#but thats okay theres worse flaws to have

[suffarustuffaru]

Hey, how are you doing? Firstly, i'll understand if you choose not to answer this ask since the subject is controversial and kinda heavy

We currently have at least two pedos in the story, like, actual pedos (the guy obsessed with Liliana and the creepy butler that i forgot the name) and then tappei's writing in some things is just... weird?

I get that subaru and beatrice are supposed to have a sibling relationship, but it just weirds me out

And he keeps adding loli characters with questionable designs too

What is your opinion on this? Its something i manage to ignore, but it still weird me out a little

hi anon!! :o thanks for asking how im doing pfft im doing pretty well - though i am a college student and its This Time of Year (end of semester) so im hanging in here lmao 👍

also ok as for the topic at hand!! yeah no i 100% hate it. ive been thinking about rezeros flaws lately because the further you get into watching/reading rezero the Clearer it gets. its mostly fine at say, arc 1, but by the time you get to arc 5 or arc 8 its like. What the hell. This again?? so yeah its 100% understandable to be weirded out and uncomfortable by it because tappeis writing is frankly Gross sometimes.

(okay also yes this ask has minor or major arc 5+ spoilers yes and also. You know. detailed discussion regarding rezero sexualizing children.)

yeah so tappei writes problematic things into rezero regarding both women and children especially, and while theres exceptions its like. very Prevalent in rezero. i talked about it a bit in my last ask if youd like to check that out!! but yeah like. i hate how children are treated in rezero. its very Problematic a lot of the time.

tappeis writing follows very similar patterns regarding treatment of children and women that you see in a Lot of other anime/manga/japanese media - and media in general, really, but im sure most anime watchers / manga readers will know what im talking about because its unfortunately That common. we're all seen this. like fan service shots, lolis and shotas, etc etc. but rezero is a little more insidious i think, just because tappei is capable of writing good characters regardless of age or gender. and theres Less of stuff like fan service - or at least rezero is a little less obvious about it or its just seen less in rezero, but thats also because media in general is so in your face about it and Unfortunately Common so rezero looks like a tiny bit of paradise in the middle of a barren desert.

i mean look at the amount of people who've thought rezero was a harem anime until they watched rezero - rezero seems like an outlier but thats only because its just a tiny bit less gratuitous and it still has a lot of good writing. and also because i am pretty sure the bar for media like this - especially media in rezeros genre (isekai) is Extremely Low. like depressingly low. and despite rezero being a deconstruction of isekai, rezero also contradicts its own damn messages sometimes about treating others like the People they are, respecting others Personhood, treating women well, etc. and its easy to see that the moment you look at some of otsuka's artwork and designs for rezero or if you look at all the rezero merch mainly based around the girls and Sexualizing the girls and its like. my god this is a little depressing to look at. rezero is just a tiny step in the right direction away from say, misogynist shounen/seinen media thats also weird about kids or something, but then rezero trips and falls on its own face after taking several right moves.

the problem is that these problematic aspects are still there, theyre still clear to see if youre paying attention, and often character arcs start well but then fall flat despite the good foundation. and then the problematic aspects hammer the already Poor/Inconsistent Writing into the ground which it makes it Even Worse.

like louis is a great character. shes fascinating, really. and then you hit arc 7 and she regresses immediately into the mind of a toddler so we only get to see her amnesiabaru/Suffering From Rbd arc in arc 6, her confrontation with subaru, and then BAM its arc 7 time and now she is an entirely different person????? i remember raging the further i got into arc 7/8 and realizing she hasnt gotten any development, she just changed instantly. it just feels lazy to me!! unless tappei proves me wrong and writes her developing but right now louis has spent two goddamn arcs being subaru and rems loli prop/daughter prop/a plot device to use in battle, basically. okay sorry i got passionate there but i SWEAR it gets on my nerves a bit. the louis/spica conflict now would feel so much more thrilling if she didnt have her weird half assed arc 7 development.

like if i was really in the fantasy world, of course i wouldnt vote to kill spica, shes innocent now. she doesnt know shit about her crimes, shes a whole other person now. she didnt do those things. she is an innocent child. i did a poll on this a while back actually haah and yeah a lot of rz tumblr, including myself, voted to let her live for this reason!! but also like. narratively speaking. i do not care about spica at all. shes a blank slate, shes just there to move the plot, she is taking up space in the plot right now and she does not need to be here forever. i 1000% want her dead hah. yeah shes this cute little kid now, but again, she got zero development. why should i care about her?? all the interesting things about her in arc 6, all the potential that couldve happened out of her gradually going from her arc 6 self to someone who genuinely cares about rem and subaru is gone. If we actually saw this change, personally id care more about spica and be invested in her character but as it stands im really Not. and i think if we saw her actually Develop a lot of us readers would be more invested to see this conflict out - not only because our Favs are fighting over it, but also because we’d actually care about spica. Like. im not sure how many people actually care about louis past arc 6, but yeah thats just my personal thoughts on it.

And also the Other big flaw with louis’s character is tappei once again being creepy regarding kids and. Okay im gonna show an excerpt from the arc 6 WN (iirc ch60 to be exact?) and yeah fair warning because it is once again sexualizing a child (louis). But also im putting it here in case anyone wants to see some vivid proof of rezero being weird about kids. Im not sure if this was cut from the LN version or not but the fact that it exists At All makes me want to put tappei on a watchlist.

And okay i know you might be thinking about how louis represents the sin of gluttony anyway and gluttony includes sexual or romantic desire too and how having louis, who looks like a child, say this makes it even more Offputting - like. Yeah. but is it Necessary? because making louis, WHO LOOKS LIKE A CHILD, say all this and then use descriptors like “expressed a bewitching smile unsuited to her age” - is this Actually necessary? You have to be careful writing this sort of thing, because a child/character who looks like a child saying things like this due to being, you know, Mentally Unwell, is different from Emphasizing What Theyre Saying By Sexualizing Them via the narration and descriptions. And why is the sexologist line there?? its just frankly uncomfortable, to an unnecessary extent, i think. I just dont think we need all this emphasis on louis’s body, louis’s apparent “arousal”, or how her smile is “unsuited to her age” (this is the narrative once again sexualizing a child), and plot-related sex/sexual content in rezero is kept to a minimum anyway so you could also literally just have louis be weird about “loving subaru” without the sexual aspect. Because she literally just said that she was aroused by him. she looks like shes twelve at most and then in the arc immediately after this one she regresses back to having the mentality of a toddler!!! and then shes subaru’s daughter there.

And again, i know that the whole point of this scene is to be off-putting and disturbing and wrong in all sorts of ways (and also subaru tries to kill louis a page later so like.) but i think if youre going to keep the appetite=sexual desire detail (which IS a good point about gluttonys nature, on its own), then this scene absolutely needed to be handled better than what we got when the character saying this is a child. you can write a child sexualizing herself because shes frankly Unwell or Doesnt Know Better, because this is fiction and you can write sensitive topics like this with proper care, but if you, the author, are sexualizing this child, then that is a Whole Other Thing.

or you can entirely dodge this whole debate over whether or not this is actually okay to write by making louis look older. but tappei went with this route once again in a sea of rezeros various child characters despite the fact that tappei then decides to link sexual desire to the sin of gluttony, which is a sin occupied in rezero by three children. I know ley has a very traumatic backstory, and the specific details are escaping me but iirc he was likely a slave or something along those lines, with implications that hes been abused by adults, so you could delicately handle what kind of abuse he Couldve unfortunately had to go through, and also of course roy and louis are clearly not okay in the head either, but. Once again. Children in rezero Not Being Sexualized in some way is a rarity. Unfortunately.

you see this pop up again and again and again. petra? Yeah iirc theres a side story where shes weird about subarus underwear. Correct me if im wrong on that but also i would not be surprised if that was a real side story. Unfortunately. Also theres Uncomfortable lines regarding petras chest.

according to rezero wiki, schult is… well iirc al makes creepy comments about schult being a shota (and of course this isnt really called out in canon), and theres also these two details about schult:

also regarding sin archbishops who look very young, capella represents lust and yet she also looks like a child. i know the point of her design is to make her a bit grotesque, but you can get that point across without making her look fifteen years old at most. this is the sin of lust too. and shes already called “Mama” in canon—she doesnt need to look that young!!**

also side note about pandora. she also looks like a child, which—its okay with her, except for the frankly lazy outfit design imo?? why is she wearing a bedsheet??**

** another edit: its easy to see capella and pandora as women also, but again, tappei and otsuka In General keep mixing up short/young women and Children and it should be easy to tell if pandora and capella are children or young women or not. but i dont feel that its clear enough given tappei and otsuka’s Track Record.

and typhons design with the see through skirt is so creepy and disturbing that im Really glad the anime fixes it most of the time. heres the fixed version:

but also the anime Really doesnt fix it as much as it probably should, because her dress is Still see-through in some shots. you can even see a bit in this shot—we dont need to see her lower body area like That!! this skirt doesnt need to be see-through!! and the bar was already in hell anyway because otsuka makes typhon’s skirt Really see-through.

theres also this photo of typhons design and its Way better without that see-through skirt.

granted, there is some good child character designs—felt’s arc 1 design frankly sucks though purely because of the way her outfit is handled. like its Really bad. it takes only like one look to see that. but her arc 5 design is a Huge Improvement:

characters like meili, schult, child subaru, etc have good designs too, but you know, this doesnt change the Creepiness regarding children, because this also applies to subaru and Some Lines about him in arc 8 iirc. if i find them again ill talk about it another time (or if someone else finds it feel free to add on to this post?) but yeah just. urgh.

