#honestly the worst ship for me isnt even a problematic one but it makes me feel faaar worse than any problematic ship ever could | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

delightfuldevin · 1 year

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It sucks how much people genuinely think that supporting something in a fictional context is the same as supporting that thing in real life :((

Like, do you people really truly believe that fictional characters are in any way equivalent to real life people? Do you understand how absolutely ridiculous that sounds?

“But they’re minors/siblings/victims/etc!” NO THEY’RE NOT. They are a figment of someone’s imagination that can have literally any traits you want them to cause fiction is something made to be manipulated for our viewing pleasure. That’s why AUs are a thing. That’s why headcanons are a thing. Cause fiction is meant to be manipulated for you to enjoy! You can’t have headcanons for a real life person. Because real people are not the same as fictional people. At least, I hope you don’t treat real people like they are fictional characters.

“But why would you want to ship [insert thing here]? It’s gross!” Okay, and? It isn’t hurting any actual real person, and it could even be helping someone who is using this to cope with their own trauma! And no, your personal discomfort is not a reason to completely delete content cause you can easily just block the tag/the creator and never see it. It is your responsibility to curate your own experience and if you are incapable of doing that, it is your responsibility to stay out of fandom spaces until you are mature enough to do so. It is not the responsibility of everyone else in the world to cater to your specific needs. You shouldn’t expect every single person to have the exact same needs as you and the exact same ways of coping with said needs.

“But groomers will use this thing to manipulate vulnerable people!” Indeed, that does happen. But it is not the fault of the person who made the content. It is always, and I mean always, the fault of the groomer themself. By saying “I was groomed by this content” you take away the responsibility of the actual groomer who did it. Don’t absolve them of their crime because of what they used for the crime. No matter what, it was always their fault and the responsibility of that is on their shoulders. Even if that content didn’t exist, they would’ve found some other way to groom you because that is simply who they chose to be and that is the unfortunate and sad truth.

It is completely okay to be uncomfortable with something! Grossed out even! Or something can be literally triggering for you. That is okay! And if someone doesn’t tag their content properly and it gets to you, you have every right to be mad about that! But that does not mean the person who made the content needs to delete what they made. You just have to block them so that you’ll never see their content again. You don’t even have to engage with them. That’s the beauty of the internet! We’re all strangers and once someone is blocked, it’s as if they never even existed! You’ll never meet them irl or be forced to interact with them. They are dead to you.

Also side note, but helpful information! When you block someone on Tumblr, their posts can still end up on your dash if someone else reblogs from them. Idk if Tumblr has changed this in the few years I’ve been gone, but a way around that is to add their blog name to your filtered content! That way, even if someone else reblogs from them, it’ll still be hidden from you :D

#i dont expect the target audience of this post to actually read it so its more just a vent for me #i just cant believe this is something that is so hard to grasp for some people #im not using any main tags for this because i reeeeeally want to stay out of discourse #i just really needed to say this #i dont even like most problematic ships #they are not appealing to me and some of them are even downright uncomfortable to me #but do i care if anyone else ships them? no i dont #because i have the power to simply not engage with the content and curate my own internet experiences #honestly the worst ship for me isnt even a problematic one but it makes me feel faaar worse than any problematic ship ever could #and yes i have the tag for it blocked #if i see a post that says it has my filtered content in it i simply scroll passed it #im also not a fan of dark/angsty topics even in ships i do like #so once again i avoid it like the plague #i dont care if other people enjoy that stuff. good for them! i hope theyre having fun/gen #i will simply stay in my lane and make sure i never have to see that stuff #king sad sack #<- thats my vent tag lol

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animated-antagonist · 3 years

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Qibli has a terrible arc

HEAR ME OUT.

Before you attack me for this, I genuinely don’t care if you like or hate him. I never loved him, but he wasn’t as bad as moon. Sometimes he’s funny, I like his interactions with winter, but I never really cared about him. But the way his mind was described in moon rising made me excited for his pov in book 10.

Then I read it and realized that he’s a boring, whiny, obsessive character who I was immediately sick of.

Darkness of dragons as a whole is a fucking mess from start to finish. And because I have nothing better to do right now, im going to explain why.

This is all my opinion, and it is based on story structure and character arc guidelines and stuff that I have learned recently. Feel free to disagree. Qibli is a decent character with his charm and humour, but he has the worst character arc out of all wof books. Yes that includes the hive queen and dragonslayer.

Ok so first, what I like about qibli: like two things: his relationship with winter, and his sense of humour. I like his playful banter with the shiny ice dragon prince. It’s entertaining. And he does have the occasional joke that manages to somewhat amuse me.

Literally everything else about him is awful. So let’s talk about that.

Memorable characters are driven by three main things: desire, fear, and misbelief.

