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thebluespirit83 · 3 years

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debunking pro-snape/anti-james arguments and putting it on the internet because clearly i hate myself. buckle up. this is gonna be a VERY long post. im ready for the amount of hate i will get; im willing to take one for the team.

1. james forced lily into dating/marrying/etc him

this literally never happened? because its almost as if lily is her own person who is able to stand up for herself-

“I wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid,” said Lily.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily.

She turned on her heel and hurried away [from james].

-and so she would not allow someone to walk all over her. its almost as if james (canonically) matured as a person, and she appreciated this, realised he was a good person and got feelings for him? because james’ only negative traits were that he was conceited and a show off. people are able to mature and grow from these things! james did this! he did not ‘force’ lily to go out with him!

2. james and the other marauders bullied snape

you know what, i cant even disagree with this one. you’re right - they did bully him. but lets look a little bit at the context.

sirius and james were both upper class, naive white rich boys. they are idiots. they were both stupid smart teenagers!! they were popular! and while this does not excuse the gross bullying snape was subject to-

Pink soap bubbles streamed from Snape’s mouth at once; the froth was covering his lips, making him gag, choking him

Several people watching laughed; Snape was clearly unpopular ... Snape was trying to get up, but the jinx was still operating on him; he was struggling, as though bound by invisible ropes.

-it (unfortunately) makes sense with context. james and sirius also stopped bullying people, and even expressed discomfort/regret with the way they acted-

“I’m not proud of it,” said Sirius quickly.

“Of course he was a bit of an idiot!” said Sirius bracingly, “we were all idiots!

[sirius talking to remus] you made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes

A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen. He grew out of it.

-when they were younger! i’d also like to point out these little lines i noticed when i was finding quotes for my argument which snape stans like to ignore:

James and Snape hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other

I mean, he [snape] never lost an opportunity to curse James

there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of James’s face, spattering his robes with blood

wow, look at that. the hate they felt for each other was mutual! snape also jinxed james! but oh wait - james was the one who matured! snape was the one who bullied his son twenty years later because he looked like james!

3. snape didnt abuse the kids at hogwarts

here’s a real argument i saw when looking through some pro-snape posts: ‘snape wasn’t an abuser, because abusers don’t let their victims retaliate, but snape did let the kids talk back to him’

what. the. fuck?!

this is the dictionary.com definition of abuse: ‘to treat in a harmful, injurious, or offensive way’ or ‘to speak insultingly, harshly, and unjustly to or about’. i’m pretty sure snape did both of these things-

“I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”

“So,” said Snape, gripping Harry’s arm so tightly Harry’s hand was starting to feel numb.

Snape threw Harry from him with all his might.

[hermione’s teeth] "I see no difference."

‘Idiot boy!’ snarled Snape [at neville]

-on multiple occasions. i’d also like to remind you guys that neville’s worst fear is SNAPE?! his TEACHER, a figure that is supposed to be there for emotional and educational support is his worst fear in this entire world?! above the woman who drove his parents to insanity? over failure, over his abusive grandmother, over everything? his teacher? and for the pro-snaper that used this quote-

Nearly everyone laughed. Even Neville grinned apologetically.

-to claim that it was a joke, it isn’t a joke. because when snape came out of that cupboard, he was terrified. yes, it’s an embarrassing thing to have as your boggart, but the point is is that it is. he is terrified of that man.

4. james only joined the order because his wife was a muggleborn and he ‘had to’

this is just factually incorrect. james had been sticking up for muggleborn rights since he was in school, far before he started dating or even became friends with lily:

“Apologize to Evans!” James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him.

“I’d NEVER call you a - you-know-what!”

so this is literally not true!! plus, at least he did join the order, whatever his reasons where (which were canonically good). snape didnt join the order. snape was friends with someone who suffered discrimination in society, and instead of using his privilege to help her and support her, he joined a group that was set on murdering people like her. when james had a friend who underwent oppression (remus/lycanthropy) you know what he did? he illegally became an animagus.

5. snape had to be a death eater to survive at hogwarts as he roomed with blood supremacists

this is the shittiest excuse i have ever seen in my entire life. as a poc, this comment really reminds me of the argument ‘i was raised in a racist white household! i cant control my beliefs!’

you can always control your beliefs. i understand not going on big rants about blood inequality in front of a bunch of supremacists, and i understand wanting to blend and fit in (especially because he was unpopular and needed the support the slytherin boys provided), but i will never understand then becoming an active member of the group yourself. he got the dark mark. he helped voldemort. he was a death eater, and a proud one at that! no-one forced him to join. this argument literally makes my blood boil.

6. snape had a lot of trauma from being raised in an abusive household

okay? so did sirius. so did neville. luna was bullied at school, just like snape. harry lived in an abusive household. did any of those people bully children? did any of those people join a blood supremacist group? and dont get me wrong, im not calling any of these people perfect - they all had a lot of flaws - but none of them hurt another people to the extreme that snape did.

7. snape saved the trio’s lives many times

this is the absolute bare minimum. ‘oh wow, he didnt let harry die!! what a king! he should be respected and praised! we should excuse all of his other actions because he didnt let people die <3′

8. snape is not a perfect person, he also did good that many people overlook

you’re right, snape did do some good things in his life. but unfortunately, for me and many others, doing a couple of good things doesnt excuse all of the shitty, abusive things he did too. we’re not ignoring them - we just dont think they’re good enough reasons to forgive him.

‘but james and sirius hurt others! you ignore all the bad things they did in favour of the good!’ you do the same thing with snape, first of all. second, they did a lot of good stuff. james’ and sirius’ only crimes were being annoying. for being a bit of a dick, conceited, knew they were hot and were a bit entitled. while these things are annoying as fuck, they were also stupid teens that eventually grew out of their behaviour and became better people. not perfect! better. while snape just stayed bitter at the marauders, long after their deaths, and even took his anger out on an innocent child.

9. people only hate snape because he was poc and queer coded

as a poc and queer person, please stop. this is a very bad excuse. being poc and queer (which im pretty sure he isnt, but anyway) doesnt excuse you from your actions. plus, a huge amount of harry potter readers are poc and lgbtq. why would they hate snape for those reasons?!

so thats all i got for today. im not gonna go into a deep snily/jily thing because i literally cannot be bothered. anyway im done. i need to go revise, i’ve already spent long enough on this.

#i wanted to put this in the pro snape tag #but i will be slandered so much if i do #hate on me if you want i dont care #harry potter #the marauders #james potter #pro james potter #sirius black #remus lupin #peter pettigrew #anti severus snape #long rant #lily evans #jily #flowerpott #anti snily #wolfstar

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idealnreal · 4 years

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Please overanalyze the shadows in his palace I am begging you.

@appleyjuiceboy / jester owns my braincells of course i would do this for u

Okay so i think its best if i go about the order of shadows we meet in the game so. I’m not going to go into the persona/shadows in maruki’s palace. I’ll leave that for some other day. Now! Lets hope i can remain fully coherent.

1) The fluffy haired noodle shadow we meet for (ka)sumi’s awakening

First off, look at the design of this shadow--it has the fluffy hair parted to the right like maruki, its androgynous figure, and that swirly face mask as well! The mask has two eyes, and it even looks like theres a smile there, lopsided.

We have never seen any other palace shadow taking a similar shape as the palace ruler (except maybe the yaldaboath palace). Shadows are meant to emulate what the ruler thinks of as protectors of their heart. Maruki doesn’t trust anyone other than himself with this secret. And particularly at this phase of his distortion -- there are no scientists, to attendants, no patients. Just an empty, beautiful palace -- with possibly only one type of shadow and protector. The type that represents himself.

(Also androgynous/nb maruki confirmed ?? yes)

Okay then lets look at what this shadow says to Kasumi.

Shadow: ... Heresy. You dare to spurn our lord’s mercy. Accept yourself... Our lord laments the foolishness birthed from your pain.

Having the context that Kasumi is Sumire here ... Because this scene comes about because Kasumi sees a cognitive version of herself (Sumire) blaming herself -- and so, a part of her is probably trying to remember that she is Sumire. Thus ‘spurn(ing) our lord’s mercy’. And yeah accepting herself as Kasumi instead of trying to remember that she is Sumire.

But most important is the fact that Maruki’s palace shadows refer to him as a religious or god-like being (’our lord’s mercy’ calling back christian themes). Someone who is merciful and, most of all, does feel grief over one’s pain. Painting an ideal picture of a loving and caring god, ala abrahamic religions. This is a running theme with all the shadow’s dialogs. Let’s put a pin in this for now.

These design shadows are seen again later in the container room of the palace. They’re slightly faster. The container room is a strange one -- because it doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the laboratory/hospital/garden of eden thing going on. While yes labs and hospitals do have storage areas, i cant imagine them being a container warehouse like this. I do headcanon that this is a storage area for the pain and suffering that Maruki has taken on from other people in order to heal them, due to his hyper empathy -- but i’ll analyse the room some other time. For now it’s interesting that the Maruki-like shadows are now relegated to this specific and really dark section of the palace.

Like the throne room/centre of eden that the Maruki boss fight takes place in -- He resigns himself to the darker gloomier parts of his palace. And the same goes for these shadows. This is where he belongs.

Also abso-fucking-lutely we’re going to talk about how this shadow transforms when it ambushes you:

Skin suit opening up to reveal fangs and rows of teeth, and a formless monster inside. Maruki ... dude ... are you okay? If these shadows are meant to emulate him -- is this how he sees himself sometimes? HHh boy...

2) First lab coat wearing shadow at the start of his palace investigation

Prior to this, while we understood that Maruki was a researcher, it was never a defining feature of him. Like the first thing that came to my mind on Maruki was that he was just the school counsellor and snack purveyor. Now this entire researcher, scientist, side of him is in full display. And this is the most common type of shadow we see, some which are violent, and others are non violent. Maruki sees scientists as the main residents of his palace -- his drive towards investigation and discovery, to puzzling out the intricacies of the human heart, human mind, and human pain. To better further his ability to heal. But there’s also a sort of cold, methodical nature to these scientists. Their ‘healing’ is methodical, based in science.

This coupled with the religious reverence and ideology that their dialog suggests, is a nice contrast. Experiments, data, research, are people’s salvation. Not the simple belief of a deity or of a higher purpose -- but science. Science, in many ways, becomes part and parcel of their religious belief.

Shadow: Those guises ... You aren’t among those who desire salvation. Leave. You are unwanted intruders. Do not disturb our lord’s research-- this world’s salvation. Why do you willingly strive for self-suffering? Why are you reaching out to your own pain?

So here -- the shadow wants them to leave the palace well enough alone. To leave Maruki to his research, and to allow this reality to exist. They don’t want this to end violently and it seems like they’re okay with the trio not ‘desiring salvation’. And when the trio refuse to leave, the shadow asks them why they want to suffer. It’s something inconceivable to them. Maybe even challenging their resolve-- to reconsider their current path, which will only lead to more pain. Also ‘salvation’, ding, on the christian theme counter. Deliverance from above from sin, even redemption. Not for one person, but for the whole world.

We see this type of shadow again before the scene in the auditorium.

Shadow: You are misguided. Do not search for pain. Only tragedy awaits you beyond here. [After defeating it] Such a fool, rejecting our lord’s mercy. In that case -- witness it for yourself.

Same themes. Delicious. Lets move on now shall we.

3) Hastur -- the shadow that appears with Maruki at his reveal as his second-in-command / bodyguard

I don’t think i’ve talked about how much i love the lopsided smiles on these masks. Because i love it. it’s just the right amount of unsettling and creepy. fUCk. And the twitching, twisting, and the weeping blue paint that Hastur’s shadow form does before transforming is /chefs kiss. I wanted more.

Anyway, onto Hastur’s design. Not a labcoat this time, just an ordinary looking white suit with no tie. This is the only time we see Maruki have a bodyguard shadow -- something else he relies on. Hastur’s presence in this scene only shows how deeply afraid and uncomfortable Maruki actually is with intruders in his palace. This experience is a reminder that someone had come into Rumi’s parents house to kill him years ago (a theory for another time). Like that incident years ago, he doesn’t resort to violence here -- he did and does try to negotiate. But when that didn’t work, at least now he has something that can fight for him.

( It is only in the second infiltration when we see Maruki actually take a more active role -- but I won’t get to that here. )

Hastur: Stubborn imbeciles, rejecting our lord ...

There is a running theme here, unfortunately. The shadows again cannot comprehend why anyone would choose to reject Maruki’s salvation, why anyone would choose suffering. And words like ‘foolish’ ‘misguided’ and finally ‘imbeciles’ here are all used to describe those who choose to reject it. While i do think Maruki only bends reality if the person wishes it (subconsciously or consciously), and does accept that there are people who won’t accept their wishes being granted and is aware of the reasons why-- He cannot fully understand or emphatise with it.

4) These deformed Maruki-like shadows guarding the control room

Jesus christ above, i don’t like these, because they contrast with all other designs as these are more brutish and deformed. There’s used as gatekeepers at certain points of the palace, in the first control room, and later on in the brain-pod-room (my brain cells are stopping to work now excuse me) before the garden puzzle portion, at his final will seed and the entrance to the garden of eden.

We know Maruki isn’t a brute strength kinda person. And yet we see these few who’s only purpose is to defend certain things and areas with force. Its uncharacteristic, but at the same time, given the things that these shadows are defending -- it makes sense. No cunning, no wit, no negotiation, no compassion -- just forcefully defending very important parts of his heart and his work.

Shadow (at the control room): So you dare defy His Excellency. You shall not interfere with our master’s work!

Shadow (brainwash room): Foolish rebels! You won’t take one step past here!

Shadow (entrance to garden of eden) : You?! I can’t believe you’ve made it so far ...

I had to do a double take on this. I think this is the only time this title ‘His Excellency’ has been used in the palace. While it is used for catholic bishops and that sort -- its mostly used in the context of heads of state, ambassadors-- more secular roles. The other times this shadow speaks is also similarly less reverent, less religious orientated. Of course this makes sense if the only function of these shadows is to use force to defend. They’re not the scientists or the first maruki-imitation shadows -- they’re not as devoted, and they dont have to be.

5) Finally, these limbless noodles

This one is found during the horticulture portion of the palace. I can’t exactly figure out why. And as far as i can tell, they only appear in this portion of the palace.

