#that if you do something bad then you're condemned to be an Evil Person forever

[plantsjustwannahavefun]

I am once again begging Ed stans to understand that it's possible to love Ed and believe he deserves love AND also admit that he mistreated and tormented the crew during the Kraken era. Not only is this possible, this is the position the show wants you to have. You think Izzy deserved everything he got? Fine, whatever, forget about him for a minute. There's a whole crew in there you're supposed to empathise with and feel sympathy for, too. The six of them that Ed actively tried to kill or left for dead, for starters. Pay attention to the crew's experiences and reactions. They're shown to be traumatised, grieving, clinging to disassociation (Frenchie) and nihilism (Archie) as coping mechanisms and suffering from PTSD flashbacks. And, since this type of fans constantly go on about how it's racist to think Ed did anything wrong... what about the fact that a lot of the crew are PoC too? What then?

If you've watched the first 3 episodes of S2 and there was only one person on that ship you felt sorry for, then you're not a fan of OFMD, you're just a fan of Ed in isolation. And if the only way you can love Ed is by denying that he ever did anything wrong, then you're completely missing the point of the show. OFMD never said that people only deserve to be loved if they're morally perfect and flawless. The show doesn't subscribe to the dichotomy of Good vs Bad. Good people can do bad things. They can hurt the ones they love. Even if they didn't mean to, even if they themselves were suffering at the time, it doesn't mean they don't need to take responsibility for their actions or avoid the consequences. Stede didn't mean to hurt Mary and his kids when he left, but he still did. He had legitimate reasons for leaving, he didn't just do it for the lolz, but it was still wrong and Mary was right to be angry at him. And Stede needed to face up to this - not just for their sake but his too. Even though it turned out their lives were better off without him, reconciling with Mary was still crucial for his character development.

It was the same for Ed, it just didn't get handled quite as well due to lack of screentime, but the idea was the same. When Ed realises he'd been cruel to Fang and apologises, he isn't sinking into self-hatred and despair. Quite the contrary, this is a moment of growth for him. Because the fact is, just because you as a human being are inherently worthy of love doesn't mean you can go around hurting everyone and expecting them to put up with you. That's just not how it works. You don't need to be perfect, but you do need to listen to people when they tell you that you hurt them and apologise genuinely and try to be better. The show is very sympathetic to Ed but it does NOT excuse his actions. The crew aren't portrayed as villains or antagonists for being scared and angry at Ed for what he did to them. Even Stede was on their side with this one. If even Stede is able to see things from the crew's POV and have sympathy for them, then you should too. Stede doesn't love Ed because he sees Ed as a pure uwu angel. He loves Ed... because he just does. He loves being around him. They really click together. They have so much in common. That doesn't mean he approves of literally everything Ed has ever done. It just means he loves Ed despite that.

[totally-not-here-for-the-smut]

So, @arcanavoid made me thinking about Lucio in their post

WELL THEN LETS TALK ABOUT LUCIO YOU BITCHES

Pleas keep in mind that I'm right now very drunk and I'm not a native speaker and the autocorrect for this phone can only do so much Also I'm in a different time zone so if you see this at, like 10 in the morning or whatever, no worries bc now is definitely night here and I also program my posts I have not a drinking problem thats why I cant hold my f-ing liquor

WELL THEN MY DEAR LUCIO and

WHY

as a person who is very close to people with serious mental illness, like i legit live with them

I THINK LUCIO'S ROUTE IS SO GREAT

Let's start with an assumption: we're all assholes. Somewhere in our life, maybe in the past, or present, or future, we are huge AH. It's not like we're evil and condemned to hell, it's just that as humans we're small, petty and miserable so we behave badly and are very selfish when big difficulties challenge us. Like, sometimes we manage to scramble enough willpower and common sense to act decently as we're afraid and suffering, but lots of times we don't and make shitty things. So here's my first point:

1. We all are a Lucio sometimes. Or often.

Like, way more than we want to admit. We're afraid, we're too full of ourselves, and we behave in petty ways. We're mean towards strangers, we feel happy in humiliating them and showing the world how better than anyone else we are. We need something bc we live in a world that doesn't grant basic human rights (food, shelter, health, safety and human connection), so we strain to get those things, sometimes at others' expenses. Then we tell ourself that those people deserved our scorn and malice because they're bad, and we tell us such lies because facing the guilt of what we've done is painful and complex.

