#this applies to people being angry at stans for stanning the character

[little-laurance]

Tbh I think this fandom needs to settle tf down. There is a not a single (mainish) character I can think of in mcd who doesn't act a little bit fucked up. You can like or dislike whomever you wish, but we are all pretending our fav didn't do some messed up shit. Jesson cannot write consistent characters and they most definitely cannot write characters without questionable morals or behaviors.

Too many people seem to get on a high horse about their favs in comparison to other peoples, and it leads to arguments cherry-picking actions on both sides. Let's be real for a second, none of us are writing these characters the way Jesson intended. We're taking their characters and restructuring them to better suit our personal preferences, morals, or story structures. Everyone's rewrite is about two steps away from original fiction. No one is justifying every bad action from a character by enjoying them. Some may justify some morally reprehensible things, but I'm under the impression most of us are simply ignoring the parts of characters that don't align with our view of the character (or reconstructing some morally dubious actions to properly be addressed within the plot).

In short, stop fighting over the block men being sexist. All of Jesson's block men are sexist. Every single one. If they aren't in mcd, they'll basterdize them to be in mystreet (sorry Dante). They all kinda suck at one point or another for one plot point or another. Let's try to stop acting like we're 10 year olds in the aar/laur/garmau wars PLEASE

[startrekprodigyfan]

I’m halfway through the season now and I’ve started watching peoples reactions to the show…

And once again I am just frustrated by how adults treat Dal as a character. Nearly every video I’ve watched say he’s “regressed” in his character growth and they’re angry and frustrated that he’s “still the most annoying character.”

I’m going to continue to Stan for Dal, because I’ve both been him and seen kids like him growing up. I’ve mentioned before but I have ADHD and a lot of the way these adults watching this show treat Dal is the same way I was treated as a kid and it HURTS.

Everyone talks about how much potential he has, but then screams and yells about how irritating it is he doesn’t do the work and skips class and doesn’t seem interested in reading and it’s just… oh my god… you were my parents growing up!

Some people just don’t fit into that goody good student role. And it’s not because they’re dumb, or lazy, it’s because they’re not being given the tools they need to ENGAGE with the material.

I’m bad at math. Nearly flunked out of it when I was a kid. But when it comes to animation I can just do it on the fly. It becomes second nature to me when I’m applying it to something I know. But if you took me out of that scenario and gave me just a list of math problems I would struggle like there’s no tomorrow.

And that’s Dal! He has the instincts, the creativity, the split second wisdom to achieve things.. and that’s just not something you get from reading constantly. And it’s not like he doesn’t learn. Spoilers but he does eventually learn Temporal Mechanics 101 after a few episodes and he’s good at it!

Speaking as someone with ADHD and who requires medication and certain stimuli just to function properly as a person… I get it. I get Dal. And I can’t stand the way older Trekkies talk about him.

[theerurishipper]

I think two of my favorite double standards of how a certain group of Marinette stans reacts to the Paris special are:

1. Getting angry at Claw Noir for treating her badly (although he was ironically still the more empathetic one??) while simultaneously completely ignoring that Shadybug was treating him shitty too (cause, yknow, they don't take issue with Marinette treating people badly. She's always justified, can do no actual wrong and the world just needs to learn to cater to her every whim or else she's not treated "right").

All because it's heavily implied that Alt Marinette's crush was Claw (because he fits the criteria of thinking she's lame) but now suddenly the show's lesson that Adrichat's crush on Ladybug isn't in any way her problem somehow doesn't apply in reverse for her stans. Because of COURSE it doesn't, it's Maribug. Now suddenly Altrien is awful for not treating his rival well (who isn't treating him well either but tahts fine of course) and being immediately in love with Shadybug and being a gentleman, since here Alt Marinette wanted it and needed someone to take care of her.

Somehow Adrien/ Claw is the irrational asshole in all that bc Altinette had a secret crush on him and that means it's his responsibility by default, in some of her stans eyes, to take whatever treatment she puts him through without complaining but also be perfect towards her like Adrichat in s5 who had to cuddle her into her important trauma development and basically do all the emotional work in the love square.

2. Not only saying that Altinette had it "so much worse" than Altrien when they literally went through the same miraculous horror, Adrien as per usual gets barely any sympathy for his backstory from her fans even though his main problem (His father and dead mother) is actually depicted on screen in the special to explore it a bit further, while almost all of Marinette's backstory is off screen

but saying "Chloé bullied me" without Chloé ever even being SHOWN ONCE somehow is supposed to trump everything again. I legit saw people say that Alt Marinelle was JUSTIFIED in her actions and she deserved to take revenge. It's wasn't even said ironically or in a way that still acknowledged taht what she did was morally wrong, it was said in sympathetic support towards her bc Chloé was mean

(Sabine having been different in a negative way isn't even a factor for these people. Funnily, Chloé is apparently one of the most important characters in all of Miraculous for the extreme Marinette stans. But how DARE Adrien stans talk about Gabriel's horrible abuse of Adrien, since we've all long learned that Chloé is and has always been WORSE than Gabriel/ Monarch)

I honestly have nothing more to add, because you said it!

Thank you for your ask!

[jellybeanium124]

ok I gotta be real, I've hated a bit of analysis I've been seeing going around lately that's basically "izzy is not a full character in his own right because he's not a protagonist, and he only exists to further ed and stede's character development." basically, taking this guy and treating him as if he's a plot device. as if he's not real. the show is the relationship. stede and ed are the protagonists. but that doesn't mean they're the only real things in this universe.

because like, be honest guys. would you apply this line of thinking to any of the other major deuteragonists? does jim's plotline about coming out and being themself only exist to further/parallel/highlight stede's own journey into becoming his true self? does lucius only exist to be a son figure to stede? does lucius/pete only exist to be a parrellel to ed/stede and show off a healthier relationship at sea? does fang only exist to be a sort of older-brother figure to ed? does olu only exist to contrast stede's type of leadership with a more calm levelheadedness? does zheng only exist to contrast ed and stede as captains? does frenchie only exist to contrast ed?

no! I'm sorry, but I think all those arguments are dumb as shit. we all agree jim, olu, lucius, pete, frenchie, fang, zheng, and even all of the more minor deuteragonists, get to be people in their own right in the show. they don't just exist for stede and ed. they have their own internal lives, their own motivations. when stede and ed leave the room, they don't just turn off. why is izzy different?