As far as the design goes -- these are probably the most unhuman like. Slender, androgynous with only a mask. I’ve got nothing. Braincells ran out. Sorry!

(Haha androgynous maruki go brr)

SO! That’s it. thanks for coming to my ted talk and following me down this rabbit hole. I need to go and drink some fuckin tea.

#(( jester being a real bro here #(( enabling me and my insanity #f: notes #c: the self #takuto maruki #(( slides this into the main tag #appleyjuiceboy #p5r spoilers

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shadedrose01 · 4 years

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I'll Tell You All About It (When I See You Again)

Ship: Parkner (Harley Keener/Peter Parker)

Summary: Harley surprises Peter at his school.

Tags: Febufluff, Day 17, Missing You, Surprises, Peter Parker misses his boyfriend, but thats okay!, Because Harley to the rescue!, Harley Keener is a Good Boyfriend, Boys In Love, Established Relationship, Kissing, Boys Kissing, Cute, Fluff, fluffyyyyy, SO FLUFFY, its super late and i cant think of any good tags so this is what you get, :'D

Day 17 of Febufluff: "Missing you"!

Note: this takes place after Hey There, Delilah, but you dont need to read that one to understand this one (it just gives a smidge of context :P)

Harley pulls into the small parking spot, making sure his older (but well taken care for, obviously) truck is in clear view, his fingers tapping against the leather steering wheel as his excitement grows.

It has been almost exactly four months since hes been here, in New York, in Queens, in Midtown Tech's parking lot, waiting to pick up the love of his life. It's been almost four months since they last saw each other, since he last saw Peter, when he hugged him so tightly and kissed him so sweetly at the airport, their mouths wet, salty from the tears both of them were crying. Harley feels a pang in his chest, remembering Peter's heartbroken face as he walked away, towards his plane, but he shakes it away, turning on the engine and forcing himself to stay in the moment. Because in just a few minutes, classes would be dismissed, and Peter is going to walk out those doors, looking just as beautiful as the day Harley met him, and he has to be ready for it, has to see his expression when he notices.

Because in a few minutes, a few moments, Harley was going to surprise Peter.

A few weeks ago, after he had received that heartbreaking phone call from his miserable boyfriend, Harley knew he wasn't going to be able to wait until Christmas break to see him again. He knew Peter wouldn't be able to either, so he began to plan. He asked all of his teachers if he could do the assignments, projects and tests they would assign ahead of time, and he messaged Tony to see if he could bump up his ticket a week or two. Luckily for him, all of his teachers had been cordial, and Tony had told him that he managed to get him a ticket two weeks earlier than his old one. So he had worked his ass off, got everything done, and flew his way out here this morning, all behind his boyfriend's back, all leading to this exact moment.

He starts to see a few students trickling out of the doors, so he exits his car, puffing out a breath that looks like a cloud, shivering as the wind chills him to the bone. He pulls his jacket on tighter, cursing New York and its bitterly cold winters, before he leans against the passenger door, faintly hearing the final bell start to ring.

He watches the students pouring out of the school now, some passing by him to get to their own cars, and leans forward slightly, raising his head and squinting his eyes, trying his best to see the mop of brown curls that distinguishes his boyfriend from everybody else, but before he can spot him, he hears a familiar voice.

"Harley...?" He turns his head, and a grin immediately grows on his face as he sees those curls he was searching for, those big doe eyes that are sparking in the gray winter light, those round cheeks and that sleek jawline, those pink lips he adores open in shock.

Harley looks him up and down, noticing that hes wearing Harley's burgundy 'Rose Hill High' sweater, the material too big for him and coming down over his waist and blue Jeans, and over his hands, giving him sweater paws. Harleys eyes soften as he sees Peter's fill with tears, his lips starting to tilt upwards, and Harley holds out his arms. "Hey baby, I'm home."

Peter runs into him, practically bowling him over with the force of the hug, and Harley laughs, pulling him closer and pushing his face into his hair, smelling the sweet, sweet scent of Peter's apple shampoo. "What- what are you doing here? You weren't suppose- supposed to be here for another- another two weeks!" Peter sobs, clinging to Harley's chest tightly, burying his face into his neck. Harley feels his tears running down to his collarbone, but he doesnt care, he has his own tears in his eyes, running down his face, kissing the top of his head firmly and embracing the warmth of finally, finally having Peter back in his arms.

"Came home early. Needed to see you sooner." He states simply, quietly, his voice shaky with his tears of joy, his wide smile causing his face to ache. "I missed you, Pete."

"Missed you too." Peter whimpers back, pulling away just enough to be face to face with Harley, a bright grin on his face even as steady tears pool out of his eyes. His hands slide up from where they were curled at his shoulders, cupping Harley's face and running the tips of his fingers gently through his hair. "I missed you so, so much."

"I know." Harley raises an eyebrow, grinning cheekily before he leans forward, finally giving into his urge and kissing Peter firmly, their lips moving softly, smoothly against each other, like they were made for one another, like a dance they've rehearsed so much that its muscle memory, something not even time and distance can take away.

Peter pulls away after a few of the other students start whistling and hollering at them, teasing them, looking up at Harley with a sheepish smile, a rosey blush flushed on his cheeks, and Harley cant help but smile back, feeling goofy, his insides turned into mush, like they always do around Peter fricken Parker.

"Let's go home, hey?" He murmurs gently, placing another quick kiss to Peter's lips before opening the passenger door for him, like a true gentleman, just like his momma taught him. Peter gives him a quick thank you as he shuts the door, and when he entered the driver's side and puts in the key, Peter grabs at his right hand and intertwines their fingers, squeezing once softly.

The entire way back to the tower, and even once they get to the tower, Peter never let's go, their hands staying intertwined, the two of them staying side by side for the remainder of the day.

#febufluff #Febufluff #day 17 #missing you #parkner #parley #harley keener/peter parker #harley keener #peter parker #fanfiction #marvel #marvel fanfiction #mcu #marvel mcu

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friendlylocalwhumper · 4 years

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a long reply to a long anon criticism. deals with race, and oppression as written in whump fiction.

here are a series of asks sent to me about an hour ago, raising a concern/issue with my writing:

1/? dude. i was reading your recent story where emory (a young, gay, black man) was beaten by the cops and i finally had to say something. all your stories where he sits there and worries about how his white boyfriend is the target of police brutality bc of some form of oppression YOU (a presumably non-black person) got to make up?? those have rlly left a bad taste in my mouth, but the one where you actually torture your black character to show how bad the white one has it put me over the edge.

2/? these are real issues. ig i was able to ignore you using systematic brutality as “a fun prompt to write about!” when race wasnt rlly a factor in your stories, but as soon as emory got introduced it became more and more inappropriate of you to twist these ideas. “wouldnt it be sad if lux got beat up just for being a warlock 😔” yeah. and his bf is black, and hes in danger of that every day.

¾ as bad as just ignoring actual brutality was, having to read a story where a young, gay, black man was graphically beaten by police officers for YOUR pleasure, for FUN, when it wasn’t even his race that put him in that position (which isnt even ur place to write abt for torture porn but at least its addressing a real issue) but the fact that he was mistaken as the class you made up and chose to make oppressed?? that was wildly inappropriate.

4/4 this isnt hating on your writing or whatever, so dont call it that and pretend its anything other than informing u of what you can and cant speak about. a reminder of your lane. these arent your concepts to play with, stick to a singular whumper or whatever and cool it on the police brutality since u dont know how to handle it (presuming there even IS a way to handle this correctly as a whump device, which im not convinced there is)

bonus/4 pls dont do the white person thing of just ignoring those messages or going “no its not racist. i know bc i dont think it is/ i say its not.” like. im just genuinely letting you know it’s inappropriate, and you dont get to say “oh its not! i didnt mean for it to be so its not!” so i would appreciate it of you would take it into consideration or at least address it

my response:

there’s some context that i think you’re missing, in terms of how lux’s world came about. i’m gonna try to explain it without sounding like i’m trying to veer off-topic.

the world in which lux and emory live is a dystopia. is it a dystopia because i enjoy thinking about, writing, and daydreaming about systemic oppression? no. oppression isn’t a trope that i particularly enjoy; it’s not, like, something i’m into, you know? the only reason that i set it up like this, with brutal cops and propaganda and general public hatred of this class of people, is because i needed an excuse for lux to get hurt often. i wanted to write him getting beat up, didn’t matter if it was by friends or enemies or assassins or aliens. just as long as i had some kind of general excuse, a plausible reason for him to get hurt as often as i tend to write. so i made a fictional society where people get hurt a lot. lux happened to have magic, thanks to the original prompt that inspired his creation, so i figured he could get targeted for that. that’s why lux, a white boy, is targeted for having magic, and why magic users are oppressed in the universe i made up.

i know that these are real issues. i am white, as you guessed. inherently, i will never truly know what it is like to be oppressed as a black man. i understand why this raised alarm bells for you, and why you felt the need to tell me about your discomfort - to stop my writing of these characters in this universe.

but do i agree with your point that i can’t write oppression because i am white? no. just like i think it’s okay for anyone to write sensitive topics like abuse, torture, conditioning, murder, and assault if they are careful and respectful enough about it. race is a super precarious subject matter, as it should be, because there is a lot of real-life suffering and fear tied into it. i don’t get to decide what’s racist and what’s not.

but i am not fetishizing oppression - or, at least, what i am doing is no different from what other whump writers dealing in sensitive subject matters do. i am utilizing fiction, which will always parallel real life in some way, to create a story that i enjoy writing and reading. i want to hurt lux, so i created a world in which i could do that. i try to walk the tricky line of writing diverse characters without just throwing characters of color around as if it automatically makes my content less white and one-dimensional. i also try my best not to give emory lines about his race, or give him backstory related to being particularly oppressed or privileged, because i don’t feel comfortable putting such words in a black character’s mouth as a white writer.

now for my last point: whump isn’t torture porn. just judging by your automatic wariness and word choice, i’m guessing that you’re not a whump writer. writers in this community are extremely careful. we tag excessively, use content warnings, and do everything we can to help readers avoid content they don’t want to be exposed to. we all know that whump entails the writing of torture, abuse, humiliation, gore, and many other things that, in real life, are terrible to suffer. that’s… kind of what whump is. there’s a general understanding, here, that we’re going to write such heavy things, employing something sort of like suspended disbelief, i guess, to let ourselves enjoy whump without stressing about the real-life parallels to the fiction.

so that’s my response to your criticism.

anon, i don’t really appreciate the fact that your last ask was a transparent bid to get me to publish your messages, but. well. i wanted to do my best to answer instead of just leaving these asks in my inbox.

#answered #meta #ocs #discourse

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hey-hamlet · 5 years

Text

BNHA AU Ideas: Don’t Praise the Almighty (Part 1)

Also on AO3

hold on to your hats everyone - this is part one. i was going to put them together, then i realised part two is 6000 words and thats just too long

TW for: implied abuse of all kinds, straight-up physical and emotional child abuse, gaslighting, all might if he was a terrible person.

TL;DR:

Things you must sacrifice to make a hero: Humanity, Empathy.

Things you must sacrifice to be a hero: Everything.

izuku wants to be a hero, imagine the first ep happens etc. yagi doesnt so much say "you can be a hero" as "ill make you a hero"

an aside: inko is an absent parent, to make ends meet and a poor way of coping with a missing Hisashi. Izuku grows up without any positive adults figures in his life.

yagi makes izuku train and train and train, the kid’s hands bleed and his legs ache but allmight makes him keep going. allmight says he's useless and pathetic and a crybaby and izuku believes him, because he's allmight

they spar and yagi just holds back enough to not let izuku get hurt too badly to train. even katsuki is disturbed bc quirkless deku is coming to school with black eyes and swollen wrists

when katsuki calls him pathetic izuku just nods

"ill get better though"

and katsuki feels so gross he doesnt try to fuck with izuku for weeks

and so izuku is so convinced this is normal because katsuki does it, and mum does it, and now allmight? thats just how you treat kids he thinks. or quirkless ones at least

hes still a big fan of allmight because he doesnt see whats wrong. hes just pathetic and useless but then he'll get a quirk and he'll be worth something for the first time in his life

he barely sleeps, barely eats, just trains and studies and trains some more. he collapses. all might stands there until izuku gets back up and makes him keep running

reasons all mights like this

he is 1, suffering from internalised quirk discrimination

2, nana's dead bc she wasn't "strong enough"

3, he thinks he can shape izuku into the perfect selfless hero, and better person than he ever was.

hes convinced this is for the greater good. hes a dick but hes so sure hes in the right here

by the time of the entrance exam izuku is,,, kinda fucked up

he passes with flying colours because he used his quirk for the first time, broke his arm, and immediately moved on to snaping finger after finger. the teachers watched on, horrified as this child mutilated himself to get points

all might smiled. because this is what he wanted.

he saves ochacco too

he gets in and allmight is pleased with him, even more pleased than the time izuku admitted he hadn't slept for 72 hours and still got a perfect score on his test

and izuku thinks this was all worth it to see his hero smile at him

izuku is in 1A

izuku actually listed that he feels less pain due to his quirk, which aizawa believes but hes still not sold on the idea of a hero that destroys themselves. he doesnt know if izuku heals better or faster, but he's sure that may broken bones cant be good

aizawa is convinced he's going to expel izuku during the quirk test. the look he sees on izuku’s face when he says he's expelling the lowest scorer makes his stomach churn

because all of the other kids look worried, nervous

izuku looks like hes going to throw up.

the kid is trembling and pale and aizawa watches as he turns to ochako, smiles brightly and says "let's do our best" while he holds back full body tremors the other kids don't see

he breaks toes and fingers and he cries but he doesn't flinch at the pain

the only time he flinches is when someone looks him in the eyes, if someone speaks too loud, and at the firecracker pops of katsuki's quirk

and aizawa feels sick

the ball toss, he just can't watch this kid break anymore, and he stops his quirk

for a second he freezes, because this kids quirk manages pain, he'll be feeling all of those broken bones, he'll obviously notice

right?

but izuku doesnt notice his missing quirk until he throws the ball. he turns around, looking sick. aizawa feels so lost when he looks at him with pure relief

"oh, you're eraserhead"

izuku tears up for the first time in that class.