We need to show ourselves we're better, so enjoy picking at others' mistakes without caring who they are in a whole (this is super easy on the internet). All this while low key ignoring what bad we're more or less responsible for.

And we are. Like, if you ever did buy something on sites like shein, you are actually exploiting poor people who are basically slaves. And you're keeping a blind eye on it.

But you know what? You're not evil for this. We're weak sometimes, we're tired, we have little time and really don't have the lucidity to think whether this stupid chicken breast is full of hormones and antibiotics or not. We're humans and we're small. Often we're sad, afraid and tired and we need a malicious self esteem bost.

Often, we're Lucio.

2. A flaming piece of trash can change. And doesn't need others' forgiveness to do so.

Did you notice how everyone is so eager to show of other people are wrong and bad and evil? That's because they, and we as well, need reassurance about how we're the hero of the story.

That's because we can't tolerate being the flaming piece of trash, because the the flaming piece of trash can't change and everyone hates them.

This idea is stupid.

It doesn't matter how low you fell. How many people you hurt, how many times you made the same stupid mistake or how many people deeply despise you. You still can change.

That's why is

So

Important

To have a Lucio route where it's shown he can choose to be better, no matter how deeply wrong his past deeds were.

The moment we understand this concept is the one our guilt becomes less heavy and we start being less judging of others. Granted.

This doesn't mean you're entitled to people's forgiveness - but the fact that YOU are willing to forgive yourself means that you can really change and forgive others. If some people won't forgive you, it will be fine, no need to hate them: you can always find new people to gift your better self to.

This is what happens to Lucio. Will Asra ever truly forgive him for making him and orphan and killing you? No. But this doesn't mean that Lucio will be a villain forever. He will be still able to change, become a good man and gift his goodness to the MC.

As MC says to Julian: you can always come back.

3. What it takes to change

Now, I'm in general rly humble when talking about mental health bc I'm no doctor nor therapist. But living with people who went through hell and managed to survive (and knowing people who sadly didn't), made me able to figure a couple of things. So, brace yourself. I'm about to give you the ultimate recipe of healing.

It takes two things:

Compassion and Accountability

When all is said and done, this things are the two main things it takes to change and heal. Compassion for believing you can change and deserve happiness, seeing the world through other people's eyes and accountability to motivate you into stop being a dick and owning the shit you did (so yeah, maybe you should stop blaming your parents for who you are, sry, but it doesn't serves your cause).

and there's one and only one way to get them:

Positive human connections.

That's it. When you go to the bone to it, that's how one can change, heal and survive.

It's reduced to the very bone, simple idea: the whole process is much more complicated and it's ok if you get lost in it. But at the very root, this is it.

And this is WHY Lucio's route it's so great:

MC shows compassion, because they don't recall him doing anything bad to them.

MC helps him being accountable. They doesn't shelter Lucio from his guilt, never.

MC believes in them but NEVER puts up with their shit

MC doesn't believe his lies and doesn't lie to them either. No games: they talk through everything, they're kind but firm and true.

MC helps him accept other people's scorn towards him

I love this route because it's the one where the MC is the most clever. There's a murder mistery? Let's ask the ghost of the murdered one who did it. Everyone is mad at him? Let them be. Not bc "he deserves it", but bc people are entitled to be mad at him and to their idea about him. He has troubles with his mother? Don't get between them. Listen, understand, let them unravel their shit. Ghosts are mad at him? Sit with him, but don't do his emotional weightlifting. Mc puts Lucio in front of his deeds and holds his hand as he deals with them.

Folks: THIS is how it's done irl.

4. No dumb justification & the danger of privilege

There are a lot of shows about "why villains are like this" that paint them as a poor misunderstood saint who was mistreated by their parents. Like in Once Upon a Time or the Disney Villain's Live actions. I hate that stuff because they distort the plot to make the villain a misunderstood anti heroe who was a victim all along, so he's justified.

Guess what: they're not. If you actions are evil there's no justification. No retelling of your story: you made very bad choice and were an AH and that's it.

