#but they’d absolutely still gaslight the fans about it

[insanesonofabitch]

Supernatural where everything is the same except they make seemingly insignificant line alterations that makes it even more gay than it already is.

“Okay Cas here’s everything you need to know about waitresses and bartenders…” (deans dream job)

“Well Cas not for nothing but the last guy who looked at me like that, I got laid.”

“There are two things I know for certain: one, Bert and Ernie are gay. Two, you are not gonna die a virgin. Especially not on my watch.”

[louisisalarrie]

I read that Simon knew Louis was gay and accepted it but he didn’t count on Harry and a relationship between the two so he closeted them. Do you believe that happened?

Big chats here, but long story short, yes. Louis was the oldest, and most extroverted, and the strongest. He was the leader. He was proud to be gay, proud to be with Harry, and was fiercely protective of him from the very beginning. If he convinced louis it was a good idea to hide things for the sake of their career, Louis would explain that to Harry, and Harry would trust everything Louis said because he was older and H looked up to him. He believed louis knew best, because of that age gap and the manipulation S*mon put Louis through to convince him it was the only way to have a career (not just for him, but for the others and Harry, who he cares so deeply for) was parroted back to Harry and harry believed it, because it came from Louis. It was a shit show of gaslighting, manipulation, fear mongering and empty promises.

Remember when Louis talked about how he was flown out to S*mon’s house for a talking to the day after one direction performed at a gay bar with all that cake and Harry and Louis were all over each other? And they looked the happiest they’d ever been? Yeah. Louis was the one S*mon took hold of, and manipulated into thinking it wasn’t gonna last.

And I truly think S*mon thought it wasn’t actually going to last. That it was just two kids figuring themselves out, and it would end eventually, if he pushed Louis into believing it would and set them up with stunts. He knew that the earlier he pushed them apart, the better. If he could squash it at the beginning and convince them to stop trying because “Hey Louis, Harry’s just a kid, he looks up to you but it’s not real love, and if it continues you won’t have any fans or a career and would you want that for Harry?” then they wouldn’t have to worry. BUT Louis was so fierce. You could see the way he fought against management. He’s incredibly strong minded and stands up for what he believes in. And he believed in him and Harry. He believed in them making it. He believed that even though they were young, this was special. It was different. And if shit went bad, he’d protect Harry and they’d be okay. But that took a little while for him, I imagine. Because being so young and the man who holds your career in his hands telling you that you’ll lose all hopes and dreams if you continue on letting this kid fall for you would 100% put you in a tricky position. Unfortunately, S*mon used Louis to push stunts and get his way and tell him that “if you still wanna be with Harry in the future, we’ll let it happen. But for now, it neeeds to take a backseat because otherwise you’re not gonna get anywhere”. So Louis cooperated. He believed S*mon, because the man was essentially grooming him. Until, well, he fought back. It was watching his baby go through stunts and horrible interview questions and probably a lot of crying, and then Louis didn’t believe S*mon anymore. He saw the larries fighting for them, and seeing through the facade. So, he did too. And you could see that switch flip in him. You could see when he started playing games with mgmt. you could see he wouldn’t take no for answer. And it started a war that broke in 2015 after Belfast, bbg, and zayn leaving. An absolute shit show where the things that were meant to line up, just.. didn’t. But he made that S*mons problem, and acted out, and pissed him right off. Louis knew they were worth it. And he should be so proud because after the abuse and everything he copped (Rebecca ferguson’s recap on this via her tweet clearly about louis), he made it through. They made it.

Im a strong believer that Louis took on bbg because otherwise, Harry would have to do a massive stunt similar, and Louis didn’t want his baby to have to go through that. He wanted Harry to be as free as could be, and Louis believed he could deal with it. That it would be short term, but with long consequences, but Harry would have more freedom. And that was the promise mgmt put forward to him. That if he did this, Harry would be able to express himself and be who he is, but Louis needed something ridiculously foolproof to show that the more proud Harry got to be, it was even less likely that they were together.

It’s heartbreaking, really.

[inafieldofdaisies]

🤝, 💕, and 🫶 for Jacob and Mercedes?

Questions from this post. (things can be subject to change as the WIP develops, etc, so we have early analysis of their dynamics below 🤍)

🤝: How did they meet in the first place? What was their first impression of each other?

Joseph introduced them almost immediately after Mercedes joined the Project.

Mercedes: she was wary of him the most (compared to anyone else she keeps an eye on) because she has to stay in character and he was being absolutely hostile towards her (and kept being that for years afterwards), which made her question if he's suspicious deep down and seeing through her act.

Jacob: he could tell what her role would be and wasn't a fan, told himself he has no time to deal with her, so he proceeded to ignore her and act extremely rude in hopes she leaves him alone.

💕: Who confessed first and how? Did it go as planned or did shenanigans ensue?

Not settled on that and would be spoilery either way, but would most likely end up in chaos, with a hint of gaslight, knowing those two. Like "no, you're not in love, what are you taking about.." type of arguments. 🤣

🫶: Who ended up falling first? Which of them actually realized that they’d fallen in love first?

Jacob probably, if you ask Mercedes she would deny until the last possible moment, she’s the type to find herself in a wedding dress, about to walk down the aisle, crying out of happiness and still be like: “it’s not serious, actually”. Ironic that the professional liar is lying to herself, too. 🤣

[salmonthestoryteller]

Bridgerton S2 Rant -  I Don’t Like Theo

Time for Salmon says something not everyone is going to like - Fandom rant time.

This is about Bridgerton s2 - which I finally got around to watching because my sister gave me streaming services for Christmas. (If you're wondering who my favorite sister is…)

If you're a fan of Theo or the romance between Eloise and him, this post is not for you. I'm going to avoid tags as I often do when going full rant. Please respect that.

Time for a line cut.

I am not a fan of Theo. At all.  I have read what was supposed to be the point of Theo’s character.  However, watching the actual scenes we were given, absolutely none of it works for me.

For starters, Theo’s character is supposed to be a feminist.  But, sorry, no, Theo is literally sexist.  Furthermore, he is the epitome of someone who loudly supports a cause, while lacking any true understanding of the struggles of the people it is for and looking down his nose at them.

Let's start with their first interaction.  Obviously, the writers thought this was some sort of meet-cute where both are supposed to make misassumptions about each other and then realize they’re both wrong.  Except Eloise isn’t wrong.

Theo’s treatment of Eloise isn’t because she is rich or privileged.  It is because she is a rich, privileged woman. You will never make me believe that if Anthony or Benedict had been in front of him asking him questions that Theo would have dared respond to them the way he did Eloise.  Which means he acted that way strictly because she was a woman, only changing his tune once she “proved herself” by telling him off about her reasons.  If a woman has to “prove” to him that she’s intelligent in order for him to treat her as an equal, then he’s sexist.  Period.

While giving her the political pamphlets that inspire her to attend the rally does open up Eloise’s world a bit, that still really isn’t about privilege.  Or, it’s not about Eloise having privilege - it’s in fact about the opposite.  Eloise just came out to society - she was considered a child by society before this year. Her hems were not even dropped until toward the end of season one.  Her ability to move about was limited, and even now is still limited because she is unmarried.  Her interest in Lady Whistledown, and subsequent rebelliousness of wandering outside the bubble she has lived in, has done far more to teach her about the world than Theo does - despite it supposedly being the whole point of his character.

Let’s talk about their first fight.  He apologizes for it later, with the claim of simply trying to protect her.  But that doesn’t address the inherent problem with the sheer gaslighting lies that were his initial claims to begin with.

First of all, I would like to remind everyone that Penelope did not turn her friend into a ruined woman with her Whistledown article.  She references Eloise’s political affiliations, and specifically uses the plural term radicals.  Whether Eloise attended multiple political rallies or just the one is not fully delved into by the show - but the Whisteldown article is definitely written to suggest she had been meeting a group of people, and not just Theo.  Which, honestly, was the less damning of the two possible stories she could have written.

Which is what makes Theo’s suggestion that Eloise would be protected if they were found together, and he the only one to suffer so laughable, I can’t even…

We literally have so many examples of how not okay Eloise can come out of this.

Daphne being blackmailed into almost marrying her attempted r*pist ringing any bells?

Daphne marrying Simon, not because she loves him but because they'd been spotted alone together by Cressida ringing any bells?

Lady Mary being all but disowned by her family for daring to marry a man below her station and her and her husband literally leaving the country so their family could live in peace ringing any bells?

Marina’s entire plot ringing any bells?

The only reason Eloise is okay after her political affiliations were known has nothing to do with her wealth or standing.  It’s because she is lucky enough to come from a family who honestly love and care for one another. Any other wealthy, privileged family?  She would have been shipped out of town.  But actually being caught with Theo?  Unchaperoned? Another family and chances were very high they would have disowned their daughter to save themselves and tossed her out to the streets.  

This is why I say Theo is not written as truly understanding the struggle of women in their current society.  If he did, he would never have made the suggestion that their continued association could not affect Eloise.

Then we get to their final scene, and are you kidding me here?

Who in the writers' room was like, “I’ve got a great idea.  Let’s mix consent in with Theo going off in order for Eloise to have a harsh lesson on privilege.”??

I’m sorry, but did everyone in the writers’ room collectively lose their brain cells the day that was suggested?

Because all I see is the unsurprising sight of a man throwing a fit because a woman dared reject his advances.

Also, his claim that Eloise was the one who wanted to “meet like this” is a lie.  It’s pure gaslighting.  All of their initial meetings take place during the day with other people around.  Theo is the one who decides that was too dangerous and moved their meetings to be private and at night.

Which is the very reason Eloise is worried and shuts them down after Penelope lies and says people are talking about their meetings, because - as all the previous plots I listed show - this is dangerous for both of them. Unless Theo thinks he’s up to facing Anthony at dawn for a duel.

Furthermore, Theo literally said he was trying to protect her when he initially sent her away.  But now that she’s decided they should stop to protect him, he refuses to believe her motives.  Goes right into accusations all based - once again - not strictly on her being a member of high society.  But on her being a high society woman.  And, of course, daring to not continue to pursue a relationship with him.  Because clearly, he’s god’s gift to women, and the only reason she could possibly not want him is if she was being a privileged snob.

Sure, Jan.

The housekeeper lecturing and telling Eloise off in season one for going through her things and being clueless enough to think a servant had time to write Whistledown’s columns was Eloise learning about her privilege.

Granville telling Benedict off for suggesting he and Wetherby don’t truly love each other was Benedict learning about his privilege.

Siena explaining to Anthony that she would be the one targeted by society if they went public, not him, was Anthony learning about his privilege.

Theo being angry and accusing Eloise of toying with him because she rejected his advances and wants to stop meeting him is a man being a jackass over a woman refusing him.

Simply put, the moment they made Theo both a man and a romance, there was no way to properly use his character for Eloise to learn about privilege.  Because of what being caught alone with a man could do to a woman’s reputation, there was never going to be a time having private meetings with Theo wouldn’t have put Eloise just as much at risk.