"please give me back my quirk"

aizawa feels so lost he blinks, and his quirk drops with it. there is something totally wrong about the utter relief the kid feels having this horrifically damaging quirk back, and there is something bothering aizawa about it, but he doesn't know what

"dont use your quirk for the rest of this test, kid. not unless you can use it without breaking something"

izuku nods but aizawa knows the kid will just try to hide it. he takes him by the shoulder when the others have moved on

"i mean it, midoriya. no quirk, or i'll expell you on the spot"

and izuku just looks so lost

"but, i have to? i'm-"

"you didn't flinch when i took your quirk. you can feel every broken bone, can't you?"

izuku just nods, like walking with broken toes is normal, like throwing a ball with broken fingers is easy. aizawa knows it's not

he just sighs.

"no quirk. we'll work on training it after. you're ahead enough not to fail the course, go to recovery girl now. you aren't expelled"

izuku just looks hurt

aizawa shoos him away and almost misses the thin form of all might slink out from behind the wall to follow izuku

he's worried, and confused. But he can't just, abandon a field of kids

he texts hizashi bc that's just who he texts when he's panicking, and he asks him to look out for smallmight and izuku, somewhere on the way to the infirmary. so present mic turns on the first movie he finds on his computer (an english language copy of rocky) yells "ENGLISH PRACTISE TIME" and runs out the door

1C is so lost

anyway, present mic can be quiet when he tries and when he hears the sound of allmight sternly talking to a student that's crying? he tries real fucking hard

he basically catches

"you're supposed to be stronger than this, why did he make you stop?"

"he saw my bones breaking-i couldnt-"

"and so you flinched? didn't we train?"

"i didnt flinch! he made me stop!"

allmight backhands him

"dont waste it. either get better at hiding it or learn to use your quirk without breaking bones quickly or ill find another successor. one that isn't useless."

present mic hears izuku agree and cry and he feels ill. he sneaks back a little further, then loudly walks down the hall. allmight smiles at him, and he wants to punch the man

izuku smiles at him too, tears in his eyes but like he's happy to see another hero. present mic cant understand why izuku is pressed so close to a man that hurt him, like he's more afraid of present mic than allmight

he walks with them to recovery girl, chatting like he was meant to be there. hes so grateful allmight is new, because he totally has a class he's meant to be teaching right now and that would be so suspicious if he knew his schedule

he walks them all the way to the door, and he lingers. there is a touch of steel in his eyes when he tells allmight to take care because what he really means is "take care of yourself because i will not"

and hes halfway down the corridor before he freezes

why did izuku seem so comfortable with a man he shouldn't know

anyway present mic is having a quiet breakdown for 20 seconds before he sprints back to his class, pretends he never left, and panic texts aizawa

so aizawa, with a little great context, knows that that, particular, conversation wasn't as,,, unsavoury,,, as it could,,, be implied,,,

but like,,,,,, he's really lost on why izuku would know small might and he's very worried

bakugo is fuCKinG PisSed

izuku left?? and he wasn't expelled???

Any,,, unsavoury implications arent something I'm going to talk ab in this au bc it doesn't need to be worse,,, but it's very much intentional

so aizawa is having an actual moral crisis rn bc hizashi isn't a liar and he doesn't want to like, not believe when he saw. but really? the symbol of peace is terrible??? and hizashi doesn't want to believe it either. both of them as so sure they are just missing context or something

bakugo stalks up to recovery girls office after class bc wtf deku?? and he walks in to just see izuku blankly picking at new white scars

he actually perks up when katsuki enters

and there is this man standing over izuku. this man he's seen with izuku before, yelling at him, but someone izuku seems happy to be around. it's not deku’s dad, he knows that. and the guy is too blonde and tall to have literally any relation to him.

a lot of the fire in katsuki goes out when he sees how tired izuku looks, and the question he was going to yell becomes more of a mumble

"so, you have a quirk now? just like that?"

he looks up and he sees that man's hand on izuku's shoulder, curled like a claw, so tight it must hurt. but izuku doesn't flinch or shy away, he smiles softly

"i'm really lucky, huh kacchan?"

and as much as izuku looks like he believes it, katsuki has the strongest feeling that this is the worst possible thing that could have happened to his once-friend

he just leaves

and he almost runs straight into his new teacher. they lock eyes and even though katsuki doesn't know whats going on, aizawa doesn't know whats going on, they both just know something is happening

and its not good

but what can they do

hes the symbol of peace

recovery girl is 100% in denial bc she new baby toshi and he's a dork but he's a good boy

izuku gets knocked tf out by recovery girls heal and toshi carries him out of the school grounds and shes like "how cute"

honestly they get to they gate, he wakes izuku up and reminds him to run home to get in the extra cardio, and izuku does. all the way home.. not only bc yagi wanted him to, but that's a big bit but bc if he was late hed wouldn’t get dinner

so the battle trial

so aizawa is like,,, : | ab everything

so he attends the battle trial rather than take the nap he really fucking wanted

the kids come out in their costumes and something sits poorly about the way izuku positively preens at almighty compliments. so basically it goes like the show, but allmight doesnt try to stop Bakugo. aizawa doesn't have audio, but he sees what the kids see and rips the mic out of allmights hand to tell bakugo to stop

he doesnt have to, though

because izuku has already vanished from sight

bakugo looks lost, aizawa is worried, but allmight just looks smug because a second later, izuku drops from the ceiling where he swung up, and punches bakugo in the back of the head

allmight grins and it looks nasty

izuku gives bakugo a once-over to make sure hes ok, wraps his wrists, then puts him in the recovery position and scampers out of the room to ochako

aizawa is lost, because that is c l e a r l y combat training. from the back of the room, todoroki starts watching in earnest

with ochako, he grabs the bomb. they walk out of the exercise and all might congratulates them on winning and izuku looks so happy! but allmight isn't done

"young midoriya, why didn't you use your quirk?"

the only people that notice the way he pales are todoroki and aizawa

"sorry sir, i didn't want to disappoint mr aizawa"

allmight nods, and he smiles but aizawa doesnt like it

"thats ok my boy, we'll have to see about getting you some out of class quirk training, huh?"

izuku smiles. hes happy, but he looks panicked

he looks guilty about being afraid

aizawa silently tells his agency he needs the week off to investigate something personal, and they readily give him the time off

izuku mumbles happily to himself about the exercise, stilling when all might looks gazes with him. he stops, flushes, and apologises. allmight nods.

he begins again, but hes not mumbling anymore, hes speaking clearly and concisely with the other students, even though he doesnt want to talk to them, he just wants to think. but allmight says to talk clearly to everyone or to remain silent and he just wants so badly to talk about the exercise

todoroki looks between izuku and allmight and he wonders

USJ time baby

allmight uses up his time, like before

the difference is, when the nomu comes for aizawa? izuku doesnt hesitate to jump in. thats what allmight wanted. he wanted someone so selfless that "would i give my life for them" isn't even a question that would cross their mind, they would just move

izuku stalls. he's shivering and shaking, walking on broken toes but he stands between aizawa and the nomu and he smiles

shigiraki looks at izuku and doesn't see a hero in training. he sees someone like him, like his league. someone who has be stepped on and ruined and reborn

and he wants him

when he sees something he likes, he wants it. like his sensei and his quirks. shigiaki collects people like action figures to use how he likes

anyway, he sees this little 'hero' and for all his stubbornness he knows he won't get izuku today

so he does what his sensei did to him all those years ago

he shows kindness. just enough to break him

he looks izuku in the eyes and says

"hero society is so rotten they break children into weapons to fight other broken pieces. whats fair about that?"

and izuku looks stunned. he drops his smile.

"from one broken piece to another, i wont shatter you today."

kurogiri moves izuku and aizawa just outside of the usj

they cant get in, aizawa has no quirk to break through the walls and izuku is shell shocked

he takes a second to look at aizawa like his world is falling down and aizawa understands.

and then

allmight appears

and aizawa hates himself for how relieved he feels

allmight looks at izuku and izuku smiles so wide. and then he frowns

"they want to kill you"

"they aren't the first, my boy."

and izuku pauses

"they seem pretty sure they can, sir."

and allmights smile looks meaner

"what, you really think so little of this old man?"

and izuku shakes his head violently

"not at all! no, im sorry-"

allmight looks at his student and suddenly there isnt a wall anymore, blasted into tiny shards by allmight’s punch. izuku scrambles inside after him

aizawa tells him to stay outside, to stay safe. but allmight levels a glare at him that almost hurts to meet. aizawa cringes and rushes after them, cradling broken arms

the fight ends much the same, but upon seeing izuku in the way on his hand, shigiraki closes his fist

allmight doesn't miss that

and, with that the other teachers arrive. and again, present mic and aizawa wonder why izuku knows allmight small form

oh also just as a weird powerplay thing, allmight calls izuku by his first name in private while izuku calls him sir everywhere

aizawa has the worst of the injuries, but years of sleep deprivation mean he can pretty easily resist the call of sleep after recovery girls quirk. not that anyone knows that. so he hears the edges of a conversation between hero and student

he hears sobs and a slap and apologies from both parties. he hears a louder conversation on training after class to better use izuku’s quirk and aizawa decides he's going to force himself into this 'training' because he doesnt like the optics on any of this

allmights angry that the villains were fond of izuku, bc that means izuku was doing something wrong, right? and he's also angry izuku barely used his quirk, but he does kinda understand needing to be able to walk still

anyway in the training we get the joy of a creepy scene of yagi assessing the physique of a barely dressed izuku

aizawa isn't there yet and boy howdy does he feel ill when yagi walks out of the changing rooms a few minutes before izuku does

anyway so it doesn't take long for yagi and aizawa to get izuku using his quirk w/o achy breaky bones and izuku is proud, and so is aizawa

but yagi just kinda pipes in with "about time" and izukus face crumples

aizawa just says "better late than never" and izuku gives a watery smile

yagi scares enji but he just royally pisses off todoroki

bc todoroki just looks at the guy

"big strong me, what you gonna do, punch me? yeah right bastard and i'll go screaming to the press. I dont give a fuck what you think you dick of an old man!"

please izuku is totally convinced that this is just normal training, that yagi is doing his best and a teacher, is doing right by him. and shouto is just,,, he doesnt know the whole story. just knows that all might scares izuku and that all mights secretary has a connection to him

but he knows that yagi was creepy enough to make his old man have bad vibes and thats an achievement

Enji sat, reigning back a snarl as the green boy threw Shouto -his Shouto- from the ring, to land on his back in a graceless cloud of dust. Beside him, All Might’s secretary grinned. It wasn’t a nice grin, like the hero, but a nasty crawling one that made Enji feel cold even with his flames dancing around his face.

Enji had never liked the man, his instincts telling him there was something horrifically off about him. But the number one hero had resources he couldn’t dream of, so he kept his lips shut.

“Well done, my boy.”

There was no familial resemblance between the skeletal man beside him, and the boy who stood both victorious and broken where his son should have been. No resemblance to the hulking oaf of a hero either. But their quirks were markedly similar, as were their smiles, if the boy’s was a little kinder.

The man turned to him, all polite smiles and condolences for his son’s loss.

The smug aura around him so strong that Enji allowed himself, for just a second, to pity the boy in green.

Its just tenya and todoroki who know

and quickly bakugo too, bc he was there for shoutos tragic backstory reveal, which included izukus too

and like,,, mic and aizawa are in denial bc jesus christ its the number one hero and hes normally so nice

izuku v katsuki babey!

basically izuku starts to panic and bakugo stops the fight and grabs his hand

"pull yourself together deku. forget everyone else, this is just a fight between me and you, go it?"

and izuku gives a shakey smile, and nods. bakugo releases his hand

"lets start this again, huh izuku"

"sure thing kacc-. Katsuki"

and then fiGHT and its great and its a tie bc they are both so fucking exhausted. izuku and bakguo have to get hauled to their feet by midnight, but both of them are grinning

izuku has trouble w his hero name, like, a l o t bc everything he comes up with yagi says no

but yagi wont give him any ideas eventually izuku just ends up with his hero name being "nine" bc yagi liked that one

katsuki can just,,, tell izuku doesn't like it (bc it reduces him as a hero down to his quirk)

(he wants the name jackrabbit)

he has no supports in his costume bc "it makes you look weak" and no support gear either

ok so , his bones are less fucked than canon zuku but hes willing to break them fucking constantly

aizawa actually comes up to him before the sports festival and says "you break your bones, you get disqualified. no excuses"

yagi is p i s s e d but just nods politely to aizawa tells izuku hed better do as aizawa says, as stupid as a request it may be

also izuku really,, wants to paint his nails dumb glittery colours like ochako and mina do so they paint his nails for him! and then at lunch yagi scrubs the polish off with a dish scrubber

to make it worse, mina is sad izuku took it off, but she just

pauses

when she sees his fingers are almost bleeding

"midoriya, what happened?"

"oh haha funny thing, one of our teachers said i might get a uniform violation so i got a little enthusastic with scrubbing it off, sorry!"

aizawa just winces

one of the finals nails in the coffin is todoroki asking if "the tall thin blonde guy" is izukus dad

aizawa says no

todoroki says "good"

s t a i n a r c

so izuku finds iida and steps between iida and stain, starts fighting him, todoroki shows up, stain starts rambling about how allmight is the best hero and todoroki gives him a strange look

"i used to agree. but seeing allmight at school, i dont think hes the icon of morality everyone says"

izuku is spluttering, denying it, stain is just watching them. so stain isnt even fighting them, hes interested. bc this selfless kid is the one shigiraki wants

iida is lost too and he gets this,,, look in his eyes like he's starting to connect some dots

anyway, fight proceeds, they win the nomu tries to carry izuku off, stain stops the nomu and saves izuku and vaguely he realizes the way izuku just, sits in his arms, like he doesnt know how to react to being touched, and he pushes it aside

and he holds izuku close because all he knows is that this boy is kind and good and the world has hurt him and he says that this boy he is holding is the only hero hes ever worth met their salt

oh but after the hero killer thing, yagi storms into the office and hauls izuku out by his injured arm

and tenya and shouto just feel sick

"should, should we tell all might? about how his secretary treats midoriya?"

shouto just glares at the half-open door, quiet apologies drifting down the hall until they turn another corner

"i'm quite sure that man already knows."