regarding felt again, theres a scene in a felt camp side story where she wakes up naked in bed, post arc 1, after reinhard kidnaps her to his mansion. and yeah, the whole point of the scene is to show reinhard is kind of dense and bad at reading social cues because hes still trying to talk to her very civilly while shes covering herself with the bedsheets and she Literally just got kidnapped by him, but, say it with me, she doesnt need to be naked. she couldve woken up in bed in her usual clothes and the point still wouldve come across!! WHY is she naked??? shes fourteen.

and also like capella, liliana looks like a child. and of course theres kiritaka, as anon said, whos obsessed with liliana, and then theres clind, the creepy butler. and of course tappei has “deniability” because lilianas not Really a child (she STILL looks like one), and clinds not Really a pedophile, he just likes youthful souls!! (this is literally disgusting.) and clind may have interesting lore or whatever about how hes kind of involved with the sin archbishop of melancholy but i just dont give a shit about him when hes a pedophile that tappei keeps excusing.

also mimi? mimi is a Special Case.

the thing with mimi and her brothers is that its implied in the kararagi girl and cats eye side stories that kittypersons (??) are fully grown by age 1. theyre rescued from dying on the streets but they insist theyre “fully grown” (at age 2-3). they havent changed physically at all. and they dont change physically at all later, because now in the Present Day they all look Exactly the same as they did when they were 1, 2, 3 years old. did they grow mentally???? theyre like 14-15 in the main route. and then you look at aganau route from the lost in memories mobile game which takes place around twenty (??) years after arc 3, and mimi is a grown woman and she looks exactly the same as she did when she was 14 or 2 years old. and then this makes her romance with garfiel a little weird because hes a normal fourteen year old??? but mimis been fully grown all this time??? what??

this is mimi. yeah, she and her brothers look EXACTLY this age their WHOLE LIVES.

and meili? yeah shes definitely one of the better child characters, though she does have an Extremely Traumatic backstory and has had a habit of copying elsa. this on its own is fine and understandable. elsa was her only support and shes a child, of course shes gonna copy elsa. though iirc she also copies elsa’s “flirtatious” aspects, which is honestly also understandable given elsa is a Questionable Influence, but this detail about meili’s character gets worse when you think about it in the context of all the other child characters—

why is it that all the children tappei (and otsuka) keep sexualizing are in the same age range? theyre about 9 or 10 to 14. louis stops being sexualized when she reverts to being a toddler and becomes subarus daughter. felt stops being sexualized when she turns 15 in arc 5. emilia is the main love interest to subaru and shes apparently “mentally 14”?? and shes tappeis favorite character too? but also mimis case is so weird because shes been “fully grown” since the tender age of ONE YEARS OLD?? well also i sure hope im wrong on this point but given the amount of child characters that fall in this age range and also how Often theyre all sexualized and also the majority of them are Young Girls—yeah its. its not a great look.

(and again a side note about meili again—tappei uses similar descriptors that he used for louis: that its “inappropriate for her age” and that she’ll “attract many men in the future”. tappei stfu. please.)

subaru’s lolimancer title is kind of funny. maybe. until you remember rezero being creepy about kids. and also like—i dont like the idea of tying a word like “loli” to the literal main character of the story anyway skdnd. theres just Connotations to it.**

**EDIT: i was told that “loli” is apparently a fan translation thing, while in japanese its “little girl user”, but in an inoffensive way (like Jojo’s “stand user”). make of that what you will!! (not great that the fan translation makes rezeros already poor treatment of kids Even Worse.)

and also—was subaru, al, medium, etc turning into children really necessary?

like in subarus case, its so he can have more ego, more confidence, more recklessness while being nerfed a bit and being mistaken as the emperor’s son—but at the same time, this just feels like a watered down version of the amnesiabaru arc to me where he has more ego, more confidence, more recklessness, and hes nerfed, but then he learns to love himself more. it just feels too similar to the amnesiabaru arc imo. him turning into a child feels very unnecessary imo and it doesnt look great when you remember tappei and otsuka’s fixation on children. literally arc 8 would be exactly or almost exactly the same if subaru was back to his usual 18/19-year old self. but he has to keep being a kid right now because Plot, apparently. then again if anyone disagrees with me on this feel free to explain your stance!! but yeah as of rn i just want subaru to be back to his usual age.

also tappeis weird about young priscilla/prisca and lamia but i havent read the ex novels about them yet so i cannot go in depth 👍 but just know you get nice lovely lines (sarcasm) like “flirty way she caresses her own thighs”. great!!! thanks tappei for fanservicing underage teenage girls once again!!

and again, treatment of child characters / characters who look younger than they are in rezero—this is so so creepy also as someone who does in fact look younger than my age. and im also Very Short (4’11) too. so like. thanks tappei and otsuka!! i feel very comfortable right now 👍

and women are often infantilized in rezero which you can. Easily connect to the pedophilia, yeah. theres also age gap romances in general, and i mentioned emilia already (yeah. emisuba is an age gap romance.), but theres also ram and roswaal, frederica and clind, anastasia iirc gets described Weirdly sometimes because shes a short flat-chested woman, and recently theres been madeline and balleroy having a small moment (that feels. Romance coded. iirc.) in an arc 8 chapter.

they look like this by the way:

thanks tappei and otsuka once again for the creepy writing and designs that actively work against all the good parts of the damn story 👍

on a lighter note, i think beatrice in general + beatrice and subarus relationship is one of the better parts of rezero—iirc theres nothing creepy about it, and beatrice and subaru are very easy to read as a sister and brother relationship. theyve helped each other out in many ways, and theyve grown Very close by the time we see them in arc 5!! you could. Technically see their relationship as a father-daughter one too, but i dislike that take—not for bad reasons, but just because i feel like it doesnt fit them.

the thing with beatrice though is that shes simultaneously A Child but shes also like. 400 years old. so i do wish the narrative balanced that more post-arc 4–not in a creepy way of course. god no. but in the sense that shes mature in a lot of ways!! shes familiar with death and suffering!! shes intimately known Isolation!! that sort of thing. shes the one whos closest to subaru because of how he helped her in arc 4 (“choose me”), and also because she knows about his self-harm and heals his injuries. shes someone who can deeply understand subaru in a lot of ways in this sense, at least. the way they support each other feels more like a sibling bond to me and not a Parent-Child one just because youre not Really supposed to be leaning this much on your child for support. theres a power dynamic to a Parent-Child relationship, and beatrice and subaru are Equals.

plus echidna gaslight gatekeep girlbossed both of them, so theyre also siblings in that sense hah…

but yeah correct me if im wrong on that though regarding beatrice and subaru and im missing something?? but yeah as far as i remember and as far as i can tell, i think theyre actually one of the least creepy parts of rezero hah :,)

and then because this sort of thing is Unfortunately so common in media like rezero, we’re kind of conditioned to try and ignore it so we can keep reading or watching because its Everywhere. i still enjoy some of rezero, but its hard to ignore All Of This. and i think its important not to turn your brain off to it and recognize whats Wrong here, yeah. (unless it makes you so uncomfortable that you have to stop looking at rezero, which is very understandable.)

but yep. thats rezero for you.

#rezero #re:zero #ask #tw pedophila mention #tldr rezeros treatment of kids is Horrible and i hate it 😔 #like so many of these characters would be so good without the problematic aspects!! #you can write sensitive topics like this but you cannot be Supporting them as you do that!!

[shoujoboy-restart]

Can you imagine if actual fields of science had the same golden calf treatment economics gets to this day?

"look I don't make the rules for viruses okay every year hundreds of millions of people die from this ummm virus thing, or more I'm not sure, but listen we just can't take risk what if trying to solve it just makes it worse huh? Then DOUBLE HUNDRED IF NOT DOUBLE MILLIONS OF PEOLE WOULD DIE!!!" (The castrastophizing of inflation when it is already happening, but apparently is better that it's happening because of companies being given bailouts than because minimum wage was risen I guess)

"okay just because I have failed to accurately predict the weather every single day for hundreds of years doesn't mean my methodology is flawed okay this the norm so clearly we should just keep like this" (constantly claiming social welfare programs will cause harm or that communist countries like China are going to fail yet never having proof or coming to fruition)

"You plant the seed and you get the tree years later, theres just no other and no better and faster method to get trees than this and anything else is just Graftist and Air layering Utopic propaganda!" (Complaining about ideas and methods from communist, socialist or just opposing ideologies without real evidence that it couldn't work)

"stop using made up terms like "pasteurization" and "botulism" if you want to be taken seriously, only people who think humans are making bad food say stuff like that!" (whining about terminology from opposing ideologies without actual factual motivation to do so)

"Dalton's Atomic Theory may not be perfect, it's the best of option we have" (admitting the current system is flawed and ineffective but demanding compliance and apologism for it because "it could be worse")

"I'm sure if we just leave the church alone, happy and we don't challenge their narratives and power they for sure will give us something in return!"

