#invalid argument

[allastoredeer]

Ya know what's odd to me? That vast majority of hazbin/helluva ships have the taller partner bottom anyway. HuskerDust, Stolitz, Chaggie, StaticMoth, even CherrySnake! So, what's the hang up on Alastor not being allowed to be the pillow-prince he was always meant to be? Or, more specifically, why the insistence under Bottom!Alastor posts that "he would never"?

The man needs that break from stress and responsibilities or he'd go on more rampages!

And, like, here's the thing. When people say they can't "see" Alastor bottoming. Cool, that's fine. Not everyone is going to see a character in the same way, nor should they. You're allowed to have your preferences.

It's when they say he "would never" that it starts getting on my nerves.

He would never bottom? Never? Well, my permit here says otherwise.

[cookierunkingdomoffical]

Bear bod cacao propaganda

I don’t see none.

[buggachat]

honestly just in general it's very exhausting to try to analyze media that is literally meant to be analyzed, only for the replies to be filled with people arguing not against your analysis, but against the premise that the media can be analyzed at all.

i don't even know what to say about it without starting to really betray my frustration, so i'll just settle with— just don't engage with analysis posts? I'm serious. if you're typing a response to a media analysis post, reread what you've written and ask yourself "is this comment/response against the very concept of analyzing the media at all?" and if the answer is yes then delete it all and go sit in the shame corner. throw your curtains away if you want to so bad and stop telling me that I'm not allowed to hum and haw at the fact mine are blue

[ellifromspace]

these are the murderbot artworks Tommy Arnold did for the Subterranean Press omnibus editions of the series, and a photo of Kevin R. Free, who narrates the murderbot audiobooks. when fans complain about the casting for the tv show, there is a very real basis for it in these past official/canonical aspects of the book series

[aarbeaz]

"Friends don't lie"

"But boyfriends do"

(Max to Eleven in Season 3)

Stranger Things has now introduced the idea of boyfriends lying. Mike in Season 4 does not want to say "I love you" to Eleven because it would be a lie. Will lies to Mike about the painting.

Are you seeing where I'm going with this

[lyculuscaelus]

So lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts asking people to stop trying to make Odysseus look nice in their works cuz he’s a “messed-up person in the mythology”. Your opinion is valid however I have but one thing to point out:

You want to know who started all this? Who started to “make Odysseus look nice” in the first place?

It’s Homer. It’s nobody else but Homer himself.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would try to murder people out of his own interests. He’d murder Palamedes without remorse (and we’d be cheering over this but it’s a murder after all), he’d attempt to murder Diomedes just to get the Palladium himself, he’d volunteer to kill Astyanax…meanwhile you wouldn’t find any mention of either Palamedes or Nauplius in Homer’s poems, neither did he mention anything abt the Palladium heist (and Diomedes necessity did not happen until Conon’s version), the death of Astyanax, the distribution of war prizes, etc. And all the details in the Odyssey seemed to deny the existence of Nauplius’s vengeance at all, so Odysseus would not take any of the blame.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be depicted as “cruel, treacherous”, meanwhile in book 10 of the Iliad Odysseus was not mentioned to have killed anyone during the marauding, neither did he promise Dolan anything at all. The negative interpretations are denied by these details subtly put by Homer.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be widely known as a “coward” for only shooting arrows from afar. But Homer gave him a spear and had him absolutely slaying in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. That part of Ajax’s speech was invalid already.

Most importantly—a non-Homeric Odysseus would be having kids everywhere else, and the loyalty to his own wife as seen in the Odyssey is no where to be found. Meanwhile his lineage was a single-son line made by Zeus in the Odyssey, and his love for Penelope was one of his main drives, especially seen in book 5 of the Odyssey. He loved his family as a loving parent—something you don’t get to see in most of the non-Homeric writings—for most of the time they followed a different tradition indeed, in which Odysseus wasn’t half as nice as in the Odyssey.

TL;DR: in case you haven’t noticed, the characterization of the Homeric Odysseus was quite different from a non-Homeric version of Odysseus. It’s not that Homer didn’t know of the existence of other versions—he knew them too well, which is why in his version of the story, you don’t get to see any mention of them.

[glitter-stained]

Some Bruce & Batfam fans Jason antis will be like "emotions and affect shouldn't cloud your judgement killing is wrong!" and then rank Jason beating Tim up or kidnapping Mia higher in their list of his worse offences than the duffle bag of doom

[kaontic]

Starscream asked me to post this:

Just after he left, Megatron asked me to post this:

And thus, the TF Multiverse’s balance had been restored.