#bnha au #bnha #dont praise the all mighty #all might #midoriya izuku #yagi toshinori #villain all might #Midoriya #Izuku #aizawa shouta #yamada hizashi #bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #uraraka ochako #Iida Tenya #hero killer stain #shigaraki tomura

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brightokyolights · 4 years

Note

I just saw your tags on the "harry was oppressed" post. Might elaborate on that when you are not tired? How Zayn was oppressed? His relationship to ot4. Other celebrities? I love your thoughts!

*cracks knuckles* buckle your seat belts folks we’re in for a wild ride here lmao.

also for context *here* is the post this anon is referring to

I think to start off i should just make a little disclaimer, everything i am going to discuss will be based in my biases probably seeing as I am also a brown British Pakistani person who is Muslim. Zayn has been someone that especially when i was younger I looked up to and was very essential in my journey of learning to love and accept myself and my culture tbh. It’s cheesy as hell but it’s true and i think this is important to know before I go into this more because like I said i am definitely biased towards him. Another thing is that I’m just going to be discussing my personal opinions and also my memory is not very good so i will probably miss out a lot of other things that happened/could be discussed. please dont take this as anything more than just. my opinion.

A thing that really opened my eyes to racism and especially the racism in the 1d fandom was the day that zayn left. I dont think thats what the post above was about btw and ill go into that but i kind of just want to talk about this. The day he left was. a severe mess. Not only because it was obviously upsetting but because of all the bs that people were spouting about a situation that absolutely no one had any context on. the statement that was released on facebook gave us nothing. literally just stated that zayn was leaving the band and the accusations and hatred people were directing towards zayn when we didnt know what actually fucking happened (and still dont might i add) was disgusting. people accusing him of being selfish and how they hated him and why he had to ruin everything. Accusing him of using mental illness as an excuse and lying about it and so much more. i had unfollow more than half of the people i followed that day. it really opened my eyes to the fact that these were all thoughts and opinions people had underneath it all and zayn was fine as long as he was part of 1d and giving people what they wanted. which was essentially being the token in the group and once he wasnt providing that anymore? people turned and people turned fast.

i think its also important to point out the flip side of it and that was zayn stans saying that 1d were nothing without 1d etc. i want to talk about why this was different from ot4 stans hating zayn. of course it wasnt nice to see or hear EVERYONE arguing with each other. i hated it so much. but i think what people failed to realise was that when it comes to situations like this you need to look deeper and think about all the nuances of the situation. zayn stans being happy about zayn leaving the band and saying 1d was going to die i did not agree with. anyone who knew me then and knows me now knows that i am a 1d stan regardless (preferably ot5 but i supported 1d until the end even as a 4some) BUT these opinions were rooted in his mistreatment in the band and the racism he was having to face as a result of being in the band etc etc i apologise for not being a person who can better describe and explain this situation but hopefully you are getting the picture. when fans were hating on zayn. with no context with nothing. that was based on racism. point blank. the amount of tweets FROM 1D FANS talking about how he was leaving to join isis and how upset fans were gonna be vulnerable and join etc etc all this deplorable bs. and he had to deal with comments like that throughout his whole time with one direction and i imagine even now.

Another thing id like to talk about is who zayn stans at least from my point of view usually were. For me i remember when i first got into the fandom i actively made the decision that i didnt want zayn to be my favourite because i didnt want to be a stereotype and this was a point in my life when i still tried to shun and push my culture down because i was ashamed of it. it was only as i slowly saw that zayn was considered as cool and hot and everyone else liked him that i kind of understood that maybe. being brown was alright and it was something cool and that maybe i was cool. it sounds fucked up and honestly i dont even know if i want to be admitting this so adamantly but argh if it helps someone understand then maybe its worth it. (mortifying ordeal of being known eh?) anyways i noticed as i engaged more in fandom and looked for more diversity, more fans like me, majority of non white fans were also... zayn stans. and honestly it makes sense because we all tended to flock towards the closest diversity we could find it seems. im not saying that there werent white zayn stans and that the other boys didnt have non white stans but i just wanted to point out this trend. so when you also take this into account and the fact that on the day zayn left it was majorly... white stans who were criticizing zayn it puts it in perspective for you. majority of fans who still like and support zayn are also not white.

there is a lot more to do with fans but hopefully thats enough of an insight and you can understand the kind of vibes that were present during 1ds prime and what not only zayn had to go through but also as a result the racism we ended up having to deal with as well tbh.

now!!!... something i dont really like talking about lol so this will probably be short but the other boys. so as far as i can remember liams always been kind to zayn since hes left (no surprise there <3 also please correct me if im wrong), niall was kind of indifferent/didnt say anything really, and then there was louis and harry *awkward smile*. hahaha. from my memory i remember when asked about what the most difficult thing was about zayn leaving harry said ‘the paperwork’ which was *awkward smile* and he also kicked that monkey mask/pinata? i cant remember with naughty boys face on it and honestly im sure theres more but his overall reaction to zayn leaving was kind of not caring and maybe being slightly nasty which :) with louis there was the massive twitter fight which literally tears my soul in half so lets not go into that haha and honestly other things where it maybe seemed like he was upset with zayn leaving as well. honestly i am a bit in two minds about these reactions because at the end of the day we dont know what occurred behind the scenes and we probably never will as much as we can speculate or whatever. not to mention that this 10th anniversary it seems maybe everyones on good terms which, who knows really im going to try be optimistic. i think whats important to note about heir reactions is that we dont know anything about their situations but the problem was really how fans reacted tbh (btw i forgot to mention earlier this is about basically everything except for harry and the nb thing. that is inexcusable). the boys reactions were understandable but the problem is that fans of course vicariously are influenced by the boy they stan so when one of them acted a certain way of course that ended up reflecting in fandom and resulted in more racism etc.

another thing with zayn was that there were many files leaked with like promo or whatever basically describing what kind of role the boys would take on/ their image etc. and of course all the other boys got things like bubbly/funny/charming etc and zayns descriptors? moody, mysterious, dark horse etc etc like from the inception of 1d zayn has been victim to racist stereotypes being pushed on him. and i think this is where harry comes in because of course the image pushed onto him was also extremely harmful and i definitely dont think we should not talk about that but often you'll see that... thats all that is talked about because people are uncomfortable admitting racism and talking about it.

When i mentioned other celebrities my point was basically just that while ive only talked about zayn in one direction this... is so present among any and every fandom. 5sos, Little Mix, Fifth Harmony... any fandom you can think of, i promise you it is there. racism in fandom is a real thing and a big problem and honestly this is why i always say representation is so important. and when i say that i mean everywhere!!! because if I didnt seek out non white fans to follow then maybe i would’ve had a completely different perspective on all of this.

The thing is also that a lot of this is just stuff that we’ve been able to get our hands on and also fan analysis and theories etc. there is probably so much more to talk bout or go into or stuff we’ll never even know about. I’ve kind of had to make peace with the fact that with celebrities you just really don’t actually know anything about them.

I think i’ll end this here if there’s any more questions you have about anything feel free to ask! and again this is all just my opinion but hopefully i’ve been able to help answer you <3 have a nice day and i hope youre hydrated!!!

#ask #anon #1d #zayn #long post #i also have links to posts for proof of how zayn was treated on the last day if youd like but i thought id simplify #and just talk about what i though #there really is so much more that can be said

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not-a-space-alien · 5 years

Text

hey its me again wall of text sorry not sorry

k i saw your little treatise justifying zadr and yknow its a cartoon its not the worst thing ever of course nobody is gonna sue you for reblogging fanart or burn you at the stake or w/e and im glad you decided to open yourself up to a differing opinion but zim IS portrayed as an adult. there was even an unfinished episode where zim’s childhood and growing up training from start to finish would be shown so by the time of the pilot he is definitely a full grown developed adult by irken standards especially if hes a former member of an elite military force like the invaders. jhonen has said that the irony and sad comedy of zims character is that hes a grown ass man and a war veteran to boot who VOLUNTARILY goes to an elementary school every day and throws hands with an 11 year old boy who should be well below his notice because he’s that pathetic and desperate for validation that he’ll stoop to seeking it from a child. it also sets up a dynamic between them where dib is CHALLENGED by having to go up against an adult with way more experience than him while dib is just a child, so when he wins its more meaningful, which is a common trope in childrens fiction that an underdog young hero has to take down a powerful adult villain.

jhonen might joke a lot but he’s serious about this part of the characterization of zim and dib and he even went to great lengths to make dib look and act more like a kid in ETF (more emotional and naive, designed to look smaller/softer, going in depth with his relationship to his dad and sister and needing his dad to protect him at the end when he’s too overrun to fight alone) just to drive home the point of how young he is. it was a very deliberate move and jhonen knows what hes doing ESPECIALLY since he also left zim pretty much unchanged and also includes gags about zim’s relative maturity like animating him briefly grimacing because his joints are sore and the part where he pretty much gestures to his crotch and goes “theyre afraid to look at ALL-A THIS”. like you would not see jhonen do that sort of joke with an underage character ok. dont confuse his social awkwardness and self deprecating/trolling humor for not knowing the difference between right and wrong and not acknowledge when he means something sincerely because he doesn’t just clown on people and troll ALL THE TIME 24/7 hes a human, and times have changed with more awareness on issues such as the grooming of minors so he can go back on things he may have said in the past that he doesn’t agree with now or said by mistake. he has said enough times that zim is older than any human alive that its safe to take his word for it by now. judging by the one strip he did in JTHM about johnny murdering a pedophile who was about to prey on squee i think his stance on protecting kids is pretty clear. also i wouldnt put it past jhonen to have redesigned membrane to be more chaddy looking to divert the adult fandom’s attention away from dib and throw the fangirls a bone but thats a whole nother can of worms lol.

and the justification that zim is immature so hes essentially on dib’s level is a reversal of something lots of kids hear from either creepy or ignorant adults who tell them theyre “so mature for their age”. no matter how emotionally mature you are it wont ever compensate for the number of years youve been alive so that’s not very sound logic, and even in fic where theyre both adults it’s still pretty weird because it doesn’t erase their history where zim knew dib as a kid. that’s sort of like a grownup waiting with bated breath until a kid is “legal” so they can start dating. kinda like when jacob imprints on bella’s newborn daughter in twilight then having it handwaved away by saying he’ll wait till she’s grown up, which understandably drew a huge amount of criticism. it’s a loophole that might be mildly acceptable in some cases but the context leaves it colored with a residual ickiness that sets off some red flags for me and a lot of other people.

also you said zim is an alien and therefore the situation itself is unrealistic, but the reason invader zim’s writing resonates with people is because zim is written with very HUMAN emotions and motivations and part of the humor again is how irkens despite being aliens from another planet mirror some of humanity’s worst flaws such as being petty, gluttonous, willfully ignorant, arrogantly believing they are special and better than everyone else, easily manipulated by propaganda, all too eager to greedily colonize other societies etc making them not so different from us at all. so the premise out of context might not seem realistic but the idea of a sad burnout adult who doesn’t realize how humiliating it is to be consistently outsmarted by a kid less than half their age IS realistic and applicable to human interaction since we’ve likely all met someone like this before at one point in our lives for example a schoolteacher who has a personal vendetta against one or more of their students and has nothing better to do than antagonize them, or a really dumb parent that you fight with a lot.

another thing, i know you and other fans probably have a lot of sentimental value and nostalgia attached to zadr because you probably shipped it back when you were a kid yourself and you cant be blamed for something you liked as a kid, but youre an adult now, and you have to listen to the portion of kids in the fandom who dont like zadr and say without question that the age gap makes them uncomfortable. those kids ARE the priority. we’re grown up now and we have to put our feelings aside for them because that’s part of being responsible and mature. i feel like zim himself is a pretty good example of how not to act at our age [shrug emoji]

and anyway a lot of the same elements of zadr can be explored with zadf just as well with just as much potential for cute moments and as a bonus is it’s not creepy

You do bring up some good points, and I’m not saying you’re wrong... But honestly I’m still not convinced. I mean, stuff that Jhonen said, the thing is even if it’s the author saying it it’s still outside of canon, that’s the reason why Neil Gaiman got flack for Good Omens because they didn’t write an actual kiss or hug or hand-hold between Aziraphale and Crowley yet Neil Gaiman went on Twitter saying they were queer representation. I still don’t really put much stock into what he says because the unfinished episodes and Jhonen’s commentary don’t really change the dynamic that’s actually in the show. And again...Jhonen said if there were going to be romance in the show it would be Zim/Gaz, so he’s either a huge hypocrite or doesn’t view Zim as being incompatible with Gaz.

I do think it’s much better when Dib is an adult and it just makes more sense, and I actually do prefer zadf to zadr and if i were going to ever write fanfiction or make fanart it would probably just be zadf, just because i know this does have some stuff to think about and I totally respect that you have a different view of it, but i honestly just don’t see it that way. The analogy with Jacob imprinting on Bella’s child in Twilight isn’t really the same thing honestly. The author in that situation tried to make it not......that....by saying that imprinting isn’t always a romantic relationship thing, and that Jacob would be more of an older brother, but honestly that doesn’t really negate the impact of grooming that kid would have with Jacob around. The idea that Zim would somehow be grooming Dib seems really silly to me although you’re right, I think his characterization in Into the Florpus has evolved somewhat especially with regard to Dib wanting to get his father’s approval, but again Zim has parallels with that in trying to please the Tallest. the world-building and characterizations are inconsistent and scattershot at best. Like no, zim isn’t waiting for him to turn legal, that’s absurd, they’re nemeses coming at each other then learning to be friends. You’re right that that doesn’t have to be zadr but I still tag it as zadr so people can block it if they want to.

Like, I’ve seen people ship Zim with Professor Membrane instead of Dib. That seems very weird to me. that professor membrane would have a relationship with someone who literally goes to his son’s elementary school and who doesn’t know anything at all about human behavior and emotions.

