#so much of their criticism boils down to

[coolguycy]

oh my god i love seeing people having the worst takes and bad faith criticism on the things i enjoy. it is. so fun.

semi rant in tags

[sampegger]

certain deangirls just frustrate me so bad. like. the ones who insist with their entire chest that dean loves sam more than sam loves him. even just talking early seasons. to see sam leaving for stanford as a betrayal to dean and proof that he loves him less is so. him leaving for college wasn't about dean. it was about wanting something better for himself than what hunting had to offer. him being able to want something more for himself than what he had with dean and john is not a betrayal. to claim that sams ability to endure misery is directly correlated with how much he loves someone is cruel and a terrible perspective to have on any relationship.

and in season 4, to claim that he chose a demon over his own brother while in the midst of having an active addiction problem, and to take that and make it about his loyalty to DEAN is so. that is so biased and evil. you should not see sams violation of his own autonomy as a betrayal to dean. i know the show likes to think they do in the later seasons but the choices sam makes do not all have to center around dean, and that still doesn't mean he loves him any less! viewing it through that type of lens will certainly make it look like he does, but that is objectively the wrong way to interpret any of sams arcs.

when it comes to season 8 i'll say a lot of the same stuff i said about sam leaving for stanford in the first place. while yes i do think him not looking for dean was slightly out of character, it is still unbelievably cruel to think of sams ability to endure pain and claim it marks the level of which he loves someone. especially when he takes on the trials this season, and the entire narrative thrown on sam is his newfound notion that pain purges sin. to have that level of misery thrown in your face (these trials are purifying me) and still insist that if sam is actively fighting against something that is making him miserable (staying in hunting) it's proof he never loved dean that much anyways is awful!!! and that whole "non-agreement" line in which bobby says that he and dean promising not to look for each other was just something that was said and it should've been obvious he was meant to look for dean. don't even get me started.

season 9 is the last season that i think people use as evidence for this. sams claim that he "wouldn't do the same thing for dean." and really. i guess i don't expect dean letting gadreel possess sam to be seen in any other light at this point. sam said he wouldn't have done the same thing for dean because he literally wouldn't have!!! there is nothing that can properly convey the absolute level of violation that that was, especially when sams entire storyline is about his struggle for autonomy. it was a selfish decision on deans end, as is most of the way that he loves sam. it is just so frustrating to see this arcs that revolve specifically around sam turned into evidence of how much he does or doesn't love dean, because that is literally the opposite of what they're about.

i could move onto later seasons as well and talk about how dean is outwardly abusive in them, but that would just be dean slander and that's not what i'm trying to do. the entire point of this post is that tying all of sams decisions to how much he loves dean is wrong and you fundamentally miss the entire point of sam as a character if you view the story through that lens.

sam's ability to endure misery is not directly correlated with his ability to love.

[buginacup]

One of the best perks from being a professional monster designer for the past few years is being able to completely disregard pokemon (as well as other monster game) criticism that feels innacurate. Rather than let it live in my head I can just be like: "Wrong. Evidence: this is my job."

It helps that Pokemon is a wildly popular thing with an ever growing anti-fanbase of haters who love misdiagnosing problems into convenient culture war idealogues. A lot of very easy-to-shoot-down takes.

[bandtrees]

Annoying fandom people when you tell them characters do things based on writers’ decisions and biases and are not fully autonomous sapient beings they’re watching in a terrarium

[sad-endings-suck]

Blue Eye Samurai: regarding Mizu’s “plot armour” or her “ridiculously over-powered” abilities.

“Mizu is way too overpowered, it doesn’t make sense.”

I feel like a lot of people don’t realize just how much the mind over matter mentality plays a roll in Mizu’s “abilities”. Mizu isn’t the best because she’s physically the strongest, or had the best training, or the most experience, or whatever. Mizu is the best because she has single-minded focus and immense tenacity that borders on psychotic due to how intensely dedicated to revenge she has been for almost all of her life. All the years she spent training, all the time she spends taking out enemies, she is being driven by single minded focus and iron willed determination that never wavers. She has been sharpening and honing not just her body, but her mind, for exactly this. She has dedicated her entire life to her quest for vengeance, and in her own words, there is no room in it for anything else.

