#fandom salt i guess

[howtodrawyourdragon]

Wondering if Astrid's character is actually bad. Or if people see her, the female love interest, in a relationship with the main male character, see her girly and emotional side on top of the badass warrior side, see her get in trouble and be saved by her main male character boyfriend (completely disregard that he needs just as much saving and that she does a lot of that saving) and then call her character bad.

[buggachat]

i do just have to say though.................... i feel like people who really really loved the movie's portrayals of the characters are adding aspects of the show characters onto them? you know what i mean? like i see people say that adrien and marinette were more likeable in the movie than the show, when movie adrien didn't perform a single act of kindness in the entire 2 hours despite kindness being a core trait of adrien in the show? marinette was normal and not particularly weird at all and just kind of a generic protagonist? were adrien and marinette actually more interesting in the movie than the show, or are you just cherrypicking the aspects of them you like the from the show and putting them on the movie characters to make your favorite amalgamation?

marinette fell for adrien not because he showed vulnerability and forgiveness and kindness and opened his heart up to her.... but because he awkwardly tried to help her up after being kind of weirded out by her? so like i guess she thought he was hot and that was basically it? chat noir fell for ladybug not because she was strong and confident and showed determination in the face of fear... but because she begrudgingly helped him up in the middle of a battle? so like i guess he thought she was hot and that was basically it? they fell for each other over just the bare minimum interactions? most of their relationship was a montage? like, did the movie do the work to convince you of lovesquare's romantic potential, or did you go into the movie already shipping them because the show had already convinced you?

thats totally a valid way to enjoy the movie ftr! i'm just saying.... idk it's weird to see people praising the movie for being "better" when i feel like a lot of the enjoyment of the movie actually hinges on watching the show as context for their characters. and i guess im just a cringe slow-burn enjoyer but i find it weird that people are using "faster" as a synonym for "better"

[laughhardrunfastbekindsblog]

Okay, my one and only major complaint about Bad Batch is that I don't think they handled Tech's death properly (I still don't think they should have killed him off at all, but here we are; and even if they intend(ed) to leave things open-ended to maybe bring him back later, the titular characters in the show wouldn't have known that); and with all the reasons I've seen floating out there as to WHY Tech's death was handled the way it was and why the characters reacted the way they did (or didn't), I just want to explain why none of the "reasons" cut it for me. If you're satisfied with how Tech was handled in season 3, I am genuinely happy for you (and lowkey jealous, ngl 😉). I've just been thinking about this a lot and need to spell it out!

Reason #1: "Why do we need to see more of the characters mourning? What we got was enough. We don't need a 2 hour episode that's all about the characters grieving." (Yes, someone actually used "2 hours" in their argument.)

Let's recap what we got: 1) A scene where Echo looks sadly at the Marauder's pilot seat, Wrecker actually sheds some tears (bless him), Omega's in denial, and Hunter tells Omega they're going to retire on Pabu because Tech is gone... followed up almost immediately by the villain dropping off broken goggles as the only proof that Tech was ever on Eriadu; 2) a scene where the audience is shown Tech's goggles but Hunter doesn't interact with them- instead, he looks at Lula, proving that his driving motivation is recovering Omega (which is fine when taken from the perspective that he can't do anything about Tech, whereas he can do something for Omega; but that perspective is ultimately just headcanon because the show never reiterates or follows up on this); 3) Wrecker alluding to Tech (not by name) to try to convince Hunter to be more cautious; 4) Omega name-dropping Tech (wait, does Crosshair even know what happened?... yay for context clues, I guess); 5) Echo name-dropping Tech in relation to data decryption with the team looking down sadly for 5 seconds (I timed it) before Crosshair changes the subject; 6) Phee name-dropping Tech in relation to her not knowing what m-count is; 7) Crosshair referring to Tech's information on Ventress; 8) Omega leaving Tech's goggles in the Archeum with none of her brothers around (hot take: it kinda bothers me that the goggles are given the same treatment as Lula, I totally understand the context/deeper meaning of Omega leaving her childhood behind by leaving Lula, but we're talking about the one relic they have of their fallen and irreplaceable brother being given the same emotional weight as a doll); 9) Phee referring to Tech having a discussion with her about Crosshair while Tech's goggles are in the background (and, noticeably, Crosshair doesn't react at all and just changes the subject back to needing a ship); 10) Crosshair says the squad died with Tech, Wrecker says Tech understood the risks, and that's that.

