#because twitter is like. if you disagree on the majority opinion you will get killed

[welivetodream]

✨ My BSD hot takes/unpopular opinions ✨:

1. Identifying BSD characters as Queer, is not problematic. STOP being so Heteronormative. Gay characters are not gonna kill you.

If I see another "BuT tHe ChArAcTeRs nEvEr SaId tHeY aRe GaY" I would bomb you 💣/j

2. Skk/SSKK/Fyolai/other popular ships, exist because people like it. If you don't ship them, don't engage with their content. Not all shippers act crazy and toxic. Stop blaming everything on shippers.

3. Atsushi/Kyouka is problematic, stop justifying it with "only 4 year age gap". Kyouka is a CHILD, ship her with Kenji if you want. Atsushi, like a normal 18 year old would never look at a highschool freshman and date her. Even if they date in the future, he knew her when she was younger and they had a sibling like dynamic. Lucy is a way better love interest to Atsushi (Don't know if this is an unpopular opinion tho, but I saw some people justifying it 😐😐😐)

4. DAZAI IS NOT EVIL. HE IS FAR FROM EVIL. He is, despite being super popular and the face of BSD, the most mischaracterized and villified character. Morally grey characters exist??!!!

5. Mori is a way worse person than Dazai ever was.

6. PM members get a free pass for any heinous crime they commit by being hot or babygirl-ified (still love them tho, we do not often discuss how bad their actions have been, you can like criminals and acknowledge they are criminals in fiction. I would add DoA to this too, but it's worse with the PM)

7. Akutagawa's abuse of Kyouka shouldn't be forgotten just because Dazai abused Akutagawa.

8. Mori emotionally manipulated and abused Dazai when he was a teen. Just because it wasn't physical, doesn't mean it was nothing.

9. Atsushi is NOT a soft boy, he is way bitter, salty and sarcastic than we give him credit

10. Poe is important to Ranpo and their friendship/relationship is wholesome as hell

11. Ranpo and Yosano's friendship is way better than them being in a relationship in the future

12. FukuFuku is better than Fukumori (imo!!!!)

13. Buying real authors work after watching BSD is actually a really good thing, since more Gen z kids (or other people) will read classics

14. There are layers to Atsushi and Akutagawa relationship/rivalry, and they have the MOST important relationship (not meaning romantic, just in general) in the entire canon.

15. Kunikida and Yosano could be a power couple

16. Fyodor is not a great villain (yet)

17. Nikolai CARRIES the DoA

18. Sigma shouldn't be in the ADA, he needs a happy home, family and some time to adjust to normal life

19. Q and Elise are both underused characters and could become a great dynamic

20. Ango deserves more love, the amount of pressure and stress he deals with is INSANE

21. It's OKAY if everyone joins the fandom for Dazai or skk (I did at first too!!)

22. Higuchi is annoying as hell. I do not get her hype, I like her but not as much as most people (just personal opinion, do not flame me 😭)

23. Everyone in The Guild is forgettable or boring (except Fitzgerald, Poe and Lucy. I like Louisa, but I forget her all the time)

24. Hetero ships are just not that great/interesting in BSD to me 🤷🏻‍♀️ (except maybe AtsuLucy or rare pairs) and female characters are not best utilised, I wish they play more major roles (can't wait for Agatha to arrive!!)

25. Some fan theories/arts get the story better than "canon" stuff at times. Fanon is NOT always the worst (sometimes enjoyable when the canon gets too dark or sad)

26. Toxic ships are okay in fiction as long as they are legal. Humans like toxic things, we consume it like junk food 💅🏻

(These are all personal opinions of mine and do not matter. Feel free to disagree. But, do not hate or be toxic!!!! 😇😇😇😇)

(PS: I compiled all these because of posts I have seen in, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter and sometimes Tiktok. These aren't really abt you Tumblr folks. I meant to post this on reddit but did not have the courage or mental strength lol)

[pseudophan]

i feel like i've talked a lot of shit about "twitter phannies" lately and i just wanna clarify i obviously don't mean everyone with a dnp twitter account like if anything i'm sure more than half are perfectly lovely it's just, y'know, the nature of twitter is so that all the most annoying tweets will always get pushed in your face and so they stick out and thus all the most obnoxious people rule the topics of the day on there. if you're on phannie twt and you don't suck ily you're great don't worry

[cloudmancy]

which is worse: d20 tumblr or d20 twitter?

this is such a funny question. frankly I prefer talking with my existing friends over discord over either of them but here's a breakdown of my experience with them

d20 tumblr

feels like a more isolating experience because of the way tumblr is set up in general as a platform. I follow relatively few people here, so all my interactions are from people engaging with my art (love you mwah) or asking me questions. nearly every time I go into a d20 related tag I regret it

I think frankly I disagree with 90% of the opinions on d20 here but because I don't have to see it I can just post my art and go

feels relatively static like there's not a good way to get everyone talking about a specific transformative fandom thing instead of only what's happening in canon because it's a looser more disconnected community

allows for longer posts and the search system on my own blog is great though. I love directing people to go through my tags or archived art

d20 twitter

incredibly, astonishingly, bad at recognizing jokes for people who are fans of a comedy show

way easier to interact with people which means most of the friends I make are from d20twt...

very easy to get everyone talking about one specific thing (ie fhsonas) because of how interactive Twitter is as a platform and how quickly word spreads

downside of this^ is that every time I express an opinion someone disagrees with they tend to assume that this is a majority opinion rather than like, 3-4 popular gay asian artists speaking their mind? when I complained about fhjy 18 battle on here I got interesting and thoughtful reblogs and everyone kept it respectful meanwhile on twitter people started making vaguetweets about how people who hated the episode were morons. stuff like us joking that oisin's grandma's whole mahjong group got murked getting 200 likes VS people directly shitting on us getting 1.7k likes and people going "wait... people are mad about oisins grandma for REAL?! she was going to kill people !!" getting 2k likes. clearly there is some sort of strange authority people put on your words whether or not you're actually just trying to have fun with your friends

I did talk about this more on twitter but I am not a fan of the CRitterfication of d20twt either. feels like much of the fandom is now watching because they're megafans of the cast rather than for the story which leads to some really big toxic positivity bias and the implication that criticism of the show == direct attack on the crew and therefore on THEM because parasocial attachment. I don't think it helps that for a majority of them d20 is their first big fandom experience aside from like... kpop or tswift because they have not developed a lot of the detachment from canon + not being parasocial + ignoring opinions you don't like if they're not directly addressed at you mechanisms that people who've been around have. sorry I'm not trying to fandom elder or whatever here I'm 21 years old but I think it's incredibly hard for me to interact with people whose entire understanding of canon depend on siobhan thompson's opinions like this

tldr;

d20twt has way less reading comprehension and critical thinking skills. better for making friends. I interact almost entirely with 30-40 of my artist friends. (my) d20tumblr experience is more chill and feels like I'm doing a seminar and people come up to ask me questions afterward. more isolating but easier to do my own thing. I do recognize and am fond of a lot of you but I've made one (1) entire friend who I can talk to off platform and not just see on the dash/my notes and that's just the nature of how tumblr works as a platform (it's terrible for conversations)

[sparkly-caroline]

Step right up, step right up! It's that time of the month where I give out opinions that will most likely get me crucified! Stick around for that!

Today I'm gonna be making one of my first "voicing opinions on Danganronpa" posts, that I might make more of. Since you know, I'm a Danganronpa fan, and have some thoughts about it.

Most of these posts are more than likely not based on OBJECTIVE fact (is it well written?) it's just my purely SUBJECTIVE opinion (do i hate it ot not?)

And Obviously MAJOR SPOILERS

Aight, let's cut to the chase: I fucking hate Tenko Chabashira.

No joke, she is one of my least favourite characters in V3. Not the entire series, just V3. I get she's kinda the "joke character that dies in Chapter 3 so we can have tension in Chapter 4", but every time she was on screen I groaned.

Again, this is all subjective opinion, and I'm not even gonna try to pretend that this isn't full of bias, because it definitely is. You're allowed to disagree with me. I'm not gonna be like "Tenko's objectively the worst character in the series!", cuz that sort of claim is dumb.

But goddamn man, I've held this opinion in for YEARS, ever since my first exposure to Danganronpa. It's coming out now.

.

Here's Chabashira's basic shtick: she adores girls, hates men with a burning passion, has the hots for Yumeno... and is really fucking annoying. That's 90% of her character.

POINT ONE: HASHTAG "I HATE MEN"

If you hate those "Hashtag Kill All Men" girls that you normally see on sites like TikTok (because of course it'd be on TikTok), then you're probably not gonna like Chabashira either. There's not a single scene with her that has Chabashira NOT say "Degenerate Male", and it gets old REAL fast. Even more so than Angie's "atua" or Kiibo's "robophoic".

This mixed in with her loud and obnoxious personality makes it REALLY hard for me to find her even slightly tolerable.

"Uhm Actuhally, Tenko is an overexcited and cheerful person" yeah well, I think Ibuki did that shtick 8 billion times better.

And the thing is: her "i hate men" thing would be KINDA understandable if she was among the cast of Trigger Happy Havoc or Goodbye Despair, the games where TeruTeru Hanamura and Hifumi Yamada exist in. There, she would at least have something to use as an example and NOT sound like she's spewing complete bullshit. But with the exception of Ouma (and technically Korekiyo for reasons that she wasn't alive to see), all the male characters in V3 were at least decent people.

And I'm betting most of my money on this point: If Tenko Chabashira was genderbent and said all the things she usually says to men towards women, she would've be one of the most hated characters of the entire series, HANDS DOWN.

Imagine this one screenshot, but Saihara is a girl and Chabashira is a boy, and change the text to "degenerate female". Can you see the point now?

Seriously, if a male character said something like THIS to a female character: Guaranteed Cancellation. Twitter users all around the globe would be going NUTS the second V3 gains attention. It wouldn't matter how much of an overexcited person she is, nor any other good quality she could have. Genderbent Tenko + changing hating men to hating women = instantly the most hated character in the series.

Also, I think that this wouldn't be anywhere near as bad if she actually got called out in-game for these things, but she never does, or at least not in the main story. Nobody ever tells her "ayo, Tenko, your hating on men is getting annoying/problematic could you shut up about it for five seconds?" Nope. At most she's told to "calm down" (which half the time she just ignores), but NOBODY tells her that this isn't okay.

Say what you will about Danganronpa S. As mid as the game itself is:

At least some characters there were being like "I'm don't gotta put up with you and your annoying ass, bish." No such thing happens in V3.

So I thought: "Okay, what's the reason for this? Surely if she hates men this much, surely that means a boy must've done something really bad to her to CAUSE this." Well... nah.

See, after going through her FreeTime Events, you eventually learn that the reason why she hates men so much is because: her Master (who's a man too, might I add) basically taught her so and she's extremely gulliable.

...

...

What. You thought there was more to it? Because there isn't. And that's not even the infuriating part, THIS is the infuriating part:

Her master, who she REALLY looks up to and whose every word she takes at face value... is a man himself. And Tenko only realized that was the case when Saihara pointed it out.

Again, I understand that Chabashira is NOT one of the characters you're supposed to take seriously. She's a joke character that dies in Chapter 3 so the tension in later chapters isn't severed. If anything this is probably a joke I'm taking way too seriously.

That being said, this is some of the STUPIDEST nonesense I've ever come across in a character's freetime events.

First off, I don't care how guillable you are, HOW DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT YOUR MASTER IS A GUY TOO?! You've been refering to your master as "he" and probably spent a large chunk of your life WITH said master, yet not once realized that he's a male at any point until Shuichi pointed it out... WHAT?! What did you THINK he was BEFORE this?! There's being guillable, and then there's being straight up stupid.