"So what if blood letting causes hemorrhage? we need to get rid of all of this bad blood filled with toxins and then they are going to be healthy again" (white washing and apologizing shock treatment economics and other inhumane and destructive economic methods)

"if you get a camera to film two aligned holes in fences each 17ft in distance from the other in leveled ground and someone else to shine a light thought at the camera, the light will appear on the camera proving the earth is flat! DONT BE RIDICULOUS YOU DONT NEED TO EXPERIMENT TO PROVE IT THATS JUST HOW IT IS" (general inability to to hold capitalism to actual scientific standards)

"yeah I know humans have different types of blood...but maybe we can get away with using A+ blood with a B- pacients this time" (having constant material proof of things that do not work, but still insisting on keep doing it, such as knowing that having immense amounts of products when people don't have the means to buy it causes inflation and destructive crisises...yet keep allowing companies to fire people without motive and impunity)

#discourse #politics #economic #economy

[dyketubbo]

theres a lot to say about the subject of forgiving abusers but really it all just comes down to the fact that theres like. different types of forgiveness, and the fact that dsmp doesnt exist in a bubble. theres nothing wrong with like, tommy going yeah i forgive you because i need to move the fuck on with my life. his decision. there wouldnt even be anything wrong with tommy apologizing because dream was about to die. tommy is at his core a kind person, theres nothing wrong with him showing some regret and kindness, even to dream.

what is wrong with tommy apologizing to dream and gaining this ~understanding~ of him is that it uh. is based on the idea that tommy being an annoying 16 year old is a fair reason for dream to effectively kidnap, abuse, and outright torture him and also kill him three times, kill lazar and vikk three times each and torture them, try to kill tubbo just to get to tommy, torture and kill sam to have control over the prison, abandon sapnap and george, manipulate multiple people, and more.

its that tommy taking on the blame for ruining dream in the same way dream ruined him. makes it out as if theyre equals in any way. as if their entire relationship wasnt always dream having power over tommy and abusing it, abusing him. theres hardly a win in clingyduo taking themselves out with dream, not in a "the only way to seek justice is to kill dream" way (although that has some truth to it on a narrative sense), but in a "jesus fuck they had lives outside of him and the narrative acts as if this is the only way, they have to abandon everything just to show that dream and tommy couldve been friends if.. what, tommy was less annoying and a bit more kind?" way

and ultimately it sucks because. this just isnt a good time for that kind of narrative. not to meta game, but when one of the actors has allegations currently in legal question against him, its.. not great, that the story hes been working on for years now where his character consistently hurt and abused and held his position of power over a teenager ends on a forgive and forget moral. no matter what the truth of the matter about the allegations are, thats.. uncomfortable. not because im upset that dream didnt die in the way i wanted, but because during a time where victims have it hard as is, its just.

not appropriate? to have almost two years of a storyline about abuse and how it affects the victim, turns them into a worse version of themself and keeps them in a state of terror for as long as their abuser is out there, creates a situation where because the abuser happened to be somewhat charismatic and hide their worst flaws from the public, the victim is scared that no one will believe then, and does have a multitude of people who think that the victim shouldnt be listened to, because theyre annoying, because the abuser wouldnt do that, because the victim must have done something to deserve it, to make the abuser do what they did. and have it end on a note where the victim apologizes for making the abuser a worse person by.. being annoying. and dies with their abuser and their best friend, memory wiped of everything (supposedly, including their memories of their friends and family) so they can go on and be friends with their abuser never knowing what happened.

all while a victim of one of the actors has been mass harassed because.. supposedly, dream wouldnt do that. because amanda acted weird before and after. because she wanted it and that made it okay, even though she was in a position where she didnt know what was wrong about dreams actions. because. dream has power over her, because hes a somewhat charismatic man whose built up a public face of a well-meaning man who cares about his community and about victims. and amanda, in the eyes of many who dont believe her, is an annoying girl who just wants to ruin dreams life. all while we have some clues suggesting that dream may have finally gotten around to this so he could do damage control.

even if you ignore that the ending just isnt satisfying on a narrative level, it. gets concerning, to think about, when you realize that this story is influenced by cc biases, and that that includes dreams own biases against the people hes hurt in real life. thats what makes the ending uncomfortable. its not a proper story leading up to a narratively satisfying understanding of where the abuser came from, a narrarively satisfying way for the victim to forgive and move on. its a not great moral at a bad time handled by someone i dont trust to have had good intentions when playing out this ending. the fact that the people who already hated ctommy for being a victim of cdream can feel like they were right and go on to hate amanda for being a victim of ccdream? thats unsettling. very fucking unsettling.

#mask mews #dsmp #dreamwastaken #abuse tw #dsmp critical #etc etc #tommy

[fictionfixations]

twst halloween

so ive been reading the events for twst all day. (like the dialogue for the stories)

SO. okay so i need to talk about halloween for a second--

so of course, spoilers for the event

deep breaths (i had started writing while reading. then i got very frustrated and it went on from there. haha. it gets long.)

---------------------------------

unique magic Tag. something like that

Where they can mark something, and it'll have a specific tag unique to that person (it'll stay in their memory until the tag is removed or fades away, in which the memory will fade normally instead of never). They could also tag items to that person (as in it'll have that person's unique signature that ties them together).

….honestly ive been like reading the twst halloween stuff. ( SPOILERS ) and for pomefiore they're in like the mirror hall and these mfs kept taking pictures INSIDE when its NOT ALLOWED (…bruh now people know what it looks like inside! what if theres like a flaw thats been caught on camera that'd help future criminal doers do something there!?)

anyway. so i was thinking of confiscating like phones. but so it doesnt get lost, or given to the wrong person.

this random pomefiore student being able to tag people with skin contact (example: passing the phone along, light touch on, say, the hand and the phone, and thus tagging and attaching them together through a line only they can see)

and it'd also help if say that same person did something malicious like 'hey, that's not your phone!' or 'i know that person!'

sorry im just kind of really ticked off at them. and all the other magicam monsters i swear--

im angry ranting now

oKAY for one that guy who was climbing the apple tree. you realize that if you do that people are just gonna want to do that to for the views so they'll climb it evne if they have no experience in it and will probably injure themselves or worse!?

ALSO THE FLOWERS. SCREAMS in heartslabyul OH MY GOD (i think id actually get so frustrated too though like bruh. idfk. WHAT IF THEYRE POISONOUS? i mean they probably wouldnt be out in the open but like. HELLO? YOU DONT KNOW THESE PLANTS. [they're for like potions] WTF ARE YOU DOING. THEY COULD BE HOME TO A VICIOUS SPECIES FOR ALL YOU KNOW YOU IDIOT)

pictures are horrendous. savanaclaw… 1. Why the fuck did someone make up some bs rumor that putting like treasure on your head (its fake tho) would like grant you a wish? WHY? WHAT DO YOU GAIN FROM THAT!?? HELLO???? also oh my god as a person who hates everything about being in pictures (i have to be tricked to get my picture taken ugh) THAT WAS HORRIBLE TO READ. im reading on the wiki by the way because i want the context. also oh my god (im sorry im saying that a lot.) as a person who was absolutely repulsed by touch for awhile (and still kind of squeamish about it but dont have the courage to shove ppl off half the time) i think id die inside. like. okay so they're like touching his ears and his tail (i only remember the ear but i was so pissed off i dont know if i imagined the tail bit or not) and kinda his everything right? WHY? thats. like. such an invasion of privacy. like. HELLO??? WHAT ARE YOU DOING. pleASE stop???? also oh my god WHYH ARE YOU MAKING A MESS OF IT WHAT tHE HECK (they should have like those ropes that signify 'you're not allowed past this part' to make it clear HEY youre not allowed to touch that. but also some people will ignore it and they could get overrun FAST. ughhh)

octavinelle

i wish i could say that people have the courtesy to be careful not to do anything to harm others but i cant really no words. just. oh my god. be CAREFUL WITH WHAT YOU'RE DOING . there are important sUBSTANCES HERE THAT ARE VERY FRAGILE. (they should've been made to pay for it ughhh. teach them.)

scarabia. honestly ive read a fic that went over this before. and honestly its very funny. so like yuu's just going to sam's shop where they are the teachers are nearby (stunned) and jamils just like 'I'LL BURN IT ALL TO THE GROUND' and its HILARIOUS. also bugs. shudder. i dont even know how youd get people to stop wasting the food tho. man. bruh.

(also where are there self preservation skills oh my god)

ignihyde. oh my god THEYVE DONE THE WORST CRIME OF THEM ALL. THE DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. okay im being overdramatic but WHAT THE FUCK if anyone did that to my books id honestly be so done.

well anything else could be salvaged sort of (with the exception of the destruction of the plants, the destruction of one of the things in the lab, and this) but. this. destruction of property???????? FOR ALL YOU KNOW THAT COULD'VE BEEN SOME SUPER RARE VERY LIMITED BOOK WITH ONLY. LIKE. 10 COPIES MADE. OR LIKE. ITS ENTIRELY HANDWRITTEN BY SOME FAMOUS PERSON WHO DIED A LONG TIME AGO AND THIS IS ALL WE HAVE LEFT AND YOU DESTROY IT!

AGHHH. im so aggravated. (as a person who ADORES books. im so irritated. i mean dont get me wrong they arent that important to me. but the library is my favorite part in a school! i love reading! its practically sacred!) "Jail. Jail for one thousand years! Some of us LIKE being alone, y'know? Please, for the love of everything, just let us live our gremlin lives!" YES. (honestly. out of all the dorms. if not savanaclaw, then id probably be in ignihyde. like yes hide me away forever so i can play games and not have to interact with people)

"Y'know, for Malleus Draconia! The guy so zetta powerful that everybody trembles at his name! Getting a picture of yourself touching him is a legendary feat."