I feel like with this discussion people don’t really understand the problem with age gaps. With age gaps, it’s not a matter of mature/immature, it’s about development. A ten year age gap sounds like a lot right? a 25-year-old and a 15-year old would absolutely have a predatory “relationship.” But a 35- and a 45-year old, that’s perfectly fine. Having a difference in age doesn’t automatically make the relationship unhealthy. so if Dib is 25 and Zim is [whatever the hell aliens years i still don’t really take Jhonen’s word for it bc he’s not consistent], that’s doesn’t mean it has to be bad. The thing about telling minors they’re “so mature for their age” to try and convince them that a person interested in them isn’t a pedophile is that we know a human being who is 15 isn’t developmentally at the same level as a 25-year-old regardless of their behavior. What is Zim? All we have to go on is how he acts, and he acts like Dib is an equal match, it’s not “he’s immature for his age,” it’s very unclear. Raw number of years isn’t the ultimate decider, for example in DnD lore elves reach maturity at, like, 100 years old so a 25-yo human trying to get with a 50-year-old elf would be predatory to the young elf even though the “younger” one is technically twice as old as the human. Do you see what I’m saying?

I also don’t really buy the idea that Invader Zim’s writing resonates with people because Zim is ~~so human~~. The guy steals a bunch of kid’s organs in one episode and flies into a tantrum over the slightest inconvenience. You have to be reading really deeply into it and dig into some old internet archives of things Jhonen Vasquez has said to paint it as realistic. You can do some interesting things with it wrt like, Zim being defective and starting to experience human emotions but that’s mostly fanon.

Well, you’ve given me some things to think about, thanks for explaining your side to me. I’m still going to tag things as #zadr so people can block if it can’t plausibly be categorized as zadf. I’m not actually making any fan content for Invader Zim so the point is kind of moot, but if I ever do I’ll definitely take this into consideration.

#invader zim #zadr #submission

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thisisasupergoodidea · 5 years

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just watched The Guy Who Didnt Like Musicals a second time. i didnt really process the songs properly the first time and didnt like them but now i can actually hear the tunes as intended and i love this whole thing so much. so im gonna ramble about this musical for a bit. spoilers ahead if u havent watched yet (its on youtube)

ive seen a few of the theories ppl have about the delivery of the musical, and about what happens at the end especially. i think i wanna try my hand at it too because sometimes i enjoy interpreting details. and im a gigantic sucker for reprises that stitch together all the songs we just heard into its own frankenstein song that completely changes in meaning or tone based on all the info we absorbed over the course of the program. and boi the last song of the show sure fuckin delivers

ok well i need to start at the beginning though. some ppl are confused by what the opening lil song and dance is within the context of the musical, because it introduces the main character, but at that point no one is infected yet so it just seems like standard musical stuff in the viewpoint of the audience, who expects this. but the entire plot of this musical is that the characters’ world slowly BECOMES a musical due to alien spores from a meteor infecting everyone to act as a harmonious hive mind. so in this sense its two musicals at the same time: the musical that starkid productions wrote, and the looser ‘musical’ that the alien entity is orchestrating during its antagonism of the main character. i believe that the opener takes place after at least a partially successful domination of the populace, mostly because of the fact that the characters who participate in that song are referring to ‘themselves’ in the third person and are dancing all hunched and menacingly, exactly how the alien spore compels people to dance later on in the plot. that plus a line that i might be recalling correctly about how the main character is their final story to tell, makes me certain that this is the alien telling that story

as for the main character paul’s absence from that song, i really think thats something intended in the musical to introduce what paul is like in the most succinct way possible. the guy just did not like musicals. throughout the plot he is constantly defining himself by his lack of participation, so of course the cheekiest way to set that up is to have him not participate in the opener. i think the confusing part here is when the story actually begins, because if the opener was performed by the future infected characters, when is the line drawn to differentiate between the two musicals that are happening (starkid musical vs alien musical)? or is the whole thing a performance by the alien entity? in which case, everyone on that stage is simply acting out the story as determined by the hive mind. but to whom, if everyone’s infected? i’ll get back to that later

another thing i love about this musical is how gradually tired of paul’s shit the alien entity becomes over the course of the plot, as evidenced by the tone of the songs. it just gets worse and worse. the alien’s songs turn from sickeningly cheerful to enticing, to threatening, to evoking hopelessness, then finally to pressuring paul past his breaking point. some of the songs arent even directed at paul but the change still happens, which goes to show the alien entity’s frustration. and at the end when the infected find emma, the song is happy again. they sing that awesome reprise, a really energetic mashup in which its hard not to feel like the alien plague is unstoppable. inevitable, one might say.

speaking of the end... paul’s confrontation with the meteor (my absolute favorite scene that i would rewatch a hundred times except i dont want to get tired of it too fast) contains good information to understanding what happens afterward. paul tries to blow it up, gets distracted by the appearance of his infected acquaintances, and the longer he stays there the more infected he himself becomes, breathing in such a heavy concentration of those alien spores at the epicenter of its activity. until now, he has rejected actively being the ‘star of the show’ like the alien seems to... want him to be? idk, the point is that his character defies musical protagonist tropes despite how the plot follows him. the story is ABOUT the alien, but paul is the audience’s anchor. until he goes to blow up the meteor. at that point, the alien has him. he can barely fight back against his own body synchronizing with the other infected as they goad him into giving in, but he puts up a damn good struggle considering those impossible circumstances. still, for the first time, he participates. he sings. he hates it, but it brings out some interesting thoughts: does he hate it? did he ever? or is this just the spores talking?

but what part, exactly, does he hate? in a musical, the singing and dancing act is usually the method of delivery for whatever the character is truly feeling. it is an opportunity for the audience to connect emotionally with the person who is singing. but we dont have that with paul for almost the entire show. he doesnt participate. and he’s established in the beginning as selfish, kind of a dick, and not available to anyone (except emma who is the only person he even slightly opens up to. he tries to be more friendly somewhat with bill, i think, but even then that couldve just been to get him to snap out of it and escape the school). he said himself that people singing and dancing makes him uncomfortable. so all this is to say that, on a deeper level, i think the aspect of the singing and dancing that he hates, that he fights to resist, is the vulnerability. you can witness the madness and shame for yourself as he sings more and more, letting out his worries, unsure if his feelings are his anymore. but hey, he ends that scene with a statement reaffirming the self he walked in with (which is to say, a guy who hates musicals) and finally pulls his grenade. so its cool that he was able to resist that but. guys. if the spores didnt get him. that grenade absolutely did. he didnt even bother to throw it away from himself, he flung it down right in front of him. theres no way he didnt get blown to bloody chunks, fully intending for that to be his final act of defiance

but i think it was too late by then. he’d already breathed in so many spores, and we were shown earlier on that death is not an impediment to becoming infected. i think after he exploded, he was still absorbed into the collective and reformed as a new addition to the hive mind. his explosives might not have been enough to fully destroy the meteor. and thats why, at the very end, i believe that - despite his admittedly suspicious face journey during the song - he isnt faking it. because if he was, wouldnt the hive mind know that it doesnt contain him within it? not only that, but in the opening song emma is clearly part of the group. given that she is the only one who is undoubtedly not infected in the last song, we have to assume that she will be sometime after the finale of the musical.

and now im left with my unexplored questions: is this a musical played straight, or a ‘musical’ put on by the alien entity after it wins? and who is the ‘musical’ intended for? its fun to speculate but im not sure these are questions that can be answered by watching it a bunch of times. theyre aimed too much outside of the zone of operation, if that makes sense. its like, you cant ever look at your own eyeballs normally. you need a mirror or for someone to describe them to you. these questions exist outside of the limitations of the musical format, so we wouldnt direct them at the video, we would ask them of the creators. or not. its cool to not have all the questions answered too

ah i wrote a flippin essay, huh? i guess i wanted to prove to myself that my brain still works

#the guy who didn't like musicals #tgwdlm #starkid #i did say i would ramble...

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lalunangel · 5 years

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So our mom used to cheat on our dad around ab the times we were conceived. THOT! anyway. So my “dad” is this tall crack head guy.. and my sister is my full on blood sister but her “dad” is a black dude my mom fooled around with to piss our dad off and her parents off (racist) and ever since our mom told us this at first we were p sad and we ended up going and getting dna tests bc i NEEDED to know i was my dads daughter and if i wasn’t i planned on paying him back for every ounce of kindness he’d shown me.. but i was his and i cried and i was excited BOI! same with my sister it was... great relief. my dad told us before we got our results though “Even if you aren’t my daughters you love me so much and chose to be with me always. not for my money cause i have none. not for the food i cook because i’m broke and cant buy anything. you love me for me. for the family i’ve shown you. even if you aren’t my daughters i know you will still chose me to be your father and how could i let go of two perfect girls like you” and ever since then i’ve never doubted his undying love for me even when we argued. also, i remember a lot of the talks we had with our dad.. i even remember his last words.. sometimes i want to write them down so i won’t ever forget but the context of his love and emotion shows up when i do things i used to do with him. like fishing? i remember him telling me my knot was really good and then getting frustrated bc he couldn’t mimick the actions. reading a book? “Your nose is so far in that book i thought you were brown nosing it” then letting him borrow that same book “I see why you brown nosed it so hard. it’s good” sharing music “IM A THUG ANGEL! A STRAIGHT THUG! THESE GUYS DONT KNOW!” and i know it sounds all odd coming from the same man but my dad had a different outlook on life every day and he could change who he was to fit the mood. he could make everyone laugh (out of discomfort who tf was that guy) and i remembered having to explain a lot that he was just weird like that and to pay him no real mind. Meeting my friends he was really sweet but i HATED introducing people to him bc he’d mean mug them and then me size them up and then slouch and say “cool” and walk away and i’d be so paranoid because “cool” meant he found something he doesn’t like about you :))))) and later that day my dad would come sit down on my bed or in the kitchen lean over the counter and go “so he was nice but ...” and SO MANY ROASTING SESSIONS FOR THE REST OF EVER! if i ever got mad at someone i’d show him a picture of them to get his honest opinion and 100% of the time even if i wasn’t upset with them hed roast them he might have liked that boy i was in love with but tbh one kiss and one hug isn’t enough to erase all the messed up things he used to say. he also used to tell my sister and i that we couldn’t go back to not eating like we did when we lived with mom.. because “your heads are too big and you’ll look like bobble heads and i can’t have bobbbbyyyyy daughters that’s weird”

i know this was meant to be mostly funny but this lowkey made me think of everything that my sister and i share and how none of it or us belongs to her... everything we are to this day belongs to him. We both play violin because of his support. Ukulele because he encouraged it. We both took three years of choir.. because he went to our concerts to cheer us on. We participate in fine arts because it’s a passion we had and our dad instead of saying “ew gross get into something that’ll give you a future” he would say “Awesome we can make a future out of this together.” i told my dad i loved to write and he encouraged my book even though it wasn’t the best at the time. now it’s pretty good and i’m on chapter two (mostly brainstorming how i want it to play out) and i go read to him because i want to know... i want him to know that just because i don’t paint doesn’t mean i’ve stopped that creative flow. I PROMISED TO WRITE YOU A BOOK! And i don’t ever break my promises. except that one where i said i’d eat an oyster. over my dead body some sea food is good but you got me 50 shades of fucked up old man if you think i’m going to eat that. Also i hen it came to Architecture my dad supported it and bought me small model scales of buildings to make and he tried to encourage me to make my own but ;-; i made a theme park ;-; and i hated it so i was like SCRATCH THAT! but he’d learn about buildings and he’d take me on drives around town to tell me about it. who built it. who designed it. when. why. has it been remodeled. EVERYTHING. my dad would find my likes and he’d immediately work to understand. a parent that nurtured my sisters and my own growth. my sister promised to learn how to play piano so we could play music together for my dad but when he died the idea of furthering our growth on anything was hard and i feel like all of the encouraging words he said left our brains and we act like... it’s never been said sometimes. i can still sight read music sheets for violin but when my sister brings hers home and offers to let me play so i can get rid of the rust in my fingers... i tell her no and i watch her. i feel like if i touch a violin or a ukulele or even a guitar i’ll cry... i wanted to learn so badly how to play and do these things bc of him but when you died i just wanted to work and stop enjoying life. i stopped looking for new music for a good long while and now that i’m on the prowl again i’ve found some amazing ones you’d love to hear. time stands still for no man but i think it stood still when you died.

we still carry on all our old jokes. i still call her a frump when she’s mad and we laugh. i still clean the outside of your car bc :) the inside smells like you and i just DONT WANNA OPEN IT! i pulled the weeds from your garden and put tomatoes and bell peppers and they were REALLY good btw so thank you. i plan on moving even closer to home and i have everything ready to start growing more stuff in your garden. i hope you don’t mind. i want mom to feel like you’re still alive and well. so i picked up a bunch of your hobbies and habits to kill my useless not able to paint hate reading some sad books time. i love you sm. you still live in everything we do. even if you don’t.

#<3 #i miss my dad #my dad #my sister #my family #funny shit #inside jokes #im ready ti be with you but also #im getting better #so #SO LONG #FAREWELL #I HATE TO SAY GOODNIGHT #but im going back to sleep bc its raining #also #i make hella hotchocolate mow #bc it makes me #think ab you

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the-little-red-noodle · 5 years

Text

12/6/18 12:49

I want to write but i dont know what to say.

i feel so much but im not doing anything. i have feelings that i want to talk through but i cant grasp them yet.

im so tired and my eyes hurt and my heart wants to love so much more than im being given opportunity for. i have so much love to give but nowhere to put it where it will be received in the way i really want. i’ll never admit it, but i just want someone who will mirror that love. i just want to feel like im appreciated and that those efforts are seen and appreciated.

I just want to love and be loved in an enthusiastic way. And i feel like this a lot more when spencer and i are apart and i have to rely on his text voice to fill that little space in my head where i overthink about our relationship standing. That’s not to say that i never get my feelings hurt when we’re together in person, because yeah it happens, he’s a boy and he says dumb shit sometimes. But it’s so much less.

