others, he has far too much ambition for the Gryffindor family and they resent him for it, and then he dares to say things like “I don’t know guys, Voldemort resurrecting from the dead after decades doesn’t sound plausible, we know Harry’s a little off kilter, and Dumbledore’s one shady dude”. Percy happens to be wrong about Voldemort resurrecting (and admits as much when the evidence is plainly visible), but he’s pretty on the money with the rest of it.

Regardless, growing up we see Ron constantly hating on Percy along with the rest of the siblings. I’m sure Percy is obnoxious, and certainly full of himself after making prefect and head boy, but he’s very clearly even before Order of the Phoenix the Least Favorite Brother (TM).

Then the Weasley family completely ices him out for a) getting a very high ranking position very quickly as Fudge’s secretary and b) not being gung ho about Dumbledore saying crazy things in the paper. Remember that to Percy Harry is Ron’s weird friend who seems to get into highly illegal activities every other week. From Percy’s point of view, it’s probably a matter of time before Harry becomes a crack head in Knockturn Alley (or given how behind the times wizards tend to be, an opium den). 

He’s constantly getting Ron into not only trouble but life threatening situations, is erratic and apparently a parseltongue of all things, and now Harry’s flipped his lid and saying that Voldemort has been resurrected after having gone through a very traumatic experience of watching a classmate somehow die. 

While we see Percy kind of (sort of)  make up with the family it’s clear that for Percy to have any relation with these people he’s the one who will always, ALWAYS, have to come crawling back on his knees and begging for forgiveness. It’s the Weasley way or the highway and I imagine, at some point probably a little after/during that epilogue, Percy will just slowly drift away because it’s just not worth it anymore.

Percy’s very much the black sheep of the family.

Fred and George Weasley

You all are going to kill me, but I actually don’t care in the slightest about Fred and George Weasley. This is because they basically have no personality aside from “funny”. 

They just have their weird, tandem, twin act and are either playing jokes on the school or else serving as Deus ex Machina in giving Harry magical items such as the Marauder’s Map for no apparent reason. The plot told them it was time, I guess. 

Their jokes, while not as bad as Sirius and James’ “Let’s sexually harrass Severus Snape by pantsing and beating him at the edge of Hogwarts lake” or Sirius’ “Let’s get Snape eaten by a werewolf!” are still often needlessly cruel and... kind of pointless. They harass Slytherin house constantly just because they happen to be Slytherins, they’re acceptable victims (which of course makes house tension that much worse). Harry gets sent a toilet seat in the hospital because... that’s funny? Har de har? 

They’re so indistinguishable from one another I routinely see people mistake which one got his ear chopped off and which one died. Because the point is, that we can’t tell the difference! It doesn’t matter who lived and who died because all we know is that Freorge is dead! 

Similarly, you see tons of fics around where character of the day ends up in this weird twincestuous relationship with Fred and George and it’s not only for a) that delightful twincest but b) because they’re such a singular unit that any attempt to pair one with somebody else feels weird. So you just get these porn fics about Fred and George being weird rapey teenagers who seem like they’d be more interested dating each other. 

Charlie Weasley

I really have no thoughts on Charlie. He raises dragons in Romania, the family loves him. Now, dragon raising feels like one of the most dangerous jobs in the Harry Potter universe, like Charlie had just gone and signed up to be a lumberjack but he seems to like it?

We really don’t see much of Charlie, he’s just the obligatory older Weasley son so that the Weasleys can be this ridiculously large family.

Bill Weasley

We see slightly more of Bill, but again, not enough to really leave an impression. We know that his marrying Fleur sent Molly into a complete state, and that they’re going to have awkward Christmas dinners forever because of it where Fleur just sits there and pretends not to loathe every second of Molly’s presence while Molly notes how bad it is that Victoire got stuck with that ugly pink hair instead of the Weasley red. 

Bill doesn’t seem to really do anything about this. He still marries Fleur, but we don’t really see a major confrontation where he tells the family “Look, I’m marrying her, so grow up.” So, I imagine he just tries to smile pleasantly and tells Fleur to just endure it for another few hours. He loves his family, his family’s great, but they only have to see Fleur once a year at Christmas.

Ginny Weasley

Ginny is weird. She’s this weird, frankly, almost personality-less void whose sole obsession in life seems to be marrying Harry. She and Harry end up in the world’s weirdest relationship and I honestly have no idea how people ship it other than canon told them to.

