#critical

[reblogandlikes]

Dipped a toe and snooped in the pro IC and Co. tag just for shits and giggles and it's crazy how so many can't seem to comprehend general criticism of the acotar books and will call people or stans of other characters abusive and idiots and whatever else for simply being a stan of (name character) but do not see the total hypocrisy in their own faves. The abusive nature of their faves. The favoritism towards their faves. The manipulation both from and of their faves.

Many resfuse to see how all over the place SJM writing generally is and I find it hilarious how when it's stated that SJM retcon blatantly to fit the 1st person narrative of the book it's bullshit people and antis are hating for no reason, but as soon as it comes to ACOSF it's lies pandering to pro Nesta despite the story being written in 3rd person from both Nesta and Cassian's POV. I'm sorry, your fave Rhysand has always been a dick. They'd take everything in first books as gospel, but the moment it's Nesta's or even Bryce’s, it's not true? It's biased. It doesn't count.

Hmm...odd

I don't like ACOSF. The story wasn't about healing, but beating a character down into submission and as a Nesta stan, I still critique it because...I can and I will. Cassian can go fall down those stairs and give the usefulness of his wings to Emerie.

If they want to read the books blindly, go ahead, but don't get mad when others actually internalise and think about the messages being spoken. Everyone digest media differently, and that's OK. I personally like reading about ambiguous and indepth characters. Not a fan of being told how to feel and what to think. The ability to ready between the lines and pick up things that aren't in big neon writing is preferable. SJM has the capability, generally, which from what I've seen, is why TOG is far better recieved, even with the criticism.

They say if we hate Rhysand or Feyre so much, why keep reading? Well, at this fucking point, we're all too deep in this shit show to stop. Call it morbid curiosity. These books have made me a masochist.

If you're an anti blog, keep doing your thing. If you're a pro blog, same thing. Who cares? We find our communities and have fun talking shit. But the unnecessary harsh name calling over something supposedly "not that deep" is wild.

[lasnevadaslaborunion]

It frightens and discourages me how pervasive "tribal" stereotypes and imagery are in the fantasy and adventure genres.

It's all over the place in classic literature. Crack open a Jules Verne novel and you're likely to find caricatures of brown people and cultures, even when the characters are sympathetic to the plight of the colonized peoples - incidentally, this is the biggest reason I can't recommend 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to everyone, despite Captain Nemo being one of my favorite fictional characters of all time.

You can't escape it in modern cinema, either. You'll see white heroes venturing bravely into jungles and tombs to steal from natives who don't know how to use their resources "properly." You'll see them strung up in traps, riddled with sleeping darts, forced to flee and fight their way out. Hell, Pirates of the Caribbean, a remarkably inclusive franchise in many other ways, had an extended sequence of the white heroes escaping from a cannibal civilization in the second film.

And when fantasy RPGs want a humanoid enemy, the "bloodthirsty natives" are the first stock trope they jump to. World of Warcraft is one of the most egregious examples, with the trolls - blatant racist caricatures with faux-voodoo beliefs, cannibalistic diets, Jamaican accents, and a history of being killed in droves by (white) elves and humans - being raided and slaughtered in nearly every expansion.

It doesn't matter how vibrant and distinctive the real-world indigenous, Polynesian, Caribbean, and African cultures are. It doesn't matter how much potential these real civilizations offer for complex and sympathetic characterization. Anything that doesn't make sense to the white western mind is shoved under the same "savage" umbrella. They're different. They're strange. They're scary. They have to be escaped, subjugated, eliminated, ogled at from the safety of a museum.

Modern writers, directors, and developers don't even seem to realize how horrifying it is to present the indigenous inhabitants of a place as "obstacles" for non-native protagonists to overcome. "It's not racist," they say, "because these people aren't really people, you see." And if you dare to point out anything that hurts or offends you as a descendant of the bastardized culture, you're accused of being the real racist: "These aren't humans! They're monsters! Are you saying that these real societies are just like those disgusting monsters?"

No, they're not monsters. But you chose to design them as monsters, just as invaders have done for hundreds of years. Why would you do that? Why can you recognize any other caricature as evil and cruel, but not this?