SCREAMS INTO PILLOW

WHY THE FUCK ARE PEOPLE BRNEAKING AND ENTERING WHY OD YOU IGNORE A SIGN

im so rrry im yttypingoifnhgfh there comes a point where im so frustrated i cant typer ight. heavy sigh

WHY WOULD YOU IGNORE A SIGN. THAT CLEARLY GIVES YOU A WARNING?! YOURE LITERALLY BREAKING AND ENTERING. THERE IS A REASON THAT SIGN IS THERE. WHY WOULD YOU JUST SHRUG IT OFF BASED ON APPEARANCES???! HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF DONT JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER? I SWEAR. AGHH thats. such. a major. violation. i cant… AGHH

i wonder if a sort of barrier spell to prevent people from moving past (aka into the dorm) would be possible. but that might be a huge drain and whose to say they couldnt idfk take pictures through the windows? ew stalkery behavior, and not any better.

AND NOTHING CAN BE DONE BECAUSE YOU KNOW WAHT THE HEADLINES ARE GONNA SAY?

'NRC student attacks tourist!'. IT WONT EVEN MENTION ANY WRONGDOINGD THE TOURIST HAD DONE AND ITLL SPREAD FROM THERE AND AGHHHHHHH

THE STATUES? WHAT THE FUCK!? that. i. AGH (people are so dumb. why. would you. post a picture OF YOU COMMITTING A CRIME!?)

!!!! POP OFF (edit: this is like heartslabyul going against the magicam monsters. id probably adore octavinelle's if i hadn't already been spoiled about it lol)

----------------------

kind of off topic. but yknow what? i kind of feel like im really living up to my riddle pfp lmFAO

(i wrote it all down on discord. i probably could've just started it on a tumblr post instead but it didnt even occur to me)

#twst spoilers #twst #twisted wonderland #twst halloween #twst wonderland #thoughts #random stuff #angry rant

[static-shocked]

Top Gun 2 & Propaganda

Okay. I’m gonna weigh in on this whole thing with my decidedly complicated feelings about the movie + the review thats been going around. Putting a read below here now with content warnings for Xenophobia, discussions of propaganda and generally informal-but-still-long-winded sociological/poli-sci analysis.

Let me start with where I disagree/diverge from the review:

So. TGM… In terms of its morals, there IS a very active struggle against the system. Like the entire point of Maverick’s presence is to teach them how to get out of this suicide mission (which everybody knows good and well it is) alive. And the entirety of the top brass doesn’t like it. That’s how it works in the armed forces, the driving force of basic training and your duty is that you accept the bodily cost of doing it. You are expected to die for it. This is wrong, the movie knows that this is wrong.

Inevitably there are issues with orders to stand down, referring specifically to the part in the review where the whole breaking the rules thing comes into play & Ice’s “You’re not safe.” assertions in the original. Especially when it comes to things that are meant for the safety of others, but like. Maverick/Pete is making the active decision to teach them techniques to keep them safe against orders. They’re dispensable to the Navy, but not to him. Their lives mean something more than a sacrifice play. 

The problem really shouldn’t be that Maverick is disobeying orders? Those orders and implications are not about preserving the safety of the ones who carry it out, Rooster, Hangman, Phoenix, they all have to act against them in Maverick’s capacity to survive. They’re not wrong to want to live and find a way to minimize casualties.

The central out-of-text problem is, in my opinion: the mission itself: unilaterally bombing a foreign power and that the pilots are acting as an arm of the US Navy to complete it. They shouldn’t be there at all.

Now to where I agree with the review and make my overarching point:

Top Gun IS propaganda. 

Not the on the nose ‘join today! Bear arms! I want you!’ wartime propaganda, but the more pervasive kind. Where honor and ethics have a place in one person when no one else in the system has it, where it’s something we see and we want to emulate. The kind that plants the seed that maybe, just maybe if we were more like Maverick that the system would be a better place. When the truth is that moral stuff does NOT belong there. Systems like that don’t have any real ethics beyond performance. Theres no redemption.

In this propaganda, the enemies don’t have a face because we fear what we don’t know. The enemies in the F-35s, much like the MiGs in the original are concealed. You don’t know their faces, their names, where they’re from. You don’t know because it doesn’t matter, you just know that they’re not American. At the core of Xenophobia is a fear or contempt of the foreign. The enemies in Top Gun are foreign; unspecified, but you can superimpose any country that has a current conflict with the US over them. Whether this is better or worse is a question for another day, but the point still stands: We (embodied in Mav, Rooster & co) are the heroes, they (the foreign) are the villains.

The Military Industrial Complex- the Navy in this case, is a system. It is an interest, and it depends on the labor of every part. Talcott Parsons’ AGIL theory is the best way to break this down. This theory is essentially the idea that If systems & structures are to survive, they must engage in four sets of activities aimed at meeting their needs:

Adaptation (A system cannot remain long at odds with its environment, it has to adapt) -> the US military no longer has the total favor of public opinion. It can no longer command and leverage that authority on screen, and therefore its portrayals in the media have shifted to accommodate a more flawed and complex view of it. If we see someone willing to cop to their failings, we are more inclined to hear their side of the story. 

Goal Attainment (the need for a system to define and achieve its primary goals) —> the Navy’s defined goal is “to maintain, train and equip combat-ready naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas.”. The goal by implication in this is maintaining the US’s status as what is called “hegemon”: the leading state actor (this is debatable. We all know that this place isn’t good at anything it says it is) by whatever means it sees fit. Colonialism, imperialism, you name it. 

Integration (ensuring sure that enough time, energy, personnel, and resources are allocated on each level to maintain operations —> Technicians, aviators, upper command. 

Latency (the need for a system to furnish, maintain, and renew the motivation of individuals.) —> the better you enforce and comply with the interests of the system, the higher you get to progress. Ex. Iceman, “ice cold, no mistakes.” who was promoted to *Admiral vs Maverick, who has never made it past the rank of Captain because he pushes past orders. 

Whether we like it or not, on some level, Top Gun is an advertisement for war and death… Every major DOD funded film is, those fuckers keep an eagle-eye on the script and will pull funding if they don’t like what they see in a project’s portrayals of the military. Though I honestly didn’t think of it as anymore or less egregious in this film than the nonstop resurgence of propaganda we’ve been getting since 9/11, or when the MCU started to dominate the market- it just so happens to be easier to pick apart because of its backdrop. 

That being said: you’ll have a hard time finding solid-gold unhypocritical moral critiques within the text of a widely marketed movie  It’s quite frankly, incompatible with the nature of mass media distribution and government funded films. The Department of Defense (DOD) funded Top Gun: Maverick. That funding provided it with the tools to deliver its various spectacles. You really can’t be the blockbuster of the year and take a genuine reformist or abolitionist stance on anything. Not without some scrubbing and stripping in the edit. What comes out is disingenuous/by and large hypocritical. Big Hollywood Films as an industry rely on making its products reach as wide and general an audience as possible. Shying away from ‘alienating viewers’ and being too ‘heavy-handed’, and having the state fund your film inevitably means that the studio will be catering to some, if not all it’s expectations. They will always calculate the worst groups of people to take shit out of a movie like this into the equation because engagement and investment is money.

TLDR: Many things can be true at the same time. Top Gun can be both propaganda and an enjoyable cinema experience with its own merits. I’m not trying to be a both-sides-ass-bitch about this but like. The point of critical engagement is to understand the implications of a given work for your own education and to communicate it with others. Propaganda doesn’t strip away the entirety of a work’s creative merits (for the most part. I am naturally excluding pure bad faith racist, anti-islamic/semitic, transphobic shit), but it informs them. You can’t cut that shit away or divorce it from the material. It’s still there. You shouldn't throw the whole thing out as just ’movie’s bad morals = not competently made’ either, thats how people get swept up into propaganda and end up lacking the skills to recognize the shit when its laid out in front of them.

I liked the movie well enough to see its strengths and assess it as a sequel that preserves the spirit, charm and entertainment value of the original. But I won’t pretend that the DOD, who would have a vested interest in celebrating what its machines can do to the worldwide viewers who bring in the box office gross, didn’t have its own intentions when it gave the green light. I won’t act like those intentions aren’t reflected in the writing either, even if there’s a bit of a well-reasoned critique there. 

Sources: 

Contemporary Sociological Theory and It’s Classical Roots: The Basics - Fourth Edition by George Ritzer

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/05/27/top-gun-maverick-us-military/ International Relations: Perspectives, Controversies and Readings Fifth Edition by Keith L. Shimko

#Tom Cruise #Top Gun #Top Gun Maverick #Pete Mitchell #Bradley Bradshaw #Lee’s informal essays #I literally only went to see the sequel as my dad’s birthday gift #I mean. I’ve seen the original Top Gun and discussed its homoeroticism at length #but now I’m using my adult degree and articulating detailed opinions #If my spelling and grammar are horrible that’s a you problem #It’s 11pm on a work night and I am out of emotional gas #Edit: ugh. I really should edit these things better before I post them.

[cherrytea556]

She ra is an overhyped mess

I do not get how it was praised so much and was apparently the point were she ra got popular or at least had its popularity grow because there was just so much wrong in s5

The characters are either acting out of character, wasted, used for shipping, have no character development or just badly written

The only characters that i can think of that was well written and not wasted was shadow weaver, angella, mara and lighthope. Mara, angella and lighthope story was already finished so they wouldnt be affected by s5's writing. With shadow weaver, they have her still be a villain which she was great at so that's good at least. But that couldnt be said for the other characters because there stories either was brushed off to never be focused on again, badly written or there was just never a story to begin with.