This is what happens with Lucio: in his route his story doesn't gets to be retold. It's an honest story about how Lucio, the villain, can choose to be the better man and benefit from it. It's a story about the inherent dangers of Privilege:

Lucio's story shows how dangerous privilege can be: he wasn't hold accountable for his actions while he was alive, bc he was pretty, powerful and rich. He loses his privilege, he gets his ass kicked, he find motivations to change in his desire to be loved. I know irl folks who got to adulthood without having to face how shitty they were bc of social privilege. It literally kept them from changing, healing and be happy. So beware, folks. Your privilege might be harming you in the first place, and the day you will face who you truly are without it WILL come. The later, the worst.

So, this is why I love Lucio's route. It's relatable and helps us to find the courage to face our demons, knowing that we can change. Knowing that we can forgive ourselves and accept others' scorn. It WILL be hard, it WILL be painful, there WILL be consequences, but eventually it will be worth the hassle.

So, long live the goatman, for he can change. And so do we.

[leadendeath]

i don't want to reblog the post because my commentary is not relevant to the subject, so i didn't want to put this in said post's tags. also as i type it turned into a long...? something. vent maybe? i don't even know what to refer to it as. but i've seen a couple of posts recently that have really got me thinking.

as i'm writing this, they both just appeared on my dash. they are this one and this one. i'm definitely going to post this now (i have to) and not just save it in my drafts forever.

Having sex with friends sounds nice! I am pro-that! (pro meaning not anti) for me it would alleviate my fears of hooking up with those I just met or haven't known for years because friends are less likely to murder/kidnap you or give you a disease! (I do not want to die from sex lmao) the con: now they know what i look like and what bodily/physical problems i have that aren't visible to the general public. no. i can't have sex with my friends. my god. it all boils down to my body dysmorphia. literally the mortifying ordeal of it being known

So I think again, like I often do, about my place on the ace spectrum. I usually do not care for labels, don't find them necessary to apply to myself, but it's totally cool if other people have tons of different labels that they use. I am pro-that too! I myself am definitely grey-ace or demi-something. I landed on aegosexual- a disconnect between yourself and your sexual attraction- for a long time. I am never sexually or romantically attracted to somebody I don't know. Not even people on the screen. What if that hot (definition for this context: visually appealing) actor is a dick? Good looks garbage personality? At least you can do research on him. Not the case with "irl contacts" (definition: non-famous and real people who you might actually meet or know in person).

I know that I definitely experience sexual attraction, and want to have sex. Based on that I don't feel quite right calling myself asexual.

I don't LIKE that I feel too bad about experiencing sexual attraction to act on it. There's this weird feeling that's hard to place, but closest to "guilt", I'd say. Disgust with myself.

That time I was propositioned to go back to a con hotel (i turned him down and he listened and respected me and was nice, it's just i stopped myself), or that other time when making out and groping (different guy different occasion; we could've gone further but i stopped myself), or even just flirting and talking about our turn-ons and things we Like with my long-distance online sort-of bf that I had. I'm even hesitating to follow the "after dark" art accounts that I want to follow on bird site because of the guilt and almost embarassment I feel at myself (I'm fully aware that the only reason most people have locked accounts which you have to request to follow is to keep out minors and trolls btw, and i'm certainly neither of those!).

All of this is stuff I want and that's enjoyable to me, but this nagging "don't do that. you're gross. why would you say/do that? you're being weird. stop. stop. stop. you're not allowed to do these things." is always there in my mind. I don't want it to be there, and it's always there.

Now, this doesn't come from religious trauma, like "sex before marriage = wrong and bad"? "gay sex = ultimate evil"? Nah, I was never told those things. I didn't even have a very religious upbringing. These thoughts can't be explained away by any of that. Even my mom has always been like "you can have a girlfriend or a boyfriend! i don't mind as long as you're happy! :)" yknow having that nice accepting approach to that time when I was like 15 and settled on bi for "what i was" at the time. No judgement, no condemnation there either.

It's not real.

When I learned that I have ocd, suddenly I started to maybe have an explanation for these thoughts. Some people's obsessions focus on repetition or contamination. A good part of my obsessions focus on condemnation. I'm scared of it. I take "beating yourself up over something" to the next level. Just like any other person who's familiar with delusions, intrusive thoughts, etc will tell you: knowing it's not real doesn't make it any better. Doesn't make it stop. Doesn't make it go away.