Second off, even IF this is supposed to make her look more adorkable and guillable and show that she'll believe anything she's told, I'm sorry but I'm not gonna view that explanation as okay when she has lines like these:

"The only good thing about males is that girls give birth to them!" "Yes! Degenerate males should definitely know their place!" "Don't you think it's weird for degenerate males to have Ultimate talents in the first place!? They're basically disgusting mud dolls! If those degenerates didn't have talents, this place would be an all-girls safe haven!"

Okay, Chabashira, shut the fuck up-

Honestly, face palm.

You know... I used to think Gonta was the lowest IQ character in V3. Now I don't. I'm pretty sure it's Tenko. I'm so sorry for ever thinking you were dumb, Gonta, never doubting you again king.

I feel like I'm losing my mind, writing this post and all the constant fact checking I gotta make. Honestly her freetime events were (and still are) a PAIN to sit through and the Class Trial Skill you get from 'em isn't really that useful either, but I can't make a post like this without checking them out, so here we are.

(Did I forget to mention that she says that she'll only touch Saihara if he gets a sex change?)

.

I feel like I made this point clear though, it's gonna get a little TOO long if I keep going about this point. So yeah, that's 50% of Chabashira's character, let's move on to the other 50%

POINT TWO: WHATCHA DOIN WITH YUMENO OVER THERE

Now that we've got the elephant in the room outta the way, let's move on to the OTHER thing Chabashira's most known for:

Simping for Himiko Yumeno. Cuz we just gotta have at least one hardcore simp character in these Danganronpa games.

Much like Fukawa for Togami and Kazuichi for Sonia, Chabashira simps for Yumeno just as hard as those two. The only two differences are that Chabashira dies and the other two simps don't, and I kinda like the other two simps.

Kazuichi at least had other things going on with him when he wasn't thirsting over the princess (like being a bro for Hinata, a much better Hagakure than OG Hagakure and his freetime events not making me want to rip my hair out), and Fukawa won me over in Ultra Despair Girls.

At least Chabashira dying helped Himiko's character development, and Himiko's one of my favs from the game so it did what it was supposed to do. But I felt more for Himiko than I did for Tenko, tbh. And up until Chapter 3, her crush on Himiko was kinda... well uh...

Yeah.

Still not as cringe as Fukawa's fantasies in UDG, but still. And the thing is, the game wants me to think Tenko's simping isn't that creepy, but in chapters 1 and 2, Yumeno shows almost no interest at all. It's only in Chapter 3 that Himiko actually gives Tenko the time of day, and that was the scene before Tenko dies.

At least the games Fukawa and Kazuichi were in didn't make their respective simping as anything other than a quick gag, if anything the game poked fun at them for it. With Chabashira, I'm supposed to NOT do the same.

So in Chapter 3 they were like "oh wait, we actually need to make Chabashira more likable so her death affects Yumeno", so they made her like less of a creep for that one chapter. Also, I have heard from some posts way back (I think I saw 'em sometime before 2020) that Chabashira "sacrificed herself for Himiko"?? Which... no. I don't see how that could've worked.

Point one, she was just offering herself as a medium so Himiko could say bye to Yonaga. Chabashira thought that if Himiko had been the medium, then she couldn't have spoken to Yonaga. That's why she offered herself to be inside that cage instead. That was all there was to it, Chabashira's final act of kindness (and also VERY OBVIOUS red flag that might as well had said "Chabashira's gonna die") before she got seesawed by Shinguji.

Which brings me to point two, HOW would Chabashira have known that Shinguji was planning a murder right then and there? Sure, she hates men with a passion and that COULD'VE have made her assumed the worst of him, but she's definitely NOT the smartest person around and absolutely had NO WAY of knowing about Shinguji's "incest serial killer" tendencies at any point. She's already been see-sawed by the time he reveals his true nature to the others.

The only way I can think of is if she somehow had his motive video from Chapter 2, but the game never brings up that something like that had happened. Chabashira never shows any increased hostility towards Shinguji, she treats him the same as she treats every other male character. So no, Chabashira's death was not a sacrifice, and even though I haven't heard that theory in years, I figured I should mention it.

Long story short: Himiko's too good for you, you're not good enough for her, Chabashira.

POINT NO.3 - SHE HAS THE UGLIEST SPRITES IN THE GAME

Okay, this one's just a minor nitpick for the sake of being petty, but my god, Chabashira has some of the ugliest sprites in the entire game. Not in the unsettling or funny sense, just plainly ugly.

To give a comparison and show you what I mean:

This sprite of Ouma is terrifying. The first time I saw it, I was legit scared.

THIS Chabashira sprite is UGLY. Not fear inducing ugly, not comedically ugly like that one Kazuichi sprite, just plain ugly.

This is the sprite most likely to be used when she looks down on men, so just for that, minus 50 points.

And If I remember correctly (and if not, imma take the L and let myself be informed) showcasing this sprite of Chabashira led to the "I hope Tenko dies" thing before the game came out.

I learned that from this video:

But if I'm wrong about that, please let me know.

CONCLUSION - I DONT LIKE CHU TENKO

And that about wraps it up. It took me a week to write this, it's so long. I tried to like Tenko at times, but I just couldn't do it, sorry folks.

Again, if you disagree with me, that's cool. You do you, we can all agree to disagree.

Anyway, i'm gonna go hide in my bunker now, catch y"all later.

[mattypattypinky]

Gonna respond to this in a screenshot

BC I don't want this post to go in the FANDOM tags

(mainly bc i don't want to have to interact and argue w ppl bc of a hc😭)

Okay, first of all, everyone is entitled to their opinion / interpretation of him and his character. I mean, I'm a firm believer that he is an adult, but I know other people disagree. And that is okay.

That being said, one of the reasons I head canon him as an adult is simply because the ambiguous age, and the fact that I am one, and ship with him and I'm not going to ship with a 12 year old. (I know, shocking.)

But it goes further than that.

THE ART BOOK

we know from the art-book, that 🐐🌈 is canonically an adult.

I see the 🐐💚 form as nothing but a memory of what he once was.

Fifth anniv. ⏰ dialogues

I've seen a lot of people on Twitter saying that using this dialogue doesn't count, and that people 'erase the context of it' so I'm going to show the full context here.

Here, he sort of claims that he is grown up.

A lot of people argue that right under this line of dialogue he is being childish, and that kids refer to themselves as grown ups all the time, which that is true. But we have to take into consideration that adults are allowed to enjoy things, as well.

He goes against his own statement by hinting at exactly what type of gift he wants, and a lot of people argue that this is proof that he's just a child playing pretend, but I disagree with that mindset. Adults are allowed to want things, when you become an adult you do not just magically stop wanting fun things like coloring supplies and colorful things.

My best example/argument... would be 🍝🦴 himself.

A majority of the fandom interprets 🍝🦴 as an adult (from what I am aware of?) - despite him acting much more childish and innocent than 🌻 is.

He collects action figures, he wants to have a shiny red car, he gets read a bedtime story about fluffy bunnies, he plays dress up with a "battle body" constantly, there's more examples but need I say more??? Point being, despite his childish demeanor and innocent portrayal (despite him being one of the toughest monsters imo) - he is often portrayed or interpreted as an adult.

There is a point, where I feel like it might become a double standard??? imo?? i sometimes feel it is really Infantilising

How come 🍝🦴 can act just as, if not more childish than 🌻 does, and yet still be considered an adult?

also he's traumatized???

He got murdered, and is stuck in a time loop and a flower essentially, and has grown too cold to feel for others. Of course he is going to be explosive, irrational at times, and immature. It's because he's been hurt, his mind works different than 🍝🦴's because he has gone through more pain than he has and remembers it.

I feel like the argument that "Oh he acts immature so he's a child" is harmful not only bc it stimulates this belief that adults just magically lose their immature / happy fun sides, magically know how to deal w stressful situations, but also I think it's a little bad for neurodivergient people out there who are a lot like him. (ME SORRY SELF INDULGENT)

There are adults out there who can still want childish things, and that is okay. There are adults out there who still react immaturely to their emotions, and that is okay. There are adults out there who have trouble connecting with others, processing and identifying their emotions, and reacting to their emotions, and that is okay.

Hell, I'm gonna be turning 19 in like... 2 months, and I still would KILL to have like, toys and colorful things decking out my room and whatnot. It would be really, really nice. Does that make ME a child? And I still spiral out of control sometimes with my emotional outbursts and think I should get rid of everyone in my life, but I choose not to do it because I learn it is a bad habit and a bad decision and there are other ways to deal with your problems (communication) And I only started to learn how to do this A YEAR AGO!!! I WAS FUCKING RUINING MY RELATIONSHIPS A YEAR AGO BC I WAS STUPID, REACTIVE AND COULDN'T DEAL W MY EMOTIONS---

Point being, I interpret him as a neurodivergient adult who is traumatized and deserved time to heal and learn coping mechanisms.

I probably will have more to say about this at some point later. Again this is just my interpretation/thoughts on it ur allowed to see him different ??? Like ur allowed to think he's a kid but i personally think hes an adult bc i am an adult and i relate to everything he says / does and also the asriel adult confirmations,

[technospotatoes]

FUNDY LORE ANALYSIS

Howdy, howdy friends! After about 6 hours of pure thinking, I have more Dream SMP brain rot-theory-analysis stuff for you! This week I’m on spring break, so unfortunately I’m not prolonging any assignments haha! Today my focus is FUNDY LORE >:) and I’ve sprinkled in a little IRL factoids for ya to enjoy! 

Please lemme know your thoughts, opinions and theories-- and as always, it’s gonna be a long one! 

Enjoy <3

TW/CW for brief mentions of derealization-- nothing in detail, just thought I’d let y’all know. Please be safe ily.

Fundy’s lore stream took place today, 3/30/2021. It's roughly 45 minutes, so if you have some time to kill, go watch it! It’s really well done, and his acting is incredible. I will give you a warning; it contains derealization. If you choose not to watch it, here’s a summary from Twitter! link

First, let’s talk about what we know of Fundy’s character so far. 

Fundy’s story throughout the events of the SMP are quite tragic. A few key staples are...

1: the death and betrayals of both Wilbur and Schlatt, as well as the absence of Eret-- all of whom he viewed as father figures (Wilbur being his biological father, and Eret his adopted father who failed to show up at his adoption ceremony. Schlatt was a source of validation and approval for Fundy). 

2: Jealousy of Tommy and Tubbo-- These two replaced Fundy’s position as Wilbur’s son during the L’Manburg eras, and Fundy became rightfully jealous towards them. He no longer felt valued by his father, and was only more negatively impacted when Wilbur made an attempt to mend that rift. 

3: witnessing the rise and ultimate fall of L’Manburg-- and even assisting in its destruction with Niki. 

Along with some other rocky encounters with his family members in the timeline, Fundy can be simply boiled down as a character with no stable relationships to his family, or those whom he considers family. However, he does deeply value his friends and the fun that he has with them-- which we can assume is one of his attachments (this will be important later). He takes pride in making mischief and carries a friendly persona… which makes him easily approachable. 

He does carry valid reasons to instigate villainous acts-- but he instead chooses to remain neutral due to his fear of losing something else close to him. 

I have a number of thoughts regarding Fundy’s character and his current lore, so enough stalling from me, and let's get into it!

Analysis of Stream:

The desert

When Fundy leaves his tower for the first time during the dream sequence, the world is no longer the SMP, but is replaced with a barren desert. From the title of the stream, we can infer that this desert represents Fundy’s Mind and contains the majority of what he thinks about. Deserts often symbolize loneliness or emptiness, and can also be synonymized with brutal honesty or survival. Fundy’s character is indeed alone (in terms of family), and has fought for his survival by being sly and mischievous through Schlatt’s reign of Manburg. Sand itself symbolizes the passage of time, or in other words, the inevitability of the future or truth. As we see in each of the 3 dream sequences, the mysterious bunker containing “truth” appears closer and closer to Fundy’s tower and also becomes more withered and worn on the inside, implying that Fundy cannot escape the coming of truth and future as time passes. 