The tonal issues they have in the later episodes of s5 even though were suppose to take this series seriously. She ra always have tonal issues like with princess prom and those episodes in s4 but it hasnt changed in s5 like in perls of peekablue, their acting like its a fun party when its not and taking control has a sideplot of the rebellion gang going to a party like dont you guys have war rn?

Theres this plothole of grayskull because how its explained in return of the frightzone makes no sense, although maybe im wrong, its coming from memory

How they do redemption with catra and hordax-do i even need to explain further? Like both are shit, catra and hordax didnt change in the end. Hordax may be a worse case because some people say that he wasnt even meant to be redeemed but have an arc about finding himself and acceptance which if thats the intent, why tf would you pick the colonizer that took and brainwash children into harming innocent people? Wheres the thought process in that?

And the romance....look im not big on romances, in fact, i dislike romance but even if i like romance, i wouldnt like most of the she ra endgames writing. Catradora is still toxic as catra didnt change and dismisses all that pain she put adora through for 3 years straight. Spinnetossa was okay because they already were togather but it has a questionable moment to say the least and the closure of their arc in s5 is just poorly worded. Seamista barely has any development for their romance to work plus both wouldnt even be that healthy anyway, seahawk disrespects mermistas boundaries and mermista avoids him and is openly irritated by him so them being canon without much development from the two is really jarring and tbh, kinda ick to me. Now as much as i love glimbow and scorfuma, both weren't so well written, glimbow came out of no where while scorfuma only got a bit of development. Doesnt help that theres no slight indication of them being a couple unlike the rest of the ships so it also kind of came out of nowhere for it to be endgame. The only ship that worked was entrapdak because its healthy, their relationship developed and it doesnt even need to show us a big love confession or something because we as the audience can understand that they are in love so it makes sense for them being canon.

Oh and i forgot horde primes plans make less sense overtime, she ra learnt her new powers way too quickly, catra was forgiven way too quickly, the abliesm in launch was handled terribly, catradora is getting worse than i thought it was and all in all was a dumpter fire that for some reason got a golden platter by critics and fans in 2020

Sorry for the rambling, i still dont get how people call she ra almost perfect when s5 proves otherwise and no one in that time era besides those small creators on youtube mentions its obvious flaws. The whole thing makes me face palm

#anti catradora #antic//a #anti c//a #anti catra #catraslander #catra slander #adora #adoradeservesbetter #spop critical #spop salt #txt #she ra s5 seriously sucks #i dont get how it got that amount of praise

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

hi, i wanted to get any kind of input or opinion because i think theres something really wrong with me. ive always been obsessed with labels and terms to identify myself, always switching them around and finding a new one regularly to base myself off of. right now at least i have no actual sense of identity and its very possible i could just be reaching because i tend to do that a lot but i dont remember a time where i genuinely had a hold on who i was, aside from when i had a really unhealthy obsession with one singular person for about 2 years. my entire life and mental state revolved around them during that time and to be honest, even though we arent on speaking terms anymore, still seeing them on socials messes me up pretty often.

anyway, the main issue is that i dont really know who i am or who i even want to be. i cant even really keep a name/nickname to go buy for longer than a few months only because i know it inconveniences the people around me (however few there are now). and thats another thing! im really iffy about making connections with people now because a lot about it makes me uncomfortable, like the responsibility and having to deal with another person all the time. i know that sounds really shitty, but i feel like i spent all my love ill ever have on that one person for two years and now that its gone, its never coming back. im still very lonely now but the thought of trying to fix that is really uncomfortable to me. its not that im incapable of making friends, its that after a while ill kind of get tired of them? something about consistency makes me restless and i know its shitty because im a really up and down kind of friend, like recently ive only been talking to people when i feel like it, which is one big reason i dont want to make friends and put people through that.

back to the labels and identity thing. its always kind of been there, but recently the urge to cling to some sort of label or answer for my behavior and thoughts and feelings has been so strong that i almost wish i was genuinely delusional or something. or just that something was seriously wrong with me, just so that i have something new and big to cling to. i know thats bad and unhealthy but i dont know how else to function. ive been thinking recently that i have a lot of narcissistic traits, or at least self centered tendencies. i always operate like im the main character. i always do things with the thought in mind that there will be no negative outcomes for me, and if there so happens to be one, then ill somehow weasel my way out of it. i think that everything will always go well for me, which is weird because it very much has not in the past. a lot of bad things have happened to me, but in a weird fucked up kind of way im glad they did. because now i have some sort of trauma to cling to and roll into my identity. but the flaw in that is that i need a new one every so often. i cycle through different traumas and disorders and sexualities and genders and names and everything that i really, genuinely dont know who i am. and thats why i think somethings wrong with me. because what normal person thinks and operates like this? i dont know if i fully described the reality of my situation, or if im just saying that because i want it to seem worse, but thats about it. sorry for the long ask. i hope you can get around to answering

Hi anon,

I think to some degree its okay to like labels, as they can provide us a sense of structure and being able to name things can give a lot of people comfort. It's also okay to change your identity, as identities are fluid and naturally change over time. You're allowed to change your identity as many times as you want because it's literally yours to dictate, you know?

However, there are many different possibilities as to why you may be experiencing this frequent shift in identity. While I can help explain what these possibilites might be, it is crucial to consult with a mental health professional for an accurate assessment and diagnosis.

One of the possibilities is that you could have some narcissistic tendencies, as from my understanding of NPD, it's about basically trying to regain control of feeling worthless or helpless by constructing a reality of grandiosity that can be incredibly fragile (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Also in the realm of personality disorders, the idea of having "identity disturbance" and "unhealthy obsessions" with someone is characteristic of BPD. Identity disturbance, also sometimes called identity diffusion, is described as an "incoherence, or inconsistency in a person's sense of identity. This could mean that a person's goals, beliefs, and actions are constantly changing. It could also be that the person takes on personality traits of people around them, as they struggle to have and maintain their own identity." Of course, you can experience identity disturbance without BPD, but it's still a common experience among pwBPD.

Another possibility is tired to when you said "i cycle through different traumas and disorders and sexualities and genders and names and everything that i really, genuinely don't know who i am" as it reminded me of how a system might experience their identity, especially if they don't realize they're a system. This is not me saying you're definitely a system, but the possibility of plurality could be something to explore further as well.

Ultimately, this could be something to explore further with the guidance and mediation of a mental health professional such as a therapist, who can work with you to identify more concretely why you may be experiencing these things. They can also help you navigate these feelings and provide guidance tailored to your specific needs.

It's important to practice self-care and be gentle with yourself as you navigate your identity. Please know that it's okay to take your time and embrace the journey of self-discovery. If anyone has any additional insights or suggestions, feel free to add on. Otherwise, I hope I could help, and please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

#mod bun #trauma talks

[crazysodomite]

ruminating endlessly over my sad circumstances... 😁

i just regret the wasted time and resources at this point. so many years wasted and so much pain. wowwww... well.

im trying to learn to live in solitude. i’ll never truly be happy and fulfilled in a normal way so all i can do is improve myself. theres no horrible damning flaw i have to work through im just mentally ill lol. i have to get used to solitude. focusing on myself, handling all my issues by myself, helping and supporting myself. the only thing i can do is improve myself and my skills, my work, try to enjoy the little things that i like by myself. its over bruh. im too exhausted and mentally ill and drained to truly make new relationships... so im learning to be quiet and solitary. i have a lot to learn yet in this life...

as all people do i yearned for fulfilling relationships/happiness/etc. but it doesn’t seem possible. i put so much effort and time into my relationships. and i just get burned repeatedly. what other people do is out of my control so i try to not dwell on it... i try to not be sad or angry...

i like giving gifts, attention, support to people. i like talking to people.😁 i give people so much but no one values or cares about it. okay. i know theres millions of great people out there who i would get along with great. and i even know them. but at this point my mental and physical health deteriorated so much and i’ve been burned so many times that i dont see myself making any really close friends in the future. maybe ever.

they didnt lie having no support system is truly worse for your brain than smoking, drinking and doing drugs all at the same time. solitude is detrimental to my health but i can’t do anything about it

 the life of a shy and lonesome guy is fucking hard. i would  go so much further in life if i got along with my peers and had supportive people in my formative years. thats whats really fucking with me. its hard for me to really try and achieve my dreams when theres no one who cares and supports me. its hard to make improvements on my mental health when theres no one to support or help me. living alone is hardddd... but i have to do it...

[yonkimint]

Okay so i am here and thinking thoughts!!

Baby jung is eventually gonna have to tell tae (and everybody else) that shes behind the twt page and that Thats how she actually found out about hana.

Thats gonna be....something. like theres some ethics concerns there at the very least. At least probably from taes pov. Not to mention how everybody else might feel about it. Especially if a certain tiny rapper decides to send a message 😏

Like its obvious she did her best to keep everything above board (and i personally think she succeeded swimmingly) but i can also see how those involved might feel a bit differently about it.

Taes got some fkn nerve tho!! Sir i know you like to pretend to be kinda stupid but you usually have some kind of vaguely plausible deniability to help you along. Rn tho youre literally getting upset for the same bs you pulled like a week ago. As a professional idiot i am, frankly, disappointed.