People also seem to be making a lot of assumptions about what kind of training and how much training Mizu has or has not had. As the audience, we’ve only been shown bits and pieces of Mizu’s past, which includes her experience learning martial arts. Asking shit like “how is she so good with a sword if she’s only self taught?” is like asking “how can she read and write if Master Eiji is blind?”. The answer is that Mizu has obviously learnt these things from more than one source, but documenting her entire education in detail doesn’t exactly serve a purpose to the narrative. We are explicitly shown in one of Mizu’s flashbacks that she’s been practicing with a wooden sparring sword since she was very young. It’s actually her child self that we see in that brief particular flashback. Not her teen/tween self, her child self. She’s also following the movements and instructions of an older man that is clearly a skilled samurai or warrior of some kind based on context (which y’all love to ignore). Besides, who else would want/need a sword from a master sword-maker besides an expert swordsman? How many skilled fighters from all over Japan have come to Master Eiji’s forge hoping for a blade, and wait with nothing better to do but train while their blade is being made? How many of them have divulged information about certain fighting styles (like Shindo-Ryu, which Mizu was familiar with despite never having been to the dojo before). Or practiced around her and with her? We are clearly shown through Mizu’s flashbacks that receiving training from a visiting client has not been unusual for her throughout her apprenticeship with Master Eiji, and her little spar with Blood Soaked Chiaki was no one time event. Yet Mizu is never given the benefit of the doubt by the audience, despite context clues indicating that she should be.

“Taigen has way more training in an actual dojo, so why is Mizu better?”

Whereas Taigen, while he was determined to become more than just a fisherman’s son and was driven to rise through the ranks of the Dojo and become a skilled samurai, did not have that same desire or determination to hone every part of himself to be the most deadly weapon he could possibly be, like Mizu did. Taigen believes in the samurai code of honor and upholds it in his own way (preventing him from learning how to “fight dirty” so to speak) and he also had a life outside of his training (he had a social life, he drank, he partied, he snuck around a lot to see Akemi presumably, etc). In fact, we actually never see Taigen practice, train, learn, hone his skills, or anything (to my recollection) throughout the whole season, until he’s bested by Mizu in combat. I’m assuming Taigen had to work quite hard for several years to become as good as he is, but I get the sense that ever since he has been regarded as a prodigy he has allowed himself to get cocky and maybe a bit too comfortable. He has always been the best and always thought himself to be the best, so he never needed to give 150% effort when he fought. In fact, as he got older and more practiced, and it became more and more apparent how much better he was than everyone else, he probably stopped giving his 110% and allowed himself to get a bit comfortable putting in 100% effort, and then eventually 80% effort (which is part of the reason why I think he’s so pissed he lost to Mizu in their first fight, because he knows he could have done better: been less cocky, been more tactical, more driven, etc).

We also never see Taigen meditate or mentally or physically prepare himself the way we do with Mizu. Mizu will pray before a major upcoming battle, not because she’s religious, but because she’s mentally, emotionally, and spiritually preparing herself. We even see Mizu submerge herself in very cold ocean water (during the winter mind you) as a ritual/practice of sorts that serves to center herself and prepare mentally and physically for what’s ahead when she feels herself getting “too emotional” or too stressed or unfocused or even just slightly off kilter. Mizu sacrifices every part of her life, so that she can be the deadliest version of herself possible. She has no social life. She has no friends, or significant others (Mikio aside). She has no other activities to participate in, because she’s been completely alienated and thus being anything but the best is not an option in her mind because she has no options. She tried married life. She had the best possible life that she could have had as a biracial woman in Edo era Japan. She did as she was told by her “mother”. She showed her true self to Mikio, just as he desired. Yet the blood and vengeance still caught up with her. She has no other options anymore. Pursuing revenge is the only thing she knows how to do, because every other avenue in life has been cut off from her. So she has to be single-mindedly focused on her vengeance, which means being as skilled and as dangerous as she can possibly be. She has no hobbies or jobs or responsibilities beyond sword-making (which allows her to become as familiar with the blade as possible) and training herself. If she has extra time, she uses it to practice, to train, to improve, to simply maintain peak performance. Such as when she was hacking through those trees in episode 2. Afterwards, we see Taigen attempt to replicate her training (by cutting down trees with his sword). Though even then, it was more about curiosity and trying to suss out Mizu so he could gauge her skill level, then it was about actually honing his own abilities (until episode 3 when he practices with Chiaki’s broken blade). Which does count as training in its own way (assessing your enemy), but my point still stands. Taigen does not have the same unwavering focus and force of will that Mizu does (partially because he does not actually want to kill Mizu, as we do see Taigen go cold blooded with focus when he kills Heiji Shindo, but those are whole other discussions).