yes, I know, izzy's central relationship in the show is with ed. I'm not saying izzy isn't involved in ed's character journey lmao, like, obviously, he is. meanwhile, jim and olu have each other, and zheng and archie, lucius and pete have each other (and to a certain extent, fang), and frenchie has a lot of other stuff going on. but even then, it feels so disingenuous to apply the line of thinking: "this character is not a protagonist so I don't have to treat them with the level of personhood of a protagonist" to just this one guy. it's hypocritical. it just feels like an angry, basic response to how the canyon treats him as a protagonist on the level of stede and ed.

izzy is a father figure, a jilted bride, a complicated nightmare. his relationship to ed is important, and his affect on ed is important too. like, obviously. I love canon edizzy. it's juicy as all fuck. but like, idk, treating izzy like he just zapped into the world one day, about 10 years before the show, with a duty from God to hurt ed for 10 years and then get a bit better and die, while none of the other side characters are treated like that's true, just feels like a major overcorrection from how the canyon treats him, and I don't like it. either everyone else in this universe is real and don't exist just for ed and stede, or no one else is real, and they're all just puppets for ed and stede to bounce off of. you don't get to just decide this 1 guy is special because you don't like him or whatever.

(this post is NOT for izzy apologists, canyonites, people who talk about "Ed stans" like they're a problem, and/or people who think ed abused izzy ✌️)

[thatswhatsushesaid]

all my irreverence and shitposting aside I am genuinely alarmed by two trends I'm noticing in the mdzs fandom, tho this can obviously apply to other fandom spaces too:

younger fans (under age ~24) in general (as in I know this won't apply to everyone, don't @ me) seem to struggle with critical analyses of the canon if the analyses in question are longer than a handful of paragraphs. I understand the value of being succinct where possible since that helps with clearly communicating an idea to an audience. but there is a significant difference between presenting a succinct explanation of a complex idea, and presenting a shallow misrepresentation of a complex idea because you haven't taken the time to carefully read the source material and then think about it before drafting your response.

there's a big problem (again, predominately among younger fans, or at least those who publicly display their age on their profiles) in certain corners of this fandom with conflating a fan's sympathetic reading of the antagonist characters (e.g., jin guangyao and jiang cheng) with that fan's real world attitudes around such issues as violence against women and children, sex crimes in general, and class consciousness.

like. case in point, I just erased over half of this post because I anticipated that many people would skim over 60% of the content and jump straight to the angry keymashing. but it's worrying to me that this is most prevalent among younger fans because you guys are the ones who are up and coming in fandom spaces. you're the ones who are going to be driving these conversations. isn't it important to you to be sure that you are understanding what someone else is actually saying to you before you decide to tell them why they're wrong?

genuine request: can we collectively agree that no one in the mdzs fandom actually thinks rape, murder, corpse desecration, or child abuse is okay? can we collectively agree that, when a jgy or jc 'stan' attempts to contextualize jgy or jc's actions within the source material (or dares to draw a narrative parallel between jgy or jc and wwx), what we are not doing is trying to diminish the seriousness of rape, murder, corpse desecration, or child abuse in the real world?

if we can just reach some kind of mutual agreement on this point specifically, maybe we can move on from kicking this fierce corpse of a horse and start talking about, idk. the novel.

[sokkastyles]

Remember that long post that caused a bunch of discourse a while ago? I found this tantalizing reblog which I'm not sure if you might have seen because they might have blocked you, or you might have blocked them. It's a response to this addition by OP btw. It's one of the more prolific stans too. If you're looking for bad takes, you'd love this.

The first paragraph is about the claim that Azula was abused in the asylum because Gene Yang said so, even though he didn't say that at all. What he said was "we'll see what a year in a fire nation asylum does to her" which could mean absolutely anything. Add on to that the general public's view of mental health institutions as awful places little better than prisons that you put people in to forget about them, plus the fact that Azula doesn't want to be there and is angry about losing her freedom and doubly angry about the idea that she needs help from anyone, and it's very obvious why he said that. This idea that Gene Yang said that as a confirmation of abuse happening in the asylum is bizarre, especially when it's combined with the insistence that Yang thinks Azula being abused is a good thing. Do these people think he was like, cackling evilly and steepling his fingers like Mr. Burns while he said that?

But even if Yang did say that Azula was abused in the asylum, what OP says is still true. If the author says something that contradicts what is actually shown in the text, then interpreting the text based on what is presented is valid. Nothing Yang said did contradict what is shown, though, because we do see that Azula is worse for the wear in the asylum. But that's because she's been stewing in her rage for a year after being defeated, driving away all her friends and allies, losing all of her political power and strength, and being haunted by hallucinations that no one knows about, because she doesn't tell them. These hallucinations are also manifestations of her own guilt. She did harmful things and is paying the price for it. It would be very out of character if we saw her happy in the asylum when her brother who she thinks is beneath her and is now firelord comes to visit her. Just like we don't expect Ozai to be happy and doing well in prison. Is Ozai being abused as well? Because I will remind everyone reading this that abuse does not have to do with how much sympathy you have for the victims or what they deserve, it has to do with someone who is in a position of power taking advantage of someone they have power over. Azula having to be restrained to protect those around her is not abuse, just as Ozai being imprisoned to protect those around him is not abuse. If Zuko were to, like, have Ozai tortured while in prison, that would be abuse. Or if Azula were forced to be in a straight jacket 24/7, but we don't see that happening or have any evidence that it happened.

Lol at "the difference between abuse and toxicity." The difference is that people on tumblr think "toxicity" is a buzzword to pull out to excuse abusers because it's not a term with a specific definition the way abuse is and can be applied to a wide number of situations to make it look like the victims of abuse are equally at fault.

And actually, the atla wiki says that agni kais actually were not as brutal before Sozin's reign, and traditionally were supposed to be a last resort to settle a dispute. And Azula does not slightly smirk, she smiles and holds up her fist in triumph. Also lol @ this person telling OP they don't understand abusive dynamics and then trying to argue that Zuko's agni kai with Ozai was just tradition, when even according to the tradition, it was very obviously an abuse of power on Ozai's part. The wiki also says that traditionally, the firelord was not often challenged, because he is among the most powerful firebenders. For the firelord to trick his son into fighting against him is most certainly abuse, especially given the already existing dynamic of emotional abuse. And the cover of "tradition" adds to the abusiveness of it, because abusers know how to make their behavior look socially acceptable and will often use tradition as an excuse. Why do you think Ozai never raised a hand against Zuko before it was in a socially sanctioned duel? Ozai used the agni kai because he knew he could get away with it.