When we’re together in person, at least i can guage a little more where we stand. I can feel that he’s happy and i excite him. Sex is always good so i don’t really worry about that domain. I’m a very sexual person and i usually initiate things and will be more verbal about what i want or complimenting him and making it feel very explicit that I’m attracted to him and enjoying things, etc. so i feel like sex is coming easy to him. Like we don’t have any sexual inhibitions other than just like timing or if I’m on my period. But whenever I’m on my period, like today, i just go down on him anyway because it’s fun for both of us, and i think a little bit subconsciously it’s because i want to make sure he stays satisfied with me.. like i don’t want him to feel like he needs to go anywhere else for that kind of satisfaction because he can always get off with me and that i do things enthusiastically, which i do. I genuinely have a good time being sexual with him in any context because i do feel so attracted to him and so like.. into it.. like even on my period when i usually feel the least sexy, he comes over and makes me feel like such a queen.. like we’realways touching each other and so close and it’s always pretty high attraction energy between us which keeps me pretty enticed all the time..

it’s weird but it’s not. Cuz like i know that I’m a very sexual person. I like sex. I enjoy having sex for me, and i like the physical feeling and the connection to people. I like being intimate and i love being intimate with spencer for a lot of reasons.

I think a big part of it is his aloofness most of the time keeps me pushing for it. Like he’s so precious and beautiful and giggly and all that. Like he’s adorable and he looks at me sometimes like I’m so gorgeous.. like today he came over for like 2 hours and we just cuddled and teased each other.. the entire first hour was a standoff of who could hold out longer, which is funny because if i weren’t on my period, 100% i would lose first. But since he didn’t know i was on my period, i just ran with it and played this game with him. It’s so fun to tease each other and taunt the other person to make moves..

i just like messing with him cuz theres an innocence to him that i really like.. and part of that is that he is just objectively attractive, like conventionally but also just like to me, he is so perfect.. like his bone structure and his cute little features, and he’s tall and thin and i just think he’s crazy attractive. It’s honestly kind of annoying tho because i can’t ever keep my hands to myself. Like i just want to touch him constantly and have my arms around him..

Now i miss him..

Ugh wait i want to talk about jealousy. Because this is something i got back and forth on a lot in my head but overarching isnt an issue, because i don’t bring it up. Like i have insecurities, who doesn’t. And something i worry about is just him finding someone else that he likes better, and in reality, i feel like that would come from a friend confessing to him, and he’ll either be in love with that person or he’ll be a pushover and be with them cuz he cares about people and wants to make them happy. I worry that i won’t have as strong of a hold on him as id like to think that i do. And i mainly worry about this with his friend Ali, because they are super close and I’ve seen a couple times now where she like needs to talk to him and talks about anxiety and needing him.. so when i hear about it theres a twinge of jealousy because i imagine her like confessing that she loves him and that seeing him with another girl was too much and he should dump me amd be with her..

Yes i know i sound crazy, I’m aware. But that’s why i write this shit on tumblr so these thoughts never see the light of day. Because of course i would never bring this up to him, because expressing these insecurities does nothing but put tensions on his friendships, and i would hate if he did that with my friendships with guys, or girls (don’t bi erase me) and it would be annoying if i wanted to hang out with someone that he was jealous of because of course i would want to make sure he was super comfortable and that would probably cause me to see them less, and that’s not what i want for him because frankly i like his girl friends more than his guy friends, and theyre better influences on him anyway.

Still, theres something about this girl that makes me nervous sometimes. I think it’s just that she seems affectionate with him and expresses needing him, which seems like the way you treat a boyfriend or a guy you are affectionate with because he likes you but you’re friendzoning?

That too, i don’t know how these girls friendzone him. Like he is so gorgeous it makes me angry. He is so gorgeous, how do people look at rhis gorgeous man and go ya he’s just a friend. Like what?

Anyway, idk what to do about my feelings about ali. Part of it too is that i find her attractive, and someone i was low key crushing on last year, so now i see her super close with my partner and I’m like silently growling because i know shems attractive, and she would know what a prize spencer is, so that’s the insecurity.

The reason i don’t say anything is because i feel like at our age, theres a level of maturity and understanding. Enough to where if you are in a relationship, but develope feelings for someone else, and those feelings suddenly have an outlet and that person wants you back, you should be honest and breakup with your partner and pursue that other thing. Like ya being cheated on would suck, and getting dumped would suck, but at the end of the day, we’re all just people and romance is messy and i feel like if this girl confessed to him and he wanted to be with her, he should be. Cuz like theyre friends for a while and must know each other pretty well, and if he had strong feelings like that for someone else, who am i to hold him back?

But the point i was making is that even if this girl or any other girl expressed interest in him, that doesn’t mean he instantly sleeps with them and dumps me. Because id like to think that he and i are doing pretty well at the moment and id like to think he’s happy with me and wants to be with me.

When i get insecure about this stuff, i like to think about this thing he said a while ago. He said that he was single for 2 years, and just wasnt dating, and that when he saw me, he was like “her”.

I like to think about it in a serious way that like he’s known these females for those 2 years, and that if he wanted things to happen with them, they probably would have already happened. And i like to think that he was immediately attracted to me, and that first night when we met and kissed and he asked me about italian food because he wanted to take me on dates when we got back to school.

Those two things he said mean a lot to me and keep me relatively grounded when dumb insecurities want to carry me out and get lost in the sky.. i want to believe that he chose to be single for a while, or just didn’t hard pursue anyone for a while, but then with me he just wanted to date me or knew i was girlfriend material. And honestly that’s so fucking cute..

And i feel good about us now in that sense too when we talk about being friends. We’re both pretty adamantly like i think of you as much more than a friend and when i was jokingly like oh so you want to be just friends? And he was so sad like i mean.. if that’s what you want.. but I’m very happy with this” and just hugged me so tight..

Like i know I’ve got him, ya know? Maybe that sounds confident, but i feel like i got him.. i feel like i suit him pretty well and that I have the qualities he wants in a girlfriend. Or at least id like to think so.

So when i get insecure, i remind myself of these things and remind myself of when we were both complaining about exes who got jealous of our opposite sex friends and how annoying it is to be accused of sleeping with your platonic friends. So i know how dumb it would be to ask if he likes Ali, or if he ever has liked her in the past, because what if he has? I used to like Patrick, and he used to like me, but that doesn’t make us incapable of being just friends right now, so it would only hurt me to know that. And if he did currently like her, maybe he’ll say something. Or it’s not a big enough deal to him to mention it.

I just gotta trust him. I gotta let myself trust him and trust that we’re both adults and that he is capable of having platonic female friends, the same way i am capable of having platonic friends with anyone.

I think that’s as much as i can write for tonight. Gotta get sleep and get work done tomorrow.

Xoxo gossipgirl

#samiswriting

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askthetriokzt · 6 years

Note

20??

20. Wildcard. Talk about anything

// Oh boy, anything? Lets shine some light on Criticism shall well? A key thing I learned when it comes to creating and critiquing. But before I talk about criticism, I would like to talk about a universal currency.

Believe it or not, but all humankind share one kind of commodity, regardless of social status, nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation, or any other sort of categorization.

That commodity is time. We can give our time, invest our time, waste our time, miss our time, lose time, have it stolen, and we can value our time… the only thing we cant do, is have more time. We claim to buy time, but thats really just an exchange of our own time to delay events. Though we dont know how deep our own accounts go, we cant create more of this finite resource.

So when you invest time in watching a movie or reading a book, or any other exchange that didn’t seem worth the trade, its natural to be angry. This was your time and it has value. Simultaneously, the creator of that book or movie, or art piece, or characters, ect can invest a great deal of their own time in that works creation. Its incredibly frustrating to feel that people arent recognizing that effort. Which is where the tension between critics and creatives often arises.

The wrong word from a certain critic can undermine a lot of creative investment. Yet many a critic will defend their role as pushing back against any trivialization of an art form. In a weird way, both sides believe themselves to be creativity’s true champion. And in my eyes, the best critics convey this love for the medium

Somewhere along the way, critics became celebrities in their own right. An idea started to creep in, ‘To stand out and to be noticed, many critics rely on the idea that negativity is honesty.’.

We’ve all been seduced by this at some point. Many many reviewers have gained an audience and kept it by tearing works apart. The online world in particular flocks to this. We see negativity as a voice, shouting down the groupthink. Its a statement that “We are not going to be cowed by the fandom’s whims and so they got to deal with it!”

And it works. Even if people to agree to the negativity, they respond to it. The comment in defense of their favorite characters and episodes, they denounce the critic, and for some its enough to have that response and recognition. As the saying goes, “There’s no such thing as negative publicity.”.

But given enough time, does the same tactic work? If a critic is consistently negative, regardless of context, I think people begin to see the figure behind the curtain. At most, negativity can become a gimmick, while often its a method towards false confidence. That said, is positivity instant honesty?

Not really. Unwillingness to criticize indicates that someone is starting with the assumption that the work is good and is going backward. There’s a sense that being a fan is taking priority over being honest. So where does the balance lie?

Personally, I dont think it has to do with a quota of positive vs negative comments or reviews. The real challenge is to show love for the art and the expression. If a piece doesn't work, if it fails to register, whats the counterbalance? Can you highlight a work that did the same attempt and succeeded? That’s offering genuine criticism. Because not only are you stating that something didn’t work, but you’re also helping people understand by providing a positive point of reference.

And by criticising what didn’t work, how much authority can a critic assume? Often times, a negative ‘critic’ will go after the artist more than the artwork. Telling them to keep their hobbies at home or to no inflict their failure on the community. In essence, they’re telling others to stop trying.

If there’s ever a warning light to tune someone out, its when they discourage future attempts. How does the ability to criticize translate into the authority to dictate terms? Attempting to sabotage a person’s efforts is suffocating. You’re drawing a line in the sand with no room for discussion or growth.

I get the sense that this wouldn’t really matter to someone who thrives off of that negativity, people who create cringe blogs, or people who just attack the artist because this isn't about dialogue or insight, its about them. By putting down someone else's work, they present the illusion of intelligence and insight without risk.

“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.” - Anton Ego from Ratatouille

This leaves a question if time is currency, how much time should we invest in those who do not create? Being an accomplished artist isn’t a prerequisite for giving feedback. Its the old train of thought, “I dont have to be a chef to recognize a bad meal.”. But how much can this feedback benefit the process? Often times, we can find ourselves under a barrage of words that have an emotional impact but offer very little insight. Even the phrases that can sound positive, often times dont express why they like the piece.

The fact is, not all criticism is created equal. People who have never taken the risk, often lack the perspective to offer insight, so their feedback is often focused on their own entertainment. Yet audiences are vast and can have a diverse set of opinions, often contradictory, so it becomes a judgment call. Who offers the best and most insightful criticism, and who is just making demands?

The thing that kills me is that if I could challenge these so-called ‘critics’, I’m sure their response would be, “I’m just stating my opinion. Its not my fault if others are offended.”. I’ve seen this defense or excuse thrown up so many times, its become borderline comical. This avoidance of responsibility or any acknowledgment that the message didn’t reach the audience. What this message really means is a double standard. The person is saying, “I am not going to invest the time or energy to better craft a message that will reach my audience, yet I expect you to invest the time and energy to pay attention.”

The end result is that the only people who agree, are those who already shared the same mindset beforehand. Very rarely does this sway the opposing view or offer new ideas.

Once again, I’m drawn back to the idea that a negative review can be fun to watch/listen. We might enjoy a sense of validation, we can say “Hey, I’m not the only one who didn’t like that thing.” Yet even then, I cant just point at a reviewer and say, “I’m entertained.” or “This person and I dislike the same things and therefore, they must be good critics.” I find that the critics I go out of my way to watch, offer more than just entertainment.

When Linkara lays into the toxic message that is ‘Holly Terror’, he contrasted about how SuperHeroes can knights-errant, showing the best in kindness and decencyWhen Angry Joe went full fury over ‘Ride to Hell’, it wasn’t just about bad gameplay, he also denounced the insulting and juvenile approach towards women and sex.And when BennetTheSage reviewed the anime ‘Fooly Cooly’, he reflected on how our tastes change and evolve with time but that doesn't mean that our past enjoyment was meaningless.

Honestly, the best reviews and critics aren’t those who just pick something to pieces, they’re people who recognize that creativity is an expression of an idea, even if its not well represented. By drawing our attention to the ideas to get people thinking. Bonus points if you can enjoy a laugh along the way. Yet there will always be people who just want to tear others down, attack the artist, and just be overall negative without caring about others or their growth. Whenever you put your work out there, someone else will see it as an opportunity for their own advancement.

What I hope people will take away from this, is where to invest their time. To look at a critics commentary and ask, “Is there a genuine care for the idea or expression?” “Is there just some sort of entertainment value?” Is when I can get a sense that a person is just unfunny and wearing the facade of a critic, is when I say can say “I have a pretty limited amount of time, are you really worth the investment?”

Here’s hoping that you found this long long ‘essay’, worth your own time and that it could help bring a new view to things.

