#you are always in the minority because every single person arguing has a different opinion

[s1aywalker]

꒰ა ♱ ໒꒱ little miss scare all. ꨄ

↷ ✩ —— sam monroe x alt! girlfriend reader headcanons. (nsfw 18+)

notes: a little slutty a little smutty! minors do not interact or else i'll collect your kneecaps. can we please stop kidding ourselves... this dude wants a goth girlfriend. and it's my duty as the resident metalhead mommy to serve my community. one alt!reader fic at a time.

| | | | she's got a date at midnight with nosferatu. oh baby, lily munster ain't got nothing on you. ⋆˚࿔

𝜗𝜚˚⋆ sam monroe is, first and foremost, a fucking hater for the fun of it. the type of dude that calls anyone who doesn't listen to anything he deems cool a poser. the type of dude that sees a chick wearing a metallica shirt that she got from the thrift store and, with a straight face, tells her to name three albums without missing a single beat. so he thinks it's pretty fucking sick to have a girlfriend that can keep up with his, perhaps to most, acquired tastes in music.

𝜗𝜚˚⋆ sam monroe who is ridiculously stubborn but secretly loves when you introduce him to new bands. he always acts like they're just okay after you popped the cd you recently bought into his stereo, and sometimes he'll even lie and say he already knows who they are. that he discovered them months ago. but then it's a few songs deep into the album, and wait... why is this actually fucking good?

𝜗𝜚˚⋆ sam monroe who is an absolute nightmare to argue with. even when it's not serious, when it's just having differing opinions on silly things like which vocalist is better, which album is the best. he's so stuck on his own likes and dislikes and everything is, as fred durst would say, his way or the highway. it's almost like he enjoys arguing with you... and maybe he does, because you can be just as stubborn when it's a topic as passionate as music, and he thinks it's cute when you stand your ground. he stopped actually caring about the argument ten minutes ago, and now he's just trying to piss you off because he thinks it's funny.

𝜗𝜚˚⋆ sam monroe who has broadened his musical horizons thanks to you. bands like type o negative and h.i.m that constantly incorporate very obvious "romantic" themes into their songs never really did anything for him because he thought it was lame and corny. until he had to endure you constantly listening to them. now he'll claim his enjoyment of them is from a form of stockholm syndrome... but maybe he just never had a person that he could relate them to before he met you. he thinks about you when he hears be my druidess or for you. plus, they're one hell of an aphrodisiac, and he quickly discovered just how easy it is to get a hand under your bra or in your pants when they're playing.

𝜗𝜚˚⋆ sam monroe who loves fishnets... maybe to an unhealthy degree. every time he sees you wearing them, he can't help but think about how good they make your legs look, how good he knows your ass looks under that skirt, and the thoughts of him tearing them to shreds instantly begin to flood in. and that's exactly what he does, the second he gets the chance. those poor tights never stand a chance in the same room as him... he'll promise to get you another pair while he's slotted between your legs and your hips are lifted, a promise he only keeps half the time. as his fingers dig into the fabric and start ripping them apart like it's the easiest thing in the world. like that's what those little tiny holes were made for. it's foreplay to him. but sometimes he's too impatient to even get them all the way off. sometimes he'll rip the crotch and push your panties aside to fuck you with a nice view of your legs still covered.

𝜗𝜚˚⋆ sam monroe who encourages your piercing urges. you mention wanting a new hole in your ear or nose? he's on board. when you mention wanting your tongue pierced? that's hot. immediate filthy thoughts of what it would feel like when you guys are sucking face nasty style. or better yet, what it would feel like rubbing against his cock. when you mention wanting your nipples done? he thought he was going to have a stroke on the spot, and he's offering to make the appointment for you if it means seeing that in his face as soon as possible. he'll even hold your hand and let you squeeze him until your knuckles are white while you're getting them done. but once it came time for the boring aftercare part, his excitement drops the second he hears about healing time.... weeks? he has to wait weeks to put them in his mouth? but he'll make those weeks worth it once you've given him the go ahead. he's actually fucking feral about it when you do.

𝜗𝜚˚⋆ sam monroe who lets you do his eyeliner. honestly, he's a little envious how good you can make yours look. effortlessly sharp and smoky. and you've always teased him about how shitty he does his. how he holds the pencil, how he has zero technique and just smudges it on with his fingers and doesn't even wash his hands afterward. so you jump on the chance to do it for him... it's only a bonus for both of you that you get to sit on his lap and be inches away from each others pretty faces. he's grumpily telling you not to poke his eye out and pretending he's not getting hard from the proximity alone. you notice... it's literally impossible to not feel it. and now you're trying to hurry this little makeover before you get the urge to ride his fucking thigh... but that's what you end up doing anyway. he's got one eye done and that pencil is long forgotten while his own hands are guiding your hips as they drag across his leg, searching for more of that friction his jeans provided. whining and desperate while he's saying how cute it is that you just couldn't wait five more minutes.

𝜗𝜚˚⋆ sam monroe who fucks you in the shitty venue bathroom, one covered in stickers and flyers and permanently tainted with the stench of beer, while the equally as shitty opening band plays. it's not romantic. it's hard and fast, sloppy and impatient. because he has you bent over in the stall, repeatedly slamming his cock into your cunt and not caring about how loud it might be. the downtuned guitar and blast beats raging on outside the door works as both a brutal soundtrack to his brutal rhythm, and to muffle every grunt and moan that reverberates against the cramped space. there isn't enough time to be sweet and caring, because this set is about to end and you guys still have to secure a good spot in the pit... but he'll still kiss you and rub his thumb at the mascara bleeding under your eyes, while he's stuffing his cock back into his pants and you're wiping the cum dripping down your inner thigh.

[star-anise]

Ok, I'll bite. What *is* the difference between Bridgerton and Jane Austen in relationship to their skirts?

Oh! Not in their costuming, just in their general *waves hands* everything. It's a comment I see a lot about Bridgerton: "Well, it's not much like Austen, is it?"

That's because there are 200 years of literary history between the two, and they have not been empty!

This ended up being 1.5k words, but when I put stuff under a readmore, people don't actually read it and then just yell at me because of a misread of the 1/10th of the post they did read. Press j to skip or get ready to do a lot of scrolling (It takes four generous flicks to get past on my iPhone).

First I'll say my perspective on this is hugely shaped by Sherwood Smith, who has done a lot of research on silver fork novels and the way the Regency has been remembered in the romance genre.

The Regency and Napoleonic eras stretch from basically the 1790s to 1820, and after that, it was hard to ignore the amount of social change happening in Britain and Europe. The real watershed moment is the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where 60,000 working-class people protesting for political change were attacked by a militia. The issues of poverty, class, industrialization, and social change are inescapable, and we end up with things like the 1832 Reform Act and 1834 Poor Law.

This is why later novelists, like Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, are so concerned with the experiences of the urban poor. Gaskell's North and South has been accurately described as "Pride and Prejudice for socialists."

So almost as soon as it ended, people started to look back and mythologize the Regency as a halcyon era, back when rich people could just live their rich lives and fret about "only" having three hundred pounds a year to live on. Back when London society was the domain of hereditary landowners, when you weren't constantly meeting with jumped-up industrialists and colonials.

Jane Austen is kind of perfect for this because she comes at the very end of the long eighteenth century, and her novels show hints of the tremors that are about to completely reshape England, but still comfortably sit in the old world. ("The Musgroves, like their houses, were in a state of alteration, perhaps of improvement. The father and mother were in the old English style, and the young people in the new. Mr and Mrs Musgrove were a very good sort of people; friendly and hospitable, not much educated, and not at all elegant. Their children had more modern minds and manners.")

Sherwood Smith covers the writers who birthed the Silver Fork genre in detail, but there's one name that stands out in its history more than any other: Georgette Heyer.

Georgette Heyer basically single-handedly established the Regency Romance as we know it today. Between 1935 and 1972, she published 26 novels set in a meticulously researched version of London of the late 18th and early 19th century. She took Silver Fork settings and characters and turned them into a highly recognizable set of tropes, conventions, and types. (As Sherwood points out, her fictional Regency England isn't actually very similar to the period as it really happened; it's like Arthurian Camelot, a mythical confection with a dash of truth for zest.)

Regency Romance is an escapist genre in which a happy, prosperous married life is an attainable prize that will solve everything for you. Georgette Heyer's novels are bright, sparkling, delightful romps through a beautiful and exotic world. Her female characters have spirit and vivacity, and are allowed to have flaws and make mistakes without being puritanically punished for them. Her romances have real unique sparks to them. She's able to write a formula over and over without it becoming dull.

And.... well. The essay that introduced me to Heyer still, in my opinion, says it best:

Here's the thing about Georgette Heyer: she hates you. Or, okay, she doesn't hate you, exactly. It's just that unless you are white, English, and upper class (and hale, and hearty, and straight, and and and), she thinks you are a lesser being. [...W]ith Heyer, I knew where I stood: somewhere way below the bottom rung of humanity. Along with everyone else in the world except Prince William and four of his friends from Eton, which really took away the sting. But my point is: if you are not that white British upper-class person of good stock and hearty bluffness and a large country estate, the only question for you is which book will contain a grimly bigoted caricature of you featuring every single stereotyped trait ever associated with your particular group. (You have to decide for yourself if really wonderful female characters and great writing are worth the rest of it.)

So Heyer created the genre, but she exacerbated the flaw that was always at the heart of fiction about the Regency, was that its appeal was not having to deal with the inherent rot of the British aristocracy. I think part of why it's such a popular genre in North America specifically is that we often don't know much British history, so we can focus more on the perfume and less on the dank odor it's hiding.

And like, escapism is not a bad thing. Romance writers as a community have sat down and said: We are an escapist genre. The Romance Writers of America, one of the biggest author associations out there, back when they were good, have foundationally said: "Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." A strong part of the community argue that publishing in the genre is a "contract" between author and reader: If it's marketed as a romance book, there's a Happily Ever After. If there's no Happily Ever After, it's not romance.

It's important for people to be able to take a break from the stresses of their lives and do things that are enjoyable. But the big question the romance genre in particular has to deal with is, who should be allowed to escape? Is it really "escapist" if only white, straight, upper class, able-bodied thin cis people get to escape into it? In historical romance, this is especially an issue for POC and LGBTQ+ people. It's taken a lot of work, in a genre dominated by the Georgette Heyers of the world, to try to hew out the space for optimistic romances for people of colour or LGBTQ+ people. These are minority groups that deal with a literally damaging amount of stress in real lives; they are in especial need of sources of comfort, refuge, community, and encouragement. For brief introductions to the issue, I can give you Talia Hibbert on race, and KJ Charles on LGBTQ+ issues.

Up until the 1990s, the romance genre evolved slowly. It did evolve; Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan's Beyond Heaving Bosoms charts the demise of the "bodice-ripper" genre as it became more acceptable for women to have and enjoy sex. The historical romance genre became more accommodating to non-aristocratic heroines, or ones that weren't thin or conventionally pretty. The first Bridgerton book, The Duke and I, was published in 2000, and has that kind of vibe: Its characters are all white but not all of them are aristocrats, its heroines are frequently not conventionally beautiful and occasionally plump, and its cultivation to modern sensibility is reflected in its titles, which reference popular media of today.

This is just my impression, but I think that while traditional mainstream publishing was beginning to diversify in the 1990s, the Internet was what really made diverse romance take off. Readers, reviewers, and authors could talk more freely on the internet, which allowed books to become unlikely successes even if their publishers didn't promote them very much. Then e-publishing meant that authors could market directly to their readers without the filter of a publishing house, and things exploded. Indie ebooks proved that there was a huge untapped market.

One of my favourite books, Zen Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown, is an example of what historical romance is like today; it's a direct callback and reclamation of Georgette Heyer, with a dash of "Fuck you and all your prejudices" on top of it. It fearlessly weaves magic into a classic Heyer plot, maintaining the essential structure while putting power into the hands of people of colour and non-Western cultures, enjoying the delights of London society while pointing out and dodging around the rot. It doesn't erase the ugliness, but imagines a Britain that is made better because its poor, its immigrants, its people of colour, and the foreign countries it interacts with have more power to make their voices heard and to enforce their wills. Another book I've loved that does the same thing is Courtney Milan's The Duke Who Didn't.

So then... Bridgerton the TV show is trying to take a book series with a very middle-of-the-road approach to diversity, differing from Heyer but not really critiquing her, and giving it a facelift to bring it up to date.

So to be honest, although it's set in the same time period as Austen, it's not in the least her literary successor. It's infinitely more "about" the past 30 years of conversation and art in the romance genre than it is about books written 200 years ago.

[simplepotatofarmer]

technoblade: a takedown - pt. 1

(not clickbait)

aka i go over every argument people make against c!techno one by one and determine whether they’re valid, false, or a mixture of both. i rewatched every single stream/video, including those on his alt channel, so i could approach this with the most information possible. i’ll be breaking this up into parts because there’s just too much otherwise. all about the characters unless stated.

techno believes in a ‘dog eat dog’ world - false

this is an argument i see used a lot when people discuss techno so i wanted to address it first. luckily, the stream in which he says this is only his fifth stream on the server. there’s one major reason why this argument falls apart and one minor reason that isn’t objective like the first.

first and most importantly: techno has never acted on this. even at the beginning - which is when this comment was made - he was helping his allies, from building railings to keep them from falling, making a potato farm, and all the gear he grinded for to equip his allies in pogtopia with. moving forward, he’s also helped out plenty of people: giving tommy a place to stay and items, telling phil to reach out to ranboo after doomsday, as well as giving both tommy and ranboo food when asked. there’s more, of course, but the point is he’s never once followed up on this statement. he teamed up with quackity to stop the egg. he spoke to niki about how he was giving anarchy a bad reputation because of the violence and wanted to take a different approach which he has.

when people use this argument to insist that techno is the villain, it doesn’t hold up because it’s merely taking one statement he made and upholding it as a main part of his character when his actions and later statements have shown that he doesn’t actually believe in this randian view point. objectively, i can’t see how this argument can extend beyond ‘well, he said it’. regardless of what he said during the pogtopia arc, he’s said the opposite later - wanting everyone to live free with no oppression or imperialism - and has never acted on it nor brought it up later. this take honestly seems disingenuous and was in fact the driving factor of this post.

second and not as critical, techno mentions multiple times during each of his first streams that he’s not sure who all is on his side. this is a reoccurring point for him. he makes the comment about wanting a dog eat dog world during the red festival stream, while speaking to bad and sam. the first part of the conversation is techno asking about state secrets since they’re (as far as techno knows) on manberg’s side. bad mentions schlatt killing cats and techno launches into a spiel about massive anarchy and the weak being huddled in fear, asking them how does that sound. bad says as long as there’s no cat murder, perhaps. bad then asks techno what his ‘single issue’ is and techno responds that he wants to destroy the government. to me, the context of the conversation, who he’s speaking to and what his opinion of those people is, is an important thing to consider.

techno’s ‘we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it’ comment means he was always going to betray pogtopia/l’manberg - valid but not how you think it is

i’ve seen people say that techno saying ‘we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it’ is a clear sign that he was always intending to betray pogtopia/l’manberg which, yeah? 

but i wouldn’t call it a betrayal. 

he says the ‘we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it’ line at the end of the ‘eve of revolution’ stream while he’s talking to quackity, ponk, and sam. the conversation is as follows:

techno, to quackity: i’m glad we could get to know each other. i heard you’re on our side now. i heard you betrayed schlatt.

quackity: yeah, that’s right. are you betraying anyone?

techno: no. i would never betray my personal ideals.

[some chatter from ponk and quackity]

sam: what does that mean? what if the people you’re fighting along [sic] have different ideals than you, though? doesn’t that mean you’d betray them?

techno: listen... we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.

then techno states that he ‘said what he said’ when sam questions him about his choice of metaphor.

he actually uses the same malaphor at the beginning of the ‘revolution’ stream when they (quackity and tubbo) question him again and in that case techno definitely avoids the subject which isn’t a good thing but considering everyone was so worked up about the possible traitor, i can completely understand.

overall, techno is extremely upfront about his intentions. yes, there is definitely some miscommunication between all the parties because none of them were on the same page but that doesn’t make techno the bad guy here nor does it mean he betrayed anyone. he was upfront about his intentions from the start.

in his first two streams, he makes a joke that if they happen to set up a new government/president that he would just take that one down and it would be a never-ending cycle. over and over, he says that he wants to do destroy the government/manberg. when tommy mentions taking it back, techno says, ‘what do you mean, take it back?’ though this kind of gets lost in the middle of everything else - dsmp (lack of) communication strikes again. 

the takeaway that i see here a lot is that techno always intended to betray them because he knew tommy wanted to take back l’manberg and knew that he would go against them if they set up a new government. and this is true to an extent! he did know that tommy wanted l’manberg back and he did know that he would go against them if they set up a new government. but wilbur was also telling techno that he was on board with the whole anarchy thing. 

none of them were on the same page and that surely led to a big chunk of what happened and hurt feelings on both sides but that doesn’t mean techno betrayed anyone or that he was the bad guy for doing exactly what he said he would do from day one.

techno destroying (l’)manberg was wrong - it’s complicated

the first thing to address here is that for most anarchists, destroying a government isn’t a bad thing. in fact, taking down the government/state is basically our goal. now, i don’t speak for all anarchists, of course, but overall the general feeling is that violence in the name of overthrowing an oppressive government is not inherently bad. there’s no way to do a one-for-one here because it’s minecraft but the general sentiment remains. so while violence enacted against the state is a bad thing for people who aren’t anarchists, techno has no reason to and would not view it as inherently bad.  

but it did hurt people and techno himself acknowledges that fact. he’s acknowledged what he’s done when confronted about it. he hasn’t said he was wrong because understanding that it was hurtful doesn’t mean he believes he was wrong. to him, he wasn’t. destroying what he viewed as an oppressive system was the right thing to do, even if it hurt people.

(also this isn’t any kind of meta but i think it needs to be pointed out that wilbur had already set off the tnt and techno summoned two killable mobs which did plenty of damage but he didn’t say wilbur was the great who came before them for no reason.)

again, this is going to be the most controversial part of this post because i don’t believe destroying government is a bad thing and i don’t believe techno is wrong for believing that as well. there are better ways to address the problem and techno is adjusting his tactics but if another government was to be established, i don’t believe he would be in the wrong to destroy it because he’s an anarchist.

the tl;dr of this section honestly could just be summed up with ‘watch less marvel, read more ursula k. le guin’.

‘techno is the villain because he called tommy the hero’ - so very false 

this is a take i’ve seen that to this day i don’t understand.

techno calling tommy the hero does not mean he was setting himself up as the villain in any capacity. it was merely pointing out tommy’s habit of putting himself at the forefront of almost every conflict, trying to shoulder everything, no matter how it hurts tommy himself. the speech was directed at that and nothing else. it doesn’t mean techno is the villain, it doesn’t even mean there is a villain; there are more stories to be told than the classic hero-villain and the hero-villain narrative doesn’t always apply to stories. (i’d certainly argue that it doesn’t apply to the dream smp but that’s a different conversation.)

techno is to blame for tubbo’s death - false

i think this one has been done to death but what would a techno post be without it?

no, techno is not to blame.

he said over and over that he was outnumbered and believed that if he had done anything, everyone would’ve turned on him and ‘torn him to shreds’. even if that wasn’t the case, it is what techno believed. he had no reason to think that he could take the entire crowd out until he actually fired the rocket launcher. and remember, he tested the rocket launcher earlier during the festival on niki (who volunteered) and it didn’t kill her. when he realized the amount of splash damage it did, he gives a surprised laugh and then begins firing into the crowd. 

as for saying he was under ‘mild’ amounts of peer pressure, techno has a habit of minimizing. not just the things he’s done, but often situations that he’s been in that were stressful. he stated that he deals poorly with high stress situations and one of the cognitive distortions that can come with anxiety is minimization. techno doesn’t actually believe it was ‘mild’ peer pressure - it was a situation that caused him enough distress that he brings it up later at doomsday - but it’s easier to deal with a situation when you downplay it, it’s easier for techno to keep up that calm façade when he’s acting as if whatever happened wasn’t that big of a deal even if it was. again, the way he speaks about it on doomsday was clearly upset and emotional. 

the only person to blame for tubbo’s death is schlatt. he was the one pulling the trigger and techno was the gun.

if you made it this far, thank you for sticking it out! i spent so many hours rewatching all the streams, some of them multiple times, while taking notes to be able to do this. i’m extremely passionate about techno and i feel as if a lot of the arguments against him tend to miss the nuance of his character. this project is on-going and i’ll be going over the butcher army/retirement storylines next. feel free to submit any points you’d like to see addressed! 

[she-who-fights-and-writes]

How would one write a realistic argument?

How to Write a Realistic Argument

Everyone argues.

Whether it be with a friend, sibling, parent, or coworker—arguments usually break out whenever there’s a stark contrast in opinion over certain things, which can happen a lot.

There are a variety of different kinds of arguments involving a wide range of people with different tempers. Because of this, writing arguments can be a bit difficult, but fear not, for this post is here to help!

1. Know The Writing Style of an Argument

For a very serious argument, the characters probably won’t stop and listen to what their opponent has to say.

It’s quick, choppy, and broken—each character shoving their emotions at one another and trying to get their point across without bothering to understand the other side’s opinions.

There should be a lot of em-dashes and italicized words for emphasis, and if it’s between two people, you want as few speech tags as possible; because there’s going to be a lot of back and forth, speech tags can serve to trip up the flow of the argument rather than help them.

When you do want speech tags or if there are multiple people arguing at once here’s some examples you can use:

Roared

Screamed

Yelled

Bellowed

Barked

Hissed

Shouted

Accused

Interrupted

Growled

Snarled

Spat

Screeched

Shrilled

But you also must know that your characters won’t just be standing stock still and yelling at one another; they’re going to be moving around, so here are some things you can describe your character doing during an argument

Expression contorting

Eyes narrowing

Speaking through clenched teeth

Baring their teeth

Lips twisting (into a sneer/into a snarl)

Hands balling into fists

Trembling

Breaking things/knocking stuff over

Pointing accusingly

Shoving

Spittle flying from their mouth

Stamping their feet

Face getting hot

Vein in forehead popping

Blood roaring in their ears/heart pounding

And if you want, to build tension you can put it in a dangerous place, like at the edge of a cliff or something—so you know fully well that if one of them goes too far it may end up with the other’s accidental death.

2.Know Your Characters

The most important factors of your argument are the characters participating in it.

You should have your characters’ tempers established beforehand so you know if they’re going to be hanging back while others argue or if they’re going to be throwing hands every other chapter.

Your characters’ tempers will shape how much tension the argument causes.

An argument with someone who is usually chill and slow to anger will be a whole lot more impactful and important than an argument with someone who is a known hothead, but it wouldn’t make sense if the argument happened over something minor.

Here’s a list of some of the tempers your character can have, ranked from lowest to highest on how much tension an argument with them causes

 (Just so you know, these aren’t rigid categories; most people are usually a mix of everything!):

–Hotheaded Character–

Fights with a hothead hold the least tension. 

Hotheads will fight over anything and everything, their quick fuse making them easy to irritate and anger. Their words can hurt people who aren’t used to it, but usually bounce off of close friends who are used to it and know that the hothead usually doesn’t mean it.

Arguments with hotheads have a high chance of turning physical, because their rage explodes in bursts rather than a slow buildup (the definition of going from zero to one hundred), and in any situation, hotheads are usually the ones to throw the first punch.

 Because a hothead could get riled up about a spilled drink just as quickly as they can get riled up about a friend dying, just having a hothead getting angry during a moment of severe tension won’t bring you the umph that you’re looking for.

However, your hotheaded character can serve as an instrumental character in triggering more serious arguments, one of their mindless snide remarks going too far with a level-headed or shy character.

Examples of hotheaded characters:

Stanley Kowalski, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Lt. Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky, Top Gun (1986)

Anger, Inside Out (2015)

–Aloof Character–

These characters are a lot like hotheads, but the many, many fights that they pick don’t involve them getting raging, screaming mad.

They’re cold, calculating, and cutthroat, and they couldn’t care less about what you think of them.

Their anger is a lot less “loose cannon” than the hotheads’. They say what they mean and mean what they say, and it’ll take a long time to recover from the tongue-lashings these people can dish out.

The greater tension, however, comes from when the aloof characters raise their voices and start shouting—their schooled, uncaring façade fades away and they’re left truly and undeniably angered by whatever tipped the scales.

It’s not too tension-building because these characters were just bastards to begin with, but it’s still unnerving and shocking to see a normally collected character lose their cool.

Examples of aloof characters:

Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Prince Cardan, The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Alex Stern, The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Sherlock Holmes, Most Media Types

Tony Stark, The Avengers

–Nonchalant Character–

These people usually don’t engage in meaningful arguments because they literally don’t care enough to bother. 

When another character tries to pick a fight, a character who is more nonchalant will sometimes roll their eyes at whatever accusation is being leveled at them rather than retorting. This can go either way, perhaps escalating the tension or diffusing it by not offering up a reply.

Kind of like with the aloof character, they don’t have any emotional attachment arguments that they start or are dragged into. They’ll argue for the sake of arguing, but they really don’t give a fuck about it. 

The part that draws the tension, however, is when the characters do give a fuck. A fight they get into turns heated, and a character’s normal devil-may-care attitude may morph into something else altogether.

Most nonchalant characters also may exhibit some hotheaded tendencies, which shows how muddles these archetypes can be.

Examples of Nonchalant Characters:

Han Solo, The Star Wars Saga

Deadpool, Deadpool (2016)

Angel Dust, The Hazbin Hotel

–Level-headed/Stoic Character–

These characters are the cool cucumbers of the group. They’re very, very, VERY slow to anger, and usually exhibit more maturity than their peers, almost never starting arguments. 

They’re the masters of diffusing arguments with a few words, and hardly ever raise their voices.

Sure, they may serve as backup to someone else and may jump to their aid with a bit of heat behind their words, but this hardly happens when the argument is their own.

Many hotheaded or aloof characters may try teasing or pushing these characters in order to act out, but it rarely works.

On the few instances that a level-headed character is angered, it is pretty serious.

Either one of the other characters poked fun at something they shouldn’t’ve—their dead parents, something they’re self-conscious about, etc.—or a member of the group makes a terrible mistake with dire consequences, and the stoic character has had enough.

This causes a lot of tension because “oh shit, the calmest person in our group just went off” and can usually signal a breakdown of the group because their strongest link is snapping.

Examples of Stoic Characters:

Geralt of Rivia, The Witcher

The Mandalorian, The Mandalorian

Spock, Star Trek

The Doctor, Doctor Who

Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird

–Timid/Shy/Quiet Character– 

An argument with a timid person causes by far the most tension out of everything, to the point where I call it “The Snap.”

Someone who is timid, shy, or quiet would rather not argue at all because they don’t have it in them to retort.

They may care a whole lot about the situation under contention, but for one reason or another they don’t want to start too much trouble. These people actively avoid conflict and usually try their best to diffuse situations before they start, whether it be by conceding, walking away, or pulling the nonchalant route and not saying anything.

However, unlike the stoic characters, they might be much more emotional; it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for a timid character to cry when being berated by the others, and they may even be outwardly livid, but they always back down in the end.

 However, they can only hold it in for so long.

 If you have a character who spends the entire book meekly accepting the verbal (or perhaps physical) harassment of other characters, you should most definitely put a “Snap” somewhere in the story, a point where the character has had enough and fights back.

 The timid character’s pent-up rage and sorrow explodes into a raging argument that will most definitely frighten the other characters.

 The tipping point may be the death of the loved one or just a simple, ordinary jab from an antagonist—the straw that broke the camel’s back.

 Unlike with the hothead’s quick bursts of anger like snap fireworks, the anger of a quiet character—much like with a stoic character—is like ten thousand pounds of dynamite with a very, very long fuse.

A quiet character will almost never have a contained argument once they’ve snapped; it will be like a category five hurricane, and God help the poor bastard that set it off.

Examples of timid/shy/quiet characters:

Carrie White, Carrie by Stephen King

Amélie Poulain,  Amélie (2001)

Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein

3. Know The Rhythm of An Argument

An argument isn’t just 0 to 100 and then back to 0. 

The tension levels look more like a squiggly line than a single spike; the tension peaks and ebbs on various levels throughout an argument, especially if it’s a long, important one where both characters are snapping over a novel’s worth of building tension.

The argument can come in like a freight train or it can build up slowly, a character storming in after a realization or a single snide remark that snowballs into something much greater.

Then comes an accusation. Both characters brace themselves and realize that this argument isn’t just going to putter out.

More back and forth words exchanged. “I don’t like that you do this, this and this,” while the characters’ tempers flare even further, pushing them to say more extreme, hurtful things and working each other up into a rage.

A physical fight may break out between the two, throwing punches and insults.

The climax should be a huge, shocking exclamation or accusation. “I hate you!” “If you were never born, Mom would still be alive!” “This is all your fault!”

The tension ebbs. The characters stand in silence, bitter and ashamed of themselves.

They may agree on a few things, their tempers start to die down. They may come to some understandings or storm off with the tension unresolved. The argument ends.

This is the basic format of an argument; however, there are usually several levels of accusation-buildup before the eventual climax.

The whole point of an argument is that it leaves the characters’ relationships much different than they’d been before; they either understand each other much more, or they’ve become much more wary of one another.

If your characters’ relationship doesn’t change after an argument, then there was no point in writing it.

I really hope this helped! Happy Writing!

[ravenkinnie]

TW: Drugs, substance abuse, murder, violence, the Punisher

Another potentially unpopular opinion I've seen on here (and one that I'll actually rant about) is that, Jason is the only good vigilante in the Batfam because he kills people (think the direct quote is "unlike those other feckless bitches" and something like "when you get saved by Red Hood, you know that you'll never have to worry about getting attacked by the same person again". I don't know how to explain to people that killing the type of criminals Jason killed in canon is wrong and harmful (thinking about the 80 Blackgate prisoners he poisoned - hmm you know the American prison system is pretty fucked up i'm sure they all totally belonged there /s). Like. Jason killing the Joker is one thing, but he literally hasn't killed the Joker - Dick did that, Bruce tried to, but Jason hasn't. But like some people make it out like oh, Jason being a killer is fine because he only kills people that deserve it - who, tell me who he's killing? Sex offenders and drug dealers seems to be the most common reply. And I won't touch the sex offenders but drug dealers? Have you heard of the War on Drugs? Have you seen what happens when people in power decide it's okay to openly promote the killing of drug dealers? I don't understand why people think it's fine for Jason Todd to go around killing drug dealers, as if they don't have families, don't have other things that put them in a bad situation. There's a reason why cops in the US (idk if they do this elsewhere) use the Punisher skull as their emblem - and if you advocate for a Jason Todd that punishes criminals, don't be surprised when the right wing weaponizes him against minorities and the red hood helmet starts to get painted on cop cars.

I wrote a paper on the Norwegian prison system which rehabilitates and releases even the "worst" of criminals and just... I live in the US and it seems like we (specifically white people) have such little compassion for anyone who commits crime. Even after the War on Drugs, even after we learned it was a scam, people fall for the crime and punishment rhetoric time after time. Like I live in a suburb where people are so scared of drug dealers my mom literally called our neighbor because someone cut through our yard (and she thought he looked high or something idk). Which I get it, my cousin died from a fentanyl overdose, I understand you don't want that near your kids. But incarcerating or killing drug dealers is not the answer, and I can't stand it when people take that stance on Jason. You can try to explain the 8 drug dealer heads in a duffle bag any way you want, but at the end of the day, I think the batfamily fandom needs to be more careful addressing this issue because demonizing drugs/drug dealers/drug users is literally one of the ways the American government destroys black communities.

And to think, the Jason Todd stan that this opinion came from replied to me because I commented on how Jason likes to run around in Dick's old clothes - something that has absolutely no bearing on his morals, other than he's thrifty which is a good thing actually, something like 85% of clothes ends up in landfills. Sorry for the rant, you asked for it. Sorry if anyone who sees this likes Jason Todd and is offended, you're not bad for liking him, he has an interesting story, just please don't advocate for murdering common criminals, specifically drug dealers.

AAAHHH NOO BUT IVE SEEN SOME OF MY MOOTS DISCUSS THIS BEFORE

sorry it's late and fucking hot I don't have the most comprehensive reply dbdnhd and I do acknowledge that at the end of the day this is fiction but opinions real people hold come from SOMEWHERE - and I think we have a very ingrained belief that crime/bad deed has to be punished and that there are good and evil people and good people only do bad things when influenced by evil people which is exactly the core of jason's belief - and that's interesting for a batfam character, a former robin!! I like when him and bruce are contrasted based on ethics but I don't like when it's meant to show that jason is right and bruce is wrong

batman is an extremely popular and fascinating character because at his core lies the idea that systems that are in place to 'protect' people are corrupt and it's down to individuals who can do something to go against them and look out for others - that's something that will resonate with people even if irl solution can't be to dress up as a bat and beat tf outta people shdhhshs

I have two points to make here:

a) I'm straight up a fucking anarchist who lives in the woods, thinks aliens are listening, and doesn't trust the government but I don't believe systems are corrupt, I believe they operate the way they are meant to operate to punish and control the populations that the system needs to be controlled to keep up the status quo - war on drugs is such a good example for that. drug dealer also exists as this boogeyman, this idea of an evil person waiting to corrupt and destroy the good people but the fact is: people don't get addicted to drugs bc drug dealers exist, people get addicted to drugs because something, not someone, compels them to do drugs, because something (literal us gov) introduced drugs to their communities and drug dealers are just tiny pawns in that game. additionally, many dealers are addicts themselves who got roped into selling to pay for their own use or who got pushed into the margins of society so much that drug trade is the only way to survive they can find

there are like, whole papers and books and thesis done on this so I'm not gonna act like I can analyse it in a tumblr post dhshsjsj but yeah people who think jason is right usually show this weird superiority of 'oh batman doesnt get how to fix gotham like jason does' and like... no, jason gets played like a fiddle by the system the way people he kills do, and whatever he does will always just hit the other pawns and never reach those actually at the top, those who are profitting from finding scapegoats

and like, batman comics don't have to address that bc it's comics, you can write small lmao but don't argue that jason is somehow more enlightened than bruce for killing

b) this brings a question of, if we decide that there has to be punishment for every crime, who gets to decide what punishment is right for what crime? cause there's not a single person who's infallible enough to dictate what the best approach is in every situation

and batman works best as a traumatised man who's loves his city sm he tries to work however he can to protect people from corrupt systems and offer them second chances wherever he can bc that's who batman is at his core - batman is not a punisher he is a protector and he should never be pushed into a role of the punisher bc he's not edgy enough

also bitches are so hard acting like they would kill every villain cause rip to batman but I'm different, y'all are too scared to tell the waitress your order is wrong shut the fuck up lmao the closest any of y'all have been to being batman is getting your ass beat behind the club on a saturday by brenda in her boohoo jumpsuit

[queeranarchism]

Hey! I saw your post about how hiveminds are represented poorly, where you then talked about how anarchists form a consensus among large groups. I was wondering how this process of forming a consensus typically works, because I always thought people did have a vote.

Most anarchist communities don’t vote. Because whenever we vote, a majority gets what they want and a minority doesn’t. And this could mean there is dissatisfaction, which leads to internal strife, anger, bitterness, mistrust. Or worse this could mean there is injustice when a minority doesn’t get the safety, resources, access, fulfillment, they need. And that’s not what we want. For many anarchists, voting is a tool of injustice through which minority interests are suppressed. Instead, anarchists use:

1. Consensus: decisions that impact everyone are made by using a variety of techniques to get to an agreement that everyone can agree on. Consensus processes often consist of small gatherings in which affinity groups and minority caucuses talk among themselves, followed by large gatherings in which the conversation goes on until there is agreement among all (established through hand-raising or some other technique. Basically a vote that requires 100% yes).

2. Autonomy: decisions that mainly impact you and your affinity group can be made without consulting anyone. Decisions that only impact your neighborhood require a consensus within the neighborhood, etc. Basically no one not impacted by your decisions can get in your way, unless you start harming and oppression others.

3. Emergency agreements: most anarchist communities have some system in place through which some people can make fast decisions. When there’s a fire, or a flood, or an eviction, you gotta act fast. Often a what-if plan has been made in advance using consensus and that what-if plan is implemented with the use of temporary leaders or temporary voting followed by a review and re-establishment of consensus.

Consensus is the least understood of those 3 concepts because very few people can imagine acting in a community based on good faith, where no one wants their favorite option to win and everyone wants an outcome that works best for everyone. Consensus requires trust, flexible positions, really listening to minority voices and being able to settle for a less than perfect option because you recognize the needs of other people.

Electoral decision making cultivates competition, only listening to large groups who have the voting power to achieve a majority, encouraging faithfulness to a fixed position to build a majortiy and basically the opposite of all these cooperative attitudes. So if you’ve raised in majority decision making, it’s not surprising that it’s difficult to imagine people acting differently.

Seeds for Change described the consensus process as follows

The problem, or decision needing to be made, is defined and named. It helps to do this in a way that separates the problems/questions from personalities.

Brainstorm possible solutions. Write them all down, even the crazy ones. Keep the energy up for quick, top-of-the head suggestions.

Create space for questions or clarification on the situation.

Discuss the options written down. Modify some, eliminate others, and develop a short list. Which are the favourites?

State the proposal or choice of proposals so that everybody is clear.

Discuss the pros and cons of each proposal — make sure everybody has a chance to contribute.

If there is a major objection, return to step 6 (this is the time-consuming bit). Sometimes you may need to return to step 4.

If there are no major objections, state the decisions and test for agreement.

Acknowledge minor objections and incorporate friendly amendments.

Discuss.

Check for consensus.

Seeds for Change mentions that when despite multiple attempts there is no consensus, the group as a whole can:

Allow the person most concerned to make the decision.

Leave the decision for later or take a break.

Ask everyone to argue convincingly the point of view they like the least.

Break down the decision into smaller areas. See which ones you can agree on and see what points of disagreement are left.

Identify the assumptions and beliefs underlying the issue. Get to the heart of the matter.

Imagine what will happen in six months, a year, five year’s time if you don’t agree. How important is the decision now?

Bring in a facilitator. If your group is unable to work through conflicts or if similar issues keep coming up, think about bringing in a professional facilitator or mediator who is trained in conflict-resolution techniques.

& when consensus can’t be found at all and a few people consistently disagree, those who disagree with the most popular option can choose:

Non-support: “I don’t see the need for this, but I’ll go along with it.”

Standing aside: “I personally can’t do this, but I won’t stop others from doing it.”

Veto/major objection: A single veto/major objection blocks the proposal from passing. If you have a major objection it means that you cannot live with the proposal if it passes. It is so objectionable to you/those you are representing that you will stop the proposal. A major objection isn’t an “I don’t really like it “ or “I liked the other idea better.” It is an “I cannot live with this proposal if it passes, and here is why?.!”. The group can either accept the veto or discuss the issue further and draw up new proposals. The veto is a powerful tool and should be used with caution.

Leaving the group: If one person continually finds him/herself at odds with the rest of the group, it may be time to think about the reasons for this. Is this really the right for them to group to be in? 

Consensus decision making is tricky and can be flawed. Conversation facilitators often hold more power than they’re willing to admit, talented public speakers can have more impact than those anxious about speaking in a group, long crowded meetings are not accessible to all, dogmatic cliques can sabotage the process by misusing the veto, etc. Measures need to be in place to counteract this, or true consensus becomes impossible.

It’s also important not to let consensus eclipse ‘autonomy’ or to nitpick every minor decision. The answer ‘what are we having for lunch?’ shouldn’t be a consensus process. It should be ‘whatever people want, & those who want the same thing can make lunch together’. Similarly, if the question is ‘do we want a new water filter in the community garden?’, you might wanna avoid long conversations and rephrase that question to ‘Are there enough people here willing to help me build a water filter in the garden and no one who objects to a new water filter?’. Let enthusiasm to do new things thrive.

This is doubly true in a situation like an occupation, blockade, autonomous zone under pressure, etc. Resistance requires flexibility and surprise, which can not come from consensus. A resistance movement that doesn’t allow its affinity groups to roam free and exploit opportunities won’t live long.

Your movement will die if you try to do everything by general assembly and limit the power of autonomy. In my opinion, one of the most common failures that I’ve seen in anarchist organizing in Europe has been to try to limit the autonomy of its affinity groups, try to do everything by large scale consensus meeting, and when that got too time-consuming and had authority issues, switch to more voting instead of more autonomy and better consensus processes.

Some reading:

Peter Gelderloos - Consensus:  A New Handbook for Grassroots Social, Political, and Environmental Groups. (print)

Seeds for change - Consensus Decision Making https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/seeds-for-change-consensus-decision-making

C.T. Butler and Amy Rothstein - On Conflict and Consensus: a handbook on Formal Consensus decisionmaking https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/c-t-butler-and-amy-rothstein-on-conflict-and-consensus-a-handbook-on-formal-consensus-decisionm#toc8

The Inefficient Utopia or How Consensus Will Change the World        https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/curious-george-brigade-the-inefficient-utopia-or-how-consensus-will-change-the-world        

[my-beautiful-wylan]

Please Read!

Hey everyone… It’s Monica again… I really need to talk to all Grishaverse fans about something, because it needs to stop. I’ve had some messages from people saying that Wylan is the weakest of the crows and seen/heard jokes that have to do with Wylan being unable to read. This is absolutely ridiculous. What these people are doing is exactly what Jan Van Eck did. I’m going to be bringing some awareness to this topic, and I would really appreciate if you could read/share this information.

First of all, many people have mentioned in conversation that Wylan is the “weakest” of the crows, and that makes me mad. I would like to argue that he is the strongest. Of course, this is my opinion but hear me out. Look at the things all the other crows struggle with (And please know that not in any way shape or form am I belittling any of their struggles, because those struggles are very real!)... Matthias grew up in a country where he was never allowed to have his own morals and beliefs, and therefore, he was corrupted by them and thought that all those who were different were automatically bad; Nina struggled with the fact that she had to leave her home and live on her own, as well as the guilt that she felt over throwing the love of her life in Hellgate; It’s obvious to me that Jesper struggles with adhd and minor addiction, as well as feeling like he has to hide his life from his dad in fear of his dad feeling disappointed in him (because his dad is literally the most amazing person ever… STAN Colm Fahey!); Kaz saw his brother die in front of him and suffers with severe touch aversion and non-diagnosed depressive disorder as well as having a disability (his leg); Inej is a survivor of forced prostitution/rape. All of these things are sad and tragic and horrible, and each and everyone of the crows overcomes them in a beautiful way. Mathias opens his eyes and sees the true beauty of the world; Nina finds a new family and reunites with the man she loves; Jesper finally tells his father the truth, causing the two of them to mend their father-son bond; Kaz finds out that he doesn’t have to be alone for the rest of his life and is able to open up his heart; Inej is freed from a life of servitude and is treated as a woman who has dignity and value. The crows are the strongest characters in the world… Truly. They all overcome their trauma, and I understand how you could say all five of these characters are the strongest.

But I want you to think about something. How much do you love your family? Because I assume a lot of you have healthy family relationships, and even when you fight and argue, your parents still love you, correct? And even if your parents aren’t the greatest or you don’t even know your parents, deep down you still love them, right? Family is a part of every single one of us, so please just listen. What would you do if you were born with severe dyslexia? The type that no matter how much tutoring you could receive or how much support you had, there was no way to fix it… You simply couldn’t read. Most parents would be supportive of you and tell you you’re strong for living through it and tell you they love you no matter what you can’t do.

But imagine if they didn’t. Imagine growing up in a household that shunned you and treated you like nothing because you coudn’t read… Because you had a disability that you had no control over. Imagine being beaten, and verbally humiliated, and subdued and restricted and controlled and physiologically abused every single day of your life. Imagine constantly hearing that “you’re not strong enough”, “not smart enough”, “You’ll never amount to anything”... And then imagine one day, the person who’s been abusing you FINALLY shows you some kindness. He tells you that you get to go to that school you’ve always dreamt of going. You pack your things, beyond excited, but when you’re on the boat to get there, two of your abusers men try to choke you to death. You escape somehow and you crawl into a city dirty, dejected and beaten down. If I was in that situation, I would try to take my own life, I really think I would. And who knows, maybe I would actually do it. But I think you can all agree that the strongest thing in the world would be to stand up on your own two feet and JUST. KEEP. LIVING.

This is what happened to Wylan. He was abused and mistreated by his father for SIXTEEN years..,. And when he was finally given the opportunity to leave, he was almost killed. It’s a testament to his incredible strength that he survived. And not only that… He went on to become one of the most well-renowned people in Ketterdam. But in Crooked Kingdom, he STANDS UP TO HIS FATHER. He sees his father again and he gets the better of the man who treated him like crap for his entire life. And it’s with tears in my eyes that I say this- I think that is the bravest thing I have ever heard of. Wylan went through so much, and some of you have the absolute AUDACITY to say he’s the weakest link in that chain.

There are two more issues I want to address.

You all need to stop infanticizing Wylan. He’s sixteen… He’s not a child. He is a grown person with hopes and dreams and he is so so so smart. He’s honestly the smartest of the crows without a doubt. Treating him like he’s six and diminishing his talents is acting like his father would have. It’s humiliating and degrading for a person to be treated as if they are a child, and I’m sick and tired of hearing people do that. He’s kind and bubbly and sweet and empathetic, but that doesn’t mean he’s “weak” or “soft” compared to the rest of them. The line, “We could wake them up”... I mean, I honestly don’t think that’s a “soft baby” speaking there. He’s so funny and sarcastic and witty and BRAVE, and the infanticizing needs to stop.

The jokes about “Wylan can’t read this” NEED TO STOP. I only have one thing to say about it, and it’s that YOU ALL ARE DOING EXACTLY WHAT JAN VAN ECK DID FOR SIXTEEN YEARS AND IF YOU DON’T THINK THAT’S WRONG THEN PLEASE UNFOLLOW ME IMMEDIATELY I’M NOT KIDDING.

Lastly, I’m not trying to offend anyone. I just really feel like this needed to be said and we need to deal with these issues right now. It’s getting out of hand, and I don’t want to see any of this happen when the second season comes out. Wylan means more to me than you could ever know and seeing stuff like this hurts me so much. Wylan deserves so much more than the crap he is given, and I am willing to give him the world.

Anyways, no mourners no funerals everyone! Please share this if you wouldn’t mind…

-Monica

[utilitycaster]

What’s your thoughts on tm9 suggesting working with Trent? Do you think tm9 are being “bad friends”? I have seen a lot of discussion on it and I was wondering what your thoughts are. Apologies if you have already shared your thoughts.

Hi anon,

I have shared at least some of my thoughts but, as always, give me an inch and I will take one thousand miles and then take one thousand more. If you wanted a normal answer, please click on that link and then feel free to stop reading. If you want me to yell about behaviors in fandom that fill me with rage (and also some additional thoughts about the Mighty Nein in this episode, to be fair, which I’ve marked so you can skip to it), read on.

GOOD FUCKING LORD I AM PRETTY SURE A CERTAIN SMALL BUT LOUD PORTION WITHIN FANDOM, AND THIS IS ABOUT FANDOM IN GENERAL AND NOT SPECIFIC TO THE CRITICAL ROLE, ACTUAL PLAY, NOR D&D FANDOM, HAS NEVER HAD A FUNCTIONAL FRIENDSHIP OR RELATIONSHIP IN THEIR LIVES WHAT WITH THE WAY THEY TALK ABOUT CHARACTER INTERACTIONS. LIKE WHAT THE FUCK.

I don’t think that any of the Mighty Nein were being at all inappropriate during this conversation in the first place, and more on that below, but also like, people say insensitive things to their friends all the time! It’s impossible to account for every situation that could potentially upset someone, and sometimes people need to have difficult conversations! I’ve said this before with people in private conversations but there is an exhausting amount of discourse for CR (but also, like, in general about fictional media by people who are Way Too Online) regarding who really understands and cares about whom and it’s like. They are all friends. They have all referred to each other as found family. They all care about each other. And with that in mind, it’s also true that if you or anyone else were to give me literally any pairing of two characters in the Nein, romantic or platonic, I can without considerable effort name an interaction in which one of them said or did something hurtful or insensitive to the other, because this is a thing that happens when different people with different perspectives and experiences talk to each other for any length of time.

A not-insignificant amount of discourse, in my opinion, has nothing to do with how real interpersonal relationships work and is entirely "this is my favorite/least favorite character (or ship) and I think everyone should also think they are flawless/terrible” and if I had to guess this is probably more of the same. But even if it’s not just that, the idea that the only “good” friendship is one devoid of arguments, slip-ups, and even the most minor of transgressions and anything else is “bad” or “toxic” is so divorced from reality I absolutely cannot engage with it without wanting to scream. Which is not to say that a single action by a friend, even a close one, could never be enough to invalidate the friendship. But it has to be a pretty significant and deliberate violation, and in my opinion the events of this episode do not even budge the needle.

With that out of the way before I return to it at the end: I think the overarching attitude of the Mighty Nein on the whole is “this is going to be an incredibly difficult fight, and we need to discuss all of our options, even distasteful ones that none of us particularly like.”

The linked post talks a lot about why I think Fjord brought it up in the first place, but from there, I would say that Yasha was the only one who was consistently on the side of “No,” which is in line with her character. We know Caduceus is fairly sure they’re going to die without additional help and has seen by far the most terrifying visions of what happens if they fail; that Jester likely has some similar ideas to Caleb regarding “if Trent’s with us, at least he’s not going after Marion”; and while Beau brought up the downsides of working with one’s abuser it’s highly worth noting she was still entertaining it: she floats that maybe this could kill two birds with one stone [2:01:10-ish on the Twitch video].

Veth strikes me as the one who came closest to “pushing” Caleb, and this has been a theme recently. I’m not fully sure about this - Veth is often a character I struggle to get a handle on - but I think it’s a combination of her family being at risk in the same way Jester’s is, her own feelings of guilt or shirked responsibility about leaving the Nein after this before Caleb has achieved his goals particularly given how instrumental he was to achieving hers, and a little bit of still seeing Caleb how he was earlier on, when they first met. That last reason is definitely frustrating when it happens in real life, but it’s a very real phenomenon, the first one is wholly understandable, and the middle one is both. Basically, are those actions a little selfish? Yeah, but people are selfish sometimes. There’s a reason why even when I don’t understand her Veth (and, tbh, all the Mighty Nein) feels like a wholly realized person, and it’s because of things like this, where she has real reactions and emotional turmoil in response to an incredibly stressful situation instead of being blandly understanding.

On top of that, anything that denies that Caleb was not entertaining it, particularly after he quite literally says he’s considered it, feels like ignoring his response because it doesn’t fit a particular narrative. It ignores the entire conversation with Essek, in which Caleb is the one who brings it up first, Caleb is the one who continues to argue for it after Essek expresses his discomfort, and Caleb is the one who says he’s frustrated that his attempt to persuade Essek fails.

Returning to the generalized rant but at what point do you (the abstract you, not you the anon) stop overlaying how you think someone should react and actually listen to people? One of the things in this world that genuinely angers me the most that isn’t, you know, atrocities, is when people assume how someone feels instead of asking them and persist in doing so even when told otherwise, and this is probably why the whole “the Mighty Nein are bad friends” statement has prompted such a strong response from me here. I don’t think I’m saying anything revolutionary here but all the arguments in favor of that statement are stupid! If you don’t ask for a hug, sometimes you won’t get one! If you don’t say you’re uncomfortable you can’t assume people will be aware of it! The realest distinction between good and bad friends, actually, is whether they listen to what you’re saying or if they just project what they think you should be saying, and whether they tell you what they want from you or if they make up elaborate unspoken rules that you’re supposed to magically intuit and follow. Not whether they never make mistakes, or disagree, or bring up difficult topics.

Uh, anyway, this is probably a whole lot more and maybe not even related to what you were looking for but really, the idea that a deep friendship can be reclassified into a binary from good to bad based on two conversations, and the related idea that every interaction that isn’t perfectly harmonious must have someone to blame instead of acknowledging the full depth and breadth of normal healthy interpersonal interactions, are both absolutely terrible ideas and I would love if people in general would immediately stop having them.

[thisnoodlewritesao3]

In The Calm, There Rose A Storm | Ushijima Wakatoshi/Reader

Characters: Ushijima Wakatoshi, Sawamura Daichi, Reader/Original Female Character

Pairings: Ushijima Wakatoshi/Reader, Sawamura Daichi/Reader

Warnings: Minor Angst

Word Count:  3557

Summary:  Falling for Ushijima was far too easy - they do always say that opposites attract - but in the calm, there rose a storm.

A/N: This is the first part of a companion piece, the second part will the linked here.

---------

She’d met him a week into her first year of high school. They were complete opposites in almost every single way - she never minded that, though.

She explored the school, mesmerized by each twist and turn of the fateful path, eyes wide with purpose and joy. Shiratorizawa was intimidating - to say the least - every person who came here had a hopeful future, they were destined for great things. She never felt like she was destined for much, but she accepted it.

The sound of squeaking sneakers and balls slamming into the ground caught her attention; she all but ran towards the gym, peering her head around the door. Of course she didn’t have a single idea of what she was watching, but it was thrilling, seeing balls tossed into the air only to hit the floor with a heart stopping thwack. Her eyes followed the ball like it had the answers to life, not even moving when it ricocheted off and directly at her face.

Surprisingly, she hadn’t been killed on impact. Although, considering the pain, she might’ve preferred that.

The boy who had hit the ball - his name was Ushijima Wakatoshi - pulled her to her feet, offering one solemn apology before he turned back to the court. She jokingly yelled out that he’d need to make it up to her, because, “you did just try and kill me with one of those killer hits.”

She hadn’t expected him to turn around and nod, passing her his phone and motioning for her to type in her number. True to his word - or lack of words - he had messaged her later that night to arrange a time for a dinner. They both agreed that tomorrow would work for both of them; he bid her a goodnight.

She learnt that he didn’t talk often - unlike her, who never seemed to be able to shut up - when he did speak, it was blunt, straight to the point, not a single curve or wave. Definitely a one track mind. They talked about little things; about volleyball, and school, even dipping into his family life.

By the end of the dinner, she would have been happy to leave it at just that, but he asked whether she would like to do it again sometime.

Sometime turned into once a week, and by the fifth week, she asked if he would like to be her boyfriend.

----

They settle into a routine. Once a week, he takes her on a date. Most nights she would come back to his dorm, she would rub his muscles after practise and talk to him about her day. He’d agreed to let her call him ‘Toshi’, though it was like trying to break down a brick wall with a stick - he still refused to call her her first name - she’d tried to not be offended.

She didn’t miss little comments he made about her, not willing to admit how much they hurt because he was always blunt, his words always had something more harsh to them. She was just over-reacting. She was sure of it.

----

On one of their dates, her mind was preoccupied watching a couple a few tables over, a soft smile on her lips. He followed her line of sight, but couldn’t see anything interesting. “What’re you looking at?” he asked, trying to figure it out.

“Oh, it’s just cute that he bought her flowers.” She knew he wouldn’t get the hint that she wanted them - this was Toshi, after all; she didn't miss the wave of disgust on his face.

“Flowers are disgusting,” he sighed - he missed the way her face dropped.

“I think they’re pretty,” she muttered, stirring her drink absentmindedly, “you know every flower has a different meaning?” She asked, looking up at him. He obviously didn’t care, but that didn’t matter to her, “like roses are a symbol for love, daisies for innocence, forget-me-nots for remembrance.”

“That’s ridiculous.” He said, lifting his drink to his lips and taking a big sip .

“To you, maybe, but flowers are important to me.”

----

“Can I come watch you practise?” She asks one evening, running her hand through his hair - because in the confines of his dorm is the only place where she’s allowed to touch him.

Of course, he tensed up, he always tenses up. “No.” He mumbles, eyes not moving from his laptop screen.

“Why not? Just this one, pretty please,” she begs him, trying to break the cold exterior. She couldn’t understand how they’d been together for five months and yet he still refused to let her watch him practise - she wasn’t even allowed to come and watch his games. It hurt more maybe because she’d gone out of her way to learn about volleyball for him, for him she loved the sport. Of course she’d watch his games on TV, but it wasn’t the same. “I won’t say anything! I’ll just sit there. Or I could just wait outsi-”

“I said no, you’ll just be a distraction.” Now it was her turn to tense. But she quickly washed it away, forcing herself to remember that he does care about her. If he didn’t, then he wouldn’t take her on nice dates; he wouldn’t let her come back to his dorm; he wouldn’t let her be near him. But he did do those things, and for that she should be grateful.

She doesn’t want to argue with him, so instead she settles down, talking to him about her day instead. Even when her voice wavers, she doesn’t stop. Not for a while. Not until he says something that makes her heart crack just a little bit.

“You talk too much.”

An instant reaction of her jaw snapping shut before tears welled in her eyes - but he either didn’t care, or he didn’t notice - she chose to believe it was the latter.

----

Had she really made that big of a mistake coming to surprise him at practise?

She had thought that maybe he was kidding before - she should have known better. Especially when there was an anger deep in his eyes that scared her beyond recovery.

Of course they’d had to lock eyes just as he was going to spike; of course he’d had to miss it because he was too busy staring at her.

Her heart pounded in her throat as he dragged her around the corner of the gym, away from everyone’s prying eyes and ears. “I just- I just wanted to do something nice…” she muttered, looking away from him.

“I told you not to come,” he growled, his voice wavering more than he’d like it to, but that would be a thing to worry about later, “and look what happened. I messed up because of you. Because you were distracting me.”

She would have been more hurt if it wasn’t true - because she had distracted him, just like he said she would. “I’m sorry.” But she doesn’t mean it - not fully, at least.

To her, it was almost like a revenge - one he’d never know about. It was petty, she knew that, and yet she couldn’t help it. Her internal victory was cut short by the raise of his voice, “but you aren’t, otherwise you wouldn’t have done it in the first place.”

She listened to his tirade, trembling with each word, fighting back the tears that threatened to break through. Every single syllable felt like acid against her skin, peeling her away until she was nothing of herself. And yet, somehow, she felt thankful - maybe it was because he was talking more words to her. It was sick. She felt sick.

----

She didn’t bring up his practise again, not unless she was asking him how it went. Even then he just grunted, saying, “I played as well as I always do.” And she knew it was right.

Nowadays when they were in his dorm, she didn’t talk like she did before, instead twiddling with her thumbs or massaging his aching shoulders whilst he watched a volleyball game on his laptop. If he asked her questions, she would answer, but the ache in her heart was too much to say anything more.

When they were first together, she was so sure she’d found the one that she was blinded; Toshi was smart, attractive, what more could she possibly want?

Apparently, there was more she’d need.

----

“You couldn't even put me first, just this once?” She hears herself say.

She’d been waiting at their usual cafe for their weekly date, the thing she’d clung to even when things became rocky. Of course he hadn’t shown up; he hadn’t shown up to a date in over a month.

“I told you I had practise.” His eyes show no remorse.

“You always have practise.” She scoffed, stepping back from him, crossing her arms under her chest. Even as she tried to sound angry, her voice was too soft.

“I can’t skip practise to go on a silly date.” This time she turned her head away, any emotion or care dripped from her face.

She feels her heart break. It’s harsh, makes her want to crumble to the floor, but then he would win and she couldn’t have that. “Whatever, I’m going.” She sighs, moving to walk away. He grabs her wrist.

“Don’t be like this.”

Her heart clenches. She wants to turn around and forgive him, but she just can’t. It hurts too much. Every day has slowly become more painful; she hated how she’d become just to please someone who didn’t even care.

Ripping her wrist from his grasp, she walks away. Each step was heavier, harder; when she was sure he couldn’t see her anymore, she crumbled, clutching her stomach. Choked whimpers escaping her lips. This is right. She told herself. You need to do this for you, because you deserve the world.

----

She didn’t go back to her dorm that night, opting to go back to her parents; they were surprised to see her, considering she normally only visited on the weekend, but with her red, puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks, they didn’t question it.

She didn’t have the energy to tell them what she’d been through with Toshi. There wasn’t a point - not in her opinion, at least. Instead, she said that she wanted to transfer schools. Of course, they were confused, but didn’t pressure her to speak.

Together, they came to an agreement, as long as she finished this year at Shiratorizawa, then she could transfer for her second year. She begrudgingly agreed, despite the bile in her throat at the idea of the school she’d once adored.

----

It almost hurts her at how little has changed. Toshi had never talked to her in class unless it was necessary, he never waited for her outside of the door; no wonder people were surprised when she told them she was dating him.

When she didn’t show up at his dorm that evening, he called her. She was surprised. In their entire 7 months together, he had never called her. She didn’t answer him. Not even when he called the second time. Or the third. Especially not on the fourth. By the fifth, she’d had enough, and blocked his number. It left a bitter taste in her mouth.

It didn't stop there - of course it didn’t - this was Toshi afterall. A number she didn’t recognise called her, a voice she did recognise called out, “are you okay?” Tendou Satori. His voice was level but hinted at worry. “Toshi just called me saying you we-”

“We are over.” Venom. Pure, unfiltered venom. That’s what it tasted like saying it outloud. When her sentence was finished, she hung up, not giving him a second to argue with her. Instead, she shut off her phone and curled up.

----

He didn’t fight her about it, just like she’d expected him to - though she didn’t have to guess who had put the bouquet of flowers on her desk the next morning - purple hyacinths for forgiveness, lavender for devotion, even pink forget-me-nots. She couldn’t help the venom-filled thought that whisked through her mind, these would have been nice before, if only you’d have cared.

Gently caressing the leaves, she had to fight the urge to scream. She opted to toss them into the trash. Her skin felt hot. Everything she touched was another burning sensation after another. The entire day, she bit her lip to stop herself from crying.

----

Every single morning there was a fresh bouquet on her desk. Every single morning she threw them away. Maybe this was his way of trying to fight for her back - and even after everything she’d been through, her heart still yearned to forgive him.

She had to put a stop to it when he was waiting for her outside of the classroom with a large bouquet. “What are you doing?” She stopped herself from yelling, but the burning in her throat was enough to warn him. She felt sick just looking at him, he didn’t even look remorseful for what he’d put her through.

“I want you to talk to me.” He said - no, demanded, she could hear it in his tone; her stomach twisted. She couldn’t help but scrunch up her nose in disgust.

“You have practise,” she sighed, stepping past him, “isn’t that more important than doing this?”

She regrets her words the moment they leave her lips, she turns back just in time to see the bouquet fall to the floor. Something inside him breaks. She can hear it.

----

The day before spring break, she’s made to announce that she’ll be transferring schools. She can’t even look at him as she says it; most people in her class call out that they're going to miss her. He didn’t say a word.

Karasuno is much different to Shiratorizawa, and she has never been more thankful for that. Sure, it was far away from home, but she loved that. There was nothing here that could remind her of him. Karasuno was quaint and small, but just as lively - if not more so - she didn’t feel the aura of superiority in the air from every student who passed her. There were still people who mocked her for leaving such a powerhouse school, but they were few and far between. At Karasuno, she let her broken heart slowly heal.

Still, she remained quiet her entire second year, trying not to talk too much.

----

In her third year, she decides to indulge her adventurous nature, though she shuts off her mind, not taking the time to care as she had done two years ago. She thinks about meaningless things, like what she was going to do after school today, and what homework she needs to complete.

She doesn’t even realise that she’s walked herself in front of a gym until a loud voice calls out to her, telling her to move. She turns just in time to catch sight of the ball, preparing herself for an impact that never comes; instead the ball had been stopped, the forearm in front of her face told her she’d been protected.

She can’t help but remember him in the eyes of this stranger, though they look nothing alike - and he hadn’t protected her from the ball.

Sawamura Daichi, as she quickly learns, is nothing like Toshi. He quickly checks to make sure she’s okay, even tossing in a cheeky, “you should take me to dinner as a thank you for saving your life.” He was joking, of course he was joking, but she still pulled out her phone and asked for his number.

He called her later that night, after she’d messaged him, exclaiming that she didn’t need to take him to dinner and that he would be alright, I promise. She ignores him, asking when he’s next free.

They meet up that weekend, and she takes him to the cafe. Talking with him was effortless, and she even found herself talking just a little more than she normally would.

Nobody is surprised when they go on a second date, and then a third; days seem to go by so quickly when she’s with him. She is elated when he asks her to be her boyfriend - he is elated when she says yes.

----

“You should come watch me practise.” Daichi said in passing one day. Her mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water - she’d still barely managed to be okay with the fact he played volleyball, watching him practise might be too much for her.

“Wouldn’t I be too distracting?” Her voice is like a breeze, too soft. He can feel his heart shatter at the way her eyes start to shine - not with happiness, no, as if she were going to cry.

He cups her cheeks, brushes her hair behind her ears, looking at her firmly, “of course, but I’d love to have you by my side no matter what - besides, it’d be nice to hear you cheering my name.” He grins from ear to ear, pressing light kisses over her face. She doesn’t know whether to feel loved or not, but she settles on the former and allows herself to smile.

“I’ll come watch.” She says, rolling her eyes as he yells triumphantly, “but I don’t know about cheering you on, probably that Tsukishima, though.” Giggling as he lightly swats at her arm.

----

From that day, she comes to every practise - but not morning ones, her train wouldn’t make it in time - he invites her to every single one of their games, and she paints his number on her cheek every time.

When Karasuno plays against Shiratorizawa, she stands proudly, cheering so loudly right from the very beginning.

Ushijima hears her voice and he swears it’s like an angel is calling out to him; when he catches sight of her, his heart almost stops, she’s smiling so wide and so happily, wearing one of Daichi’s far oversized shirts and he can’t help but wish that she were cheering him on.

His heart caught in his throat. She was happy, but she wasn’t happy for him. He knew that; that point was only hammered in by Daichi looking up at her and waving so gleefully. The way she leaned over the barrier, blowing him a thousand kisses, he knew this feeling in his gut was jealousy. He wanted to destroy Karasuno in front of her, show her who she should be with. That she should be with him, and not some wannabe, not someone he didn’t dedicate as much time to volleyball as him.

----

After they’d lost, he wanted to sink into the ground. Of course we lost, she was such a distraction. He growled at his own thoughts. She still haunted him, and he didn’t even understand why.

“Oh, Tendou?” Her voice was soft as she greeted the redhead, it was obvious who she was waiting for, and still she decided to greet them.

“It’s been a while,” Tendou chuckles, “didn’t know you would be supporting the other team? What happened to your Shiratorizawa pride?” Confusion laced in her features before being washed away by a mild aggression.

“I go to Karasuno.” She said cooly, her words cutting deep into the blocker. “And besides, I’m here to support my boyfriend.” Her eyes darted in the direction behind Ushijima, but it was enough to make his heart stop. The grin that willingly tugged at her lips said a thousand words.

“I thought you hated volleyball.” Tendou kept trying to be harsh, kept trying to make her feel something other than her joy. It wasn’t working.

“I used to, but things change when you find the right person,” she patted his arm, smiling softly before turning around, “you played good.” She waved and ran towards Daichi, he opened his arms and caught her as she jumped, squealing with so much delight.

Ushijima could only watch the interaction with a bitter taste in his mouth. She nuzzled her nose against his, offering him so much praise. Not once did he let her go, not even as his coach protested the display of affection, not even when his team gagged. He only pulled her in closer; she felt pure, unadulterated love for him. There was no other way to see it.

Ushijima walked towards the team, wanting to be able to make some snide remark towards them. She pulled her eyes away from Daichi to meet his, any emotion dripping from her face. He cleared his throat, piercing his eyes into her, “can I talk to you for a minute?” He asked.

“Anything you need to say to her,” Daichi carefully put her down, making sure to wrap an arm around her shoulder, “you can say to all of us, Toshi.” He was being mocked - he knew that much. That nickname only meant that she’d told him about them. She looked up at Daichi adoringly.

“I told you you were a distraction.” He kept his voice level, but on the inside he was screaming.

Yet she didn’t flinch. She didn’t even look at him sadly, just pushed closer into Daichi’s side and hummed, “I’m not a distraction to the one that matters.”

He watched her as she walked away. Trying to understand why he wanted to cry.

“She seems happy,” Tendou hissed, putting a knowing hand on Usjijima’s back.

“She does.”

[jojotichakorn]

@octopisunsets said: Her nephew literally tried to do the Bad Thing to himself because he was so worried he would hurt Yuhan. Of COURSE her first instinct would be to remove him from the very person that drove him to attempt the Bad Thing.

major trigger warning for discussions of suicide in this post !!

so , let’s talk about the aunt , shall we ?

first of all , yoo han didn't " drive yeon woo to his suicide attempt " . how can you even say that ? what drove yeon woo to it was the idea that he is a monster , that what he is is bad - the idea that the world ( his aunt included ) forced onto him repeatedly .

i'm going to give you a clear metaphor . a good chunk of queer people have an especially hard time dealing with both internal and external homophobia at this specific point . considering how homophobic society is , it is already very hard to be queer on your own , but when you have a partner , things really set in motion . who you are is no longer a theoretical thing homophobic people around you can ignore ( especially if you aren't visibly queer and/or are in the closet ) - because at this point you become visibly queer and you step out of the closet , you have a partner . and then imagine , you are already in this complicated situation , and then you come to your aunt ( the only family you have left and the woman you live with ) and she says she doesn't approve . it's very akin to the whole " you shouldn't do this , because the world is so homophobic and it would be so hard on you " and " i wouldn't want you to live the kind of heavy life those people live " . do those ideas come out of love ? perhaps . but it doesn't matter , because they come from blatant homophobia as well . and in immortal words of my best friend : love is useless if it hurts the other .

second of all , his aunt was against them from the start and she still is at the end of the series . even though she allows them to be together ( and thank gods for that ) , she does not approve .

when she first finds out about yoo han , the scene that happens between her and yeon woo is terrifying . 

both my parents are fucking shitheads , so i am all too familiar with the layout , which can sometimes be scarier than kicking and screaming . the silence , the angry disappointed look , it’s all there . 

she gives yeon woo time to bask in his own shame . she makes sure he comes to the conclusion of what he’s done wrong on his own . the impact is always stronger that way . and then the verdict .

it always comes . right away . it’s harsh , it’s unforgiving . sometimes , it isn’t even true . sometimes it’s just emotional blackmail that they hope will lead their child to the conclusion they want from them without too much fuss . the delivery is also often completely emotionless , to give the verdict an air of a fact rather than a decision that can be argued .

and then we see the aunt show her true face .

the face that’s selfish - first and foremost , it’s always selfish . they always have something that they want for their child ( or rather - for themselves in connection to the child ) , and it matters more than what their child themself wants . 

and don’t tell me yeon woo is selfish here as well , because in this clear parent/child power imbalance , the child can not be selfish . ultimately , the aunt makes all decisions , she is in charge of his life ( also known as the reason why children are oppressed and we have the convention on the rights of a child - i don’t actually know if yeon woo is a minor here or not , so children’s rights might not specifically apply to him , but the point still stands - the parent makes the decisions ) . this is not a balanced conversation . this is not a dialogue of what each of them wants - it is a monologue of what the aunt wants with yeon woo’s attempts to protest and have his opinion valued even a little bit .

she has lost her sister , and there is a possibility she will lose him too . her first thought isn’t what yeon woo wants - that he wants to try , that he knows the possibilities and dangers all too well himself . her first thought is her own wants and needs .

and she realizes it too . when yeon woo breaks down , she backtracks . 

but she doesn’t stop , does she ? 

she continues reminding him that he is acting exactly like his mother ( you know , the one that went MISSING , the one they LOST ) at every turn . you know what this reminds me of ? when i first came out to my mother back when i was identifying as a guy , she made every single conversation we had about how i am the most feminine girl in the world and i could never be anything , but a girl . 

it’s the relentless reminders , it’s this idea that they make sure to put into your head . they do it because they hope that one day you will hear it so many times , you will start believing it yourself . 

but may i remind you , this sister the aunt talks of is yeon woo’s mother ? it isn’t as if he hasn’t experienced the same thing she has - he lost his mom , who he loved more than anyone else in the world ! and she uses this fact to make him do what she wants . i also remind you that yeon woo’s mother - you know , an actual mono - was proud of who she was . she told yeon woo stories of how she met his dad , and how he will one day also meet someone who will be this incredible person that brings color and love into his life .

and don’t you dare tell me that the aunt , who is a regular ass fucking person , knows more about the hardships of being a mono than yeon woo’s mom ( who - i repeat - was an actual mono ) . the aunt doesn’t know shite about the experience , she is terrified of it and what it can do , and she is very much perpetuating the idea of it being monstrous , she always has . 

and then yeon woo breaks down , because he starts believing it . fully now . he is a monster . and after his aunt finds him , what is her first instinct ? that’s right - to send him to what is basically the equivalent of a conversion camp . ( no , seriously , the whole concept and the framing of yoo han as specifically saving yeon woo from there - it’s pretty straightforward ) .

and then a change happens . the aunt realizes that oop - actually , if she continues forbidding yeon woo and yoo han’s relationship , she will lose yeon woo anyway . and that , of course , won’t do , since that’s what she was so scared of in the first place . so she reluctantly allows them to be together . why do i say reluctantly ? well , because of this final scene with the aunt :

( pro tip : this is actually not what support looks like - just saying ! )

also , just to mention some quick statistics , being supported for who you are at home helps out children a lot . all children , but especially my dear lgbtq+ children . for example , my fellow trans folks have a suicide rate of 40% . according to different studies , it drops to anywhere between 20% to 15% in case of family acceptance . 

to say that yeon woo’s suicide attempt was due to him finding his probe and finally fully embracing being a mono is the same as to say that my suicide attempt three years ago was due to me being trans and finally accepting it . neither are true . it was because we both had shitty , unsupportive home environments . 

so actually , now that i have explored this whole thing more carefully , i retract my statement . the aunt isn’t just icky , she fucking sucks !

oh and by the way , don’t try to show me moments where the aunt was “ nice “ or whatever - that will only prove that you don’t know shit about the topic . it’s the one day in a week rule that so often confuses people , who end up in abusive relationships . “ oh , they are perfect almost every day , but then there is a time once a week ... “ - no amount of candy given every monday can make up for a bruise planted every sunday . 

- yours truly , unwilling expert on shitty parents ( no , seriously , i wish i didn’t know and couldn’t see any of this shit , but alas , my life took an ugly turn in the family department ) .

[dioptre-hertz]

Pathologic 2 ending thoughts

i don’t really use tumblr much anymore, but i recently finished Pathologic 2 and i have thoughts on the ending, which i felt was somewhat incongruous with the rest of the game’s themes and ideas. and tumblr felt like the right place to put a long-form post about it. so, here i am, haha!

MAJOR spoilers for Pathologic 2 below, obviously. this post will probably only be interesting to you if you’ve already played the game, so if you haven’t, be warned! hehehe!

okay, so. i have a lot of thoughts about the ending stuff, but basically it boils down to: i think the ending as presented would have been a good ending for a different game.

quick summary: towards the end of the game, Artemy learns that the Polyhedron, a physics-defying tower and architectural wonder, is rooted into the ground with a long metal spike that pierces the Living Earth. destroying the Polyhedron would therefore open a gaping wound in the Earth, spilling rivers of blood that could be used to mass-produce a cure for the plague. however, doing so would not only destroy the Polyhedron, but also kill the Living Earth, and by extension the Kin. alternately, Artemy can choose to preserve the Polyhedron, which would prevent the Living Earth from bleeding out and dying; but it would come at the cost of the lives of everyone in the town, since the plague would then be unstoppable.

so, the ending choice is principally about this: you have to choose between preserving the magical wonders of the world, the Kin and the Polyhedron and the Living Earth, but at the expense of the actual living humans of the town; or, you save the town and all its mundanities and its ordinary people you've worked so hard to protect, but at the expense of your cultural heritage and all the magical, impossible things of the Steppe. do you choose a world that is dreamlike, enchanted and strange, even if there is no place for regular humans in that world; or do you choose an ordinary, realistic world, one in which there is life for common folk but not for magic and fairy tales?

here’s what irks me though: this dichotomy is not at all what the game is about. or, to be more precise, it never felt to me personally like this was what the narrative was setting up. the choice as presented is fine in a vacuum! there’s nothing wrong with telling a story that creates this kind of clash between magic and realism, and asks you to choose between them. but it doesn’t feel congruous with the rest of the game’s story. let me elaborate.

so, part of what’s going on here is that the game is asking you to make a sacrifice. as the game itself repeatedly tells you: “you can’t save everyone”. either the Kin, the magical steppe creatures, and the Polyhedron are destroyed; or, the ordinary humans of the town are destroyed. you can’t protect both. Pathologic 2 goes to great lengths to show you that you are not a magical fantasy RPG hero who can complete every quest, rescue every NPC, overcome any obstacle and get the Perfect Ending. that’s the whole point of the overly punishing hunger and exhaustion mechanics; that’s why you die so easily in combat, why you’re always running out of time, and why the game is perfectly willing to punish you for every single mistake you make. it’s not a game about being the chosen one, who has magic powers and is uniquely capable of saving the day. right?

except... it kind of is precisely that, if you think about it. Artemy’s story is very clearly a traditional “chosen one” narrative! he is the sole inheritor of his father’s legacy, he is the town’s only menkhu, and so much of the story revolves around his spiritual journey. over the course of the game, Artemy undergoes a coming-of-age of sorts, reconnecting with his heritage, unlocking the secrets of being a menkhu, brewing magical tinctures that slow down and ultimately cure the plague. multiple characters make it explicit that Artemy is important - Foreman Oyun, Aspity, Isidor, and various minor characters of the Kin (like Nara) all talk at length about how Artemy is special, and his role (should he embrace it) is to lead the Kin once he is ready. and the entire conflict with Rubin revolves around the fact that Rubin isn’t the “chosen one” the way Artemy is!

this whole plot thread reaches its climax when Artemy ventures into the Abattoir to seek answers. there, he undergoes a series of harrowing spiritual experiences. several really important things happen here, and i want to focus on two of them.

firstly: upon reaching the central chamber of the Abattoir, Artemy is tasked with performing “surgery” on three seemingly random objects: a candlestick, a fingernail coin, and a spindle of thread. he has a metaphysical conversation with the odongh he meets there and then “connects” these objects into a living, beating heart, and the heart speaks to him. this scene is either hallucinatory or supernatural (or both), but it doesn’t matter which; the point of the scene is that Artemy has finally learned to read the Lines, learned to see how seemingly disparate objects can be spiritually connected into a singular whole. he takes three items that appear to have nothing in common, and he forges a beating heart out of them, a living thing. as Artemy himself learns:

This system isn't symmetrical. It's not just "Nerves, Bones, Skin." Or "Nerves, Bones, Flesh." Or "Spirit, Hair, Blood." Any triad is correct.

Truth is not a set point, but an intersection and confluence of many small truths. Knowing this, I can match and connect anything.

furthermore, shortly after leaving the Abattoir, Artemy has a dream in which he returns there and speaks to the ghost of Isidor, his father. here, he learns a difficult truth: that Isidor intentionally brought the plague back to the town, believing - essentially - that it was necessary for the town’s growth. the decision seems monstrous. Isidor justifies it thus:

This town was… connected wrong. Its parts were tied with artificial seams—so different, so awkward. One could say that Simon, the Mistresses, and I held it all together by force.

So I tore it apart, so you can sew it all back, better than before. Because you're better, and smarter, than I am.

so here we have the high point of Artemy’s spiritual journey, the part of the story where he finally understands why things are the way they are, and what it is he must do.

and this is where things start going wrong, in my opinion.

because all of this, all of what we’ve seen, seems to point in one very clear direction: Artemy will find a way to connect the Kin, the Town, and the Polyhedron into a single coherent whole. it fits so perfectly! Artemy learns that there is a way to mass-produce a cure, but doing so would require him to destroy the Polyhedron and the Living Earth. it appears as though the Polyhedron, the Living Earth, and the Town cannot all coexist; something must be sacrificed. but this choice is presented right after we’re told that Artemy’s destiny is to “sew it all back, better than before”. it is presented once we’ve seen that Artemy can connect a coin, a candlestick, and a spindle of thread into a living, beating heart, no matter how impossible that may sound. knowing this, he can match and connect anything.

and yet, he... doesn’t. the game does not end with a solution that connects the Kin, the Polyhedron and the Town. ultimately, Artemy fails to sew it all back together - and it’s not just that he fails, it’s that the game itself seems utterly unconcerned with that possibility once it heads into its final act. the mere idea that there could be a solution that “connects things right“ goes unexplored. even if the game wanted to be pessimistic and suggest that it can’t be done after all, it should at least acknowledge the thought! the game does admittedly have a focus on the idea that “you can’t save everyone”; this is one of its core motifs. so, fair enough! but since it fails to address that cynicism, it feels less like a statement on the game’s part and more like a lack of awareness.

but that’s not all! there’s a second thing that really bugs me. see, there’s another major event that takes place in the Abattoir: Artemy finally has his fateful encounter with Nara, the Herb Bride who has haunted him throughout the game, insisting that their destinies are intertwined and that he will one day kill her. here, Artemy finally comes to understand what it all means. in the depths of the Abattoir, Nara is waiting for him; the other Herb Brides give Artemy a menkhu’s knife, and they task him with cutting open Nara’s body without killing her:

We know how to open things up. Our way. You know how to open things up. Your way. Do you want to know why the sand pest passes us by? Show yourself.

Cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living. You can do it, if you know the Lines.

Artemy follows through, and he converses with Nara even as he cuts into her flesh; they talk to each other right until the end, when Artemy retrieves a spindle of thread from her body, and she dies.

now, this scene is somewhat tricky to interpret; Artemy must show that he can “cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living”, but in the end, Nara does die. so was he successful or not? well, i would argue that he is; even though Nara dies, he proves that he is able to read the Lines with such precision that she can speak calmly with him until the very end.

more importantly, this scene is the high point of a recurring theme in the game: Artemy’s skill as surgeon.

on Day 1, the very first part of the game, Artemy is sent by his old friend Bad Grief to perform surgery on Piecework, one of the thugs in Bad Grief’s gang. Piecework has gotten in a fight and been stabbed in the gut with a lockpick; without Artemy’s intervention, he will die. you can choose to save him, flub the surgery and kill him, or ignore the sidequest altogether; in any case, this early quest introduces the player to the surgery mechanic and serves to establish Artemy’s unique skills as a surgeon.

on Day 11, the last day of proper gameplay, you have a repeat of this encounter. while pursuing the main quest for the day, you wind up in a pub, where a gang of local bandits have set up shop. they threaten you and order you to rescue one of their pals, who has been shot in the stomach and is about to die. here you again perform surgery to save a man’s life, but this time you don’t do it through the usual surgery minigame - it happens entirely through dialogue choices, and i’m actually not even sure if it’s possible to fail this interaction. in any case, you retrieve the bullet from the man’s stomach and inform his friends that he’ll live.

so what’s the point of all that then? well, the way i see it, the point of all this is to foreshadow a climactic conclusion: Artemy will remove the Polyhedron without killing the Living Earth.

the game spends a lot of time setting this up! on Day 1, Artemy saves a man by removing a long metal spike from his gut non-lethally; in the Abattoir, Artemy proves his spiritual growth by demonstrating that he can “cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living”; and on Day 11, the game throws yet another surgery vignette at you in a scene that frankly feels a bit out of place otherwise.

all of this feels, to me, like it's foreshadowing and setting up one very obvious result: Artemy, having mastered not only practical surgery but also the art of reading the Lines, of being a menkhu, is the one person who can remove the Polyhedron without killing the Living Earth! the game spends all this time explaining that in the Steppe culture, cutting open flesh, or the earth itself, is taboo: only a menkhu is allowed to do so, because a menkhu is someone who knows how to read the Lines, who knows how to cut in a way that will not harm the Living Earth. the culmination of the story, therefore, needs to be that Artemy puts this exact skill to use. that was the point of his character arc, right?

except... no, it isn’t. in the end, there is no way to surgically extract the metal spike from the Living Earth. the only two choices we are presented with are: botch the surgery, or leave it be.

...

in the end, i feel that the ending(s) of Pathologic 2 aren’t appropriate conclusions to the ideas, motifs, and overall narrative progression we’re shown throughout the earlier parts of the game. Pathologic 2 is in many ways brilliant, and i do not hesitate to call it a masterpiece, aforementioned criticisms notwithstanding - but that’s precisely why i cared enough to write all this down! it’s a story that gets into your head, really stays with you, and maybe that’s the reason why i have such strong feelings about the direction the story takes in its final act.

if you reached the end of this post: thank you so much for reading it! i hope you enjoyed my thoughts, and i hope you have a great day!

[eloisevisualculture]

the hypersexualisation of young girls in the media

The abuse and use of children for an adult’s personal gain is an issue that has always existed, regardless of the existence of the internet and the media. But the propagation of this platform (social media, entertainment or fashion magazines) has lead to a whole new sets of problems like the hyper-sexualisation of children, particularly young girls. The dictionary Larousse defines “hyper-sexualisation as “in society, the fact of giving an increasingly important place to sexuality, by multiplying references to it in the public space (media, advertising)”. In some cases this has been so normalised that criticism of these portrayals can be described as purist and excessive. What is the consequence of hyper-sexualisation of children in social media? The purpose of this essay will be to discuss the way the different ways children are sexualised in media and advertising and the effects it can have on their lives. It is not uncommon to hear the phrase “they grow up to fast nowadays” when referring to the youngest generations, as a result of their exposure to the media. Of course if the only thing young girls had to fear from acting like ‘grownups” was wearing makeup earlier in life, then there would be less cause for concern. Unfortunately, the dangers always revolves back to struggle of the ill- intentioned praying on the weak and easily influenced, and the continued danger of a patriarchal mentality passed down through generations. In the highly publicised fashion industry for instance, that holds a great influence on our society, there have been many instances of very young girls chosen as models, and put into adult life contexts. A notorious example is the 2011 edition of Vogue Paris, who published photographs of Thylane Lourby-blondeau, a 10 year old model who was pictures, in revealing clothes, makeup and jewellery, lying on a bed and looking at the camera with a sultry air.

It sparked a controversy and brought up the issue of the hyper-sexualisation children. Many people and parents stated that it was inappropriate and dangerous to picture a young child in an undeniably sensual light, and that directing a shoot to appeal to post-pubescent men, while the child was too young to understand the implications.  Thylane Loubry-Blondeau, on the cover of Vogue Paris, 2011, January edition Others defended it simply as ‘art’, the portrayal of a girl playing dress up, which ultimately does little to justify morals. Art was also the excuse Irina UNESCO gave after photographing and publishing albums of her daughter in sexual, pornographic scene, also nude, from the age of 4 to 11. In an interview with the purple magazine, Ionesco reflects on how her mother used her for years for her own personal gain and career, her works being widely known because they were so scandalous; “She would put make-up on me when I was a child. I slept very little, didn’t go to school. She took erotic photographs of me and made me act in erotic films, of which I was the subject. It wasn’t just about the photos — her entire approach was abusive. Sometimes she would send me to other photographers. She’d say: “You’re going to see such and such a photographer. It’s not great, but you’re going anyway.” It was becoming very dangerous.”(Ionesco). One of the disturbing things about the work Irina published about her daughter is that it is still available to purchase today, and even praised for it’s artistic value.

Eva Ionesco in her adult years has described in detail the “loss of childhood” and the life long effects she had to deal with from being sexualised and abused from such a young age “You were thrown into a world of adults, of nightlife, sex, and art very young — from the age of 12 or 13. And in one of the most liberal periods we’ve seen so far in terms of morals.” She went on to write a film inspired by her childhood and relationship with her mother. As with everything, it is important to avoid blind censure, and condemn anything without a deeper understanding. It is very easy to doggedly pursue a cause and become set in our opinions, and not allow freedom of expression to well meaning individuals, if their children are understanding and willing participants. The artist Sally Man was criticised for publishing nude pictures of her children. They were done as a celebration and a chronicle of her children’s evolution, childhood and slow progression to adulthood, and were done with the children’s understanding and consent, as was made clear in an article in the New York Times “The collaboration of the children in their mother’s work is apparent to anyone who spends time in their company. They are impish, argumentative participants, not robots. (When a photographer asked them what kind of portrait of their mother should accompany this article, they shouted, “Shoot her naked, shoot her naked.” She did.)”(2015).

Sally Mann put the safety and wellbeing of her children above personal gain, choosing to publish her photo album ‘Immediate Family”, when the children would fully be aware of their choice. “I thought the book could wait 10 years, when the kids won’t be living in the same bodies. They’ll have matured and they’ll understand the implications of the pictures. I unilaterally decided.” (2015). One of the effects of the explosion of social media, and their ease of access, is that young children know have the ability to not only watch content that might not be suitable for age but to create content themselves. On Tiktok for instance, there is a lot of content based on visual, and sensual appeal, like women doing suggestive dances in revealing clothing. Women who are old enough have the experience and sense to be fully aware, and take distance themselves from the comments, they are doing it for their own enjoyment. Young girls watch these videos and see the adulation and attention these influencers get, and want to try it out for themselves. Dr Elaine Kasket explains this system on TikTok is artificially amplifying a natural phenomenon. Unfortunately, the same ease of access that allowed the children to post these videos also means that the people who want to abuse them can see them too. Not only do they write inappropriate sexual comment in the comments, or encourage more extreme behaviour for their own benefit, they also get in touch with the minors, and message them privately. Dr Kasket explanation is well illustrated by the 2020 film Cuties shows the traumas and effects of young girls lives governed by social media. This film portrays the journey of a young eleven year old Amy, as she joins a self organised preeteen dance group and is confronted with a whole new world of social media, pressures to be sexual and grown up.

"Teenagers are naturally interested in taking risks and they’re naturally interested in finding out about sex and The sexualisation of young girls is an issue which can be confused, but is also linked to their natural desire to imitate their mother, or older siblings. Every single child has tried at some point to act like their parents. But with the rise and ease of access of social media (instagram, TikTok), children have access to whole new world, and many try to imitate what they see on these platforms. discovering themselves as sexual beings and exploring that. "They are open to flattery, they are open to seduction, they are open to the verification they get from the hearts they get and the likes they get”. (2020, The Sun)Unfortunately, the same ease of access that allowed the children to post these videos also means that the people who want to abuse them can see them too. Not only do they write inappropriate sexual comment in the comments, or encourage more extreme behaviour for their own benefit, they also get in touch with the minors, and message them privately. Dr Kasket explanation is well illustrated by the 2020 film Cuties shows the traumas and effects of young girls lives governed by social media. This film portrays the journey of a young eleven year old Amy, as she joins a self organised preeteen dance group and is confronted with a whole new world of social media, pressures to be sexual and grown up. Through their imitation of sexualised adult women on the media, young girls inherit patriarchal and misogynistic ideals that superficial beauty determines their worth.The child beauty pageants are intensely popular in America, and raise a lot of money for charity. They parade toddler and young children in false nails, high heels, heavy makeup and heavy wigs, and are trained like performing animals to smile, pose and wave at the camera. 

Naturally, many people argue that the simple fact of wearing makeup does not affect the girls in the slightest, and while that is true on the surface levels, there is much more than meets the eye. By dressing them up in all these gowns, and covering them in makeup and accessories to make them look “prettier”, the young girls are being taught that their natural appearance is not enough, and  moreover that they need all these additional to get praise and win in life. 

These little girls might enjoy looking “ like a princess”, but they are also adopting restrictive and superficial beauty ideals, and learning the all importance of appearance. Naturally, it is important to avoid completely vilifying pageants, they are not always the traumatic experience described by anti pageants or even shown behind the scenes pageants show. In her article for The Cut Goode collects the testimonies of other pageant stars and they are a mixed bag. Some describe that they have fond memories of competing, as ' bonding experience with their mother. An other used the platform to raise awareness about suicide, after her mother took her own life when she was 10 years old.But most often pageant are for the parents gain, and while women and mothers are often the ones organising them, they are, unknowingly or not transmitting the pressures of performative femininity to their daughters. Perpetuating a patriarchal and misogynist mindset in which Women must prioritise their appearance above all else, as the only thing giving them value. 

And this cult of appearance and the emphasis on changing your appearance too fit the standards is the reason why eating disorders are so common in young girls and women. It could be argued that this is not the same as sexualisation of young girls, but beauty ideals and sexualisation are often intrinsically linked, especially if children are trying to abide to rules set by adults.  While this essay has been essentially focussed on young girls, because they are the most targeted and at risk, the sexualisation and perpetuation of beauty ideals gives a toxic example to a future generation of men. Young boys are taught from a young age that pretty girls must look a certain way.

Conclusion:The sexualisation of children is a topic that is heavily discussed, by those against it and those who deny it’s existence or effects. The fact remains that sexualisation along ever occurs for an adult’s personal gain, or benefit.Little girls want to be pretty and attractive, but it is rarely for themselves.Admiring and wanting to be an adult is the most natural thing in the world, it is just tragic that they incorporate toxic ideals of femininity and beauty at the same time.

Bibliography

COTTAIS, C. LOUVET, M. (2021). The dangers of the hypersexualisation of young girls: a stolen childhood​. ​growthinktank.org.​ ​[online]​ Jan. 2021​. at https://www.growthinktank.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The-dangers-of-the-hypersexualisation-of-young-girls_-a-stolen-childhood.pdf(Accessed 8 apr 2021)

Woodward, R. B. (2015) ‘The disturbing photography of Sally Mann’. The New York Times. At:https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/magazine/the-disturbing-photography-of-sally-mann.html(Accessed 5 apr 2021)

Cuties (2020) Directed by M. Doucouré. Available at: Netflix (accessed 20 April 2018)

Ionesco, E.(unknown date) ‘Eva ionesco’. Interview with Eva Ionesco. Interviewed by O. Sham for The Purple Magazine, Paris issue num 32At: https://purple.fr/magazine/paris-issue-31/eva-ionesco/ (Accessed 9 Apr 2021)

Good, L. (2012) ‘I was a child pageant star: Six Adult Women Look Back’. The Cut. (November). At: https://www.thecut.com/2012/11/child-pageant-star.html (accessed 18 April 2021)

Hall. D. ‘How ‘supercharged catnip” Tiktok is fuelling the sexualisation of young girls an exploitation of teens.’ The Sun online. At: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10941512/tiktok-catnip-sexualisation-teens/ (Accessed 18 April 2021). 

[snkpolls]

SnK Episode 72 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 158 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Manga Readers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll, click here.

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RATE THE EPISODE 155 responses

94.2% of respondents gave the episode either a 4 or a 5, with the definitive majority being 5s. In addition, there was only a single grade (2) below a 3. Very nice!

Probably the best episode post marley

HYPE

One of the best non-action episodes so far, with perfect adaptation of given scenes. Really looking forward to next episode.

Very emotional and exciting. Pacing was great.

Much better than the last

Must watch episode. 

Loved it

WHICH MOMENT AT LEVI AND ZEKE’S LOCATION WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 155 responses

Levi and Zeke had more than a few moments in this episode, so we asked you which one of those was your favorite. The definitive majority (60.6%) stated that they clearly preferred the scene of Levi lamenting the deaths of his comparades in pursuit of saving Eren over the years. A noted minority (21.9%) also seemed to enjoy the scene of Zeke telling Levi that he must not be popular or the scene wherein the truth about Ragako is revealed (8.4%). Levi accusing Zeke of being guiltless or learning about Eren’s escape from prison garnered less praise.

WHICH MOMENT INVOLVING FALCO, GABI, THE BLOUSE FAMILY AND NICOLO WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 155 responses

That being said (previous question), the majority (plurality?) of the episode was taken up by the second part of Gabi’s Bizarre Adventure. As such, we also decided to ask you which of those moments was your favorite. The plurality (44.5%) gave their preference to seeing Mr. Blouse deescalate the situation. In second place (16.8%) we had Nicolo revealing the truth about the wine. Closely behind, 16.1% stated that they most appreciated seeing Gabi and Falco find Nicolo in the restaurant cellar. Finally, 12.9% enjoyed seeing Nicolo and Gabi argue. The rest of the options (Kaya suspecting a romantic relationship, the Blouse Family enjoying Nicolo’s food and the Blouse kids calling Gabi a bumpkin) didn’t garner as much fanfare. 

Mr. Blouse's line about the children in the forest is one my favorite lines in the whole story, and this is such a major turning point for Gabi—I'd been looking forward to this episode, and it did not disappoint!

Papa Blouse is wisest man in this universe, prove me if I’m wrong!

WHICH MOMENT INVOLVING THE SURVEY CORPS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 154 responses

A fair bit of the episode was also taken up by the Survey Corps doing their own investigating. We also asked what your favorite moment from those segments was your favorite. 45.5%, a plurality, stated that it was Eren showing up and telling AM that he wanted to talk. Another relatively popular option with almost 17% was Hange & Co. learning about Floch’s involvement with the wine. Almost 15% chose the scene with Mikasa saving Gabi from Kaya’s attack as the one they preferred the most and 11% said that the scene with Nicolo saving Jean and Connie from drinking the tainted wine was their favorite. Other scenes, like Armin and Mikasa talking with Gabi and the rest of the major SC members learning about the wine were less popular.

ZEKE ACCUSES LEVI OF BEING UNPOPULAR. LEVI DENIES THIS. WHAT DO YOU THINK? 155 responses

Zeke’s accusation is one of the funnier interactions he has with Levi (in the opinion of the person writing these small paragraphs), so it’s no surprise that 40.6% thought that it was rather funny how defensive Levi got over it, even if they weren’t sure how popular the man himself was. 32.9% seemed to believe that Levi was actually rather popular, owing to his title of “Humanity’s Strongest”. 12.3% thought that although his image might be popular, but that it was most likely restricted among members of the Survey Corps. Finally, a minority was, in fact, convinced that Levi wasn’t popular at all, really. 

Man slut Levi tapping dem beeyatches playing dem hoes

If Zeke knew how much pussy Levi got from the fangirls he’d hide every woman he knows from Levi

I mean he's definitely popular among those who idolize him, but he's an awkward grumpy gay so I bet a lot of people are put off by his personality when they meet him lol. But he's best boi and I love him

BrO he knows hes hella popular, he’s just humble like that 😌

i think he's popular but probably hasn't taken advantage of it bc he's awkward LMAO

Actually in Season 1, random villagers were calling out to him by name. On Paradis he's got clout with that killstreak

It could be one of those self aware manga moments? Like breaking 4th wall but much more subtle? 

He is definitely popular. But anyway what I noticed here is that it's a little different in anime and manga. In anime, he was kind of defensive which is funny and cute. In manga, he looked more like he was lamenting that he used to be popular back when killing titans was the only thing important. Anyway, regardless, I like both versions.

Levi as a story (humanity's strongest!! He took out a million titans on his own) is popular among the survey corps/army. Levi the actual man is awkward as fuck. He's one of those heroes who you don't want to meet cause it turns out he's short and grouchy and ill-mannered in actuality.

he's popular with hanji hehehe

He's gotta be pretty popular just because 1) he was always next to erwin and 2) he survived this long

He's totally popular... in the fandom.

I mean, it's pretty obvious that he's admired for being humanity's strongest, so yeah, he's popular.

PAPA BLOUSE SAYS THAT IT IS UP TO THE ADULTS TO SHOULDER THE SINS OF THE PAST, AND TO “KEEP THE CHILDREN OUT OF THE FOREST.” WHAT DO YOU THINK? 154 responses

Mr. Blouse’s speech seemed to resonate with the majority of the fandom (64.9%), who thought his sentiment ringed true and that it was something one should strive for. 25.3% of respondents noted that although the sentiment wasn’t wrong per say, it was too idealistic for how the “real world” functioned. Finally, a small minority wasn’t having it and seemed to think that children were no different from adults in this cruel world™️ (Thanks, Mikasa and Bertholdt.) 

It's expected that children will inherit some of the sins of the past, but it's the responsibility of adults to teach kids to do and be better.

Generational wounds require generational healing

Children are inevitably gonna have to bear the sins of the past until the world as we know it is destroyed and rebuilt into a better world

Normally I would agree excoet those are Gabi's own actions we're talking about...

In a perfect world, children wouldn't have to inherit the sins of the previous generation, but the AoT world is far from perfect. But, sheesh, what these kids are having to deal with is just unfathomable.

Weak, pathetic coward and I lost all respect for him as a man

Blouse Parents MVP's this ep. 

I agree that you shouldn't pass on the hate onto new generations, but I don't think that shouldering all the sins is EVERY adult's responsibility either.

WHAT DO YOU THINK, DID MAPPA DO THE DRAMATIC RESTAURANT SCENE JUSTICE? 152 responses

The restaurant scene was rather dramatic, all things considering, so it was no wonder that getting its atmosphere through was of key importance. The overwhelming majority was very happy with what was shown on screen, with 67.1% thinking MAPPA went above and beyond and 27% simply thanking the animation studio for the accurate adaptation. A few people, in contrast, thought that the manga conveyed the tone more effectively than the anime did. 

I just wanted to see Sasha eating pizza :( 

It was freaking amazing, absolute perfection 

Mixed feelings! I really loved the tension, emotion and voice acting! But I'm a bit sad they didn't include the sasha flashback bits that could've added to the emotions.

A COUPLE MEMORIES OF SASHA EATING NICOLO’S FOOD AND LEARNING TO HUNT WITH HER FATHER WEREN’T ANIMATED. DO YOU MISS THESE SCENES? 154 responses

The flashbacks with Sasha eating pizza were cherished by a small part of the fandom, so it is no surprise that at least a certain part of the fandom was disappointed in not seeing these panels animated. That segment, as mentioned, was rather small, as only 10.4% stated that it was a near deal breaker for them. In contrast, 58.4% were willing to accept the cut, even if there was a small part of them that wished that it was animated. Some stated that they never cared about those panels at all and 22.7% simply never noticed the cut. 

No, I like it that we can focus on Sasha's parents' faces during the speech

I miss those scenes, but including them wouldn't flow nicely with this medium

I really wanted to see her eating pizza but I knew it wouldn't make it in. It wouldn't make sense with the tone of the main scene.

NOW THAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE WHOLE WINE PLOT, DO YOU THINK THE MAIN CAST WAS EXEMPT FROM CONSUMING THE WINE BECAUSE OF EREN? 148 responses

Many have argued that Eren was pretty reckless with allowing the wine plot to happen. Though 40.5% are certain that the plan truly was only to have higher ups drink the wine (and perhaps Eren assumed there would be no risk to his friends). 18.9% believe that neither Yelena nor Zeke cared about who would drink the wine, but that Eren negotiated terms with them. 18.2% on the other hand believe that Yelena/Zeke actively avoided getting his friends involved, knowing that he wouldn’t approve of it. 9.5% can’t say for certain, and only 8.1% believe that Eren didn’t care if his friends drank the wine at all, and that Nicolo is the one who actively spared them. 

It’s paths Yams don’t gotta explain shit

Priority probably went to the military police and garrison- Levi’s team in the forest makes a big deal about getting the wine. 

They thought they might still need the scouts after a scream so it was made sure they wouldn't drink any.

I think Eren maybe saw enough about what was gonna happen that he didn't have to vocalize or care too much about who drank the wine. Although, poor Pyxis and the rest. Eren has had contempt for "lazy" military higher ups before, but he also saw people like Hannes change. Idk, maybe he felt their lives were worth sacrificing.

Plot convenience. At least Hange is in my opinion a high up if Nile and Pixis are too.

I think eren had something to do with the wine not being distributed to the survey corps, whether it was him directly or if it was zeke and yelena knowing that it would've pissed eren off, but obviously eren didn't do anything to specifically prevent it because if niccolo hadn't stopped them, main cast would've drank it 

I think it didn't matter if only the higher-ups got to drink the wine, but since Niccolo had kind-of relations to Jean and co., he didn't want them to drink it.

DO YOU THINK MAPPA EFFECTIVELY FORESHADOWED AND BUILT UP THE WINE PLOT? 148 responses

The wine plot was built up meticulously over the course of months in the manga, which allowed for a whole bunch of theories to prop up. The anime goes by quicker, naturally. So we asked if you felt that the build up for said plot was done well in the adaption. The overwhelming majority thought so, with 48% stating that they felt MAPPA did an even better job than the source, in contrast to the 35.8% who stated their belief in Isayama’s superiority. On the other hand, a fair few also stated that they didn’t enjoy MAPPA’s portrayal of this subplot and preferred the original. We’ve also gotten a fair few write-ins, mostly stating that it’s hard to compare the two. 

I think it's hard to compare because in the manga we had months in between the first foreshadowing and the reveal that there was something up with the wine. We had time to simmer and theorize, the anime didn't have much time to delve deeper into that particular moment especially with everything else going on in the series at the same time. They did a good job!

no real opinion either way

Yes, they did it accurately.

Idk man

It was good, even with the manga.

Hard to say bc in the manga, I felt completely blindsided and surprised. And, of course, I knew what was happening in the anime. Both were well done, I think.

I think it was way on the nose. It was better and subtler in manga.

I have no opinion

It has been so long, I forgot how it went down exactly in the manga. MAPPA's version was good though.

I don't particularly prefer one over the other. I think MAPPA did a really good job building up this plot. 

They did good, though it was a little more obvious here. Then again, I knew it was coming already, so eh.

THE SCENE WHERE LEVI FINDS OUT THE MILITARY PLANS TO HAVE SOMEONE EAT EREN IS IN BETWEEN THE RESTAURANT SCENES. DO YOU THINK THIS WAS A GOOD REARRANGEMENT? 150 responses

As seen in the season prior, MAPPA has rearranged certain scenes with the narrative. This time it’s the Levi/Zeke forest scene, juxtaposed with the restaurant scenes. A plurality (42.7%) thought the change worked in its favour. 18.7% didn’t mind it too much, but did prefer Isayama’s version of events and a few thought the change was simply bad outright. 33.3% thought the change didn’t really make a difference one way or the other. There was also a write-in. 

The complaint O have its that these scene occurs at night and the restaurant one was in briad daylight, so it felt odd because Im assuming its the same say.

THE VISUALS OF LEVI REMEMBERING THE DEATHS OF HIS COMRADES WHEN RESCUING EREN ARE DIFFERENT IN THE ANIME THAN THE MANGA. WHO DID IT BETTER? 154 responses

There was somewhat of a contrast between the flashbacks experienced by Levi in the manga and anime. We asked which version you preferred. Though most (57.8%) noted that both versions were nice, 31.8% said that they preferred the animated version, in contrast to the 10.4% who liked Isayama’s art better.

We’ve also gotten a very passionate write-in for this one. 

I'M SO UPSET THEY DIDN'T ANIMATE THE PANEL OF EREN'S FACE NEXT TO LEVI'S FROM WHEN HE SAVED HIM THE FIRST TIME IN TROST. Like I get it that they wanted to focus on all of the people Levi has lost, but in comparison with the manga it makes it seem like Levi doesn't even care about Eren anymore. If they had a shot where Levi is thinking about Eren specifically before focusing on his comrades, then it would've made more sense why he basically rejected the plan to have Eren be eaten. It would've shown that Levi still cares about Eren and doesn't want him to be killed unless there's nothing else they can do. It just feels like the anime (both WIT and Mappa) is constantly undermining Eren and Levi's relationship (and don't even get me started on how much worse it is in the dubbed version). Although, to be fair, the anime seems to do that to all of Eren's relationships that aren't with Mikasa. Like not even from a shipping perspective; even his relationship with Armin got parts ignored in favor of replacing them with moments with Mikasa. But whatever. Levi still cares about Eren, and I just wish the anime did a better job at showing that.

LEVI IS CUT OFF BEFORE HE GETS A CHANCE TO TELL THE SOLDIERS THEY SHOULD HAVE ZEKE EATEN INSTEAD, AND THAT THEY CAN ATTACK MARLEY AGAIN IF NEED BE. DO YOU THINK WE WILL GET THIS PART OF THE CONVERSATION NEXT EPISODE BEFORE HE TRIES TO MAKE A MOVE ON DEBILITATING ZEKE? 148 responses

Levi’s lines focused on explaining himself were cut a bit short in this episode, so we were wondering if we were going to hear them next episode. As it turns out, 49.3% believe so, stating that they’re important for the story and its context. In contrast, 20.9% believed that these lines were not actually necessary and weren’t going to be shown. 29% can’t say for sure, one way or another. 

Maybe it will be shown next chapter? MAPPA does that often.

A lot of missing dialogue from Levi that look important for the final chapter

IN THE FINAL SCENE, DO YOU THINK EREN APPEARS MORE SOMBER THAN MENACING IN COMPARISON TO THE MANGA? 151 responses

The vast majority of the fandom feels that MAPPA really brought out the somber expression Eren wore as he prepares to break the hearts of his friends, feeling that it signifies how regretful Eren is of what he’s about to say. 11.9% felt it was hard to read his expression properly due to the scene being cut off. 7.9% feel the opposite of the majority. While they agree he appears more somber, they aren’t buying it as genuine for a minute. Only a small handful felt that he still looked as menacing as in the manga. 

My boi is looking positively dead inside

More depressed, less menacing.

Yes, and I didn't like it. Manga version is better.

Yes, he seems more somber than menacing but Idk why. Even after the latest chapter, I still dk if he is/was acting or really explaining how he felt in a sense. Still not sure if he's like, "fuck it, I'm burning the whole world" or "I don't want to but I have to do this."

I like it in manga way more

He looks regretful in both manga and anime to me?

IT WOULD APPEAR THAT EPISODE 14 WILL ADAPT THE REST OF CHAPTER 112, ALONG WITH THE ENTIRETY OF CHAPTER 113. GIVEN THAT ACTION GENERALLY IS MUCH QUICKER TO ADAPT THAN NON-ACTION, DO YOU THINK EPISODE 14 WILL FEATURE ANY SCENES BEYOND THOSE TWO CHAPTERS? 147 responses

As we’re coming to season’s end, one can’t help but wonder how the rest of the episodes’ content will be spread out, knowing that it ends on 116. We asked if you believed Episode 14 will feature content from post-Chapter 113. The majority (55.1%) didn’t seem sure. But some (19.7%) thought that we were going to see elements from 114. As for the rest, a few thought that it was going to simply end on 113, some believed we might get anime-only content, a few thought we were going to see 115 scenes and some just didn’t care. 

Nah. I think it’ll end exactly where 113 ends

Tbh I'm too lazy to see what the next few chapters cover but they've been rearranging a lot of scenes in the past few episodes, so probably.

IN LINE WITH THE PREVIOUS QUESTION, DO YOU THINK WE’LL GET ANY MORE STORY REARRANGEMENT IN THIS SEASON? 148 responses

MAPPA has taken some creative liberties when adapting this season, including the rearrangement of certain scenes between episodes. The question posed was whether MAPPA will do it again. A slight plurality (49.3%) believed that it was going to happen again, in contrast to the 41.2% who weren’t sure. A select either didn’t think it’s going to occur or just didn’t care.

WHICH SCENE FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 154 responses

The majority (55.2%) seems to be most enthralled with seeing the EMA Table Talk on screen, followed by a notable amount (37.7%) of folks who were most looking forward to seeing another battle between Levi and Zeke. A select few (7.1%) were instead most interested in seeing the scene with Hange, Floch and Shadis. 

Mmgh

How dare you make us chose between these three scenes, this was so hard, I'm looking forward all three !

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

M O N K E  J U I C E

I hate Floch more than ever, and that cliffhanger at the end was a cruel spot to leave us at for a whole week.

SHHHH

That iconic Eren holding his bloody hand scene was spot-on!

Why no Mikasa hugging Gabi????? 

it’s a real 3 ring shitshow- survey corps made into clowns, children screaming, monkey business, unamused adults, and the ringmaster just waltzed on into the middle of it.

I was disappointed at first when I saw the screenshots and spoilers, but man, when I watched the entirety, that was some great acting and pacing. Way better than the previous 2 episodes. Thank you MAPPA! Really hoping they do well again next episode. Could be the as great episode 6/7! And thank you as always, SNK poll team!

Thankfully this first part is almost over. The manga is legendary and that season is barely good. I'm so disappointed. And I really liked Eren's expression better in the manga. I don't understand why they changed it.

I miss the rotoscoping from the first Mappa episodes. Everything looks a bit stiff.

I cried more in this episode than I have at any other this season so far smh. 

When Mikasa stops Kaya from stabbing Gabi. In the manga it seems that Mikasa was protecting Gabi and bringing her head close to her chest, but in the manga she looked somewhat uncomfortable. And it wasn't appreciated enough. I also did not like that they excluded Hange moments because it helped the way of seeing her as a leader and the scene of Levi thinking about his dead comrades looked very simple to me. I prefer manga. but the voice actors were amazing! I liked the episode but it is not one of my favorites.

i didnt think i could hate floch any more than i already did but the way mappa animated him made me want to punch my laptop omg

Gabi deserves what she got. Shame I lost all respect for Mikasa for stopping Kaya from killing Gabi.

Mikasa is dead to me. So is Sasha's dad. WHY would they just let Gabi walk away scott free?

As a Gabi hater, this is where fandom hypocrisy gets me in regards to Mr. Braus and Mikasa sparing Gabi. Mr. Braus becomes widely regarded as some virtuous and compassionate saint while Mikasa is bad for stopping Kaya. They BOTH suck for betraying Sasha's memory. Poor Sasha deserved so much better.

sorry my only thoughts are PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH. 

That scene with Jean + Wine Bottle hit real different after recent events.. 

ALL HAIL SUPREME GOD EMPEROR OF ELDIA FLOCH FORSTER!

The voice acting in the restaurant scene had me crying. Had to pause it

The shading and animation in the forest look awesome which could really make the Levi vs. Zeke fight outshine the Manga.

Mr. Braid's speech was just as cringe in the anime as it was in the manga. Shame on him for not avenging his daughter.

I think the manga did better in the scene where Kaya was about to kill Gabi in how sudden it was. In the anime, we got to follow Kaya's whole trajectory up until she was stopped by Mikasa, so Mikasa saving Gabi didn't feel as monumental. They did great on Kaya's murderous rage and breakdown though.

As long as I live I will never understand why Mr. Braus could be so pathetic as to forgive his daughter's killer. Especially knowing what happens later in, no true parent would just let their childs killer into their family. It's disgraceful.

Gabi sucks

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 142 responses

Thanks again to everyone for participating!

If you haven’t yet, please take a moment to send in your vote for up to 5 favorite characters for our 2021 character popularity poll!

[ironwoman359]

Hello. I saw the post you reblogged about toxicity in the TS fandom. And as someone who is relatively new (Just over 2 months, heyo!), may I ask what kind of toxic behaviour do you see in the fandom? I hope this isn't too much for me to ask, I was just a bit curious and wanted some clarification on the matter. Please feel free to ignore this if it bothers you!

Well, welcome to the fandom, first of all! I hope you’re having fun so far. 

In regards to the post you’re talking about, I think @izzyfandoms said it best: “...most fandoms are okay but have a loud toxic minority, but for us the not-toxic people are often the loudest so we can come off as pure and perfect...” 

Most fandoms do have an amount of toxic behavior in them, it’s very rare (I’d say impossible, actually) to find one with zero problems, but it’s also usually more noticable in other communities than in this fandom, as we have been fortunate to have the non-toxic majority also be the louder voices most of the time (most often in fandoms, toxicity is a loud minority, though there are of course exceptions to this as well). 

The other thing I think is important to remember is that this fandom started out smaller than it is now. I’ve been a presence here since november 2017, and there are other who have been around even longer, and back then, the fandom was much smaller and therefore the toxic minority was even harder to notice. This led to us gaining a reputation of “purity,” which in turn made issues more complicated when they started to crop up. Every fandom is going to have issues, things that people in it disagree about, and people who try to stir up trouble. This is normal, and a fandom displaying those traits is not immediately a bad fandom. What can shift a fandom into an unhealthy one is when issues, disagreements, and drama become the focal point and people begin to treat each other poorly over these things. And I would say a majority of fanders are good at not falling into that type of thinking or acting. But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and it doesn’t mean that the fandom as a whole can just stick our heads in the sand and pretend everything is fine. 

So, you asked me what toxic behaviors I see. I’m going to talk about some examples I’ve seen in this fandom, and before I do I’d like to state first off that it is not my intention to attack anyone specific, or to shame people for their tastes in characterizations, ships, or their triggers or squicks. This is me trying to give my open and honest opinion about this community while being as respectful and tactful as possible. 

Also going forward, every time I say “the fandom” or “people” or refer to the community in some other all encompassing way, know that I do not mean every single person in it, or even a majority necessarily, just enough people to make it noticable. If you exhibit some of the behaviors I’m talking about, I’m not saying you’re a bad person or that you shouldn’t be here, far from it. But everyone has flaws, and these are just some common things that I see in this community. Maybe if you see yourself in this post, you can take a step back and consider your thoughts and actions to see how they may be harming you or others. 

Regardless of everything I’ve said and am about to say, I really love this fandom and the people in it, and I’m incredibly grateful for the impact it’s had on my life. Some bumps in the road aren’t going to change that. (Also I don’t engage with the fandom much outside of tumblr, things may be different on twitter, discord, or other places, this is just my experience with this platform specifically. Okay? Okay.)

So...here’s what I see in this fandom:

It is quick to judge. Anyone been here long enough to remember the week when Roman was “cancelled” between Accepting Anxiety part 1 and part 2? I came into the community later that year, but the fandom elders can tell you, there was a rally against Roman as a character, and a slew of people calling out prinxiety shippers for shipping such a “toxic ship.”  You’d think after that first time, the community would have learned to perhaps be not so quick in its judgements, but we’ve seen the same pattern over and over again.

People were quick to judge Deceit when his character was introduced, which was followed by a back and forth where people argued about what was and wasn’t “sympathetic” content, how things should be tagged, and 

People were quick to judge Virgil after Embarrassing Phases

People were quck to judge Patton after SvS and Patton AND Virgil after DWIT. 

People were quick to judge Remus after DWIT.

And here’s the thing, it’s fine if you have different interpretations of characters, or prefer certain versions. You see Patton’s character flaws and decide “you know what, this character isn’t for me now” or want to explore those flaws taken to their extremes? That is okay. What is not okay, and what this fandom does a lot, is insisting that YOUR interpretation and version of the character is the correct one and shaming people with different ideas. It’s fine if you don’t like Patton or take issue with his current flaws being displayed. It’s NOT fine to attack people who disagree and send anon hate to blogs who speak out in support of Patton. It’s fine if you don’t like unsympathetic sides content. It’s NOT fine to shame people who do or send anon hate to unsympathetic sides blogs. There are lots of different ways to interpret all SIX sides, and yet so often I see people go on some sort of crusade to defend their opinon and insist that it’s canon. 

But that’s all just the characters, this fandom also is very quick to judge the individuals in it. Real, breathing people with lives outside the internet are often shamed or attacked for their opinions about the characters, different ships, the way they’ve chosen to portray the characters in their art or stories, I could go on. Purity culture and cancel culture are prevalant in all areas of the internet, and this fandom is not exempt from it. Demonizing people for making small mistakes, or even for just disagreeing with you, is never okay, and yet it is something I’ve seen again and again in this fandom. Which leads me to my next point...

Anon hate. God, it makes me so angry, and this is the only one that I won’t try to portray both sides of or be diplomatic about, because it is flat out unacceptable no matter the circumstance. There are so many blogs in this fandom that have horrible anon hate problems, and I am sick of seeing it. I don’t care what a person has done or what opinions they have that you may disagree with, I don’t care if they’re the worst person in the world. It’s not okay to send anon hate, and it’s not okay to tell people to kill themselves. You find a blog in this fandom that you just Do Not like, either because of their content, their opinions, hell, just their personality? Unfollow them. Block them if you want. But sending anon hate over ships, characters, opinions and statements, it’s just childish and unacceptable. And it happens enough in this fandom that there are people who are afraid of making statements about things for fear of attracting more of that energy. Love always follows the hate and drowns it out in this fandom, for which I’m grateful, but the hate shouldn’t exist in the first place. Cut that shit out. 

In general, this fandom has not handled differing opinions well, be it opinions on how to tag content, disagreements over characterizations, or encountering an idea that you personally may not care for. It is ultimately up to individuals to curate their online experience, by unfollowing blogs they don’t like, blocking tags and blogs they don’t want to see, and reading summaries and content warnings before opening fics. Often in this fandom I think people get upset if something isn’t tagged the way they want it to be (and I’m not talking about not tagging triggers, I’m talking like, someone insisting a blogger tag deceit content as #ts deceit when they already tag it as #deceit sanders. In situations like that it is the responsibilty of that someone to either block the tags a blog is using or not follow blogs whose tagging system doesn’t work for them), or if someone disagrees with them and we forget that it is okay to just...unfollow people. You don’t have to follow every blog in this fandom to be a part of the community, and if a blog is making posts and content you don’t like, unfollow them, don’t attack them for it. Accept that they have as much a right to their opinions and their space in the fandom as you do, and adjust your block and follow list accordingly so that you can get the experience that YOU want out of this fandom. 

I hope this was helpful, and I hope it didn’t get too long for you. I’m not putting this under a cut because I think it’s important, but I will tag it as #longpost so my mobile users don’t suffer too much. If you want to discuss this in the notes, please keep it civil, and remember that we all are fans of Thomas here, and that we probably have more in common than we do differences. I love you guys, stay awesome

[homestuckexamination]

Your explanation on the discourse was really interesting because... it catered entirely to the team? I know we all like this webcomic, and don’t want something we spend so much time on to have anything bad, but if we love something, it’s okay to admit there’s something bad or many bad things going on. There’s a least one member who’s name I won’t say that is without a doubt at fault and has said and done many horrible things, including saying they wrote their part just to anger fans

Let me put my view out there anon, even though I’ve talked about this at large before. First of all, as I’ve said ad-nauseum before, I will say that in the context of The Epilogues and Homestuck^2, I am someone who likes what is going on. I genuinely enjoy the direction of the story, with no external prompting, and the Discourse always catches me off-guard because I never realize what people are going to be arguing about next, because when I am going through the story, I really DO enjoy what I am experiencing. Of course it is not perfect, by any god damn means, however, I am parting from the basis that my opinion inherently differs from the vocally negative voice of the Fandom right now.

I am a Content Creator. I am a writer, and I have started dabbling in art recently. I have plans, and ideas, to write a book, I want to create an original setting, that I’ve designed through an amalgam of my experiences, my points of view, and the things I like, as well as my hopes and dreams. Do you know why I side with the Team and ‘cater’ to them when I talk about Discourse? Because. The Fandom. Fucking sucks right now.

I have voiced my opinion on the Epilogues, and had death threats and suicide bait sent at me because I DARED to defend them! I have seen the Team- The same Team that made Pesterquest, one of the most Fandom-positive pieces of media I have ever had the pleasure of playing through, being sent those same threats and suicide bait at a scale I cannot even begin to comprehend. I have seen Queer Authors express their identity and experiences in the text, and people twisting them in some delusional way to accuse them of being Queerphobic in turn.

Do you know why I seem to ‘side with the Team’? Because I like the content they are producing, and the ‘fans’ are a ball of vitriol that tells me that if I like the Epilogues, I am either delusional, a bootlicker, or evil. Because I see the ‘fans’ pop into a post the official Twitter is doing, about supporting BLM, and what I see is people ignoring the contents entirely to send the team insults and ask ‘WHEN IS HIVESWAP ACT 2′ like a broken record. Because I see the ‘fans’ latching onto someone on the Team like the ONE SOURCE OF ALL EVIL, and proceed to doxx her, call the police on her, and threaten her and everyone close to her until she has to step down and drop off the team, during a global fucking Pandemic.

Am I biased for the Team? YEAH of fucking course I am, because I like the things they are exploring, because I related to things they are writing, because I truly do believe they’re doing something fun and entertaining, and what I see in turn in the Fandom, is hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE.

You say that it’s okay to admit there’s something wrong or bad in content you like, but at this point it’s that the worst of the Fandom doesn’t even like the content. They actively do nothing more than dislike it, and consume it ONLY to be angry, threaten and throw insults around. And if you even so much as dare to claim that, hey, maybe these aren’t healthy habits of Media Consumption, and you should, you know, not keep following something that makes you actively seethe and that you go in with the inherent idea that everything being written is being made to hurt you, you get called ableist for daring to tell people that they should take care of their mental health and not stay in a constant state of anger.

It IS okay to admit there’s something you dislike, or many things you dislike in content you follow, so long as you actually enjoy the content overall. It is more than okay to be critical of things you like. However, there is a difference between being critical, and being hypercritical to the point of rage and bandwagonning. Take Roxy for example. Roxy. Roxy is one of my favorite parts of the Epilogues, and I have seen them beyond recognition by the Fandom. But because the trans girl Roxy Headcanon was so popular, there’s so much vitriol around it. And it is okay to prefer to read Roxy as a trans woman. I do actually! It is one of my favorite headcanons! My own name is Roxy! In fact, with the ‘dubious canon’ divide and the Team’s explicit encouragement of the Fandom to have their own takes and read, they have done MORE in the way of elevating headcanons that diverge from their content than basically any other content creator I’ve seen before.

But then, then people start down a negative spiral. Well, transmasc NB Roxy sure wasn’t something they expected, right? It is not bad representation in the slightest, between the Epilogues and the deeper exploration of Roxy’s feelings in the Pesterquest Route, they are a really solid and interesting case in my mind! But there’s not even the sliver of positivity to be found. Why, surely, the ONLY reason why Roxy would be a trans guy instead of a trans woman, is because the Team is aware of the headcanon and is trying to spite the fans! Ergo, transmasc Roxy is an ATTACK on Trans Women, and as such a transphobic addition to the story!!! 

And in the process of doing so, you’re erasing the identity, experiences and relation a queer team has with a character they have messed with, and turning a positive piece of representation around to CALL the team TRANSPHOBIC for it. You’re ignoring the possibility that ANYONE could read Roxy that way, and that the ONLY possible reason for it is SPITE and SPITE alone. Imposing your view on the read of the character, twisting the context of the content around to make it to be negative, and keeping that furnace of hate and distrust going.

And this is. With. Literally. Everything. Again, I have been on the side of the Fandom that likes the content since the Epilogues came out. I have seen the Fandom ignore, and twist, the actual positive beats of the Epilogues like they never existed in the first place, and exacerbate the negatives. I have seen people call them literally evil, and throw extremely puritanical views of what kind of Media should exist, and what things should be scrubbed off of Media entirely, forever. I have seen the most minor of shit spark discourse, because the Fans are prompted to disregard every single positive thing and positive reading, and instead twisting authorial intent from something that could be fun, from a projection of their own experiences, into a personal assault that surely no one could ever enjoy.

If you ask me to see the bad in the content I like, and the creators that I follow, I ask you, too, to see the bad in the ball of vitriol this Fandom has become over the past year. My opinion is informed by the reaction the Fandom has had to the content I like, and what it has told to me, by the reaction I’ve seen them have, as well as by the words of the Authors on the topic, and the content they have pumped out. I have seen and read ‘receipts’, I’ve seen every last piece of discourse happen, no matter how minor it may have been, because I am lucky to be a mildly loud voice in the Fandom because of this blog.

So when I seem to side with the Team instead of the Fandom, know that I am not making an impulsive choice to cover up the flaws of content I like. I have seen enough going around to inform this choice, and I know who I’m defending. And if you think “catering” to the Team rather than the Fandom considering what the Fandom just did is strange, I honestly don’t know what to tell you. We just have inherently different points of view.

[nagisasstunningpersonality]

The Character As A Tool: Why Your Fave Doesn't Get More Screentime

Please refer to this post

REMINDER THAT ALL VIEWS HERE ARE MERELY MY OWN OPINIONS 

In truth, one of the most common complaints I see within this fandom is the treatment of side characters. Meaning, in short, a fair amount of the fandom are less connected to what’s going on with our main group of Nagisa, Karma, and Kayano, and instead relate to some of the less obvious choices. Now, there’s no problem with doing this. Hey, if you see something you like in a less important character, then absolutely go for it!

What We Do Know

I discovered for myself, whilst making my About Ass Class series posts, that absolutely some characters’ actual canon information is very dry. Matsui gives everyone a few bits here and there in both the Roll Call book and Graduation Album. If you’re lucky, there’s further points you can pick up just from watching/reading.

Now, and this I want to emphasise I’m stating as an opinion, Matsui actually gives us quite a lot to go from. Even if not every character is highly developed, there’s still a genuinely very solid starting block to go from with your own headcanon. Perhaps it can be argued that it’s not the reader’s job to supply that, but I’d counter that it’s actually kind of fun to not be fed every piece of information. Though more facts and a deeper dive into interpersonal relationships would be admittedly nice, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with us as a fandom coming up with those ideas on our own, using the pointers Matsui does give us as a starting point. Honestly it would take the fun out a little if there was too much information, and we’d have less possibilities to play with.

Why Certain Characters Exist

I’m sorry to tell you, but one of the first things you’re taught in any kind of writing or literature analysis class is that characters are not people, they’re tools. This may feel a little harsh to say, and I’m aware that many people get attached to characters and have genuine feelings towards them. And that is totally valid! Definitely not on the same scale, but I too enjoy when people have real emotions towards my OCs, so I get it.

(rest under cut) 

To put it plainly: characters exist within a story as either a plot tool, or a message tool. A plot tool is someone who, as it sounds, exists to move the story along. Characters that need to exist in order for the story to happen as it does. Now, don’t get me wrong, you don’t need to have planned this out. You don’t need to specifically introduce Hara, for example, for the sole reason of her upping the stakes in the first Itona/Shiro arc. Characters existing for filler is still, in a way, a plot tool. It’s like… you set up a chess board. Sure, you might use the knight or the queen piece the most, but the pawns are still an important and useful piece, even if you don’t always utilize it for every move, or they don’t always stand out. Message tools are when a character doesn’t really do anything, but they help to assist in the message you want to send with your art/writing. There’s not so many examples of this in ass class, the best I can think of is either Yuuji or Sakura, who don’t do much at all but are beacons for what Matsui wants to say with them (which if you think about it is just ‘don’t do drugs kids’ and ‘stay in school’ :’)).

So free bit of writing advice for you: your character is your chisel. Once you’ve picked them up and started to work at carving out the story you want, then you can start adding all your fancy upgrades and personality points, which is what ultimately makes your character stronger. You grow attached to them when you’re done? Totally fair. Just… don’t go through this process the opposite way.

Without going too in depth with them right now, Nagisa Shiota is a plot tool. He is a plain easy to follow narrator whose observation skills intentionally mean the reader can see things clearly through his eyes. Where he loses relatability is when he displays his talent, but at that point he’s been so clearly introduced that it doesn’t matter as much, we can hear his voice. Him being more plain makes his talent more effective and shocking as it is. Karma Akabane is a plot tool. He exists so we have those somewhat comedic moments, and so we can have these big bad ass mental/physical fight moments. I actually think him not being the protagonist is something that makes Ass Class hugely stronger (and less cliché) as a series. Kayano Kaede is a plot tool. Admittedly, less so, but she has a lot of function as a back up to Nagisa, and then later is the catalyst for Korosensei’s backstory. The story starts to come to its climax due to her arc alone. As an aside I think a lot of criticism for Matsui isn’t that fair within the fandom, but I will openly say his treatment of her post reveal was not the best at all. He kind of lost control of what to do with her.

So, let’s talk about archetypes. I intend to write a whole meta about why Ass Class is predominantly written as a comedy series, but for now just take that statement as my opinion. Honestly, I do think Ass Class, with a few tweaks, could have worked with a bunch of unnamed characters. I’m instantly going to follow that up with: I’m very glad it didn’t. I love that it feels more like a large ensemble with a variety of characters. So instead of just plain filler, Matsui kind of makes good use of archetypes. You know, such as Takebayashi and Fuwa as otakus, Hazama as the dark occult girl etc. etc. All of this for comedic purpose, more than anything, which we really see in something like Koro Q which is more directly comedy. You might argue this is one dimensional, and I’d agree, but in this situation it’s achieving an effect. It’s genuinely better than having nothing. And honestly, they all do stuff. Some characters are far more effective and entertaining as a background character (i.e. Terasaka) than carrying a bunch of weight themselves.

Matsui Actually Does This Comparatively Well

Honestly, try and name another popular series in a classroom setting, with this many characters who all have individual personalities. Genuinely, the only one I can kind of think of is BNHA, and that’s not a fair comparison given the difference in story length. Comparatively to most series, Ass Class actually has really good side characters. If they were completely uncaringly written, nobody would stan them as hard. For the most part, I’d certainly argue everyone is memorable. Given that we’re juggling at least 30 people here (including teachers, Gakushuu etc.), I’d actually argue that’s kind of impressive.

And the thing is, Matsui does care. He cares enough to give everyone designs, hobbies, and personalities. A good portion of them have an entire chapter to themselves, although relative to the story as a whole they might not do so much (example: Kimura). Matsui could have been lazy with it, but he was not. I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s feelings with this, but I do argue here that those who think the opposite might be a little wrapped up in the character they stan. And I can totally understand that rightfully, you want the character you love to have more screen time. However, just because you happened to fall in love with them (figuratively I mean), doesn’t change the purpose they were originally created to fulfil.

It’s an unfair criticism that not giving every single person a huge arc makes Matsui a poor writer. Honestly, if everyone was equal without a few main characters getting a greater amount of the attention, the entire series would be a hot mess. It might be fun to reimagine the series that way, and go ahead in your own time, but as a series from start to finish, as a first time consumer, it would be genuinely very hard to follow. Not without changing the entire structure and many many plot points.

I do intend to write more about this too at a later point (because I will admittedly need to do more research), but in my opinion the biggest issue with Ass Class, and the cause behind the problems I have with it, is the genuine lack of time. It’s a relatively short story, compared to a lot of manga, and thus there isn’t the space to contain everyone’s story in deep way. I’m absolutely certain, had there been 50/100 chapters more, every character would have had a stand out chapter to themselves.

So thus I bring up the fun and stimulation that is headcanon.

The Issue with headcanons

(this point will go much quicker, I promise)

Ass class ended a looong time ago, let’s be fair. Whether you’re newer or older to the fandom, there’s still been quite a while since any kind of new content (Korotan D being the last official piece, Koro Q manga being the last anything, though I could be slightly wrong with that). That means, especially if you’ve cared about this series for a while, that we’ve considered the series to death.

Playing with headcanons is great! It’s fun! But, I do fear that especially when it comes to perhaps the more popular of the minor characters, a lot of us are getting wrapped up. It needs to be kept in mind that whilst these headcanons may have been around for a while, they are not directly correct to the source material. As a quick note, since I have seen people within the fandom getting kind of bothered over opposing opinions to the things they assume as canon. That’s not really anybody’s fault, but it does warrant saying, I think.

A Conclusion

Basically, loving a main character is great. Loving a more background character is great. You’re not a better or worse, more intelligent or more basic person for whoever your fave is. The point is, you see something you like in a character and you relate to them, or else just enjoy them. But as fun as that is, characters are tools. They exist for a specific purpose. Sometimes, that purpose doesn’t warrant them having a huge stand out character arc.

But hey, that’s totally okay because we’re fortunate enough to have such a community (arguably, I’d say a genuinely active one too) where we can dream that up ourselves. We can pretty much endlessly explore these possibilities. So, perhaps instead of negativity complaining about certain narrative issues we find (just putting this here: it’s fair to do this, but I don’t think it should be the FOCUS of conversation), we focus on driving that energy into creation. And there’s a lot to play with and create. And honestly, seeing HC posts and all sorts staring these more minor characters is great, and I’m pretty sure the majority would agree with me on that. I fully realise and accept that I have a platform here, and going forward I personally want to be a part of that. In a constructive way, rather than ‘deconstructing’ (yes, there’s a pretty big different as I see it).

(I realise that this last part comes off a bit call out post like, and I want to ensure that it is not intended to be that. I just have a general sense of some attitudes towards things floating around in a very generalised way right now)