#and then defend themselves and claim they're in the right and anyone who says otherwise is just a mindless hater

[furiousgoldfish]

I wasn't going to write personal posts on this topic, but this one is for all of the people who insist we are not allowed to call out narcissists for their actions, we are not allowed to call it 'narcissistic abuse', and what we're doing by saying that, is in fact, stigmatizing and marginalizing a group of people with a disorder.

I understand all of you want to be kind, and not accuse someone of being abusive, if they're presumed to be struggling with a disorder. Being accused yourself, that you're creating stigma if you do it, can feel uncomfortable and wrong. And to accuse those who are struggling the worst, of stigmatizing if they speak up about abuse, can be devastating.

Stigma, however, is not created in small, isolated communities of people who have no public voice, it's not created in the space where people go when they have nowhere else to turn to. The public does not listen to victims, they listen to the framing that makes it the easiest to ignore abuse. Which is, coincidentally, the abuser's narrative.

Hearing that narcissists are to be protected and that to say otherwise is evil, can easily take vigor if the most loud, aggressive and forceful people are yelling it, in a community of mostly scared, vulnerable individuals. So you relent and decide, it's simply kind to just defend whoever has a disorder, no matter what it is, no matter the consequences. You find it easier to not do research, to not look at reality, but pick whatever is the most convenient. If people yelling the loudest are saying 'narcissistic abuse doesn't exist! you're hurting people by saying it does!' then it's the easiest to repeat it and accept that it's right.

So now let's scale back a bit, and look at what is going on specifically in the community of abused and traumatized people on tumblr. You have a group of people who are claiming that the narcissists abused them, who can recount horrific, devastating, destructive, traumatic and severely damaging experiences of abuse by narcissistic parents or partners. People who have developed dissociative disorders, complex trauma, chronic conditions and a whole ordeal of mental disorders due to the extensive, long lasting abuse. Most of these people were children, when exposed to the narcissists. Most of these people have loved those narcissists with all of their hearts. For the most of them, it took half of their lifetime to realize abuse was going on, and that their symptoms were not imagined or without a cause. These people have been tortured, and are looking for a safe space.

You also have children here who are currently being abused, who are telling horror stories of their current reality where they're used, exploited, controlled, violated, their identity and humanity erased, who exist only as a resource to the narcissists. They're looking for a way to recognize what is happening to them, why are they feeling this awful, and how to get out.

And of course, you have people in this community who have been abused in other kinds of circumstances and by other kinds of abusers, and we're all trying to figure out what the truth is, who to blame, how to get out of abuse, how to gain freedom, how to stay safe. So it's a community of heavily traumatized individuals, most of them very vulnerable to future abuse, a lot of them children, a lot of them abused and sensitive to other kinds of grooming and abuse.

Narcissists are infiltrating this specific community and demanding to be promoted as safe and non-dangerous, to these specific people. They're not trying to appeal to general public, to psychologically healthy, to people who have resources and community to protect themselves from abuse, no, they're aiming at this specific, already-abused, already groomed, vulnerable, struggling, traumatized community of people, and threatening to smear-campaign, cancel, expel and banish anyone who doesn't accept to view them as harmless.

Why would they do this? Which safe and harmless person would put themselves in a group of traumatized and vulnerable people to bully and threaten them for the sake of 'public image' and 'erasing the stigma'? Tell me what is humane about this. Tell me what is humane about asking a victim of narcissistic abuse to be narcissist-positive on their trauma-related blog. Tell me what is normal about telling a victim of torture to say positive thing about their torturer, or to be expelled from their community as a punishment.

You are extending our torture. You are now the extension of our trauma.

And when you're out here saying 'not all narcissists', tell me how do you know which ones then? Do you know that if you're saying this to a child, they might then happily accept a narcissist in their life, who then might end up torturing the kid? You don't know which ones are dangerous, and neither do they. Are you okay with that? Can you feel peace in your heart knowing you helped this to happen? Can you look at yourself knowing you went and claimed, to a vulnerable, or already-traumatized child or a vulnerable person, to accept this potentially dangerous individual in their life, who then hurt them? Will you tell them it's their own fault and to 'stop claiming narcissists are abusive' if they confide it to you?

You're not even thinking of what will happen to those kids. I was left with narcissists alone. I was locked up in a basement. I was beaten. I was forced to play games where I would end up inevitably tortured and told it was my fault for 'losing'. I was brainwashed into believing that I'm not a human being. I was denied food if I didn't do as I was told. I was brutalized and almost murdered. I was told I would be dead if I tried to escape. I will never recover.

And I'm not even one of the worst cases. Children have been thru worse. Children are going thru it right now.

If you feel safe recommending to children and the vulnerable, to go and accept narcissists in their life, this is what you're risking. This is what some of them are capable of. You don't know which ones. Are you really going to use children and most vulnerable people in society, to test and see if the narcissists would torture them or not? You're really going to tell them to go and associate themselves with a group that has a high count of predators, just so that the predators in the groups wouldn't be upset or feel excluded? Just so you'd feel safe from being told off by them? So you wouldn't have to deal with them?

If you can put kids at risk and feel like you've done nothing wrong, then I don't care what else you have to say. You can no longer pretend not to know. You can't pretend that defending narcissists is a kind gesture. You can't pretend to be 'inclusive' when you barge into a community of victims and tell them to shut up about the abuse they worked so hard to recognize. You can't pretend you're faultless when you insist that the most vulnerable people in the population should be accepting and positive about the most dangerous group to them, so you'd have it easier, so you wouldn't have to even look at what narcissists have already done to us.

