#every other point is valid

[mxboxlocks]

im sorry i have to bitch about this

the term fully transitioned usually means to your own set transition goal. when someone is fully transitioned they are fully how they want and were meant to be. i'm not gonna sit here and pretend enbyphobes don't use this a lot (i should know being nonbinary) but i'm also not gonna pretend that it's some kind of bad thing to say things like "i fully transitioned" or "when i am fully transitioned".

you're right op! the bar can be set literally anywhere for anyone! so anyone can be fully transitioned at any personal stage! the journey is yours to fulfill! jesus!

this is such a good-hearted take but i just. really. are we really gonna sit here and act like setting personal goals and filling them implies there's one way to be trans

#box's lockbox #rant #sorry i just really needed to get this out #as an enby who hasn't transitioned medically and feels completely fine in my body #i am fully transitioned. #this is the way i am supposed to be. #of COURSE my personal goals being fulfilled doesn't imply im objectively correct #in fact my transition is a bit unorthodox #just. chill #ofc dont fucking ask people or tell people to fully transition #you dont know where theyre at in their goals #but the way this is written implies it doesnt mean that kind of use entirely #it seems like its also criticizing personal use #and that's stupid #every other point is valid #you DONT need dysphoria to be trans #you DONT have to medically transition to be trans #it's a personal feeling

[adelinamoteru]

purely fanon jason vent below so feel free to ignore

every other fic in the jason todd tag whether its romantic or platonic or whatever just has to include something about the no kill rule or him giving up killing like is it not enough ! have we not hashed out this argument enough already ! can I not read some jason content without having to be randomly bombarded by the morality police and how “oh jasons not killed anyone for x amount of months thats great! we knew u could do it jay”

and I wish I was just joking like I really do but I have scoured the tag almost from top to bottom and it always, without a doubt, has to come up at some point. its his fucking defining character trait apparently. mind u he’s not even the only dc character that kills but yall just won’t let it go! I do not need jason giving up his stance on killing to be written out for me to be able enjoy content about him

and whether its included so that his relationships with other characters can be viewed as ‘realistic’ is just so. what does it matter. its already fan-fiction who the hell cares about justifying the universe that you’re choosing to write him in

#jason todd #dc #red hood #dcu #pls do not interact if u have issues with jasons stance on vigilantism or whatever bc this is rlly not my point #idc whether u hate him for it or not to each their own #I just wish it wasn’t treated as some sort of stain on his character that needs to be addressed in every fic he appears in or else he — #cant be liked or something #like thats a topic that has to be addressed for my love of jason todd and his character and the love other charas have for him to be valid #its giving ‘jason u cannot be loved the way that u are’ #and this reiterates the point I made in a previous post about how ppl genuinely dont know how to perceive this conflict and its resolution #the other way around #and how bc of that its always jason who has to be portrayed as making amends or taking a knee #there are so many interesting facets to jason todd so why does it always have to circle back to this one thing #why is it that hes one of the only charas ive seen where a certain plot point can never be looked past when enjoying him in fandom

[midnight-moth]

Vaguepostingggggggg

#idk I just don’t think Phantom is a big dumb idiot #HCing him as autistic is totally fine and valid #but autistic people aren’t like total dumbasses #and also can we not confuse whimsy with … being a dumbass #no one here #from another place #I just find it kind of frustrating #I know part of his lack of understanding of the world is bc he’s new #but so was every other ghoul at one point #but he gets the big dumb dumb treatment and I can’t help but feel like it’s because ppl hc him as neurodivergent too #and then there’s the infantilizing #no I’m not taking about age regression fics #idk why it is getting under my skin but it is #it is not making him a dummy or ND #but the correlation that some people seem to be making with it #like correlating being ND with being a moron

[hua-mo-jin-is-a-cutie]

this is the only social media website where I feel like I can talk about this without getting hated by teenagers with no media literacy, but I watched (pirated) Hazbin Hotel. And while I'm still very critical of Viv herself and the decisions she's made about her staff and her public statements and her past actions, some of which are very gross, for what it's worth, I think Hazbin is alright.

There are things I'd do differently sure, but it's like... aggressively average. The music is hit or miss, with mostly catchy tunes accompanied by lyrics that often made me cringe a little by how they already feel like outdated references to current slang. I also really don't enjoy when they have a big musical number come out of nowhere and have other characters acknowledge that they're singing. It really takes away from the musical numbers themselves. it's like musical writing 101 to NOT do that.