Ginny’s... well, first off, she’s very much in love with an idea. She had always worshipped Harry Potter but then he personally saves her life in what was a horrifically traumatic year and so that feeling just grows even more. Despite being Ron’s sister, she barely seems to know Harry, and everything she seems to like about it are just things she made up.

I imagine her and Harry’s marriage will be littered with affairs on her end. Not divorce though, because Harry would never admit his wife is having affairs on him all the time even if someone directly confronted him. Harry also won’t admit he’s gay. 

More than though we get hints of a personality. Ginny’s a fiery red-head tomboy with a temper. But... Well, it’s only ever hints. She never felt like a real person to me. She has I think one throwaway line about the Chamber of Secrets incident and how it personally affected her. We’re told she’s great at the bat boogey hex so we know she’s a fiery independent woman.

She feels more like a character sheet than an actual person. 

Whenever she’s around I always had this nagging question in my head where I ask why Ginny’s here. She has a lot of potential but nothing’s ever done with her. And when something is, it’s to get her into this bizarre relationship with Harry where he imagines there’s a green rage monster in his chest that loves her skin.

Okay Harry, if you say so. 

TL;DR: The Weasleys aren’t evil or anything, I’m not on Team Bash Them All, but they are shortsighted, ordinary, people who don’t deserve to be worshipped as all that is good in this world.

[electracraft]

rambling

yeah i get that he can’t say more of than without potentially endangering anyone i think it’s understandable. but at the same time at this point it’s up to us to choose what to trust i guess. as for me, i really wanna believe that dream wouldn’t knowingly give anyone with those allegations on them a platform, he’s proven before that he has a hard stance on this as he should. and his behaviour wouldn’t make sense, if he was trying to help a friend build a new identity and get away with it drawing so much attention to them from their very first stream would be a dumb move. really dumb move. about manatreed himself, i have no way of knowing the truth - the consensus seems to be that the allegations were real from what i’ve seen - but as long as he doesn’t have a platform anymore i don’t think it matters to me. as long as the potential abuser doesn’t have a platform the major issue has been solved. all i hope is that the victim is safe, and that leaktwt will come back to where they came from and stop being involved with the mainstream fandom. i hope we can leave this level of doxxing behind forever now because no one deserves to go through all dream has in the past days and i really hope he and his family are safe too

[i-did]

hey! I hope those aftg asks aren’t getting tiring lol but I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the recent fandom treatment of Kevin, which seems to be mainly seeing him as a victim mistreated both in canon by the other foxes & by nora himself? Like I remember in the earlier days of aftg (like maybe around 2016? 2017??) there definitely wasn’t this kind of focus or view of Kevin & I feel like he was treated with somewhat more nuance then? And this could be related to the growing hate for Nora since then but you don’t see people say the same things about the other foxes?? This is a very messy ask lol but I’m genuinely so confused about this trend esp because Kevin seems to be the only fox (as far ive seen anyways) that people are holding up as a victim w/o any nuance

I have a lot of fun answering these, I just sometimes take a minute to get to them lol

Okay so I definitely know what you're talking about with the Kevin thing. The first major factor is that AFTG has finished coming you years ago, and Nora has not actively engaged with the fandom since 2016. I came around into AFTG in 2017 as a reader, and looking at the fanart. Mostly by then you see the race headcanons locked into place and the beginning of the split between fanon and canon. Without more canon, fanon content starts to develop as whoever is more influential the fan creators (fic authors, fan artists) start to do things that trend. As a time passes in a fandom, it tends to split into niches, people who see things a certain way and want to see more of that follow each other and gain followers who agree with them. 

There is definitely a Kevin centric niche that thinks those things. I don’t think there was as much focus in general on Kevin back in 2017, but I also was pretty new. But there were no extreme Anti-Andrew fans, back then it was “you are either a fan of Nicky or a fan of Aaron.” People didnt have “dni choking apologists” on their blogs. 

I think choking discourse is a good example of the rise of Kevin. Andrew must fall for Kevin to rise. There are kandreil fans that genuinely like all three, and some ace/aro Kevin fans that like him just as he is, but a lot of Kevin centric content I see now on tumblr is about how Andrew is the real villain of AFTG for choking Kevin, despite Kevin violently choking Neil in book 1. 

