#hate engaging in discourse

[gothicrepetitions]

Dipped my toe in the Sam tag and already saw an annoying post this is so fucked

[mossy-aro]

sorry but i am SO deeply tired of the 'aphobia isnt real' arguments because they are literally always being conducted in such bad faith. NO there is not specific societal or legal discrimation against aces and aros BECAUSE we are asexual and or aromantic. you cannot hold specifically bigoted beliefs towards a group you do not even know exist. there ARE, however, underlying and deeply pervasive systems and beliefs that actively erase, dehumanise and make life tangibly more difficult for aro and ace people on a social, economic and legal basis. most of this is due to hyperinvisibility, the medicalisation of any nonnormative + misunderstood orientations, the elevation of romance + romantic structures as the most important aspects of interpersonal relationships in society, as well as the nuclear atomisation of the family. among other things. like. amatonormativity has never been ABOUT aromantic people specfically oh my GOD. its simply the underlying social belief that everyone is expected to be in monogamous romantic relationships and that those relationships are expected to the default centre of one's life. its something that affects EVERYONE! but within that it affects aromantic people in a specific and heightened way because of our inability to participate in it in a societally acceptable way. like these are not 'aromantic' or 'asexual' or 'polyamorous' issues specifically. these are theories and terms that originated within feminist + queer sociology studies! its all part of the wider underlying social fabric! aspec people are simply pointing out that we are often affected by these things in unique and often unseen ways.

the idea that we believe people actively 'hate' us for being asexual or aromantic is completely ridiculous. most people i know do not even know the definition of those words! so how could they hate me for it. they could however, for example, hold the pervasive + societally unchallenged belief that not experiencing sexual or romantic attraction is a medical issue or something concerningly abnormal in a human being + something i should get fixed. and its not uncommon that when you DO explain that its simply your orientation to them, they continue to medicalise it and see it as some sort of issue. genuinely so deeply tired of having to explain this to people time and time again when they only want to cherry pick the most ridiculous arguments to respond to and then act as if that's a majority held opinion in the aspec community. like i actually think we are aware of how society views us we're not fucking deluded and stupid. we don't have victim complexes we are just pointing out facts that yall are so desperate to ignore. UGHHHHH

[batwingsandblackcats]

Yknow I really feel like if more people viewed critical role as a thing we are privileged to watch rather than something that is made for us, the fandom would be a lot more chill.

The story is for the cast, we’re simply invited to watch.

[ovaryacted]

Even though I just reblogged @almostempty’s very detailed and intricate post before this, I just wanted to say that I am generally getting tired of the brainrot when it comes to how people perceive Joel Miller & Pedro Pascal as a whole.

I already had a feeling that people were going to conflate Clint Flood with Joel, like it was doomed from the start. People see Pedro’s broad ass wearing plaid with a scar and having an inclination to violence, and instantly snap their fingers and say “THAT’S JOEL MILLER!” Believe me, I get the hyperfixation around him, I get that there’s no changing of the popularity of TLOU and the fact that Pedro is without a doubt Joel Miller and that won’t change, nor would I want it to change. But just the way people have this obsessive nature when it comes to him and his other characters is so weird. I mean, I don’t get why people can’t just enjoy Pedro’s roles individually without automatically making them a Joel-adjacent, if that were the case he would just play Joel and he already is doing that. We have Joel Miller already, he’s done with that, we can have all of his other characters the way they are as intended and enjoy them on their own.

Obviously I’m not trying to be messy cause on my end I barely interact with Joel Miller content anymore, I barely talk about him cause everything about the show is upsetting me, and everything is filtered so I barely see shit nowadays and I’m having a lot of fun with The Pitt content in comparison to before because it’s so refreshing and new. But it’s really fucking frustrating when people just make everything synonymous with Joel Miller’s character archetype as if he’s the only male character to exist. People don’t even acknowledge Game! Joel Miller sometimes when his writing and characterization is damn near perfect and the show doesn’t do him justice (sorry), and that’s fine to criticize because we have the source material to make that comparison. It’s like people only have one setting when it comes to writing male characters: older, morally and physically grey, men who shoot with guns pew pew. There’s so much more that goes into both Joel & Clint, and trying to make every single character or role Pedro plays into a Joel Miller twin is a disservice to his range as an actor.

As someone who actually went out of their way to watch Freaky Tales in theaters and really loved Clint as a whole within the world we were introduced, I’m just annoyed that he’s going to turn into another Joel lookalike on top not getting a proper release because TLOU premiered a week after the movie came out and we couldn’t even enjoy that. Joel Miller is incredibly popular, that much is obvious and with Pedro’s popularity it just adds to it, and sometimes I wished that wasn’t the case was all. But it is what it is, and idc how this sounds I’m just mad about it.

