So I'm on youtube, looking for reviews of Damsel because I loved it and wanted to find a comment section with like-minded people. Only I never ended up participating in any discussions. Oh there were a bunch a reviews, some of them positive. But I got distracted by the overwhelming amount of reviews made by middle-aged white men with horrible titles.
Now did I expect everyone to like it ? No, of course not, taste is subjective. Do I think the movie is perfect ? No, it's a B-movie if we're being honest, the plot is very basic and there is not a lot of depth, though I think there is more than meets the eye. It's a power fantasy movie, with all the suspension of disbelief and fun that entails. A turn your brain off, you leave feeling badass kind of movie.
All the same, the heartbreak and frustration I feel after clicking on a few of them, watching about a minute, and going through the comment sections is immeasurable. Because the commentary was always the same, "this is anti-white men" (media literacy is dead by the way, because how ? How was that a conclusion ?), "hollywood pushing the girlboss agenda", "worse movie ever", "why do all female protagonists have to be strong, why can't they be soft", "feminists and their anti-marriage propaganda". Guys, I don't know if it's just because I'm in my mid-twenties now, or because more men have become radicalised, or both. But I am so, so tired of this shit. So tired of feeling like some men want to put me in a very small box and keep me there because they feel entitled to it. And I'm by no means someone who doesn't largely fit in the mould to begin with. I'm a girly-girly with no desire to act like a man or fight like one. I appreciate book Sansa Stark so much for the symbol of soft power that she is, and I do agree that there should be more women like her in fiction. But that these men feel not only comfortable, but entitled to throw so many tantrums trying to shame and force me to never stray from the mould, and watch as they do the same to women who do not and should not have to fit into it, more and more grating. Why can't we have power fantasy movies ? Why does it make them so angry ? I've never seen their power fantasy movies get dunked on. Hell, we usely enjoy them alongside them. Why can't they do the same ? Why must everything targeted at us be something for them to ridicule ?
And do you know what the worse part is ? While watching the movie, I caught myself thinking "most of this isn't unrealistic for a fit woman with magical healing slugs, she only really survives because the dragon is sadistic and enjoys prolonging her suffering, surely the filmbros won't get too annoying". I already knew on some level what was going to happen, because it's what always happens isn't it ? I wast just too hopeful it seems.
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this is somewhat of a vent post & something i said i would not do again but has been plaguing me enough that i think getting it out might feel better. so. has anydoggy else been. Baffled and upset by nora sakavic’s refusal to speak on how terribly aftg has treated its characters of color? with the author of the series coming back with a new book and starting up on her online activity again, and questions of what she’d change about aftg bubbling up, it’s particularly glaring to me that we are all playing this very long game of pretend where we ignore how badly the non-white cast has been treated & her lack of thoughts on it
and i understand not wanting to bring up nicky and thea because people pick on her for it. i’m not trying to discredit nora sakavic’s terrible history of getting harrassed online by aftg fans. but i think it is very cynical, and it is very juvenile, and most of all very cruel, that she gets to ignore the very real ways the books have set up these characters to be hated. i think it’s obvious why the characters who get the most hate are the only canonical characters of color, and i think we do not get to treat this like a deliberate decision on the fandom’s part when the books have put these same characters in degrading and embarrassing and terrible positions in the first place. aftg is not a story about nice characters with clean pasts, but there is a very specific nastiness to the only characters of color being a brown man who sexually harasses and later assaults the main character, a black woman whose only scene is her lashing out at her love interest after being ignored for the first two books, and the japanese villain who gets maybe two lines of complexity before he goes back to being a terrible person. the white cast, in comparison, while not at all free from flaws, are never shown to commit mindless evil; all of their actions are ultimately justified. the book goes out of its way to give them concession after concession. we know exactly who to side with, because aftg tells us who these people are. does nicky’s assault ever get addressed in the books? does riko’s reasoning to be the way that he is ever gets more than briefly aluded to? is thea reserved even a shred of humanity or grace in her one scene?
anyway. it’s been years of talking about this and the fandom has been constantly hostile to criticism in this regard, and more recently any criticism at all, and it’s Grating to be on the other side of this discussion. it’s exhausting to know that in ten years we do not get even an acknowledgment besides the author saying she will not answer questions about nicky and thea anymore. it’s upsetting and it’s ugly and i wish no one had to talk about this again, but we do because what i thought was common sense has been washed away by a sudden influx of no-nuance adoration for the trilogy. basically i hope we all explode
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I suppose I'm a little late to the party, but I needed time to collect my thoughts.