In order for Eloise to continue to have protected privileges, it would have to be a woman from the lower class she was meeting with.  That would have skewed the risks in her favor, and provided a way she could have learned about her privilege. (Not to mention another woman teaching her about the suffrage movement would have simply been more believable.  Sorry, not sorry.  It’s just the truth.)  And, as much as I would personally love some w/w on this show, it also needed to be strictly a friendship and not a romance.  Making it a romance is where the idea also falls apart.  Because that starts to mix consent and rejection into the story - and that doesn’t work with the idea of this being a lesson in privilege.  Because at the end of the day, rejecting someone’s advances is everyone’s right - regardless of the reasons.  That just needs to be respected.

If this had simply been a friendship and partnership with another female, and Eloise chose to break up the partnership and friendship over what Penelope said, claiming it was because of the danger? That could have been met with derision, with the claim Eloise was running back to her privileged life.  Was backing out because she lacked the conviction to truly support the causes she claimed she did.  Because, let’s face it, women’s right was a dangerous cause at that time.  But, in the case of a lower-class blue stocking friend rather than a male romance, the risk would never have changed.  So her withdrawal would have been rightfully suspect.

But Theo as Theo is written?  He’s nothing but a sexist jerk who's all lip service and no substance.

[vivithefolle]

I got into a argument with you before and someone literally private messaged me saying they are proud of me for “taking on for the team” and standing up to you. What??? Why is literally everyone so afraid of you? I’m not trying to be rude or anything but you give off bully vibes. Ron fans are literally scared to say anything to you. This one girl said you posted the argument between you and her and twisted her words then all your fans began to attack her telling her to kill her self. I was even told to go die by one of your fans. What is wrong with you? Honestly.

If any of "my fans" told this girl to kill herself, then know that I'm absolutely disgusted with them and furious that they'd dare to do such a thing. I HAVE TOLD, MULTIPLE TIMES, TO NOT GO HARASS PEOPLE THAT I GET INTO FIGHTS WITH.

I suppose it's legit to see me as a bully. I mean I don't like it when people try to tell me what to think. I don't like being manipulated and I don't like being told I'm wrong without express proof, so I get defensive quickly if I perceive any of such happening. Isn't that so Hermione of me?

If you think I condone anything my followers do then boy do I have news for you: I don't. If you also think I have control of what my followers do, I don't either. I cannot stop my followers from being assholes and doing something as horrible as sending death threats to someone. If it's any consolation I never sent a death threat to anyone, merely got very angry at them and started raining insults upon them, especially when they blatantly lie to my face ("a painful Stunner", still not over that one)...

What is wrong with me, huh... lots of things. Since you asked for my honesty: I am autistic and oversensitive; I was bullied for years at school which contributed to my developing a school phobia; I was manipulated and gaslighted by someone I considered a friend which has led me to become very suspicious of most interactions, since all human interaction is at its core a manipulation; I spent a month in a psychiatric hospital due to depression; I am overly attached to fictional characters, especially Ron Weasley who I identify as having also been gaslit by people close to him, and I also despise injustice since I was done quite big ones in my life which only leads me to empathize that much more with Ron's plight given his treatment by the fandom at large; I take things personally, I am so stupidly sensitive that coming accross a Ron-bashing story can make me cry; I am aggressive when I perceive a slight, which can happen often given aforementioned oversensitivity; I am vindicative, sometimes arrogant and I believe I know better than everyone, and I can't help myself from correcting people sometimes; I am lazy and unmotivated, I can't find it in me to be interested in "real" life and spend most of my time on the Internet since I don't have a job or other such obligations which also adds further to my feeling that I'm useless given how that I live at my parents' and am a burden on their finances; I have crippling thanatophobia, the fear of death, and am plagued by the existential dread that looms over us all so I'd rather not think about it too much; I have a degree of anxiety which makes phone calls into a whole ordeal, also answering to the door or going shopping or pretty much anything that necessitates interacting with another person I don't know; my rarely going outside has also led my muscles and other organs to be somewhat underdeveloped; I'm extremely picky with my food and only know how to cook pasta (which I like, so it's alright); I'm subject to occasional bouts of constipation; my period pains have been known to knock me into bed for one or two days at a time but now that I'm on pills it's gotten a lot better so at least I've got that going for me.

It's a little funny that people are scared of me. I've gone from the designated scapegoat in school to the big bad wolf of the Ron fandom? And that's without mentioning how I am IRL. I mean I'm scared of ordering at McDonald's for God's sake. Shouldn't that say enough about me? I'm terrified of my own existence because I know it will end someday. Isn't that pathetic?

Summing things up: anyone who sends death threats to someone is a disgusting coward and I despise their behaviour with all my heart. The idea that people could be scared of me makes me laugh even though I can understand because my online behaviour is quite different from my IRL behaviour. And finally, what's wrong with me? A lot actually.

[whatiwillsay]

kaylor oomfs avert your eyes 😞

i get asked from time to time “why don’t you like kaylor, why don’t you like karlie, why do you think kaylor isn’t together? why aren’t you and ttb married yet?” and i think it’s high time i centralize my thoughts and receipts on all of that in a little timeline of shady things karlie has done to taylor that have made me wary of kaylor/karlie/that whole situation.  don’t read if you stan kaylor this isn’t for you (unless you know you’re interested in the truth.)

first things first, i do think something romantic happened between kaylor go read @swiftiesleuth‘s realistic kay timeline for what i (generally) think happened between them.

but long story short - i think joshlie is real, i think they weren’t all that serious at the beginning, she famously didn’t meet his family for years, he didn’t take her to work events for a long time, so there’s room for her to have a fling with taylor even though we ended up with a real joshlie endgame.

taylor’s music and art supports this theory - in the wd mv she paints herself as the other woman, on rep she sings of secret sexy sex with her best friend that drives her crazy, in cruel summer she sings of a miserable, secret, and toxic situation with a person who rejects her love, in illicit affairs and august again she is the other woman - the art matches up.  she also sings about her sunshine being gone on lover, and eclipsed on folklore. we have good clues in taylor’s artistic expression.

taylor’s given interviews about some of these karlie songs - she said cruel summer was about the start to a “doomed” relationship and look at what she said about august:

“It kind of explores the idea of the undefined relationship. As humans, we're all encouraged to just be cool and just let it happen, and don't ask what the relationship is — Are we exclusive? But if you are chill about it, especially when you're young, you learn the very hard lesson that if you don't define something, oftentimes they can gaslight you into thinking it was nothing at all, and that it never happened. And how do you mourn the loss of something once it ends, if you're being made to believe that it never happened at all?”

if joshlie is real which i think they are that 100% sounds like taylor having to process being gaslit by karlie while she cheats on josh with her.

so why do i think joshlie is real?

-  josh has no credible gay rumors that didn’t originate on gaylor tumblr: he has old ex gfs that came before karlie, harvard message boards gossiped about him and didn’t like him but never said that he was gay, in fact one of the complaints josh’s schoolmates had about him was that he got special treatment for her girlfriend at parties.

-  as stated before taylor’s art suggests she’s been the other woman with someone in her life recently.  if josh and karlie are beards then what is the affair? why is taylor the other woman so often all of a sudden?

-  i’ve spoken to someone with a mutual friend with the kushners - grain of salt of course, i know you can only trust stuff you hear from me with no proof so much, but i do absolutely trust this person and they say - no way in hell is joshlie fake, no way in hell is josh gay, no way in hell is karlie having taylor’s baby.  also karlie absolutely has moved down to miami with josh.  i’m sure we’ll see her in nyc and la from time to time but she is living in miami now.

-  vicky ward, who is a real investigative journalist not some unhinged person on tumblr, wrote a tell all about the kushners.  she uncovered gay rumors about josh’s father and josh’s brother but not josh.  she had actual sources and was legitimately digging up tons of dirt on these people and not a word about josh being gay or joshlie being fake.

-  yes karlie did convert to judaism.  it’s really offensive to suggest she didn’t.  of course she always could have done it for personal reasons but occam’s razor dictates she did it for josh i don’t know what else to tell you 🤷‍♀️

-  also just vibes.  karlie writes him love notes and leaves them with his breakfast.  they make playlists for one another.  if the kushners weren’t so heinous they’d be cute.

so in the joshlie is real world view i inhabit, i don’t stan kaylor the same way i do swiftgron because i don’t think kaylor was ever a committed monogamous relationship.  important and impactful on taylor’s life? absolutely.  inspired some amazing music? 100%. but was is true and tragic love that drives me insane and makes me feral?  no.  i don’t believe so.  is it still an interesting and iconic ship? yes!  but i don’t stan because it wasn’t like...true love or gay shit like that.

so let’s talk about karlie’s screwups that 1. assure me kaylor is not together and 2. make me have no desire to stan karlie/kaylor.

1.  after the kimye drama (something that deeply traumatized taylor we now know thanks to miss americana) karlie said she was sure kim was a lovely person 😭 now i know she walked it back and tweeted she and taylor had one another’s backs. i know karlie was just trying to be diplomatic.  but come on...if someone did what kim did to taylor to my lover or hell even just my friend i would say “fuck that clout chasing fame whore” bottom line.  c’mon guys.  have higher standards for your otp.

karlie also has vibed with kim on IG about her adidasas line.  recently!  yes i know she’s just promoting her brand but c’mon.  taylor still hates kim, their drama got rehashed in march 2020 and just 6 months later kim n karlie are bestie-ing around on ig.

2.  ALL the fucking masters drama and scooter fucking braun

-  not long at all after the masters heist karlie was palling around with scooter on a yacht like come on the only other thing taylor is equally as traumatized over as the kimye drama is the master’s heist.  why is karlie hanging out with him and partying with him at this time?

-  karlie liked a tweet completely incinerating taylor (in a gross and unfair/inaccurate way) regarding the masters heist.  she unliked it but still.  why was she even looking at that shit.

-  and yeah we gotta talk about perez.  so perez hilton (who is a scumbag and gross but sometimes does have legitimate tea) posted a video saying that karlie and taylor were no longer friends because karlie betrayed taylor to scooter.  now if that were all there was to it, it’d be dumb gossip.  but a taylor fan account posted the video to twitter ashley avignone and claire winter both liked the tweet.  ashley liked two tweets about it.  perez proceeded to tweet that since two of taylor’s oldest and truest friends liked the tweets it must mean he was correct and neither of the girls unliked the tweets.  ashley and claire are low key people, not celebs, not pawns in a “fued narrative”, just long time and loyal friends of taylor’s.  they liked the tweet, imo, because there’s some truth to it.

-  that brings me to spencer pratt.  spencer is a reality star and super swiftie/huge fan of taylor’s.  he despises karlie.  he’s tweeted negatively about her and he also had perez onto his podcast to talk about the drama between karlie and taylor.  taylor herself sent him a cardigan.  do you really think taylor is going to allow a cardigan to go out to the guy who’s dragging her girlfriend or bestie? i don’t think so.  receipts on perez and spencer here.