Back in 2018 they weren't pitted against the other and I think the whole “you can only like one character or the other” thing is stupid imo. I like Nicky more than Aaron, but I still think they're both interesting characters. Ive seen a lot of “Kevin was only a victim” takes, and in fact got cyber bullied for a while by some people who thought I was too mean to Kevin in some of my HC by implying he also had some power in the nest and likely hurt others, and that he feels guilt over it. :/ but there is also a similar niche with “you can't blame Aaron for his homophobia, his mom was abusive, and she likely made him that way.”

It's the most similar discourse trend I've seen to the Kevin discourse. It’s a similar lack of nuance, and I think people inflict it their favorite character because they don't want to have a ‘problematic fav.’ Aaron is canonly homophobic, Neil says directly after him and Andrew ‘come out’ to the others, that he was waiting to see the same grief Aaron gave Nicky over his sexuality. It doesn't mean he can't be also a good character or a person someone likes, in fact well written characters have dimensions and flaws. 

Which that whole mess is similar to the whole Kevin thing. I think people fall in love with the idea of Nora’s characters, or maybe the fanon characters–but not the real characters. Which is also why they say the author hates them, because they got written to do bad things or not be in the story as much, they defend these characters as if they were real people who need defending, need to be saved from being erased. These characters become “their character.”

I think this also happens because people kin characters and identify with them a lot, so when I said “Kevin was in a position in power in the nest too, even in second place” and then receive threats for how I personally hurt someone who's a CSA survivor because of my Kevin HC I'm like (o – o). I think these people project so hard onto Kevin and design him in their mind, they feel as if character flaw HCs or depictions of Kevin struggling and being mean are personal insults, or at least very personally insulting. And I don't want to sound like an ass, but like my Kevin isn't the same as their Kevin, my Kevin is my Kevin. 

I see skinny art of Andrew and art of Neil as white or ginger, these don’t align with my personal HC’s about them, but like that's what I chose to go with. Nora uses language that makes me believe Neil has dark auburn hair, but if people want him to be ginger idc. In canon he was written with the intent to be white, I ignore that because I think him being mixed adds more depth to his character (as well as me being tired of only white mlm, and have updated my reading list). Andrew wasn’t imagined by Nora to be fat either, but I HC him as like a mini muscle bear instead of Toby Hemingway. 

I keep the canon intent in mind to remind myself how she actually saw them and how that can color canon and how other people are allowed to see Neil as white and Andrew as skinny. Like I understand why people get annoyed over other peoples hc’s, I feel similarly sometimes. But like at the end of the day, you just gotta move out of that fandom niche and into a new one or just ignore the post.

[maxwell-grant]

Any thoughts on Darkman, the Liam Neeson movie? I heard it was originally going to be a Shadow movie.

I love Darkman very much, but I've realized recently that this love comes with some pretty bittersweet feelings at the story behind it.

Michael Uslan: I was going to produce a Shadow feature film with Sam Raimi, but Sam got consumed by back-to-back movies and we ran out of time. We were headed in a good, period piece direction and managed to do so without relying on yet another bout with Shiwan Khan. I later had another major director passionate to do The Shadow, but a person at the company wanted to do a modern day TV series instead, which ultimately did not go... - comment saved from a post in The Shadow Knows Facebook group

For those of you who only now got into The Shadow or don't remember, for much of the early 00s, when The Shadow basically had no current projects and Conde Nast was taking down webpages and fan content left and right, the only things that kept this "fandom" alive were occasional fanfics (many of which are gone now), and the dim light in the horizon that was the rumors that Sam Raimi was finally going to make his Shadow film. Dig back on The Wayback Machine for Shadow web page and you're gonna see this as consistently the only thing they had to look forward to in regards to the character. These rumors floated around for over a decade, at one point Tarantino was even supposed to direct it, but he confirmed in 2013 that it wasn't going to happen. At least, not with him at the helm.

The project has been dead for a while now, and Conde Nast seems to be shuffling around plans for the character, and I deleted my Facebook months ago so I haven't kept up with any news, although it seems the James Patterson novel wasn't received too well, so I'm not sure what other plans they have in the pipeline.

Back in the 1970s, after the release of Richard Donner's Superman and in line with The Shadow's pop culture resurgence, thanks to the paperback reprints and the 70s DC run, there were plans to make a Shadow feature film, and there were quite a handful of scripts being tossed around for the following years (Will Murray states most of them were horrible), several names attached to the project at one point or another. The plans died down a bit following Gibson's death and only really picked up again after the 90s, and of course we all know that the 1994 movie came out with spectacularly bad timing. From what I recall, it seems Sam Raimi wanted to make his Shadow film in the 80s, was unable to secure the rights, and then just made his own version, which would go on to be his first major motion picture.