Azula was smiling and holding her fist up in triumph at seeing her father abuse her brother. It doesn't make Azula evil, but it is part of a pattern of her joining in on Ozai's abuse of her brother and using the fact that she had Ozai's favor and he did not against him, and that she enjoyed this dynamic. These are inferences, yes, but they are inferences drawn from what is explicitly shown in the text, and part of a whole, and consistent with everything else we see about Azula's character and her dynamic with Zuko and Ozai.

I would not say Mai "cheerily" went with Azula. Part of her motivation was boredom, but Azula still chose to threaten her baby brother to make sure she had Mai's loyalty, and Mai clearly did not like being ordered around by Azula and there's a clear power dynamic there that is being taken advantage of by Azula. Just like there is a clear power dynamic between Azula and Zuko, and Zuko preventing Azula from harming him and others does not make her his victim. Plus the fact that Azula abused Zuko and had power over him throughout most of their childhood, and mutual abuse doesn't exist and is an invention of abusers to try and shift blame.

It's also just really laughable that this person then goes on a tirade about holding characters "accountable" that already stopped being villains, then insists that the OP really just wants Azula to suffer, even though they said nothing about her suffering. They don't seem to understand that this is not about who needs to be punished for their actions, it is about how Azula is not and never has been sorry for her actions and continues to do harm to others, and that calling other characters abusive for defending themselves from her is disgusting.

The final plea to "let Azula move on with her life" is also hilarious. As if the OP who said that Zuko did not abuse Azula is somehow preventing the very fictional Azula from "moving on." Azula can't move on because she is a villain and continues to be one.

Also, that person could not be civil to begin with. I've only ever seen them in the context of incoherent rage rants on other people's posts about how Zuko is the real abuser, actually.

[bythenineshards]

i think the reason which makes me angry about acotar & its fandom as a whole is the double standard that exists in the fanbase. rhysand sexually assaulted feyre? 'it's a dark romance so you should go read your vanilla stories & also he did it for her own good'. but when someone says 'well, if it's a dark romance, surely we can have a tamlin redemption arc 'cause he & rhys are the same 'cause he was also protecting feyre 'for her own good'', they'll come at you with pitchforks about how feyre needs someone who is 'feminist' to have a 'healthy relationship' with. like WHICH ONE IS IT??

i am in the hannibal, killing eve & interview with the vampire fandoms. i do like me some mutually toxic relationships that makes you look through characters psyches & pick apart motives & themes.

but acotar goes for this weird stance in its own morality that it doesn't make an ounce of sense. it would've made sense if feyre had left tamlin even if they had a healthy relationship to go join rhysand & then the story could've had a darker turn there. that could've been the basis of a dark romance. or feyre & tamlin's relationship being built on the same lines of toxicity & feyre betraying/hurting tamlin to join rhysand because she wants more power. & tamlin be an equal adversary for them (not antagonist). then the story be continued from there. give me moral ambiguity so that i don't know who to root for. these kinds of things happen in adult high fantasies all the time.

but sjm chooses to compare two equally bad (or 'morally gray', as the stans love to call it) characters and be like 'see, this one is better!!' but if someone points out that they're equally bad you have to watch them do all kinds of unnecessary mental gymnastics & say 'b-but it is a dark romance with dark themes & it's adult!! and rhysand is MORALLY GREY!!! if you can't handle it don't read it!' or the argument of 'it's fiction & they're fae!! you can't apply real world morals to it!!' like sure but where is the CONSISTENCY???

Hey Anon! I could've sworn I answered this. But apparently I didn't.

I can't stand the justifying of Rhys' deeds. Dark Romance books don't feel the need to do that. The guy doesn't need the justifications and hero framing. The books are thrown around as feminist or empowering. The point is that the relationship is a toxic dynamic. Maas has said in interviews that she writes healthy romances. She views this as a healthy relationship.

You know what's funny? The road to hell is paved with what? Good. Intentions. The best villains are people who meant well but had evil methods to achieve that goal. Rhys did x______ because it was for....? Doesn't matter, still did it. Thanos (in the movies) killed half the universe because it would create more resources for those left. Good intention. Horrible idea considering he had the power to create more resources.

You're right that there were so many other angles this could've gone to make it better. Personally I believe the best idea would've been to just have them grow apart. Cuz that happens and it wouldn't have taken Tamlin being abusive to do. Feyre could've fallen for Rhys knowing what he did was wrong. I'm sorry but there was no excuse or justification for working for Amarantha. Rhys should've been punished. However that would mean more work than comparing a retconned Tamlin to Rhys and made Feyre actually flawed.

Ugh... this series... so glad I'm not buying anymore of her books. You know, it's so weird how easily impressed I am with books that do the bare minimum effort to be decent after reading these.

[stargirlfeyre]

People who claim to hate sjm and her characters because they’re highly problematic always seem to stan Nesta for some reason. Do y’all think she’s different and doesn’t have a touch of sjm’s ignorance added to her or something? There’s literally quotes of this girl being misogynistic, racist, classist, and ableist. Applying real world standards to these books Nesta is one of her most problematic characters.

Nesta is not different from any of the other “problematic” characters in the books babe. She’s just a pretty white girl who’s always angry and that made y’all think she was somehow revolutionary.

[incarnadinedreams]

So I finally finished reading TGCF! (The main novel, I haven't gotten to the extras yet). I watched the first season of the donghua ages ago (right after I watched what was available of the MDZS donghua at the time and before I read the MDZS novel), then started reading TGCF as the first volumes of the official English versions were releasing and fell off.

My original plan was to "catch up" through book 5 and just keep up with the official releases. As soon as I finished book 5 I immediately abandoned that plan and went straight to the fan translations (whatever, I'll still be buying the officials as they release so I don't feel too guilty about it).

Anyway, I am feeling..... surprisingly normal about this book? I enjoyed it and had fun reading it and so far have not felt any inklings of obsessive derangement over it.