3.  karlie posted for hailey fucking beiber’s bday instead of taylor’s and hailey hates taylor 🤢🤢🤢

4.  karlie married into a fascist family that is associated with the trumps.  like how can you expect me to stan?  trump is a fucking criminal evil piece of shit.  i know karlie isn’t like him (probably) but it’s still awful.  kimby even goes around liking ivanka’s ig posts like give me a fucking break 😭.

in summation, you can disagree w me all you like, you can ship kaylor all you like, but if you’re of sound mind i don’t think you can look at the facts in this post and think i’m misguided for not being a kaylor/karlie stan.  and you can’t blame me for thinking if you spend a lot of time obsessing over that ship you may not really be that big a fan of taylor’s.  and if you’re spending a lot of time leading lgbt kids on to think they’re going to get a kaylor end game when all the objective facts of the case suggest that that’s never going to happen you might need to reevaluate but at the very least you certainly can’t press me for not doing all that.

[lassieposting]

Bit late and random but it's the anon you leave food out for here to give away I am also bi and I think exactly the same as you about bi val pretty much, every time Derek offers me representation my reaction is to slowly, hesitantly take it and say "thaaaaaaaaanks..." while rolling my eyes, in much the same way one accepts their least favourite flavour of sweet from an annoyingly enthusiastic uncle-type-individual. Ironically I feel I had more in common with her before the bi shit started up.

What I find really amusing is that Landy actually did reasonably well at representation when (and only when) he wasn’t trying. 

Oh god, this got long, anon, my ass rambled.

tldr; I'm glad actual bi people dislike bi val (or how Laundry handled bi val) as much as me, this will probably offend at least one person but i don't really care, Dirty Laundry wrote better rep when he didn't mean to write rep at all, and if he ever starts trying to "represent" groups I'm part of I'll take him out back like a dying horse and shoot him.

Like, yes. He had stupid and potentially offensive shit - I say potentially because what offends one member of a group won’t necessarily offend all of them. His attitude to mentally ill people is, frankly, disgusting. We’ve had “Skulduggery can’t be abused, he doesn’t have feelings”. We’ve had “eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY”. We had Ping, who seemed to be pretty much universally offensive. And that's what's always going to happen when a straight, cis, white, wealthy, male author tries to write marginalised groups he doesn't know shit about, because inevitably he's going to fall back on stereotypes.

But we also had:

SEXUALITY REP: Phase One's nonstraight characters were treated like the straight ones, and like, isn't that the whole point? There was no need for a massive Coming Out Story TM to grab for those sweet sweet Woke Points, because sexuality isn't supposed to be important to mages. I never understood why Val needed that whole Coming Out Panic storyline. Like...Des and Melissa are ridiculously supportive, encouraging, loving parents. They accepted you dating a ~19 year old when you were ~16. They accepted you revealing you could do fucking magic and that you'd been lying to them for like seven years. They took your undead buddy in stride and the most pressing question your dad had was whether magic toilets exist. There is zero reason to think that "I'm bisexual" is gonna be the thing that makes them flip and throw you into the streets in disgrace, Valkyrie. Come on.

Tanith had girlfriends and it was just mentioned casually, because it's normal.

China had massive UST with Eliza. That was an opportunity right there to not only include a f/f relationship, but also to bring back one of the few precious surviving characters from Phase One, using characters and a relationship that already had several books' worth of setup and tension and interest from fans.

The Monster Hunters have a casual conversation about which one of the Dead Men they'd date.

Ghastly has a conversation with Fletcher about the pain he's been through being in love. He never uses any pronouns.

It was confirmed at one point re: the Dead Men that at this point, after 300-odd years, everyone's been with everyone else at some point.

Thrasher is gay, and while Scapegrace's...everything...is treated as a joke/comedic relief, Thrasher's love for him isn't. He's completely devoted to Scapegrace, and that in itself is not played for laughs, even though the rest of the scene usually is. Thrasher's description of their first meeting is essentially a love-at-first-sight situation for him.

"ABNORMAL" RELATIONSHIP REP: Age gap relationships are normal for mages. Off the top of my head, using only canon, canon-implied or almost-canon ships:

Ghastly/Tanith (~350 year age difference)

Tanith/Sanguine (~250+ year age difference)

Tanith/Saracen (~350 year age difference)

Caisson/Solace (~250 year age difference)

China/Gordon (~400 year age difference)

Kierre/Temper (~500+ year age difference)

If you include fan ships, there's also things like Mevolent/Serpine or my Mevolent/Vile, which are both ~600 year minimum age gaps based on the timeline, or Valdug (and its variations) which is ~400 years.

Now, whether you consider this kind of rep positive or negative is up to you, but it’s there.

MENTAL ILLNESS REP: more like "Which characters in this series don't have a mental illness or a personality disorder?" I have some of these issues, but not all of them, so this is just how I read it, but:

ADHD: Skulduggery

Dissociative Identity Disorder: Skulduggery & Vile

Dissociation: Skulduggery again, most notably in DD and DB

Schizophrenia (or similar): Valkyrie & Darquesse, Valkyrie "seeing" Darquesse's ghost thing in Phase Two

Impostor Syndrome: Reflectionie

Autism: Clarabelle

Trauma/PTSD/CPTSD: Skulduggery, Valkyrie, China, Ghastly, Erskine...pretty much everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. People struggling with trauma are spoilt for choice of characters to see themselves in.

TRAUMA REP: This series is a trauma conga line, but everyone has a believable, understandable, morally grey trauma response in this series. I see little bits of myself in more than one Phase One character.

Childhood Abuse (of varying degrees & types): Skulduggery, Carol & Crystal, Omen, Fletcher, Ghastly, China, Bliss, Sanguine...

Estranged Family: Skulduggery abandoning his crest, Fergus & Gordon, China & Bliss

Bad Romantic Relationship: Skulduggery is also very clearly an abuse victim. He’s got a solid history of romantic attachments to women who manipulate, use and gaslight him for their own agendas.  There's a whole paragraph in SPX about how Abyssinia broke him down, isolated him from his friends and preyed on his desperate need to be loved, all classic abuse tactics.

And I’m personally a huge fan of this backstory for two reasons:

1) Society likes a plucky victim in media. The "My suffering made me stronger" type of victim. And it's not always like that in real life. Not all survivors come out of their abuse stronger or kinder or more understanding. Some of us come out cold and fucked up. Some of us end up as emotionally stunted, bloodied-nails-and-bared-teeth survivors, broken in ways that can't be fixed and sustained by enough rage to power a small sun. But society doesn't like to tell the story of that kind of survivor, because we're not usually a likeable protagonist. When we're shown in media, we're usually the sympathetic villain, or maybe the antihero. But Skug is someone who's done awful things and lost pretty much all his faith in humanity and been burned more times than he can count, and he still makes the conscious choice to try and be the good guy when he could so easily go Evil Supervillain on the world, and I don't know about any of y'all, but I've modelled myself on him in that. I've made the choice to do something good when all I really want to do is just become a horrible, shrivelled ball of nastiness and revenge. And that's because I saw him do it and realised that I could do that too.

Skug is an incredibly capable, strong, masculine Man's Man. He gets in fights all the time, and he usually wins. He's military, an industry that's Really Bad for stigmatizing weakness and mental illness, and he's right up at the top of the hierarchy. Almost everyone is afraid of him. He's a straight up cold-blooded killer. Skulduggery Pleasant is precisely the type of person who's not normally portrayed as a victim of anything. Nothing about him screams "victim" at all. But his abuse history is insidious. He's so conditioned to respond in a certain way to abuse from the women in his life, probably from a very young age, that despite all that strength and capability and stubbornness and ego, he just goes along with it. And it's an established pattern going back hundreds of years. He keeps going back to China, even though he knows she's bad for him and his friends keep telling him to stay away from her. Abyssinia latched onto him when he was traumatized and vulnerable and weaponized it against him to make him easier to control - and when she reappears, hundreds of years later, she jumps straight back into using, tmanipulating and gaslighting him and not only does he let her, he doesn't even seem to realise that behaviour is abusive. He thinks it's normal! That's how he's always been treated by his long-term girlfriends, with the notable exception of Wifey. Even when Val is being fucking nasty to him in the first couple books of Phase Two, sniping and lying and blaming him for everything under the sun, he just takes it. There's no attempt to tell her she's being unreasonable, no telling her to fuck right off and give her head a wobble, no defending himself even when she's bitching over something that isn't even his doing. And this is a man who has an absolutely gleaming steel spine the rest of the time; Skug has no problem saying no to anybody else, but he can't get past the way he's been taught to treat the important ladies in his life. Skug is a walking reminder that anyone can be a victim of abuse, even the ones who seem least likely to be susceptible.

GENDER REP: This one is the most iffy out of the bunch and definitely was not done very well in the eyes of the people who matter most, but I'll include it anyway because it mattered to some.

So there's Nye, who's...agender? Genderless? And uses "it" pronouns? Nye was generally considered horrible rep because it's also a war criminal and experiments on people and I've seen people say "Well I don't want to be seen like that" but? It's still possible to be a war criminal and also genderless. I never saw the two things as being related or relevant to each other.

There's also Mantis, who's in exactly the same gender/pronouns boat as Nye and always seems to be forgotten about, which sucks because Mantis is a war hero. It fought for the Sanctuary during the War and they never lost a battle when it was in command. It's called out of retirement to fight for the Supreme Council in LSODM, ends up fighting alongside Skulduggery during the Battle of Roarhaven, and ultimately dies attempting a very brave, very risky strategy. Mantis is, unreservedly, one of the good guys. It was also my introduction to sentient beings using "it" pronouns, and did it in a way that felt natural, so when I met my first person online who used "it" pronouns and hated to be referred to as he/she, it was...weird, but not as weird as it would otherwise have been, because I was like, "Oh yeah, like the Crenga. Okay."

And then there's the Scapegrace sex change plotline, which...I might have an unpopular opinion on this one. From what I’ve seen, trans people don’t seem to think was handled well or with any sensitivity at all. I’m not trans, so if the trans community says he was being offensive to them, I’m not going to claim otherwise. But...I first read the Scapegrace plotline as a young teenager in a tiny rural school with zero diversity, going through a period of being deeply confused about my own gender identity. He was more or less my first introduction to the idea that genitals =/= gender. I was relieved, at that point in my life, to read someone having a lot of the same thoughts I was having about being in the wrong body. So while it may have been badly done and yeah, the series would probably have been better without it, it did make at least one kid suspecting she might not be cis go “Huh! So there are other people who feel like this.”

Thrasher is also implied to be legitimately trans/gender-questioning, and that's not played for laughs either.

So? Phase One, while it absolutely had faults and issues and things that were just "Oh god why", was actually full of rep, at least compared to the other series that I read as a child/teen. But? As soon as Dirty Laundry started trying to be woke? He fucking sucks ass at it. Aside from confirming Phase One's hints that Skug has a background of abusive relationships, every single attempt at shoehorning rep into Phase Two is Bad.