So, what we got was enough to establish that the characters were sad in the immediate aftermath of Tech's death, that some of them may have stayed sad about it all through season 3, and that the show didn't completely forget that Tech had been a main character at one point.

What we DON'T get is any real reference to what Tech meant to the family as an individual and a brother, any real indication of how the loss of Tech (distinct from the mission to save Omega) influences his family's actions or the story's overall narrative, any actual acknowledgement in the show of Tech's sacrifice having any meaning or the family moving past grief to express any form of gratitude for Tech's presence and influence on their lives, any reference to Tech having a true impact on 4 of his 5 siblings (Omega is the closest we get to witnessing Tech's continued influence on any of his siblings and even seeing that involves squinting/head tilts at times)... in other words, we get a few minutes of sadness, but never any catharsis. We see they miss him, but never does this truly inform the narrative or their decisions in season 3, AND it's left frustratingly vague where the characters are in the grieving process (more on that later).

Besides, no one (that I have come across, at least) was ever asking for a 2 hour episode. At most, Kanan got a 22-minute "eulogy" episode, and most of us aren't even asking for that. I'd have been at least minimally satisfied with a "Mayday moment" for Tech - and that scene lasted a grand total of 20 seconds. What would have been more satisfying would have been the show taking all those superficial name drops and converting at least a few of them into meaningful mentions indicating what Tech means to his brothers and/or how he continues to have an influence on his family and/or how his sacrifice is a motivating factor for them.

Reason #2: "There was no time."

Leaving aside the fact that there was apparently plenty of time and opportunity to make Tech (among others) a red herring...

Let's assume that the showrunners were not only told they only had 1 season left to wrap everything up, but were given highly specific time allotments for each episode to where they weren't allowed to add any scenes (I highly doubt this is what happened, but we're rolling with the "no time" thing here). You know what you do in that scenario when you're talking about something like following up on a main character's death that clearly has left your entire fanbase in an uproar? You MAKE time: you trim down the action scenes, you make the characters walk a little bit faster, you decide whether an extended scene of Echo giving Omega a crossbow that is never going to show up again is actually worth saving (I actually like the scene, by the way; just giving an example), you cut out a few of the extremely vague lines of dialogue Fennec and Asajj indulge in. What you DON'T do is kill off a beloved main character and then rely on convenient time lapses/time skips to just brush over all the fallout apart from a few name drops that do nothing to establish just how important said character was to the other characters in the show.

What's more, they could have EASILY included some true closure with ANY of the Tech name-drops/scenes that were already in the show. Have Hunter look at Tech's goggles before looking beyond them at Lula in 3.02. Have the brothers be present with Omega when she decides to leave Tech's goggles in the Archeum in 3.11. Have any of the brothers say one meaningful line about Tech while they're otherwise silently basking in the sunshine in the end scene on Pabu in 3.15!

Reason #3: "They're soldiers."

Of all the reasons given for why Tech's death was mishandled, I dislike this one the most. What does CF99 being soldiers have to do with the aftermath of Tech's death being reduced to perfunctory allusions? (If you want to get into the argument that soldiers in general have to figure out a way to "move on" and The Clone Wars didn't really spend any time on the clones processing losses after battles, let me just say I don't care for how this topic is covered in The Clone Wars either, and Bad Batch was a golden opportunity for the Star Wars franchise to move past this unfortunate trope.) Fallen soldiers in real life get memorials/funerals too, even if it's months after the battle. Fallen soldiers are honored and remembered by their families and those closest to them. If the show is trying to push the stereotype that soldiers move on from tragic deaths of comrades by being "stoic" and holding it all in and never talking about it, I strongly disagree with the perpetuation of this stereotype; and if the characters as soldiers actually DID grieve Tech in a healthy way, why didn't the show depict it?

Reason #4: "Star Wars writers don't know how to write meaningful scenes/payoff regarding death and characters dealing with death/loss."