Not to mention youve gotta pick one my dude; you can either be oblivious to baby jungs (and your own) feelings OR you can have feelings about her activities with men that arent you. It cant bw both, especially when you have a wholeass actual gf dear lord!!

Anyway i will miss you and the story this week!! But again i hope you have the most fun and if you feel like it i look forward to fit pics and live blogging!!

Also. ive been listening to phase me by woosung on a loop for like 2 days and im tryna send baby jung some of that energy!!!

Yes! I think we are so focused on Tae being the biggest bag of dicks currently that we are forgetting that y/n is not totally innocent in any of this. I want to reemphasize that y/n NEVER told Tae how she felt. It doesn’t matter how obvious it is, if she’s going to complain about Tae not communicating, she also needs to check herself!

And the ethics of the Bangtan Secret are very questionable. Like if she really wanted to be above board, she should have had one of her classmates answer Tae instead of being the one to personally advise him. Idk. That’s just my personal thoughts.

I know we’re all huge Baby Jung supporters around here but we can’t dismiss her character flaws just because Tae is being worse currently!

Anyway tl;dr they both have their own shit to work on!

Also, I miss y’all so much!!! I’m waiting for my friend’s flight to get in so I have a moment to answer everyone’s messages! I drove by Lollapalooza today when I got into Chicago and I’m so hyped!!!

#the end is you and i asks

[pezpenser205]

btw i didnt realize how funny this was until i started working on it but i do want to share because the concept is insane and one of the weirdest things ive ever done that i think would be some shit a psychologist would have a field day with. so when i kill myself (because thats 100% gonna be how ill die theres not even any debate in my mind atp and ive been hyperfixated on killing myself recently. yes my hyperfixation rn is suicide and i cant concentrate on anything else. very serious im so serious about this. not kidding. either that or ill die by falling somewhere like in the shower bc my knees have been degenerating bc of genetic reasons and i have terrible balance) im gonna post an entire character assassination document on myself listing off every reason why you shouldnt feel bad for me and everything ive done wrong in college APA format (at least everything ive done wrong that i know of and feel free to mention if im missing something after i post it. not that ill be able to edit it though sorry /silly) so people will finally fucking get why ive come to the (Objectively Correct) conclusion that i shouldnt exist due to me only getting worse and less valuable with age like some kind of reverse wine or cheese.

it is a provable math equation. ive written it. im formatting this like its a product pitch to rich investors. it will be an absolutely ironclad essay with zero rebuttal and it will be awesome and hopefully the only of its kind /hj

i literally planned to make an entire spreadsheet accompanying it to keep everyone from pitying me or thinking my suicide note is a pity ploy im deadass. i didnt realize how ridiculous this idea was until i started on the outline earlier and i suddenly gained more awareness of what i was doing. i am voluntarily putting more effort into an essay on why i suck than i ever put into anything else in my entire life and if that isnt a perfect representation of every reason why i shouldnt be here.

im gonna be the first guy ever to do a character assassination on himself if i die just so people wont mourn me or treat it like some great tragedy even for a second out of a weird sense of obligation to my family or the fact that i was a trans sibling of theirs or whatever. i am going to make sure that people read that document and are like "wow this guy had a few issues i fucking hate this guy im glad hes dead. anyway rip bozo lmaooo. even if this guy wasnt trans he for sure wouldve killed himself and good on him for doing so"

i wouldnt have it any other way either i genuinely hope people meme the shit out of me dying because my entire life up until this point has been me internalizing a caricature of every bad trait people have told me i had until i dont enjoy anything on my own and cease to be a standalone person when i dont have external validation constantly feeding me good things to overshadow the bad stuff ive internalized. im very plainly and transparently a fake caricature of a toxic person thats hollow on the inside and nothing else so its only fair that people get to make fun of those traits when im dead too.

being able to lay out the extremely stupid and meandering reasons why ive developed this way (looking back most of them are 100% my fault also) is going to look like some kind of bogus alchemy. i literally purposely made myself mentally ill when i was 10 or 11 because of septiplier and sanscest lemon fanfic. consciously and intentionally. you cant tell me that fact alone isnt hilarious. thats gold who even does that. thats satire thats not a real person who exists and yet i do exist right here in this desk chair (which is why i shouldnt exist /lh)

this is really a dark subject matter but i genuinely believe this document is gonna be really funny okay. theres already so much good copypasta material here. i for real do not believe there is anyone on earth who has developed in quite this weird fucking way thats has whatever kind of "im too self aware and accepting of my own flaws to function as a real person" disorder that i have and i want to leave something of that behind so whatever is wrong with me wont be lost.

all of this to say, just know if i die you have something to look forward to at least because i wish i could be there to see if anyone actually reads it when it drops and im not even DONE yet. the one thing im really good at is dramatic displays of suicidality and internalizing every word anyones ever said to me/about me apparently like thats the only thing thats stayed consistent throughout everything im writing in this silly little word document.

drapes myself over a fainting couch. woe is me. the most earnest art ive made in years is about how im unable to produced anything worthwhile. the irony is palpable and beautiful. wish i could put this energy into Literally Anything Else but alas that is the point of the essay

#op #suicide #suicide joke #i am so desensitized to the concept of my own death that ive turned my suicide note into a joke even though it started serious #and honestly thats beautiful #i love me

[growingingreenwood]

#memes #writing memes #i make way too many memes to be honest #but thats okay theres worse flaws to have

[alintric]

9 years old?

i was very into one direction and for some reason i had my hair cut very short, which didnt suit me at all

0/10 what the hell was i doing back then

#i cant rock short hair and thats okay #theres worse flaws to have #ask

[neon-junkie]

the argument of “you cant like micah because hes a bad person, but you can like the others” is so funny. the gang is all bad people, theyre all outlaws, killers, etc. and the whole point of the game is redemption!!

some characters choose to be redeemed, such as arthur and john, who realize their flaws and attempt to improve themselves.

others dont, micah and dutch continue getting worse. but just because they don’t have a redemption arc, doesnt mean that you cant like them.

you can simply like villains. thats it. you can find them interesting, hot, relatable, etc. you can do whatever the fuck you want, to be quite honest.

even if other characters did redeem themselves, that doesnt mean that the blood on their hands washes away. that doesn’t mean all the innocent people that arthur murdered have forgiven him. that doesn’t mean the strangers the women of the gang robbed have forgiven them. that doesn’t mean the bounty hunters that athur and charles murder whilst saying trelawny have forgiven them. and so on.

everybody in this game is shitty. everybody. the game is all to do with perspective, because back then, everything was shit but you had to choose which shit you can tolerate the most.

i mean, jack grows up to seek revenge and murders a man who was only doing his job. so thats okay? so murder is okay but were drawing the line at racism? in a game set in the 1800s?

and what about javier? the man who sides with dutch and also spirals out of control, becoming a villain in rdr1. he’s a villain. so, we’re not allowed to stan him either, right?

obviously racism is bad. holy fuck, do i really have to repeat that? but a lot of the gang members are racist, in ways that you may not think. ive recently seen the argument that arthur calling lenny ‘boy’ is racist. okay then, cancel him. or are you going to sweep that under the rug because its arthur?

you personally can pick and choose whatever you want to enjoy. thats fine, thats always been fine. but to pick and choose for other people? man, grow up. if you cant separate fiction from reality then thats your own damn fault.

and if you decide it’s okay to stoop to micahs level, to abuse another person who has never ever once supported micahs actions, to put false claims in their mouth, man, you’re just as bad as micah, if not worse. because this isnt fiction, this is real life, false accusations can really damage a person, plus, you know, you’re just a shit person for abusing others also.

to be quite honest, im never going to change. i used to think micah was just an okay character until people began telling me that im not allowed to enjoy him. im stubborn, were all stubborn. telling somebody they cant enjoy something is only going to push them to enjoy it more.

and y’all arent going to change. y’all are going to continue thinking ur in the right and whatknot. alright, you do you, i do me. the block button is a free feature that is very much encouraged to use when you see somebody that you dont like.

blacklists exist. use them. filter out the tags you dont like. block the characters you hate, the ships you hate, the people you hate.

everybody has their own responsibility to filter out the content they disslike. its YOUR responsibility, not anybody elses. and you can’t go onto somebodys blog and moan about their content, like.... dont go on their blog then? block them.

also, theres real life people out there who are racist, who are pedos, murderers, rapists. there are people out there who are actual villains, but you wanna attack somebody simply because they like a fictional character?? what?? why are you turning a blind eye to the real villains?

go and do something useful. go and fight the real evil out there, not somebody on the internet whos fucking horny.

practise what you preach.