We're not your shield. We're not here to be scapegoats for your cowardice. We're not sacrificing children because it's so easy and convenient to bow down to bullies. It's been enough of this. Respect our boundaries. We don't want narcissists to have access to us.

[leothil]

The willing turning of a blind eye I have seen the most consistently is amongst buddie fans who have been here for a while though. That violently homophobic post that went around immediately following the finale was reblogged by quite a few people who have been in this fandom for years, who either completely ignored people calling it out or defended the OP/themselves because “it was just a joke.” And then they and plenty others proceeded to continue reblogging posts from that OP despite their unapologetic homophobia. That post is not even the only instance of homophobia I can think of perpetrated by longtime buddie fans and ignored or even supported by their friends. That is where the blind eye is being turned.

You seem very keen on putting the blame on just one side of the fandom. Listen, I've never claimed nor will you ever see me claim that there aren't #problematic people among the buddie shippers or that I don't wish that a certain subset of people would leave the fandom forever because god knows we'd be better off without them. But that specific post you're referencing got blown so wide out of proportion that I honestly can't believe what a shitshow it stirred. And I wrote enough that I'm putting a read more here so people can easily scroll past if they want to.

Yeah yeah people were tired and sensitive and up in arms after a season finale that didn't deliver quite as much as anyone hoped (that bobby/athena/amir storyline... i'm still dreaming of a better resolution to it, rip). But I'll be honest with you, I did not read that post as homophobic. I read it as a hyperbolic post on the hyperbolic website, and I know that's how a lot of other people also saw it. Now what started happening in the tags after a while is a different story, people were being vile as fuck there, and I kinda wish op hadn't posted it just so those comments wouldn't have found a breeding ground. And you're allowed to not like the post or think it was in bad taste (I did, hence why I didn't reblog it). But so much of the shitstorm was completely overblown, and as someone who waded into it a couple of hours late and was newly woken up I was in a constant state of ??? seeing accusations flying all over the place and having no idea what had happened. By the time I saw the post my reaction was more akin to "that's what they're upset about?" because I didn't have the same context of having been within the Discourse as it was happening, nor was I as keyed up as a lot of the people that had been getting increasingly more upset over the course of hours. And I'm not gonna try to say people were wrong to be upset about it because I'm not going to police anyone's feelings, but I can tell you that seeing it all from the outside (coming in hours later) there were at least three strands of discourse that were being tangled into one big ball of hurt feelings centering on this one post, and I stand by my wish that more people had watched the episode right after waking up instead of in the evening and then staying up late at night.

You're allowed to dislike the post and dislike its op for phrasing their dislike of the scene the way they did all you want, but the context that post was made in was not about hating a character for being gay or advocating for violence against gay men and it's disingenuous to say otherwise. *I* don't think it was a post that particularly needed to exist, especially not seeing what happened because of it, but it's since been used the same way people were saying that if you don't ship bucktommy you're biphobic (yes, that's a real take from this very webbed site) and like you're doing here, saying people are inherently bad for interacting with the blog that posted that post. A lot of people have no idea who they are or why other people are expecting them to stay away. They were not part of the Discourse and only saw the aftermath of it, but now it's become some Big Bad that people are assuming Everyone Knows About, and that is simply not true. You have got to be able to see some nuance even when it's about a person you dislike.

[cosmicjoke]

what is your take about the alliance going against Eren? Because a lot of people called them traitors and hypocrites because they are trying to save the world that hated them, killed their own people, allied with the warriors that tried to kill them at first. Even the alliance realized that letting Eren win would benefit them at the end but still decided to go after him because people didn’t deserve what’s happening to them. Do you think they were right in their position to stop Eren? Would it be a good idea to let Paradis island the only nation alive in the world?

I’m asking this because I keep seeing people saying that Eren wasn’t left with any choice and that the world deserved to die because of their oppression to the eldians and that the alliance just kept the problem going by the saving the rest of world.

what do you think?

Anyone who defends what Eren did is a moral idiot, I don't know what else to say. They're literally defending genocide, which is utterly indefensible. They completely miss the entire point of the story, and prove themselves to be morally bankrupt to boot. I don't want to even hear from anyone stupid enough to defend Eren's actions, or anyone claiming that the alliance "kept the problem going" by stopping Eren. If they really believe that a nation filled with radicalized, fearmongering fanatics who felt no qualms about using violence and threats of death to make people comply with their rule wouldn't have eventually just torn each other apart, then they're complete morons. These themes are clear and demonstrated again and again throughout the story. How, exactly, do they think the Eldian Empire fell to begin with? It was because of a power struggle within the empire itself. The same thing would have happened on Paradis, even if the rest of the world had been destroyed. In fact, the same thing DID happen to Paradis. The island was wiped out because of their isolationist, fanatical militarism and nationalism. They became a warring nation, and so eventually were destroyed by war.

The people in the alliance didn't betray anything. The cause of the Survey Corps was always to save humanity. Not Paradis, or the people of Paradis, but humanity as a whole. The Yeagerists took that and perverted and betrayed that ideal completely when they decided that it was okay to wipe out the rest of the world to save themselves. They were the traitors, not the alliance.