Even after making Darkman, Sam Raimi still wanted to make The Shadow. I guess that's ultimately the bittersweet part for me. I imagine the current state of Shadow media would be significantly better if Sam Raimi, who was a fan of the character and the pulp version (and even knows of The Shadow's connection to Houdini and stage magic), got to make his Shadow film, years before Blood & Judgment, years before Burton's Batman made it impossible for a Shadow film not to be compared to it, in a time period where it wouldn't have had to compete with The Lion King and The Mask for box office. And second, I have been drawing up my plans for Shadow projects for, what, 5 years now? And I have just barely got my foot off the door as a filmmaker. Sam Raimi had a decade-long career as a cult filmmaker before he got turned down, and decades later, after becoming a household name in charge of Marvel's biggest icon, the project still fell through. It doesn't exactly get my hopes up, y'know.

I love Darkman, it's the best Shadow film that doesn't technically star the real Shadow, and it works pretty well on it's own regardless of that association, but I do get pretty sad looking at it from the outside, because I just can't help but think on what it could have been.

In some aspects I do think the film benefits from not being about The Shadow proper, because it means Raimi got the freedom to do whatever the hell he wanted. The character of Darkman already existed separately from Sam Raimi's plans for a Shadow film, already carrying off the Phantom / Universal Monster influence, and what Raimi did was basically combine the two ideas together.

He took the basic iconography of The Shadow, a terrifying urban crimefighter in coat and slouch hat, and add in other Shadow traits like his mastery of disguise, his disfigurement, and that wonderful scene where he's invisibly running circles around a panicky triggerman while laughing maniacally, a moment which definitely feels like Raimi taking a second to indulge himself to do what you can call The Classic Shadow Scene with a character he's, for the most part, succesfully convinced us (and Conde Nast's lawyers, most importantly) isn't supposed to be The Shadow.

But then he filters these through his own influences and style to make him a new character, so instead of a mysterious mastermind with lots of resources and a enigmatic background, instead he's a disfigured and psychotic scientist with a vengeance against those who made him that way. He's like Night Raven, in the sense that he's built off traits that The Shadow has, but develops them differently to the point he stands on his own as a character. It's The Shadow combined with The Phantom of the Opera, filtered through a 1930s Universal Horror lens, played for greater tragedy and a dash of Evil Dead 2 wackyness.

He hides away in trashed up ruins and bickers with a cat, he has fits of rage that make him endanger innocents, he has a doomed love affair, and sometimes he gets so batshit he gives us hilarious moments like "TAKE THE FUCKING ELEPHANT" and "SEE THE DANCING FREAK! PAY - FIVE - BUCKS! TO SEE THE DANCING FREAK!". Moments that really show why he was such a good fit for Spider-Man despite the liberties he took with the source material.

I think the big thing that helps to make Darkman works as a property in it's own right is also that, ultimately, these influences are ultimately at the forefront of it, and the core of it works on it's own. Darkman is a believable, engaging character in his own right, one who tells a story that would be more at odds with The Shadow proper. 

In some aspects, Darkman tries to be The Shadow, he is forced to become The Shadow by literally picking the clothes off a dumpster after he escapes the hospital, and it's a miserable, wretched existence, in a way rather befitting his status as a legally safe knock-off. He is a creature of nightmare who lost his face and takes on a dozen others to fight crime by turning terror against them, except he is still just a man in the end, and no man was ever supposed to live like this.

Raimi was also inspired by the Universal horror films of the 1930s and 1940s because "they made me fear the hideous nature of the hero and at the same time drew me to him. I went back to that idea of the man who is noble and turns into a monster".

He originally wrote a 30-page short story, titled "The Darkman", and then developed into a 40-page treatment. At this point, according to Raimi, "it became the story of a man who had lost his face and had to take on other faces, a man who battled criminals using this power"

A non-superpowered man who, here, is a hideous thing who fights crime. As he became that hideous thing, it became more like The Phantom of the Opera, the creature who wants the girl but who was too much of a beast to have her

I decided to explore a man's soul. In the beginning, a sympathetic, sincere man. In the middle, a vengeful man committing heinous acts against his enemies. And in the end, a man full of self-hatred for what he's become, who must drift off into the night, into a world apart from everyone he knows and all the things he loves.