The painfully OOC, forced, badly-written awkwardness of Val suddenly being rabidly horny for women out of fucking nowhere. The stilted, forced cringiness between her and any of the women she's flirted with - contrast that with Sorrowscorn's interactions, full of natural chemistry that had us all like 👀 I mean, I never shipped Val/Melancholia, but I could always see why people did - they had miles more chemistry than Val/anyone in Phase Two.

The fucking mess that is v*litsa, because if someone says "I'm really not interested in friendships/relationships right now", clearly the route to true love is to bulldoze their boundaries and forcibly insert yourself into their life and proceed to treat them like a delicate soft uwu flower, completely ignoring the horrible things they've done, while gleefully damning their best friend as an irredeemable monster for the exact same things, which is. You know. Gonna affect your so-called love's self-confidence and self-esteem because she knows she's no different to him. Y'all know I love an angsty ship, an unhealthy ship, a ship with fucked power dynamics, but I literally cannot roll my eyes any further back in my head at this shit. I never read Demon Road, but from what I've heard from friends who did, it does seem like every time Laundry tries to write an f/f ship, he comes up with a cringey abusive/manipulative caricature and tries to call it rep, and he needs to Stop.

Val's Mental IllnessTM arc. It's funny how he wrote Skulduggery as a wonderfully complex character with deep-rooted psychological damage and long-lasting trauma, but believes he wrote a character with "no feelings" - but when he tries to delve into the damage the world of magic has done to Val, he turned her into a weak, whiny drug addict who treats everyone around her like garbage and is so selfish and dislikeable that I? Honestly can't even reconcile Phase Two val with Phase One val. They're two completely different people. He's shown on Twitter that he doesn't have any respect for mentally ill people, and it shows. Other mentally ill people might see it differently, but the whole thing just makes me go "yikes".

Never, who has no personality outside of being genderfluid, and whose pronouns make no sense. I'm sorry, I have never met an nb person who insists that you change from male to female pronouns multiple times in a sentence, every time you refer to them. It's confusing as fuck. Now I have been told that Never has apparently received some character development in the last couple books, and if so, fair play, but I quit reading after Midnight, and Never and the rest of the personality-less new characters introduced in Phase Two who just seemed to be 2D Stereotypes to snag Woke Points were a big part of why, so. Development too late, I'm afraid.

(Now, if anyone is looking for a well-written genderfluid character, I recommend the Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb. I have a lot of issues with her as a writer, and unfortunately I hate her POV character which puts me off the series as a whole, but she wrote the Fool/Amber/Lord Golden and their gender identity/approach to sexuality with so much more respect and realism. That is the kind of rep nb people should be getting: 3D, complex, realistic characters whose gender is only a tiny fragment of their personality, not the be-all-and-end-all of their existence. You know. Like cis people get. Nobody wants to be represented by a 2D cardboard cutout stereotype.)

Anyway idk how much sense this makes it just really amuses me that Laundry would include all this rep completely unintentionally and then go on Twitter and remind us all that actually he's a massive asshole via insensitive/offensive tweets about the groups he'd actually done a fair job of including (i.e. Skulduggery has no feelings, mentally ill people should find another series to read, the bullshit about Val being "heteromantic bisexual" on Twitter and then spouting all the "the woman she loved uwu" shit in the books (proving he has no idea what he's talking about), eVeRyOnE iS bI eVeNtUaLlY. He can only write half-decent rep when he's not trying and he inevitably outs himself as having a really shitty attitude towards those people anyway, proving that ultimately it's all either unintentional rep or performative wokeness.

[unqualified-critic]

I’d like to start off this review with the reminder that these people put their heart and soul into their work. They work countless hours, while I sit on my ass and type on a blog. I have no film experience, or writing skill, yet plenty of opinions.

I was initially very excited for the series, I love Loki as a character and Tom Hiddleston always does a fantastic job playing him (I actually wish they had him write the character instead of giving him minimal input) However, I wish I didn't watch past episode 3. The directing and writing felt sloppy at best. Loki felt extremely out of character. The development he goes through feels overnight. Remember this is the same Loki that ripped out a guys eye and the next day is in the TVA.

We see Loki go through great change in Dark World and Ragnarok (I get it we can’t all be Taika Waititi) despite the limited scenes featuring him. I’m the movies we see his transition from evil, but he is still the god of mischief, first and foremost. Those movies were maybe 5 hours together, yet better translated the characters depth, than the entire show about him. If it really was about Loki... the series felt as if Loki is back seat to a long monologue filled with plot holes.

There is a severe lack of action. At one point it is addressed that magic cannot be used in the TVA; but Loki is still witty, a good fighter, and has super human strength. We see none of that here and he is reduced to a powerless shell of himself. The few over the top “super hero” effects used, were produced beautifully by the cgi and film crew. The TVA set was well produced and fun with the retro “DMV” feel. The simple costume design with neutral colors and progressively darker lighting, could've paired nicely in contrast against Loki’s character. He’s typically sarcastic, quick on his feet, egotistical, and energetically self absorbed. This series he didn’t even feel broken or exhausted, just bland. Hey, you should always have artistic vision and change material. But characters can only be changed so far, and so quickly without any sustainable reason. It felt almost like a fan-fiction written from the writers ideas, and not the source material.

One of my biggest issues and final straws was the relationship. The relationship felt very forced and wrong. Slyvie and Loki are essentially twins, due to the same parentage. A love interest is not necessary in every series, and it took away from this one severely. I found myself dreading the finale due to the obvious upcoming kiss. The director, Kate Herron, addressed that it was to represent self love...however if you have to explain why it's not incest, it's probably incest. I understand some people don't mind because Slyvie doesn't feel like a Loki (Maybe it's the fact that she looks like and is named after Enchantress rather than lady Loki...not very creative guys) But it made me very uncomfortable. The director is a LGBT woman herself, yet I feel she was locked in a very male gaze, heteronormative, direction. A woman can co-star without being a love interest. An example of this done well is Loki’s friendly relationship with Verity in the comic Agent of Asgard. They met and became friends in only a matter of comics, with better tangibility of relations. In the comics we also see as a version of Lady Loki, and expression of gender-fluidity; without feeling forced or “woke.” On that note, if Loki is established as gender fluid in the MCU, why is there only one female variant of him. The other variants even express surprise of there being a female variant.

Slyvie lacks depth and felt “gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss.” Sophia Di Martino plays Slyvie well and I have no qualms with the castings. I was very excited for a female character with more story than Black Widow, but it was never given. It’s been confirmed that Sylvie isn’t Enchantress, however for the sake of character design, continuity, and incest...I hope she is and that they’re just keeping it a secret.

With a second season coming, I’m glad a new director will be taking the reins. As bad as I feel saying it. Disney has the budget to do better, and not use a “well let’s see what they make” strategy.

I’m not sure how a series can feel so rushed and so empty at the same time. As if it was drawn out to waste time and tell us nothing.

I also found the secondary characters like Owen Wilson’s Mobius and Wunmi Mosaku who plays hunter b-15 likable but underused. Something that left a bad taste in my mouth was how all the characters played by POC were bad guys or killed off. For those unaware this is a trope often exercised by “progressive” creators, usually attempting to include black or Hispanic characters but promptly killing them off or reducing them to a villain. This all just contributes to an absolutely messy series.

No, I didn’t think they’d reverse Loki’s death, give us gender shifting Loki, or Lady Loki as she is from the comics. However the lack of coherent writing (not that I’m one to talk,) contrast of Loki’s character, and rushed emptiness, was a major disappointment. If you love this character, don’t go past episode 2. Feel free to let me know your thoughts both critically and enjoyability at face value.

TLDR: good acting, casting, special effects. Poor character development, weird incest relationship, empty “progressiveness” and lack of action.

Wouldn’t watch past episode 2 if I could go back in time

[joezworld]

What is the absolute dumbest thing each engine(Sudrian engines, plus the NRM engines, Scotsman, the expat A4s, Tornado, and anyone else you feel like adding) has had to experience at any point in their careers?

That’s a fantastic question, and there are multiple answers:

1. If you mean “the dumbest thing that has ever happened to them because of another person”, the answer will be, with few exceptions, BR’s modernization plan. That’s not even a joke answer - it was so badly executed on nearly every possible metric that it really can’t be considered anything other than extremely dumb. 

2. If you mean “the dumbest thing that I (the engine) have ever done” well, that is just preposterous! All engines are perfect and faultless beings who can do no wrong ever. 

3. If you mean “the dumbest thing I (the engine) have ever seen somebody else do”, then there is a wealth of tales:

Obviously, there have been many things to happen on the Island of Sodor that could be considered dumb, but three instances really take the cake: 

Mind Reading, Soul Stealing, Red Eyed, Diesel Electric Monsters!

Tornado came to the Island of Sodor for the first time in 2015, just a few weeks after the 2015 Wootton Bassett SPAD Incident. She was not involved with that at all, but she was in Barrow between rail tours when West Coast Train’s operating certificate got pulled, thereby cancelling 90% of all steam hauled rail tours for the foreseeable future. Tornado, having never been to Sodor before, asked if she could go now that she had some free time. (It should be noted that she didn’t so much ask as she begged - she’d watched a lot of TTTE while being built, and was about as much of a fan as you readers must be.) The engines of Sodor knew who “Tornado the new build” was, but critically did not know what that engine looked like, and so when she showed up on Sodor, everyone else kind of assumed that she was new (to the NWR), not New (in general). This theory quickly came under fire when Tornado - who had watched the TV show - knew the engines a lot better than they knew her. This being Sodor, the main line engines accidentally gaslighted themselves into assuming that she had been on the Island for a while and they hadn’t noticed. In order to avoid being made fun of when/if this was revealed, they decided to act like they’d known her the entire time. This attitude very quickly spread to the branch lines once Tornado ran into a lorry at a railroad crossing and had to be repainted. The paint shops only had “NWR Blue” on hand, so she rolled out of Crovan’s Gate looking like a funhouse mirror version of Gordon.  Tornado, meanwhile, has approximately 3 (three) brain cells in her smokebox, so she just assumed that everyone on Sodor was really friendly and didn’t notice. This farce went on for two months until the A1 Trust came to take her back to Darlington, at which point she absentmindedly told Gordon and Henry who she was. They decided to say nothing.

Someone once tried to steal Bertie the Bus - emphasis on the word tried, as they could not figure out his marvelous anti-theft system known as a manual transmission. Bertie is still livid about the state of Driver’s Education on the island as a result of this.

Flying Scotsman can and will talk at length about morons with more cameras than sense. While a good lesson, it’s very annoying when you’ve heard it fifteen times already Scot give it break will you?

Bittern had the incredible good fortune to not only get into Hollywood, but also be good at acting. This has resulted in a wonderful career, but also has meant that she’s had to endure the celebrity tabloid media/press. Of particular instance are British Journalists who have no idea how to deal with her - she’s a train with an acting job??!11? PrEPosTEroUs?! - She almost bit a reporter from Sky News. 