So, yes, I don't think, I know the alliance took the right position. There's no defending genocide. People that come away from this story thinking otherwise, or who actually think that's what the story was saying are too dumb to live, I swear to god.

[twilightguardian]

Didn't take long for Lilith's new review of Fixing RWBY's latest episode. She still lies, but guys

She's getting better.

I know, no one is more shocked than we that Lilith is somewhat starting to understand the concept of criticism and critique. Slow but steady, she is making progress. Everyone, let's cheer her on. Maybe someday she can achieve decent human being status. I was actually getting bored and thinking of stopping after this one with nothing to really respond to other than 'she's outright lying about what happens' but she's actually engaging again. You know, saving up whatever little scraps of points she makes and make a big master post of whatever she had to talk about.

It's honestly refreshed me a little, because there's stuff to actually bite into with this that can be talked about and discussed. Of course, we all know that Lilith doesn't want a conversation. She takes the first opportunity possible to block someone for disagreeing with her to the point where I wonder why she bothers engaging with anything at all.

Imagine thinking that RWBY: Fairy Tales' framing device was unique.

Actually, I'd say that last week's episode and Fairy Tales isn't really anything alike because apart from Taiyang fixing the story he reads to Ruby up like he's talking about himself and Summer, there's little connection. As far as I'm aware, there's no deeper thematic reasons why the characters are chosen the way they are, nor are the stories being read to them meant to be connected. It's implied Ozpin modifies a story that already exists in order to cater to his needs to warn about Salem.

Either way, I don't understand how this is a criticism. Why is it a bad thing that he used a rather common visual aide when regarding fairy tales? Even if he did just 'steal' it from the side story episodes, why is it a bad thing? Taking inspiration does not make you a bad writer. Lilith herself writes Glints Saga with inspiration from proper magical girl anime in mind. Should anyone be considered legitimate to call her a hack writer because she's taken inspiration from these stories to the point that her writing feels generic?

I wouldn't think so, and I'd defend Lilith if anyone tried that. But Lilith doesn't

An Asian character who has aspects of different Asian real world cultures given to her fictional culture is cultural appropriation. You know what, guys? She's right. We should just tell all the book publishers and script writers out there to just stop trying to write other cultures. Anyone, even people who belong to that culture, needs to just stop. They can only write vague modern Euro-American cultures and appropriate them into fictional settings otherwise it's bad.

I shouldn't have to explain much further why this is stupid. Also, you gotta love how she claims that Vernal is Raymond's "daughteru" despite saying once that she hates anime tropes, yet will not hesitate to use words that come from anime culture at the drop of a hat as long as it shits on a person she hates. Plus ignoring or erasing the women who designed Vernal all by themselves who are more attached to Vernal than Raymond is. Like Mupa.

A lot of Fixing's Vernal was created by Mupa. She's much more Mupa's daughteru than she is Raymond's. But, you know, it's par for the course with Lilith to ignore anything a woman does as long as she can complain about a man. She claims she doesn't hate men, but man, when you ignore a woman's contribution to a project just so you can focus your hatred on a man, that's something special right there.

But the SH barely get any note from Lilith at all. They're treated like they're slaves under Raymond when they practically take over the project from him. So much work and personal touches go into everything the artists do that Raymond has not a whole lot of say in other than final approvals, and even then, I believe it's more a group approval.

Beside that, she said that last week's episode Vernal got more focus than the titular heroines. Since when? Vernal got two scenes, one of which she was a gravestone in the background. I suppose it makes sense that things that are in the background are focused on with Lilith. I mean, she likes canon Team RWBY and they're in the background a lot so she's trained to look here lol

What does what other critics say have anything to do with what Raymond and the SH say? Why bring up Volumes 7&8 at all when this season of Fixing is about Volume 6?

Besides, Lilith is the one that dismisses anything that Team RWBY does that's remotely bad and scream misogyny. That's her whole schtick as a one-trick pony.

But I do commend her in that she does bring up something that she thinks is a problem with the "critics" community, even if it has no place here. After all, we had entire episodes dedicated to the girls of Team RWBY being the central focus of the story and Lilith dismisses that and ignores it and claims that because Roman had three minutes of screentime in a 20 minute story that he was the main character. So her criticism here isn't valid, and only highlights that she's desperately grasping at straws due to her incessant need to 'criticize the critics' as though she's giving us a taste of our own medicine.

But for her to do that she actually has to understand what criticism is in the first place. By her behaviour and the people she interacts with, it's not that illogical to say that she genuinely believes that criticism is being mean for the sake of being mean. So she's being some sort of hero to the RWBY community by being mean back to the meanies. Like she's on a playground for toddlers beating on some schoolyard bullies. She paints everyone she disagrees with as a hivemind, which is why she brings up unrelated criticisms by unrelated people for unrelated slights.

The easiest way to debunk a claim that someone has is to point out the flaws of their logic with actual examples of the show. Most people don't do this whenever I see people talk in opposition to it. Or they just point out the characters having existed in the same space at the same time as something happening as evidence that they are important. But Lilith doesn't do this. She just says 'nuh-uh' and moves on. Because that's what criticism is, a back and forth with (hopefully) points being brought up using examples from the show to prove the point one is trying to make.