The desert itself contains a replica of the Camarvan from the old L’Manburg days-- likely a representation of Fundy’s childhood that he holds onto dearly, in spite of his past trauma. During the first dream sequence, the van even contains Wilbur-- perhaps to mock Fundy’s pain, or remind him of it. During the second sequence, Wilbur is gone, likely referencing Wilbur’s absence in Fundy’s life, or his death. During the 3rd dream sequence, the Camarvan is replaced with what looks to be a crater, or the aftermath of an explosion. This could possibly reference the ultimate destruction of L’Manburg (and the destruction of the van), or it could be foreshadowing of the destruction in the future… 

Side theory, here! Tubbo just lost a nuke, and multiple people have vendettas against Dream / want him dead. The pit seemed like it was made out of black stone and obsidian, the same materials as the prison, so it is likely that this is an allusion to Dream’s possible escape.

Who is “He”?

On his 3rd visit to the odd bunker in his dream world, Fundy reads the 3rd book in the chest. Towards the end, this book warns him of a vague male character that Fundy should not join, or avoid at all costs. To quote the book…

“Do not join him. Whatever he asks of you. Do NOT join him. His plans aren’t as nice as they sound. His intentions aren’t what you think they are. He will use you. He will destroy you. Everything you ever loved, everyone you ever cared about. Do not join him.” 

I bet a few characters instantly came to your mind as to who this person that Future Fundy is warning us about, and I’m going to list who I first thought it could be below: 

Technoblade and the Syndicate. Now, I disagree with this option, even though Techno has the outright power to destroy anything and everything like he’s done before. However, because of the creation of the Anarchist Syndicate and their accommodating ideals, it would be out of his character or set of ideals to suddenly destroy Fundy’s attachments to purely demonstrate his power. Also, Fundy no longer represents any forms of government, so he does not pose a threat to the Syndicate. 

I did theorize here that Fundy could be Harpocrates, but that would imply that he goes against the warnings of his future self. (Also not to mention the placement of this stream in the timeline would have to be much later in the past.) But the more that I think about it, the more likely it could be. It wouldn’t necessarily be out of character for Fundy to join the Syndicate and side with Techno against the warnings of his inner voice, but he has been a spy before… 

BBH / the Eggpire. This is also not a likely option for our “he” character, because it is more likely that this dangerous person is not associated with a group such as the Syndicate or Eggpire-- in other words, he operates alone. The Eggpire has plenty of members and those who oppose it, even BBH tried to recruit Fundy and failed. Our “he” has not had an interaction with Fundy yet, and I don’t think that the Eggpire would make an effort to reach out to him again. 

My theory is that Quackity is our “he” figure. As I’ve stated before (see my C!Sam post here), Quackity has proven himself to be an effective manipulator, and could easily persuade Fundy to join his side. Quackity has power over Dream at this time in the plot, and is using it to gain knowledge about revival. He could use his acquired learning from Dream to make a deal with Fundy through using Wilbur’s revival to appease his interest (and provide a chance at healing, given his tough past). Not to mention his cameo at the end of Fundy’s lore stream-- There’s plenty more involvement in the lore that we are going to see from Q. 

The Mysterious Figure

During the final dream sequence of Fundy’s lore stream, he opens the door to his tower, only to see a dark figure, staring into the world… or rather, the absence thereof. This Figure has no other significant character details besides the black hood/cloak and no ign, so we have no evidence as to who it is. I’ve seen plenty of people theorize that this person could be BBH (because of the similarities in cloak design) or they could be the “he” Fundy’s logs are warning him about. But I disagree-- I strongly believe that this mysterious figure is neither of those options, rather, The Mysterious Figure is someone completely separate in this story. Here are a few people I think it could be: 

Wilbur/Schlatt-- both of whom are dead, and could manifest inside Fundy’s mind as spirits or ghosts. 

Dream-- he causes paranoia in many of the younger characters of the SMP, so I wouldn’t put it past him to haunt Fundy like he did Ranboo (the voice in his head). 

Fundy-- a form of himself from the future, or a representation of his conscience (wants, desires, etc). 

Or a guide/protector to Fundy’s mind-- we could see more of this figure if episodes like this stream occur in the future. A character similar to that of the Inbetween or Other Side.

It is important to note that at the end of the sequence, the Mysterious Figure chased Fundy up the tower in fear, causing him to sleep and escape the dream world. I think Fundy would only react this way if he felt directly threatened, so this figure is likely someone unknown and intimidating, or familiar and repulsive enough to cause behaviour akin to a sort of PTSD. It is possible that this figure doesn’t have malicious intent, because there was a bed placed on top of Fundy’s tower. The figure was likely supposed to guide Fundy to this bed to escape the dream world, but this encounter probably did not go according to plan, due to Fundy’s reaction. 

His Internal Monologue

Through the presence of fear and doubt we can learn about the deeper parts and truths of a character. This is the case with Fundy: while he is distressed and afraid in his dream world, through the provided angst we learn about what Fundy truly wants. Fundy states that he wants this dream to end, and he wants to go back to his friends and his old life. He longs for the times where he can just have fun again and prank people, when his friends were there for him. Except, sometimes they weren’t. He states he would join parties and join groups only to watch them disappear as he started to get attached to them. Now, whenever the word “attachment” is uttered anywhere I immediately think back to Dream’s speech, perhaps Fundy is becoming more aware of what he could be endangered by.

Deja Reve

There’s no theory attached to this, just some super cool stuff I found. :)

The reveal of Fundy’s powers instantly set off a flag in my mind the second I heard it. His “powerset” or ability is one of foreshadowing, whatever he dreams about, could happen or is linked to the future. Now, the reason I bring this up is partly because I think it is cool, and it is actually a REAL thing. And I’ve experienced it. Let me introduce you to Deja Reve. 

Deja Reve isn’t really a condition or illness, rather it is a “creepier” form of its more popular counterpart, Deja Vu. When translated directly from French, Deja Reve means “already dreamed.” This word is a descriptor for a specific sequence of events: you dream something, and it happens later, in real life. No, I’m not making this up, and yes, it is real. I’ve had this happen to me multiple times. 

Deja Reve isn’t so simple as “i dreamt this so it will happen tomorrow”. In my case, I would have a particular dream, for example, I went to a Subway with my mom and she discussed with the manager about having my sister work at that location. The morning after I would forget the dream like any other, but many weeks later the exact event I dreamt would happen. I can remember it now, right down to the sandwich I ordered and the way my mom moved across the establishment to talk to the manager-- it was word for word, vision for vision. Each time Deja Reve occurs, I freeze, and I think I’m experiencing a second copy of life, or rewatching a movie. It's super weird, but cool. If something like this has ever happened to you, leave a comment below, I’d love to hear your experiences!

Now I bring this up because many people mistake these sorts of things as having foresight or being able to prophesize-- but it's not the same thing. Deja Reve occurs more often in the younger population, and becomes less and less active as one gets older. Because Fundy is still relatively young in the SMP timeline, I think that not only is this a cool ability set for him to have, but it makes sense for him psychologically as well. There is no clear cause or reason behind why individuals experience Deja Reve, but personally, I believe it has to do with the condition of your brain and it’s experiences to past trauma. Kids who experience trauma find elaborate ways to cope, and usually defer to their imagination. Due to the fact that most of Fundy’s trauma occurred while he was very young in the SMP lore, it is definitely plausible that his amplified, or “more woke” application of Deja Reve, is a product of his past. 

Number Symbolism

I’ll keep this section short, because this post is already miles long, but similar to the previous section, this is something SUPER COOL that I noticed :]

Each book that Fundy reads has a specific number of pages… haha big whoop, Biz, that’s not weird. But did you know that some numbers have symbolism? Did you notice that the 3 books in each dream sequence each had 87 pages, which symbolize family, organization, and idealism? That number symbolizes what Fundy WANTS, but also what he’ll never get if he’s not careful. The first two times he read that book he didn’t finish it… He didn’t achieve his goal? 

Did you also notice that the signed book had 22 pages? That number symbolizes redemption, intuition, emotions, duty and diplomacy-- qualities that oddly correlate to warnings. This number represents what Fundy will NEED to be, in order to survive his future. Also, a Catch 22… take that as you will ;) 

Sidenote… 

Ok this is the last mini section before the end, but another thing that immediately popped into my head during Fundy’s lore was the factor of derealization. Nothing major, but the other times we’ve seen this storytelling or manipulation technique used was during...

Ranboo’s Panic Room / Prison Visit-- believes derealization

Karl and escaping the In Between-- fights against derealization

Fundy’s notebooks-- questions derealization

I have a feeling that whenever derealization is being used, it’s intended to distract the character from the true evil, to prevent them from tracking their own course or fulfilling their own story… So I’ll be excited to see where Fundy takes his. 

GAAAAAAAAAH IT’S DONE, FINALLY. And Congratulations! You made it to the end!! If you have any thoughts or theories, comment below, shoot me an ask or DM, I’d love to discuss with you! Follow me for more in-depth analysis content, I will be doing as many of these as I feel inspired to do in the future. :] 

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING <3

[gullethead]

what is your opinion on tamsyn muir discourse (and also what is the discourse)

THANK you. okay warning for discussion of fictional sexual assault, real life CSA (not something she did), plus 2012-era homestuck fandom typical stuff

please rb this btw, unless you dont want to, in which case dont. also if you have any corrections or additional information to consider please add by all means

disclaimer: im not in the habit of writing essays defending whichever internet personalities i like. ill admit theres potential bias, given that i read the books before i learned about this, but im really being as objective as possible and i just think people are taking a misguided or half-formed stance on this. if you still dislike her or w/e after this thats, like, perfectly in your rights. im not defending an adult woman on the internet, im explaining the facts as ive seen them and understand them. additional disclaimer that i havent experienced sexual assault at all myself

okay so tamsyn muir is currently well-known as the author of the locked tomb trilogy (aka gideon the ninth and harrow the ninth), but for a certain section of tumblr shes also well known as urbanAnchorite, and used to be a big name fan on here up until around 2014 - pretty close to everything here is going to be from roughly 2011 through 2014, except for an interview im gonna get into, so 7-10 years ago. i was only vaguely aware of her until after i got into the locked tomb and saw people talking about this. with that in mind:

so the MAJORITY of the discourse revolves around a single fic she wrote on AO3. her account has 19 works in homestuck, and some of them are Kinda Weird to Pretty Bad in retrospect, but being completely honest this is the only one that isnt completely stock standard for homestuck fandom in that time period. like if we started casting stones about ten year old fandom stuff we'd be here all day

here is the fic (warning for CSA)

in most of the posts about it ive seen, theyve described it as a "rapefic," but actually reading it, it's a lot more nuanced than that description implies. its a dark story where a grown man abuses a girl, from the man's perspective, and the story ends with him being killed by her friend. the description of the assault is treated very seriously by the story and barely even touches on any actual sex, before immediately cutting to him being killed. its lolita if humbert got shot to death; the title itself comes FROM lolita

(sidenote - it was inspired by a prompt on kinkmeme, but that doesn't really mean anything vis a vis being intended for sexual enjoyment, and according to the note actually went against the spirit of the request)

ive seen fics, lots and lots of fics, that would qualify as the term "rapefic." it tends to be pretty fucking obvious when someone is using sexual assault as a fetish, and this is Not That

tamsyn herself actually responded to this in an excellent interview early last year. she gets into some Fandom Mom type language, but essentially says what i said above. in it, she also says this:

It’s not the first time I’ve been accused of being a paedophile. I grew up gay in the nineties. Homosexuality and paedophilia were enmeshed in society’s minds. When I came out, I got told that I shouldn’t be around children. I was used to that because it was common discourse, and it hurt like all hell, but it didn’t shock me. When I got called a paedophile by Twitter I got clotheslined. My support network had to get in pronto. I was very ready to have a hot date with a length of rope, a date I have arranged and cancelled multiple times over my life. I have had lots and lots of therapy over the years for various conditions, some of them lifelong and some not, but when that Twitter call-out happened it was hard to want to live. I thought I knew so intimately what I was doing with my fiction; my therapist was always so supportive of me writing about it. I have not been open about being a CSA survivor because, again, I grew up in the ‘90s. ‘Lesbian’ and ‘CSA survivor’ is just carte blanche so a whole queue of people can tell you, I HOPE ONE DAY, WITH LOVE AND SUPPORT, YOU CAN BE STRAIGHT. It was like, right this way to the invalidation booth. I didn’t even tell most of my girlfriends! I told one! It’s not a topic of discussion between me and my family; I am relying on them not reading my interviews so it can remain where it belongs: thoroughly undiscussed!

with this context it becomes... a lot more nuanced of a topic. an author who experienced CSA in addition to growing up in a cultural climate where gay people were pedophiles by default, especially growing up catholic in a rural community, wrote a work about childhood sexual assault (which also happened to be fanfiction) as a way of working through it for herself, which is... something a lot of artists do with their art? and in return she got a massive blowback on twitter accusing her of pedophilia and demanding she talk about a massively traumatic moment in her life

this is the major sticking point of the discourse, im not gonna get into anything else on this post, but this is my view of it. if you disagree or have anything to add then feel free to add on. again, i know what it looks like, but im not trying to uncritically defend a stranger just cause i like her book. this is the conclusion i came to after doing a lot of digging for myself

[a-room-of-my-own]

Have you read "An Apology to JK Rowling" by Petra Bueskens on Areo? I'm pathetically grateful to read something so clever and well articulated on the subject after the amount of abuse JK has been subjected to

It's a great piece so here it is, thank you anon!

 Rowling recently published an eminently reasonable, heartfelt treatise, outlining why it is important to preserve the category of woman. There’s only one thing wrong with it: it assumes a rational interlocutor. Rowling outlines why the biological and legal category of sex is important: in sports, in rape crisis shelters, in prisons, in toilets and changing rooms, for lesbians who want to sleep with natal women only and at the level of reality in general. Rowling marshals her experiences as an androgynous girl, as a domestic violence and sexual assault survivor and as someone familiar with the emotional perils of social media, in ways that have resonated with many women (and men). Her writing is clear, unpretentious, thoughtful, moving, vulnerable and honest. At no point does she use exclusionary or hostile language or say that trans women do not exist, have no right to exist or that she wants to rob them of their rights. Her position is that natal women exist and have a right to limit access to their political and personal spaces. Period.

Of course, to assume that her missive would be engaged with in the spirit in which it was intended, is to make the mistake of imagining that the identitarian left is broadly committed to secular, rational discourse. It is not. Its activist component has transmogrified into a religious movement, which brooks no opposition and no discussion. You must agree with every tenet or else you’re a racist, sexist, transphobic bigot, etc. Because its followers are fanatics, Rowling is being subjected to an extraordinary level of abuse. There seems to be no cognitive dissonance among those who accuse her of insensitivity and then proceed to call her a cunt, bitch or hag and insist that they want to assault and even kill her (see this compilation of tweets on Medium). She has been accused of ruining childhoods. Some even claim that the actor Daniel Radcliffe wrote the Harry Potter books—reality has become optional for some of these identitarians. Rowling’s age, menstrual status and vagina come in for particularly nasty attention and many trans women (or those masquerading as such) write of wanting to sexually assault her with lady cock, as a punishment for speaking out. I haven’t seen misogyny like this since Julia Gillard became our prime minister.

The Balkanisation of culture into silos of unreason means that the responses have not followed what might be loosely called the pre-digital rules of discourse. These rules assume that the purpose of public debate is to discern truth and that interlocutors on opposing sides—a reductionist bifurcation, because, in fact, there are many sides—engage in argument because they are interested in something higher than themselves: an ideal of truth, no matter how complicated, multifaceted and evolving. While in-group preferences and biases are inevitable, these exist within an overarching deliberative framework. This style of dialogue assumes the validity of a persuasive argument grounded in reason and evidence, even if—as Rowling does—it also utilises experience and feeling. By default, it assumes that civil conflict and opposition are essential devices in the pursuit of truth.

Three decades of postmodernism and ten years of Twitter have destroyed these conventions and, together with them, the shared norms by which we create and sustain social consensus. There is no grounding metanarrative, there are no binding norms of civil discourse in the digital age. Indeed, as Jaron Lanier shows with his bummer paradigm (Behaviours of Users Modified and Made into an Empire for Rent) social media is destroying the fabric of our personal and political lives (although, with a different business model and more robust regulation, it need not do so). The algorithm searching for and recording your every click, like and share, your every purchase, search term, conversation, movement, facial expression, social connection and preference rewards engagement above all else—which means that your feed—an aptly infantile descriptor—will quickly become full of the things you and others like you are most likely to be motivated to click, like and share. Outrage is a more effective mechanism through which to foster engagement than almost anything else. In Lanier’s terms, this produces a “menagerie of wraiths”—a bunch of digitised dementors: fake and bad actors, paid troll armies and dyspeptic bots—designed to confect mob outrage.

The norms of civil discourse are being eroded, as we increasingly inhabit individualised media ecosystems, designed to addict, distract, absorb, outrage, manipulate and incite us. These internecine culture wars damage us all. As Lanier notes, social media is biased “not towards the left or right but downwards.” As a result, we are witnessing a catastrophic decline in the standards of our democratic institutions and discourse. Nowhere is this more evident than in the contemporary culture wars around the trans question, where confected outrage is the norm.

This is why the furore over Rowling’s blog post misses the point: whether we agree with her or not, the problem is the collapse of our capacity to disagree constructively. If you deal primarily in subjective experience and impulse-driven reaction, under the assumption that you occupy the undisputed moral high ground, and you’ve been incited by fake news and want to signal your allegiances to your social media friends, then you can’t engage in rational discussion with your opponent. Your stock in trade will be unsubstantiated accusations and social shaming.

In this discombobulating universe, sex-based rights are turned into insults against trans people. Gender-critical feminists are recast as immoral bigots, engaged in deliberately hurtful, even life-threatening, speech. Rowling is not who we thought she was, her ex-fans wail, her characters and plots conceal hidden reservoirs of homophobia and bigotry. A few grandstanders attempt to distinguish themselves by saying that they have always been able to smell a rat—no, not Scabbers—and therefore hated the books from the outset. Nowhere amid this morass of moral grandstanding and outrage is there any serious engagement with her ideas.

Those of us on the left—and left-wing feminists in particular—who find trans ideology fraught, for all the reasons Rowling outlines, are a very small group. While Rowling is clearly privileged, she has also become the figurehead of a rapidly dwindling and increasingly vilified group of feminists, pejoratively labelled terfs, who want to preserve women’s sex-based rights and spaces. Although our arguments align with centrist, conservative and common sense positions, ours is not the prevailing view in academia, public service or the media, arts and culture industries, where we are most likely to be located (when we are not at home with our children). In most of these workplaces, a sex-based rights position is defined a priori as bigoted, indeed as hate speech. It can get us fired, attacked, socially ostracised and even assaulted.

As leftist thinkers who believe in freedom of speech and thought, who find creeping ideological and bureaucratic control alarming, we are horrified by these increasingly vicious denunciations by the left. The centre right and libertarians—the neo-cons, post-liberals and the IDW—are invariably smug about how funny it is to watch the left eat itself. But it’s true: some progressive circles are now defined by a call out/cancel culture to rival that of the most repressive of totalitarian states. Historically, it was progressives who fought against limits on freedom of speech and action. But the digital–identitarian left split off from the old print-based left some time ago, and has become its own beast. A contingent of us are deeply critical of these new directions.

Only a few on the left have had the gumption to speak up for us. Few have even defended our right to express our opinions. Those who have spoken out include former media darlings Germaine Greer and Michael Leunig. Many reader comments on left-leaning news sites claim that Rowling is to blame for the ill treatment she is suffering. Rowling can bask in the consequences of her free speech, they claim, as if having a different opinion from the woke majority means that she is no longer entitled to respect, and that any and all abuse is warranted—or, at least, to be expected. Where is the outrage on her behalf? Where are the writers, film makers, actors and artists defending her right to speak her mind?

Of course, the actors from the Harry Potter films are under no obligation to agree with JK Rowling just because she made them famous. They don’t owe her their ideological fealty: but they owe her better forms of disagreement. When Daniel Radcliffe repeats the nonsensical chant trans women are women, he’s not developing an argument, he’s reciting a mantra. When he invokes experts, who supposedly know more about the subject than Rowling, he betrays his ignorance of how contested the topic of transgender medicine actually is: for example, within endocrinology, paediatrics, psychiatry, sociology, and psychology (the controversies within the latter discipline have been demonstrated by the numerous recent resignations from the prestigious Tavistock and Portman gender identity clinic). The experts are a long way from consensus in what remains a politically fraught field.

Trans women are women is not an engaged reply. It is a mere arrangement of words, which presupposes a faith that cannot be questioned. To question it, we are told, causes harm—an assertion that transforms discussion into a thought crime. If questioning this orthodoxy is tantamount to abuse, then feminists and other dissenters have been gaslit out of the discussion before they can even enter it. This is especially pernicious because feminists in the west have been fighting patriarchy for several hundred years and we do not intend our cause to be derailed at the eleventh hour by an infinitesimal number of natal males, who have decided that they are women. Now, we are told, trans women are women, but natal females are menstruators. I can’t imagine what the suffragists would have made of this patently absurd turn of events.

There has been a cacophony of apologies to the trans community for Rowling’s apparently tendentious and hate-filled words. But no one has paused to apologise to Rowling for the torrent of abuse she has suffered and for being mischaracterised so profoundly.

So, I’m sorry, JK Rowling. I’m sorry that you will not receive the respectful disagreement you deserve: disagreement with your ideas not your person, disagreement with your politics, rather than accusations of wrongspeak. I’m sorry that schools, publishing staff and fan clubs are now cancelling you. And I’m sorry that you will be punished—because cancel culture is all about punishment. I’m sorry that you are being burned at the digital stake for expressing an opinion that goes against the grain.

But remember this, JK—however counterintuitive this may seem to progressives, whose natural home is on the fringe—most people are looking on incredulously at the disconnect between culture and reality. Despite raucous protestations to the contrary, you are on the right side of history—not just because of the points you make, but because of how you make them.

[lord-rosenth0rne]

Long Rant ahead. Scott Cawthon debacle.

I hate the whole black and white outlook on life. This 'for or against' crap is going to destroy everyone and everything. Those who follow a black or white mindset tend to not know what they are talking about considering if they did, they'd know that very rarely, situations are black and white. It's void of critical thinking and common sense. It can be defeated by not jumping on the bandwagon, stepping back, and taking in the situation.

-Sexuality is not black and white.

-Gender is not black and white.

-Mental illnesses are not black and white.

-Religion is not black and white.

-Relationships are not black and white.

-Intentions are not always black and white.

What the hell makes anyone think anything political IS?

Take Scott Cawthon for example. How he is as a person vs. the whole donation thing does not add up unless you realize he did not donate for the reasons the majority of Twitter and some here on Tumblr think. It doesn't take a detective to connect the dots. Were making those donations wrong? Personally, I think donations to any political party are wrong and people do it regardless, but for the sake of the argument, no. Candidates should win with their policies, not for who uses the most money. Policies are another thing that's never black and white either. It would be fun to see how far each candidate could get on a set amount, but I digress.