As noted elsewhere, Duchess of Hamilton and Coronation got their nameplates swapped waaay back in 1939. There have been a few times when Duchess (the one in England) got called by the wrong name, but it was usually someone who knew her from before then. That its, until Duchess got re-streaminlined in 2009 - since then, a simply absurd number of American tourists have acted as though they knew her in some fashion - which is simply absurd - none of the Coronation Scot class have been in the Americas since the 1940s!

[priceforrottenjudgement]

I’m gonna try and write out my feelings about this finale, so i can try to put this to rest and move on once and for all.

I feel sorry for the cast and crew who had nothing to do with this ending. I cannot possibly determine who had a hand in it and who didnt, I’m not going to write anyone angry comments on social media, but I’m also not going to defend anyone.

Whoever decided to do this did so deliberately and knew what would happen. The confession scene in 15x18 was calculated. They wanted the biggest possible send off for the show and wanted to maximise the viewers. How to do that? By activating shipper sleepercells. The cast and crew of supernatural are VERY aware of their fandom and the popular ships, they have shown this and said so time and time again. They knew there was a huge untapped reserve of mostly queer fans who had stopped actively watching the show, but were still keeping a close eye on the show bc of nostalgia.

They knew they would get a huge amount of attention for a confession and they did, possible more than they expected. 

They knew from the start that they wouldnt do anything with it though. You simply cannot tell me they had to rewrite the last two episodes bc of covid and bc Misha couldnt be there or something when they had no problems bringing back Bobby and some rando from season 1. I simply will not believe it.

They also knew they would get so much shit for burying a gay in 2020, you also can’t tell me they didnt know this was a bad thing in the year 20 fucking 20. So they held off on giving Misha a proper sendoff so that the fans could and would interpret this as a sign that Misha would appear in later episodes. Which he didnt. They even threw in a few sprinkles in 15x19 to keep people interested, like the voicemail and Dean demanding Chuck bring back Cas. 

And then on the day of the finale came the gaslighting. In the recap before the episode they focussed primarily on Sam and Dean and their fucking car, things that were outdated by season 3. They had little segments about recurring characters (Crowley, Jack, Rowena,...) and shit, but deliberately didnt place Cas in a prominent position, in fact, Cas’ segment seemed to blend in with the other ones. Absolutely nothing special about him. They even had his segment AFTEr Crowley’s ffs which doesnt even make sense from a chronological standpoint. They also kept harping about family and how Cas was a 3rd brother and at this point i knew they werent going to do anything. This recap was supposed to make anyone feel stupid who thought supernatural was about more than Sam and Dean and the car and the monster of the week and maybe daddy issues. Seriously, i think they could have almost had this exact recap before the finale of season 5 if they’d cut the Jack and the Rowena segments and the random footage of minor characters.

The confession scene was notably absent from the recaps, especially weird as it was Cas’ last scene.

So this was their fallback in case fans accused them of queerbaiting, erasure, etc. See, supernatural has ALWAYS been mainly about the boys, Cas is nothing special, I’m sorry if you thought otherwise lol. here is this recap to prove it.

Then that shitfuck episode aired and the baited community predictably lost their shit WHICH THE CREW KNEW WOULD HAPPEN. THATS WHY THEY ALL GOT THEIR GOODBYES OUT OF THE WAY BEFORE THE EPISODE AIRED. This episode wasnt a universal failure, i have it on good authority that it went pretty well with casual fans who also happen to be straight and have had a particular dislike against, say, Cas or Rowena or Jack etc., imagine that.

And now they’re going to portray angry fans as annoying little fangirls, who wanted these two poor men to kiss against their will and who bully actors off of social media by voicing their disappointment and hurt; this is all so fucking predictable. Why does this still hurt so much?

I was angry about Sherlock, i was fucking livid, but I didnt feel hurt and I didnt feel used and I wasnt ashamed for being baited. See, Sherlock has many many faults, but they didnt toy with their fans to the extend that spn did. This was cruel and calculated. They knowingly used a huge chunk of their fans, mostly the young, female and queer part, to generate views and that feels vile.

I dont buy for one second that they didnt know what was coming, not with all the backlash and criticism they have seen from other shows and THEIR OWN FUCKING SHOW. 

so sorry, I dont condone abusing and harassing the cast and crew (mainly the actors who i dont believe had muchsay in the script), but they wanted the maximum amount of attention, so now they have to deal with the consequences.

[weaselbeaselpants]

I have a lot to say and not enough time to say it. It hurts, but ya’ll know what this is about so if you want my full fandom retrospective opinion thing guys, here.

I’ve been following Vivienne’s art and career since I found her on dA in 2009. I’ve basically grown up with her and have a wide range of opinions up and down her collective work. I must stress that I do not know her as a person and no matter how critical I get in my personal time if I somehow met her in real life or converse with her online again (like, back in the day we went back and forth. She was pretty nice to me), I’d be humble and congratulate her for her success.

Critique does not, EVER equate to attacking people.

But

the reason I don’t call myself a VivziePopVivzmind-fan is the exact same as to why I don’t like the proud use of ‘anti’. Let me try and explain -

The vast majority of Viv fans are just that: fans. Viv’s one of their favorite artists and they’re happy for her and obviously defensive when some mouth breather pops into their fan discussion calling her and all of them trash. Quite a lot of the Hazbin fans I know in my circle of friends are all pretty accepting and agree on the problematic notions and implications of her work.

HOWEVER, there’s a vocal minority in the VivziePop fandom that were and still are toxic. Their specific interest in Viv back in the day was toxic...and now that she’s moved on into a successful career I doubt they’ve gone away, considering the things I’ve heard. These people - they’d flood Viv’s comments sections and stuff with messages like they were talking to her when they weren’t and they’d unironically call her a god in a way that feels like gaslighting, ex: “I’ll NEVER be as good as you Viv! My art is just sooooo unpopular oh god you are incredible no one will ever like you as much as meeeee”. It made me uncomfortable. It made me not want to be around her because these people took Viv’s role in their lives so seriously and their demand for her attention...it struck a nerve.

These same fans have been around long enough to see actual shitlords - the likes of Kiwifarms and tapatalk wikis - come in and actually harass Viv. Viv’s been sent revenge porn by sick freaks who think they’re funny and believe she deserves it. No. In my non-name fan bystander opinion, Viv’s got some shit to work on, but no one deserves raperevenge porn. EVER. It was genuinely bad and yes Viv and her base have every reason to NOT TRUST these communities. Unfortunately, when these incidents happened, these particular fans took it upon themselves to gatekeep the fandom and act like Viv’s unofficial guard against any kind of decenting opinion of her, all without her say so.

((to the critics who will be all “but Viv or Faust said THIS to their fans-”, like I said, Viv’s far from perfect but regardless of how much she prolly wanted people to side with her I’m gonna guess that she didn’t want people sending transphobic death threats to DollCreep. Again, and this is coming from a bystander here, I have a feeling Viv knows about some of the toxicity but doesn’t know how/want to address it - which is a conversation all it’s own.))

This particular breed of VivziePop “fan” holds so much toxicity in her fandom(s). They aren’t the only cause, but they’re there. They feel entitled to her attention and her approval. They creep me out. Having spoken to other much-less critical admitted fans of Viv around me, these fans appear to creep everyone else out and put the rest of the fandom on edge. They’re gatekeepers. They’re creeps. Like the bronies and SU fans of yestertodayyears, they know harassment exists and that people have crossed the line - so they think any means is necessary to prevent that is automatically good. I could pile together all the incidents and folks who’ve had bad runs ins with this aftershock of Viv-obsession, but I do have a life of my own and this post is already stupid long so I’ll just list out the biggest examples and provide receipts when asked.

Critical blogs have gotten RAPE and death threats because they don’t like Viv’s art. HonestZoophobiaCriticisms, a blog I interracted with back in the day, def got one. Now Viv’s opinion of crit-blogs is that they’re “bad takes” but I can assure you she doesn’t want that shit being said on her behalf.

I’ve seen young artists get blacklisted from sites and forums cause they so much as post a redesign. Viv and co get told through the grapevine that someone’s making hatespeech and so preemptively block said person (prolly cause they’re in the middle of WORKING and can’t deal right now) only to find out after the fact that no, it was just a kid drawing their version of her characters. There’s serious miscommunication issues within the fandom about who’s ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and once you get the actual staff involved in this game of telephone you’re begging for trouble. The problem acknowledged, however, it’s souly from the “Viv never did anything wrong camp”. No word is said about how ugly the fandom is under the surface it’s all one type of person’s fault and not complicated’. Blah

I’ve only ever had ONE obsessive ‘fan’ who’d stalk me, mock me, and then redraw my art just to get attention from me. That shit fucked with my head. As a follower hundreds of miles away from Viv who’s agreed/disagreed with her through the years - I absolutely believe her when she says she hates ‘creeps’ and that she doesn’t want anyone in her fandom spreading hate on her behalf. It’s the one thing about her I’m POSITIVELY sure of. Whether she believes that said underlying harassment exists and/or is even a problem within her fandoms is anyone’s guess. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to write stupid blog entries like this, talk about fandoms and media and how they and the real world affect one another, and rb fan art I like. I’m cautiously optimistic fan with a side of salt.

Mixed opinions and critique within a fandom CAN and SHOULD exist. Hazbin Hotel has been greenlit by a studio! It has a product line of merchandise you buy. Helluva Boss is getting eight more episodes this coming year (yeeee:3yeeee). Two of Viv’s properties are now products. Nothing is immune from critique. And in critique you will find a lot of people who are not ‘nice’. Critique or analysis doesn’t have to be nice. There will be, in Viv’s words’ ‘bad takes’ on her writing. Maybe they will be actual CinemaSins-styled bad takes or maybe Viv is just mad that people don’t love and feel inspired by her characters the way she wants them to - it’s a fact she’s going to have to get used to.

((TBH, I’m pretty sure she’s already realized that criticism of all types need to exist. It’s just that, again, her and the SpindleHorse staff are kind of overwhelmed by all matter of takes and opinions coming their way they kinda can’t deal weeding out the fair ones from the assholes, so she lumps them all together.))

Shitposters, ironic fans, unironic fans, critical fans, just critics of Hazbin and Helluva CAN and WILL exist. They should exist and not feel threatened by the megafandom. There are people out there who are one step further and rightfully bothered by Hazbin/Helluva’s use of incorrect symbols, portrayal of certain topics, and the response by creators. These people have strong opinions and are actually disgusted by Viv. They deserve to exist too and should not be vilified because, like me, they’re commentary doesn’t consist of anything personal towards the people at Spindlehorse or the fans of her works. They can rant, they can be professional, they can be petty and they can be fair. But they will exist. You have to deal with it.

I am an ADD/OCD ridden autistic woman with serious anxiety issues who has no one to talk to half the time and so only HAS my fandom to communicate with. But that’s just it - it’s a fandom. A community. You have to learn to not think souly of yourself and of others in a community. A fandom doesn’t exist just for you or any one person. You have the right to be angry and defend or be offended. And it’s in the spirit of that that I ask, prrraaaaaay even, that I please

NOT BE CALLED AN “ANTI-ANTI” for not liking the moniker?!