Anyway, please actually watch Freaky Tales if you’re able to instead of just going off of appearances cause then you’ll see how they’re different characters. I love Clint Flood, if I write for him then I’ll let y’all know cause he really is fucking cool and interesting and I really do like him. Top 4 on the Pedro Pascal character list and he ain’t #4.

[youvebeengalindafied]

look, I’m a die-hard, dyed-in-the-wool gelphie shipper, but this comment by @it-is-glorious knocked me flat omfg

Glinda, ily so much baby, but you REALLY did just fumble the baddest bitch of all time by choosing to support a fascist government. girl, how did we get here???

[maximuslucy]

i don’t have like.. anything else to say about yjs now that the season is over with renewal pending other than enjoying the evil women show doesn’t mean that we can’t express empathy/sympathy for the characters who are negatively impacted by the narrative. that’s not synonymous with condemning the narrative itself. can’t believe it has to be said that media can be consumed and interpreted in more than one way in 2025 but ok.

[221-home]

hope this is not only my gay obsessions diagram to you guys but also a friend

[emblemxeno]

Rant ahead.

Honestly part of my confusion at people trashing on Engage's designs for either being too out there or crazy is that this is the same fandom that venerates Pantsless Marth, Dong Armor Alm, Pegasus Knights with short skirts and thigh highs, mages who don't have armor or practical clothes most of the time, the very existence of the dancer class, etc.

These things are classic and funny to poke at, but they were also things that happened 30+ years ago. Do you not think that Marth going commando and Jagen having eye gouging shoulder spikes in 1990 wasn't just as ridiculous, gaudy and impractical as Hortensia's cupcake circus dress in 2023? In Engage's immediate predecessor you had classes with tit separaters, characters with drill hair, Dorothea in opera garb during war time, Hilda's timeskip fit which looks like a prototype Hortensia fit, Petra's timeskip fit, Kronya's existence, and Female Byleth in general.

Impracticality and overdesign is the weakest criticism you can give FE designs. I get it, we long for the GBA era, but let's be real: those designs were made to complement class design in part to compensate for having character mugs and game sprites as the only constant presentation of the characters. "Crazy" designs and high fantasy armor and clothes started with the more decadent characters in the Tellius games because they had models and didn't have to strictly adhere to class design elements anymore.

[ghostinacardboardbox]

CC is one of my new favourite things ever but ill respect your dislike of it far more than i ever will going "I'm not saying you cant criticise the musical but" then express discomfort with people calling out the antisemitism

CC is my least favorite Starkid show ever but I'll respect your appreciation of it far more than I ever will people who go "there's nuance here" in a post that is fully just using polite language to shut down criticism. I genuinely don't know what's so hard about this.

Anyway it's been a Rough Time to be in the Starkid fandom and actually want to complain about things I disliked in a show I was incredibly excited for. Somehow having literally any issues with the show at all means I must be someone who is only here for Hatchetfield and is just trying to bully Starkid back into doing Hatchetfield stuff. Piss on the poor website.

[balfeys]

im so glad im not in 911twt or engage in that part of the fandom cos its just a hot mess with the weirdest takes esp towards Angela Bassett. Ppl need to keep mother’s name out of their mouths. Angela Bassett receives a lot of criticism and hate that she doesn't deserve. She gives it her all and is incredibly talented and let's be real, 9-1-1 wouldn't exist without her 🤷‍♀️

[qishylia-adelia]

Lanyan my babygirl,I wish people would treat you more than who they ship you with (when she finally release)

[dreadfuldevotee]

okay so I've gotta say I just finished iwtv and like it's really refreshing to find someone who's willing to talk about armand (and, by extension loumand) in an interesting way. Because I quite liked them in S2 so imagine my surprise when I go online and all I see is people acting like armand personally kidnapped claudia and also was mind controlling louis 24/7 (tiktok is horrible with that) when that's just the most boring and frankly nonsensical reading of the material ever. (I think it's silly in general to constantly compare loumand and loustat on the basis of who's worse because. come on.)

However, it got me thinking about how some of that might be the show's own fault? Sure, a big amount of the people not willing to engage are loustat shippers who can't comprehend one person loving multiple people, but I've seen that many people revert back to calling armand this big bad who would have let louis die as if it recontextualizes the WHOLE relationship when imo... it doesn't? Like I feel like I'm going insane bc the show presented it as this huge twist and I didn't quite get on with it? (I'm conflicted on the loustat reunion too but whatever). I feel that there's a disconnect there of what was established the whole season and what was said in the finale. And people are just running with it.