“Mizu just has ridiculous plot armour, that’s the real reason she survives every encounter.”

I feel like people that think Mizu has ridiculous plot armour are just not at all familiar with the Samurai or Western/Cowboy sub-genres at all, or even action as an overarching genre on its own. I don’t believe I have ever engaged in a single piece of action media in which the protagonist didn’t have “plot armour” in some way. Basically half of all male protagonists from any and all modern western action movies ever, have been way too over-powered and been able to take a ridiculous amount of damage that should have killed them multiple times over. These action heroes (who in western media are almost always cis-het white men) have ridiculous plot armour in the most classic sense. Yet no one complains when it’s a white man. Only when it’s a queer-coded biracial woman of colour. Shocking.

In fact, you could argue that every main character in every fictional story ever told has plot armour to a certain degree, because having an entire narrative revolve around one character is inherently “unrealistic” and therefore the main character has plot armour, yes? No? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Oh, and on the topic of the samurai genre specifically (and many martial arts based action media) there are certain genre specific tropes that are nearly integral to the genre. One of the most prominent being the samurai/ronin/warrior/martial arts master that is “ridiculously over powered”. It’s literally part of the genre. In fact, the western/cowboy genre is quite similar to the classic samurai genre. Now, how many westerns have you watched in which Clint Eastwood or John Wayne shoot 5+ guys with one pistol before any of the guys they shoot even get a shot off? A lot I bet. Is that not the definition of “over-powered” and “unrealistic”? Or is it just a genre trope, or even perhaps, a genre staple? No one thinks Arthur Morgan (Red Dead Redemption 2) is over-powered. No one thinks that Joel (The Last of Us) is over-powered. In fact, when the TLOU show came out, people actually complained that Joel, the fifty-something year old man that has been living in a post apocalyptic wasteland for 20 years, was not badass or strong enough (he kills dozens of humans and super zombies and he’s legally a senior). So, who is the “judge” of what is and is not realistic in action media that borders on sci-fi/fantasy based on how “over-powered” the protagonists “realistically” are?

“It’s just weird that Mizu is so powerful when other characters within the story are not. It makes Mizu such a Mary Sue.”

Okay… so, with all that in mind, let’s circle back to where I started when referring to Mizu as someone driven by unwavering determination, and how that affects her “abilities”. That facet of her personality and motivation is nothing new when it comes to the action genre, especially for protagonists of revenge storylines. Think of Kill Bill or John Wick. Why does John or the Bride keep going and keep winning even when they are constantly getting injured and always fighting. Is it because they are simply that much better than everyone else? Yes and no. No, because they are not superheroes (technically), but also yes. Because their single minded determination and need for revenge drives them to push that much harder than anyone else on their skill level. They are the best, but they win against everyone else that is also “the best” because they want it more. They need it more. Mind over matter. They are willing to endure what others are not through sheer will and pure cold rage. Mizu, Beatrice Kiddo, John Wick, and so many more similar protagonists in action-revenge narratives don’t keep winning and keep getting back up no matter how inured they get because they are just “that much stronger and more talented than everyone else”. Yes, they are extremely skilled and would probably be one of the strongest and most deadly combatants/killers in their respective universes regardless… but their refined skill and raw talent and power are not the only reason they win. Their unwavering force of will, extreme determination, ice cold fury, and single-minded focus on revenge is what drive them to be that much tougher. Their tenacity is their superpower. They want to win more than their opponent does. They need to win, because this is their one and only goal in life as of now. Mizu (Blue Eye Samurai) Beatrice (Kill Bill), John (John Wick), they all share a philosophy in life when it comes to their revenge, which basically boils down to “Either I kill you, or I die trying. There is no middle ground, there is no negotiating, no other choice, no path of least resistance, no other goal or motivation. You will die, because I ain’t fucking dying until you do.”