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heyitscmei · 7 years

Text

so i see theres some theory talk floating around

but this post isnt really to do with theories so much as characterization

i had a whole thread over on twitter but ill just copy and paste some thoughts here in regards to one particular post ive seen floating around and some posts linked within im not trying to start fights or anything, im just expressing some thoughts of my own which is why im not linking to the post in question anyways

just a reminder, keith isnt a good liar so unless he became a good liar in the time that shiro was gone, i sincerely dont think he was lying to shiro when he told him that the team needed him

but whether or not he became a good liar or not, one thing is certain based on what weve been shown:

keith is a capable leader, but he still hasnt quite grown into the role yet

keith still hasnt quite learned how to pick his battles

thats why i dont think its quite right to say that hes more capable of a leader than shiro with time, he could be thats something even shiro himself saw in keith: potential

however something thats been made clear to us is that keith still needs to learn a little

shiro on the other hand, has experience being in a leader role hes the garrisons golden boy, the pilot of the kerberos mission and he was the head of voltron for a reason black chose him for a reason

he is capable he is a role model for keith keith tells shiro that the team needs him that he cant do it and isnt as good of a leader as shiro because its what he believes to be true

keith is honest and straightforward he knows hes lacking and he doesnt try to pretend that hes a perfect leader he KNOWS hes still struggling between doing what he WANTS to do and doing what he SHOULD do - with accepting that the things he wants to do arent necessarily good for the team to be doing

hes grown immensely in the time he has been leader, but hes not the leader they need to defeat lotor not the way he is right now and he KNOWS that

as for shiro... i can agree that maybe leading voltron gave him control something that hed been robbed of in his captivity but i also dont think that hes the type to really let things like betrayal or jealousy or whatever cloud his vision shiro from the start has always seemed to put their purpose before himself hes never given the impression of being a selfish enough person to have issues over who the leader is he seems more likely to be the type to think 'if this is what it takes, well do it this way'

i think hes being genuine when he says hes glad the team didnt lose sight of things in his absence because thats just how he is hes glad that his absence didnt become their undoing because hes only one person winning the war means saving a lot more than that hes proud of them for that because thats shiro thats what hes like selfless but driven

not once has he ever complained about being thrust into this war even though hes got more than enough reasons to complain because he sees this mission and he knows its for the greater good he knows first hand how bad it can be he wants to spare people from that its like hes selfless to a fault so i dont think he actually has any issues with feeling left out or feeling as though hes the odd one out from the team if that were really the case, i dont think hed guide from the castle as easily as he is theres no reservations or hesitation he doesnt seem to think 'im not part of this anymore' so much as 'im part of this, but in a different way from usual'

keith is so willing to step aside for shiro because ultimately he still believes wholeheartedly that shiro is most suited to lead

keith has never cared about claiming or holding onto the leader position

now in the interest of explaining why i dont think the reasons the OP of the post mentioned that make shiro a bad leader dont actually make shiro a bad leader, i addressed each reason individually so 1) in regards to when shiro tries to carry lance outside after lance protects coran from the bomb

why does he do it? well its not a good idea to leave an injured teammate alone, for one for two, if the explosion was within the castle, its pretty reasonable to think the castle isnt safe either ultimately, while the castle is big, you dont want to be cornered in the very place that the galra are likely to infiltrate

what are the galra after? the lions where are the lions? in the castle where will the galra be going then? the castle so where do you not want to be with your injured teammate? the castle

not to mention, without the crystal, the castle is generally nonfunctional the chances of lance being okay are ultimately greater if shiro gets him out of the castle at least, its a risk shiro is willing to take

why tell pidge to come back when shiro will have the easier time getting lance to safety? not to mention shiro is already there with him its not like he could tell when exactly pidge would be done sending coran and hunk off theres also no telling how long it would take for pidge to get to them its not a wise decision to just stay put inside the enemies main target while knowing the team was so separated

tell allura to come back? let keith check the arusian village by himself? thats not a smart idea either we know that it was ruse to separate them, but the team didnt know that at the time dramatic irony

so from shiros perspective, its better if allura and keith go to the arusian village together because at least they have an ally to watch their backs in the event that something is wrong you dont hear that a village is under attack and assume it wont be dangerous safety in numbers

2) regarding shiro and his decisions about when to fight and when not to fight

its worth mentioning that first and foremost, shiro never makes a decision that he doesnt wait for the others inputs on hes not the type to force them to do something if the majority disagrees with his decisions

but a very important thing about being a leader is knowing when to choose your battles this is especially emphasized in s3 however, whether to fight or retreat hasnt always necessarily been dependent on whether the odds are in their favour or not

one such exception is when they decided to take on zarkons command center

shiro knew that keith was right when he said theyd be bringing zarkon exactly what he wants he wasnt ignoring him shiro was the one who said himself that the odds would be against them even in season 1 it isnt as though he suddenly changed his mind what changed was that they had allura

and allura is a lot more than just a part of the team shes the altean princess shes the true leader of the entire damn war shes too important for them to lose

things they lose if they lose allura? - the ability to wormhole, thus reducing their mobility by a great deal - a key figurehead in the war and the person who best handles the talks and meetings with the other planets

not to mention that she has powers all of them lack, including coran

someone like that isnt exactly easily replaced

shiro said it himself when the others reminded him he was the one who said they shouldnt take on zarkons central command at first they had no choice but to attack zarkons command center

they had to try because, the way he probably saw it, the war was as good as lost if they didnt save allura anyways

in s2 when zarkon manages to keep finding them, keith says they can fight that they should fight (this is actually considered a flaw that he needs to overcome, and is addressed in s3 - he needs to learn to choose his battles) but shiro says that they dont stand a chance against zarkon and his entire fleet

again, he didnt just suddenly change his mind and hes not being hypocritical in any way he explains why they cant because keith doesnt know how to pick his battles yet

they pull back, because shiro doesnt yet see a chance for them to come out of the battle victoriously theyre not prepared yet

later when shiro says that they will be attacking, its different its on their terms its not him listening to keith because he suddenly saw an error in his own judgement or whatever this is shiro acknowledging that there is an advantage to be gained this way they have a chance here that isnt more likely to leave them all dead thats called picking your battles

shiro isnt a bad leader for it in fact, its exactly what will make keith a better leader in s3

3) regarding shiro and keith and leadership

shiro does not have 'a lot of nerve' to tell keith that he has to control his emotions if hes going to lead

shiro is well aware of the fact that sometimes, when youre put into a position where youre responsible for not just yourself, but a whole team of people, you cant let your judgement be clouded by emotions sometimes the things you have to do are not always the things you want to do

its true that keith is rational and can make smart decisions, but in the context of when shiro says this to keith its because he acknowledges that keith still lets emotions cloud his vision sometimes and the scene prior was one of those times you cant lash out at your team you have to talk to them properly thats the kind of thing shiro is trying to have keith understand

(and for the record, the decision to attack zarkons command center was not a decision that seemed to be based on emotion. at the time they attacked, shiro was not aware of the control zarkon still had over the black lion, so he couldnt have been scared of that and sure he might have been scared about what would happen to himself, to allura, to the team, but it was a risk they had to take because allura is too crucial to their mission - thats not an emotional decision its a smart one)

but hes not saying "dont be like me" to keith when he says keith has to control his emotions hes saying this because he acknowledges that keith has potential but he also acknowledges that his potential is still hindered by things that keith needs to work on and overcome

also, keith going against zarkon was not emotionally driven it was more likely keiths idea of a way to gain a huge advantage in the war no emperor to lead automatically means that the opposing side is weakened substantially

it wasnt necessarily the right thing to do either keith had no idea of what zarkon was capable of (pick your battles - going in blind isnt exactly advisable and coran even TELLS him not to do it. coran has been shown to have known more, which is a given considering he was present 10000 years ago)

also shiro doesnt have blind faith in keith for a long time now, canon has been hinting that shiro and keith have a backstory shiro knows keith better than anyone else because the rescue from the garrison was very clearly not their first meeting ("its good to have you back", “its good to be back”)

also the insinuation that shiro is not fit to lead because he has ptsd... yikes i dont think i need to elaborate on why exactly that implication is yikes-worthy

its true that keith displays leadership potential early on in the show but this doesnt necessarily mean that shiro isnt a good leader and that keith is automatically better

shiro isnt perfect, but hes a great leader canon has told us time and time again that keith has to grow into the role

(also the reason keith follows shiro and not the other way around: shiro changed his life. shiro is a positive person in his life and keith both trusts and relies on him because shiro didnt give up on him. this is why he follows shiro)

shiro doesnt "hold him back" shiros done nothing but push keith forward and support him keith would be insulted if someone thought shiro was any less than his biggest supporter (”if it wasnt for you, my life would have been a lot different”, “shiro is the only person who didnt give up on me - i wont give up on him”) shiro showing keith reason and explaining why they cant follow through on some of the things keith wants to do isnt "holding him back"

its true keith sees a lot of good stuff in shiro but the same is true for shiro to keith its mutual and shiro tells keith he wants him to lead voltron not because he doesnt want keith to follow him and wants to follow keith instead he tells keith this because shiro acknowledges that sometimes in war, things happen he could die and hes had some close calls he wants keith to lead because he knows he can trust keith to lead the team he knows that if keith leads, even if hes gone the team will be left in capable hands hes been trying to nurture that

4) in regards to keith stopping pidge from leaving and shiro stopping keith

keith is right about pidge putting two people over the universe however shiro is right about how you cant force people to be part of the team you dont nurture bonds that way you dont build a team that way

why? how do you expect to build a functioning team if a member is reluctant to be part of it

personally speaking, when i dont want to do something i dont end up doing the thing as well as i could be and im unhappy doing the thing the whole time

thats not good for the team shiro knows this and so, if pidges mind really cant be changed, he wont force her to stay also, paladins can be replaced and im sure shiro knows that considering when they first met allura, she asked them what happened to the blue lions paladin they know there were paladins before they know that they are not the first they are not the only paladins

it wouldve set them back, but if they really needed to, theyd look for a new green paladin to take pidges place you cant fight a war with someone who isnt willing to fight a war

also to say that shiro doesnt care about finding the holts as much is just.. first of all, weve established that shiro puts their purpose first im more sure that he wants to find them and just knows they dont have the time to put all their focus on finding two people when a universe is at stake

whether they have to find a new green paladin hinges on pidge, but hes not going to force her to stay besides, forcing someone to stay and fight a war... it doesnt sound like a good idea, ultimately keiths heart is in the right place and he has the right idea, but theres more to being a leader than telling people what to do its a job that requires understanding, especially for the people within the team

its true it wouldve been dangerous for pidge, but shiro is a recently escaped captive from the galra empire this, in addition to who he seems to be as a person... i think the last thing he wants to do is keep someone somewhere against their will and force them into doing something

and shiro telling keith he wants him to lead wasnt him trying to force the role on keith he was trying to give voltron the biggest winning chance in the event that he would be unable to lead them (for obvious reasons considering theyre fighting a war)

and thats about everything i have to say but im just leaving these here to organize some of those thoughts its kind of a mess but i tried to address everything i order as best as i could

#voltron #shiro #keith #meta #for lack of a better term #idk what to call this #but i wanna have a place i can easily access it so thats as good as any #cmei rambles

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andseperand · 7 years

Text

thoughts

ive been sitting on this post for the better part of a year. i tried to read through it and make edits, but im going to have to post this as is. maybe ill be able to edit it someday. anyway, this is completely composed of spoilers.

tl;dr: i mostly wrote bitterness about “kung food,” “origins part 1,″ and “reflekta.”

these are my thoughts on what ive watched of the first season of miraculous ladybug (i have watched most of every episode except the last three).

i may be confused or misinformed on some points. some of this is not as serious as other parts, and the writing style is disjointed because i didnt write it all in one go. any links are formatted within brackets (as in [text]).

ordered by the order i initially watched (parts of) the episodes in and indicated by villain name somehow (english, korean, french, french translation, etc.).

stormy weather/climatika

why did alya just toss manon like that? she couldve hurt something just being thrown around with her tiny little bones and joints that lack any significant cushioning. not to mention that her neck is completely unsupported. safety, much?

the bubbler/le bulleur

so the record is fully functional but also survived getting smacked off a building on its edge? wow.

copycat/l’imposteur/the imposter

i get that alya is supposed to be that “go-getter” friend who pushes marinette to be brave, but honestly, if she had waited another minute for marinette to be more ready for making a phone call, this wouldve been less of a mess. yeah, i get the “pushing boundaries to build confidence,” but honestly we could have waited for marinette to stop stalking adrien, too.

i gotta say: marinette is truly fearless. my phone is so suspicious. i would not have the confidence to deliberately touch it with my face and risk contact with who knows what has been on it.

the “moral” or whatever of this episode is kind of unclear? steal someones phone and run into issues with security but then also somehow break into it and get what you want anyway? no, thats not okay. its not that funny that marinette legitimately stole someones phone, and she doesnt even get seriously reprimanded for this.

timebreaker/chronogirl

one of the most pressing questions i have for this episode is why no one thought of using pockets or a bag or something to hold this important watch. hand perspiration is pretty bad for a lot of older and newer mechanical objects alike. why is this clearly-important item treated any different? ive considered both the “tikki is in the bag” (doesnt mean it has to be marinettes bag) and the “girl pockets” (marinette designed her own clothes, though) possibilities, and im still stumped.

mister/monsieur/mr./m. pigeon

how did chloe know what the colors were or even what the embroidery pattern looked like from a pencil sketch? it looked like chicken scratch.

lady wifi

im not sure that “dont violate other peoples privacy” was very well stated, seeing as alya was landed with an unfairly harsh punishment due to corrupt politicians. and how did that get resolved, anyway? was she still suspended? was there even supposed to be a moral in this mess?

the pharaoh/le pharaon

the villain is a pharaoh, continuing the ages-long trend of pretending ancient egyptian culture is just ~so interesting~ and that its portrayal isnt exploitative at all. i cant really say much about this, but i dont like those special ancient egypt episodes of anything.

rogercop

a mess

im pretty sure that this was to save animation budget or something, but why was marinette picking up those croissants off the floor and arranging them so nicely as if it really mattered what she did with them besides cleaning up the spill? i guess ill let it slide if shes trained that way as an advertising thing (though advertising doesnt get a free pass by default just because its strange).

the evillustrator/evil artist/le dessinateur

off topic, but could that tablet also erase or create living beings?

dark cupid/le dislocoeur/heartbreaker

this was still technically a kiss without consent? doesnt really feel all that romantic and whatnot. i cant really get behind this as shipping material.

horrificator

side note: i really liked how chloes english voice actor delivered the lines mockingly announcing mylenes “award” in the beginning.

im not a fan of the “you must kiss as part of acting” plot point. it always gives off those peer pressure vibes from other people and opportunistic vibes from main characters who want to actually kiss the other person.

darkblade/le chevalier noir/the black knight

sabrina is honestly super lucky that marinette made her box have a hole big enough for super tiny animated character wrists or else she wouldve been in a world of more pain.

alya had a platform? im so confused about how this election worked. did they do ballots or some sort of “heads down” in-class vote thing?

the/le mime

seeing as people dont lose their memories of being attacked by the villains, i really dont see how tearing down the eiffel tower (even in an animated show where people are not in the structure at the time) is the best way to minimize traumatic experiences. i get that it was supposed to be a “wow” moment for the plot and just visual effects but not the appeal.

kung food

the second i ever laid my eyes on this name i knew it would be bad, i just didnt know how bad because there were just so many ways it couldve gone with that phrase and i didnt know what to expect until i actually watched the episode. more on this in a bit.

there was literally no point to having the famous chef be related to marinette other than contrived circumstances to get adrien into this episode. im using this as a launching off point for talk of other stuff.

why didnt marinettes parents do anything about a relative coming to their house? this really baffles me because they have their daughter meet an effective stranger with no help.

why didnt marinettes parents tell her what languages the relative spoke? honestly, it kind of seems like they just didnt even care if this would cause her extreme anxiety or anything. you would really think they would have at least discussed this as a family because it was made pretty clear that his visit was actually expected. i thought way higher of their characters until it seemed that they pulled this crap move.