[assiraphales]

“shipping luffy with zoro is weird because luffy is ace” what if I headcanon zoro as ace too. what u gonna do now

[weregonnabecoolbeans]

Captain America: Civil War pisses me off so much. (I know i just said i love this movie and i do but man it pisses me off)

Like what do you mean you want to hand over control to the people who’s *in the words of the great Nick Fury* stupid ass decision was to NUKE NEW YORK in response to Loki’s attack

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

See, I think Charles’ annoyance and frustration with the Cat King really was just pure protectiveness and not any kind of jealousy - it’s understandable, because Edwin is not telling him what happened even though something clearly did, which is not typical for them. Edwin doesn’t usually hide things like this! Of course he’s worried!

Charles’ reaction to Monty, on the other hand, is difficult to explain in a way that isn’t jealousy. You could say he’s being protective again, but Charles shows no sign of distrust in Monty, and had no idea of who Monty was or that he might betray them - he was actually very chill with him, except in a select few specific scenes. You could say he just doesn’t like him because he got brushed off during their first meeting, but not only does that not seem like Charles at all, it also doesn’t make sense, since, again, in most instances, Charles is genuinely friendly and is happy when Monty compliments him and seems to have come around to liking him (it completely flies over his head that this is a petty jab at Edwin on Monty’s part but oh well hahaha). You could say it changes up their status quo a bit and that bothers Charles. I do think this bothers him a bit, but I think, unlike Edwin, Charles’ fear and frustration here is directed more at situations (the Cat King whisking him away for several hours, as an example) than others. He’s sociable and likes being able to talk to new people. There’s absolutely no way he’d begrudge Edwin doing the same - and he doesn’t… with Niko. Edwin and Niko hit it off and become very close and that never bothers Charles at all. He’s incredibly endeared to her, just like the rest, and for the most part, he’s chill with Monty too, and smiles pretty knowingly when Edwin confesses to him having awakened some feelings. The only exceptions, where he shows definite annoyance, are when Monty first shows up and gets really in Edwin’s personal space to show him the astrology chart he made, and when Edwin is so sucked into the book Monty gave him that he doesn’t hear that Charles is talking to him, to which he annoyedly says that they seem to have been “spending a lot of time together”.

You could say he’s unused to having anyone get in Edwin’s personal space like that, but, again, Niko. She’s very tactile with him and he doesn’t seem to mind all that much; they spend time together watching things. If it was just someone getting close with Edwin in general, not only would that be weirdly possessive for the character, but it would also mean he would show discomfort with anyone getting close, I think. Does Charles see Monty as more of a potential threat than Niko, seeing as he knows her and her personality and doesn’t know Monty? Well, maybe, but again, Charles shows no sign of distrusting Monty at all.

Monty is a boy. Okay. So something about seeing Edwin so close to a boy that is not him, getting lost in thought over something this boy gave him, really rubs Charles the wrong way. Charles appears to catch on just as quickly as anyone else that there is something (or it looks like something) between Edwin and Monty. He is not surprised when Edwin comes out to him in episode 6, and in fact, seems to have just been waiting for him to verbalize it. He smiles and is not bothered at all by Edwin showing (what he thinks is) a romantic interest in Monty - he just doesn’t like it when Monty clearly shows a romantic interest in Edwin. Um. Well. Well.

Charles is jealous. I really don’t know what else to say.

Look, when I first watched this show, I actually didn’t want them to end up together romantically - I love the idea of one having fallen in love with another who does not reciprocate and the two of them still loving each other just as much. That Edwin’s confession made them closer instead of making things awkward is such a beautiful outcome to this build up and I absolutely love it. However. On my two rewatches, I caught a lot more little details, and I think it would be very strange if the show did not follow up on this. That, plus the deliberate quality of these “jealousy” moments where the camera focuses on him, Charles’ Orpheus coding throughout the show, the fact that Edwin’s arc was far more about realizing his feelings for Charles specifically than just coming to terms with his sexuality, and that even the actors admit that Charles’ response to the confession kind of left things open, it really seems to me like the path leads to a romantic endgame for them, or at the very least, that this possibility will be explored in more depth.

**This is just my reading of it. Please do not use this post as a gotcha for anyone who loves them as a platonic duo or people who really love Crystal and Charles together (because let’s face it, they’re super cute too). I’m just doing my rambles. As per usual.

[smartzelda]

Sorry guys I gotta speak my truth on this one

I'm not kidding when I say that I think that blaming shit media literacy from fans on shipping/shippers avoids the actual root of the problem to throw people you can easily throw under the bus (simply because it's not unpopular to consider people who post about ships or ship characters in media as having lesser or derivative tastes by default)

And here's why.

I think when you blame people who are "shippers" or "consume media through shipping lenses", the true root of it all is a mindset problem.

