#then that's downright horrible

[hoaxghost]

Which SU defense videos were you watching? I could use some positivity tbh

Two videos made by Hiding in Private break down notorious SU-criticism videos

First one is taking down the arguments of EzPz and E;R, two really bigoted content creators that gained WAAY too much traction considering they're just repackaging racism/homophobia/misogyny as 'funny memes'

Next is critiquing the SU analysis by Lily Orchid whose video was full of bad-faith interpretations, misunderstanding of how cartoon plots work and poisoned the discourse on the show for a good while.

There are a few minor gripes I have with how HidinginPrivate handles some critiques in the latter video but they overall summarize a lot of my issues with SU-discourse. It's a good show!! I'm tired of pretending that it's cringe!!!

[thapunqueen]

wyd when these guys steal your organs and then laugh at your penis tipped feet

[sunshineram]

"you cannot gatekeep my pussy."

[melit0n]

I'm so done with him

[theworstcreature]

It’s one am and I think I’m the most productive out of all the gravity falls fans rn

Book of bill spoilers ahead

I saw this page and knew I had to draw some goofy poses (and also to practice poses bc I fucking SUCK at that)

[moonlightdancer26]

Me when I remember that Snape would’ve not only been much happier in life but would have so many less tiring debates about him if he had just remained a loyal Death Eater instead of defecting and sacrificing himself for a world that hated him while getting nothing in return:

[princelancey]

The straight up lack of manners being shown on here is mindboggling. By that I mean the weird as fuck anons people send. I've been fortunate to not be on the receiving end of too many of them but my friends have gotten the most out of pocket anons and I genuinely wonder how some people think this kind of behaviour is acceptable. Like nothing to do with F1 at all, people will comment on personal stuff, make horrible insinuations and level cruel insults and why? because your super special pookie had a bad day at work? genuinely there are people who need to seek professional help if that is the way they see the world, it is not ok or acceptable. There are people behind these accounts, if you wouldn't say it to someone's face don't type it out, I feel like that's a pretty normal way to act.

[wrightmourmarriage]

i looove the contrast between rick's vocals and the backing vocals in wearing the inside out, especially in the second chorus, like i think it's really important when talking about the song that the protagonist is giving this front-facing idea that he's fully relieved and committed to getting better while he's still hiding their turmoil and sheer anger at what happened to him. which could mean nothing about the mental state of richard wright

[jasmancer]

sometimes I'll think abt rem from death note too hard and make myself sad

[requiemforthestars]

Being back in the Dragon Age fandom has awakened something long asleep within me, which is a seething deep, feral hatred and disgust for Cullen and dismay at the way everyone in the fandom is head over heels for him. Literally it's as fresh as it was on the first day. Truly, things you feel at 15 years old do not wane.

[tenebriskukris]

Oshi No Ko Chapter 155 - My Thoughts/Analysis

I never thought that this series would disappoint me more than it did with Chapter 152 but apparently the manga is just shoveling us utter dogshit on our plates now and expects the readers to think it’s the best thing since sliced bread. Let’s just get on with it. Spoilers for Oshi No Ko Chapter 155 below.

And so we open this chapter with Ruby’s POV. Finally we get to see her thoughts on this whole mess. And with double black star eyes too? Considering we see her have white star eyes a few chapters ago I’m Assuming that there isn’t much of a timeskip between the movie being shown to select people and this interview but the manga’s use of timeskips without a clear timeline being placed is just yuck. 

This entire issue wouldn’t be relevant in the first place if the manga didn’t sidestep showing the readers key reveals when they happened chronologically in the first place. Or already have a tendency to have these conversations and key reveals offscreen of all things. 

I’m going to do what I can for Ai. Like jump off a building? I wouldn’t be surprised if that man does something like that after he’s had this worldview shattered into dust. Or does something hasty like go on a murder spree. The worst kind of person to deal with is one that has nothing left to lose—they’re unpredictable. 

Aqua letting him go here is just a huge fucking mistake. He pulled the strings to kill Ai, after all. What’s to say that these events wouldn’t lead him to kill anyone else. Ruby, himself, Literally Anyone Else. It’s plausible that he could lash out at people and cause a whole mess. If someone from the movie dies while it’s being pushed out then it’s going to cause more than enough controversy to get the movie pulled from theaters. Who would want to screen the movie if one of the actors died because of it??? It would be a nightmare of legal issues. 