#the tea #micah bell #rdr2 #red dead redemption #red dead redemption 2 #fandom discourse #yet again

[dyketubbo]

im rewatching doomsday (comps of all povs of course) and. yeah i just.. feel bad for the lmanburgians. i dont know how i could just. say these people deserved it, when they all sound, panicked and desperate and so so fucking sad. long long ramble under the cut as i recount the events and pick out a bunch of little things

even the day before then is painful. ranboos panic room. ranboo and tubbos talk (tubbo admitting that hes wrong, saying he believes that history is repeating itself and trusting ranboo because he believes in his loyalty), fundy showing the ring toss. tubbos surprise at being told to kill dream before stating that quackity would be in control if he didnt (god, did he plan to fail?). tommy being so so excited. everyone playing ring toss and cheering on jack. tommy still believing in tubbo. tubbo panicking. ranboo and tommy and techno talking, ranboo giving them info. dream placing walls and quackity instructing tubbo on where to kill dream. dream lying about the community house. the entire community house debacle. just, everything.

and then doomsday itself. having to frantically get there because it started early, tubbo only having diamond armor to protect him, fundy standing still after he sabotaged them. tubbo and ranboos genuine despair about the apiary.

tubbo eventually going nonverbal and actively putting himself in danger, not even moving away from techno at first and getting in the way of the firework launcher. tubbo trying to save tommy from the fireworks, ponks broken "dont come over here!" after she was trying to save his cat, tommys face falling and desperate attempts at convincing techno, ranboo going "its all gone", niki spiralling and silently burning down the tree, quackitys pure anger. all the death messages.

jack going "what is there left to protect", tommy brokenly trying to accept that its gone as tubbo and quackity blankly do accept it. jack going "i lost everything again". tommy desperately trying to understand dream, on the verge of tears as he asks why dream didnt just hurt him. his low health and food as hes unable to do anything anymore, his quiet gasp as he spots ghostbur, tubbos tiny shake of his head when dream says dream and tommys story wont be over.

tubbo and quackity breaking the repeaters. ghostburs "i didnt even know we were fighting". ghostbur finding out phil let friend die, hes pained "phil? but i- i gave, i gave phil to look after. and dream found me friend, and technoblade said we were friends", tommys pained talk about technoblade. "we were never his friend. to him, all of this was just an act of politics, an act of clout and a-a social ladder, and you won't remember. tubbo you will, and to you big q, this was a friendship. but to technoblade, this was a ladder. and techno climbed to the tippity talk. do you wanna know the only way you can go? on the ladder? -- and once you reach the top of the ladder tubbo, you can only go down."

quackity asking to sing the anthem again, him strumming as ghostbur sings (and tubbo and tommy joining in). ghostbur forgetting the second verse because it blew up. quackity remembering it, them stumbling through it. tommys "tubbo? im so so sorry", tubbos quiet "its okay." the four all singing together. tubbo looking at the lava with an ender pearl in his hand, tommy correcting quackity and going "our l'manburg". ghostburs speech about friend, about people not taking him seriously just because he has memory loss.

meanwhile.. phil and techno were laughing. cracking jokes. phil mocks them as he spawns withers on the apiary, going "ohhh noo not the bees!". techno shouts at tommy and shoots at him and tubbo. he kills jack and doesnt even notice that it was one of his lives lost. jacks death itself proves that it doesnt take any particular intent, doesnt have to mean anything to the killer. techno and phil were willing to kill people. it would be foolish of them to act as if there were no risks in the terms of canon lives, especially with phil. phil doesnt take ghostbur seriously, treats his despair as an opportunity to drill in a lesson. the most either of them lost was some of the dogs and used up potions, fireworks, and wither skulls

and then theres dream. dream whose been harming the l'manburgians since the beginning, who had taken tubbo hostage, offered eret a chance to betray them all, who had been the man in tommys walls and offering money to tubbo and jack to try and get them to destroy things, who tried to get tommy to kill tubbos villagers. dream, who took tommys discs over and over, who killed tommy twice in one day, who stopped caring about his friends that loved him and were so so loyal. dream, who helped schlatt and pushed wilbur deeper into his spiral, who even then tried to manipulate tommy.

dream, who helped destroy l'manburg the first and second time, who took advantage of tubbo so he could have a premeditated kidnapping of tommy. dream, who abused tommy, physically, psychologically, emotionally. dream, who degraded tubbo and had taken ranboos memory book (which btw, since ranboos memory loss counts as a mental disability with the memory book as his aid, thats dream taking the thing that aids ranboo in dealing with his disability).

dream, who had been the reason l'manburg was created. dream, who got to destroy l'manburg three times. dream won. and techno and phil dont regret it, dont care.

maybe l'manburg was never meant to be. and sure, it started with stealing and an attempt to monopolize on potions but. that wasnt even l'manburg then, was it? it was just wilbur and tommy having fun. l'manburg came after. after the police hurt them. l'manburg started as a silly little revolution, led by a naïve man who thought he could win wars by saying no. it was a place for a family, a place for them to escape from dream. it was a place to try and escape the harm of those outside the walls. it was meant to be safe, even if those against them made it hard to be. it was made from love. it was meant to be happy. it was a symphony, however unfinished.

so. i don't know. i just feel, bad. they never really won, did they? tragedy after tragedy, death after death, destruction after destruction, betrayal after betrayal, hurt after hurt. and now what's left of them, really? out of the founders, erets doing the best and even shes doing awful, forever trying to make up for what he did. tubbos paranoia led him to developing nukes in a desperate attempt to stay safe, because he was taught to stay quiet and keep his emotions to himself, because his death was "justified", because nukes and walls and weapons are the only way he can feel safe anymore.

tommy went through months of abuse, lost all of his lives and suffered upon coming back, suicidal but unable to bring himself to do it because limbo is worse, feeling lost and like he has no family anymore other than wilbur, who he knows is hurting him but cant bring himself to leave, who loved lmanburg so so dearly and only wanted a home, still doesnt have one (tommy from everywhere, tommy from nowhere at all). niki who loved lmanburg and wilbur so much that it hollowed her out and made her bitter and shes so used to being spoken over that all she can think to do is raise her voice and get pissed, who cant see wilbur as a good person anymore because shes hurt and hasnt truly recovered and she doesnt know how to cope without being angry.

jack manifold feels forgotten, hes lost all his lives and crawled out of hell and no one truly noticed, he doesnt even believe that niki really cares, hes desperate and has made his purpose to be spiteful and angry because he cant deal with the emptiness that comes when he realizes theres no point. fundys desperate to have friends, family, a partner, anyone thatll love him, anyone thatll keep him safe, slowly killing himself with cigarettes and disowned because of giving too little too late, because he was too little too late.

and wilburs lost himself. spiraling, paranoid. a young, naïve man who wanted to fight swords with words, who wanted to impress his father, who wanted a nation of his own to feel safe, who was so effected by erets betrayal that he cant trust anyone but himself, whose possessive nature eats him from the inside out, desperate for control and unable to let go of the only person he knows loves him unconditionally

all because outside forces kept pushing, kept destroying, kept ruining them and hurting them and traumatizing them and taking away their homes and pets and loved ones. and i just. cant feel happy for the ones that hurt them, i cant feel victorius, triumphant, any of that. i just feel bad that the l'manburgians never got to be a family. i know they arent the best people but shit, i love them anyways, love them because theyre flawed and because theyre *people*, people who tried so so hard and got pushed so so much and. fuck, i cant be happy that the people who loved nature and play fought and laughed by campfires and read poetry and re-enacted theatre and loved each other and wanted to *live* (even if they were willing to die, if it meant giving everyone else a chance).. lost. they lost.

canonical years of work down the drain in one day. records of history gone, now only remembered in full by a traumatized teenager who was taught not to talk about his negative emotions, and even he misremembers some parts. they didnt even lose fairly. they had no chance. they couldnt have prepared for withers, for tnt rain, for the hounds. they were poor, weaker than their opponents, sabotaged by one of their own. thats.. tragic.

doomsday was a tragedy. i cant agree that it was deserved. i cant agree that they had it coming, that they deserved to lose homes and pets and limbs and lives and land because they werent the greatest people around.

a small country of less than 10 people (at both creation and destruction) now a giant crater in the ground, remnants of a parisitic egg taking over the land. and it wasnt even lost fairly. three people were stronger than an entire nation, even with all of its allies. two anarchists working with an abusive tyrant. so, no. doomsday wasnt deserved. people dont deserve tragedy. there were better ways, i truly cant be happy that the way chosen was violence. i cant.

l'manburg's citizens deserved better. they really did. the ends dont justify the means. and god, am i fucking tired of "justice". if justice means choosing violence over love and respect and caring about those less strong than you, i dont wanna hear about it. fuck that man, id rather love and be loved than constantly give a shit about making up for hurting others by getting hurt, thats stupid and cruel and i cant see it as okay on a moral level. not when the people that got hurt deserved to be loved and cared about and protected and *talked to* instead of constantly shot down.

of course for the narrative i can enjoy violence and characters getting hurt and i do like how "real" it all is, the despair and dissonance in tone and how terrifyingly messy it all is. out of story perspective- honestly rather cool even if it makes me feel bad. in story perspective- holy fucking shit no that wasnt deserved and god i hope everyone hurt will be able to heal and learn to love and be loved again because thats such a terrifying thing to go through. from a detached pov i can appreciate the insight into everyone involved and i like the plotlines that came from it, but from a compassionate pov i just wish the l'manburgians were allowed to be happy and treated as equals so they didnt have to go through all of this

#dsmp #long post #this issss 22 paragraphs i think? woo boy! #most of it is liveblogging but after a while it just gets into my thoughts on the whole situation #c!technoblade critical #c!philza critical #c!dream critical #im just stating what happened but like im sure if i dont put those tags ill get fuckin jumped lol #tubbo #tommy #quackity #ghostbur #ponk #niki nihachu #fundy #ranboo #dont think i missed anyone but if i did. whoops #also shoutout to the ppl i didnt mention i do still appreciate their contributions (like puffy hbomb sapnap etc) #amputation ment #death ment #abuse ment #uhhhhhhhh #ableism ment #mask mews #kidnapping ment #suicide ment #l'manburg #ask to tag #doomsday dsmp

[zorbs]

so the whole. american coach getting kicked off his team. they said that like. they got rid of him because black genes are naturally superior to white genes??

which um. i do genuinely think the goal of this was to go "black people are not lesser than white people" but yknow! literal eugenics was not the way to go about it, and the intent doesnt excuse that. and poc shouldnt have to be Genetically Superior to not be treated like utter shit. u should not b racist because like. poc are human beings. got nothing to do with "physically superior black genes" or whatever

but wait rads! arent the main characters asian? yes....

so. what are asians according to the manga's weird eugenics thing. um. we're like. rock bottom ! "isn't. isn't the creator asian" yeah. yeah. thats the main reason why i think the whole thing is Like That because of a Lot of ignorance, poor education on race, and internalized racism. a lot of manga/anime handles race poorly in the sense that theyre intentionally making a mockery of other poc/other asians, but my guy is saying. essentially like.