I DON’T TO BE AN “ANTI”. Not ironically, not unironically. ‘Anti’ should be for politics and shit like pedophiles, necrophiles, nazis, serial killer stans, Trump, racists, antisemites, terfs, animal abusers, rapists, and antivaxxers. Anti should only come into critical media analysis when these ethical issues follow suit IN TO fandom discussion. ((EX: Anime and MLP proudly waving their cp and non-con into the public eye; Hazbin appropriating cultural symbols which are not satanic; Basically anything that concerns John K or Butch Hartman.))

If your DNI list unironically consists of the entirety of one fandom:  CONGLATURATIONS! You have done the exact same thing these particular creepy Viv fans have done: monopolize the conversation. And yes, people I’m referring to, IT’S STILL A PROBLEM EVEN IF YOU’RE FIGHTING RACISM/SEXISM/HOMOTRANSPHOBIA.

There are hundreds of Vivziefans who ARE more critical, accepting of faults, interested in discussion and especially rewrite and redesign stuff who would LOVE to engage with you and give you a follow. There’s hundreds of people who no doubt agree with you!

But the thing I’ve seen these very proud AntiHazbinVivzieHelluvaWhatever blogs do is lash out at fans for continuing to like Viv and consume Viv’s art in a healthy way. What the actual fuck is your problem?

I get it. Say a crazy Hazbin fan gets on your case for even SUGGESTING Viv could be homophobic ((”SHE’SBIANDWORKSWITHGAYPPLblahablahblah”)). They get in your face, make some callouts, try to rile up support against you, leave disgusting harassment throughout your social media? Absolutely ban worthy. After that it’s perfectly understandable why you don’t want to engage with anything HHHBZPVivzierelated because you’re so fucking tired of being labeled an abuser or “just jealous” for having an opinion on a show you don’t like. I’m with you!

But,

A fan agrees that something in the canon is bad or that Viv did something they don’t like?

A fan likes your silly shitpost meme?

A fan asks if they can like Hazbin and follow you at the same time? 

A fan does fan art of something you don’t like?

If your response to any of these ^^^ things is to get LOUD and accusatory, Vivsplain them about how they’re an absolutely awful person to ever question YOUR opinion, or just block them without a second thought? You’re a petty, vendictive shit and you also need to learn to let things go. I’m sorry but you do. As I already said, Viv’s work is a brand at this point, not just the work of a singular person. As such, there are gonna be mixed opinions and you can’t judge every single one of these people by what they like. You’re a shitty critic with a shitty attitude and yes that will demean the value of what you’re saying. This is bad because, if you’re trying to point out how Angel Dust’s abuse IS handled terribly; gay rep in Viv’s work is weak and terrible; the show appropriates closed practices; the fandom makes excuses for predatory artists and creepy behavior and individuals who have sketchy pasts - I’M WITH YOU. WE NEED TO BE TALKING ABOUT THIS SHIT. JUST BECAUSE THESE ARE ADULT CARTOONS SET IN HELL MEANS THERE SHOULD BE ANYTHING CLOSE TO 2013 PONY-TUMBLR. <<<---- this shit is as important to me as it is to you and I really don’t like being called an abuser or apologist for saying “hey maybe blowing up at ppl for the shows they like ISN’T the way to go about this”. 

But I have, just like the good old days of 2015 Zoophobia of yore, been blocked because I admit to being tired of ‘Anti’ being equated to ‘critical’. Same with hater.

Critical DOES NOT = Anti+Hater. I’m fucking tired of people saying it does and I’m tired of people taking up the term as some weird form of fandom reappropriation. It’s stupid.

Tl;dr: Once upon a time, I was in a budding fandom for something I liked made by an indie artist I watched on dA. I wanted to be a bigger fan than I was already, but was told by toxic people within said fandom that I couldn’t be part of it for reasons they’d made up in their head about my ‘motives’ against Viv. My admiration for Viv or what I liked about Zoophobia didn’t matter because I thought the story was really rushed and people weren’t being truthful with how they really felt about it - ergo, I HAD TO GO. 

Flash forward 8 years later- My opinion of Viv’s body of work has changed but I still find myself in love with her style and some of her characters. I want to be on a forum or service that gives a healthy look at the problems there are with this series and fandom...and I’m met repeatedly by petty bs where people are again at each other’s throats. And yes, I do think it’s causing more harm than good especially when you insist there’s a “x person shouldn’t be trusted” mentality when fighting actual fucking racist, xenophobic, predatory bullshit.

[bre-meister]

I finished it

Welcome to the second and final part of my rant about Fate: the Winx Saga. After this you will see no more of this bullshit here on my blog. As before, if you wish to stay for the rant under the cut, feel free. Or don’t. I probably wouldn’t tbh

Where to start

It’s so hard to comprehend the passage of time in this show

Sometimes characters will say “It’s been weeks...” and I just don’t see the character or plot development reflecting the passage of time. It does not add up

Stella all of a sudden being friends with the girls and everyone being completely cool??? NO! WHERE WAS THAT DEVELOPMENT!?

Stella’s mom is a bitch who could go die in a ditch

I would also like to say that I was kinda right about the whole Rickie situation

The adults in this series are A L L shady as hell. I do not blame Bloom for not trusting them because I sure as hell wouldn’t even without Beatrix playing her little mind games

Legit why would they think the students would trust them when all they do is gaslight them and keep secrets and then pretend like that’s not what they’re doing?

There is just too much going on with Rosalind to even begin to address that

So are witches a legit thing now? But still no Cloud tower

the witches are just straight, legit 100% bad... why?

Just why?

At least the dragon flame is a thing

I saw someone mention the lack of the casual use of magic and i have to agree. In the Original they used magic all the time to complete menial tasks 

Netflix is out here trying to tell me that in a “more realistic” Winx universe people wouldn’t use magic to carry their luggage? Take a good pic? Get ready for a party???? 

Dane went 0-100 with absolutely no development

And Riven went 100-10 with about the same development 

The writing is just so inconsistent

I will say they did get me to cry a bit on that Musa, her mom, and Sam almost dying story line

Also why were there so few burned ones at the end for Bloom to fight? They really set it up like there was just so many ... so where’d they go?

The fight scene… we gotta talk about the transformation

 It was not a real transformation and i kinda wish they’d just left it alone completely

 Not a fan of the wings made of fire - they looked cool at first when she was originally “making” them but after? It looked more like her powers were just going crazy behind her

This is kind of a personal thing but i would have petted just solid wings with some old fashioned glitter like they’ve always been 

And her clothes didn’t change? It’s not a transformation if the outfits don’t change!

Everyone hating on Aisha for snitching was not cool

Bro, i get Bloom wanted answers but Aisha was right, she could have waited 24 hours and let Fera explain and do all that together I don’t think singling her out for doing what (at least i assume but ya never know) a lot of people would have done

Calling her a teachers pet for that wasn’t cool

There was just so much racism in they way her character was handled 

period

Homophobia was rampant with Riven and Dane

Not Terra’s dad forgetting about his daughter when the burned ones attacked 

Also, Musa said Terra was a great operator but SHE DIDNT DO ANYTHING SHE JUST HELD HIS HAND and maybe applied pressure??

Inconsistent as hell

The montage of Bloom with her parents was kinda nice but again, when the hell did all of those girls become friends? I didn’t happen on screen I’ll tell you that

When Bloom said she was born in 2004 it legit took me back a sec

I was born in 2002 no way those girls and guys are younger than me

Sometimes (especially with Stella and Terra) I would forget they were supposed to be 16

This made it really awkward that I was reminded that they are in fact 16 and then they would talk about sex

a lot

and then of course when Musa and Sam almost legit HAD sex on screen

I get it, there are some 16 year olds who do it but at the same time it makes me feel weird 

I didn’t like it

They legit could have made them 20 in the show. This was supposed to be a grittier adaptation I promise no one would have cared technically its Alfea COLLEGE anyway, it didn’t really matter

Wish we could have gotten some more specialist + fairy action but, guess not

Sometime I forgot this show was supposed to be “Winx Club” and those were the times i found myself actually enjoying it a bit?It really didn’t need to be attached to the Winx name at all

Also still never said WINX one time in the show!

They keep saying that mind fairies are super powerful and all but it still doesn’t feel like Musa did that much

or even Tera for that matter and the show took extra time to emphasize that she was really good during that training day

I unintentionally split my viewing in half (first three then last three) and it just emphasized how bad the pacing wasIt kinda seems like the first three episodes drag while the last three are so jam packed some things just felt so rushed

Scenes were not given the time to have the emotional impact they should have been

I also feel like Stella should have had a scene at the end confronting her mom about running away? Just me?

Along those lines it just seems like so many things were dumped in your lap and left to sit there right at the end

Almost nothing was tied up

Sky’s dad being alive?

I know he wasn’t the best father in the cartoon but he wasn’t this bad

Same goes for all the parents (especially Queen Luna)And i guess Radius just doesn’t exist as well

Also if this whole thing takes place in Solaria - the realm with, what 3 suns? - WHY WAS THERE SO MUCH RAIN AND CLOUDS!? 

I don’t think it ever rained on Solaria in the cartoon unless something was genuinely wrong

I just have so many feelings that cannot be explained in words so... here you go

[bluerosesburnblue]

Nothing upsets me more than a legitimately good story being ruined by “extra” content. I’ve already complained at length about Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon’s story changes over the original games so now it’s The World Ends With You: Final Remix’s “A New Day’s” turn because CHRIST

I’m writing this as I come across points while watching a playthrough, so:

God, Coco is the single most insufferable being. “totez hilar” just dated this content so baaaad, and I’d even say it was dated language when Final Remix came out. No other character abuses modern slang as their entire character. Like, slang is used but not as a substitute for personality. Beat speaks in a very casual, urban style but it never ends up being detrimental to his character as a bit of a punk with a “perfect little sister” that he wasn’t as naturally smart as, so he just gave up on trying and ended up being a bit of an aggressive slacker. Heck, he tones it down a bit for emotional moments, too. Coco, though, comes across like her ultra-modern “cutesy” text message slang is supposed to be her personality, and even when it’s revealed that she’s the villain of the episode you just can’t take her seriously through the “like, ohmigosh, I can’t believe you’re ruining my plaaaaaans” bullshit. What does she have going for her if you rewrite all of her lines without that speaking style? She’s just a generic manipulative brat

Frankly I also just disagree with the entire premise of A New Day and the plot threads it sets up for a potential sequel, i.e. “having Neku and Beat run through a game again as a trap to get Neku into yet another game in a possible sequel.” TWEWY is a complete experience and had been for at least a decade. Literally every character had a complete arc. The worldbuilding was rich enough that they had more than enough to come up with a sequel set in the same world, but in an entirely different town with an entirely new cast and, heck, even entirely new rules for the Game that would’ve expanded upon the world of the games without taking away from the characters whose time in the Underground was already done

But, noooooooo, we’ve gotta bring Neku back. Can’t have a game without Neku they literally SAY THAT (”The Game, like, literally can’t go on without Neku.”). And let’s bring Minamimoto back, too, as a good guy! The fans loved him! This doesn’t come across as pandering at all!