Man idek if what I'm saying makes sense but I wanted to hear your takes on it bc I quite enjoy them and value your input!

No, I totally get what you're saying! I think the details of the loumand breakup collapse on itself upon prodding a bit. I can understand why they wouldn't want them to split the way they do in the book (years of travelling together, finally ending up in New Orleans- Armand setting Louis up to meet Lestat who is wallowing, jumping at sirens 'n just generally sad and pathetic; and being fed up that Louis is seemingly unmoved to any real emotion after the encounter. Them exchanging some harsh observations about each other and then Armand walking off into the night) I think the season ending is more interested in serving the direction they're (presumably) heading for Louis, and wrapping up his life story.

I've been thinking of it to myself as a "Straw that broke the camel's back" kind of break. It's the resurfacing of all the myriad of ways Armand fucked up and fucked Louis over- Oh, and by the way not only did he have a more active role in the play than you originally thought, it never even crossed his mind once to lift a finger to save you. Though, even this falters a bit under remember that Armand breaks Louis out his crypt. People smarter than me have put their finger on exactly why it stumbles on the landing, I'm sure.

What makes it work enough for me is that Louis doesn't go back to Lestat. Yes, they see each other and hug tearfully but Louis does not walk out of Dubai with the intent to ask Lestat to take him back. No, he goes home. He ruminates in the sound of the driver's accent and immediately steps out in a saint's hat. The fact that he finds his way to Lestat is a turn of fate and even then its not really a reunion of lovers but of parents, as the only two people who will mourn Claudia. I say this all the time, but I think knowing that IWTV as a contained story is about grieving a child is the puzzle piece I think a lot of people miss. Before its about Lestat and messy romances and aliens, the whole story sprouts from this moment of deep grief. So I love that Louis has this moment of personal introspection and allows himself to feel his own grief and share it with Lestat but also make a promise to try living for himself and still goes back to the penthouse alone.

I think my continued feelings are a little contingent on how the show plays it going forward. The way I see it, if we start taking score for whos worse, Armand or Lestat- They are tied for gold. Lestat is still complicit in the trial, as is Armand ofc, but neither of them wrote it or schemed it, or genuinely personally desired to kill Louis/Claudia/Madeleine. If the show decides it wants to act like Armand is irredeemable in Louis eyes I will be....less than happy, to say the least. But if the show is as interested in engaging with all the character and all their complexities I think it could all come together quite nicely by the end.

[mortisbane]

I meet your Sora working part time jobs to pay for his expensive apartment in Shibuya and raise you Riku working part time jobs to pay for all the Kingdom Hearts merch with Sora on it he keeps buying

[statementlou]

https://www.tumblr.com/louisupdates/754934426217152513/goodbye-faith-in-the-future-world-tour-272024?source=share

did he or did he not lose fans then?

I will answer this because this anon actually brings a concrete question to the table rather than just "hurhur but you're a larrie??" (tell me you can't actually refute any of our points…). Anyway this post shows the decrease in Louis instagram followers between the screenshots taken directly after the release of Faith in the Future in Nov '22, when he changed his bio to promote that album and the tour tickets, and now, when he changed it again to mention the current release. But I'm putting that response under a cut because I'm tired of the actual POINT of all this nonsense getting lost in a sea of made up things people insist are important:

There is no rational argument you can make to say that Louis has less fans now than he did 2, 4, or 6 years ago. You don't need a spreadsheet of details you need to USE YOUR EYES! He has gone from filling theaters to filling arenas and stadiums. His second album made a higher chart position than his first album. His festival has doubled in size EVERY year of its existence. And for that matter: his insta post engagement numbers remain about the same (despite the fact that older posts should have way MORE likes due to having been there longer, even aside from follower counts.) SO WHO FUCKING CARES ABOUT HIS INSTA FOLLOWER NUMBER???? Serious question: what does the word "fans" mean if these things aren't what matters? ALL of this quibbling about what he should do to make things better and people can't even see that THINGS AREN'T BAD.

Anyway to address the specific question- (con't......)