When I could explain this detrimental thought process away by finding this horrible disorder to pin the blame on, I felt freer. I've thought many times throughout my mentally ill life about bringing up my (questioning)asexuality to a therapist one day, and I still will, even more so now. i felt before like I'd bring it up to them and not be able to back it up with any evidence, and just be brushed off? That's a stupid way to think, I know. And a therapist who would really do that is one you'd leave immediately. You don't need evidence to talk about how you feel, that's so silly... but that thought itself comes back around, in a vicious cycle, to my needing to justify myself because otherwise I am Wrong And Bad. jeez. what a way to think. i hate that. will be so glad when i get it under control after 25+ years.

edit: oh ya there's also this. my tags on one of the above posts i never reblogged, sat in my drafts.

my disability is inseparable from my sexuality, whatever it is.

[scoobydoodean]

Both Sam and Jared are so infantilized it's crazy. I personally do hate both canon and fanon Sam because the Dean stan in me is too strong to put up with sam's crap. But I don't remember hating him until I saw the stans praising him and condemning Dean. Like maybe if they hadn't fanoned him so much I never would have hate Sam so much.

And I do not hate Jared. I do hate that people treat him like he is five and has no control over his actions. He is not an infant and has the right to be treated as an adult.

Anyway

I feel you

I don't like to talk shit about the actors ass out on main (much), but I know what fans you're talking about and I agree about them.

It is insane how much some sam stans make me want to hate Sam. Like as a reaction. Because they will say utterly insane things about Dean that immediately make me think of Sam doing the same things or worse, and then they start a whole negative tailspin of reductive, stupid framing of the show as a whole. We are all watching a show about two brothers and their angel bestie. They all care about each other. They all LOVE each other. They are ALL flawed. If we examine it the way these factions want us to, we will come away with the impression that Team Free Will NEVER should have cared about each other and it was all always one person being a victim and being lorded over by everybody else, with that victim shifting places depending on whether you're talking to a hardcore sam stan or a dean stan or a Cas stan.

They make up the most repugnant, reductive, cherry-picked, Sam they can imagine. Then I watch season 1 and Sam is so flawed and he's so fucked up from day one but he is SO FUCKING INTERESTING and I can APPRECIATE that. I can appreciate who that guy is. I can appreciate a Sam Winchester who is TERRIFIED by the perception that he is something other than normal and whose actions in those early seasons fundamentally revolve around trying to mask the person he is inside because he's terrified that that person is bad (he's NOT bad!!!!) and that all of the negative things he does—the sniping, the secrets (including planning to lie to Jess FOREVER and thinking that is going to work), the anger, the negative hateful feelings about Dean being mindless and stupid and bad (because Dean is a mirror of his own inner self he's scared of)—it all comes from that fragile core of desperate shame and terror. Then as he hunts with Dean, he learns to stare into that mirror of his inner self, and see something VALUABLE instead of something repulsive—he starts to appreciate a side of himself that he buried before—through Dean. Through loving and caring about his brother and knowing his brother is NOT EVIL, Sam begins to accept himself and who he is and that who he is not something to be ASHAMED of—and that is a LONG journey filled with desperate, painful setbacks and relapses into fear and anguish and the belief that he is not clean, but he actually does come out of the other side of it, and he accepts himself for who he is as a whole person and not a carefully masked entity terrified of what other people might see and what he might see himself if he looks in the mirror.

[brienneevenstar-main]

From TVTropes, on why “But Voldemort and the Lestranges are evil so it makes sense that they would enslave WoC” is a terrible argument against those who criticize JKR’s tone-deaf use of racist tropes

From my understanding, Misaimed Fandom is when the fans of a work take the opposite or otherwise differing interpretation of what the author/creator intended. One of the examples I\'ve always used is Walter White from Breaking Bad being a violent sociopath who by the end of the show is pretty much dealing drugs because it makes him feel powerful, but fans still love him anyway. (Do please correct me if I\'m wrong).

That\'s not quite what\'s going on here, and it\'s a little more complicated than I think mixtape3022 is understanding it.