Note: tl:dr: READ IT before commenting. We'd all be in a better position if people didn't comment on shit they didn't read. "Oh I didn't read BUT-" Get out of here with that. I believe if you do not read someone's stance on a subject, you don't have a leg to stand on in a conversation and just like the sound of your voice.

Scott Cawthon is a straight white male who is Christian and a Republican. Apparently, people have it in their heads that he cannot be a good person because of it. However, he is not a bigot nor does he hate the LGBTQ+ community as he has LGBTQ+ people on his team. He would not openly hire them if he was a bigot. He also has a history of donating to pro-LGBTQ+ charities (I've already seen people try to dismiss this because of the Republican donations and they're also very wrong in doing so. It's the biggest "I STILL WANNA BE SALTY" I've ever seen. Yeah, people have a right to be angry and upset, but they do not have a right to throw out evidence).

Putting that together should tell you what his intent was with those donations. He doesn't agree with the anti-LGBTQ+ crap, but he saw something else that held potential. He votes for economic well-being first and foremost which isn't bad for any of us. Imagine believing if you vote/donate to a candidate that you back everything about them 100%. We'd all be in trouble in that case since you are no different every four years, supporting one thing your favorite candidate believes but ignoring the rest. Oh, they could be for LGBTQ+, anti-segregation, and women's rights, but they could also be for something that could hurt you or your family in other ways and you either ignore it or don't realize it. Most people aren't very well informed on candidates anyway. There's no such thing as a good politician or a perfect one. You'll suffer one way or another for backing a candidate 100%.

Also, for those who say "donating to people who want me dead", stop being dramatic. If someone wants you dead, you would be dead already. They will not wait for laws to be passed for the ability to kill you. Considering murder carries some serious consequences in our society, they would not care for laws in general if they're willing to commit murder. It's like stricter gun control only affecting the law-abiding: If someone wants a gun bad enough, they'll ignore laws to get it. As for any laws, laws can always be appealed with enough pushback from our communities. Protesting wouldn't be used if it did nothing.

And those calling Scott a coward for retiring, if you were smart, you would too with these circumstances. His family has been harassed and threatened with harm by deranged people. He has a pregnant wife who is being directly targeted. For her sake and the rest of his family's sake, he's pulling out of the spotlight in order for all of this to blow over and the disgusting behavior to disappear. To continue to be in the spotlight would encourage those with harmful intent to follow through with it. You would either be stupid or arrogant to stay.

You can sit there and disagree until you're blue in the face. It doesn't negate the facts at hand. People talk about acceptance and being tolerant but the moment something comes up that they don't like, they toss it all away and go feral. No empathy. No understanding. No thinking for themselves. They just jump on the mob mentality bandwagon and bolt with it. Maybe later they'd see the error of their ways but by then it's too late.

I didn't play FNAF but I did enjoy watching people play it. I've watched interactions between Scott and other people and I know he isn't a bad guy, just someone with opinions I do not agree with but I don't agree with a lot of people. "Misguided", a word many people who are defending Scott like to use, isn't the case. He had reasons for his donations whether you like it or not. There are the worst people out there who haven't been called out properly on their shit yet everyone decided that this was enough to dogpile him. It's actually kinda gross, considering Trump is no longer president AND the donation wasn't recent.

I'm honestly surprised no one has questioned the intent of the person who leaked old news, especially since Trump is no longer in office. I do not believe them to be some innocent party who 'happened' across this VERY PUBLIC information. I think it was being held onto for a slow news day and a way to get a lot of clicks for their article. They most likely got what they wanted the first time considering they doubled down for a second article to fuel the fire while also knowing Scott's family was being targeted. I don't support people who start blatant witch hunts either. There was no reason for this to go as far as it did and no excuse for the harassment. You can still be angry and upset with him but you are not allowed to send death threats and harass them.

Congrats, Twitter. I deleted my account after this debacle. Should have deleted it a long time ago with how toxic it's been but I forgot I even had one. Kotaku, you're also put on a "do not visit" list with Chick-Fil-A and Burger King.

If I went into the political and personal background of every creator I liked and boycotted them over it, I would have nothing, and neither would you. There's got to be a time you have to separate the art from the artist or you're going to have nothing.

If you want to be angry and upset with him, you do have a right to be. If you don't want to support his projects, whether he comes out of retirement or not, more power to you. If you want to just leave the fandom, no one's forcing you to stay. But don't approach this with a black and white mindset and think that's how it has to be. That's not true. It will never be true. Few things in life are black and white and you're better off making informed decisions after weighing the situation.

[duchessofostergotlands]

Hi Jess :) I just had a conversation with my v anti-monarchy dad where we discussed the issues of becoming a republic right now. I don't know about you, but i don't really trust that our current PM/government would do a good job of creating a new system, and not replacing the monarchy with something else forefronts the existing issue of how well our government is held to account. I feel that cutting to a Swedish-style 'royal house' of 8 people might work, but i would love to know your opinion!

Hey anon :) prepare for a long one lol. So I might be wrong but I don’t personally think that the royals would ever be removed under a government like the one we have now. This is why I laughed at the idea the interview would end the monarchy. In amongst all the chit chat, people seem to forget how incredibly Conservative the U.K. is. I’m from Scotland which is probably the most consistently left wing part of the U.K. I’m from perhaps the most right wing part of Scotland but was still shocked to see how Conservative England was when I moved here. People get very caught up in what their Twitter feed says and forget it’s an echo chamber. Every single election I see my left wing friends being absolutely gobsmacked that the Tories won because “everyone on their Twitter said they’d vote Labour.” If my Twitter feed had reflected the U.K. political sphere Jeremy Corbyn would have led a huge majority in parliament for the last 4 years and we’d be in the EU but in reality he was completely unelectable and we’ve left. I know people might claim that younger people are more left wing so that will change but U.K. studies around this suggest that people become more conservative with age not due to generational differences but because of the psychological impact of the ageing process (x). Older people consistently vote more and are more likely to be conservative.  And the thing is Tories will all vote to keep a monarchy whereas Labour would probably be split - Keir has had to pretend to like the Queen to win back lost Labour voters - so I personally think until the government has been led by a comfortable socialist majority for a couple of elections we probably won’t see it be an option. Again I might be wrong and we might remove them next week but I just think people do the same thing every time anything political happens and never learn that Twitter doesn’t equal real life. Boris Johnson killed thousands of people during this pandemic with his shitty decisions and would still win if we had an election this year! (x)

So with that in mind I genuinely think that a government which would be providing us with the end to the monarchy would be a left wing, socialist administration and whether I trust them or not would depend on who was in charge!! I think they would certainly face a difficult process but difficult doesn’t mean you don’t do it. The difficulty for us is just that we don’t have a single written constitution, we have hundreds of laws from across 1000 or so years of the monarchy which are highly complex to unravel. I think we’d have to institute a formal constitution and most likely have a second referendum on the form of government we’d want to take. It would take a long time and we’d have to have a huge amount of trust in the person leading the process. I think it can be beneficial to have a non partisan head of state. One of the only beneficial things the monarch does provide in the U.K. is a way to curtail abuses of power by politicians. We couldn’t have BoJo issuing an executive order like Trump because the Queen signs everything. By her having that power it means someone else doesn’t. I think that person should be elected rather than an inherited role. DNA doesn’t make you suited for a job and it’s baffling in the 21st century to think that it does. But many would disagree because having it vested in one person for decades limits the likelihood of a populist president. 

In terms of having a “slimmed down” monarchy I can definitely see why you would lean towards that as it’s the direction every royal family has been going but I don’t know how well that would work. The reality is the Queen is head of state for 150 million people across the world and so having too few people would probably be impractical. If the U.K. splits up or the Commonwealth Realms leave then I could see it. It might also work if they have a system of abdication like the Dutch monarchy as we wouldn’t have a system where the monarch is almost 100 and can’t visit any of the countries she reigns over so has to hand it out to family. I also think it would be hard to make it consistent. Only a small handful of monarchies have the Royal House vs Royal Family divide which remains consistent across the generations and all of them are much much smaller in population so they can say easily that just the monarch, consort and direct heirs should work. But what if George only had one child and William and Charles passed away young? His child might not be old enough to do duties so it would make sense to have Charlotte and Louis available as possible workers. Or what if there was another Andrew type situation and someone was cut out of working? I would love to see some kind of Royal House and Royal Family divide because it makes a lot of sense for the countries that use it: it removes personal feeling - Sverre Magnus has a lower title than his sister but it’s just the way it is, it’s not personal - and also provides clarity for the public. But there are downsides when you’re dealing with a much bigger, much more active institution so I think there would be snags that might need to be worked out or the definition of who is in the House might have to be a bit broader/more flexible

[instantbreplay]

So, I was looking on Twitter—horribly toxic place to be, trust me—and, I stumbled upon Bratz! I love Bratz! But, not after the bullcrap I saw.

You can already tell what this is about from the thumbnail alone, and I don't wanna cause any arguments with anybody, but this is my opinion, agree to disagree. The people in the comment section have no clue...what the heck they're talking about. A majority of these guys are like "Oh this isn't targeting children because kids under the age of 10 don't have social media" or "Please, kids aren't that dumb", "Stop crying about it, kids know better". Dude, I have seen my niece's friend with an Instagram and TikTok and she's 9. So, you're gonna say that kids don't have social media? They do. Trust me, I know some that do, and if they are not supervised, they will see the adult stuff or stupid attempts like this and try it. They say these kids aren't dumb, but let's look back at the Tide Pod challenge and that challenge from TikTok where you stick a coin or something metal in a vacant outlet while the other is occupied.

You don't think that they won't attempt something like this? Kids take things seriously from their shows. For example, if a kid watches the Disney show "Dog with a Blog", they'll think dogs can talk, or if toys are actually alive if they've seen Toy Story. Kids have that big of an imagination, so they'll think that if they lit their tongue on fire, they won't get burned and the scorch mark will go away.

Honestly though, there are people who agree with my thoughts, but they're taking things a little too far and overreacting a tad bit. https://twitter.com/tempotemptress/status/1449848835564580873?t=BRaq-dKJVg_OwdvfWEkw-w&s=19

This guy said that yes, that clip is encouraging self-harm because this girl (whatever her name is) is burning her tongue but healed up like she threw down a Yu-Gi-Oh card to get her life points back, making kids think that they can do that too, but no, I doubt from the comment "Killing boyz, brb" is encouraging harm to others. It's just a mere saying that indicates "I'm making boys fall to their knees because I'm so awesome", something like that, not "Oh I'm gonna go murder every guy on the planet". No, nothing like that. It's a stupid comment from Bratz to be funny, but the video? Not funny. What people need to do instead of arguing with people on the internet like children on the playground is to teach and discipline their children better, teach them some common sense instead of letting them have social media and do the dumb stuff they see people on the internet doing. I'm 19, and I don't have kids, but I have a niece and nephew, and I tell them to never attempt the dumb stuff we see in our shows. I have to repeat it and explain to them to make sure they understand that it's either dangerous or wrong. I'll let their mother discipline them if they do bad.

These are purely my thoughts, but I just wanna tell and warn people about this because this can and will happen. This generation is not smart, especially if you allow your child to have social media at a young age, but not only can that happen, but your kids will go throug your social media when you're not looking and see the adult stuff. Be sure to watch them and teach them what's safe and what's dangerous. This isn't a gentle reminder; this is the thing I hate seeing or hearing on the internet. I don't want a mother to lose her child because the stupid things people do on the internet. We can't stop people from posting dumb stuff like that, but we can learn from it alone and teach the kids it's not smart or safe. I'm not mad at anybody, I swear, but please make sure that your kids are safe and watch them because they will do stuff behind your back.

Sorry for the long post, but I felt I needed to say something about this because this is ridiculous.