What makes Lilith's criticisms invalid is that she has to purposefully lie in order to actually criticize anything about Fixing RWBY. If she actually stopped being such a cringy child and laid out her points properly they can be addressed. But the only thing she ever does is scream and capslock and cry buzzwords thinking that baseless accusations are the same as criticism.

JNR still got an episode in canon that did the exact same thing that this episode of Fixing does. A lot of people criticized that episode for focusing on Jaune when it should have focused on Oscar. People criticized the show for being mysterious about the redheaded woman as though it was one big mystery and the show treated her like she was a ghost, disappearing out of sight after looking away for only a moment. The writers wanted you to leave it up to your interpretation and Raymond thought that was stupid when it is so clearly Pyrrha's mother.

Personally I joke if RT is gonna jerk people around like that and say 'I'll leave it up to your interpretation' that the redheaded woman is a Buffalo Bill-style superfan who got plastic surgery to look like the object of her obsession lol

Because if you're gonna be cute with something that unnecessary I might as well have fun with the challenge. I'm sure RT approves because they're like that.

It's only been 8 episodes, girl needs to chill. But she's been saying that she doesn't think we'll be going to Brunswick Farms since last volume because she desperately wants it to be true.

Honestly, I have heard a couple of other people say this point, so I think it's a fair 'fear' to have. But I'm not sure where people get the idea that just because we saw the flashback of Remus on Brunswick Farms that means Brunswick has already been done. Did Lilith and the like forget that when RWBY got there that the people were already long dead and gone? Fixing just establishes how long ago that was. We're heading to Brunswick in the next few episodes and considering V6 is going to have 20-22 episodes like the other volumes of Fixing, we're probably going to spend a fair few of them at Brunswick. I don't know, I thought that was obvious.

Also another reference to Roman being the main character because Lilith desperately wants that to actually be the case. Roman is secretly her favourite character, she is just too stubborn to admit it so she has to give off this mask that she actually hates him. Like she brings it up so much.

I think this is a fair thing to raise up. It could be answered with a simple: People are still scared, and just because they're out of danger doesn't change that. They could have died, and half their train got derailed. Based on the drawings, some of the passengers look to be in shock, one is clearly injured, one is an old woman. Plus it's kind of Cardin's job. He's paid to look after the passengers until after they get off the train. The rest of the passengers are getting off the train fine, so it's assumed they're helping who needs to be helped.

Focus goes to Cardin, who is employed by the train, for like two seconds. But Lilith never misses an opportunity to focus on men existing in any capacity for any amount of time. Especially if it's her beloved Roman or Cardinposting. Jaune asks about the Atlas base, which Cardin answers, but Lilith forgot that or something. Who cares it's two men talking. Ignore the women, complain about men. That's what Lilith does.

Lilith says Cardin shouldn't care about his teammate.

I gotta ask why Lilith even cares. She ignores anything the heroines do in Fixing. Even if it were true that Fixing outright ignores the heroines. But typical Lilith fashion, it's not.

Cardin says he requested a scouting party to look for the missing train, then he's going to search for Russell. Nora asks about Team RWBY and Jaune tells Nora, not Cardin, to not worry because he trusts Team RWBY's strength as huntresses. The same can't be said for Lilith, I guess. Does she think the girls need to be rescued? It's not like canon JNR sent a search party either. They got zero focus until RWBY+OQM got to Argus and canon JNR were nonplussed about them. So canon JNR knew RWBY would be okay, whether they cared much or not. It's fine for Fixing to not only do the same but for JNR to actually acknowledge it. It's a non-issue.

Also, I thought Roman was the self-insert, not Cardin. Make up your mind, Lilyboo.

"Roman's faithful servant". Look at how Lilith treats female characters. She ignores anything the main female cast do and she belittles Neo by saying something as derogatory as that. She calls Vernal 'Raymond's daughteru' and ignores the female contribution to Fixing. For someone who claims to be all about female characters and women, she sure does not treat women very well at all.

I also find it very fascinating how much we get into Lilith's insight into what she really thinks about RWBY by reacting to Fixing. She thought Cinder's interactions with Lil' Miss was boring in canon because she calls it 'prattling'. Methinks she's upset that Neo doesn't fight Cinder in this scene because she doesn't want to admit it's the only thing she liked about it. It's okay to only like RWBY for the fight scenes. The writing doesn't help make it interesting otherwise.

She didn't complain about anything else about the scene, so I assume she liked it.

She's complaining about the fact that Jaune, Nora and Ren aren't following Saphron into the grocery store to grab a single box of nuggets.

No one said they couldn't go into the store, but there's no reason to. She told them about a coffee shop, hinting that because of the incident at Beacon that prices are going up. What would they do at the grocery store, follow her around as she rushes to get nuggies and then take up space in line? They aren't customers, so they'd be loitering.

You mean now she's not the only focus like she's the only one who died. Remember, in Fixing a lot of people died during the Fall of Beacon. It was a real event. And the memorial got changed from a rather tasteless statue of one girl meant to manipulatively tug at the viewer's heartstrings into a memorial honouring everyone who died equally. Like in real life. Because this mural was based on one that exists in real life in Australia. JayJay and I actually talked about it earlier. It's based on the Australian war memorial in Canberra. So Lilith effectively is shitting on the concept of memorializing people who died who aren't just a main character, acting as if one person is important isn't stupid. If Pyrrha was the only one that died, fine. But it's never established in canon, from my recollection that Pyrrha is the only one who died. But Fixing is not canon and it changes to reflect previous changes that were set up.