In actually, putting on shipping lenses can be helpful when trying to analyze a piece of media. When analyzing media you're supposed to approach it through a number of mindsets and put on different lenses (both to deepen your personal understanding of the media, and to pick it apart and see what you can find there (whether intentional or not on the author's part)), and different ships can be some of those lenses

When it comes to ships between main characters (for those who are genuinely willing to see what the narrative is showing with their relationship and what it's doing), there are times when analyzing it from a shipping lens may be helpful. As someone from KH fandom, I have seen people come to deeper understandings and pick canon apart in the process of analyzing a relationship that is genuinely integral to the story (platonic or not). I've also seen people get into rarepairs of characters who barely interact or who just suffer little screen time, and I've seen them come to better understandings of those side characters and how they potentially fit into the world of the media simply because people are now focusing on these characters and how they fit into the narrative.

Frankly, I resent the idea that the only way to truly objectively analyze a piece of media is by turning off the part of your brain that gets excited over relationships and individual characters. Don't get me wrong, that is a way to approach a piece of media and a valid one at that, but the truth is that we cannot be free of bias.

For instance, I was watching House MD with my parents circa last year. At some point I started heavily tuning into what was going on with House and Wilson's relationship. My parents, on the other hand, were largely watching casually. They're not thinking of character relationships or getting heavily invested in most characters, they're watching because they like watching. One of them in particular did try to analyze things that were happening in the show as they happened. However, when it came to the scene late in the series where House threw out Dominika's letter approving her American citizenship, my parents could understand that he was doing that because he didn't want her to leave, but not much beyond that. I ended up explaining to them that House's fake marriage for Dominika was an explicit parallel to when Wilson was living with House in the early seasons. Both situations started with House being none too happy about it but ultimately letting them stay, spending a considerable amount of effort getting them to leave/getting this situation to be finally over so he didn't have to deal with it anymore, and then by the time a piece of news comes through that would mean the person in question actually leaves, House hides this news as long as he can. Because he doesn't actually want them to leave and has grown attached. And by doing this he became a self fulfilling prophecy. By reacting to the truth of Wilson and Dominika leaving him the way he does, he seals his fate and they ultimately leave anyways. Maybe I ship Hilson, but becoming open to how their relationship was handled allowed me to transition to doing character studies and recognizing patterns/parallels that I wouldn't have noticed if I didn't particularly care about the characters or their relationship.

Likewise, I've seen mutuals complain about how people who don't like or don't care about certain characters often overlook these characters (what they're actually like and their place in the narrative), while the mutuals in question (by default) are able to come to deeper understanding of what the writers/story is trying to do because they care about this funky guy

You can't eradicate bias when you're engaging in media analysis, but you can consciously put on a range of lenses and observe the media through different povs with the goal of understanding the media better or bolstering your reading of it. And those lenses/povs can include focusing on specific relationships or the perpective of certain characters

And this is why I say it's actually a mindset problem. Shippers and people who have this one blorbo they like a lot aren't inherently terrible "fandom brained individuals" who are the root of media analysis problems. The problem only arises when people's readings/analysis of a piece of media are inherently restrictive/narrow and self centered. Your problem is with people who view a piece of media through a ship they like but don't keep an open mind about it, and whose "media analysis"/views on canon cannot be split from fanon and their comfortability levels. These are the people whose "media analysis" starts and ends with justifying their fanon as canon, whose views on media revolve around sorting characters and relationships into categories they personally enjoy rather than trying to understand what's going on.

Here's another example.

Here we have a fictional ship we'll call uhhhh...Blanebin. this fictional ship I made up on the spot for characters that don't exist named Blane and Corbin

Person A is super into Blanebin. They're part of the main cast of characters and canonically childhood best friends, so person A (as much as they enjoy fanart and fic) is also enjoying analyzing how narratively important to each other they are. Recently, Corbin started dating another character in canon, but Person A is enjoying watching how Blane is reacting to this. "Is this potentially a tell that Blane is jealous or is having complicated feelings about this? What if he was, how would that contextualize his behavior this season? Here's what I think based on how Blane dealt with explicit jealousy last season in a different situation". It's not impossible that person A is still missing further understanding due to their obsession with Blanebin, but at the end of the day this obsession has allowed them to start picking through the characters both in and outside this relationship. It has allowed them to see potential subtext and theorize on what might happen next with these characters' relationship. Not to mention that with addition of Corbin dating someone else, instead of trying to erase this fact or state that Corbin canonically isn't into that person, Person A is trying to factor in how Corbin's current dating life affects his relationship with Blane (irregardless on personal views on the nature of Corbin's relationship with the person he's dating).