I know this is something people tend to criticize, but I'll be honest I like most of the character designs. They have fairly distinct silhouettes and it's kinda what drew me in enough to watch it in the first place. I'm particularly fond of Nifty. I do think some of them are a bit too complex, too busy to be super appealing, and must be hell to animate. I also think there's not really much cohesion in character designs of the world other than color, and even that's a stretch. I wish we'd at least been given some sort of reason in the show that some demons are furries and others aren't.

The animation is pretty nice, though the camera movement tends to make it a bit hard for my eyes to focus when there's a lot going on.

I've seen a lot of people complain about the pacing and while I agree that things are moving too fast, that we need time to get to know these characters and this world and earn these, what are supposed to be, hard hitting moments. I also acknowledge that I like fast pacing. I want it to slow down, but not astronomically, just a smidge.

I'd say the writing is also hit or miss. Sometimes it's got me fairly entertained, but other times it's making me uncomfortable and not on purpose. Again, slang that will quickly become or already is irrelevant is a major issue for me.

Contrary to what I've seen many people saying, I actually thought episode 4 was handled decently enough. Honestly the pacing is really the only thing holding it back for me. It doesn't feel like it's glorifying or romanticizing sexual abuse or domestic violence. It frames Valentino as the abuser he is when it's most important, even when he is a bumbling idiot in other scenes. Scenes of abuse between angel and Val are taken seriously enough. I wasn't a huge fan of the song Poison, but I also don't think it's romanticizing SA. I mean it literally ends with Angel sobbing on the floor so... I dunno how anyone came to that conclusion. There are times when the show jokes about sexual assault which I do think is distasteful and is one of my gripes with the writing overall, however when it comes to the topic of angel and val, it's handled well enough.

I'm interested in seeing where the plot goes with how episode 6 ended even with it's flaws. It's going in an interesting direction so far and I think the music of that episode was pretty good, calling back to the first episode's song with Adam in a clever way.

So overall I'd give Hazbin like a 6/10. It's fine, but it's got flaws. I'd like to see the kinks ironed out in season 2 and have Viv acknowledge some of her mistakes or at least take criticism well for once.

Anyway, stan Nifty, she's best girl.

#hazbin hotel #vivziepop critical #tv review #Also I'd like to clarify for anyone that does wanna say I'm invalidating the SA survivors that dislike episode 4 #Your allowed to dislike it #If it's triggering that's totally valid #While I haven't experienced exactly what angel is going through #I have been manipulated and I was sexually asulted #though mine was a 1 time thing and also in a medical setting #so pretty different #Point being #Not every SA survivor is gonna feel the same way about it #It's okay to not like the show #But let others find comfort in it's portrayal of Angel as a victim because they might just relate to it #It's okay to depict victims that aren't perfect #Peace out yall

[sharvariq]

i hate the way the game pushes you to romance north despite her and markus having no romantic chemistry whatsoever, and i absolutely despise the "act natural" scene in capitol park where acting natural according to david cage is non-consensually kissing a woman?? it's so icky, they did my boy markus so wrong in that one.

as much as i don't agree with the majority of north's opinions and i think she's severely underdeveloped as a character who deserved to be more multidimensional, i also don't want to be an asshole to her. i'm ready to do that though if being considerate and empathetic ends in her and markus having a random fling in the middle of an android uprising

#as for the underdeveloped part i stand by my point #i understand where her resentment towards humans came from #but i think she would've been more interesting if she didn't advocate for extreme violence every step of the way #her and markus should've grown and learned from each other instead of what happened #which was north's relationship meter either skyrocketing because you chose to carry out a brutal revolution #or her following you for plot reasons while being entirely against every (valid) peaceful option markus went for #detroit become human #dbh #dbh markus #dbh north

[bisexualamy]

I see people talk about fanfiction and novels being different mediums a lot, and while I don’t necessarily disagree, I don’t feel like I understand either. In your opinion, what makes them different mediums from each other? What decides that two things are separate mediums like in general? It’s totally cool if you don’t wanna answer this btw, I know it’s kind of a lot

No worries I think that's an interesting question! With any categories, the boundaries on this are going to be fuzzy, but the reason I believe they're different mediums is that fundamentally, on a metatextual level, the languages are different. What do I mean by this? Let's use film as an example, a medium that I'd argue is very obviously a different medium than novels, even if we may not be able to articulate all the reasons why.