Winter’s misbelief is that his life’s worth is determined by a ranking on a wall and what his tribe thinks of him. This also results in him believing that working with others and expressing love and trust are signs of weakness. He’s afraid of being a disappointment to his tribe because he’s experienced that feeling in his past already, and never wants to face it again. And yet … he does want more. He’s more open and caring than the rest of his family, and in the two backstory scenes we get, it’s clear he’s far more willing to bend the rules to be even a little more free.

Peril’s misbelief is that she’s too dangerous to make her own decisions. Therefore, she’s instantly loyal to anyone who expresses a hint of interest or affection to her. This leads to her being easy to manipulate, and Scarlet does just that. She’s afraid of displeasing the people she’s loyal to, but she does want to be free. But her backstory and eight years of living by Scarlet’s orders and not having a single thought of her own has lead her to subconsciously believe that she constantly has to have someone make all her choices for her. She doesn’t go after Scarlet for her own benefit, it never crosses her mind once. She’s doing it because she knows it will make Clay happy, and not herself.

Turtle always wanted to be a hero. That’s literally in the book blurb. But the Snapper incident in his backstory makes him doubt that he will ever be anything more than just another SeaWing prince. Thanks to his mother’s stories, he believes that in order to be a real hero, he has to do great, epic things like slaying whole armies by himself. He wants to be a hero, but his misbelief and fear of being noticed get in the way of his wants.

And they all grow and overcome their fears and misbeliefs. Winter realizes that his friends would never hurt him the same way his family would. He realizes that it’s okay to love and be loved, to trust and be trusted. He goes back to his friends because he knows that, even if they can be annoying some times, it’s so much better than having his worth determined by a family and tribe that never approved of him and probably never will. Peril discovers that her misbelief is leading her to make the wrong decisions. Her growth is so strong that she can take off an animus touched object. She knows she’s right. She can make her own choices, and she’s done letting others use her as a toy. Turtle saves his sister, not by taking down an army, but by tossing her his enchanted stick to keep her hidden from Darkstalker. In doing that, he’s proven that he’s evolved and changed as a character. They all still have doubts at times, but that’s normal. These three characters have some of the best arcs I’ve ever seen.

Now back to Qibli.

His family told him he was worthless and couldn’t do anything as an ordinary dragon. This sparked the misbelief that he has to have power, or in this world animus magic, to have worth. He’s afraid of being worthless, and wants to feel valuable. That’s a great setup for a great character. Qibli could have, and should have, been one of the best wof characters of all time.

But no he fucking sucks.

I’m going to focus on him as a character here. The Vulture stuff is boring as hell and I don’t care to talk about it. The whole book is shit and I will never read it again, so let’s continue.

Again, Qibli is set up to be an excellent character. When he goes to find Ostrich, he brings with him Anemone’s bracelets, which makes perfect sense. He doesn’t want to be powerless, so of course he’s going to bring that magic, that power, with him. More setup that goes no where, because when he uses them, he doesn’t even face consequences.

Pausing here because I hate it so much.

CONSEQUENCES ARE WHAT MAKE CHARACTERS GROW. If they face ZERO consequences for their actions, they won’t LEARN anything. Qibli using the bracelets works for his character, but I just cannot believe that Thorn would just let him walk away after burying the ENTIRE FUCKING KINGDOM in sand. I hate it so much. Qibli just getting a free pass and facing no consequences is so bad. He doesn’t even express that much remorse or guilt. That could work for a negative character arc (which I genuinely would have preferred from Qibli but I’ll get to that later) but for a positive arc? The magic and power he craves so deeply just got his entire kingdom buried. He should have so much more internal conflict now, because the thing he wants so badly just did more harm than good.

Okay. Next part. This one isnt’ really related to his character arc, just more of him being a kinda jerk for a few seconds. Winter expresses great concern over travelling over Darkstalker’s teeth, and Qibli just teases him about it. Winter has known about Darkstalker’s malice his whole life, was brainwashed by him, and is truly terrified of him. If Qibli had teased him about anything else I wouldn’t have an issue, but Winter was scared for his life in this moment and Qibli just completely ignores it. Or maybe I’m wrong I haven’t touched the book in years because I hate it that much.

Back to his ‘arc’.

Wait no this is an issue I have with the book: the cliffhanger of book 9 was Turtle losing his animus magic and they just kinda fixed it in two seconds here. It’s very upsetting and kinda comical that they fixed it so effortlessly lmao.

Back to Qibli.

Uh nothing happens for a while. Just boring Moonbli WHICH, might I add, is the worst wof ship (excluding problematic ones ofc). They have zero chemistry and honestly I find Qibli a bit obsessive. He always thinks ‘what would Moon do’ or ‘will Moon love me if I do this?’ which yeah it ties into his ‘I want to be loved and have value’ motivation but it still feels a bit excessive and annoying at times. Pair that with his constant nagging about how ‘oh no if only I had that gosh darn scroll!’ or ‘how can moon ever choose meeee when she has winterrrr’. Moon described his mind to be fast and full of commotion, but we never see any of that in this book. It’s just constant whining and complaining.