"asians r naturally smaller weaker and worse at sports than all the other races such as american and black. however we are strong and still worthy so we can overcome our natural inferiority through hard work" which. 1) untrue ?? thats eugenics haha. haha. 2) ive always wondered what that made me as an asian american. cause yknow. american isnt a race. so like. where do the eugenics place me. 3) its clearly attempting to get at the idea of "all races are made up of good people" but just. *gestures at that huge lump of "my being asian makes me naturally inferior to everyone else and i must work hard and train hard to defeat my terrible asian genes"* there is some Internalized Racism.

so. in essense.

they tried to do anti racism but came all the way back around and were racist again. Regardless. regardless !!!!! regardless of the intent its still. bad. for yknow. mainly eugenics. and the thing in the last ask. and probably other things (its been a very long time since ive read it, ive just begun to reread it to get a refresher). it just. makes me sad ! because i thought it was going someplace but. the creator was Not educated enough on the subject of race to get things there and it ended up saying instead of "poc are worthy of love and respect for being people" it was more like "poc are worthy of love and respect if they prove themself first. black people are people because of the stereotype that i believe that black people's dna makes them better at sports. and asians are only worthy in sports if they overcome their suckass asian genes that make them naturally inferior." and god forbid! god forbid anyone mention other races that Exist.

i mean. if u want to read it i think outside of the [gestures to giant burning pile of flames that is. that.] i enjoyed reading it? but like. id say i probably wouldnt have read it if i had started it later in my life knowing this so i wouldnt have to deal with thinking about if its okay to consume this media but that feels like. cowardly. its flaws have me think about Things A Lot but also just. ew. like. the flaws are Flaws with capital F. im glad i Think About These Things cause they Should Be Thought About or else [gestures once again] but also :( :( :( :(

the story and manga is really special to me (once again. i cried ! ) but!!! gosh theres so much wrong with it hfmmd.fm.....

i hope this makes sense once again super sorry for typing forever i just havent been able to talk ab this with someone before

wow okay. i totally do understand what you’re saying it does make sense. and from what you’re saying i do believe that the creator probably didn’t mean for it to come off the way it did. it’s just unfortunate he went about writing on these topics this way. i think for me personally this might make me too uncomfortable to read then if i’m being honest. i’m glad that you enjoyed it when you first read it besides Those Parts though

#idk i’ll still always keep the idea of going to it on the side burner maybe #bc the manga still intrigues me besides that #but at the very least i don’t think i’ll be going to it any time soon #i really want to start reading more sports manga bc i know i’ll enjoy them #but i know i’m gonna get to blue lock next #we just got a letter~ #long post

[amazingphanisnotonfire-imagines]

Jughead//let it out so i unburden my soul

Request: Can I request a Jughead/Reader with the song Trying My Best by Anson Seabra , maybe Jughead being soft/uncertain about being the "serpent king" and you trying to comfort him, aka just soft fluff sorta stuff

hey! happy halloween!! i know this isn’t halloweeny, but i do have some things planned so keep your eyes peeled! i hope you enjoy this! this has also been sitting in my drafts for a while so it might be a little different to how i usually right. anyway, have a great day/night!! 

“Jones. What the fuck are we gonna do? We have the Ghoulies after us. We have Hiram’s minions after us. And half of us have joined the farm, the other half are selling drugs.” Sweet Pea rants. An emergency Serpent meeting has been called and your boyfriend is stressed, to say the least. 

“I dunno Sweet Pea. Just let me think.” Jughead replies and you squeeze his hand reassuringly. 

“You’re supposed to be our leader. Lead us.” He continues and theres’s a few people mumbling quietly, each of them sending side glances to their king. 

“I don’t know Sweet Pea!” He snaps before storming away. The room goes quiet, everyone looking at each other unsure of what to say. Even Sweet Pea looks a little guilty, but once people start talking again, he’s quickly recovered.

“He couldn’t lead a dog on a leash.” Sweet Pea mutters and a few members laugh. 

“Shut up Sweet Pea.” You roll your eyes and push past him. “Jug?” You ask and look around the darkened trailer park. Jughead is sat a few feet away, his head in his hands while he sobs quietly. 

“I can’t do this.” He mumbles and you sigh, sitting beside him on the cold ground. 

“Of course you can. You’ll figure it out. You always do.” You wrap an arm around him and he leans into your touch, letting out a small sigh. 

“Not just that. I mean the whole serpent king thing.” 

“Oh.” 

“Everybody thinks I have it figured out. That I know what I’m doing because I always seem to. I always walk around like I know what to do no matter what happens. But I really don’t. Ever since I became serpent king I’ve just been telling people to do the first thing that comes to my head and then hoping for the best. I’m in too deep.” He rambles and you pull him even closer to you. 

“Oh, Jug.” You sigh. The boy you’ve been in love with since you were 13, and friends with for even longer, is sat beside you, pouring his heart out and there’s nothing you can do to make him feel better. 

“I just wish everyone could see that they’re not the only one’s that’s been in pain. I know that the majority of the serpents have it worse than I do, but I’ve still got problems and then I have to fix all of this and I just dunno...” He trails off and you press a kiss to his forehead. “I just wish they understood.” 

“I know.” 

“Before I was serpent king, I was searching for who I was. Thats what I’m supposed to do at my age. Figure myself out, I was pretending to be me until I figure out who me truly was. And then when my dad stepped down I thought I had finally found who I was but if anything, it’s just made me feel less like me. But now I can’t stop doing it, these people need me but I can’t do figure anything out.”

“Jughead. You have been doing an amazing job. Do you think your dad knew what he was doing instantly?” You ask and he shrugs. “I can tell you that he didn’t. Do you want to know how many stories I’ve heard of FP’s younger days. He had no idea what he was doing for a good year and bit when he became king. He figured it out and he learned from his mistakes. And even when he got the hang of it he was still making mistake-” 

“Thanks.” He grumbles and you roll your eyes. 

“Thats the whole point of being serpent king. Its like being a first time parent to god knows how many children.” You nudge him and he chuckles softly. “For someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, you’re doing a pretty great job.” 

“You have to say that.” 

“No I don’t. If I thought you were doing rubbish I would tell you. You know that.”

“True.” He shrugs and you smile softly at him. “I just don’t know what the best road to go down is. All I know is I’m trying my best, but my best doesn’t seem to good enough. Everyday another problem seems to appear out of nowhere and now I have a million problems that I need to sort out.” 

“Jug. Just breathe.” You tell him. “Take a deep breath. You’ve got all these thoughts running around in your head, we just need to take them one at a time.” You say and he nods, taking a deep breath.

“I have all of these flaws that aren’t helping. I don’t listen to people enough, I’m too distracted, I have other more important things to do, I can’t lead anybody, I don’t know how a gang works, I-” 

“Jughead.” You interrupt. “Look at me. Would you believe me if I told you that I’ve got flaws too?” You ask and you could see a smile starting to appear.

“Yes.” He nods and you look at him offended. 

“Rude. I wasn’t finished yet.” 

“I know.” He laughs. “I thought it would be funny. I can see by the look on your face that that was another thing I got wrong.” 

“Its fine.” You laughed. “It was funny.” You reassured him. 

“I’m still sorry.” He replied and kissed you. 

“So, I have flaws, you have flaws. Everyone has flaws. Even Sweet Pea has flaws.” 

“I could have told you that years ago.” 

“You didn’t know him years ago.” You raise an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, I know.” He nods and you laugh. 

“So, we all have flaws. And everyone knows that. There nothing to be ashamed of unless your flaw is you murder people sometimes, or you talk with your mouth full. Shit like that. Everything else, people get. And they more than likely have them flaws too. Nobody can be perfect, we just have to try our best.” 

“But I am and its not enough.” He argues. 

“It is. Do you really think if anybody in there were serpent king/queen, they would do a better job. You have so many things you need to deal with, you’re doing them as best you can.” 

“What do I do? I feel like the worst leader ever.” 

“I think in the history of bad leaders, you’re like, all the way at the bottom of the list.” You reply. “You’re going to be the best serpent king the serpents have ever known...don’t tell your dad I said that.” You nudge him making him giggle. 

“I promise.” 

“I know you’re going to lead the Serpents to do great things. And I’m gonna be by your side every step of the way.” You reassure him. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you too.” You smile brightly at him and he kisses you sweetly. 

“We’ll take in one problem at a time, okay?” 

“Yeah.” He nods. “Okay.”

#jughead #jughead imagine #jughead x reader #jughead x you #jughead jones #jughead jones imagine #jughead jones x reader #jughead jones x you #riverdale #riverdale imagine