[savrenim]

alright I’m actually going to try a politics hot take for once, let’s see how this goes

I saw a post on my dash that started with a tweet about how the email companies that trump has been using to send out announcements have suspended his accounts, which basically devolved into the take of “this is all great and fun to watch but all of these companies should have actually done something five years ago instead of scrambling for performative actions now”, and I have to say that while I agree with some of it, I also... disagree with a lot?

it is flat-out a fact that when you de-platform fascists, you kill their movements. I’m not arguing that one. I’m in support of that one, and I’m in support of the actions that all of these social media and tech companies are taking. and maybe this should have happened earlier than 2021. but I think we need to be really careful about what precedents are being set?

there was something that a good friend of mine commented years ago offhand in a group chat where some folks were getting excited about one of those incidents of “someone said something really racist on twitter, someone else found where they worked and reported it to their boss, the op got fired”, which was that we were celebrating because right now the thing that was socially acceptable to fire someone over aligned with our beliefs. but that it was setting the precedent either way that companies could fire someone for expressing personal beliefs off the clock, which (a) would bite us in the ass when what was socially acceptable to be fired for and our personal beliefs no longer aligned, and (b) was just kind of a capitalist hellscape thing of do we really want to live in a world where every single opinion that we express can be judged by where we work, even while we are not working there, to the extent that they can fire us over it. 

and it sucks because yeah, fascists deserve to be fired. yeah, racists fucking suck and deserve to be fired, especially in jobs where them holding said job may be actively causing people harm. but the waters start to be muddy when you just let companies make these decisions themselves, because we can’t really expect corporations to be good-faith actors in all of this and in the future.

this kind of mass deplatforming that is happening right now is great, but I think that they kind of did have to wait for him to directly incite violence in such an undeniable way before they enacted it. or maybe that was the wrong line, but some really clear line did need to be crossed, because no matter what we now exist in a world where social media platforms, tech companies, and email providers can decide that they don’t agree with someone’s political calls to action. which isn’t to say-- I definitely do think we need to live in a world where a fascist call to overthrow a government and overturn an election is immediately deplatformed. but if that happened too early in the game, we would just live in a world where “extreme” opinions are deplatformed, and do we really want major corporations to be the ones judging which extreme opinions are warranting that? 

again, maybe this whole take is stupid, I’m not actually on social media enough to know that if activists are being deplatformed in the same way for less egregious things, in which case all of the above is kind of a moot point and it’s just a double standard. but I really just think that we should be aware, especially with such an obvious public precedent being set: if this had happened in 2015, if social media and big tech companies had just mass banned a presidential candidate from using any of their services, that would be bad. just because it was a far right candidate and that is good for antifascism and good in 2015, it’s really really bad��in capitalist hellscape where we’re already clinging to “what are our rights vs these companies” and it would have set the precedent in the future for “there is a far left or even just left candidate that we don’t like so we can just mass ban them” I don’t really think this is performative action taken not soon enough necessarily; I think some really really concrete line needed to have been crossed to make sure that this kind of action isn’t something that companies can start doing to individuals across all platforms, and while this might feel like too little too late, at least “literally incite a government coup to storm the Capital” is not a line that leftist activists and organizers are crossing so this isn’t immediately going to be applied to positive things too

[ironwoman359]

Hello. I saw the post you reblogged about toxicity in the TS fandom. And as someone who is relatively new (Just over 2 months, heyo!), may I ask what kind of toxic behaviour do you see in the fandom? I hope this isn't too much for me to ask, I was just a bit curious and wanted some clarification on the matter. Please feel free to ignore this if it bothers you!

Well, welcome to the fandom, first of all! I hope you’re having fun so far. 

In regards to the post you’re talking about, I think @izzyfandoms said it best: “...most fandoms are okay but have a loud toxic minority, but for us the not-toxic people are often the loudest so we can come off as pure and perfect...” 

Most fandoms do have an amount of toxic behavior in them, it’s very rare (I’d say impossible, actually) to find one with zero problems, but it’s also usually more noticable in other communities than in this fandom, as we have been fortunate to have the non-toxic majority also be the louder voices most of the time (most often in fandoms, toxicity is a loud minority, though there are of course exceptions to this as well). 

The other thing I think is important to remember is that this fandom started out smaller than it is now. I’ve been a presence here since november 2017, and there are other who have been around even longer, and back then, the fandom was much smaller and therefore the toxic minority was even harder to notice. This led to us gaining a reputation of “purity,” which in turn made issues more complicated when they started to crop up. Every fandom is going to have issues, things that people in it disagree about, and people who try to stir up trouble. This is normal, and a fandom displaying those traits is not immediately a bad fandom. What can shift a fandom into an unhealthy one is when issues, disagreements, and drama become the focal point and people begin to treat each other poorly over these things. And I would say a majority of fanders are good at not falling into that type of thinking or acting. But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and it doesn’t mean that the fandom as a whole can just stick our heads in the sand and pretend everything is fine. 

So, you asked me what toxic behaviors I see. I’m going to talk about some examples I’ve seen in this fandom, and before I do I’d like to state first off that it is not my intention to attack anyone specific, or to shame people for their tastes in characterizations, ships, or their triggers or squicks. This is me trying to give my open and honest opinion about this community while being as respectful and tactful as possible. 

Also going forward, every time I say “the fandom” or “people” or refer to the community in some other all encompassing way, know that I do not mean every single person in it, or even a majority necessarily, just enough people to make it noticable. If you exhibit some of the behaviors I’m talking about, I’m not saying you’re a bad person or that you shouldn’t be here, far from it. But everyone has flaws, and these are just some common things that I see in this community. Maybe if you see yourself in this post, you can take a step back and consider your thoughts and actions to see how they may be harming you or others. 

Regardless of everything I’ve said and am about to say, I really love this fandom and the people in it, and I’m incredibly grateful for the impact it’s had on my life. Some bumps in the road aren’t going to change that. (Also I don’t engage with the fandom much outside of tumblr, things may be different on twitter, discord, or other places, this is just my experience with this platform specifically. Okay? Okay.)

So...here’s what I see in this fandom:

It is quick to judge. Anyone been here long enough to remember the week when Roman was “cancelled” between Accepting Anxiety part 1 and part 2? I came into the community later that year, but the fandom elders can tell you, there was a rally against Roman as a character, and a slew of people calling out prinxiety shippers for shipping such a “toxic ship.”  You’d think after that first time, the community would have learned to perhaps be not so quick in its judgements, but we’ve seen the same pattern over and over again.

People were quick to judge Deceit when his character was introduced, which was followed by a back and forth where people argued about what was and wasn’t “sympathetic” content, how things should be tagged, and 

People were quick to judge Virgil after Embarrassing Phases

People were quck to judge Patton after SvS and Patton AND Virgil after DWIT. 

People were quick to judge Remus after DWIT.

And here’s the thing, it’s fine if you have different interpretations of characters, or prefer certain versions. You see Patton’s character flaws and decide “you know what, this character isn’t for me now” or want to explore those flaws taken to their extremes? That is okay. What is not okay, and what this fandom does a lot, is insisting that YOUR interpretation and version of the character is the correct one and shaming people with different ideas. It’s fine if you don’t like Patton or take issue with his current flaws being displayed. It’s NOT fine to attack people who disagree and send anon hate to blogs who speak out in support of Patton. It’s fine if you don’t like unsympathetic sides content. It’s NOT fine to shame people who do or send anon hate to unsympathetic sides blogs. There are lots of different ways to interpret all SIX sides, and yet so often I see people go on some sort of crusade to defend their opinon and insist that it’s canon. 

But that’s all just the characters, this fandom also is very quick to judge the individuals in it. Real, breathing people with lives outside the internet are often shamed or attacked for their opinions about the characters, different ships, the way they’ve chosen to portray the characters in their art or stories, I could go on. Purity culture and cancel culture are prevalant in all areas of the internet, and this fandom is not exempt from it. Demonizing people for making small mistakes, or even for just disagreeing with you, is never okay, and yet it is something I’ve seen again and again in this fandom. Which leads me to my next point...

Anon hate. God, it makes me so angry, and this is the only one that I won’t try to portray both sides of or be diplomatic about, because it is flat out unacceptable no matter the circumstance. There are so many blogs in this fandom that have horrible anon hate problems, and I am sick of seeing it. I don’t care what a person has done or what opinions they have that you may disagree with, I don’t care if they’re the worst person in the world. It’s not okay to send anon hate, and it’s not okay to tell people to kill themselves. You find a blog in this fandom that you just Do Not like, either because of their content, their opinions, hell, just their personality? Unfollow them. Block them if you want. But sending anon hate over ships, characters, opinions and statements, it’s just childish and unacceptable. And it happens enough in this fandom that there are people who are afraid of making statements about things for fear of attracting more of that energy. Love always follows the hate and drowns it out in this fandom, for which I’m grateful, but the hate shouldn’t exist in the first place. Cut that shit out. 

In general, this fandom has not handled differing opinions well, be it opinions on how to tag content, disagreements over characterizations, or encountering an idea that you personally may not care for. It is ultimately up to individuals to curate their online experience, by unfollowing blogs they don’t like, blocking tags and blogs they don’t want to see, and reading summaries and content warnings before opening fics. Often in this fandom I think people get upset if something isn’t tagged the way they want it to be (and I’m not talking about not tagging triggers, I’m talking like, someone insisting a blogger tag deceit content as #ts deceit when they already tag it as #deceit sanders. In situations like that it is the responsibilty of that someone to either block the tags a blog is using or not follow blogs whose tagging system doesn’t work for them), or if someone disagrees with them and we forget that it is okay to just...unfollow people. You don’t have to follow every blog in this fandom to be a part of the community, and if a blog is making posts and content you don’t like, unfollow them, don’t attack them for it. Accept that they have as much a right to their opinions and their space in the fandom as you do, and adjust your block and follow list accordingly so that you can get the experience that YOU want out of this fandom. 

I hope this was helpful, and I hope it didn’t get too long for you. I’m not putting this under a cut because I think it’s important, but I will tag it as #longpost so my mobile users don’t suffer too much. If you want to discuss this in the notes, please keep it civil, and remember that we all are fans of Thomas here, and that we probably have more in common than we do differences. I love you guys, stay awesome

[lifetimeoftired]

Not to rant on my blog about things that annoy me about people’s dumbass fucking opinions, b u t-

I saw this take on twitter that was basically, “the only reason people are saying it’s okay to like the Darkling and Not Ben solo is because the darkling is hot”, and oh fuck do I have a huge fucking problem with this. For multiple reasons. However, as a rational person I realize I’m allowed to vent on my space about it, and decided to do so. Under a read more where people can choose not to read it.

So, if you want to disagree with me? Fine, you do you, let me rant in peace. This post is not an open debate. Try and argue with me and I will just straight up block you.

So my first and foremost problem with the boys being pitted against over their looks is that, well, Adam Driver, the actor of Ben Solo, looks like he could be the younger brother of Benedoot Bumbercootch and I can assure that people thirsted over the latter for YEARS. Sure, a few people made jokes about how he looked like an E.T., but overall so many people talked for so long over his hotness. If people can find Banknote Cumbersome sexy, there’s no excuse for not finding Adam Driver sexy.

(That being said, if most don’t find him sexy, it might be because of everybody realizing BBC’s Sherlock was bad and always had been and found any reason to mock the actors, including their looks, that people can’t find Eggs Sandwich sexy anymore. But really, who even knows.)

((Also , Yikes(tm) about saying Adam Driver isn’t handsome if you’re supposed to like his looks that much.))

And you know what? I don’t think Ben Barnes is hot. There, I said it. He’s not that attractive. They both look like super basic white boys and they hold no interest for me what so ever. So I think whomever you find more attractive is as moot point, because not everybody who’s hot is going to be liked this much by the fandom. And hotness is subjective because beauty, eye, beholder, you get the drill.