i know it was supposed to be all cute and a bonding moment when adrien came over to translate, but it was even more of a disaster. why did they take a car literally around the corner to get to the hotel? why didnt the chef go directly to the hotel if it was so close? was that adriens car? who was in charge of organizing this event and making sure the contestants didnt end up in the wrong place? how in the world did the chef even get to the bakery? because of the close proximity of the hotel to the bakery, it doesnt make sense that he would go to the bakery instead from an airport or something? unless he was supposed to meet his relatives? which, in this case, was not facilitated at all? so many questions are raised.

i dont speak nor understand mandarin, but im pretty sure adriens wasnt good enough for him to actually be complimented for it. then again, its nothing new to see white people getting complimented for deigning to learn a ~foreign language~ while i get interrogated about my lack of “authenticity” for not speaking “my native tongue,” so i guess the writers were just being realistic.

he bowed...funny story, at least one time i went to a restaurant with other visibly asian people and the apparently-white waiter kept making this weird head bobbing motion every time they left the table and what im saying here is that i know adrien has presumably been learning about culture stuff, but i also know firsthand that creators really love to shove bowing into media whenever asian people show up. (that waiter did give us extra mints, so i guess that was nice.)

sarcasm alert: i love when ~asian~ people have ~asian~ accents. its not like this is a tired gimmick that i dont need to see literally everywhere i turn (oh, wait! according to the english version, it is! hooray for me! this is probably the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me ever! im not being sarcastic at all! or overly sarcastic to the point where im sarcastically putting in that everything ive written in this paragraph is sarcastic because im just so mad! or maybe it definitely is! it probably is all sarcasm!) [bonus sarcasm here]

the chefs english/default dub language fluency was either inconsistent or this was just a straight-up rude portrayal of a nonnative speaker of a language, because adrien didnt seem to wait five seconds (for the chef to even consider the question about what he was cooking) before talking to the chef (and naturally, being a polite person, the chef listened to what adrien was saying), and i feel like it was only for the sake of adrien being ~useful~ because right after that, he talks to the chef in english/whatever language? dont think i didnt notice that his english speaking got “better” after becoming a villain. you know, if they hadnt faked the accent in the first place, they wouldnt have had to hastily cover for the fact that their voice actor couldnt even execute it well.

im sure adrien and marinette tag-teaming to argue with chloe and her racist comments was supposed to be this whole “wow look at that team” deal, but it felt like adrien was shoehorned into this mess sloppily. woohoo for the white boy defending marinette because she cant do it herself or something! i do appreciate when white people help stand up for me, but in this context, it feels off.

i have such a big problem with the “pep talk” adrien gives marinette when she thinks the chef doesnt like her. first thing, white boy explaining things about a person of color to a person of color, and the two people are actually literally related? i think the bouquet misunderstanding was really bizarre, and when did adrien have time to gain all this extensive exposition? the interview when they first arrived was short, and i dont think that both adrien and the chef would be so rude as to exclude marinette from their conversation in the car on the way over. this just comes off as a way to have adrien ~encouraging~ marinette, and its not a very good one.

this supposedly super prestigious competition literally has no security to make sure no one is mucking around behind the scenes, let alone ensure that the contestants arent up to any funny business. because why not. and no cameras around either, because cooking-based television programs never show any cooking, just the tasting and subsequent subjugation by a villain (this is a sarcastic sentence). even if this is supposed to be a featured dish and thus one they dont want to showcase the recipe behind, they could still have those little soundbites interspersed with candid panorama shots (can you tell i have no idea what any of these words mean?). im just going to have to chalk this one up to animation budget and move on.

i know this was just a sort of (intendedly funny) visual thing, but i highly doubt that the objects chloe put in the soup could just go unnoticed, especially since i presume a chef would thoroughly stir (and taste) their cooking, and the soup didnt appear to have properties of decomposing things touching it. otherwise that tasting session would probably have turned out a little messier (i am completely kidding here).

why is the chef being upset about being sabotaged made into a ~cultural~ thing? why is a white boy telling marinette about her ~own~ culture? sheesh, its like you cant just be upset because your shot at a world title was ruined on live television and you have confirmation that you were deliberately sabotaged. yes, chloe did it because shes petty and racist, but the results of her actions could upset anyone! its not just because the chef is chinese! what is the point of saying that? its a pointless throwaway comment! why dont you just find some other way to get the chef alone so he can be become a villain that isnt a) nonsensical and b) making sweeping generalizations about people? (granted, i cant speak to the validity of anything said about cultures, but i sure can comment on why saying such things about them isnt okay regardless).

“kung food” oh my god. this is such a piece of crap name. it is racist. you can literally try to argue against this until youve gone far beyond oxygen deprivation and in a grave but itll still be racist by the time youre done. aside from the pharaoh, there arent a bunch of ~ethnic~ names (not that it would be okay for that to be the case anyway) running around, and yet we get one with this specific villain whose ethnic and national origin is talked to death? okay.

and ive seen this pointed out, but the villain appearance seems to have a kind of anime-inspired design, which is honestly a good laugh because who was just talking about not conflating china and japan again? weeaboos and sinaboos are often in the same boat.

okay, not related, but adrien just had to taste a suspicious substance off the floor. why. there are so many ways to figure out what a substance is before putting it in your mouth. or you could just not do that at all. before this point, they did not appear to suspect a food-related villain, so this couldve ended badly.

another side note: i dont know how that receipt retained its integrity long enough for ladybug to wrap the villain up after dipping it in the soup. do the magical items just have super special properties like extra toughness that allows them to defy the reality of paper receipts? i wonder how many of the things ive talked about in this post have been me marveling at the sturdiness of lucky charm items.

of course this turns into an ~accountability~ lesson for marinette. and chloe doesnt get reprimanded? yeah, she got booted off a panel she didnt even want to be on and no one actually clearly articulated to her that the things she said were absolutely unacceptable? then again, this is a “diversity episode,” so i dont know why my standards are so high.

wow, marinette really needed to have adrien encourage her before going to take a picture with her great-uncle? im going to be generous and allow that she wanted to make sure he would be okay with her ditching him for her much cooler great-uncle because she didnt want him to feel bad about how not-cool he is in comparison. there, you see what i mean about making up story elements? (though im really not much of a writer, oops.)

im so over people making fun of how others dress as a joke. before i realized that i am autistic and reflected back on my life, i didnt realize that i gravitate toward clothing i find comfortable rather than fashionable, and ive always gotten negative comments, ill-intended or otherwise. so i really didnt appreciate marinettes jab at chloe, even if it was to defend herself. it was just unnecessary.

i want to talk about the whole ~chinese representation~ thing in this show. yeah, i know marinette is one of the very few chinese and mixed main characters out there (and there are barely any that are both), but im going to be super honest about this: i dont think shes all that great. i am a big fan of her and this show, but that doesnt make it infallible. the fact that adrien of all people is telling her about her own culture is a huge failing in itself. i dont know everything about my own cultures, but its not cool to have a literal outsider being shown to be the expert on someones culture and be the one to guide them through that. theres barely any portrayal of sino stuff in the show as is, and i hate the way this is only shown as a kind of special episode topic. i would be way more fine with this if this wasnt basically the sole instance of discussion of marinettes heritage. and no, the fact that her mother wears stereotypical clothing doesnt count. at all.

okay, this has been a huge issue for me before and after this point, but it was in this episode that it was made abundantly clear just what we are dealing with. i know that it is completely possible, genetically speaking, for a mixed chinese and white person to have blue eyes. its also completely possible for a chinese person to have gray eyes even without being mixed (i say this because i dont know if her mother is monoracial). however, if you only have two confirmed recurring characters of chinese descent, and their eye colors are ~special~ colors...well, thats kind of iffy there. why is it that the minor chinese character has stereotypical eyes? theyre basically just expanded pupils for all intents and purposes, which is not the problem, because its possible to have irises that are so dark as to make figuring out whether they have a distinguishable brown tint to them really hard. anyway, i suppose i dont want to talk about things ahead in the season, but why is it that the background asian characters get the stereotypical eyes but the main characters who are asian get the special eye colors? (that was a rhetorical question. i know exactly why.)

im pretty that at some point in the creation of this villain name, someone patted themself on the back for being so ~clever~ like “haha kung food geddit? its like kung fu but with food because im actually not that creative and more racist than i would like to openly admit.” okay, i know im being a bit harsh. but its really annoying when one of the few things people “know” about sino people is that kung fu exists. and honestly, i kind of suspected this, but ive seen other people say that the villain more resembles a villain from anime, so...thats kind of disrespectful there...

the/le gamer

i really disliked marinettes combo move names. they all had ~asian~ words like lotus, jade, oriental, etc.

animan

i find the sniffing scene to be kind of creepy. personal space much?

the city has really high quality buses. i cant believe the bus didnt end up backfiring on their plan because if i know anything about buses its that the ones ive seen are probably way older and more decrepit than me.

antibug

how do the earrings work in this setting? as far as i can tell, it would make sense for chloe to have pierced ears and a pair of ladybug imitation earrings that she could put it, but how is it possible that ladybug was able to just pull the earrings off? because that could be a really, really messy situation if they are actually piercings with backings and everything, but is there an explanation for this? magnets, clips, anything?

the puppeteer/le marionnettiste

can that glowing bright red effect that comes from her yo-yo and the power cord being swung around just for the viewers, or can it actually be seen in-universe? or is that a null point because both items are generated by ladybugs magic?

reflekta

this show really didnt need any “haha look a ~guy~ in a dress” jokes. and honestly, this was ill handled (though arguably, its very existence was ill handled). first of all, im not the best judge of this kind of thing, but to me, ladybug felt out of character while mocking chat noir? honestly, marinette doesnt strike me as the type of person to find that kind of situation funny in the first place, so the premise doesnt really hold up in my opinion. i know marinette can make mistakes, but youd really think she would be more open to not thinking this way because she knows what its like to be bullied for other things. moving on... [though, to reiterate]

the way this was not addressed? at all? yeah, ladybug apologized for that one comment at the beginning of their conversation, but then she continued to make jokes at chat noirs expense, and it just wasnt as funny as it was probably intended to be?

i know the whole thing about ambiguous chronology, but there is no reason ladybug wouldnt take chat noirs opinion into account when planning for things anyway. it felt like that part was written specifically so he could “prove” his worth to the rest of the episode and ensure that, yes, he is still allowed to be in it after being turned into a reflekta lookalike, and the whole thing smacks of trying to write out of a corner...that was written into in the first place. if it hadnt gone the route it did with the mocking of appearances, i dont think it would have had to be as convoluted as it ended up being.

i personally dont care for high heels, but i dont get the kind of “fashion cracks” that were being made about them. like yes, high heels can be hard to move in? yeah, it isnt fun being turned into the appearance of someone who isnt you against your will? i just dont understand this gag.

guitar villain

did ladybug really honestly just full-on spray someone in the face with the contents of an aerosol can? im aware that the point was that the hair was in front of his face, but what if some had gotten into guitar villains eyes? dang, what if someone tries to emulate this in real life? ouch.

digital/numeric

kind of done with the spotlight on stalking behavior this show has.

marinette still shows no fear of suspicious screens. she continues to use parts of her face to touch one multiple times, never mind that she literally flings her yoyo all over the place.

stoneheart/coeur de pierre i

did marinette have pierced ears in the first place? shes not shown taking any earrings out, and we dont get that clear a view of her earlobes anyway. that might be deliberate for modeling budget and all.

master fu has brown eyes. so thats like four ~chinese~ characters that are in this show, and the main character and her mother have the special eye colors, and the minor character who is somewhat important to the plotline has non-black eyes, and the minor one-episode character has the black eyes. what a shining example of diversity (no).

anyway this is a good point to say that some things are just not for you. there are things that you just cant be a part of no matter how much you want to be because it just doesnt work that way. and the mess that is the miraculous “mythology” is definitely an example of this. i myself have very little knowledge of anything sino, but i sure as heck can spot that this...”history” thing is so off.

at this point i should probably mention i really dislike master fu as a character in general. just as a single point, apparently hes based off the teacher character in karate kid? i saw somewhere that the creator said he basically made marinette mixed because he was dating an asian person when he was thinking about the show and that marinette is basically his idea of their mixed kid? and back to the eye color thing (again), ive even seen someone with green eyes and blue hair suggest to him that they could be the child of marinette and adrien, and he said theyre like his grandchild? (im not really inclined to try to dig up an iron-clad, indisputably genuine source for this right now, but if youre honestly searching for completely serious, well-researched information in a really good quality post, this is not the post you are looking for.) i have no idea where i was even going with this paragraph.

stoneheart/coeur de pierre ii

why is marinette so invested in her crush on adrien? this couldve been a sweet crush, but no, she has to make it so creepy? leading up to this episode, i really didnt know what to expect because i really thought there would be some sort of explanation for just how extreme the lengths marinette goes to are, but from what i can tell, shes just being super invasive? the ambiguous timeline doesnt really help with this, nor does the fact that the origins episodes were aired at the end of the season. whatever characterization was supposed to be inferred from this feels choppy and unnecessary.

simon says/jackady/jacques a dit

i dont really blame her, but ladybug totally could have reduced the level of adrien distractedness going on here. shes previously shown signs of compartmentalizing ladybug and even having to face the fact that it isnt worth using up her power over adrien, but gosh golly, what gives?

princess/princesse fragrance

ive seen criticisms of how ladybug was written to be overly competent in this episode, which i think is fair since it keeps happening, and its so late in the season by this point that its gotten tired.

volpina

i try not to be too judgmental, but frankly, adrien is not that great of a prize.

anyway, from what i can tell about this episode, i think that there was too much on marinettes flaws, which i really think is a bit much to have in the last chronological episode of a season. its already been established that she makes mistakes with her decisions, but i just thought her unequal prioritization of adrien was too much. it just seemed contrived to squeeze in scenes that the creators wanted to animate regardless of overall context in the show, which is really unfortunate because of how the show becomes a little less chronologically ambiguous at this point.

#lt #kung food #this is a 'kung food' hate blog #wall of text #really long post with low readability #racism text mention (a lot of it)#transmisogyny text mention

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