She's "just" a name on a wall. How disrespectful to actual memorials around the world who honour more than one person this way.

Bad form, Peter.

She admits it. She admits it's not actually a trainwreck! Pack it up people she outed herself! Fun's over the troll exposed herself with a better twist ending than Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles!

I kid, of course, but I already discussed this.

It's all about Jaune. Iiiinteresting. There's no issue with Nora or Ren being in pain of their teammate having died. No, Pyrrha's death is all about Jaune, and Nora and Ren's only part in the story should be about how they should cater to Jaune and his feelings and Lilith is surprisingly okay with that. No, Lilith doesn't care about Nora, either, I suppose. If she doesn't think that Nora's guilt over how their fight didn't end before Pyrrha's death didn't get resolved means she gets focus, too. Lilith doesn't want that, though. How dare Nora or Ren grieve over Pyrrha, she only existed for Jaune.

Also, like, she thinks that one episode should encompass Jaune's entire grieving process related to Pyrrha and suddenly he should be okay with everything. After episode 8. Remember, there's at least 12 episodes left, and Helen made it clear we're going to be seeing her again. Lilith is really itching but she keeps getting blueballed because it doesn't resolve quickly enough. Maybe that's why she dislikes Fixing.

Lilith thinks that scenes have to start something, and then end it or else it's bad. It's a very childish way of looking at story writing, but I'm sure she'll have a very successful career writing shows for Treehouse TV or something. Toddlers will probably enjoy her work.

Plugging your ears and closing your eyes means that nothing happens.

Also, Lilith, be a dear and tell us when Cardin has abused anyone in the last 4 volumes of Fixing. Otherwise, he's not an abuser. Because he, like many of the other characters in Fixing, have gone through character arcs to become better people. I know, I know, it's the worst when characters actually have depth to them, but that's the price you pay for good writing.

You know, for as much as Lilith thinks that she's mimicking RWDE and other 'critics' of RWBY, she doesn't comprehend how to actually do it. I get there's probably people in the fandom who have said bad takes, or don't know how to argue their points well, but Lilith really feels the need to mimic those people and act like she's mocking those that actually make good, well thought out arguments from a place of knowledge.

She doesn't say how anything that happened in this episode invalidates plotlines and character growth that can happen. She's just preemptively blowing her proverbial load as usual, and all that's coming out is hot air. Lilith is bloated with hot air bigger than Violet Beauregarde when she was at full blueberry. Sadly, there's no method outside of fiction to juice her.

Now, before I go I actually wanted to say one final thing for those who are interested in my talking about critique and writing. Critique, criticism and especially 'fixing' things is not new, nor is it unique to the RWBY fandom. It's something that is common in writing circles, and becoming more common in other areas as well.

To show how very much not unique to RWBY this is, here's a bunch of videos I liked for various reasons pertaining to critique and to fixing stories. Highly recommend Unresolved Textual Tension, they're a favourite. And of course Krimsonrogue.

[leqclerc]

Sigh. As much as I love and respect Laurent and personally believe he’d be a much more palatable TP than Binotto this unfortunately points towards a bigger issue within the team, this idea of constantly reiterating that nothing’s wrong, there’s no reason to change anything, most of their poor results are down to outside factors, no one really understands their plight, etc.

Granted, they’re hardly going to openly admit morale is poor or whatever, but not taking responsibility and doggedly defending bad decisions, when everyone else can clearly see many, many costly mistakes were made, is not a good look either. It’s difficult to feel sympathetic when the team’s policy so far has largely been denial (there’s no reason to change anything within the team), deception (claiming the race in Hungary was unwinnable regardless of strategy simply because the car had “no pace,” which was absolutely not true for Charles), and delusion (there’s no reason we can’t win the remaining 10 races), or some mix of the three. It’s frankly insulting. To Charles, to all the people back at the factory who worked so hard to make a championship contending car, and to all the fans tuning into this clown show. In all my years of following F1/Ferrari, I don’t recall a time when they so blatantly made so many bad calls with such frightening consistency. It’s not just a genuine mistake here and there. It’s week in, week out; the rule, more so than the exception at this point. You can comfortably go into a weekend and predict that the pitwall will do something to compromise Charles’s race and be correct more often than not, and that’s concerning.

And now, a little over halfway through the season, they’re closer to Mercedes in the standings (30 points difference) than Red Bull (97 points), who started off as their main rival for the championship(s). My prediction? They’re going to be pipped for second by Mercedes and ultimately finish the season in P3 in the Constructors’ standings. Mercedes. The Mercedes whose resurgence was supposedly a good thing for Ferrari, because it would “take points away from Red Bull.” Yep. P3. From P1. P3, where they finished last year, a result that was considered a massive success for their then-midfield car, coming off the back of a disastrous season. And the worst part is, should it happen, it will be absolutely deserved. P3 is just a more accurate reflection of their goals and ambitions than P1. After all, Binotto shamelessly moved the goal posts while the championship fight was already well underway and downplayed their ambitions from winning a title to just winning some races here and there.