Then he goes another step further and blames Winter for getting angry at Moon for??? being friends with the dragon who just tried to murder his whole tribe???? Moon’s a fucking idiot for continuing to be friends with Darkstalker after everyone keeps telling her how bad he is. KINKAJOU, HER SUPPOSED BEST FRIEND, tells her all about what Darkstalker did to Turtle, and Moon’s just okay with it??? And then when Winter confronts her about still trusting Darkstalker after everything he’s done not just to the IceWings, but her friends as well, that Darkstalker brainwashed Winter and he’s not okay with it, Qibli calls him self-righteous for exploding with fury. What else do you expect?? This moment killed all three ships for me. It was an unnecessary event that’s only purpose was to give Tui a reason to make Moonbli canon instead of Winterwatcher.

Onto the climax (which by the way is like the only semi decent part of this whole book). Qibli again uses his power to save the day. SERIOUSLY??? Ok fine it makes sense because this book has zero structure whatsoever. Qibli doesn’t have to make the impossible choice at the end of act one. He doesn’t face a goal shift at the midpoint. He doesn’t look a disaster right in the face. You cannot convince me that he’s changed at all over the course of this book.

Because he doesn’t. He uses magic at the climax and boom everything is fixed. I like the concept of the empathy spell but it just doesn’t fit with this kind of character arc, unless it comes before the dark moment and fits into the supposed victory plot-point (thinking again now I think it sort of does but I’m too lazy to go change things so deal with it).

And then oh no we get the temptation plot point! This is often my favourite plot point in stories that have it because we get to see the protagonist drop their misbelief and refuse the offer because they’ve changed! Reading this and thinking, oh wow he’s going to refuse it because he’s gone through a super dynamic character journey and arc!’ … then realizing no he’s not, because Tui forgot to include that and now makes Qibli refuse the offer for completely different reasons.

See in a book with a good character arc, the character will refuse this offer because they’ve outgrown it. They no longer see value in it because they now have something greater to live for. I like this plot point much more than darkest moment if I’m being honest. So Darkstalker offers Qibli all he’s ever wanted: animus magic. Will Qibli accept, or decline? And why?

He declines. But not for the right reasons.

Qibli doesn’t refuse Darkstalker’s offer because he’s changed or grown. He doesn’t refuse it because he now sees no value in this because he’s seen happiness anywhere else. He refuses because he knows he can’t trust Darkstalker.

… wow.

i hate this book so much istg

If Qibli had gone through a dynamic arc, he would have refused for better reasons.

It’s just so disappointing. He has no reason to refuse that other than the fact that Darkstalker is untrustworthy. Holy shit.

I take character arcs and story structure very seriously, and Qibli is just AWFUL when it comes to this.

After three books that had such epic, emotional character arcs, DoD feels like a downgrade. And that’s why I think Qibli is a terrible character.

But hey you know what COULD have worked?? Giving Qibli a NEGATIVE arc instead!

I know he’s Darkstalker’s foil. That’s cool I don’t care. GIVE HIM A NEGATIVE ARC!! I would have LOVED IT SO MUCH MORE if Qibli accepted Darkstalker’s offer and arc 3 was all about all the other protagonists coming together to stop him and Darkstalker. That would have made a much better third arc. And you can bring in the other tribes if you want to I don’t care just find a way to make it work.

It would have made so much more sense and fit the story so much more if Qibli accepted Darkstalker’s offer and became an evil animus alongside him. It also could have given Moonbli more time and chemistry! I still would have shipped Winterwatcher because well, Winter, but I probably wouldn’t hate Moonbli if this was the way the story went. Or maybe Qinter could be a thing. Imagine like a really emotional moment where Qibli is about to kill Winter and Winter just talks to him or something idk something romantic and sad. Would be great because there’s zero mlm rep in wof.

Fuck it I’m gonna make an au about this.

Yeeah that’s my rant over. I don’t hate Qibli as a character and I think he had so much potential but the way the story is written, I honestly thought he would have a negative arc instead. Wow I really want that au now I can’t stop thinking about it haha. But yeah Qibli is charismatic at times and a bit fun but his arc is terrible. Moon had a better arc than Qibli. MOON.

Sorry if this came off as aggressive at times I just wanted to voice my opinion. If you like him, that’s cool! I just don’t. He’s not one of my favourites although he could have been. Missed potential in my opinion. This is a very long rant so if you’re still reading this … thanks lol.

Have a good day/night. Im gonna make that au now lmao.

#rant post

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