Mizu doesn’t have plot armour and she’s not over-powered. She is an archetypical protagonist of the action-revenge narrative and the samurai/western genre as well. She arguably even has better reason to be completing the feats that she does than John Wick or The Bride, because the medium of Blue Eye Samurai is animation and not live action, and the genre borders on magical realism far more than Kill Bill or John Wick. Now, how many anime protagonists (probably almost all male) can you think of that are “ridiculously over-powered” especially compared to any live action counterparts, but no one complains about it? Why does no one complain about it (aside from misogyny)? Because the medium of animation inherently has different “rules”, expectations, and set standards for suspension of disbelief, than the medium of live action film or television. For example, is it ridiculous and unrealistic when you’re watching a Looney Tunes cartoon and Bugs Bunny’s legs pinwheel in super-speed for 3 seconds straight before he starts running, or when he runs off a ledge and gravity just lets him hang there for a sec so he can look straight at the camera before he falls? No, it’s not “unrealistic” or emersion breaking, not even a little, but why? Is it because any of those things seem even remotely probable or “realistic”? Of course not! It’s perfectly acceptable because the medium, genre, target audience, atmosphere, art/animation style, narrative choice, storytelling style, and more, have all established that Bugs Bunny defying physics is normal in Looney Tunes, and therefore not a “plot-hole” or “unrealistic”. In fact, if Bugs Bunny or Tom and Jerry didn’t defy physics in ridiculous ways all the time, then it feels far stranger and off-beat than if they did. Same goes for pretty much all action anime. If the characters in those stories were strictly limited to what is 100% humanly possible in real life, most of those animes wouldn’t even have storylines anymore. They’d be turned into completely different content that may be unrecognizable from the original source material. Or wouldn’t even have any material anymore because all the characters would be dead after their first fight scene. So why is Blue Eye Samurai being held to a different standard?

Now, do y’all get it yet?

[imminent-danger-came]

continue being a little mean to toh fans please it is really irritating how some act like its got the best writing of any modern cartoon

Daawwwww I don't have it in me. TOH fans love it for a reason, and there are legitimately good moments! It's just not the most complex or well-written show out there—which it doesn't need to be—but I also totally get your exhaustion. It gets tiring seeing people praise it so highly over and over again when it's just like...fine. It didn't do nothing but it also didn't do something, you know? It's main couple is cute and queer, but that's pretty much all there is to them. It has a fun cast of characters, but they all tend to fall into archetypes. Luz is a sweet main character, but she doesn't have any real flaws and kinda takes a back seat to Hunter and Eda (the white people lol). Her foil with Philip was interesting...but then they kinda backed off and went the "you and Belos are nothing alike" direction.

((I'm also going to answer this anon with another: ))

And It's not that an unsympathetic villian is bad, or that Belos would even be sympathetic with added backstory, it's just that...there were a lot of interesting things to explore with his character that were left hanging.

Like, while he's definitely not at all a good person, it's intriguing that he would bother to recreate his brother over and over again knowing that each time the grimwalker was going to betray him. It's intriguing that he was even willing to kill his brother to begin with (though Caleb was super underutilized in general). Like, you can give a villain depth without justifying or victimizing them (hi Finnegran from tdp, I'll also add Spider Queen & LBD here). So it just feels like a missed opportunity all across the board. It's still surprising to me that we got a confirmation on the Wittebane backstory through an unrelated background character, rather than Philip himself (who had literally possessed a main character, and mindscapes had already been well-established....the pieces were all there me thinks).