Just... you have the girl with the red headphones designed! Make the sequel set in Shinjuku with her as the main character! (Hell, I don’t think I would have even minded Minamimoto coming back for that because there was enough leeway in the base TWEWY for him to have survived his encounter with Josh, just leave Neku out of it). This is the most infuriating part because it actually takes away from Neku’s story. The entire GAME was a test of character to see if even the worst, most closed off person could learn empathy and respect and Neku DID. And in return, that sparked a change in Josh. His story is done. Coco using Neku, though, has nothing to do with him as a character and everything to do with him being the face of the game and it shows

And why the hell is Neku so trusting of Coco anyway? I get that he opened up over the course of TWEWY, that was kind of the point. But you come back to life, everything’s fine, and then suddenly you’re in a death game again and so is one of your best friends, like, he should be WAY more concerned and suspicious. But one little Reaper gives him the sad eyes and he just caves instantly like “fine, come along.” Even when Neku grew to like some of the Reapers, like Uzuki and Kariya, it was still far more of a rival-like respect. He knew damn well that it was their job to see him gone and while he accepted their help when they gave it and helped them when their lives were in danger (possibly, up to player choice), they weren’t buddy-buddy with each other, knowing that as soon as the immediate danger to them had passed they’d be on opposite sides again. And these are the Reapers he’s closest to, even at the end of the game. And then all of a sudden Coco goes “but I’m a wittle wost baby weaper” and Neku’s response is, “well, shit, welcome to the team.” WHAT

I hate using the term “Mary Sue” but Coco is absolutely a Mary Sue in its original meaning. The plot bends over backwards to accommodate her at the expense of the main characters’ personalities or reason, all while giving her a clothing style incongruous with everyone else’s meant to stand out and make her look special and not having her face any repercussions for her actions (so far which is, again, another issue with the very premise of A New Day since that’s exactly how things will end off if TWEWY doesn’t get a sequel, the possibility of which is not a guarantee AT ALL)

Shiki and Rhyme start saying blatantly false things about themselves and handwaving it away with “ohhh, that must have been our new Entry Fee! Just the exact same ones as the first time again!” and only BEAT is suspicious and NEITHER OF THEM are suspicious of Coco, the only non-generic Reaper they’ve met so far. Christ, I appreciate Beat being attentive with matters of his sister because that’s in-character but NEKU was always the more paranoid AND observant one yet all he thinks about is “gee, I’m sure having weird visions today, huh?”

And then Coco starts BLATANTLY gaslighting them about Kariya and Uzuki’s personalities and they’re STILL not suspicious of her like ughhhhhhhhhhh. Nekuuuuuuu you LIVED THROUGH JOSH WEEK 2, you have BEEN IN A SITUATION where the mastermind partnered up with you to divert your suspicion and keep an eye on you how are you less suspicious of this brat than Beat is???

And why are none of the characters bringing up the fact that you have to be DEAD to be in the Game??? You all spent three weeks of hell to claw your way back to life, how are you not more upset about what seems like you all dying again, basically immediately after you just got brought back? And I know the Shiki and Rhyme in A New Day are illusions, but Neku and Beat AREN’T. Nobody even comments on the implication that they’re dead again and what that means!

I can’t believe they made new expressions for the fake Josh’s changed personality but still refuse to make anything for Shiki’s true appearance

Hell, there’s enough lore with Josh that you could make an entire prequel about him becoming the Composer instead of this mess and, you know, EXPAND on someone’s character and what led to him being so disillusioned with Shibuya as the Composer instead of employing the Happy Ending Rewrite on Neku and then gutting his personality to make Coco the focus. I’d LOVE a Josh prequel with competent writing. Kingdom Hearts made the Xehanort prequel and hooked me in a single chapter with expanded worldbuilding and interesting ties with Xehanort’s character to friends that humanize him, do the same for Yoshiya “Joshua” Kiryu!

Pfffffff hire me and let me make the dream TWEWY trilogy: Joshua prequel > TWEWY sans A New Day > sequel set in Shinjuku starring Red Headphones Girl with Occasional Josh and Hanekoma Interaction

It is so unnecessarily cruel to make Beat relive Rhyme’s erasure and subject Neku to believing that Shiki was erased as well, and yet they do NOTHING with it except have it be cheap tension for five minutes. The characters basically say “wow, I’m so sad!” and then IMMEDIATELY move on to “OMG is Neku seeing the fuuuuuture?” Your LITTLE SISTER and FIRST REAL FRIEND IN YEARS just seemingly died permanently! When Rhyme was erased the first time it took Neku one and a half in-game days to even talk about it because he was so upset, and from then on he was focused on avenging her/bringing her back. Shiki was his entry fee in Week 2 and that made him hyper paranoid the whole time! WHY ARE WE JUST GLOSSING OVER THIS especially since they made SUCH a big deal about how they just finally started believing that the fakes were real (after a whole TWO conversations)

And then at the end they say that they’re inside Coco’s Noise that is SO BIG that it has an ALTERNATE DIMENSION INSIDE IT and Hanekoma’s like “I’ve never met a Reaper POWERFUL enough to make a Noise like this. Wow, Coco, you’re so POWERFUL that even I, an Angel, am impressed!” This. Coming from the guy who specifically chose Minamimoto as his failsafe to kill the Composer should the Game go wrong because a Taboo Minamimoto, heavily refined using forbidden methods, would be strong enough to defeat THE COMPOSER. And he’s now going on about how Coco’s the strongest Reaper ever, basically admitting that she’s probably stronger than the Composer of Shibuya. SURE. BECAUSE COCO WASN’T BAD ENOUGH ALREADY SHE HAS TO BE THE STRONGEST REAPER EVER, TOO

And then it just ends with Josh and Hanekoma exposition dumping about how Shinjuku got erased as Noise entered the RG (WHAT?), Neku’s visions were probably caused by the red headphones girl who’s super special (who???), and Coco’s just so special powerful (why...), but it’s not their problem so fuck it. Oh, and also Josh doesn’t care about Neku anymore, despite that being the whole point of TWEWY. Yeah, the guy who flew off all upset when Hanekoma asked him if he wanted to hang out with his friends at the end of the game. Uh huh. Even if he’s lying, why even put that THERE instead of saving it for the sequel?

And then Coco just... revives Minamimoto. Even though, oh, right, the Taboo Refinery stuff was so precise that the only reason Minamimoto came back the first time was because Hanekoma, THE PRODUCER AND AN ANGEL, set it up for him. But I guess Coco’s just soooooo super powerful and knows FORBIDDEN HIGHER PLANE KNOWLEDGE and can just do whateeeeeever she wants. Not like Hanekoma was so paranoid about someone finding out what he did for Minamimoto that he went into hiding, certain that he’d be reported to the higher Angels and destroyed

A New Day is so painfully shallow from a writing experience. It’s a poor continuation off of the solid, complete TWEWY story experience that just doesn’t have a handle on Neku’s character, turning him into this bland vision machine with no emotional connection to anyone. The way that it expands the worldbuilding with “Inversion” does one thing that I HATE, which is taking an emotion-and-character driven story and turning it into a generic “end of the world” scenario, “raising the stakes” in a way that divorces it from what made it memorable in the first place. If Kitaniji directly effecting the RG during the main Game’s plot was the point where he crossed the line in-universe, then that loses its special nature and impact if you then go “oh, btw, Noise can destroy the RG city if you let them”

And then there’s the absolute black hole of a character that is Coco Atarashi. She wasn’t designed to fit into the world of the game, she was designed to stand out. On its own that’s not a bad thing, especially given the themes of the game that revolve around owning your true self and baring it to the world, but then you combine it with no personality beyond being a manipulative brat obsessed with the events of TWEWY, extremely lazy text message slang dressing up her dialogue to make it stand out, the way that Neku and Beat’s personalities change to accommodate her presence just to shoehorn her in and then have a cheap “omg she was bad” twist, and then dumping powers on par with Josh and Hanekoma on her and there is NO saving her character

The only good part of A New Day is “Wake Up.” And even then, there’s better TWEWY songs, I just like the vaguely Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance vibes it has in parts

[thattimdrakeguy]

Some fans are like "I can say whatever the fuck I want about the characters that I hate and that's my opinion. But if you say something bad about my fav character I will kill you" and It is annoying... I am looking at you, some Damian and Stephanie stans, just chill or leave the fandom for a while.

I can literally criticize any character, but Damian apparently.

Only with Damian does criticizing bad writing = hate, going off of what I get yelled at about.

He has been legitimately: The only character I’ve gotten crap for criticizing the writing of.

I’ve straight up criticized Stephanie’s stans, Steph’s main relationship, her overall importance in the Bat-Family, her writing in her one solo, and I’ve only gotten ONE nasty ask even related to her, and that wasn’t even because of that. That was just because I think of Tim as gay.

And because of all those asks I’ve gotten, I’ve been so repetitive about it too, because of all the asks. I’ve probably seen the same exact thing so many times, and never got any crap for it. 

Yet ever have I been accused of being a Steph hater, most likely because I still talk about how I like her anyways.

Much like how I keep having to remind people that Damian used to be my fav, because people act like me having a Tim icon is enough to attack me.

My simple standard is just, Damian has never been well-written, and so I don’t like that and criticize that writing. It’s such an overreaction to call that hate.

But like, an old post comes back and a few new asks about Damian, and I’m starting hate apparently, and I’m just a jealous Tim stan.

But jealous of what, they’re all bad written now.

A lot of the sucky things have happened to Damian too, just in the opposite way.

Although I guess that ask (that I deleted, because what exactly am I suppose to say to it) might’ve been about the complaining I do about overglorifying Steph, but I’ve actively talked against that attitude for Tim too.

I haven’t even tagged any of the posts either, so what hate am I starting? Just because I criticized Damian’s writing on my blog and people agreed? I complain about Tim’s writing all the time, that’s how my blog got popular, and I’ve never been accused of starting hate there either.

It’s only with freaking Damian stans do I ever get such hate for.

Almost always just because I don’t find him cute. It’s almost always after I say he’s not cute to I specifically get hate for it. Sometimes they’ll shove the cute moments in my face, but when I’m aware they’re all out of character it means nothing.

I have studied these characters in my off time, because I find them interesting as fictional characters even if I don’t like their writing because it’s my hyperfixation. I absolutely know what’s what by now.

I don’t care what post they show me that says he’s just “immature”. 

Damian kidnaps people, injects chemicals into them, in Jon’s case to paralyze him, and runs a private prison that violates human rights. All of that after three years of living with superheroes. 

That’s not immaturity.

PLUS, all of that is irrelevant, because he is a fictional character,

and all I wanted to do was criticize bad writing on my blog, because it bugged me because it sucked they kept ignoring all the bad things he done in the comics and it ruins the quality of a lot of thing she’s in.

I don’t care that the fictional bad man does bad things, but they always elect to ignore that, just to attack me. No matter how obvious i make it that it’s the writing I’m criticizing, they make it all about their favorite fictional character having negative things related to them. No matter how often I openly crap on my fav’s current writing because I think it’s bad too.