In its current form, with its current attitude, this is not a team that has a genuine hunger and determination and desire to win championships. When Red Bull or Mercedes lose out, they are sick. They’re disappointed, they (generally) hold themselves accountable, and they analyse their weaknesses in order to come back stronger at the next opportunity. To them, anything less than a win is not good enough, especially when they know they have the car and drivers to achieve such results. They’re always pushing for more, bigger, better. There’s ambition there to win - and not just a race, but races, and, crucially, titles. Ferrari, meanwhile, seem to be content with mediocrity, treating the ultra-competitive sport that is Formula 1 like it’s a school sports day, where everyone’s a winner simply for showing up and participating.

In the past their title bids have also been flawed and ultimately fruitless (2017, 2018) but, I don’t know, at least I could feel they tried, they wanted it, which is more than I can say for the current pitwall/management. It’s this feeling that they just don’t care, that they’ve thrown in the towel much too prematurely and are now pretending this was the plan all along...that’s the inexcusable part. To have everything in your grasp, have the driver, have the car at your disposal...and then so carelessly dismantle everything for no discernible reason. If there is one given behind the scenes for this fiasco, then we’re not privy to it.

If the management, the people who hold actual executive power, who are responsible for making important decisions, really and truly see no issue with how the team is being mishandled at the moment, the way it’s failing to reach its full potential, then this malady is more serious than we initially thought. If there’s only talk of “learning lessons” and no actual, tangible action follows - worse, if the same mistakes keep being repeated over and over and keep being defended in the face of fair, constructive criticism, then the team has a massive problem, and I can’t, right now, see any clear solution. They are insane for this (derogatory). After all:

[ruthlesslistener]

Frankly i am so tired with "PK and WL" are colonizer... first, she is an ancient tree, she probably was born in hallownest eons ago (she probably CAN'T move around great distances so she either hided during the radiance time or was saw as a minor deity), in other hand, the people who worshiped the void was wiped out of existence due The Radiance "you are with me or you are my enemy", at least PK was "all right you other gods stay in your lane and we all ok" (+)

(+) they are gods, they dont really understand (or care in some cases) mortal lives...even Unn who is the most hands off (ha) of her followers, she hide herself and left them to believe she abandoned them to the plague.

...

Yeah same here, though I'm hesitant to say that PK was in any way better than the Radiance because Unn herself is pretty damn old, which indicates that she and Radi likely lived in harmony before PK bc they weren't fighting for the same caverns. But hard agree on WL being native to Hallownest's caverns, because her roots are spread all over the kingdom, which indicates that she lived in Hallownest her whole life. So she literally can't be a colonizer, because these are her native lands, she just didn't have power at the time- AND she married the Pale King, whom she is still very fond of even after his death. The Radiance, on the other hand? We got no idea when she came to Hallownest, let alone if she was hatched there. What we DO know is that the Void civilization appears to be the oldest instance of bugs and gods in the caverns, and that they mysteriously 'dissapeared' before the Radiance gained power, which leads me to believe that they are the true natives and she was the one that destroyed them- esp. since Seer mentions how she tires of 'history's repetitions' when talking about the gods

Also, the thing with Radi losing power? It wasn't because of some violent takeover, as PK himself didn't engage with her directly. He literally just convinced the moth tribe to change sides. Sure, these are just the developer notes, but seeing as the idea persisted to the final game, I don't see why I shouldn't accept this as a somewhat rough explanation of what happened in canon

And like. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not defending what PK did or claiming that what he tried to do was justified, since this sort of shit is really serious and could count as cultural genocide. But it's important to note that the moths managed to keep their culture through the years and that there is no mention of the Pale King himself being the reason they died out, so it's likely that they were simply incorporated into Hallownest after he took it over. I don't believe his claims that he gave bugs mind in the slightest, but after seeing how Radi herself seizes control through the infection, my guess is that she likely did not allow anyone but her moths the freedom of will, and all he did was break that control. Radi gives me very Bad Christian God vibes tbh, in that she only allows you to accept her rule and will brutally punish you if you don't follow her every whim, so I really wouldn't put that sort of thing past her. Count in how she has an angel aesthetic vs Grimm's devil aesthetic, and it becomes even more apparent. Really Radi is more of a crusader than anything else, determined to burn out what she considers to be her enemy- the void- despite it literally just vibing otherwise

I also really despise equating what the gods did to colonization, because actual colonization is so much worse than whatever happened in Hollow Knight. We have no proof that the bugs who followed PK weren't native to the caverns, and the gods themselves don't follow along mortal ethics, either- the reason why they're securing this power struggle is because they NEED worship to survive, so if anything, they're like giant animals fighting over resources, caring little for how their followers live or if they get trampled in the process. There's also no proof of each of the different cultures within Hallownest being snuffed out by the current god, as they only get punished if they show deference to the 'wrong' one. Combine those points with how we KNOW there was a void civilization before Radi and that it has been OBLITERATED from the records, and, well...the lore really points to Radi being the one who initiated all the genocide, with the shift from her reign to PK's coming about simply because she was no longer as popular with her source of energy as the shiny new light in town was.

TDLR: What the gods did is in no way even CLOSE to colonialism, and even if it was, then it would be the Radiance's destruction of the Void Civilization that would be the closest instance of it, while PK (WHO IS STILL IN THE WRONG BTW IM NOT DEFENDING HIS ASS) just kinda booted her out and took over the shop, perhaps because he just so happened to fall in love with another god that was already living there (WL).