And obviously it's like, people can love something despite it's flaws, and they can cherish it for the good it has, but they still don't need to praise it as an ultimate form of media, you know? We don't need to pretend toh was this dark and complex story—it was just a story a lot of people liked and resonated with. Which I'm glad it's there for those people, and I'm glad there are options when it comes to queer pieces of media!

That said the show with the best writing of any modern cartoon is The Dragon Prince (streaming on Netflix).

[emeraldspiral]

Jhonen Vasquez makes a show designed around his own unique artsyle, which was notoriously difficult for animators to learn, and everyone praises it for the effort and creative ambition Jhonen and his team put toward realizing his artistic vision.

A woman makes two shows designed around her own unique artsyle, heavily inspired by Jhonen, and people constantly screech about how horrible she is for “making” people draw her wretched, “animator unfriendly” designs. Or even better, unironically proclaim it “cringe” for her to be clearly influenced by Invader Zim, not because they think Invader Zim itself is bad or cringe, but because liking it apparently is.

[soleminisanction]

War Games hot take? 👀

Mm. I still need to muddle it over for a while before it turns into anything significant, but it boils down to, I honestly think that people who discard the event entirely when it comes to Steph's characterization are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

As in, I'd actually argue that it's one of the better Steph stories based on character writing alone -- death scene and all. It would've been better without that dictated plot point and there's NO justifying some of the art choices made (those torture sequences are frankly disgusting and never should've seen print), but in terms of how they're scripted? The writing's far from perfect, it'd have been better if they hadn't made her motivation for the whole thing "wanting to get Batman's attention" and stuck with something a little more in-character like trying to spitefully one-up him, but...

I feel like it's the only story that really digs into the narrative forces that drive her, or had driven her up to that point, divorced from specific external elements like her dad and her boyfriend. Things like the conflict between her unflagging self-confidence and the frustration caused by the perception that she's not progressing as fast/accepted as much as those she considers her peers, the tunnel vision she can develop when it comes to things that she wants and the obsessive lengths she'll go to to achieve her goals, her tendency to rush recklessly into situation without considering the potential fallout, and so on -- these are all aspects of Stephanie's character that had been previously established, but it feels like War Games is the story where it all really gets pushed to the foreground.

And then once the story gets going its fundamental tragedy comes in how the situation twists what had up to that time been her usual story. Up to that point, Steph had been repeated confronted with older heroes who would almost inevitably tell her to stay out of whatever danger she was sticking her nose into so she'll be safe, to which Steph would respond, "You don't tell me what to do" and get involved anyway, for better or worse.

But in War Games, when Selina finds her and puts her in the care of her friends, telling her to stay where it was safe and let the adults take care of it, Steph seems to really understand for the first time that she's right -- and sneaks out anyway, not out of petulant defiance, but because she feels responsible for the destruction and is driven to help stop it. It's really the first time it feels like she truly understands the danger she's putting herself into and chooses to do so anyway for selfless, heroic reasons without a hint of personal self-gratification. It's not about revenge on her dad or getting back at her boyfriend or showing one of those stuck-up grown-ups that she's just as good as the next caped teen, it's just about fixing her mistake, and it's that heroic instinct that tragically gets her killed.

IDK like I said I think I have to muddle it over a bit more before I can fully form it into something but it walked into my head last night and wouldn't leave.

[lesbiancolumbo]

justine is only the second woman in the history of the cesars to win best director and also remember she was only the third woman to win the palme d'or in the history of cannes. ever.