Here's the thing, everyone's caught up on Caiti's age and whether she consented. To me, that isn't anywhere near the point. Her being so young is certainly creepy and strange, but not the point.
Here's the first thing, though less important than the next. As an adult, it is blaringly clear how irresponsible these "adults" were. Two grown ass men supplying alcohol to underaged girls in a hotel room. They were up drinking until 6am. They were one noise complaint away from getting the cops called.
Second thing. While underage drinking in the US is fairly normal, 18 is still pretty young here. Also, publicly admitting to supplying alcohol to an 18 year old is crazy, but not the point.
18 year olds can't compete with grown adults when it comes to alcohol. They don't have the same tolerance. There never should have been any "one upping."
No one should have gotten that drunk. The fact that there was a girl leaving, vomiting in her hand is fucking ridiculous. When someone, regardless of their age, is drinking too much too quickly, you cut them off and give them water. This is how college parties are run. Once you start wobbling a little too much, your speech is slurred, and you stop being a person, someone gives you water and walks you home.
And nobody walked her back to her hotel room?? Two grown men. I don't give a shit how tired you are. You always walk a girl home. Who the fuck raised you??
I am an adult man in college. I have been around a lot of different men. I have hung around men that behave like this. Let me promise you this: they got those girls drunk like that on purpose. They both wanted something. When they didn't get it, they just let the girls go. They were never interested in their safety. They were never interested in who they were.
And let me promise you this: there's never just one girl. And any well brought up man would have cut them all off and sent them on their way. There is way more to this situation than lets on.
And of course George never asked for her consent. It was never a question. They brought those girls back to that hotel room with the thought that they'd get something out of it. To George, he heard 18 and thought, "oh cool, she's legal."
I see this happen all the time in college. Usually men don't grow out of all of it, but they usually grow out of begging like a shitty dog in some random girl's DMs. To hear a grown ass man, 26 years old, behave like a fucking 19 year old sophmore in college is pathetic. I'm not interested in giving pathetic men any more time.
Also, love and light to Caiti, she looks like she's 16. "I didn't know she was 18!" First off, doesn't matter. Second off, I would've guessed she was a minor, so I know you checked first. Or else you're even dumber than the fucking college kids. Damn.
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i just wanted to let y'all know that i'm not ignoring the asks and replies that you've sent me — for some reason, i just felt a lot more tired than usual over the weekend and that sluggishness has kind of carried over into today. i'm going to attempt to write, though, as i was doing so earlier. it's just that i started to feel sleepy again so i stopped (,: i hope y'all are having a wonderful day so far though! make sure to drink plenty of water, and eat, as it's honestly so important <33
(this dog is honestly pretty accurate to how i feel rn though JSJSJ LIKE IDK WHATS WRONG WITH ME AHH but as i said, i'm gonna try to get out of this weird funk i'm in and reply to thing's!!)
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“think of the children!” no. you aren’t. the people in power couldn’t give two shits about the children. the people in power look away when it comes to genuine concerns about children the second it impedes upon their lifestyle, their beliefs.
and you know what it is that bothers them so? children wanting safety. children not wanting to live in fear of being murdered. children who want to be loved and accepted for who they are. children who are raised to be those kids you hear others complain about on social media because nobody was there to teach them better. they don’t know better because they quite literally can’t.
oh but it’s for the kids, right? protect the kids, right? turn a blind eye to death and discrimination and neglect, right? that’s how we’ll protect them, right?
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hi ,,,,,,,,, uhm i js wanted to say that i rlly rlly like your writing (=゚ω゚)ノ it’s rare to find arknights writing on here and i absolutely adore yours, thank you ♡
omg omg thank you much!! ♡⸜(˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)⸝♡ i'm actually in the process of writing some more arknights fics (mainly chong yue hehe) and i'm hoping i can post them to all my arknights lovers soon so you guys can have some yummy food!
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i’ve had such a distressing week, a few nights ago i got mugged in the street and had my phone stolen. and it’s sent my ptsd into overdrive. thankfully the network provider was able to brick the phone and render it useless, but i’ve still had to do the fun job of trying to remember every account i ever had on it to update the passwords (sigh). so i guess this is also an FYI for anyone who had my number - i know i’ve been a shit person to contact in general the last year, but now i don’t have access to that number anymore (the network said they should be able to move my existing number to a new phone, whenever it is i get one, but guess we’ll see what happens.
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