(Extremely long and rambling first impressions/thoughts after a single quick read below the cut, probably not that interesting. May contain major spoilers, and sorta comparing it to MDZS and specifically JC a bit just because the comparisons get pushed a lot because of the overlap in the fandoms)

Anyway, as a Jiang Cheng Enjoyer I've fairly often seen people say things like 'you should just read TGCF, Mu Qing is actually what JC stans wish Jiang Cheng was' or 'Mu Qing is Jiang Cheng but done right' and I just....... kinda don't see it?

Anyway... Is it just me? Am I stupid and missing something?

I mean, there are some obvious parallels and MXTX very clearly has a pattern/dynamic/formula she likes with the 'best friend side characters' slot, re-used some similar surface-level descriptions for Mu Qing that had been applied to Jiang Cheng (bad-tempered, sarcastic, unlikable, good looking, etc). So I'm definitely not saying people are totally wrong for seeing a connection there.

But they didn't actually feel all that similar to me beyond a handful of traits? And not only because of the tragic lack of jilfy purple electro-whip.

I think part of the problem is that Mu Qing suffered from a serious case of "tell, don't show" in his portrayal... in the text we're being told by other characters that he's so unlikable or has such a nasty personality or is so untrustworthy... but then rarely or never actually says or does anything "on camera" to show that?

Like, this isn't "he has done nothing wrong!" in the "I shall protect this precious blorbo of my heart" way, it's in the "ummmmmm... he has actually... not done anything wrong in this situation...? And I am confused as to why these characters are reacting to him in a way that is so wildly out of proportion to what has actually happened?"

As much as I love Jiang Cheng, he does at least actually say some mean things "on screen" in the novel to earn that bad-tempered sharp-tongued characterization. I might personally think he was perfectly justified in saying about 98% of them and being pissed as hell, but at least he actually does the being angry and bitter and verbal lashing out that he's characterized with. (Though I think he actually does a lot less of it than people seem to think, as most of the time he's just being pretty normal actually. But there are some scenes at least.) Of course, conversely, Wei Wuxian does also do many more actually bad things to balance it out too and make JC's on-screen anger/reactions make a lot more sense.

But Mu Qing on the other hand... a few snippy comments and some eye rolling? Everything else always ends up being someone else baselessly accusing him based on some accidental circumstances that got cleared up with reasonable explanations. His involvement in the whole turf war over the meditation place was mostly him showing up after the rest of them had already made up their minds and he was trying to de-escalate the situation without losing the job he was using to support his mother with or creating more problems.

The only kinda bad things I think he does (be okay with the idea of using the Human Face Disease against the Yong'an people to stop it from spreading in the Xianle capital city) is one of the few things that nobody actually has any issue with him for! You could argue that it was bad to get Hua Cheng kicked out of the army... but also he was 14 and there are no actual details given and tbh that kid was kinda creepy from an outside perspective (even if I liked him)...

To be honest I'd seen a few people making vague comments about his "betrayal" in the past so I knew it was coming, but "I'm gonna go take care of my mom instead of doing these former rich fuck's laundry" was so deeply underwhelming on the betrayal scale I was like "wait, that's it?"

I mean there was not even a siege involved...? Not a single declaration of hatred? Not even a little bit of threatened torture?

Anyway, I was already still feeling some kind of way about that royal laundry situation when I got to the scene in Mt Tonglu where Mu Qing is all "I was in awe of you, you're a better person than me and I wanted to be your friend" while Xie Lian is like "um well you'd spit in someone's cup but you wouldn't poison it so I don't want you to die I guess."

I just felt sort of vaguely put off by the whole exchange and the sense of a total lack of reciprocity from Xie Lian. His whole vibe is "well I don't dislike you enough to let you die, and saving people is my thing in general so, y'know, here I am saving you."

Because what made the whole dynamic work in MDZS was how (even if the characters didn't necessarily know it about the other) they just cared about each other so much, to an absolutely unhinged degree, and that felt missing here. So even though WWX has some of the same vibe of negative or resentful opinions of JC at points, it hits different because they're laid on the backdrop of an utterly unhinged sacrifice specifically and uniquely for Jiang Cheng (which, unknown to WWX, was needed because of a more standard in type but but still unhinged sacrifice of his own that was specifically and uniquely for WWX)

I don't necessarily mind that specific relationship being different or less intense in TGCF (in fact I prefer that it's not just a copy-paste of the same characters going by different names with a bit more polish, the way some people made it sound like it would be), but the way that specific scene played out given the backdrop of how MQ keeps getting treated throughout the rest of the story just felt icky to me. Idk.

A lot of the way the characters interacted with each other just felt like the action and reactions were a little mismatched or something? Something about the behaviors involved didn't ring as painfully, horribly, clearly true to me as they did in so many MDZS scenes.

Anyway I did enjoy both Mu Qing and Feng Xin as characters, I'll definitely be indulging in some FengQing content (recs/links welcome if anyone actually read this far lol), just specifically their relationship with Xie Lian did not inspire in me even a teensy fraction of the depths of absolute feral obsession that the Yunmeng Shuangjie relationship does. It... just did not resonate that way with me. If I had to speculate (in a wild and baseless fashion, source: my ass), I think that toning down the intensity might have even been intentional on the author's part this go around.

Anyway a lot of that was mostly because the expectation of a strong parallel and deep reaction to the Xianle trio's relationship was pre-planted in my mind, and such expectations are generally always doomed to fall short anyway.

As far as the rest of the novel, like I said - it was generally quite enjoyable, I had fun reading it, I'm certainly not trying to trash it! I'd say I actually overall enjoyed the HuaLian relationship developing in the novel itself more than WangXian, in terms of how the flirting was executed. Like "what if you had an extremely dangerous and fervently obsessed stalker, but also make it cute". I don't dislike WangXian, but for me their relationship was just a fun side-plot and not what I really cared about or kept reading for. I did find the Hong-er and lantern ghost flashback scenes quite touching and sweet.

The first ~200 chapters (by the web novel serialization chapter numbers) I'd say were generally constructed better than MDZS, so I see where people say there was a bit of a level up there. The last ~40ish chapters the pacing felt kind of off to me, like there was just too much crammed in and MXTX just wanted it to be over and done with.

The 'uncovering secrets of an ancient lost empire/kingdom' type of plot is my absolute jam, my favoritest trope of all time, I actually loved the concepts there. It was like a two-for-one, since we got the learn about the fall of Xianle which scratched that itch a little bit, and then the full-on mystery aspect with Wuyong. I wish there had been more time spent on the mystery/uncovering information about Wuyong aspect of the plot rather than the answers coming relatively quickly.

Unsurprisingly in addition to Feng Xin and Mu Qing, I was a huge fan of Yushi Huang, Ling Wen, Shi Qingxuan, He Xuan, Lang Qianqiu (his adorable golden retriever energy is irresistible when combined with a Tragic Backstory), Guzi, Yin Yu, Quan Yizhen

Surprise favs were Pei Ming (I'd only seen through the donghua S1 so I kinda had him categorized in my mind as the offscreen God of Fuckboys, but ended up liking him an unreasonable amount) and Qi Rong

Anyway I had all of these thoughts while I was reading then felt a bit guilty about them when I read the postscript because I am the person she was afraid of coming over to read TGCF after MDZS :x

[mazzystar24]

Buck coma dream analysis part 2

Mind the tags for trigger warnings the part that applies is marked by a line of ****************** before and after

Buddie stans and Buckley Diaz family truthers the second point is just for you ❤️

Also I just realised i didn’t explain that my reason for bringing its a wonderful life into this is cos the episode made multiple references to it and chimney even said “like in it’s a wonderful life?”

(Part 1 here)

• anyone else think it’s kinda suspicious, kinda weird that in the coma dream Buck is a teacher (distinctly for young children not highschool kids) and who did Eddie last date? Oh yeah Ana Flores aka Christopher’s teacher, evan buckley I know what you are👀

• I haven’t watched it’s a wonderful life in a while but this caused me to rewatch it and if you guys are looking for more Buckley-Diaz family confirmation I got just the thing, the first opening lines of the movie are different people praying for the main character George to be helped by god, all the prayers line up very well with bucks character saying things like “i owe everything to him” “he’s a good man,give him a break” “he doesn’t think about himself” but most importantly and most relevantly one of those people is his kid and she says “something is the matter with daddy, please bring daddy home please bring him back”, remind you of anything? Perhaps a certain child who sat at his bedside asking what was wrong with him and told him to come back from wherever he is? Yes I audibly gasped when I remembered that from the movie

•the placement of Maddie’s bruise being in the same place as when he went to the hospital asking to stay with her and she mentions things at home being complicated in his brain this was the moment he should’ve noticed the warning signs

****************************************************

• in the final coma scene where coma Daniel chases him into the medicine closet and tries to convince him to stay in the coma (die) and that there is nothing for him out there you see yet another It’s a wonderful life reference this time it’s a white board in the background of the medicine room that says "No man is a failure who has friends." which is what in the movie is meant to wrap up the moral of the story and make George not commit suicide. That’s why this line and episode I feel confirm for me that that self destructive behaviour we saw in buck begins actually is a lot darker than what we saw, not only that but this also links in with what we know is Buck’s biggest fears- being a failure (“they think I’m a loser maddie, but I’m not) and being alone. I also feel like while it being writing is a reference to the movie, it being writing AND in the background AND the audience not even having their attention bought to it is just sort of a metaphor for how loud and prominent dark thoughts (Coma Daniel) can be. In conclusion I am never forgiving the Buckley parents cos making your kid think you only care about them if they’re bleeding leading to years of what can be referred to as passive self harm and suicidal ideation isn’t okay ❤️

****************************************************

• the creepy orderlies- no clue what this means but it’s unsettling

• chimney and hen calling Eddie “angry guy” I feel like this is such a callback to eddies spiral and the boxing thing, as buck is realising how wrong the coma world is a thing that sticks out and is meant to disorient him is Eddie being referred to as an angry guy

• also within that conversation did anyone else think they were gonna say that Chris didn’t make it from the tsunami and then it’s like they reworded mid conversation? Cos I did and I feel like it tracks well with it being bucks brain because he’s tryna think of this world where he’s not involved in their lives so he has to detangle himself from the story and see how it would be so the first line “ you would be (angry) too if you lost your kid” then you see pure fear on Buck’s face because it insinuates something different where you can see where his mind went until they explain that Eddie lost a custody battle. Because at first in his brain it’s like oh shit Chris would’ve died in the tsunami but then it’s like no he wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for buck but then it’s like Eddie would’ve lost him in a different way still and it’s like he’s reasoning with himself

• the pregnant yoga ladies - sperm donor storyline or father/son Bobby and buck moment callback?

•the tv in the waiting room looks to display an earthquake - which is both a callback to the early seasons and foreshadowing

• also I really hope that this doesn’t happen but there have been hints that point toward buck leaving LA and going to Italy because in the movie George says something about leaving the town behind and going to (a list of places) but first among that list was Italy and the cardiologist also mentions Italy in the next episode and buck says he’s never been

Fuck it part three maybe happening too

[wibble-wobbegong]

some ppl in the tag have been making transfem byler headcanons that only apply to one character (making them a straight couple) or making them fully sapphic (erasing will's canonical sexuality) and a few people took issue with it and posted abt it. but then those ppl got their inboxes flooded w anons jumping to conclusions and it was a Whole Thing, but one of the original people who was frustrated w it was transmasc and getting a bunch of shit even though they were posting abt being offended by some of the headcanons as a queer transmasc person

HELP “erasing will’s sexuality”

bitches really out here making a fuss about trans hcs???? fandom is queer down to its roots, people have always molded canon into representation for themselves because we don’t get representation in media very often. as long as the intention isn’t to make them straight there is literally nothing wrong with hcing any character as trans. when queer people choose to expand upon a character’s queerness by broadening it into the fluidity of sexuality and gender it’s because there isn’t many other places to find characters you like that also already have that progressive queerness

also, contextually, a handful of people making transfem hcs is not the demographic anyone should be angry at for invalidating will’s sexuality. the people making those hcs are more than likely queer and more than likely trying to see themselves in their favorite characters. reminder that sapphic and transfem/genderqueer people are severely underrepresented in media as it is. they aren’t punching down, they’re punching up with hcs like that. queer people making queer hcs in queer spaces is normal and also a staple in fandom - keep queer spaces queer. don’t divide us as we start getting the inklings of representation. until all of us are represented, none of us are.

and, as a trans man, getting offended by that is so stupid. to all my trans sisters looking to project onto mike and/or will, to all my genderqueer friends who find comfort in seeing your favorite characters be like yourselves, to all my wlw bros who have had to deal with their representation getting cancelled and shut down and fetishized, keep making your silly little hcs and writing your silly little fics and drawing your silly little doodles. stan she/her mike, i have read fics so great about her they made me question myself for a hot minute

hope that other guy is ok tho

[rametarin]

On the subject of tankies and blind spots

Tankies often know their "blind spots." It's deliberate, and to really understand how and why they maintain this seeming glib double standard, you just have to observe "Pick Up Artist" culture. Because to be quite frank, tankies and most socialist philosophers just apply being a sex pest to how social activism should work.

The constant guerilla cultural warfare method that was sooooo prevalent in the late 80s and early 90s, when they would be tankies, but pretend not to be, just "start conversations around the water cooler" to spread propaganda or neg things or filibust productive discussions they took personal offense to (and DELIBERATELY disrupt them so conversation they didn't control or the outcome would be the opposite of their desired feelings and thoughts at the end)

With tankies, which in the modern day applies both to people deliberately stanning for Russia or China or insert-socialist-democratic-peoples-harmonious-jubilant-generous-republic here, they come in both the useful idiot form and the deliberately deceptive one. And they're loyal, because to them, the more important part is to destroy competition to their preferred ideology and worry about their preferred ideology after the competition is disqualified.

That's how they work.

To use an allegory of a bunch of men trying to woo a woman. Lets say a bunch of different social systems are would-be suitors for society. The game the way it's meant to be played is you come up, pitch who you are, what you're about, what you can give or offer the lady.

Flowers, chocolate, sweet nothings, dates. Thems the conventional rules of courtship and all that. That's not how tankies/socialists do it.

Oh no. The way they operate is more like predators. They study the book on human relationships, theories on it, how it's "supposed to work" like an alien dissecting the code of an animal, and then with cold hearted audacity, try to deconstruct it and hack it to work for them for their goals. Not to win a heart in a way that respects the recipient and everybody involved, but to win.

So they put on a genuine but phony friendly demeanor, as they're taught to wear as a mask, and rather than try to court who they're interested in, they instead try to be the girl's friend. Become a peer. Pretend and feign they aren't even in the running for courtship and leave things ambiguous and unstated. If accused of trying, they simply go "What? When did I say I wanted that? I'm just standing here." The, "I never said it and you can't prove it" playing coy, anything you can't prove is a baseless accusation game.

From that position, they start playing the role of consultant. Feeding them nice sounding maxims of things to look out for, warning signs, red flags, dire portents. All of them designed to play off key elements of their competition in a game they leave ambiguous if they're even in the running for and give indirect inferences that they aren't. All of them designed to give false positives or warning signs or bad behavior to affect the lady's behavior and make her see threats that aren't there, or assume negative things about a person's character to neutralize the threat of their would-be competition, if they were playing the game honestly.

One by one, competition starts looking worse. "This one looks like an alcoholic. I heard they had a temper, too. You saw the way they angrily responded to Jeffy making a benign statement!" (and now even the slightest bit of aggression from that man looks like the shadow of an angry drunk). "This one seems shifty. I heard he owes debts and is shameless about asking for money." (hard to prove and potentially a long term security risk if true- and so difficult to research and find out if you don't feel like it or don't want the drama.) "That one sleeps around a lot" (probably true in that individual's case. I mean, it's his own fault, but the Tankie Suitor is going to really beat that point like a drum for his own advantage.)

Just being a helpful supportive friend, Tankie Pick-Up-Artist starts giving her criteria all but designed to take their competition out of the running that coincidentally fits them like gloves, invents context by which to damn them in a game he invented with criteria for the rules he wholesale fabricated that he insists so generally are just basic rules and decency and reality that this gish gallup seems incredibly complicated to question or take apart, and having no reason to assume she's being ensnared in a logical trap because of the not-apparent danger or outcome.

And one by one, all the boys in the running are disqualified because she's using Tanke P.U.A's criteria of what a good boyfriend looks like.

All except him. Oh, wow! The precious prince was under her nose the whole time! What a hallmark romance moment! What a GOOD FRIEND. what a selfless, intelligent, totally unassuming good boy!

Tankies are like that, but for social/political systems. They have an idea of what they want and expect society to be by defining society and how it ought to interact with identity and economy, and then they grade systems that aren't their preferred standard by how well they conform to the platonic ideal of the one they ascribe to, faulting them subjectively.

If you tell them their subjective criteria are bullshit and pie in the sky, and they can't prove anything, they shake their jowels and insist upon the righteousness of morals and civil rights and "being a decent human being." And then go on to talk about how capitalism and not-socialism are all guilty of every premature death due to poverty and starvation solely by not being socialist, and that is "way worse than every death done under things that aren't even real socialism!"

Which as we all know, real socialism is when it works, and fake socialism is when not-socialism in the name of socialism doesn't work- then it's just capitalism's fault, either because it's state capitalism or no states around them will cooperate and spoon feed the socialist state by... giving them labor, industry and intelligence... to compete with capitalism.

So tankies will remove the context by which they neg figures in societies and cultures and economic systems they disagree with for moral and ideological reasons but pretend they're just "giving a critique" of them. You know. Through, "Critical Lenses." WHich if you aren't into the arcane of their mental gymnasium, are just the equivalent of a Christian judging everything using the language of Christianity and declaring things objectively evil because their religion says so. Dude, the stamp, "MY SUBJECTIVE RELIGION SAYS THIS" comes right with the holy book. It is the perspective of your ideology, a dogma borne of your arbitrary subjective beliefs, not facts. A glass house constructed of baseless moralism steered purely by preference. Your ideology is not the arbiter on what's right or not, and we will not treat or respect it as universally applicable, or the defacto logical standard. No matter how much you try to blackbox it and deny people access to touch it and be the rudder of conversation. The same way as Christian moralism doesn't get to be "our" moralism just because you enter the conversation talking like Christianity is baseline correct.

They know the sweatshop labor of China and other countries are wrong, but they insist "they're forced to do it to survive ideologically", because of "pressure from the west abusing and starving them." Whereas they maintain capitalism just does it out of greed for "the elite." And if you point out regulation and law exists specifically to prevent that, they argue, "capitalism rends all laws moot by corruption." Which, again, is prevalent in socialist systems as well by nature of authority dictating where resources go.

It's usually not a question of ignorance on the part of the tankie. Usually. Some don't know any better and only stand by it because it sounds right to them but they don't know. Others are college educated, aware of how the legal and economic systems function- or don't- and will still stan socialism and/or communism, because, "it's the moral thing we ought be doing."

And those ones absolutely will sit there trying to stir your passions by telling you half truths to shape your perceptions and hack your interpretation of how things work to get you on that wavelength, because to them and their psychology, the ends justify the means.

And it is that kind of sociopathy that is what dooms socialists and socialism not to work. Because that psychology becomes its own culture and fraternity. That psychology exists to exploit people for their labor in the short term until it's modus operandi of a structure that can FORCE people to continue participating until monopoly of force and monopoly of resources either deprives them from not participating, or corporeally punishes them for not participating- or delivering quota. Baking redistribution in, even just on principle, not on legitimate physical need, because, "it's the RIGHT thing to do." Even if it's wasteful, even if it results in ruin. But they still stan it, because the ideal reality of if it could just work and if only they could just somehow convince or compel people to participate in their fantasy, it could be MADE reality. If only everybody else donated their time and resources to it! They just need convincing.

It's all the bothersomeness of dealing with religious cult sermonizing and blindsiding/blitzing you with theological basis without fully disclosing their beliefs, without the specific church or specific religion. But insisting it's not a religion because, "it's the truth."

[countlessrealities]

8. Which of your muses deserves better? 15. What is a fandom you wish to write in one day? 17. What is your favourite thing when you decide to add a new muse to your blog/when you decide to make a new blog?

Multimuse blog asks || Accepting !

8. Which of your muses deserves better? Damn, okay, this question is a little hard to answer because almost all my muses are tendentially assholes / ask for what they get, so it’s kind of hard to say who deserves better. At the same time, though, it’s also true that almost all of them had something traumatic in their pasts that they didn’t really deserve too. Like, Rick getting his family killed, or Stan being kicked out by his parents when he was barely 18. If I really had to pick one muse...I’d say Jinx. Powder’s parents were slaughtered when she was just a little girl, right in front of her, and she was forced to give up in a harsh, cruel world, one where jungle law applies and where someone who’s already intrinsically fragile is doomed to fail. She made a terrible mistake, with horrible consequences, but at the end of the day she’s just a victim of circumstances and she never got the kind of help and support she needed. A special mention goes to Mabel, not because of something that happens to her in canon, but because of how the fandom treats her. I won’t go into details, because I don’t want to go on an angry rant, but I’ll just say this: a lot of people hate on her because her choice helped starting Weirdmageddon, but they keep forgetting that she’s a kid, a 12-years-old girl. Expecting a child to have the maturity of an adult is just insane. And dumb.

15. What is a fandom you wish to write in one day? Uuuuh, I’m actually not sure there is one right now? Because 1. I currently have Rick and Morty brainrot and I have big issues thinking about a fandom that’s not it xD and 2. I’m currently writing characters from all the fandoms that hold / have held my main interest in the last period. But I admit that I’ve been pondering whether or not to add Reagan from Inside Job on the blog, even if I’ve written her a little on Discord. So I guess that might count? I won’t do it any time soon, because I already added two new muses, but it’s a thought for the future.

17. What is your favourite thing when you decide to add a new muse to your blog / when you decide to make a new blog? I think that my favourite thing when it comes to adding a new muse is...finding their voice. So, digging into the character’s mindset, figuring out how to put into writing my idea of what makes them tick, and also how to render what’s given out visually by the media they come from into words. It can be tricky, but it’s always a fun challenge, even if it can also get frustrating at times (and I’ve been recently struggling in this sense, so I would know x’D). Even if it doesn’t work out...it’s always worth it, because it adds to my experience as a writer.

[moonlightdancer26]

One of the most annoying 'Snape was obsessed with Lily' assumptions is that he only likes potions to impress her, and that everything written in the Prince's book was in fact Lily's own innovation and he was obsessively looking at her brewing them and noted what she did. It's so stupid bc it assumes Snape was an idiot at potions and he was an obsessive incel. Immediate nope-out bc they like to strip him of ANY good traits he has because he cant possibly be intelligent. The only theory worse than that one is the 'James was the real HBP' that one hurts in its idiocy.

YES IT’S SO ANNOYING OMFG.

I’ve noticed that Snape antis constantly say that “Snape apologists only like Snape because of the reveal about him and Lily in the last book” and claim that we ignore what he’s done in the 6 previous books but then they go and make every single fucking thing he’s done about Lily. Even when she has nothing to do with it (Snape bullying Neville, for example).

Snape did this? Because of Lily. Snape said that? Because of Lily. *insert random fact about Snape*? Oh, because of Lily, Snivellus only *insert the most completely-made-up-random-ass—crazily-popular-bullshit-headcanon-ever-that-gets-treated-like-canon* because of Lily. It’s either that or “because *insert random-ass-motivation.*” LIKE CAN Y’ALL STOP WITH THAT?

His personality does NOT revolve around Lily or James. Stop trying to twist motivations and strip characters (ayo) of their canonical talents and abilities in order to glorify another. I’m certain Marauder stans would get angry if people started saying that “James only liked and played Quidditch just to impress Lily” and that he had no legitimate talent (or smth like that), and rightfully so.

But honestly, no matter how much that “James is actually the half-blood Prince” infuriates me, I just love how Marauder stans realise Snape’s creativity and skill and they can’t stand greasy meanie Snivellus being so talented to the point where they transfer his traits to James. Their lack of material is genuinely pitiable. Severus’s skill is canon, where did they even get the idea that he did it for Lily? Did they not hear Slughorn’s words in HBP?

Plus, there are two more problems with the situation:

James was most likely at best mediocre at Potions, if he was at least good—good, not extraordinarily talented—he 100% would’ve gotten invited to the Slug club; he was a wealthy, popular, pureblood Quidditch star. That would’ve been enough for Slughorn to invite him. If James was at least good at Potions, Slughorn would’ve invited him, but he didn’t. And Slughorn only ever brought Lily up when talking about Harry’s talent in Potions, never mentioned James.

They’re basically admitting that they’re alright with horrible things being done if it’s their faves doing it. The whole “James is the half blood Prince” theory is just stupid, but if he was the one who wrote all the notes into the book then he was the one who created Sectumsempra, Levicorpus and all the other spells. They eat Snape alive for creating Sectumsempra and Levicorpus but it’s totally fine and even cool for James to have done it. I’ve even seen some make excuses and say “Oh well James probably did it for a good reason” 1. Oh yeah? like he did with Levicorpus… aka the spell he used to sexually assault another teenager? 2. then why doesn’t that same logic apply to Snape? Why is it only your fave, and not my fave who *gasps* isn’t a sex offender?🫢 One of Marauder stans’ most common arguments to defend James’s actions in SWM is “well Snape created the spell (Levicorpus)!” (as if that justifies SA but that’s not the point), so if they’re saying James created the spell then….. 😗

They always find the weirdest ways to play themselves it’s actually so hilarious.

I’m sorry for ranting, anon, those two claims just really bother me.

[aalghul]

Why Do People Think Jason Todd is the "Dumb" Robin?

I just saw your post defending Jason's intelligence. THANK YOU for that! But I wanted to know why people think of him as the dumb Robin?

In the comics, has anyone OBJECTIVELY described Jason Todd as a moron? Was low intelligence ever listed as one of his weaknesses? Was he ever portrayed as a class clown or something?

Maybe it's because fans wanted to typecast someone as the "dumb jock" and Jason's physique fit the stereotype?

I'm just trying to understand how this belief started out. Is there any basis for it? Even in his more controversial portrayals?

Jason was never described as anything below extremely intelligent when he was Robin. This applies to both pre and post-crisis, but I know people like to whine about how Jason stans confuse pre-crisis Jason’s personality with post-crisis. (Generally people who don’t read comics or don’t understand how crisis worked. Jason’s core character traits stayed largely the same. Even if that was not true, crisis did not erase all of Jason’s time as Robin from prior; it was gently added to his post-crisis run as Robin.)

Jason was described as brash and reckless and angry only after Tim became Robin, so that Bruce (& DC) could be absolved of blame over his death + to make Tim seem like a better Robin in comparison. They were probably worried people weren’t actually willing to just accept a new Robin like Tim, mainly because he wasn’t as skilled as Dick or Jason, so DC overcompensated. Two birds with one stone, I guess. So, not very objective at all, considering it was all done to paint a picture of Jason that very blatantly opposed what was actually true.

UTRH, the defining story for who Jason is post resurrection, very clearly made Jason outsmart Bruce on every level. Bruce never ‘caught’ Jason, it was a planned reveal and confrontation and everything. Following UTRH, Jason was viewed as a dangerous threat in every appearance. N52 Outlaws sucked, but even that didn’t generally ignore Jason’s intelligence. I think it’s generally agreed upon that Battle for the Cowl is the worst portrayal of Jason…ever. But even then, it doesn’t treat Jason like some second rate villain. If Morrison was going to make him a villain, he should’ve showed off his skills a little more, but that isn’t to say that Jason wasn’t a major threat. Basically the only person in BftC that was on Jason’s level was Dick, and it wasn’t like Dick didn’t take him seriously. And that continued on after BftC, and right up until the reboot. What’s important to note is that Jason wasn’t even actually ‘caught’ as Dick’s villain either, he let himself be taken to Arkham. He lost because of his emotions, same as in UTRH, not because he couldn’t mentally keep up with Dick or Bruce (who are well established as some of the smartest people in the DC universe).

It is N52 & Rebirth that decided to cement the Red Hood as some trigger happy idiot instead of the highly trained threat ther came up with a plan to fuck with both Batman and the Green Arrow (and Speedy) in like an evening. And succeeded. Just because he felt like it. Coincidentally, Jason being dumbed down often went hand-in-hand with Jason & Tim suddenly being buddy-buddy. But it wasn’t just that. Most recently, we have Urban Legends’ Cheer story showing Jason being what fanon has wanted for years: an idiot that doesn’t know when not to think with his guns. But never has Jason been called an idiot without the intent to kick his actual intelligence under the table. It’s always characters with some sort of bias, in some way.

We have, however, had a monitor (different scale of ‘feelings’ than humans; literally was not possible for this mf to be biased) say this in response to Jason figuring out what was going on with Donna, Duela and himself (this was some messy universal error stuff, by the way. He went off of like a few words from one interaction and half a connection. And he was right):

Countdown to Final Crisis #46

As for why fans characterize Jason that way, it’s half just being lazy and assuming he must be an idiot cuz they think he looks the part of the “dumb jock”. People always reduce characters to stupid things (like Stephanie’s personality, according to fanon, is waffles & sass & also being an idiot). That’s not out of the ordinary, but the point about Steph also being labelled as an idiot in fanon brings me to the worst reason that Jason is mischaracterized on such a large level over something that should never have been contestable: classism. Plain and simple. Not to pick on Tim, but Tim was born a millionaire and has always been rich (yes, including when his dad lost his money. They were still living extremely comfortably, so it’s unfair to include him not being a millionaire anymore with Jason, Steph, Duke and Dick). It’s so easy for people to look at characters that are born into wealth and go to private schools, and just decide that they have to be the “smart one”. It doesn’t matter if that wasn’t even true originally. It doesn’t matter that the “idiot” Robins weren’t anything but geniuses until they had to be dumbed down for the benefit of an originally unrelated character, because they were from the streets. They have to be stupid, have poor vocabulary, never be able to keep up with other characters, etc. It’s really obvious when it’s Jason and Steph both receiving this treatment, especially considering that there’s more canon proof against these portrayals.

So, that’s that. There’s no real basis for it with either Jason or Steph. People are just stupid or stupid and classist.

[travelling-on-the-octopath]

Re: Gilbert/Gustave. I'm with ya. I also feel incredibly angry whenever people who claim to be Annette stans say they happily use her to murder her dad in CF. Like. Big yikes WTF. You people need help, fast. Also, can you really claim to understand Annette when her entire White Clouds motivation is about bringing her dad back home to apologize to his wife, being a family again, etc.

The whole "x character would be happy to kill their father" is applied to too many characters in this fandom . . . it really only applies to one, maybe two? She doesn't even want to throw away the doll he gave her dflgjdfkg