This is how deep colonialism runs.

[vakarians-babe]

look I am not saying that everyone needs to comb through every single post on a blog before they follow an artist here on tumblr. but maybe a keyword search for genocide apologia would be a good call.

[galatoma]

i keep seeing a lot of worry surrounding the news that a union stepping in to help with the quackity studio stuff and what that means for the project, but it's honestly a good thing.

like i love quackity and the qsmp, but I don't think they have the experience to be able to fix the prominent issues with the studio, and so I think it's great that a union is stepping in to help set things straight.

Of course, if the project ends up not being viable then that'd be a damn shame, but ultimately what matters is that the worker get treated right, and so I hope that this project can be restructured to keep workers' wellbeing at the forefront, even if the project ends up changing directory drastically.

[ehghtyseven]

the nhl going so far as to ban pride tape is so far beyond gross I can’t even express it tbh

[honeyed-latte]

Valka takes a lot of flack for abandoning Hiccup and Stoick, but not nearly enough people hate on Stoick (imho).

Stoick was also an awful father?

He isolated Hiccup, set unrealistic expectations, publically humiliated his son for years, he absolutely refused to be understanding or reasonable until he was faced with defeat and failure.

Hiccup had to adapt to become more aggressive (as seen in RTTE) or have his father absolutely bulldoze over his ideas and his personhood.

Stoick became a better father when Hiccup was nearly an adult already, but he utterly failed Hiccup when he was a child and thats 100% worth mentioning and addressing.

[cupcraft]

And fuck twitch

[tobythewise]

I just think there’s something incredibly special about being a mage Hawke romancing Anders. All of the other companions find the mage plight annoying at the best of times and WRONG in the worst of times. Hearing their banter HURTS me sometime because hey… you’re saying all mages deserve to have Meredith imprison them because they’re all weak?? IM one of those mages you’re talking about! You think tranquility is fine? That’s ME you’re talking about??

The only one consistently fighting, consistently seeing mages as good and PEOPLE is Anders.

He’ll fight by putting his very life on the line for our freedom. Hawke is willing to throw away his home and be on the run again for their freedom.

I just think that’s really beautiful and really special.

[fuckitwebhaal]

the author of that “wyll is boring” article (WRONG! No he’s not) has also written hits such as “Karlach dances too much” and “Jaheira as a Druid is dirty and stinky”

Girl I think you just don’t like the game. Go back to listening to Taylor Swift

[strawberrytalia]

did my daily little scroll through the duke thomas tag and while i did see a lot of bullshit like always, i also found a couple of gems (aka posts that actually talk about duke himself)

but one thing that’s annoying is when people know the bare minimum about duke, and then in order to combat the “you write him as being boring” accusation, they go full send and write duke as being very chaotic, silly, absurd, etc.

don’t get me wrong, duke is definitely a snarky, witty, funny character. at appropriate times ofc.

but his story and character aren’t completely sunshiney in comparison to everyone. his parents are completely mentally gone. he was forced to move around from foster home to foster home. every time he’s awakened his meta human powers, it was through force and a loss of autonomy. literally in BATO 2019, duke is depressed and has ptsd from the karma incident and it affects him so much, and then he goes through another traumatizing experience of getting his shadow powers awakened by force, without his consent or knowledge.

what i’m trying to say is plsss just look at duke as a person and character. he’s not an innocent doormat, and likewise, he’s not just the funny silly guy messing around all the time. just like every other bat, he’s been through so much shit and he very much struggles with the mental burden of his job just like they do. if you understand addressing jason’s death or damian’s childhood, then think of duke as someone who deserves the same attention.