Your revenge is over now. Interesting. So Aqua’s given up on revenge? Or does he have something more planned? Another case of the series telling us these things without actually showing the progression of events happening to these characters and expecting the readers to just be okay with these logical leaps happening. It’s a trick that’s only useful if a writer doesn’t overuse it, but the way this series is using it as a crutch is just disgraceful. 

Incredible. No decompression. No conversation between the twins about what they just experienced. Just a timeskip back to Miyako. If they don’t talk about what just happened in this chapter I swear to all the gods and deities above—

Well that was a cute interaction between Miyako, Aqua and Ruby. It is also a cheap way to tug at the reader’s heartstrings. This entire scene would hit harder if we actually managed to see Miyako in this pseudo-maternal role more but as it stands now it is nothing more than a toothless attempt to insert her into this arc as a pseudo-mother to the twins. This “newfound” understanding of Aqua’s character for her is also similarly one which has little substance behind it were it not a callback to the earlier chapters of the series. It’s a sad scene, don’t get me wrong, but it’s all style and little substance when one considers that Miyako’s paternal role has been rather lacking throughout the series.

And now we’re back with Ichigo. Wonder if we’ll ever see his interview come up—because that’s still up in the air, apparently. Same with the other interviews, but at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if they were all done offscreen like so many other important bits of the narrative.

Ruby made a choice. And telling Aqua that she’d encountered her father was just done offscreen again. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Of course. Just offscreen the conversation that Ruby talks to Aqua about forgiving Hikaru—surely something like that isn’t relevant to Ruby’s character arc in the slightest. 

Not the mention that with Ruby’s black star eyes blazing in the start of the chapter—did she really forgive Hikaru or that just Aqua assuming she did? Oh! We don’t know because their entire conversation about Hikaru was offscreened in the first place. At least we know that Ruby knew who Hikaru was this whole time—which was a fact that was very obvious in the first place. 

With Ichigo not wanting to kill Hikaru anymore that’s more or less everyone’s revenge scheme more or less wrapped up. I highly doubt we’ll be getting any more insight on how they made these decisions in the past because it seems like this series is dispensing in quality and good narrative structure in exchange for rushing towards the ending as quickly as possible. I’ll be more than happy to eat my words later down the line if the series is going to give these characters and this story the time it needs to shine but I won’t hold my breath.

Finally we get an Akane appearance. I was starting to think she was killed offscreen. Would not surprise me in the slightest at this point. She got a new haircut!!! Very cute.

If Hikaru is the one behind everything, then some things don’t make sense. Of fucking course! Aqua and Akane both independently figure out that Hikaru and Niino were responsible for Yura—and a bunch more people’s—death! And this realization was also done offscreen again!

And then there’s another thing. I recall somewhere during the Mainstay arc that Aqua said that he knew Goro Amamiya but with Akane reading the script she would easily be able to tell that that was false because Goro died before Aqua was even born. For someone as observant and smart as Akane was she surely would be able to put two and two together and call Aqua out for his bullshit but noooooooooo. We’re just going to pretend that never happened, then. 

What a complete and utter travesty. So the narrative is now pointing at Niino as the final antagonist of the series. A side character who a good chunk of people didn’t even know existed and was first seen in some side material  until she showed up close to the end of the arc. After Hikaru was unceremoniously thrown out of that role without the sufficient narrative payoff after all the buildup. 

I think I have to make an amendment to what I said before on one of my previous chapter reviews. The quality of writing that we’re seeing here isn’t of a college level writing student. That would be giving the writers the credit that they don’t deserve. No, I’ve seen high school level students draft me a more coherent narrative than whatever the fuck was going on in these last few chapters. Amazing.

The editors of this manga must surely be hungover drunk in their seats or held at gunpoint if garbage like this is allowed to get published. Then again, any reader swallowing this slop uncritically deserves media that crashes and burns when it gets to the finish line. The main writer of the series already has a tendency to screw up the final arcs of his manga series so I’m flabbergasted that no one took a step back and bapped these chapters on the head because of how low quality they were. But I digress. 