The Bad Batch writers proved time and again how brilliant they are at writing emotional storylines with maximum payoff. Case in point: Mayday. Enough said (I'm writing too much on this general topic as it is).

Reason #5: "They got over it."

Maybe I'm reading things wrong, but a rather drastic change in behavior for one character (going from cautious and weighing all risks, to reckless and jumping headfirst into situations without proper backup), and another character including Tech's death as just one reason why he "deserves" to go on a suicide mission, does not read to me as the characters "getting over it." It reads to me as "avoidance behavior" and "continued internal conflict." (Granted, Hunter's more reckless behavior in season 3 likely had as much to do with the Omega situation as it did Tech's death, but the point still stands. And if the point DOESN'T still stand, then I've got even MORE issues with how this plotline was handled, so we'll just keep assuming it does.)

Furthermore, if the characters had truly "gotten over it," there shouldn't have been any hesitation or issue with them discussing and honoring Tech in meaningful ways.

Reason #6: "They DIDN'T get over it."

Right, and we ended the show that way, with no clear resolution to them actually coming to terms with Tech's death and honoring his memory. Great.

Reason #7: "Whatever. It's good Tech stayed dead. Tech's sacrifice meant something."

... Did it? Did it really? I mean, I know I say quite frequently that Tech's sacrifice is what made the happy ending possible for the others (because that's the only thought that got me through a rewatch of season 3). But the show, the narrative itself, certainly doesn't act like it really meant anything. Hunter says in the season 2 finale that they "weren't going to waste Tech's sacrifice" because they were going to retire on Pabu... and that discussion promptly gets forgotten and never brought up again, not even when the squad is trying to stay off the Empire's radar in season 3 after Omega returns. Never is there any discussion that "not wasting Tech's sacrifice" by hiding on Pabu to make sure no one else dies (a very understandable reaction, of course) also goes against the very mission Tech pushed for in the first place: rescuing Crosshair. Never do we hear Omega tell Crosshair, "Tech didn't give up on you, I'm not giving up on you, that's why you ARE going to escape with me." Never is there any talk about "Tech wanted us to live and stay together, so that is what we are going to do." Never is there any acknowledgement at the end of the show that they are all going to live in peace on Pabu because Tech made sure they could live.

The last half of season 4 of Rebels is full of references to Kanan's sacrifice actually meaning something and having direct tangible consequences not only for the family but for Lothal and the Rebellion. For one thing, the show itself literally spells out that the mission to shut down the Imperial factories on Lothal was actually a success because all the fuel reserves were destroyed - Kanan had died, but the mission had succeeded and directly led to the success of the bigger mission to completely free Lothal, and while this is very poor consolation for the loss of Kanan, at least the show openly acknowledged it. Kanan and his influence is also openly credited for Ezra foiling Palpatine's plans with the Jedi Temple and the WBW, Ezra learning to let go and again disrupting Palpatine's plans in the finale, and doing what was needed to ensure Lothal was fully freed.

Imagine how different Rebels would be if Kanan's death had been treated like Tech's: no mention that his role on the mission had any impact whatsoever. No reference to Ezra or any other member of the Ghost crew living up to what Kanan had taught them all - or, at best, there's a perfunctory reference in the epilogue that Ezra decided to keep using the Force the way Kanan had taught him to. No depiction of Ezra or Hera or Sabine or Zeb accepting Kanan's death and letting go of the pain while holding on to the memories. Nothing to show that any of the Ghost crew members act in memory of Kanan or that he is a motivating influence on them. No indication that Kanan's sacrifice drives Ezra to decide to follow up on their initial success with the factories and ultimately completely drive the Empire from Lothal.

Rebels just wouldn't be nearly as fulfilling.

Now, imagine if Tech's death had been treated like Kanan's, and maybe it will become more clear why I have a REALLY hard time agreeing with the argument that the show itself actually depicted Tech's death as "meaning something."

[ecoterrorist-katara]

I’m so tired of wlw background ships in mlm fandoms.

mlm shippers almost never develop wlw ships to the degree that the audience feels invested in them. The conflict and character development and love story rely on tropes rather than actual narratives, yet fandoms act like they’re doing wlws a favour by shoehorning in this shitty “representation” when it’s just golden retriever x black cat over and over and over again in different fonts.