Fandom people sometimes get so wrapped up in it that I think they forget what’s actually going on. Some of them straight up act like it’s high school and try to gaslight me.

I’ve gotten called a whiny, loser Tim stan, and all Tim stans are like that, like people trying to make me feel bad just for saying their fav isn’t cute.

But you know what?

Criticizing bad writing, which I also do for my favorite character isn’t that whiny or toxic. People do that on YouTube and it’s called video essays that explains what doesn’t work in fiction. It’s also a literal job people get paid for, because it’s being critic.

Being unable to handle someone thinks your fav has bad writing is way more whiny and toxic then I’ve ever been.

They have the attitude of people that give fandoms bad reputations and Tumblr fandom especially rotten reputations on other websites. They straight up drive people away, no matter what they yell or claim about other people being the cause.

I’ve met, and known enough people that have either left or want to leave this fandom to know that.

Lying about your fav to convince other people that your favorite is literally the opposite of how they’re written the majority of the time, and attacking others when they don’t share your opinion and labeling it what ever you want to give it a bad name is just toxic.

I wish they’d go away or learn to calm down before harassing people.

Especially since I don’t tag the posts and they literally have to find me to be mad at me, that or they’re just insecure other people agree with me on what I say. Regardless they need to get their world view in check.

[alittledizzy]

A genuine question: do you have an idea of why the phandom as a whole is so reactive and easily stressed out about everything, and I mean everything? I fully understand that the “hiatus” is making people feel extra tense, but it was the case even before this year - has been the whole time I’ve been following it, at least. It is a bit unsettling to always feel like everyone is walking on eggshells and the tiniest things can set people off.

I think Dan and Phil being very private people and the fact that some mild - hold onto your socks, I’m gonna use the word - gaslighting has been the basis of the fandom makes people distrust Dan and Phil, and each other’s perceptions. 

They met. They fell for each other. They were pretty public about it. They came out. Those were things people knew, and trusted, because they saw it unfold. 

They got more famous. They (for lack of better term) went back in the closet, re: their relationship. They put walls up where there hadn’t been before. 

They got outed. Through no malicious action of any one person but still against their will, against their wishes. People saw that video. They heard those words. They trusted what they heard. Fans weren’t wrong for that. 

And Dan and Phil weren’t wrong for doing what they felt like they needed to do in order to protect themselves from exposure they weren’t prepared to deal with. So they said the things that they felt like they needed to say. I use gaslighting because I think it’s the term that fits - they made people distrust their perception about things that seemed obviously true by staring right into the camera and saying you’re wrong, these things didn’t happen. But I don’t have any ill will against them for it. They were young, and scared, and felt vulnerable, and they did what they thought was good damage control. 

That damage control paved the way for a solid 2-3 years of doubt cast on everything, and that’s not something easily undone. There are people who want to trust their own instinct and perception above everything else, there are people who want to believe Dan and Phil above everything else, and there are people who just feel anxious at the fact that they’re caught somewhere in between. The fact is that a good portion of the fanbase spent years staring at Dan and Phil in their glass closets and going: I think you’re lying to me. From Dan’s customer service blog to the lies about how they met to the lies of omission and mild misleads, things accumulated. There are people now who still feel like it’s their obligation to not have opinions on their relationship because they (Dan) drove that home so hard. But either way ‘catch Dan and Phil in the lie’ has been a phandom pasttime since the first time they uttered the first mistruth about themselves. Fandom is tense with each other about the ideological differences in whether your obligation should be to believing what seems to make sense or what it seems like Dan and Phil want you to believe. 

But! Good thing is! Things change. Dan and Phil grew. We grew. But I think the attitude phandom adopted, whether you were there during those earlier years or you just absorbed it via osmosis, is to constantly be wary about mistruths and half truths and lies. It sucks for us, because we can’t relax, and it sucks for Dan and Phil because there are things they absolutely should be able to keep to themselves and us understand it’s none of our business. But because our ingrained pattern is to scrutinize everything with an attitude of distrust, and their ingrained pattern is to be wary of us and not trust us, the whole cycle of our overreaction leading to them pulling back goes on and on and on. I’m sure if we were a smaller, chiller audience not so quick to point fingers and say you always lie, you never communicate then they’d probably be a little more clear with us. I’m sure if they were more honest about things, even the struggles or the times when they don’t know what to tell us because it’s out of their hands, then we’d feel a little more secure in everything. But we’re a big group of people that you can’t really control and they’re two human beings just trying to make the best decision when they have no way of knowing the outcome and what kind of backlash they’ll get who are probably (rightfully) terrified of us. It’s hard to unlearn the feeling like you need to protect yourself from something that’s hurt you in the past; I don’t think we, as fans specifically, hurt Dan and Phil. But sharing too much on social media did - both the things outside of their control (like the video leaking) and the things they’d shared before that made it harder to hide themselves away. 

I don’t think there are many people out there in 2019 who would say they’re mad at Dan and Phil for not being honest when the video leaked. But I guess my whole point here is that I think they don’t always trust us and we don’t always trust them and neither side is entirely wrong and I think that’s why we’re always so fucking anxious and why they’re always so fucking secretive. 

[jojotichakorn]

Together With Me: Review (& General Info)

About the Series:

Summary: Two childhood friends reunite after not seeing each other for years. At first, everything is great. That is until they get drunk, hook up and wake up equally shocked at what’s happened, though for completely different reasons. How are they going to navigate their relationship after sleeping with each other, especially considering the fact that one of them already has a girlfriend and is absolutely sure he’s straight? (Trailer)  

Couples: Main gay couple, as well as two side couples - one gay, one straight.

Running Time: 13 episodes - around 45 minutes each - 10 hours in total

Cast (& their Instagram pages): Max Nattapol (Korn), Tul Pakorn (Knock), Maengmum Pimnitchakun (Yihwa), C'Game Supawit (Farm), Olive Chiwpreecha (Fai), Tem Khamphee (Phu), Aim Satida (Plern Pleng), Apiwat Porsche (Bright), Mai Kerdnimit (Professor Kavitra), Sek Suthaphong (Mew). 

Where to watch? YouTube | Dramavery(dot)com (gotta get through some wonky ads before watching)

Related Shows: Bad Romance (kind of a prequel, but very inconsistent with TWM and isn’t worth watching), Together With Me: The Next Chapter (technically a sequel to TWM, however considering the characterization seems more like a sequel to BR and isn’t worth watching at all). 

My Review: 

Rating: 6.5/10 

Short review: 

Overall, there is a lot of reasons to watch this show, as well as a lot of reasons not to. 

It has a rather cute main couple, good kisses, nice acting, a couple of awesome female characters and actually says the word “gay” multiple times (as well as actually calls certain characters gay, instead of going with the “only gay for you” trope). It’s also good for “educational purposes” because if you hang out in the fandom at all, you surely have heard of MaxTul and Yihwa, both of whom are beloved by us all – and for a good reason. 

At the same time, the show is way too dramatic and very slow, at times completely nonsensical and incredibly annoying, has background storylines I honestly suggest to skip altogether and some problematic moments that make you do a little more than simply roll your eyes and sigh. 

Do I personally recommend it? Pretty much yes, especially if you’ve watched the best ones and are looking to get a lil’ more content, even if it’s more mediocre than what you’ve seen before. But, at the end of the day, it’s obviously your own decision to make. 

Extended review (under the cut):

Together With Me was a show that got a lot of attention back in the day, for a lot of reasons. For the first time in the history of BLs, there were actually gay characters instead of characters that were “straight for everyone, but this one dude”. Besides, the show itself seemed more mature, was definitely more explicit than most, had actually good proper kisses and solid acting. All this is true, and I’ve honestly considered this show one of the best ever since I watched it a while ago. Now I watched it again and I have to say that even though I still recommend it (especially if you’ve seen all the top-notch BLs already), it’s not nearly as good as I remember it being.

The plot of this thing is… something. For starters, the pacing is very slow. And what I mean by that is I can literally cut this thing in half, shove the entire story into that half and it will lose nothing and probably even become better. The amount of completely unnecessary emotionally draining drama makes this even worse. Sometimes, it feels like they are making things a million times slower on purpose – there are some moments that literally don’t mean anything to the plot or the characters, yet there are still there and they’re, of course, slow as all hell. There are also moments that just make you go “????” because they are completely nonsensical, as well as a couple of minor plotlines that start as a mystery that’s hinted at a million times and then just… never get resolved. There are weird moments that would just never-ever happen in real life under any fucking circumstances, yet of course, they’re there. There are also moments I literally couldn’t care less about and definitely some cringe.

Not everything is bad about the plot, however. There are a couple of rather cute moments and the ending is actually satisfying enough to make you forget how angry you were watching the clownery happening in the previous couple of episodes. Plus, shit only really hits the fan in the middle of the show – up to somewhere around episode 7, it’s pretty chill.

The couples and romance is all over the place. The main couple is really cute, though it can be hard to immerse in their cuteness sometimes, for quite a few reasons. One of the main character’s (Knock’s) relationship with his girlfriend is… a lot. It starts more or less alright and ends up being emotionally abusive, which is a lot to take in. Both of the background couples are awful. The straight one is a teacher/student plot that’s utterly boring and completely inappropriate at best, besides doesn’t make any sense and is hugely underdeveloped. The secondary gay couple is problematic from start to finish – no one wants to see a young “naïve” guy with an older predatory dude who’s trying to seduce him. Literally. No one.

Every single character with perhaps two exceptions is almost comedically stupid, except instead of laughing you’ll want to groan and – in more emotional cases – choke yourself to death. Half of them are also incredibly fucking annoying and if you don’t end up banging your head against the wall by the end of it – congratulations, you’ve got nerves of steel. However, not all is bad. There are two incredible female characters, and one of them, Yihwa, is definitely a fan favorite in BL circles among all shows, so she alone is reason enough to watch this. Besides, despite some of the other characters being a little dumb or a little annoying, I’m sure you’ll find someone to love among them as well.

The acting is also great. Max nails most scenes, Tul is very good in the emotional ones, Aim’s voice when she’s guilttripping or gaslighting Tul’s character is genuinely terrifying (as it should be) and others are pretty good overall. There are also some weak links and mishaps, of course, but we won’t dwell on those too much.

Finally, which piece of art doesn’t have problematic moments? Together With Me is no exception. Cheating is present among multiple couples and it’s normalized in pretty much all instances. There’s multiple "rape-y” scenes – some of them played for laughs, some of them sort of happening for shock value and to “progress” the romance, characters, and plot. Besides that, also some minor problematic moments, like forcing someone to drink, drugging someone so they’d tell you the truth, etc.

As you see, there is a lot of reasons to watch this show, as well as a lot of reasons not to. Do I personally recommend it? Pretty much yes, especially if you’ve watched the best ones and are looking to get a lil’ more content, even if it’s more mediocre than what you’ve seen before. But, at the end of the day, it’s obviously your own decision to make.