[dragonageconfessions]

CONFESSION:

I love dragon age. I really do. It remains my favorite rpg and I’ve returned to each game countless times since Origins came out, and I’ll probably continue to do so for years to come. But god do I wish they would stop putting such huge plot information in supplementary material. The Maric books, the Cassandra mini-series or even Masked Empire is one thing, but Asunder entirely changes the context around how the player approaches the mage-templar war. Half the fandom coming in to Inquisition for the first time thought this was a direct result of Anders from 2 - Not the result of a lot of mages voting to break from the Circle. It could have been its own spin off game, or a mini series too. Hell, there’s more to Sera’s cookie story that feels like a stronger drive for her character in world of thedas(Ferelden denied her inheritance from the woman who took care of her because she was an elf???), but you wouldn’t know any of that unless you go out of your way outside of the game to hunt for it. It’s tiring that they write out all this big, important information everywhere EXCEPT the games.

[bridoesotherjunk]

This article is so fucking right. Go Off, king.

"With the enthusiasm of an underpaid retail worker, who just realized they have to clean the bathroom." Is an incredibly accurate way to describe Taylor-Joy's line delivery as Peach.

The article goes into several examples of films that still failed, even with A list celebrities in the cast and talks about films that succeeded and why they did. Mario was going to succeed no matter WHO voiced him, but we deserved to get a performance from someone like Charles Martinet.

People deserve to watch animated movies that aren't just a glorified "which celebrity of the week is it" guessing game.

I'd recommend taking a read through it. I will say I slightly disagreed with his take on Charlie Day as Luigi, because he seemed good, but yeah a voice actor would probably have done better. He even mentions movies I loved like Rise of the Guardians and how the movie still flopped even with a stacked cast.

[disformer]

What do you feel is more concerning for children with what is in the EarthSpark series; all of the clear terror and death, or having a they/them pronouned character?

Because the terror and death is seemingly entirely looked over but the ONE CHARACTER going by different pronouns is apparently nothing short of outrage.

Anon, I Am Nonbinary.

I’ll put a more thought out response under the cut

Earthspark drinking game take a sip every time an extremely young child has to emotionally support an adult or is put in life-threatening danger.

1. Steven Universe really ruined a generation of children’s media by making showrunners think they had to tackle issues like PTSD and trauma.

However, to give SU some credit, Steven was not 9 years old at the start of the show. It’s a really jarring choice that was probably made to capitalise on a more marketable demographic for TF and to keep the children’s play more lighthearted, but you get some really weird moments like (checks notes) a nine year old giving advice to an adult on how to handle trauma.

The issue with this is no nine year old should ever have to do this for an adult. They do not need to be wise beyond their years. They do not need to be a therapist for their caretakers. Grimlocks PTSD episode is one of the most egregious examples of this, where (not only is this depiction extremely one-note and weird) the narrative punishes Jawbreaker for not realising Grimlock is having a panic attack in the middle of their play.

As a framing device in a kids movie, what is a nine year old viewer supposed to take from this? The child brain is going to think ‘the adult lashed out and hurt Jawbreaker, it was his fault for being too rowdy.’ LIKE YOU WOULDNT SEE THIS IN PEPPA PIG.

And you do need to consider this when you’re writing children that young in your media, because kids are going to watch shows that have other kids the same age as them in it. There’s an almost instinctive camaraderie in seeing a fellow nine-year-old on TV when you’re at that age. So, the show is very likely going to be watched by 8-15 year olds which brings us to

2. JESUS CHRIST. THIS SHOW NEEDS TO CALM DOWN.

This show is way way way too interested in putting children in extreme danger. Constantly, towards the end of the series.

I’ll make a note first that it’s okay if kids shows have fun play-violence; kids like action. Children like low-stakes explosions. It’s not super serious and most TF media does this well, even if it’s tonally a bit more serious. This is not really an issue in a show like TFP or TFA which also had young kids.

Earthspark does not make its action low-stakes. Earthspark treats its violence extremely seriously; children cry, they scream, they get bruised, their parents wail when they see them in danger. Violence has a lasting impact, it has to because the show constantly wants to talk about trauma, so they can’t have video game rules. If they get hurt it has to impact them. Robbie and Mo are in consistent, life-threatening danger. They’re always being shot at or dropped off cliffs or almost killed and it always harrows them.

And kids can pick up on this. They’re going to realise that this is something that’s Serious, and Scary, and they’re going to be FREAKED out.