To be clear I don’t blame anyone for not having big wlw ships, because most major media out there do not have two fully fledged female characters you can ship together. If you want to write mlm ships, good for you! If you want a lazy wlw ship in the background, that’s fine! But don’t act as if the fandom actually cares about them, or that anyone did the legwork to make them characters that you can care about. Most of these female characters are never properly developed in the canon source material, and they’re almost never properly developed in the fanon material either. You can always tell by how these women are like, one archetype + gay (sporty gay, feisty gay, slutty gay etc, like some kind of gay Spice Girls). Yet fandoms just love to act like these background wlws mean so much & have the best love stories & everyone just should ship them. It’s all so performative.

wlws are not an aesthetic. wlws are not 2D happy couples to round out your queer utopia, a queer utopia that somehow still manages to foreground men. Women are always treated as 2D characters in narratives, except now there’s a subgenre where these 2D women are gay. Groundbreaking.

[kiwisandpearls]

I’m not gonna get beat for saying that i personally think some apologists for certain characters border on excusing said characters’ actions on their trauma and villainizing other characters to make said characters seem innocent whilst also infantilizing said characters am i

[aethergalaxias]

haha not to be bitter on main or anything but like. just rewatched a couple episodes of spop and it kinda bothered me how glossed over the episode “white out” is, despite being a COMPLETELY FUCKING TERRIFYING concept???

it’s sort of weird to me that the only thing most people took away from that episode was That One Specific Scene (“looks like you’re mine now, adora”, which was also something i found pretty creepy??? but hey, that’s a subject for a different post LMAO) and pretty much brushed over everything else, especially considering the reaction to the later episode “save the cat” in which pretty much the same exact thing happened to a different character and everyone found it horrifying.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

it's so weird that people ship perfuma, catra, mermista, etc with entrapta considering how entrapta is canonically a woman in her 30s and the others are teenagers or 18 at oldest.

[revvethasmythh]

An idle thought, really, but I think it's interesting to see fandom latch on the metaphorical interpretation of things like Laudna's relationship with Delilah as a metaphor for addiction or Imogen's psychic powers as a metaphor for either chronic pain or queerness, but there's much less attachment to or discussion of the characters who explicitly, canonically dealt with exactly those things. By which I mean Scanlan's substance abuse, Veth's alcoholism, and even Ashton's chronic pain (which feels like it was discussed much more before it was confirmed canon, and seems to be brought up mostly just as ship fodder these days). I suppose one could argue the devotion to the metaphorical interpretations lies in the fact that it's an interpretation of canon as opposed to being explicitly so, meaning there's more wiggle room to project a personal interpretation onto it. Explicit canon is more concrete, less malleable to the individual viewer. Still, if we're going to talk about addiction now in a metaphorical sense via Laudna, it leads me to wonder if we will see further discussion of the characters who explicitly dealt with addiction (Veth and Scanlan), as opposed to Laudna's purported allegorical version of it

[anneapocalypse]

I'm also just... shaking my head at all the people going IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE FOR HER TO ASK URIANGER TO DESCRIBE THE STARS BECAUSE STARS GIVE OFF AETHER! PLOTHOLE DING like... Y'shtola is not asking for tactical information here. If she was, she would've asked Thancred. She knows the stars are there, and yes, in the logic of her aethersight she can probably detect the aetherial trails they emit when she looks up at the sky. But she can't see them as she once could. She cannot experience the night sky as she remembers it. She is asking her friend, who speaks in beautiful poetic language, to describe the stars so that she can experience their beauty and wonder in a way that he can uniquely give her. And Urianger doesn't give a technical description, he gives an emotional and personal one (notice how he describes the beauty of the sky as forgiving) because he understands what his friend is asking for. It's a beautiful moment between them and to say it's pointless because stars give off aether is missing the point of it impressively badly.