NO- HE DID NOT LOSE FANS. HE LOST SOME INSTA FOLLOWERS. THESE ARE NOT THE SAME THING. As I said above, literally what does it mean to lose fans if that number change coincides with him having higher sales, more audience members, and higher engagement than ever before? Whatever he lost ISN'T FANS. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant factor was something like a bot purge, but also yes: I'm sure a lot of casuals followed him around the time of his big album release and later unfollowed him. That's extremely normal because that's how casual engagement works, and why the definition of fan really matters. Louis and his team understand this and have referenced it repeatedly, talking about how lucky he is to have *us* specifically, to have the kind of dedicated fanbase he has, to have the KIND of fans he does who will allow him to do what HE wants. @dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram named the issue of depth vs breadth with regard to fans a long time ago, and pointed out why having DEPTH is so much more important. It's like this- artists who are on top 40 radio have more numbers on things like insta follows, and for a time on sales and tickets. But those aren't FANS- they're people with a casual interest. And as soon as that person isn't being forced in their ears 10x a day, those people lose interest and stop supporting them, stop buying stuff and unfollow, and those artists end up doing the 'opener on the jingle ball' circuit rather than their own tours. One Direction as a whole, and Louis maybe most of all or near to at this point, have something MUCH MORE VALUABLE than that- DEPTH FANS. Louis has fans who will support him even if he takes years to release music, or stops parading around with a pretend girlfriend to stay in the headlines at least once a month, or completely changes his image and genre, and that is UNHEARD OF. It's ASTONISHING and worth SO MUCH MORE. And they get that! THAT is why he always bragging about us, why industry people he works with are always so agog about us, why he will do anything for US- not for randos. He is also growing his breadth- and it's OBVIOUSLY WORKING whatever his follower counts are, but that is always going to be secondary to doing things for THE FANDOM because that is his sustainable business model. That is what keeps him onstage and reaching number one. And not coincidentally, the things they do are also working to grow that- much more valuable- commodity. So the fact that that's exactly what these chuckleheads complain about- that he does things that are just fandom facing or serving rather than everything being aimed at recruiting casual fans- does nothing but betray how completely they, unlike Louis and his team, misunderstand the actual drivers of his (actual, existing, happening) success. Luckily for Louis, he and his team rely on their own data harvesting (they do a LOT of it) and growth metrics (they're off the charts) rather than the smug assumptions of random (mostly quite new to this) fans and the few bitter people leading the complaining about everything Louis does.

[jq37]

I'm like genuinely interested as someone who thinks a lot about the craft of critique and fandoms the ways in which the current Rat Grinders discourse shows why you can't really apply the same lens you use to critique a pre written story vs an improvised actual play show by a bunch of comedians who are first and foremost concerned with committing to the bit. Like Porter's a great example of this, he went from a nothingburher to secretly evil with a whole lore and backstory!

In the same vein the Rat Grinders probably could have turned out to be not as culpable in all of this had the Bad Kids really tried to bond with them, but instead they focused on other things with the way downtime was structured! And because they did that they could pass the Last Stand, and are safe from Porter's rage thing! Like legitimately I really liked the mechanics of downtime this season, it just also came at the cost of developing the Rat Grinders!

(Though to be entirely fair, the BKs did try to engage with Oisin, Ivy, and Ruben and then Oisin launched the house, Ivy was racist, and Ruben still attacked Wanda so)

I think it's really fascinating from a storytelling/game design perspective! The downside is the Discourse is so tiring

Yeah it's interesting. I covered some of this in other asks so I'm gonna hit on the stuff I haven't yet.

If you're telling a story that is based partially on user input, it's not entirely fair to be like, "This subplot was underdeveloped" if the reason for that was that the players didn't make choices to facilitate that development. When DM's push hard for the players to care about things they're not interested in, they get hit with railroading accusations.

And even outside of the player choices, there are also the rolls. A BIG part of D&D is the randomness of the dice. Even if the players care about something, it doesn't mean they'll get it. I'll mention again that Kristen tried to roll Insight on Buddy before the final fight and got a Nat 1. What is she supposed to do? Roll again until she gets a good read on him? That's not how that works. If the dice aren't cooperating, there's not much you can do. And you can make sure your big story beats don't rely on dice but at the end of the day they *will* shape your story in ways you can't control.

Another key thing about the medium, as you pointed out, is things can change on the fly. The confluence of high rolls and serious interest can change things that were behind the screen canon in an instant. In Burrow's End, Aabria planned for Bennet to have a family but as soon as Tula/Brennan expressed interest in romancing him, she Thanos snapped that family out of existence. I don't know how much Brennan wanted the Rat Grinders to be recruitable but even if he'd planned them all to just be foils and evil and nothing else, I can totally see him flipping one if they'd really wanted to and it would have made for a good story beat.

Anyway, yeah! Interesting stuff to think about. Even though D20 often feels like a TV show, it's important to remember that it's a different beast in many ways.

[luckthebard]

i think the problem people have w essek appearing in c3 is they felt he overshadowed fearne's opening storyline. i think. thats just what a post i read about it said lol

I think people would be a lot less inclined to take that argument seriously if it actually said what it was implying, which is:

“Matt, who introduced an interesting and engaging long-term plotline for Ashley to explore as Fearne, is ruining it for her by having other characters appear in the story”

Ridiculous, right?