They’re also going to be freaked out when the children are fuckin. Tied into the bio-wall with tubes by Mandroid, or when Robbie has alien leukaemia and his parents are so so scared and has to rush him to the hospital and Mo is crying so much, or when their parents are seemingly killed and the kids are screaming and punching the ground and blaming themselves.

And that last part is important, because on several occasions the narrative reinforces this. The narrative. Of a children’s show. Says yes; Robbie and Mo have powers, and this makes them responsible for the well-being of the adults around them. Mo literally gets told this. By GOD. Before her parents proudly watch on without interfering as she fights in hand to hand combat with the villain (WHO IS, AS WE HAVE SEEN, FUCKING DERANGED AND WOULD LOVE TO KILL A TEENAGER JUST ONCE PLEASE PLEASE)

In conclusion, what this tells me is the showrunners are inexperienced. They didn’t consider what is appropriate for the subject matter of a children’s cartoon. They wanted to write about trauma, and war, and think kids are cute! And didn’t want their TF fanfiction to be narratively compromised by having to ‘dumb it down’ for kids.

The result is this is never a show I would ever put on for a 4th grade class in break time, at the risk of severely upsetting a lot of them. And it’s also a show I can’t enjoy as an adult, because it uses the language of a children’s cartoon to make nuanced topics more binarised and soppy.

[neurosiscocktail]

Season finale spoilers-

Thoughts on why Izzy’s death didn’t really sit right with me.

I really and truly do not like either the “kill your redeemed antagonists” or the “kill your mentors because the mentee has ‘nothing’ left to learn from them” troupes. Now that we have confirmation that the later is what he was going for, it adds an extra layer to the death, and that’s that

Izzy was right

Izzy admits in his death speech, and we as the viewer see that part of what drove Izzy to act the way he did in trying to encourage Ed to be Blackbeard is that he was scared of losing Ed, scared he would outlive his usefulness, scared that if he wasn’t helping Blackbeard Ed wouldn’t need him, and with the life he lived, to not be needed is to be dead. Those who outlive their usefulness get sent to doggy heaven. It felt like his arc this season was about proving this wrong. That he didn’t need to useful to Ed to deserve to live. That he can find meaning and friendship, if only he lets go of this fear.

And then the writer killed him because he… outlived his usefulness to Ed. To kill a character because you love the “mentor dies when they have nothing left to teach” troupe feels bad when the mentors arc was largely about ‘what do you do when you feel like you aren’t useful anymore in the same way you were. How do you find purpose?’

Maybe some people love this and think it adds to the drama of the death, but it’s really not for me.

[villainsposting]

Vivziepop: *doesn’t explicitly state Alastor to be aromantic despite writing him as such because she doesn't want fans to be constantly warring with each other over made-up relationships between fictional characters*

The fans: "Wow. We should constantly war with each other over this."

[reliquiaenfr]

ok my two cents: i like them an alright amount, the bald head doesn't bother me so much really, but there are some criticisms

- they could've been a modern; nothing about their design pushes boundaries enough to warrant being an ancient. personally, i'm thoroughly sick of all breeds having wings. what i really wanted from an earth ancient was a big chunky spikey creature with no wings at all

- we have once again been cursed with the snub-nosed face. stop that

- there are a handful of genes that feel like they belong on this breed but they're not: pymorph, boulder/myrid, chryso/malachite, no glimmer again, where are shardflank and scorpion, veined, idk just feels like missed opportunities. i will hope for an expansion at some point (and that like um all of their prim/sec combos are ported to moderns thank you very much)

- with the delay in the lore why not just delay the entire breed? as others have said, we really don't need new breeds every three to four months. it's overwhelming. take your time. every other update doesn't need to be massive. and i can appreciate that we had years of no breeds at all, but this isn't how to make up for that

idk guys, i simply don't get excited for ancients anymore because they never do Enough with the freedom of design they're allowed to have. i will continue to beg for fire ancients that have the same vents as flamecaller where the fire is the secondary, for earth ancients with big spines and plates that are the secondary, for overgrown nature ancients with flora as the secondary. please be weirder with them thank you