[findafight]

So many shippers want to take stobin away from each other by either undermining their big friendship moments, especially the bathroom scene by either making Steve talk about someone else when he's describing how amazing Robin is or (as I've unfortunately seen) have Robin lie about liking Tammy (to cover her crush on Nancy) which makes the entire scene ingenuine and the basis of their solid friendship a falsehood, or by giving their dynamic to other characters like making Robin and Eddie best friends before scoops (when they probably didn't even know each other beyond going to the same school). Just. Why. Why must you separate them? Why do you feel the need to remove their big emotional moments of love and trust and give it to different characters?

[thecruellestmonth]

Yo, Bat-family comic loreheads. Has Jason ever been shown "whining" or otherwise talking to the Batfam about how he woke up buried alive in his grave?

Other than that time in Nightwing 1996 when he had his Nightwing suit and was in decent physical condition—was there a time when Dick had to dig his way out of his own grave? With his bare fingers? What was his physical and mental condition afterwards?

I'm sure it sucked, and he deserves compassion without his experience being compared to others—but was it so bad that he'd smugly mock Jason for selfishly whining about his own trivial experience?

An inquiring mind would like to know.

[powdermelonkeg]

I swear, every time I check in to see how it's going

[xhanisai]

every time i (a mixed race girl) come across a post that’s basically saying that Marinette, a mixed race girl, isn’t Chinese enough, my urge to set hellfire on this world increases by 100000000%.

[wolfiery]

reblog to like ratio is sooooo sad on here these days. SIGH.

[gh0stward]

I spoke too soon 😭

hhhhh these new batch of fans that came from the second episode are very unwelcoming

like, they know ppl who hate Jax and those who make headcanons and alternate versions of him are generally two separate groups in the fandom, right? Obviously I’m an exception bc I don’t personally like the character anymore but seeing other’s lump in innocent fanartists that love the character with supposed “haters” is not fair to Jax kissers 😭

“it’s other’s AUs and headcanons fault that people don’t like Jax in episode 2”

or maybe you should sit down and actually listen to other’s criticisms or just simply block them if you find the criticism they have isn’t coming from a good place

why try to pin blame in something that’s as simple as someone else having different taste than you, why on those who simply share their own take on a piece of media they love specifically? I talked about this irl and you’d you be surprise by the number of people who flat out told me “haha yeah I hate asshole characters too” like ppl are hating the canon character from the canon show, they don’t even interact with the fandom, let alone headcanons and AUs so there’s zero outside meddling from your fellow fans.

“there are mean people in real life!” yeah, and that’s a valid reason why someone won’t like a character, that character reminds them of a real person they had to deal with in their life. That’s why some people don’t like pomni, and I find that valid too.

“but that fan media isn’t canon!!!” canon isn’t the end all be all. If you want to see the canon, go watch/read the original media and leave fanartists alone, or y’know you could just pay them to make something specific… or pick up a pencil yourself.

and I haven’t even mentioned how tadc fans have attacked artists for drawing humanizations of the characters that aren’t just generic looking white people or depicting Caine with a thicker build…

sorry if I’m all boo hoo baby I feel like another wonderful thing is being stripped away from me…

[shadelorde]

1, 6 and 7 for the choose violence ask game

1. the character everyone gets wrong

I was going to say Raava and Vaatu, but unfortunately I think that doesn’t count because I’m comparing to my own convoluted headcanons, not canon. Although I think they’d be far more interesting if Raava was treated as an unreliable narrator and LoK explored more on Vaatu’s impact on the seasons past 2.

As far as fandom vs canon, I’d say Azula. I find the two popular stances on her are either that she’s inherently evil and deserves the awful ending she had, or that she’s an innocent cinnamon roll who did nothing wrong. I find both stances to be pretty ableist-because one demonizes her, especially with the kind of language and arguments those fans use, and the other infantilizes her. I think she’s a far more complex character than that.

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

I have to say that most popular ships in the AtLA fandom have really insufferable fanbases (except sukka, which I find to be really chill), but Zutara fans bother me the most.

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because of how the fandom acts about them?

Hmmm I must say Zuko, unfortunately </3. I do love him still but his fanon self is incredibly out of character-I fear he suffers HARDCORE infantilization from his fans. Either that, or people treat him like he’s an irredeemable shitbag and redemption arcs are Bad actually in retaliation to the first fans. So I guess I don’t hate Zuko, but I dread all conversation about him.