[messmersflame]

made a post criticising the sexualisation of asian women, specifically japanese women in this case (in genshin specifically, which is made by mihoyo who literally call themselves 'otakus' btw. them being chinese does not make them immune to criticism), pointed out that one of the ppl in the conversation was in fact japanese and had every right to criticise that and well.

it led to... Something. like I'm so fucking tired of people that do this shit like.

1. assuming anyone who says you're racist is american?

2. acting as if america invented the concept of being against the sexualization of women

3. saying that people shouldn't sexualize asian women is conservative and puritan and THEN implying that all japanese people are conservative as if that isn't fucking racist as hell

serves me right for even engaging the fucking hetalia blog that says it's not antisemitic and racist and uses the fact that they're apparently jewish to defend it (lol) but im just

like idk how to tell u that America is not the only place that has racism-

they also told me to suck their cock and said other ableist stuff so that's cute.

im also not gonna say i heavily doubt that they are in fact mixed and jewish as they claim to be but they sure sound like someone has been drinking the white fash juice at the very least

like im genuinely GENUINELY so fucking sick of ppl acting as if calling out sexualization and racism is an american thing that was made up by american puritans that want to control media, and then getting really disturbing and aggressive when told otherwise. it's also disturbing that they automatically assume that the person telling them they're wrong is... not any of the people targeted by those things, and those that ARE are just wrong and are evil for being mad at it.

like are you hearing yourself? you really think america is the only country that doesn't like racism and sexualising women? you really think that non japanese people sexualizing and fetishising women is empowerment?? you really think it's just white gentile americans that have a problem with it? you really think that poc being upset about their culture being fetishised and disrespected is 'conservative'? you really think it's appropriate to tell the people affected by some of these things that they're brain dead and should suck your cock??

i wish all people like this a very drop a toaster in your bathtub

[gffa]

I think the thing with fans opinions on the Jedi is they tend to be one extreme or the other, with both usually claiming there are far more people on the opposing side (which makes them defensive over their opinions). It's not bad, or that they're wrong, but people who feel like the Jedi are praised too much tend to ignore any time they were right or doing their best even if they fail, and people who feel they are criticised too much tend to ignore any valid criticism and make any issues (1/2)

not their fault. And even when people say they acknowledge things, a lot of people have a but after that statement, which seems contradictory to such a claim. Also, there’s so much Star Wars media that has different opinions on those things, so even just depending on what media you’ve consumed, your opinion will be different. (2/2)

Hi!  One of the biggest problems I’ve found is that one person’s valid criticism is another person’s unfair criticism.  What you might consider as me dismissing a valid criticism, as someone who is a fan of the Jedi, may be me going, “I disagree with that being a valid criticism.”  My disagreement is not the same thing as a dismissal in that case.I’m not beholden to anyone else’s interpretations of what is or isn’t valid criticism, just as no one is beholden to what I say is valid and what isn’t.  We can only make our cases, respect each other, not make ad-hominem commentary or treat each other poorly over fictional stories and characters, other than that, we have to make our peace with others disagreeing with our approaches on things.  Or at least we should be doing that!I do find that things get pushed into extremes and it’s incredibly hard to meet back in the middle–for a variety of reasons (again, as I’ve experienced, no part of fandom is a monolith, I can only speak on what I’ve personally been through!), like how even the slightest flaw I talk about tends to get amped up into “Yeah!  The Jedi are terrible!” responses and I have to go back to going, “No, that’s not it.” and defending them.  (In addition to the “I disagree that that’s a valid/invalid criticism.” aspect.)And I do find that it’s usually only Jedi fans who are being scolded for ignoring criticism–where is the same attitude when it comes to Luke or Ahsoka or Leia or the Mandalorian?  So, it gets really hard to take calls for more Jedi criticism in good faith when it only ever seems to be the Jedi fans who get this.  (And maybe Ahsoka fans are being asked to be more critical of her, maybe they are being criticized for dismissing valid talk about her flaws, but I’m genuinely not seeing it.  This doesn’t mean that you’re not being genuine, I believe that you are!  But my experiences come with different associations than yours, I suspect, which means my approaches are going to be different.)For me, I’ve found that there’s an expectation for Jedi fans to meet in the middle and admit to a list of flaws that someone else wrote up, and if we don’t, we’re dismissing valid criticism, and I just very thoroughly disagree with that entire framework.  (Again, not everyone is putting that out, no part of fandom is a monolith, only that this is something I’ve experienced multiple times.)  It’s fine if you don’t!  We do experience fandom differently and register various things differently–I register the expectation to agree to someone else’s interpretations otherwise I’m being a terrible, awful Jedi stan, probably way more than you do, as someone who aligns more towards the middle ground, for example.  I see it constantly and maybe you’ve hardly seen it at all.  Both of these experiences can be true for each of us!So, for me, I don’t see a need to adjust my lenses (in the sense of adjusting to someone else’s specifications, I adjust my own all the time) or come down from someone else seeing me as being extreme, because my framework is my own and I’ve given it a lot of thought and I have my reasons for why I’m in the position I’m in.It’s funny, because I came to fandom as extremely Jedi-critical, that just a few years ago, I did the whole “they were kind of a cult” and “they died because they didn’t adapt to the galaxy’s needs” and “they kind of brought their doom on themselves” and “they suppressed emotions” and “they did a lot of fucked up things” and “Obi-Wan didn’t support Anakin at all, who was desperately seeking help” and “that was the POINT of the prequels that the Jedi were stagnant and corrupt”.  That was my starting point and I slowly started moving towards the middle ground once I got deeper into the canon, and started writing more meta as I watched/read more of it, and started reading more of George Lucas’ interviews, and thought a lot about this stuff, and eventually ended up here.It’s not that I can’t ever fathom a world in which I would be more critical of the Jedi, because that’s where I originally was.  And after all that, I just really thoroughly disagree with a lot of what I’ve seen presented as valid criticism of the Jedi.  It’s fine that others don’t, this is a fictional story and it’s far more important how we treat each other as actual human beings, I get along fine with plenty of people who see things in a different framework than I do, who think different things are valid/invalid!There’s also a ton more that goes into this (including “which version of SW are we talking about here? Legends? Canon? George’s SW?” or women have expectations placed on them by society to soften everything they say with a ‘oh, but that’s just my opinion!’ or trail up their voices at the end of a sentence to make it a question rather than a statement of theirs or how fiction is really not a 1:1 to reality, that fiction is an extension of reality, not the other way around) that we could be here all day to just lay out the complications, not even actually talking about how to approach them!Ultimately, we all have different views on various aspects of SW and of course we can talk about them, as long as we’re genuinely respect of others’ boundaries and their experiences as real people over the emotional investment we have in a story.  I’ve said this for years and I WILL SAY IT AGAIN [holt.gif] – fandom is like an entire group of us watching a movie and drawing a picture of it afterwards.  Every person is going to draw a different picture–some are going to use purple to color the clouds in the sky, some are going to use blue, and some are going to use bright green.  Some people are going to use colored pencils, some are going to use markers.  Some are going to draw a picture that is wildly different from your own, in ways you can’t predict.  But it’s their drawing and your drawing is yours, what they do with theirs doesn’t affect your drawing, so long as they’re not yelling at you for the colors you chose to use.(The metaphor is about lenses of interpretation, not about how you behave towards other fans, etc.)