What are some attributes of film that differentiate it from novels (another storytelling medium) or paintings (another visual medium)? Films and novels are both storytelling mediums, but films have visual and auditory components. They also mainly consist of storytelling through visual cues and dialogue. Exposition is given visually or in media res by characters speaking. In a novel, your omniscient narrator giving you a few paragraphs of background on your main characters is common, and so expected it probably flies over the reader's head. In a film, a narrator doing the exact same thing for all the main characters often comes off clumsy. It takes you out of the story in a film, where it doesn't in a novel.

Film is also a time-based medium. A film unfolds over time, and you cannot experience the entire film in one moment or glance. That's not true of a painting (at least traditionally). With a painting, you can view the whole painting in one look. Now, you can sit with a painting, pick out details, analyze the craft or ponder it for a long time and watch as new aspects jump out at you. Fundamentally, however, if you wanted to view a whole painting in one look, you can, and it would still make sense. You cannot do that with a film. On the other hand, a painting is typically not an auditory experience. To do so would be an experimental use of the form. In modern film-making, the exact opposite is true. Music, dialogue, and environmental sound, all of these things are essential to how a film tells a story. To not use them would be considered experimental or odd.

These are three different mediums with three different "languages" in how they interact with their audience. They may share parts of their languages, like I said above, but they don't speak the same language. What works well for one medium can come off clumsy or strange in another.

I believe fanfic and novels have sufficiently different languages that they should be considered different mediums. Both of them are short or long form written mediums telling some sort of story. But fanfic's relationship to its source material is such an inherent trait that novels do not have. The relationship doesn't have to be positive (it's often, in fact, argumentative or strained or dismissive), but the relationship exists. Even in AU fanfiction. Even in fics full of OCs.

In canon compliant and even canon divergent fics, this relationship is more obvious. These fics are both conversations with the source material as much as they are stories. They're playing in the author's sandbox, or they're wrecking their sandcastle and building something else. They're saying "I like/dislike what you did with this specific story, and I'm going to show you that by rewriting or expanding it." They take large aspects of the author's story whole cloth: the characters, the setting, the magic system, the tech, etc.

These fanfics often have little exposition at the top because they presume a familiarity with the characters, the world, or both. This alone makes them really different from novels. Creatively and seamlessly integrating exposition, immersing your audience in a new world and convincing them to stay, is a really important aspect of a novel that these fics don't have to contend with. This alone fundamentally changes how you'd structure a story.

For AU fics, both fics in AU settings and AU fics full of OCs, the above still applies. These fics are still a conversation with the source material. Something about the source material compelled an author to flip it and remix it and change it around. That conversation might be "in the source material, these characters suffered, and I don't want them to suffer any longer" or it could be "I felt the story had a vacancy that this OC fills" or it could be "if these characters had the time/awareness/ability to grow closer, they would've fallen in love." These are all direct commentaries on the original work.

An exercise that I believe illustrates this point the best is to try and adapt an AU fanfic to an original work. Try to file the serial numbers off. I've done this with some of my fic, and it just doesn't work. You don't realize how much you presume the audience knows until you have to cater to an audience who knows nothing of the source material. That hilarious joke you wrote? Turns out it's only funny because it's a nod to this character's original characterization. This awesome climatic plot point that ties the whole story together? Turns out in relies on a specific bit of lore, a quirk of the magic system, or an aspect of the character's past history or personality. Now that this is a novel, you have to back-fill all of that exposition. And you can try to do that, but watch how your story gets clunky and bloated. You will have to start viciously killing your darlings, as you realize that your favorite scene is beautiful in a fic, but sounds awkward and out of place in a novel. Soon, you're basically just rewriting the whole thing to fit a different medium.

Many fanfic writers are extremely talented. And much of that talent, that wit, that perfect line that you can't get out of your head, is integrally informed by your knowledge of the source material. The irony falls flat without having read the source books. The relationships suddenly feel shallow when you don't have seasons of backstory to deepen them. You do not realize how much of fanfic writing consists of this back and forth until you go looking for it.

And here's the thing: if your fanfic has a totally AU setting and it consists of completely original characters, I'd argue that's just a novel posted to AO3. If all you need to do is change the names to make it work, that's a novel. This is why Clueless is inspired by Jane Austen's Emma and not an AU fanfic of it. If you've never read Emma, if you went into Clueless not knowing that Emma was the inspiration for it, you'd perfectly understand the movie.

In fanfic, the source material is always present. It can be obviously present with canon compliant fic. It can be antagonistically present with canon divergent or AU fic. And it is still present, floating in the background, with totally AU fic. Ultimately, the changes a fanfic author makes to the source material are, themselves, as integral to the fanfic as the words on the page. It is a dialogue with the source material: what it did well, what it could've done better, what this author believes is the essence of the story, or the world pushed to its limit, that even though we're in space or in a coffee shop or 1920s New York, we're still, on some level talking about the source material.