Ruby changing her black star eyes directly into white star eyes in this chapter is just—why. Every time we see one of the twins change from black to white to black star eyes and back again it was because of some event that touched their life. Now it’s just—they do it whenever, I guess. Whenever the plot demands it with little to no repercussions.

Having Niino as the final antagonist is also incredibly yucky. This isn't a hashtag GirlBoss moment with her being responsible for Ai’s death. Her being the final obstacle for this series to overcome is some horrible social commentary and reeks of misogyny. The final antagonist of the series isn’t a product of the horrible system—some high ranking industry official who was also scarred by the industry and is now in a higher place to also exploit people in the same industry—ala Hikaru. No, the final antagonist is someone who was on the same level as Ai—even lower, really—who had a hand in her death and wants to keep people from reaching the same level as her.

That’s not even getting to the fact that having her as what is essentially the final boss of the series has to be one of the stupidest writing decisions I’ve ever seen in media—about as idiotic as having Kaguya from Naruto appear at the end of that mess of a series. If you told an Oshi No Ko fan when they started the series that the final antagonist of the series would be this random side character that was first shown in a short story they would laugh because of how stupid that twist would be—and yet it fucking happened!

On a slightly more serious note, Nino as the main antagonist fails so supremely for a variety of decisions. The first is buildup. The narrative has been pointing towards Hikaru for the majority of the series and now we’re pivoting to what is essentially a side character taking his place with little to no buildup. The stuff we got from the movie arc is so minor compared to how the narrative was building up towards Hikaru throughout the entirety of the series that pushing her to the main villain role is just cheap at this point.

The second is character. Or rather, her lack thereof. Nino is more of a plot device than a character from what we’ve seen of her already. Her motivation is to keep people from surpassing Ai and—what? That’s basically it. She’s a one note character without anything interesting going on behind those eyeballs with absolutely nothing else to say. At least Hikaru had some backstory and motivation shown—even if it was done in a completely haphazard way.

Let’s examine that point further, shall we? Both in the side story and from what we see in the small bits of her in the manga paint the picture of a woman who was incensed that Ai was more popular than her and now she wants to keep anyone else from rising higher than Ai ever did as we see with her words to Ruby. It’s obvious that she’s going to make some move on Ruby during Kana’s graduation concert or around that time so that’ll be her 

And then there’s her absolute dogshit motivation. Nino had a hand in killing Ai because Ai was more popular than her? I’m sorry, that is a literal skill issue. At the end of the day, the idol industry is still an industry. Those who have more potential or skill than another will obviously be more favored and reach higher. It’s not a slice of the dark side of the idol industry, it’s simple fucking causality. 

It’s the equivalent of an average student in high school that helps a group of students murder the smartest student in school and the only reason she helps them is that the smartest student is better than her academically so she has to die. That’s basically the gist of Nino’s reasons for wanting Ai’s death. It’s petty. It’s entitled. It's downright idiotic. I would even say it was character assassination were it not for the fact that she barely had any character in the first place. 

The third point is what Nino represents as the final antagonist of the series. I spoke before about how having her as the final boss is an incredibly tone-deaf narrative decision for a series that delves into the darkest parts of the industry. The narrative before these couple of chapters was pointing at Hikaru being the main and final antagonist of the series. This high up industry official who was also taken advantage of by the worst of the industry lashed out at Ai after she broke up with him and whose children find revenge on him by telling him that Ai loved him all along. It doesn’t absolve Hikaru’s sins and his hand in killing Ai but sidesteps the issue in favor of casting blame towards his circumstances caused by the industry. The concept sings, fits with the darker side of the industry the manga has been trying to grasp, and tries to wrap up everything in a neat little bow.

Nino has none of that backing. Ai’s last attempts at reconciliation with Nino were unceremoniously denied by her in her short story and she does not grow as a character because of it. She is not built up as a character who was sufficiently ruined by the industry the way Hikaru was or has the justification for her misdeeds. No, the true and final antagonist of the series is a woman who was jealous of Ai for upstaging her and because of that she helped orchestrate her death. This concept does not sing. It does not say anything substantial about the industry so far and does cohere in a way that justifies her being the final obstacle of the series. It’s a bad piece of social commentary and undercuts so much of what the series has been leaning towards for over a hundred and fifty chapters. The real villain of the series isn’t the industry itself, it’s the ones around you who are jealous of your success! Utter dogshit writing.