Person B is also super into Blanebin. They really enjoy fanart and fic of the characters, love obsessing over their moments together, and just feel like there's really something between the characters. To person B, every moment between them is just further proof that the writers are ship teasing them. But Corbin getting together with someone else this season? Oh that pissed person B off. They cannot believe that even though Corbin and Blane are CLEARLY gay for each other the writers had Corbin get with someone else this season. Perhaps, they think, it was even a decision specifically made to spite fans. How evil of the writers to tease a perfectly good ship and then have them not get together first? They must have been just doing those teases to get views from Blanebin shippers those scoundrels. To Person B, since Corbin started dating someone when he obviously has some chemistry with Blane (even though the series is far from over) means that Blanebin can never get together now and Corbin x person he's dating is ruining Blanebin by existing. In fact, they think, this is terrible writing for Corbin to be dating someone else because they don't like that relationship and don't see the point. Obviously if the writers were good then Corbin would have started dating Blane instead because this was supposed to be the Blanebin show.

Person C despises Blanebin. Don't get them wrong, they've always enjoyed the character's childhood friendship, but they actually have always thought Blane would have been better off with Victoria. They have a lot of moments too! But they're tired of seeing people ship Blanebin. Corbin just got together with someone else, so obviously that's not gonna work out. Plus Corbin and Blane totally has always given person C bro vibes. In fact, person C thinks, sure Corbin and Blane have a close friendship, but people shouldn't be shipping them. Person C likes Blanetoria and Blanetoria can't be canon if Corbin is in the way of it. So Person C likes to read Blanebin as siblings anyways. Sure they're canonically friends, but obviously their friendship turned into brotherhood. This means that nothing can be in the way of Blanetoria and Corbin can keep dating the person he's already canonically dating. Actually, now Blanebin just straight up makes Person C uncomfortable. Don't the pesky shippers understand that Blanebin are sibling coded because they're childhood best friends and that they're important to each other because they're brothers? It's obvious to anyone with eyes.

Sure, ships are involved here, but is the root of this problem shipping? Character A isn't as knowledgeable of other characters in the plot due to this lens they're using, but at the end of the day they're dedicated to analysis. Their love of the characters is pushing them beyond what they like or dislike to try to understand what might be happening through their lens. Not perfect, but they are slowly broadening their horizons. But Person B and C's problems here are their restrictiveness. What is or should be canon to them is tantamount to what they personally like or find comfortable. Is person C actually analyzing the this fake show when they decide to "read" Blanebin as basically canonically siblings (and this all of their moments are totally a bro thing) just because they don't like Blanebin and the idea of them getting together over Blanetoria makes them uncomfortable? Is person B actually analyzing this fake show when their "analysis" of Blanebin goes only as far as asserting it's being ship teased and deciding anything short of canonizing Blanebin is a targeted attack or "bad writing" because it's not what they wanted personally to happen?

This is what I'm talking about. This is the mindset. Shipping isn't the problem. The problem is when people marry fanon and canon to the point where they have a vested interest in superimposing their fanon over canon as "a reading" and trying to make "collective decisions" on what is canon (or what canon is trying to say) based on what does or doesn't make them uncomfortable. The problem is people being restrictive and centering their own likes and dislikes in the conversation, so they can only interact with canon "analysis" wise by deciding what is canon or should be canon "as obviously agreed on by everyone". You can't simply claim you like media analysis. To be able to analyze media and bolster your views on any given canon, you must be open to looking at it through multiple povs, to studying characters without trying to pretend things you don't like don't exist or do like do exist. There is a balance that must be kept between trying to keep objectivity and putting on specific focus/bias based upon the lenses you're putting on. You have to be willing to try to figure out what a media is doing or saying, not saying you're trying to figure out what it's saying while in actuality trying to define the narrative around what people believe it's saying in ways that suit you.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[azems-familiar]

truly is there anything that beats a tank/healer couple

drawn by my dear friend nimrowen!

[nightclawduke]

[karenandhenwilson]

You know what's infantilizing Buck?

Assuming that somehow he thought Eddie came back to LA to stay and therefore needed to be protected from the oh so harsh reality of Eddie potentially returning to El Paso.

Buck accepted that Eddie wouldn't come back to LA when he actually started living in the house that was once Eddie's and is now his. He even said as much to Maddie when he talked with her. That he didn't start making it his own home because it would mean accepting that reality. To then show him accepting that reality only minutes later.

Buck knew Eddie was just there for a visit, was just there for the funeral. Eddie has a house in El Paso after all. His son has all his life in El Paso and uprooting Chris a second time in the span of a year would be pretty horrible parenting.

Assuming Buck isn't aware of all of that and needs in fact to be protected from the truth is infantilizing him.

Being outraged over his supposed best friend getting aggressive with him and then love-bombing him instead of apologizing for his horrible behavior is not infantilizing Buck.

On the other hand, saying that Eddie isn't responsible for his actions because of his grief is infantilizing Eddie.

[hoofpeet]

-might get kicked out for unrelated reasons (HOA) But small look at the landlord situation. Landlord emailed us some legal documents earlier- which included an admission that he's been getting the rent checks (which he was previously claiming we weren't paying and citing as his grounds for eviction) - as well as documentation of two other instances of attempted extortion.... I've lost the plot completely at this point