If you’re here reading this and thinking ‘so wait you said multiple reasons, you’ve only talked about the looks’ correct, I did say that. And my other reasons have to do with the three major things; The writing, the timelines, and the overall enemies-to-lovers trope itself.

So, to begin with, if you’ve ever heard my opinions on star wars and crylo weeb especially, you’ll know I have issues with his redemption arc. These don’t stem from thinking villains SHOULDN’T be redeemed, in fact, redeemed villains is one of my favorite tropes! But, if you want me to believe your villain is going for a redemption arc, they shouldn’t spend so much time telling the audience “I turned evil and killed a bunch of innocent people because my uncle thought I was going to turn evil and kill people” and “I literally do not want to be redeemed I like where I’m at”. How the fuck am I supposed to go along with a redemption arc if the character makes absolutely no moves whatsoever to actually DO anything that screams ‘I want to be a better person’? Dragging villains into their redemption arcs only works if it’s comedic, not for a serious story about redemption. It feels cheap as well.

(Part of this comes from the fact that they changed directors between movies and pandered to the fans over telling an interesting story, but that’s another rant.)

Another thing that bothered me about redeeming Ben is that... I wanted him to be a villain. I wanted to see this homicidal maniac go nuts on the story and our heroes overcome the challenges he set out! I admit, I took it very personally that I wasn’t allowed to have a really cool over dramatic bitch faced villain! I like bitchy villains who own their villainess! I wanted that for Ben sooooooo badly, but no, no I can’t have anything nice.

Then there’s the Darkling, and I fucking loved him. In his writing, not only did he own every second he was a villain, I actually felt his backstory made him prime villain material. At no point was dragged unwillingly into a character arc he didn’t want! He stayed a villain and craved being a murderous king and never looked at anything else. That was sexy as hell!! I don’t want his redemption arc, I want an Alina corruption arc because the Darkling was a great villain.

Another part of the writing that sets the two men apart, and makes the Darkling a sexier character, is that he worshipped the ground Alina walked on. (Or, at least, pretended to.) The Darkling spent most of his time teaching her to use her powers, teaching her to have confidence in herself, treating her like she was worthy with or without him. Even when he was revealed to be the bad guy, he still tried to get her on his side, and only turned on her when she refused to join him.

In contrast to Ben, who spent his time staring at Rey while she was tied down and unable to do anything and only thought she was worthy to listen to him because she was a captive audience. He only offered to train her if she joined him, and then later attempted to kill her, or at least maim her, because she didn’t want anything to do with him.

So of course I’m going to wish Alina had been able to be with the Darkling, he was genuinely good to her! 

And again, I’m not saying you can’t like Ben Solo, only, from the perspective of somebody who’s very fucking done with a half assed redemption arcs with the power of pussy, and the perspective of somebody who doesn’t feel the need to justify why I like villains doing villainous things or think that woobified villains are inherently better. I just think there’s a good reason overall that has nothing to do with looks.

Next in line is the fact that, we had more time to become attached to the character of the Darkling than we did Ben Solo. Shockingly enough, but the discourse around the Darkling has already come and gone. We’ve been over this hill, whereas Ben Solo’s discourse was Fresh and Spicy for internet wankers to take advantage of.

The truth is, people were already primed to like the Darkling and to think of him as attractive. We had several years and long in-depth books to get to know his character, get to enjoy who he was and what he was like. People had so much time to pour over his actions and meta about him and place him on their internal shelves. Ultimately, people came to their own conclusions, made their peace with other people’s, and are watching Shadow and Bone to see a story they already like and know where it’s going, play out. 

Ben didn’t have that. He was a brand new villain with a brand new story in an old favorite series. People had no primed reactions to him beyond what we were given on-screen, and people had no time to settle him into their headspaces because the trolls decided his fans were a prime target for harassments so they could pat their own asses about whatever bullshit they wanted to spout.

And, you know what? We were SUPPOSED to like the Darkling because he was written as one of the triangle love interests, as a red herring, so to speak. He was written to be LIKEABLE. Ben Solo was not! From the beginning, he was meant to be written as a villain, he was supposed to be their next big villain to be a villain until disney decided they should try and pander to the fandom because dudebros were bitching so much about a possibly black jedi being one of the tritagonists.

Their looks have nothing to do with the way Ben Solo’s character and writing was continually fucked over by Disney until unapologetic villain stans like myself hated him.

So, lastly, we come to enemies-to-lovers overall. I want to state right now that it’s actually a personal favorite trope of mine. There is something very sexy about somebody who used to want you dead now loving you to the point of madness.

H o w e v e r, 

THE DARKLING AND ALINA ARE NOT ENEMIES TO LOVERS, THEY’RE LOVERS TO ENEMIES GET IT RIGHT.

Not to be completely pedantic, but if you’re going to bitch about a trope, for the love of god get your tropes right. Enemies to lovers can be a very sexy trope (I personally wish the Netflix writers hadn’t been such cowards so that Lotor and Allura could end up together because he was a genuinely good enemy with such a tasty option for redemption but nooooooooooOOOO-), but lovers to enemies is a FASCINATINGLY ANGSTY trope and a tragic love story will always be more popular than a happy love story. See, the popularity of Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet, over the popularity of The Tempest, or Much Ado About Nothing. Hell, the story I know the most about from other religions/mythologies are mainly tragedies! People love a love story, but people remember a tragic tale of lost love.

Like, yeah Ben died at the end, but his ending was tragic, it’s was a slap in the face. If you’re going to redeem your villain just to kill him off in the most bullshit way and leave his lost interest lost and alone and sad her entire life and she goes back to a place she was abandoned.... I’m sorry but you’ve written a bad story. There was no cathartic resolution to their story that made you think ‘oh how terrible that the world wouldn’t let them be!’ it was ‘jesus the writers must really hate us’. Whereas the Darkling are far more tragic because she genuinely loved him before he betrayed her. It was ‘ah! how great it is that he loved her so much he could change!’ their story was ‘how tragic it is that his love for her wasn’t enough to make him give up on his evilness!’. We mourn the latter and we mourn it longer because it was a natural, satisfying conclusion to their story that Ben and Rey did not get.

I think, there’s also a part of it that has to do with Mal being a total incel who didn’t like Alina’s powers and only paid attention to her as a love interest after another man was paying attention (gross). While Rey’s love interest Finn was actually an interesting character on his own without Rey, but he got completely sidelined to shoehorn in a totally unnecessary redemption arc. By I think the three points I made above are the most important reasons.

Anyway, that’s my rant for today. If you want a TLDR:

- Beauty is subjective, people can and do find Adam Driver just as sexy as Ben Barnes. It doesn’t have as much bearing on their overall popularity as you think it does. You’re just mad because you wanna fuck Ben Barnes more than your other favorite sad boy, get over it.

- The Darkling was written to be likeable and without a redemption arc, while Ben Solo was never meant to have one and also be unlikable. The inconsistent writing does play a part in the dislike of Ben over the Darkling.

- We had more time to get attached to the Darkling, understand his character, and know what to expect out of him, Ben did not have the benefit of the doubt for most people and they were disappointed by afore mentioned poor writing because of that.

- It’s not even enemies to lovers, it’s lovers to enemies, Get It Right. Don’t misapply terms please I’m begging you.

Thanks, hope you didn’t actually read any of this, goodnight/

[homosexualadventure]

every single lmam song, ranked.

i just finished listening to let’s make a music for the first time, and Oh My God it rocks. it’s a great podcast and if you’re reading this without having listened to it...i don’t know what to tell you. i don’t know what you think lmam means. but, that aside, if you haven’t listened to it yet: go listen to it! it’s not a crazy long podcast, overall or episode length-wise, so it’s manageable even for people who usually can’t handle podcasts (like me!) anyways, now that it’s over, what’s left for me to do with my time and energy that i used to spend thinking about lmam?

listen to the episodes again so that i can rank all fourty-one songs from worst to best, of course. so that’s exactly what i did.

i mostly ranked these on my gut feeling, because i didn’t come up with the idea of ranking it on a set of points before like...five minutes ago. there’s a bit of personal bias in here, so if you disagree with me on rankings, hey! send me an ask, or a dm. we can talk about it. 

so, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into it! let’s...make a ranking. haha. that’s just a fun little lmam joke for you. 

41. the roquefort stank

this song only gets points for laura’s stanky noises in the background. i love laura.

40. shan’t he shanty

weirdly catchy. for a sea shanty, that is. that’s all i have to say.

39. well, i’m on child...

i do love a good gay song about polyamory but it just wasn’t enough in this case. truly heartbreaking. 

38. dog trash

i’m not a big fan of polka in general. that’s all i have to say. i don’t have to explain all my decisions. this is my journey. and it’s your journey that you’re taking with me.

37. echoes of wednesday

it’s not my favorite but i do think it’s sweet and i like all the laura vocals. also the zuko vocals. 

36. brothers in legs

not their best character song but it’s still a song you could quietly headbang to. i just don’t love full story ballads (there is an exception to this, you’ll see) most of the time. 

35. ol’ tim’s tricks

i’m not saying it’s a bad song, i’m just saying it sounds like it was once in a made for tv disney channel-esque movie about a girl who finds her calling in sports and friendship.

34. don’t give me that altitude

very queen-esque with general 80s vibes and i like that.

33. dreamless

if it was longer i think it would be a lot higher on the list, because it’s Good. but i don’t feel right putting a 45 second song above, like, tobie’s razor. still! i love the mellow, kind of sad and eerie tones of it.

32. holiday crime!

look i know this one’s fairly low on the list, hear me out: it’s a good song and it’s pretty memorable as well! but as far as holiday songs go, i don’t think it’s their best or most iconic one. laura’s laughing and beat in the back is absolutely wonderful and heartwarming, though.

31. mr. dad

this one gets a higher rating than the previous holiday song for its good good harmonica and because when i heard the lyrics “but you love to watch him go” used to describe mr. dad i almost toppled my chair backwards with me still in it.

30. mourning ritual

the biggest load of 1980s bullshit i’ve ever heard in this decade. somehow it’s also got a big panic! at the disco vibe and i’m not sure how i feel about it but it’s definitely Strongly There and i can’t deny it.

29. outback sadhouse

it’s RIDICULOUS how well they nailed the sufjan stevens vibe with this one. plus the restaurant dialogue bit in the back of the song really adds a lot. 

28. let down my better dynamite

it’s really easy to bop to and the instrumental in the background is FANTASTIC! jonah really killed it with this one. plus they talk a lot about rats in the episode which is nice for me because i love rats. also it’s the first episode with an instance of “brian does a bit”.

27. the tale of the greazzy creek

i just think it absolutely nails the vibe of a rural campfire grizzled old cowboy song while also being a really catchy theme song. like, i think you could’ve snuck it into holes (2003) and i would’ve been like, yeah, that sounds right. 

26. turn around and come down slowly

not one of their more iconic songs but brian’s voice is so pretty in this and it’s really soothing. 

25. ratless randy’s

i don’t know why it’s this high on the list either, but it is. ratless randy’s really IS the place to be, guys.

24. tobie’s razor

i will be honest. when i saw the title for this episode for the first time i just thought “occam’s razor” and as i type this i can’t even think of what that actually is, so..... anyways, i’d say this song absolutely NAILS the vibe but i have no idea what vibe it’s even remotely related to. certainly does nail the internal childhood monologue though. i think this song is the first one where they really started hitting their stride, also. not that it’s better than some of the earlier ones, but this one forward their songs were pretty consistently high quality. plus, and no one will be surprised by this by now, it gets extra points for laura. 

23. armoire of royals

it’s weird, it’s synthy, has a vaguely billie eilish-esque part near the end which is not necessarily a point in favor depending on your taste but it Definitely is surprising and cool, and it’s got fake british accents. what more do you need out of a song?