[segasister]

Based on your conversation with dudes107, this anon here think you and several others seem to care more about keeping up your social justice bonafides than acknowledging the very real problems with certain things people say that are inherently vitriolic and violent no matter who or what they're aimed. These are the kinds of loopholes that even the ABUSERS you recognize like LILIAN VALERIE PEET (NOT ORCHARD, SHE STOLE THAT NAME FROM HER EX) will use to escape getting the boot as they deserve.

So does that mean that the atrocious actions of the people mentioned in said conversation no longer matter? That the terrible things they did should just be forgotten about just because they’re dead and gone? Lemme ask you the following:

Were you weeping on the day that Charles Manson died?

Did you shed tears for Mark Salling after his passing?

Did your heart go to the loved ones of Jeffrey Epstein when his death was announced?

Osama bin Laden?

Saddam Hussein?

Any other piece  of human bile who committed atrocities on any scale?

If you answered yes to any of the above, then you don’t understand either. What these people did was completely awful, violent or otherwise. It would feel wrong to mourn them in any capacity, unless you knew them personally, because that would be an insult to the many people they’ve hurt. Is celebrating their deaths too far? Possibly, but I would most definitely feel disgusted with myself if I did the opposite.

If you answered no, then why are we here? I didn’t respond the way I did out of obligations of social justice, but because I hate seeing anyone defending terrible people just because they’re safe in their graves, i.e. the very real problems that they themselves caused. Something bad doesn’t have to happen to you specifically, or to anyone in your inner circle, in order for it to be a problem; but then again, I’m hoping you already knew that.

You notice I never brought him up, because that’d fall under Godwin’s Law, but there are still people who mourn his passing over seventy-five years later, and yet claim to not support him or his ideals. And some of those same people would chastise others for being happy that he’s gone and can no longer hurt anybody else.

That’s what I got from them: they’d use death, including their own father’s (which feels incredibly scummy, by the way), as a means to yell at people who don’t respond, “morally correct,” to that death, something that would fall under the, “social justice bonafides,” that you brought up. They read as someone who would tolerate intolerance because that would be tolerant of them, and not tolerating intolerance wouldn’t be tolerant of them.

I myself used to be Centrist and realized just how awful I was because I’d do the same thing they’re doing now: for example, say that it was wrong to celebrate someone dying just because. Now? I realize that some double standards need to be in place. You have to be intolerant intolerance because otherwise, nothing good would be tolerated. I remember being conflicted over a college question because, in allowing Natives to wear their headdresses to graduation, I’d also allow certain other people who I will not name to wear any insignia representing their movement, even though they’re not one and the same.

And that’s another issue with being a Centrist: equating things that can’t be equated. Of course a YouTube critic with a minor following who is also a serial abuser is not going to have the same weight as a radio host with a large following who influenced said following into being terrible people. Both are bad. Condemning one does not mean condoning the other. Alternatively, you don’t have to hate Trump but like Biden; you can very well hate both of them equally. Ironically, moving further left made me realize this (I’d argue that I was always left-leaning, and only claimed to be Centrist to appeal to my right-leaning family, but I digress).

So in conclusion, I know very well what I was talking about in my discussion with them. Is it wrong to say certain things about certain people, yes. However, certain other people deserve that vitriol, because an actual celebrity is not the same as someone like you or me. Do you understand that much? Anything I need to clarify?