For the role, Raimi was looking for someone who could suggest "a monster with the soul of a man"

It's the fact that Darkman is ultimately played for vulnerability and tragedy that really sets him apart. While I wouldn't go far enough to say The Shadow is a man with the soul of a monster, still, the difference in presentation is still there when it comes to these two. The Shadow is The Other, Darkman is You. Darkman is the victim of extraordinary circumstance that affects his life, The Shadow is the extraordinary circumstance that affects the lives of others. People react to The Shadow, Darkman reacts to people (and rather poorly).

One is the man who takes off his skin (or yours, staring back at you) to reveal the weird creature of the night ready to prowl and pounce and cackle at those who think they hold power over it's domain, and the other is the monster who falls apart bit by bit until you are left staring at the broken man within who has no choice but to be something he was never supposed to be.

The Shadow is The Master of Darkness. Darkman weaponizes the dark, but in the end, he's still just a man, lost within it. Not everyone can be The Shadow, and you would most likely turn into Darkman if you tried.

[magnhild]

Nora Valkyrie, Identity, and Purpose

Hey everyone, Blaire here, and almost exactly a year ago, I made this mess of a post where I laid out all of my thoughts on Nora and what I thought the show could have in store for her.

And honestly, most of my ideas were way off, and not at all correct. Also, the post kind of flopped.

Thankfully, Volume 8 has given me a chance to redeem myself, and write another, more coherent, essay about my favourite RWBY character; where this Volume seems to be taking her character, and what it means to me, personally.

Buckle up.

To the vast majority of people in the RWBY fandom, Nora is the least-developed character, and the one most lacking in dimension. Most of her character seems to be defined by two things; her energy and love for fighting, and her relationship on Ren.

Volume 8 took note of these conceptions, and addressed them head-on.

Of course, any keen-eyed viewer will have noted Nora’s hidden depths even before this volume, which I noticed in last year’s post. She is perhaps the most perceptive of the main cast, at least, when it comes to people’s feelings and relaionships. She was the only one to really comment on Pyrrha’s crush on jaune, and the first to bring up Blake and Yang’s growing relationship. It was also her level-headedness that resolved RNJR’s argument in Volume 4, Chapter 9.

Volume 7 also showed us her innate desire to protect the weak, and her disdain to those who have the power to help, but refuse. I personally get the feeling that this was her driving motivation in becoming a Huntress; to protect people who cannot protect themselves, perhaps because she doesn’t want anyone to have to grow up as she did. Nora’s fury at Ironwood in V7C7 is esepcially signifigant, because it’s the angriest we’ve ever seen her before, even more so in that this anger is directed at someone with much more authority than her.

But these little details were only the tip of the iceberg. These were traits she already had, and while they help to add layers to her character, they’ve done very little in terms of her actual development. 

This is where Volume 8 came in stronger than any other.

Volume 7 hinted to us that Ren and Nora’s relationship was beginning to get more complicated, between their bickering, Ren’s dismissiveness at Nora, and their kiss in V7C6. By the end of the volume, it was clear that they were still struggling, despite their clear love for each other. Volume 8 carried this thread along, having them split into different parties, and Nora giving Ren a bit of attitude we’ve not really seen her direct at him before. 

She’s frustrated with him, and disappointed that he can’t see what she sees. But despite her tough front, V8C2 then hints that she’s sadder about the split than she’s letting on, after May brings up Nora’s ‘friends’. C3 then brings this to a head, where we get a conversation that sees Nora opening up to Blake and Yang, and revealing a deeply sad truth about herself- that she has no idea who she is without Ren, because she’s spent so much of her life with him and him alone, and her feelings for him have shaped so much of who she thinks she is. We’ve never seen her so hopeless and lost, especially after she reveals that, as far as she’s concerned, all she’s good for is hitting stuff.

Right in these few minutes, the show takes how the audience percieves Nora, and reveals to us that those two core traits are the gateways to a far deeper insight of her character. She’s known for her relationship with Ren, but wait- what about when he’s not there with her? She’s known for hitting stuff, but wait- that’s all she thinks she’s good for. 

It’s revealed to us that, not only is this how most of the audience percievs Nora, but it’s how she percieves herself. And for all her energy and upbeat attitude, deep down, she thinks incredibely lowly of herself. For all her confidence in her fighting abilities, she lacks confidence in herself as a person. 