22. sybil’s night scare

the piano in this is perfect and fantastic and the comedic timing in the song is just right. jonah’s delivery of “they’re actually real human eyes” is so goddamn good and his singing is Also great and frankly i think we can all agree we’re fucking tired of him saying he can’t sing. i mean, i assume (i fucking hope) he’s stopped saying that by now considering he had the majority of vocals on silo by a bit but Still. it’s a good peppy halloween-y song.

21. chalice for your thoughts

two spooky songs in a row! honestly, i’m not sure what reasons i have for ranking this song as high as i did. i just like it a lot. they were able to include a lot of weird twitter suggestions fairly seamlessly, and it’s just soft and pretty. spooky, but still pretty. 

20. 21st blitheday

i admit it: i fucking hate the voice brian uses in this. but i really, really like the song. the beat’s very good and somehow brian still manages to sing the chorus well and make it sound nice even though his affectation is Stupid as hell <3 the background whistling is nice and his robot voice, which he’s used for several of his videos but i think most notoriously for scrundler in his week in revue series (here), is also featured. it’s a real bop, i think.

19. monday night boomball

i genuinely think this is their weirdest song, ever. it’s incomprehensible and it’s so fucking theatre kid of them, and it’s dumb as shit but it’s really funny and enjoyable and strange and i love it.

18. gentle light

this is a really good song. it’s not weird or funny, it’s genuinely just a really soft, calming, normal song. i can’t in good conscience rank it above the others for this reason, because it’s easier to make a regular song good than it is for a song about fucking a tree, but i want to be clear: i really love this song. it’s a song that you could fall asleep to, cry to, cuddle up in a blanket to, whatever the hell you want to do to it.

17. proud egg mouth

extra points for fitting the word “maw” in any kind of song, a feat i’m not sure anyone else has ever accomplished. also for brian actually singing with an egg in his mouth.

16. you can take that to the bank

brian does an incredible randy newman impression and i love him for it. also it’s just a good song! it’s not my favorite but it’s very pleasing to my ears and it’s well made.

15. rainbow trout eggs

i listened to a shit ton of colbie caillat in middle school and i can tell you with confidence that the lyrics “i feel so alive and i know that i’m happy na na na na na hey hey” would be in one of her songs. it’s a good song with completely ridiculous lyrics and it’s a better character/full story ballad than their previous ones, in my opinion. which is what you’re specifically here for!

14. car mitzvah

i think this is a song my dad would listen to if it came on the radio. i also think it deserves to be in an early 90s or maybe coming of age movie. brian’s vocals are fantastic in this, also.

13. dr. brims

“it’s a new year, Ha Hah!” this song is sooooo fucking funny and exemplary of a lot of their other songs that came afterwards. i’ve been saying that a lot i think. writing reviews is hard.

12. let’s make a music (theme song)

maybe it’s the emotional value of this song being the song i associate most with the podcast, since it’s the theme song, or maybe it’s just really good. (spoiler: it’s both but mostly the second one) the episode is also really funny in general and if you’re new to the podcast and don’t care about order, i highly recommend this one first! 

11. heartbreak in michael’s

a very very very good sad gay love song and i recommend it to the ends of the earth! because this is the internet, and i can!

10. arbor day!

you try making a horny song about deforestation.

9. why don’t you like our song title?

such a fucking bop and showcases their skill for just doing whatever the hell they want and STILL making a fantastic song or video or whatever. they just stop saying words in it and it does not take anything away from the song. could you do that? i mean...maybe! but for the sake of this review and my point i’m gonna be like fuck you no you couldn’t. moving on.

8. akimbo

the backing track in this is ABSOLUTELY what makes the song. plus that one video of brian strutting but technically that can’t affect my review of the song because Technically it’s not part of the song. anyways it’s really peppy and fun and enjoyable and Good.

7. heartbreak in michael’s (reprise)

it’s the perfect finale song. like, it genuinely sounds like the song that plays at the end of a romcom after everything’s finally worked out. i Did cry when i heard brian sing the theme song at the end but that’s just because i’m a sentimental son of a bitch. so besides that ending bit that i can(’t) guarantee will make you tear up at Least, it’s really fucking fun! it’s upbeat and happy and i think they made the right song to go out on. or to go on a hiatus on, if brian’s website is to be believed. i don’t believe it, but hypothetically, y’know? hypothetically...

6. debutaunt ball

if the met gala doesn’t make this their theme song i will personally burn next year’s event to the ground, i swear to god. also it’s a good song to show off both jonah and brian’s range. it’s not like a lot of their other songs but it’s SUCH a banger and i adore it.

5. madame zamporium’s wax emporium 

fuck yeah. learning that the “ooh come on baby” from several unraveleds came from a let’s make a music is the reason i finally started listening to the podcast in the first place. but BESIDES that, since that’s not a reason for my ranking (just a fun little fact about me!), this song slaps a ridiculous amount. they went insanely hard and it’s the first song they made that really sets the tone of the podcast, which is: great comedy, great high production music. 

4. alan rickman’s edible zoo

GOD! the anti-celebrity, anti-capitalist rock song i’ve been waiting all my fucking life for! also it’s anti-america but only in one lyric. but in Another sense....throughout the whole song. PLUS, and most importantly, it features jonah’s literally and i mean LITERALLY impeccable alan rickman impression. like, it’s fucking bulletproof. alan rickman was in the goddamn room. 

3. horsecar!

look. when this song started playing for the first time i went...fuck no. in general i don’t tolerate country or cowboy songs very well because they just don’t sound appealing to my ears most of the time. i put up with country road only because of a funny mario edit someone made of it and now the original song has more value to me. this is relevant only because the same thing happened with horsecar! in that the chorus KICKS ASS. i may make a post on just my favorite lmam songs and also this is already a crazy long post so i won’t go into it too much but i will say this. the shock value of going from the first verse in this song to the chorus is...........Incredibly high and it Works So Fucking Well! it literally makes the song. and not even just for the short term value of Oh My God That’s A Twist, it lasts through the whole song. i’m listening to the song as i type this and i’m currently at the country/cowboy part and i don’t hate it because i know the chorus is incredible. in fact, i’d argue that the chorus on its own may be the best thing lmam ever made, even better than my two actual favorite songs of theirs. i’m definitely going to have to make a full post on this. (SIDE NOTE: BRIAN’S VOCALS ARE FUCKING CRAZY AND HORSECAR! IS ONE OF THE BEST EXAMPLES OF THIS. his goddamn RANGE!! SIR!!! his falsetto is literally ridiculous my pants are OFF)

2. dragon me to this wedding

this is what i meant when i said there’s an exception to the “i’m not generally a fan of full story ballads”, because this is one of my all time favorite lmam songs. as in, it’s in the top three. which i guess you can tell from it being number two in the top three. in fact, it’s probably one of my favorite songs in general. the first time i listened to the episode i went back and listened to the song again three times in a row, and all three times i cried real tears. it’s GAY it’s REALLY PRETTY and i LOVE IT. 

1. save 2 4 tony

so we’ve finally made it to my all-time favorite lmam song. maybe it’s that i recently graduated myself and so this song hits a little harder, but it also just GOES hard. i genuinely think they peaked when they recorded this. it’s one of those bdg songs where you’re listening to it, you’re just chilling, and it’s like “yeah wow this is nice!” and all of a sudden he hits a falsetto and you go “oh FUCK that guy can SING!” literally his vocals in this are incredible and it’s very fun (and on brand) that the Oh Fuck moment here is the line “tony hawk babeyyy!” plus jonah killed it on the backing and composition and everything. it’s the best let’s make a music song and i won’t take constructive criticism.

[iaintyourbro]

I always try to remain neutral and balanced. There are things that I agree and disagree on both sides, but for the most part of it, I support the Cloti side more. Tbh and fair, both sides have flaws. CAs are usually irrational and aggressive. CTs always had an upper hand, most of them are rational, but sometimes they don’t realize that they’re being overweening to the point that they’re disrespecting/hating other people. Wish fans wouldn’t obsessed on such things, cuz its dangerous 😅

Hey anon.

As somebody who is new to the online world of “Fandom” but a veteran FF fan, it’s pretty insane to see what’s been going on for the last 23 years. I agree, I think it’s unhealthy the amount of obsession some folks have with this. I also think you are seeing an uptick in extreme behavior for a few reasons:

COVID-19 Quarantine and people not being able to go out and do other things

The fact that Remake came out during the height of most countries’ quarantines, so it’s really all people focused on.

Official accounts promoting Cloti content over CA content. 

Plushie War of 2020 (see previous bullet)

Remake just coming out added a lot of new fans, an ending that was open for people to go ham on theory crafting, and reignited some older fans that may have been very active a long time ago, but hadn’t been until recently. 

I have not run in to many extreme Clotis, and I definitely haven’t run in to ones that are as bad as some of the CAs on Twitter. However, I do want to make it clear, that I know for a fact that the majority of CA shippers are normal, level headed people, just like the majority of Cloti shippers.

Shipping is a fun thing to do, but it’s not the whole story. Especially in the case of FF7. It’s kind of comical that a game that was very unromantic is the most fought over when it comes to romance... 

I think when you see Clotis getting defensive, it’s because they feel like they constantly have to be defensive. They see things that are completely wrong about the story and go on the defensive to try and say “No, this isn’t true, here is the quote/moment/whatever.” to make sure bad information isn’t being put out. I should say, not just Clotis do this, either. Plenty of CA fans have come to defend the story of FF7 because they care about the STORY and FACTS over their ship “winning” the canon argument. 

My experience - which isn’t a ton - with the extremists on the CA side is when you do present them with facts, they block you or call you some nasty name and then block you. I laugh at this, honestly. I also won’t go down to that level because even if they are bat shit crazy in some cases, I know there’s a person on the other side of the screen... and some of them really should get checked out for mental health purposes. The amount of anger that comes from some folks is just... abnormal. In other cases, for ones that are extremely offensive, I’ll block them preemptively for my own mental health. 

I also don’t tolerate Anti-Tifa or Anti-Aerith bullshit. There are other Anti-Groups, but those two are the largest. Anybody who has to vehemently attack and tear down one of the girls clearly sees them as a threat, in my opinion... to whatever their ship is. It also just isn’t very motivating as a female to see them doing that all so their “waifu” gets to “win” the guy... It’s a bizarre mentality to me. It plays down their characters as just thirsty women trying to get with a guy, and both of them deserve so much better than that.

I know how I am with this stuff. I go with whatever ship is “obvious” to me in games and media. So far, for main couples, I haven’t been wrong... but honestly every other FF slammed them in your face. (I didn’t play XIII... so I’m not too familiar with that one, but.). It doesn’t mean I’m always right, it just means I follow the story and am usually fine with whatever the “end game” couple ends up being. If I don’t, I won’t play the game again, and I absolutely won’t go online and try to prove why I’m right about this obviously non-canon ship. 

If Aerith was clearly the end game, I’d probably be a CA shipper. To me, it never was, though. My rational side could not justify it with her being dead. At 13 and at 32, I can’t comprehend it. Cloud is 21 years old and knew her for a month - that’s my biggest thing. She died in front of him, he had just tried to kill her so yeah, that’d mess you up... but in terms of pining forever or wanting to die to reunite with her... it’s disturbing and unrealistic.

If SE wanted to revive her, they would have. They created X-2 and give you a “Perfect” ending so Yuna and Tidus could be reunited... and then write a novel after it to kill off Tidus and have Yuna get with another guy... The major theme of FF7 was about loss and life. Bringing her back would shit all over that. Keeping her alive in Remake would also shit all over that. 

In ACC you get to see her happily walk off with Zack. It’s not like SE left her to be all alone. She has her first love with her after it all. This may go against the life and loss thing, but most people believe in some type of afterlife, so it’s fitting to me to showcase it. 

In any case, thanks for the ask. This is longer than it should be, but Twitter has been pretty bad lately, so I guess I have a lot of feelings about it.