\"These people are reading into the subtext and declaring racism.\" - No, they aren\'t. They\'re pointing out problematic tropes that have been employed in the past or have otherwise Unfortunate Implications. Racism can be implicit or explicit, and in this case it\'s the former. It\'s not as simple as \"ehrrrrmergerd RACISM\".

\"I highly doubt that a person who wrote novels condemning bigotry and supremacy intended her work to be viewed this way.\" - This is essentially the equivalent of saying \"I can\'t be racist, I have Black friends\", and I hope I don\'t have to explain why this is wrong. I haven\'t seen a single person who thinks that J. K. Rowling sat down to write a racist screenplay, or that she intended for all this backlash against something she clearly loves very much. What people are saying is that, despite her best efforts, the tropes she produced in her work were racist. That\'s not to say that she\'s a horrible person who should never write again, only that she should maybe do more research into these kinds of things, or think about the implications. Characters of colour - or of any minority - have stereotypes attached to them, stereotypes that are harmful, and that\'s what makes them difficult to write. For the record, I love Rowling, her books, and her as a person, and I truly think she\'s committed to diversity and representation. I just think she missed the mark here.

Onto the examples themselves. You said that people were upset that a Korean woman was cast as Nagini, and that they\'re wrong because the movie presents this as a bad thing, and that she wasn\'t caged because of her race. Which is all very well and good - except people weren\'t complaining about her being Korean exactly, and absolutely nobody thinks Nagini was caged because of her race. I don\'t even know where you got that from. The problem is that one of the few women of colour in a franchise that has been historically bad at them has her destiny tied to two villainous white men. She will then lose control of her own body, turn into a snake forever, and serve a genocidal monster for the rest of her life - until she is murdered by Neville Longbottom, who in the chronology of the book releases, has retroactively murdered a human woman who may or may not have had a choice in her predicament.

Rowling\'s problems with characters of colour have been noted - there are barely any, especially women of colour. Cho Chang\'s nationality is never confirmed, and she basically disappears after Harry dumps her. The Parvati twins also stop being important at some point, and Angelina Johnson is only important because she married a Weasley. So the idea that Nagini\'s purpose - again, despite Rowling\'s intentions - is to serve Wizard Hitler and then die are pretty bad enough. But since Nagini is now a person Horcrux, like Harry, it throws the original books into Unfortunate Implications because while the narrative acknowledges Harry\'s personhood and it\'s driven home how bad it is to make a person a Soul Jar, Nagini is treated like a just pet. We don\'t even know how she gets to that point yet. Does she have any agency, or any choice in what she\'s doing? If she doesn\'t, it\'s bad enough, but if she does, even if she is cursed, why does she stay with Voldemort? And even then, the problem is with Rowling, the producers, and the casting people seeing nothing wrong with a Korean woman being Wizard Hitler\'s pet for the rest of her life.

Then you said that people were complaining about Leta being a child of rape and were saying it was racist, even though it wasn\'t a statement on her race. You\'re right, it wasn\'t, but again, that\'s not what people were complaining about. They were complaining because a powerful white man raping a black woman after stealing her from her helpless black family simply because he was sexually attracted to her has very, very harmful links to slavery, because slavemasters did that to their slaves all the time. There is simply no way to sugarcoat that. And that\'s before the \"Tragic Mulatto\" trope, which Leta Lestrange is a perfect example of. Her father raped her mother but he didn\'t love Leta herself, people at school bullied her for being a Lestrange, she did something that got Newt thrown out of Hogwarts, so everyone in present-day except her fiance also hates her, her other half-brother hates her too, and then she sacrifices herself to save everyone and \"atone\" for her sins. She doesn\'t belong anywhere - Grindelwald even says this in the movie! - so she dies.

Nobody thinks Rowling was promoting racism, but these tropes are problematic. It\'s not Misaimed Fandom because Rowling\'s views and intentions aren\'t really the point here, so we\'re not misinterpreting them. The plot points are not bad things in of themselves, they\'re bad because of context, the history of women of colour in her works, and the wider implications of representation. I don\'t think we should have them up there because it\'s a little silly to say \"these fans are complaining about nothing\", but then later on down the page say \"actually here\'s proof of what they were complaining about\" in the Unfortunate Implications bit. The characters aren\'t racist, I don\'t feel Rowling is racist, but these tropes are.