[orangerosebush]

Socmed discussions about Saltburn, to me —

1) reveal that people are even more squeamish about explicit gay sexuality than they think they are

(And if this is what passes for shocking erotic excess, then we, in the anglosphere, are in a more — not making a comment about individuals here — restrained moment with mainstream American/British adult cinema than we were with mainstream adult heterosexual cinema in the 90s, eg the erotic thriller)

And

2) suggest people are increasingly making art that is in conversation with, if not explicitly nostalgic for, the 2010-16 Tumblr-era.

(I really truly suspect Saltburn is, in part, an adaptation of the tropes and aesthetics that were in certain “The Social Network” fan spaces.)

[llycaons]

tgcf art is fun bc xl generally looks really nice and hc generally looks really mean. they just. complement each other lol. that's true love

[harrowharkwife]

i am SO fucking exhausted by mainstream media opinions lately and i don't understand why they're frequently SO different from my own? like i genuinely don't think i am approaching anything from that unique of a perspective as a viewer? maybe it's just that i'm too easy to please when it comes to stories or something but like. how is the mainstream, widely accepted consensus on yellowjackets season 2 is that it's "bad" and "doesn't work as a season" and is "riddled with problems." literally what the fuck are you talking about. this is the most fun i have had watching television uhhhhh literally Ever? you're telling me people hated Burial? how? why? like i don't...i just don't GET it. and i'm not playing dumb for kicks here im like genuinely honest to god confused. that was the single best episode of television I've ever watched in my life. like i get that people have different opinions about things and that's fine but HOW am i in the minority here what am i missing

[silversupremacy]

Ok so yes, I think it's totally good to criticize the media you are watching and to be skeptical of things.

But some of ny'all I'm jsut confused why you're still watching ii s3

Like "waaa it's not s2" sorry bud but that s2 you want isn't coming back? Like not in a "s2 won't be made" kind of way, but in a "i doubt that, due to the experiences that the writers have had and how far they've come since s2, that the new s2 episodes will be anything like you're wanting them to be"

Like I mean hey! maybe s2 finals episodes will be amazing and exactly like the original vibes. That'd be great for ny'all! But just, doubt it? I doubt that'll happen.

[cafffine]

anyway I thought john mcwhorter’s book ‘woke racism’ was actually gonna be about how insidious antiblack racism can get in radical leftists spaces but uhhhhh it was not that at all. my bad for not researching more about the author beforehand but what the hell

[theceaselessidiot]

I started thinking about an old shadowhunters/tmi fanfic idea I had and then I randomly decided to read the dark artifices series instead (for fun and "research") and so far I have the following opinions:

I don't care for Julian, I don't know why, but I don't like him that much

Ty being autistic is established in a very stereotypical way. Its like Clare did a superficial "Autism 101" google search and called it a day. Like kudos to her for even having an autistic character, but she should've done a lot more research about it.

I know Clare wants me to root for Julian and Emma, but my brain immediately started shipping Emma with Cristina the moment they had a scene together. Then, when Mark & Kieran entered the chat by brain went: what if Kieran, Mark, Cristina all dated each other AND EMMA

CC, please stop with the needless exposition! It makes your characters sound weird as fuck! Have a "previously on tsc" chapter and move on! When your characters go on and on about Clace and everything from TMI and I'm going "yes I know I read TMI 10 years ago and even I remember all this", then something has gone wrong.

Also, please stop recycling plot points, I can already tell this is going to be a forbidden romance thing between Julian and Emma and I'm in Chapter 14 of Lady Midnight.

Your side characters are once again more interesting than the MCs. Next time, just write about Mark, Kieran and Cristina.

I genuinely like the world, some characters and the beginning of plot. I do like Ty, Mark, Kieran, Cristina and Diana the most so far, but also the younger Blackthorn siblings. I like the family dynamic, because it really wasn't there in TMI (I only skimmed TDA, so i can't say much about it).

Edit bc I forgot: SHOW DONT TELL! Like it has gotten much better from tmi, but so often its "let me tell you all these things about this character" instead of showing me that this character has a specific trait or emotion.

[mybrainproblems]

I don't think I've ever been so sad and disappointed about a show's cancellation as I've been about resi