Surprisingly enough, the ‘who am I?’ character arc is one that was hardly explored at all up until this point, despite it being one of the most common and signifgant character arcs in fictional media. And I don’t think many of us at all could have imagined that Nora would be the one to get that arc, when she’s always seemed so self-assured on the surface.

And then, when Penny is in need of help, Nora takes Weiss’ advice to heart, and does the one thing she believes she’s capable of- being strong, and hitting stuff.

Nora overcharging her Semblance to take down the wall is seen by a lot of the fandom as some kind of win for Nora; as her ‘big moment’. But while it’s certainly a really cool and badass scene, it was far from a triumph for her.

This was Nora at perhaps her lowest point so far in the series. This was Nora figuring ‘well, if this is all I’m good for, I’ll do it to the extreme’. This was Nora thinking her only purpose was to greatly endanger herself for the sake of others, because she figured she was the only one who could. And she almsot got herself killed for it. 

While certainly a defining moment, it was far from triumphant. It wasn’t a win. It was a self-destrcutive act that reflected how little she thinks of herself; that she’s not worth anything unless she’s pushing herself to the limit doing the one thing she thinks she’s good at.

And to drive the knife in harder, it backfires horribly. 

Because now she’s bedridden and critically injured, with scars that are probably permanent; a reminder of her lowest point, forever marked on her body. She can’t fight now, can’t help at all, and Salem has launched her attack on Atlas.

And in her half-unconsious state in V8C7, she realizes this, delivering an absolutely heartbreaking line:

As far as she’s concerned, her last attempt at doing what she thinks only she can do- what she thinks is all she can do- has prevented her from doing anything of worth at all. She lost one half of herself when she split from Ren, and now she’s lost the other half too. The two things that she defines herself by are gone. And the worst part is, we don’t know if she’s awar of the fact Salem has begun her attack. We could very well see her fully wake up, only to realize that the world has begun ending while she was unconsious, and she can’t do anything about it.

Now, this scene, and Nora’s struggle in this Volume as a whole, hit home for me in particular.

If you follow me on Twitter, you’re probably aware that Nora is only of my hightest- and only- kins. And I’ve only been able to relate to her more and more after what we’ve got of her in this Volume.

I am chronically disabled. I have a connective tissue disorder known as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which fucks up my body in a multitude of different ways, but signifigantly affects the joints. For me, it hits worst in my back, ankles, and my fingers. The fingers are my main problem. To make matters worse, I’ve also been victim to intense pains in my shoulder, which came out of nowhere a couple of months ago and have only gotten worse since. The slightest movement aggrevates it. As any follower of mine would know, I am both an artist and a writer. I create both for fun, and I’ve studied writing as a profession. It is these things I’m known for being good at, and not much else. 

Thanks to my disability and my shoulder though, I have to do these things less. Even on perscription pain medication, it still hurts. It hurts to write this even now; my shoulder feels like it’s burning up from the inside. It will only get worse over time.

So, I’m finding myself in Nora’s position. I can’t do what I’m good at anymore, and I don’t know what to do with myself as a result. Not doing these things makes me feel lazy and unproductive, and makes me feel that the people around me will abandon me so long as i can’t keep providing them content. And I’ve gotta say, it hurts a lot, and I don’t just mean physically. 

Because of what I’m going through, it’s especially important to see my favourite RWBY character just so happening to be dealing with the same problem; the same loss of idenity and purpose. We don’t know who we are or what we’re good for without the things we think define us.

While I’m unsure of my own future though, I find comfort in knowing that Nora’s problem will be tackled and addressed; that her friends will help her to rediscover herself and find her true worth. And while we’ve got a while to go until we’ll be able to see the Volume continue, I’m incredibely excited to see where Nora’s arc goes, especially if we can get some backstory along the way. I find myself wondering if her life before Ren is part of why she thinks so little of herself without him- was it the way she was raised to think? Is this the fault of her childood circumstances? Or is this just something she developed on her own, after becoming too dependant on Ren for comfort?

Whatever answers we get, I have faith that Nora’s story will be told well, and I’m very sure that it’s only just beginning. Even if she finds her worth before the end of the volume, her story won’t be over yet, not when we’ve still likely got at least four more volumes to go after this one.

In just seven episodes, Nora Valkyrie has gone from one of the least developed characters, to one of the most interesting and relatable, at least, in my eyes. There is so much more depth to her character than having a crush on Ren, and being the strong girl who hits stuff. There’s a layer of tragedy to her character that we’re touching upon now, and I’m excited to dive into it.

Thank you all for reading!