I can almost hear the complaints now. Niino showed up in the short story! She has tons of character depth there! Here’s a hard truth to swallow: It doesn’t matter. If you have to look at what is essentially supplemental media that not every reader will have read to get the gist of a character as important as the final antagonist of the series then you’ve failed in setting said character up to take the reins of the title of final antagonist. It’s like if you were watching a movie in a theater and this one character shows up during the last ten minutes as the real antagonist with little to no foreshadowing and she has an entire backstory and character that was shown in some supplemental material online that a good 90 percent of people haven’t even seen. That would lead to a box office bomb if I’ve ever seen one. You’d get thrown out of a Hollywood scriptwriter’s room for even proposing something like that! 

In any case, I’m very glad that the reactions of people online are finally turning on the writers for serving the readers this shitshow. With how people were talking about how the last two chapters were so good of all things I was quite surprised that there were still people around swallowing this shitshow on a plate uncritically because it’s more than obvious to my eyes that the manga is already spiraling downwards in terms of quality during these last few chapters.

It’s a shame, really. I wouldn’t still be doing these chapter reviews if I wasn’t invested in the series in the first place. Before the movie arc’s horrible pacing issues and the massive number of timeskips with these recent chapters I still held out hope that the series would give us a satisfying conclusion. Now I wouldn’t even be surprised if the next chapter just timeskipped us again to the graduation concert without dwelling on Nino as a final boss.

[reddenedrust]

Ada Wong Route B, The Original Timeline

[absentlyabbie]

i've developed some interesting methods of handling having a relationship with my mother who made my childhood/teen years misery and committed more than a little abuse.

as an adult, we have a very different dynamic, her daughters (sister and i) have confronted her with a lot of her bullshit and the things she both did and enabled. for some she has been sorrowful and even sometimes apologetic. she's a better mother to me now than she ever was when i most needed one. so i'll never actually trust her again, and she'll never be much deeper than surface level in my life, but we have something mostly good now, and on my terms.

however, she is very definitely one of those "i don't remember it that way" and "i did the best i could" mothers in a lot of areas, and has also always been the type to (probably unconsciously) emotionally manipulate the people she's hurt into catering to her hurt feelings about it instead.

over the years i've learned to get really comfortable with just not indulging it.

is she having a bad day, seems sad and upset? i'll give her a hug, try to make her laugh. if she throws broad hints it's a surge of hurt feelings about having driven one of her children to cut her off? well i'm just gonna stand there and not acknowledge or entertain it.

"well, apparently i was a bad mother" or shit like that? i'm just gonna look at her for a second, and i might either shrug or even nod, but i'm not saying a damn thing. i'm not awkwardly, uncomfortably, painfully contorting to her guilt trip nonsense. i'm not apologizing or trying to soothe her or reassure her or minimize it.

like, yeah. you really were. you know it, glad to hear it. we've definitely had that talk.

best kindness, most generosity i can offer her in times like that is not maintaining eye contact to bluntly tell her "yeah, you were." she can go ahead and feel bad about it.

it's not on me to make her feel less bad. she should feel bad. and i am definitely not someone she gets to seek comfort from about it.

hopefully someday she'll inch past just "poor me, i'm so sad and angsty about it" towards, like, examining the whys and acknowledging what she actually did wrong and work actively to be be better. in a few places, some of that has happened.

but that's her work. her job and responsibility. she can do that shit on her own time.

i say all this to offer a shoulder of solidarity to others like me. if you maintain a complicated relationship as an adult with the parent who hurt you and did you wrong as a child, that is okay. you get to choose how and if to thread that needle.

but you don't have to accommodate emotional manipulation and guilt trip garbage. stonewall it. walk away if you need to. don't apologize. don't try to make it better. that's not on you and it doesn't have to be. it's okay.

[skiesareblue]

There's a point at which disliking Rebecca just falls into vastly tired women-hating tropes lacking any nuanced thought and part of this fandom's definitely made it there

[xdolls-crownx]

POV:

you’re watching me watch Vega, Gavin, Porter and Hush battle it out for my top spot

[nemofil]

RUTHLESSNESS IS MERCY UPON OURSELVES.

ui design by @lyss-butterscotch hi sorry for being so annoying about her i watbned to put her in some really cool clothes,,,

bonus: