#actually i know exactly what happened to media literacy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eisforeidolon · 5 months

Text

Forgive me for restating the obvious, but I was reading through an old post and it just kind of hit me in a way it hadn't before: One of hellers' most fundamental disconnects with the show (and media literacy in general) is how they try to insist parallels establish romance.

SPN used parallels to couples and romantic tropes a lot in regards to the brothers. But it was never meant as a signal that they were romantically in love or to tell you something you otherwise couldn't figure out. It was to underline what we already knew from the entire rest of the story about how they were the most important people in each other's lives. It used romantic relationships because that's a central status typically reserved only for romantic relationships - that was part of the point.

Let's take an example or two. Dean compares himself and Sam to Jesse and Cesar from The Chitters. After interacting with them for a while, Dean is like, 'Haha, you fight just like brothers, almost as bad as Sam and me' and they say that it's more like an old married couple. This is Dean comparing an exact thing that actually happens between him and Sam, silly petty bickering, to something that exactly happens between a married couple. Likewise, let's take Dean's expression and the script note he's thinking about Sam's close call in Red Meat. Michelle is talking about watching the man she loves die and how nothing can be the same, and Dean is thinking about how he believed he lost Sam earlier that same episode and reacting to what she's saying. No one is under the impression that these are signposts telling you for the very first time that Sam and Dean are weirdly, claustrophobically close in a way that compares to romantic couples. They're quick moments which draw an underline on what you already know from the way they've acted towards each other for the entire preceding (and following) length of the show. If you cut either of those moments? It would change nothing about what we understand of Sam and Dean's relationship, because that's how using parallels in storytelling actually works.

Hellers want to insist that romantic couples and tropes being parallels to D/C in and of itself proves that D/C is romantic. Why else would SPN use couples and romantic tropes?!? Well, because SPN does that all the fucking time, maybe? Which is even before you get into how superficial the basis for their supposed parallels typically are.

Let's take an example or two. Hellers want to insist that Dean and Castiel were paralleled to David and Violet from Bloodlines because and I shit you not, one of them wore a tan coat. As well as the absurdly generic dialogue line, "I was there, where were you?" being used both in the backdoor pilot and in 6x20 by Dean. Aha! David and Violet are clearly stand-ins for Dean and Cas, and they were planning to run away together, so D/C is clearly romantic, BOOM! Except literally nothing about Dean and Castiel's actual relationship lines up with that. In no sense were Dean and Castiel ever planning to run away from their families together - not at the point where Dean was calling Castiel out for pretending he didn't know where Dean was if he really wanted advice or otherwise. Unlike the actual parallels with Sam and Dean, there is no underlying narrative base. Likewise, hellers want to insist that Castiel is Dean's Colette. Aha! Cain said Dean is living his life in reverse, and he killed Collette last and his brother first, so since he said Dean would kill Castiel before Sam, Castiel=Colette, and Colette was a romantic partner, so Dean lurves the angel! BOOM! Just for the sake of being pedantic, let's break this nonsense down one more time. Cain lists Crowley as well as Castiel as people Dean will kill before Sam. Collette was special to Cain because she saw everything he was, never gave up on him, and was able to get him to drop the blade. Which is literally what Sam does during the time Dean has the Mark - meanwhile Castiel tries to get Dean to not go and slaughter the Stynes and fails and is ready to give up and kill Dean after he goes demonic. Which doesn't even get into the part where ... Cain is literally just wrong in telling his little fairy tale. Dean is not him. When given the choice of killing his brother, Cain does it. When given the choice of losing control, Cain does it. Dean tries to get Death to shoot him into outer space and then kills Death rather than actually kill Sam. Dean and Dean's love for his brother are both far stronger than Cain is capable of understanding. So the parallel life thing? Is fundamentally hooey anyway. Again, there's no narrative there for a parallel to be drawing an underline on because none of their cobbled together meta resembles anything going on in the actual text. That's not how storytelling uses parallels or any other kind of subtext, by creating something entirely separate and expecting the general audience to decipher it. Though it's no surprise they try to insist that a show would do that, because they have nothing else.

TLDR; Their entire argument is that a comparison to a romantic couple makes two other characters' relationship automagically romantic because reasons. Which even putting aside the lack of validity in their parallels ... continues to be a boldly idiotic statement given the number of actually textual comparisons the show makes between Sam & Dean and romantic couples. Again, it's no wonder they freaked the fuck out over that forehead touch, because they very fundamentally refused to understand what SPN was actually doing on literally any level.

#destihellers #destiew #long post

122 notes · View notes

kaizenproductions · 13 days

Text

Natsu does NOT have any previous experience with romantic love

This is the (better) Tumblr version of my post from Twitter. Given the format of this website, I'll add some details to what's already written.

Before starting with this, I want to clarify that the motivation to write this post has little to do with nalu itself (it will be mentioned to highlight a point though). Having previous romantic partners DOESN'T really make any ship invalid. You'll find the actual reason behind this essay under the cut below.

This is about how Natsu, as a character, is never presented or seen by others as someone who has experience with love and such idea is never hinted or implied anywhere in the canon material. This lack of experience explains why Lucy thinks he has no interest in it.

As we will see later, Lucy isn't the only one who thinks like this... Let's get started.

Year 2024. Why writing all this? Some weeks ago I was involved in a discussion about whether Natsu was being OOC during a filler (non canon) scene of the anime where he snaps at Lucy in a way he never does with any of his friends in canon material. The discussion led to this...

I didn't want to assume that this person was taking Lisanna as some kind of first love. At the end it turned out that was exactly what was happening. The proof? The most platonic reunion ever... with Happy reacting the same way as Natsu and comedy being included. It is important to highlight that Mashima never makes two people between whom there have been romantic feelings reunite like this, with comedy references in between that downplays the seriousness of the moment to some extent. While this post is about Natsu and his feelings, I could also mention Lisanna's reaction to this, something that proves that there wasn't even a one sided love: after noticing this Natsu is the same one from her real dimension, she doesn't start crying because of him but because of her siblings.

Let's ignore the part where this dude started calling me and some other users "retards" because that speaks volumes for itself about his lack of real arguments. After all, he has been fighting for at least 4 years with teens over power scaling, a topic he may seem to be knowledgeable about but actually isn't so much, plus he has been banned from at least one Discord server because of his r4pe threats. It seems this individual was so obsessed with that specific thing that he said Zeref did it to Mavis and that's how August was made... That also speaks volumes about his media literacy and the fact that even if it's true that he did read the manga so many times as he claimed during this discussion, he has serious problems with reading as a normal person. When it comes to the topic of this post, the problem is that he has some influence within the fandom, at least on Twitter, so whatever he says is something that many of his followers will start repeating.

What does Mashima do when Lisanna finally comes back to her original home and she gets a proper reunion with everyone?

After the initial shock from seeing Edo Lisanna in Earthland and the big reveal, this is how Natsu reacts.

This isn't a reunion that suggests that Lisanna is special compared to everyone else in the guild, and particulary to those who grew around Natsu. Also, we can't say Mashima just doesn't know how to write such scene properly... because he's written it at least once (in Rave).

The emotion you can feel in this scene, the way ONLY both lovers are on the spotlight and the rest of their friends are in the background until the end... Well, the difference is so obvious that it's ridiculous to say more. Given how well Mashima handles the emotional dimension of his characters in his mangas, the possibility that he didn't know how to depict two lovers who got separated from each for some time due to circumstances beyond their control is off the table.

Also, notice how the end of the Edolas arc depicts this.

The difference with her reunion with Natsu and the others is so obvious that there's no need to say more.

We can also discard Lisanna as a former love interest because there's no akwardness between them once she's back to the guild. They can be seen playing together and briefly interacting from time to time, so it's not like they're avoiding each other.

Is it implied somewhere that they had something beyond friendship? Not in any kind of canon material. Every time Lisanna is mentioned in regards to Natsu she's presented as a close childhood friend. We have, for example, her profile from one of the first chapters where she's back home and the information of the official magazine that was released 10 years ago.

But what if they simply stopped loving each other due to being separated, as a fellow nalu shipper told me on Discord? Making characters fall out of love is something that Mashima also references (see Macao pic a bit below). It also goes against what we saw regarding Erza and Jellal, who still had romantic feelings for each other despite their antagonistic positions for many years, or against the whole Zeref and Mavis thing. In other Mashima mangas we have more couples like this. Elsie and Justice still loved each other despite being sworn enemies, and Let still loved Julia (and vice versa) when he discovered she was alive, a kinda similar scenario to Natsu and Lisanna if they had been lovers. Given that Natsu and Lisanna weren't even enemies to each other at any point and they were only separated for two years, we can't say they had something canonically and they simply got over it with no actual reference to it.

There was a very good moment to reference past feelings in 100YQ: when Touka includes Lisanna in the group of women "around Natsu".

Instead of offering us a comment like "it's not like that anymore", Lisanna just says something that implies they're not that close. After all, Natsu is hanging out with his team most of the time since it was established.

What's the reason this fandom has been so many years discussing about this friendship? Because the first anime adaptation goes beyond that friendship and the manga omake where both of them take care of Happy's egg, something Lisanna decides to help with because she loves animals and she felt Natsu wouldn't do it properly. The first season includes several fillers that pave the way for a love triangle, presenting Lisanna as a girl who is VERY interested in marrying Natsu when they're adults. In addition, Happy is presented as their son, something that totally goes against the source material. Even if Natsu is the one who saw Happy be born and was living with him since then, Happy is never considered as his son and is always called a nakama/companion/friend.

This long thread has everything that A-1 and Satelight added in regards to Natsu and Lisanna. As we can see in the info provided in one of the first tweets, Mashima let them "edit" the story the way they wanted to and it's mentioned explicitely by both him and Ishihara (the director) that Ishihara is responsible for those additions, not Mashima. We also can't say the additions were something Mashima asked for because he couldn't include everything he wanted in his manga for some reason. This is supported by the fact that Lisanna is never presented in the manga as any kind of romantic interest after she comes back.

It's also important to say that these fillers aren't canon: they're not referenced in the source material (the starry key arc was, even if Mashima wasn't involved in the writing), they're not referenced in the anime itself after Lisanna comes back and they have no impact in the events of the story during and after Edolas.

Currently, thanks to Mashima's Twitter Spaces, we know two things: he revived Lisanna because some people in the anime staff liked her (Ishihara is one of them for sure), which explains why she's not very relevant and is always tied to her siblings, and he once considered to include a love triangle between Natsu, Lucy and Lisanna after Edolas, but he liked Natsu and Lucy's dynamic by then enough to not introduce such storyline. He also said Lisanna was "だめ" in regards to that triangle that never came to be, implying that she would have been the one that doesn't get the boy in that scenario.

So is Lisanna our supposed former love interest? As far as the canon material goes, no. Was she close to Natsu? Yes. Is she dear to him? Yes, just like everyone in his family, the guild, is (I can't believe I'm writing this in fking 2024). Now, what if there was someone else? The assumption that characters may have dated another (unnamed) character offscreen isn't totally crazy. After all we saw how Juvia dated Bora, even if it was a narrative tool to show that not even dates would make Juvia stop being depressed. However, we can't say there was someone else as more than a headcanon unless it's implied or mentioned somewhere explicitely. We know Macao was married but got divorced thanks to the official magazine, for example.

When it comes to Natsu, nothing is ever mentioned.

100YQ, the official FT sequel, has several pannels that go against the whole idea of Natsu being experienced with romantic love. As I mentioned at the beginning, even others from the guild, and especifically Macao in this pannel, who knows Natsu since he was a kid, have a hard time believing he's interested in love.

This part of the story includes a very interesting pannel that also debunks the whole idea that Natsu felt more than frienship for Lisanna before she was transported to Edolas.

Why would Lisanna's brother react like this over such comment if Natsu and his sister had romantic feelings in the past? Easy: because those feelings never existed.

Even Lisanna is a bit surprised when Touka expresses her interest in him.

Previous romantic experience would also mean that Natsu's relationship with Lucy would be more advanced than it is as of now, not to mention this recent scene.

Natsu is still quite dense with romance, even when it doesn't involve him, and while he talks about his and Lucy's kids they still have a long way to go due to his total inexperience in this area as of now. Someone with past love experiences wouldn't be like this. I could say more about this but this isn't the post for it so...

Conclussion: the first season of the anime did a lot of damage that resulted in many years of discussions, fights, misogyny towards both Lucy and Lisanna. There was no childhood or teen love, no jealousy from Lisanna when she saw how close Natsu and Lucy were as a team and nothing suggests that Lisanna was more than a friend in canon material. Claiming the opposite at this point of the story is useless.

#fairytail #natsudragneel

32 notes · View notes

verdart · 8 days

Text

I made the unfortunate decision to comment on a tiktok saying

"Blitz has every right to doubt Stolas' intentions and I will di on this hill defending Blitz"

Which made me actually realize in the context of Stolitz how much the fandom vilifies Blitz.

Upon rewatch I realized that he is actually kinda innocent lmao. So here comes the rant hop on in Verda rants at 4am again train.

The thing is first of all we need to work our media literacy muscles. So Stolas stans who think he is a uwu babygirl that dod nothing wrong repeat after me. "Blitz didn't watch "just look my way", "owl in a cage" or any other Stolas longing scene that we cried over"

Now that thats setteled I don't want to hear any "he is trying" bs because as of now (pre full moon s2e8) he hasn't actually done anything that Blitz is aware.

Lets start from the top my initial comment was about how Stolas treated him for so long before actually catching the feelings and how Blitz has a right to think he is not genuine.

Up top lest start with the condescending pet names and I won't be hearing Blitz cant be mad at that Stolas does it bc he thinks he likes it... jesus okay s2e1 when stolas starts the imp dirty talk what does blitz do a) encourage him b) get naked and dtf bc that was hot, c) shuts him up

Ding ding ding C. Stolas can still take this as bedtime play sure but we have a case for Blitz not liking it from day one. Other than that we all know he views Stolas' (perhaps in his mind endearing) pet names as condescention.

Secondly even if we ignore the power imbalance Stolas is the one to suggest the transactional fucking... s1e1 even tho in the forst time it was Blitz's doing, sorta. So don't at me saying well Blitz just uses him for the grimoire, like girly duh that was the premise. But Stolas also uses Blitz. Imo lending a book vs fucking in payment is a bot excessive but for Blitz's case beggars cant be chosers.

Now to the elephant in the room... Ozzie's. Does Blitz invite him (Stolas) purely out of selfish intentions that has nothing to do with him? Yes. Is he a dick? Yes. But Does Stolas hide his fucking face when he has a reality check? Yes. But then y'all be mad bc Blitz pulled his hand back.

That night Stolas was read once, Blitz was like at least 2 times... if we don't count the stuff for Stolas by proxy. He was having a hard night bro. And after Stolas invites him he is like no and Stolas respects that. Which if the show didn't add s2e2 in between it wouldve been a perfect stepping stool to get the Stolitz on healthy communication territory but that didn't happen.

I cannot for the life of me pin point when Stolas genuinely falls for Blitz. If its from day one damn it took him long enough to understand what he was doing was wrong.

Anyways we as fans can't be mad at Stolas because we know he is starting to understand the absolute power imbalance he created and the position he left Blitz in. He has realized that the thing is lets remember and repeat "Blitz is not watching the show with us". Blitz doesn't know of this sudden change of heart.

Now to adress a few meaningful interactions we have after ozzies. The fucking pixelated phone texts from s2 western energy.

Stolas apologizes but in that way that I look down upon. "Sorry if" like girl own it up anyways Blitz brushes it off and Stolas instead just goes hehe I didnt care either. Yall need relationship therapy my god. Important thing is Stolas was trying to reach out. But instead of going anything I said that made you upset etc he could've actually apologize properly for getting ashamed. Tho Blitz should also apologize for inviting him on a date for his own gain but thats another bag of worms I won't open tonight.

Other than that he has put off seeing him and doing the transactional fucking for a while. During those times. And as we know from all the phones Blitz breaks after talking to Stolas and hearing hus dirty talk he isn't too excited about. We don't exactly know if he comes or not on those nights. But he is also showm to be quite comfortable in s2e2 with the "my dick is good but its not that good" comment so maybe they do continue the arrangement... idk. Either way we know they haven't really talked.

All I am saying is that both parties of this ship are guilty af of hurting eachother and taking advantage of eachother. But as the power house of this power imbalance, Stolas needs to be held accountable. And he is doing that now!! Or will, in s2e8 and I can't wait to see how that goes. Overall, I can see totally why Blitz shuts down any signs that Stolas might actually be into him. He has a good bunch of reasons too. And as far as we've seen from the trailer we will get to hear him say it out loud as he should.

#verda rants #helluva boss #stolitz #stolitz discourse #blitzø #stolas

32 notes · View notes

alpaca-clouds · 10 months

Text

Media Literacy... It's kinda sad, right?

Matrix isn't exactly a subtle movie, right? It is anything but subtle, in fact. Sure, if you do not know a thing about trans people, the entire trans metaphor will fly right over your head. But the capitalism metaphor? That one kinda slaps you in the face.

Yet, I have spoken with so many people, who were unable to see it. In fact, I have spoken to so many people who were of the firm believe that the movie was somehow about the dangers of communism. Including this one dude, who reacted to my comment of "actually, the directors said it is about capitalism" with: "Then the directors have not understood their own movies."

And it is kinda a thing. A lot of people absolutely do lack media literacy. There are people who will watch "Team America" and come out thinking that it is a pro-America movie, for fuck's sake! (Not that I hold the highest opinion of that movie, but most certainly not for the valid criticism about America that it has.)

It is starting to kinda become a problem, right? Because for many people media just gets consumed without a second thought. Which includes news media. It just gets consumed as is, without any questioning of who made the media and what might be their intention with it. And make no mistake: Even news media is created with intentions further than "inform people of what is happening in the world right now". And because everyone is lacking that media literacy they so easily fall for both propaganda and conspiracy theories.

And oh boy, our media is filled with propaganda. Other than what some paranoid folks might tell you it is not propaganda to turn the kids gay, but rather to create "us vs them" narratives.

I always come back to the MCU and the entire pro-state, pro status quo, pro-America shit going on there. But talk to people about it and they will look at you as if you were speaking Latin.

I mean, I cannot blame anyone for just consuming. Because life is hard. Life sucks. And just turning your brain off to let some 200 million dollar movie give you some dopamine sounds like a fun thing to do.

But... It also is frightening to me. Because of those subtle messages that get thrown in there.

I don't know. It is all... hard.

#media literacy #media criticism #rant #pop culture #hollywood #the matrix #anti capitalism #cyberpunk

140 notes · View notes

catofoldstones · 2 months

Note

hi i'm still here :) those things about fandom denying theorizing about jonsa just bothered me heavily since fans accepted almost every theory under the sun but hypothetical j0nsa is where they draw the line they accepted curtain of light theory and 3 heads of the dragons saving the world for years before a hypothetical cousin marriage/bethrodal that ties a lot of plot threads and themes together and resolves so much of the missing plot pieces from the show, i might not personally like it cause of the incest implications but im also consistent with hating all jon's incest ships and still keeping an open mind about j0nerys and j0nsa on a storytelling basis but j0nsa is a theory that intrigued me so much because it did make sense from the drafts,the fact that sansa will end up at winterfell with the vale army by the time jon wakes up and changes into who knows what (again fans straight up ignoring which stark is actually the closest to winterfell will never not make me laugh) to the many gothic literature and historical references george takes to especially the ashford theory thats so unavoidable i call fans extremely blind for being this in denial that it might happen as a plot point and since aegon is most likely going to be busy with dorne/cersei/dany or euron and most likely die in the south (rip son) i highly doubt sansa will tie into his plot unless thats the last targ suitor she's supposed to be betrothed with and again its kinda a big nothing theory to me cause sansa going south would be repetitive and its already been debunked with the AFFC draft leaks unless aegon wants a claim to the north which again im pretty sure he'll be engaged to arianne for martell points and allyship (also her being engaged to a secret fake bastard heir was already done with joffrey and it being completely reversed with j0n feels more complete as an end point to that theory/arc there's no way george would pass that up).

i also don't think this is all jon and sansa have to offer as characters,its what bothers me with other ship fans as well i like them as separate characters and i also feel like looking at the story, if it were to happen i don't believe it would be a fairytale romance or ending or be anytype of normal relationship, i might even be completely wrong and j0nsa might never come up (also feel like george would be wary of doing this now when media literacy is at an all time low but fandom toxicity is high as the heavens), both sansa and jon fandom theories have been through a rollercoster over the years im just happy that fans finally have theories that actually makes sense storytelling wise and not something for wish fulfillment but bias still runs amok in the fandom unfortunately and it still clouds a lot of convo about the characters and plot theories

sorry for rambling in your inbox again

Hello :3 nice to see you again

anon can I call you soulmate anon because every sentiment you’ve portrayed here is exactly what I believe too! I like jonsa too because it’s v compelling and it has good evidence to back it up, but I’m really iffed up because of the incest too. Well not because I’m a pearl-clutching puritan but because it’s not fair to Sansa tbh, as a teenaged girl in a deeply patriarchal society. If she’s the girl in grey who runs away to Jon for protection, it’ll not be as a friend who’s seeing another friend after a long time, it’ll be because she wants protection from her brother. Then comes in the question of her claim to Winterfell. If she marries Jon to smooth out the inheritance crisis, the North would still belong to Jon & not Sansa. They will not be equal in that marriage or as the lord and lady of Winterfell. However, there are far, far too many indications of a jonsa match, textually and subtextually, which I am right there with you anon, are so compelling! It would only be a blind man to not see them. And the fandom collectively vehemently denying jonsa is v funny to me because it sounds so much like

“Do you believe women are humans?”

“Yes”

“Do you believe women should have the same rights as men?”

“Yes, absolutely!”

“So you are a feminist.”

“Eww, no.”

Like, the text is glaringly pointing at something with air raid sirens and neon red lights, but what could it mean, hmm 🤔 Like c’mon guys my cat could figure out what’s going on at this point.

Though, I do believe that the Ashford Targaryen suitor could be Aegon VI for Sansa. While a lot of people believe that Aegon will marry/betrothe Arianne for that Dorne support but that doesn’t make sense to me because

1. It’s like Sansa would marry into the Tully family for support to take back the North

2. The Dornish are already burning to avenge Elia

3. Arianne is the heir to Dorne in her own right (and has had major plot around that), marrying the next King of the 7 kingdoms hardly makes sense for her.

BUT Aegon & Arianne’s plots are barreling towards each other and they very well might just get married to secure another plot point that I cannot think of right now. And I know that Aegon is doomed and Arianne survives (George, pls or else 🔪🔪) so that’s another reason why Aegon & Sansa can’t happen. And Jon being the Targeryen suitor holds so much more literary weight than a rando who has never had an impact on her or her emotions or her plot (apart from your brilliant points). Also, no I am not debating the “Dunk disturbed the Ashford Tourney so Sxn/dxr is the one for Sansa” because we’ve debated to death that even being granted the title of Maid does not mean anything like a betrothal in Westerosi society or has negative consequences (r + l & that whole war it started). Also, just because Dunk got in the middle of the Tourney does not mean that he got the girl in the end. Hope that helps. Moreover, Dunk’s asoiaf corollary is Brienne not sxn/dxr, so by their logic, briensa ftw!!!!!!!!!!

Anon, the way everyone ignored the affc outline just because it showed something the Sansa fandom had been (rightly) theorising for years now has me rolling on the floor 😂 the denial, the denial is so strong with these people, even the “neutrals”. Don’t even get me started on the BNFs. If something like this were leaked about xrya or dxny, it would have been front page news that breaks the asoiaf fandom containment lol.

Stark closest to Winterfell and takes north! C’mon now anon, don’t give these people a heart attack.

Yes well, there have been one too many people in this fandom (as is common in any other fandom *cough* jxnxryas *cough*) to reduce the characters to the ship but the block button is my lord and saviour. Shipping is so that we can bring out the best (or the worst) character traits in the people we’re shipping, not to water down the said character traits.

There’s a chance that jonsa doesn’t happen in the books or happens just in the subtext or whatever, and I’ll be fine with that as long as the stories for both Jon and Sansa have satisfying and empathetic progression. Though I would terribly like for it to happen just to dunk on the haters and the BNFs and the “skeptics” lol. I am trying to be a better person these days, but pettiness is my second daughter 🤪 and to add to this point, if jonsa doesn’t happen, that still won’t erase the heavy foreshadowing we’ve been seeing in the text till now. If some other ship had the Ashford theory, the Byronic connection, JONnel Stark marrying a girl named xrya or an ancestor Sansa Stark marrying a -whoever- in their lineage, the plot satisfaction, the narrative parallels, the textual connection, it would be considered canon by now. But no, since it’s Jon x Sansa and that is still somehow a pretty strong contender for breaking all your ships, they will close their eyes and call it a crack ship. Baby a crack ship is me and Oscar Isaac or Sasuke and Taylor Swift. But if Sasuke and Taylor had all of this evidence, it would, once again, be considered canon. Sigh, just take your Sansa hatred elsewhere man, we’re not in 2006 anymore.

Dude, I found older forums/metas a while back and there is nowhere that Sansa was mentioned w/o sxn/dxr. Sxn/sxn was just a given. It was canon, it was always going to happen and that’s just so reductive tbh. I’m v v grateful that the meta and fandom spaces (maybe just a small corner but that is enough for me) have evolved so much through the years otherwise I would get beaten here every day. It’s still toxic as hell though, with the level of trash metas that will give early asoiaf fandom a run for its money and at one point you just want to scream- you all realise that these are books, right? and we’re the readers! you’re not dxny or jon or tyrion or even fleabottom ragpickers! none of this is real 😭 i should not be coming here, armoured and with a sword, to defend my fav characters, i should be having fun here and exchanging stupid ideas 😭 but asoiaf fandom remains asoiaf fandom however well the ways of hating may have changed.

But please, always ramble in my ask box anon. I love reading your thoughts and it gives me a chance to ramble as well :)

#soulmate anon #anon asks t #jonsa #anti sansan #the rambling option is open to everyone btw #long post #don’t look

23 notes · View notes

magxit · 11 months

Note

Taylor is NOT wallowing in sadness over Joe.

Taylor is NOT hiding because she’s ashamed of how everything happened with Matty.

She is PISSED at fans. Pissed at the world. Fed up of the insanity of the fans.

Either they’re waiting hours on end and tracking / sharing her location, chasing her car or waiting outside her house or they’re ripping her apart and trying to control her life.

This woman LITERALLY wrote songs like Tolerate It, You’re Losing Me and Bejeweled about being stuffed in a basement, about not being allowed to be her and shine and about being her most authentic self and used those songs to describe how it felt to be treated like that. Like her thoughts and feelings don’t matter. Like she doesn’t matter. Like she isn’t good enough. Only for her to find someone who loves her the way she BEGGED Joe to do and share that joy with her fans by saying she’s the happiest she’s ever been only to have those fans completely invalidate her and her feelings and attack her all because of herd mentality and the inability to actually practice skills that involve research or media literacy.

Look at that People article - and people generally supplied by Tree.

"He likes to provoke a response out of people. She's a grown woman more than capable of forming her own opinions about people," the insider adds. "No one forces her into anything, especially not these days. She's on top of the world."

If her fans can’t tell how pissed she is at them with that statement then they’re just ignorant.

When was the last time she “hid”? 2016 and it was because of media backlash and hate from unreliable sources. This time it’s worse because it’s her fans. She literally told them she was the happiest she had ever been and they kept the attack on. Not just on her but on people she loved.

I mean death threats to Matty and his family? Death threats to fans who didn’t support the hatred? The blatant ignoring of any POC or Jewish fan that was trying to explain that it was misinformation twisted by the media and to do their own research - which baffles me because you have these fans hell bent on being total asses to people they think they have the right to control and use the narrative of Taylor not caring about her marginalized fans all while doing exactly that - bullying, ignoring and trying to silence those same marginalized fans because they don’t fit a narrative that is being pushed.

The best being a well known POC tiktoker being called a white supremacist and racist because they were explaining media literacy and explaining the whole situation with a level head that did research.

And the times she has done anything to make a difference or make a statement has been ripped apart. Like her pride statement. That was trashed. Completely. Fans were disgusting over it. She donates to food banks in every location she performs at - that’s rarely mentioned at all. She donates bus loads to foundations and charities that help marginalized fans and sick individuals and no one breaths about it.

All while ignoring the fact that Matty has been a more vocal and active activist in his career then Taylor ever has. (I love Taylor but this isn’t something to argue) all the way from the abortion ban, trump, women’s rights, gay and trans rights, violence etc.

So no. She is NOT wallowing away in sadness because of joy.

Believe it or not - You’re Losing Me was very much a “I’m done” type of song and when you have experienced what she did and you finally hit the point of walking away then it’s been over for months or years and you’d never go back to them. Ever. The breakup brings you peace. Even if you miss them you still find the happiness in life but wallowing isn’t something you do.

And she knows the truth behind who Matty really is. So she’s not hiding in shame.

The fact that the fans who did this to her are completely unable to actually take responsibility for their choices and claim she is wallowing or embarrassed… that’s disgusting.

It’s them. They’re the problem.

And before anyone comes from me - not a the 1975 fan. Big Taylor fan though.

69 notes · View notes

ripplestitchskein · 1 month

Note

I've been binge reading your Helluva Boss and Stolitz posts for a while now and I love how mature and nuanced your takes are. I've run into a good deal too many Stolitz antis on Twitter who won't give Stolas and Blitzo's relationship a chance to improve later, despite the show clearly trying to do just that. I'm especially tired of people saying that their relationship is one-sided. And even when actual evidence is put out there that Blitzo actually does like Stolas back, they say it doesn't count because those hints are less than 5 second long small details rather than being spoonfed to them. Just argued with one of them on Twitter like an hour ago and that's exactly what they said. And they accused ME of not paying attention because in their mind, Stolitz was built up from sexual assault, and they think Blitzo's line in Western Energy "He can get hurt?" is somehow out of character which confused the hell out of me, and they kept insisting that Blitzo had "zero interest" in Stolas no matter what.

Thank you so much!! I do try my best to be as rational and logical as possible so I’m glad it’s coming through, not to say I don’t have emotionally based reactions or bias but in my meta analysis I try to set my personal feelings about the text presented aside and just talk about what it could potentially mean based on recurring elements, themes, and deliberate choices made throughout not just in individual scenes.

LooLoo Land is a perfect example, there are some moments in that episode I heavily dislike (Blitzø shoving the dolls down his pants, the “as long as she washes it” convo, and Stolas being sexually inappropriate in front of his kid) so I do understand some of the criticism. It was also episode two and being a creative myself I know firsthand that things like that happen. You put in things early, for a joke, a laugh, to highlight personalities and they don’t necessarily come across the way you intended or jive with where the story ends up. Which is why a lot of my analysis takes in the entirety of what we have so far, the recurring stuff, not just individual moments or one off lines.

I’ve always maintained that it’s crucial to remember that creators are not perfect beings who are getting their story from on high fully formed, they make mistakes, they get inspired and take things in a different direction as things develop, they can contradict themselves over time. It happens.

It’s also a cartoon so it’s limited in how much it can even do, how expressive the characters can be, how much time they have to explore and the medium absolutely comes into play when analyzing it. Art has always been and will always be subjective, and unless the creator flat out contradicts something it’s largely left to interpretation, but that interpretation cannot be based on one scene, or one episode, or a one off bit of dialogue or a single expression either.

I always encourage not wasting your time arguing with people who are still serving up early content talking points or who dont have media literacy as a learned skilled. I know it’s super hard, I’m guilty of it myself. I was so close to going off on a “Stella and Stolas are mutually abusive” take last night you have no idea. It was more the dude was just being deliberately obtuse to the point I stopped myself and was like “they have to be trolling, no way someone believes this”. You can’t change their minds, they obviously don’t want to engage with the material from a place of good faith, and it just bums you out at the end of it.

A lot of them are really young too I find, which may be part of the disparity. I’m 38 so I have a lot of different experiences to draw from they haven’t had yet. I’ve been a fandom girl since I was a kid, I’ve always been a shipper and I also create things so my perspective is further down the line and with lived experience some people don’t have yet. I’m reminded of this daily, my oldest son is 18 and we have many conversations where I’m reminded about how much you learn as you grow older and the assumptions you make as a younger person. This is not to say that younger people can’t think critically but it is a skill and it improves over time like any other.

I also encourage people to think of what is being said and why. There is a lot of hate for VivziePop as a person. My understanding is she said some things early on and created a hate base that is going to deliberately misinterpret just to validate their initial assumptions about her motive and character. With popular things there is always a small subset that hate a show because of its popularity too, I don’t think because they are jealous like some speculate but because they didn’t personally enjoy it and don’t like feeling like they are missing something, so they take it in a “it must be the children who are wrong” Principal Skinner approach. They can’t see why people love it so those people must be ignoring what they didn’t like about it and they must tell them.

Sometimes people like another ship or another character more, and their ship might involve one half of yours, or they don’t feel their character is getting the same focus and attention because of yours. So instead of just letting everyone enjoy their own things it’s now a competition, a source of resentment and they must make that everyone else’s problem.

And I’ve talked about the fascistic purity culture that seems to encroach into fiction spaces as well that is also at heavily play. Any time a character does anything that is vaguely “toxic”, “problematic” they are immediately painted with the SA brush, the creator is promoting it and the fans are enabling it and are somehow directly responsible for it existing in the world. You can’t do anything about them except enjoy what you like, look at it critically within your own personal comfort level, and as always, my favorite thing to say “kill the cop in your head.” Not just with fiction but everything.

I’m glad my analysis is being enjoyed, and I super appreciate your feedback on it. Come to my inbox anytime and we’ll enjoy the ride together!

#inbox #stolas x blitz #stolitz #helluva boss #will I ever answer anything in less than 500 words?#not fucking likely

18 notes · View notes

agentrouka-blog · 1 year

Note

One of the things that drives me crazy in regard to Rhaegar apologia is that a lot of them use the fact that no Martell has directly blamed Rhaegar in the text for what happened as proof they don't blame him and it's absolutely mind boggling how dumb this is. First of all, Rhaegar has been dead for close to two decades, whereas the Baratheons and Lannisters are still very much alive so obviously the Martells' wrath will be directed towards them. Second of all, we barely have Martell POVs and POVs are not some omniscient, all-knowing insight into every character's opinion on all of the 456732 characters that have been introduced across five books. The lack of indictment re Rhaegar does not mean they don't blame him. Also, GRRM is not the kind of writer that is going to spell something as obvious as this out in crayon. If you need the author to directly tell you that Doran and Oberyn would be apoplectic at Rhaegar's actions toward their sister, maybe this is not the series for you. These are the same people that say, 'Well, we never got E's reaction to L being crowned at the tourney so we can't know if she was offended....' Like, these people really need the narrative to explicitly state that E was humiliated because her husband crowned another woman at a public tourney in front of nobles from across the 7K. I just.....these people are Not Very Bright and appear incapable of connecting even the most simplest dots. There are certain things that do not need to be and will never be spelled out because GRRM assumes his readers have at minimum a high schooler's level of reading comprehension and media literacy but here we are lmao.

Ned never thought much about Aerys either, the guy who murdered his brother and father. Are we to surmise he didn't terribly mind?

GRRM waited until book #3 to create a dramatic and righteous confrontation with the crime perpetrated against Elia and her children, even though the bare facts have been with us since the beginning. He waited until book #4 to introduce the Dornish perspective and vengeance plan in actual POVs, and until book #5 to introduce Elia's surviving son. Dorne, Elia, Aegon - it is a long game.

It slots well into his use of the POV trap with Dany and the comparatively slow dismantling of any positive patina on the Targaryen dynasty. We don't get a proper face on the horror of it until Jaime's confession in the baths of Harrenhal in ASOS. Maester Aemon was practically presented as a saint up until AFFC where he suddenly revealed himself to be a prophecy truther who had been corresponding with Rhaegar about exactly when he tried to impregnate Elia with his comet-fuelled wonder sperm - all this time, without telling anyone in the Watch about this supposedly fundamental savior concept. Dany's veneer of good intentions is falling apart for anyone paying attention.

Questions the reader could have asked from the very beginning, because the facts were always on the page, are being fleshed out and dragged to the forefront in the latter stages of the book series.

Considering Jon Connington and Aegon - son of Elia and Rhaegar - are about to collide with the Dornish plotline, the question of the Tourney at Harrenhal and Rhaegar's character is going to be much less subtly handled from this point on.

There are going to be a whole lot of revelatory collisions in TWOW.

#anti rhaegar targaryen #elia martell #pov trap #long game #dorne arc #anti targaryen

69 notes · View notes

reecey9o5 · 11 months

Text

Okay guys. 'They', 'them' and 'theirs' when used in the singular are gender neutral pronouns.

They are not gender specific to nonbinary people.

Arguing the use of a pronoun set that applies to literally all human beings (and a bunch of other stuff) must mean that Dante is nonbinary isn't just stupid, it's ignoring the themes of their character.

Dante is purposefully mysterious. We don't know anything about them, really. Most of the characters don't know anything about them. They know nothing about themself.

We, like most of the sinners, don't know Dante's real name, age or origin. We can't see their skin. We can't really tell what their figure looks like in that outfit and the way the others are drawn would make that largely inconclusive anyway.

Dante doesn't even have their own face anymore.

They are a fiction even within the narrative. One created by the company that they are currently being exploited by.

To argue that the identity that has been forced upon them by an exploitative corporation in a dystopian hellscape is a representation of their authentic self is either hopelessly naïve or entirely selfish.

To apply a nonbinary gender identity to them is to reduce them to what others have forced upon them.

Which is wild, if you think about it. Because the people he/himming Dante are doing so entirely because they are modelled after an actual human man who is buried in Ravenna. You can go see his grave. They are using meta information to come to a conclusion that might be wrong, and they know it might be wrong. Gender bent characters are not uncommon in this game.

But the people aggressively enbying them (and complaining about the he/himmers) are purposefully ignoring the open themes of depersonalisation in this character to... something something representation? IDK, because it makes them look like they have either no media literacy at all, or they just don't care about themes, narrative or the goddamn plot.

TL:DR

The other characters aren't calling Dante they and them because Dante is nonbinary, they're calling Dante they and them because they don't have the first idea what Dante is and have the decency not to assign an identity to Dante that might not be true. (Or they're invested in keeping that information from Dante.)

Dante could be nonbinary! But they could also be a man, or a woman, or not a person at all. The fact that we do not know is important to this story and dismissing it for the sake of 'representation' is both selfish and disrespectful to Project Moon.

This is their story, not your playground.

Your headcanons aren't justification for bashing the people who don't share them or Project Moon if it turns out that Dante is just a guy.

Edit: The possibility of Dante being nonbinary is slim at best and would absolutely undermine the theme of depersonalisation here. The depersonalisation of being stripped of your gender identity does not hit the same if you already insist that others use the gender unknown pronouns for you.

I only acknowledged it in the context that it's another possibility that the sinners aren't privy to.

It is not likely and it would undermine the themes of Dante's character.

In exactly the same way that taking a character who has been forcibly raised as the wrong sex and making them trans undermines that what happened to them was in fact abusive.

In exactly the same way that the character arc of Prince Phillip's father deciding against forcing his son into marriage was undermined by Aurora and Phill hitting it off.

If the bad thing that happens to a character is contextualised as turning out to be the right thing, then that takes all the wind out of any commentary that existed before the recontextualization.

(In fact, the Sleeping Beauty example is openly a joke. This man is going through a personal crisis and risking war for what the audience knows is no reason.)

Making Dante a nonbinary human character means that this very thematic example of their depersonalisation was an abusive corporation being correct in their behaviour.

Dante being a non-human character, a robit or something, would still be better thematically as they have had a false human identity pressed upon them.

LBC functionally misgendering Dante reinforces their unethical ways, them respecting this character's pronouns does the exact opposite.

Edit 2: I also feel the need to point out that the view I have laid out here means that we are being forced as players to be complicit in this mistreatment. Something that is far more powerful than removing the problem entirely with a nonbinary identity.

#this isn't fucking queerbaiting #it's maintaining a goddamn mystery you asshats #limbus company #watch someone call me names for pointing this out

64 notes · View notes

scarfacemarston · 8 months

Note

rdr2 isn’t super historically accurate and using the argument that working girls wouldn’t have slept with multiple people at camp because that’s not what happened in actual 1899 is kind of silly

if dutch says that they all had her, they probably did and he knows it’s something that upsets john in some way

i love abigail as a character and talking about theories and history but i don’t think it’s that deep

But that was one out of multiple reasons why it likely didn't happen and if it DID, then Dutch is even more awful a person. You're really going to take a LIAR who is trying to distract John from bringing him to justice over all the other proof that I and many others in the fandom have written about? Over those who were actually present in the gang and the reasons why people wouldn't have slept with her? It's literally not possible. Have you played both games? Bill is a closeted gay man. Javier wasn't in the gang yet. Arthur was still hung up on Mary and after dealing with Eliza, wasn't going to make that mistake again. Hosea never slept with sex workers that we know of as he was devoted to Bessie and her memory and even if he did use sex workers, he wasn't the type to creep on someone like Abigail. Abigail CAN say no to some, especially someone like Pearson. Who does that leave you with? John.

The Callander Brothers aren't even there. Sean isn't there. Charles, Lenny, Micah, Swanson, none of the others.

It is deeper than that because first of all, the game is based on gangs like Butch Cassidy's and Doc Holliday's. If you google Etta Place, for example, a lot of her life is the same as Abigail's. Second of all, it's an excuse for people to be misogynic and be anti-sex work while a woman - a very young one - suffered and was dragged through the mud for years.

Also, it's a well known fact that gangs paired up with women and no one else. It's the truth. They wouldn't dare pass around one woman and risk stupid things like fights over her. Would you feel the same about Arthur and tuberculosis? I have and I believe others have written about the realistic aspects of tuberculosis and how they relate to Arthur. Finally, media literacy and meta is exactly to explore or debunk certain things.

24 notes · View notes

theinfinitedivides · 5 months

Note

this is so random but i would love to hear your opinion on mydramalist as a fellow asian drama lover. because it’s obviously well known as a reliable wiki of sorts in dramaland but i beg to differ. (the only plus i feel being the summary and cast list for info)

i mean, i’ve not seen a single comsec w more than two brain cells as a whole? there’s always complaints about female leads rooted from misogyny, they are never happy about story progression, and i just find so many of them kinda dumb sorry lol. like zero media literacy to be found, insufferable arguments, etc. the star ratings are rly just given to popular dramas w high profile actors too.

and i personally find it disheartening that so many ppl end up referring to mdl when considering dramas because so many gems are then lost and not given appreciation.

anon. anon anon anon if you know the way i sat straight the f*ck up when i saw the notification and then read through this ask bc yes. yes to everything here that is exactly it. almost three fourths of what i've watched this year was either 1. not received well by the general MDL crowd (Moon in the Day. where is the taste brethren to not like MITD and not even for reasons that actually make sense), 2. received well but had a good chunk of people bitching in the comment section, or 3. received well but had the main point of the show (and its relevant characterization) go over their heads. (The Worst of Evil aka TWOE comment section, i am f*cking looking at you. i can count on one hand the number of people who understood what that show was supposed to be about) the one fourth that managed to escape was bc the toxicity did not reach the comment section and everyone was pretty f*cking civil. alas if only it could be like that all of the time

case in point for the ratings example, since we've already briefly tackled the lack of media literacy—j-dramas on MDL are notoriously rated much, much lower than either k- or c-dramas. half of the time that's bc there are less users watching (and rating) them therefore the average is lower but the other half it's bc people simply do not understand good media when they see it. don't get me wrong there's some freaky ass sh*t in the j-drama world that i would not touch with a Grinch level pole but to see MDLers out here talking about how slow j-dramas are and that nothing's happening. have you considered that you are either watching the wrong genre or you shouldn't be watching j-dramas in the first place bc their entire setup and general narrative framing arcs are not your style. have you even thought about that for six seconds or are you too busy expecting it to read like a typical tropey rom-com k-drama with your trending oppas. (no hate on my tropey rom-coms with [most of] said oppas, i need them when i don't want to think i just want to see sh*t on my screen and scream about hot people and the Hand Umbrellas in the Rain and the Back Hold when the male lead catches the female lead before she falls and you have the fifteen second focus on their faces just looking at each other)

and the misogyny. oh God do not get me started on the dichotomy that was the Cult, as we affectionatly called ourselves, on the feeds while THEE sageuk of the year My Dearest was airing (beloved show [that i still need to finish. JangChae i'm sorry ily life hates me like the mf it is 😭], beloved commentary on the feeds. they saw the vision on the feeds) vs the sh*tshow that was the landmine field of the comment section (the takes i saw on Gil Chae, Eun Ae AND Ryang Eum respectively.......... the misogyny wasn't enough we had to add the homophobia into the mix. buy one get one free deal fr fr). you mad man. that sh*t was insane there was a point i banned myself from scrolling farther than the cast section until the show finished airing. i kid you not on average they didn't have even half a braincell. maybe a quarter of a quarter of one. f*cked up just say you are not decent people and go

this is not to say that all of MDL is like this. i have gotten tuned into absolute masterpieces of content (and have tuned others, amen) bc of a comment comparing a show i'm watching to another one or a review being posted in the feeds about a film with less than 500 people interested. i have reconsidered my choice to not watch something after having spirited discussions in private messages discussing the pros and cons of the premise and whether they managed to get it done without f*cking sh*t up. i still contribute semi-regularly by adding relatively unknown actors and crew members to the database so they can get the credit due them. if you know where to look, you can get some good sh*t out of that place. problem is most users who are new to both the site and East/Southeast Asian cinema as a whole don't know where to look, and the cycle continues, and the ratings continue to be skewed/bloated and no one pays attention to the plot, if there even is any to pay attention to.

tl;dr: begging people to not let MDL be the be all end all for their drama recs a la 'well MDL doesn't like it so i won't watch it'. babe we have said MDLers complaining about how the ratings on Viki are too high but in my entire time watching dramas i've found that in the past two to three years the Viki ratings are making more sense than the MDL ones. sit with that for a sec. when you're done branch out and see the world (literally and cinematically), i promise you will be a better person for it

#inbox #q: anon #mydramalist #mdl #kdrama #not what i expected to see this Friday but i needed to see it #anon love this got a bit long i'm sorry i am just. Passionate about this subject as you can tell #honestly istg the only reason i still use MDL is to track my sh*t. plus i obsessively organized my profile page and i am not letting that #go to waste no ty #i feel like the Asian drama fandom over here on Tumblr are just. slightly more normal somehow. also you'll get f*ckingly long analyses #on shows that will have you face down on the ground shot in six different places taken apart etc etc #situations like these are when i'm grateful that Bollywood is not available on MDL bc the takes with even less than a quarter of #a quarter of a braincell that i would have to deal with then........... God loves me that's why it hasn't happened #also. the Caribbean seeped into this once again let me explain. 'you mad man' is a Dominican (DM not DR) phrase. it has nothing #to do with the 'you mad?' in the African American community that is an entirely separate thing. 'you mad' here means 'you crazy?'#or 'bitch you ain't serious'. could have also said 'you too have limyé' but that would need another paragraph by itself to explain #bc of the Dominican specific context and this is not the kweyol/patois class session today sksksksk

12 notes · View notes

palioom · 3 months

Note

. This “Druckman is a genocidal Zionist so I need to put a lil blurb on my written porn so everyone knows this porn is FOR GAZA” stuff is so out of hand.

If you actually played the game, had an ounce of media literacy, and knew about the Israel/Palestine conflict as deeply as you THINK you know about it, you’d see that you are perpetuating the exact shit the game warms against. That the ISRAELI WRITER of the game warns against. Cycles of violence, from EITHER SIDE, lead to nothing but suffering. If you thought the game was this pro-Israel, fuck Palestinians, blood thirsty Zionist propaganda scheme-then you literally missed the entire point. In fact, if you think that I’d say we must have played 2 different games. It’s a pretty centrist idea, the whole “both govts are bad and have been doing bad things as revenge to each other and gets us nowhere” thing, but hey it’s better then if the game was actually like, made my a right-wing Israeli politician whose idea would be “let’s have Ellie just absolutely DESTROY Abby. And the fireflies. And anybody else. And then she can come back and expand Jackson all the way out to Seattle and everyone will be happy the end.” THAT would be fucked.

Something being made by an Israeli does not inherently make it zionistic or radical or immoral or bad. Especially when that thing is a piece of media that explores the suffering of both populations of a conflict and also of people in war in general.

Anyway, Joel is a Hebrew name that means The Lord is God and Miller is the 3rd most common Jewish surname in the states so Joel Miller is canonically a Jew™️ 🥳 Ellie is also a Hebrew name. Do with that info what you wish.

neil literally stands with israel, there hasn't been shit about the people in gaza. my dude, if you can look at what's happening and not feel the need to speak up, get the fuck out.

plus, i find it important to denounce neil and not give him any further attention or money for his creations because as i said, he stands with israel. i'm not telling people to do shit, but i wish people spread more awareness about what's happening, and i feel better to add masterlists and infos onto my fics, because they have been written already and might be my last joel ones.

also you equating this issue with jews, wanting to go on about how ellie and joel are jewish names when it's not even about that at all, shows me exactly what kind of person you are and how much you think you know.

it's not jews vs muslims, because that's what you're implying. no one even MENTIONED jews until you came in. guess what! there are jews and even christians in gaza that are getting killed just as the muslim population is! this is about a genocidal, occupying force pushing people into smaller and smaller "safe zones" just to bomb them when the world is busy watching the fucking superbowl.

i doubt you've seen the videos that i have seen, dead children, torn limbs, skeletal remains, cats eating the dead, or you wouldn't be coming into my mentions like this.

if you truly cared about what's happening, you wouldn't mind me saiyng i wish we raised more awareness, but as i said before, you showed me exactly what kind of a person you are and you, just as everyone else who thinks like you, can block me.

also no one says it's zionistic cause he's an israeli, don't put your thoughts into my mouth and pretend that's what i said. if he was supporting gaza and the end of the genocide, i wouldn't even be saying shit. but he isn't, so please look at what i actually said before you do all this.

#y'all are tripping fr #i will not be entertaining any further asks like this #don't even try #i said what i said #ask #anon

7 notes · View notes

strangertheories · 1 year

Note

Honestly, byler to me has become a stressful 'thing' now i cannot even enjoy it due to the whole discourse and drama surrounding it lol. Also it feels like the shipping culture kinda died because people just stopped shipping things for fun but it became a match where you have to prove your ship's 'validity' 'morality' or how it actually exists in canon and it should exist in canon (for this and that reason), and you have to constantly prove yourself that you are a master analysist and you Get The Narrative and that's why you ship this ship and if it doesnt become canon then it means the writing is dumb/poor and im like..? You dont really have to do all that and i get that sometimes feeling so passionately about shipping is natural part of fandom and i have been there and done that too, but this whole narrative and mindset surronding it is just really tiring. if a ship makes you this stressed and traumatized and if it happens you say stuff like 'imma kms' maybe just kinda take a step back idk. I ship ron/nce and i adore their dynamic, but i am well aware that it is not going to happen even if i see a certain level of dynamic between nancy and robin. and i get that it is different for will since will is canonically into mike now but the overall point still stands. you can still like a ship even if it doesnt become canon you dont have to try so hard to prove its existence or validity since the shipping is usually supposed to be... fun.

Anon, I'm convinced I somehow sent this to myself because I'm exactly the same. I get being critical of the show's queer rep and plot if Byler isn't canon or being disappointed which we saw a lot of post volume 2, but yeah. Being a Byler shipper has become not fun™ and it's become a requirement that you think it's going to be endgame in order for you to ship it. And I also think the sense of superiority a lot of Byler shippers have about being great critical thinkers or having media literacy can make it feel scary to ever question anything anyone ever says, although most people were actually quite supportive when I spoke about this. All of that to say, letting go of Byler endgame before S4 has been great for me; I love analysing and theorising about Byler without the pressure of needing it to be canon.

And I know people will read this as "you shouldn't be bothered by the show using Will" but what I and I believe the anon is trying to say is that fandom should be built off of fun and wanting your ship to have content because you enjoy it, not because you're terrified it's not gonna be canon. Easier said than done, but I think you need to take care of yourself and your mental health too. I'm not famous or anything but I have quite a few followers now and I'm not going to lie or guarantee 100000% that it will be canon because I just do not know and I genuinely think people's mental health will be damaged because they've been hyping up an expectation of ST5 for years.

If shipping Byler has become too stressful for you, try take a break for a bit (I've been posting less over the last few months partially because of this too). Especially since we all have hiatus brain where expectations and theories become more and more wild because we have to keep digging deeper into the same content. I'm so scared that S5 will come out and it doesn't happen because I like a lot of people in this fan community and if Byler isn't canon, we'll get angry posts for a couple of months and maybe some theories about interference or deleted scenes (this happen post S4 a bit as well) but then it's gone ): the community revolves more about being 100% sure Byler will happen instead of enjoying the pairing of Mike and Will so without canon Byler, I don't know what will remain.

Thanks for the ask, anon. Also Ronance forever! <3

#byler #byler doubt #not really but in case you don't wanna read about it not being canon #it's more about mental health #however it talks about the possibility of byler not being endgame

24 notes · View notes

maddy-ferguson · 10 months

Note

can u expand on the byler vol2 problems

i said ask me to expand and i will and you delivered thank you for that!!! i didn't say byler vol2 problems though i said byler fandom problems post-volume 2!

i think the main thing is overcorrection. i said every major problem but i only meant the things i think of as byler tumblr trends that annoy me personally. tbh🙏 it's subjective. kind of.

i've been rereading posts from after volume 2 recently and yeah it's the "will only ever gets to be sad" to "will deserves a villain arc" kind of pipelines that you saw after volume 2 that i think are still very much happening i'm gonna talk about even though the will villain arc one died down pretty quickly. on this side of the internet anyway. some of these actually aren't volume 2 related sorry i lied i was mostly thinking about the mike stuff when i said that.

mike says i love you to el: everything always ends up being about mike somehow. i think this is the biggest one. people like the mystery and the way mike's sexuality isn't confirmed like will's is and so they analyze him more which leads to people literally rewriting history with takes like mike is more queercoded than will?😭 i get that everyone knows will is gay now but the mike focus has people thinking that will has no subtext when literally his entire storyline is full of the saddest subtext ever!!! but it's not subtext that you can choose to only read as "this boy is gay" so it's not as fun i guess😔 and it really isn't as fun. because it's mostly heartbreaking and awful lmao but yeah. just wanted to give a thumbs down to the mike is more queercoded than will take again.

mlvns say will is a whiny crybaby, bylers say going through what he's had to go through would make anyone cry just as often so will isn't even that sensitive even though he is it's literally one of the first things we learn about him lol. people imply that being sensitive is bad so often and act like will has sensitive gay kid allegations to beat when he literally doesn't like he is a sensitive gay kid😭 why do you think that's bad exactly...🎤

mike says i love you to el: 90% of people think they read everything wrong for 72-96 hours and then everyone's like oh no i get it now. byler's still endgame. overuse of the term media literacy and everyone who doesn't think or simply doesn't believe that the duffers would make byler endgame is stupid and has no media literacy. which actually comes off as very INSECURE!!!! and is frankly annoying. and obnoxious. the term media literacy needs to be taken away from byler tumblr i'm so serious.

will is not a baby just because he's gay look at these two scenes he's actually so mean and most importantly not sensitive (and then he's not even mean in the scene) and he can load a gun could a sensitive baby do that (and then he's literally 12 in the scene so like. i'm sorry but that's a baby to me😕). how dare you imply that he's sensitive, gay, and a kid. i'm kidding about the gay one because no one in this day and age is defending will by saying he's not gay but some of them might as well be because it's the qualities that made people assume he's gay that people try to say he doesn't have. the how dare you infantilize him he can load a gun one is just nonsensical because regardless of how you feel about will with a gun you're definitely meant to be like oh no this poor little kid has to defend himself all alone :( in the moment like him being a kid isn't a bad thing (??/!??,/) it makes you feel for him and is part of what makes what happens to him so awful.

mlvns accuse bylers of hating el and of being raging misogynists: elmike is born. bylers start saying that el will actually be thrilled by the match and might actually set up the guy she spent the first two and a half years of her life out of the lab fixated on who's been her boyfriend for over a year and her newfound brother. because she's so mature and over the petty drama that's a teenage love triangle. which is crazy because i DON'T believe that most bylers are as misogynistic as mlvns make us out to be like i've seen way worse which might be because...the show is actually pointing to mike being gay so it's not made up and no one needs to give el a thousand flaws to justify anything? even though people do blame her for things that i don't know if she should be blamed for but whatever that's a different discussion. i was saying: it's crazy because while i don't think bylers are all awful misogynistic el haters...the girl being so happy and out of the way and not being given the space to feel anything about her (gay) boyfriend not being in love with her is sooo new age 2010s mlm fandom sexism. let el have emotions about her breakup with her gay boyfriend who was the first person she bonded with (who didn't die immediately) after escaping the lab who lied to her about falling in love with her at first sight 2k25‼️

everything about babygirl mike and buff byers? let's not get into the whole buff byers debate i hate it with a passion. but it's like. people want mike to be taken down a peg. mike says i love you to el with will's sad little face in the background and people want mike to have to beg for forgiveness. which i get because as i was saying the other day, "i feel like my life started 24 hours after you were taken to the upside down and were traumatized forever because i met this girl who's replaced you in every way that matters, will" is hard to get over. but idk. people are so weird about mike being lame and loving will and about will barely caring about him in return and about the loserification of mike wheeler because yes mike is a loser but only in the sense that the whole party is!!! and that's something that gets lost when he's made to be below them and below will specifically because people feel like he has all the power in the relationship right now and will's at his mercy. which is something they don't like. like it's okay they're both miserable actually. rejoice! post-volume 2 mike needs to have fallen first and he needs to have fallen harder because if the only thing will gets at the end of everything is a boyfriend who loves him only as much as will loves him it's not good enough even though that's all he's not letting himself hope he'll ever have.

#kidding about will being a baby. i know he does not like being treated like one🙏#see how i'm a real will fan #at one point i was like wait. should i do the will wasn't in the wrong at rink o mania thing again😁#but then i didn't. sorry jackietaylcrsers #about the mike is more queercoded thing. this one time someone who mostly does mike analysis got an ask that was like could you do #the biggest hints that will is gay? and their answer was a link to noah's interview saying that will is gay and if that doesn't sum up the #way bylers tend to think about will's storyline #like if will's not your area of expertise and looking for the gay clues of a canon gay character isn't of interest to you it's fine but #they really were like there's no need to dig bc we know. and i thought that was so weird😭 and dare i say a little sad.#especially because now there's people who think he's less queercoded somehow?//?/)/)#anyway #ask

17 notes · View notes