This is an aspect of fanfic I love that novels do not have. Novels have a lot of other great stuff! I love novels! But while novels are often engaged in a dialogue with their present society or their predecessors in a genre, that conversation is much more nebulous than it is with fanfic. You can read Slaughterhouse-Five or Gravity's Rainbow, and while knowing their contexts helps you understand them on a deeper level, that is unnecessary to their enjoyment. They are fundamentally more standalone works than fanfic will ever be.

This is ultimately why I think comparing fanfic and novels is comparing apples to oranges. They're different mediums. They use different languages. They require different skills and they fill different artistic niches. You might as well be comparing a film to a painting just because they're both visual art.

#ok to rb #this is not the point of the post but people do often compare films to paintings ('every frame a painting etc') #it's perfectly valid and super cool to compare fics and novels as two different mediums #by doing so we gain a deeper understanding of both mediums #bc all art is a conversation with other art #but this is not what these posts are doing when they say 'see! fanfic writers are more talented than lots of published novels!' #they are treating both as the same form and making an argument that fanfic is slighted within this medium for a presumed lack of skill #which to me is like comparing a film to a painting by saying #'reblog if you know cinematographers who compose more beautiful shots than any jackson pollock painting!' #hailing frequencies open #Anonymous #thank you for this! i'm recovering from bottom surgery and this was excellent enrichment that i could do from bed #apologies for the long post but i feel like it's better than putting the whole thing under cut #long post ///

[whywoulditho]

if you're still not boycotting israeli products, protesting against the genocide, sharing the news, asking for a ceasefire, I am judging you. I know my followers, I know my mutuals. I know the ones who selectively interact with my anime shitposts and ignore the ones about palestine. I am seeing you and I am judging you. I won't call you out on your bullshit personally, because if you can still ignore this humanitarian crisis while being active online and seeing all those posts, you're just not worth trying to reason with. But know that if you still choose to be silent, if you still think this issue is too political or complicated you're an ignorant, pathetic little bitch. you can't live without your starbucks? grow the fuck up. you think celebrities don't owe anyone their support and it is okay for them to stay quiet when it's the brown, the muslim who suffers? you're fucking delusional and you're pathetic. you think you get to turn a blind eye because it's not effecting you? you're a self-centered whiney little toddler. stay in your bubble and keep quiet all you want, i know you will lie to your kids one day and tell them you stood with palestine.

none of us are free until all of us are. free palestine 🇵🇸

#the biggest dumbfuck arguement i've seen esp from turkish media was 'well there are other genocides going on too 🤓' #and i think that's like the lowest you can sink #trying to use other ppl's suffering to promote the idea that any act done against genocide is in vain bc ppl always suffer and always will #like how fucking out of touch with reality do you have to be to think that's a valid point #yes many people are suffering #when we say free palestine we mean free the opressed. anywhere in the world #my heart cries for uyghurs. for sudan. for congo. for yemen. every single nation that's being massacred #the reason we put so much emphasis on palestine right now is that if we dont their freedom will be lost very very soon #this is not to say i'm prioritizing one nation's liberation above another #just the reality that if we dont speak up right now it might be too late #they are literally waiting for us to stop talking about it #to forget and get used to it #that's why its so important #all of them are. but if you're using the others to justify your apathy you're a disgusting person #freepalestine #free palestine #free gaza #boycott starbucks #boycott israel #boycott mcdonalds #boycott disney #boycott zara

[fromtheseventhhell]

I'm not even surprised because this is the natural progression of claiming that female characters who don't conform to the patriarchy have "masculine privilege". Still, I can't get over the absurdity of claiming that a female character who was usurped on the basis of misogyny somehow benefits from the system responsible. These people really have no critical-thinking skills

#team black #rhaenyra targaryen #anti team green #real quick I need this person to define for me what the patriarchy is I want to see something #reason number 3838383 of why I refuse to be in the hotd fandom...it's everything wrong with the asoiaf fandom x1000 #also hilarious that they have so few valid points against Rhaenrya that they have to rely on fanon talking points #and their supposed evidence was that /well she gets away with a lot so/ as though that's any kind of proof #and literally every other character gets way with shit including Alicent cutting the heir and cole straight up murdering people #anybody who tries to make a point like this just hates women that's literally it

[emry-stars-art]

Hi i love your fat Andrew art insanely much. It's so cool. It helps me feel valid.

#ngl I got got by my own agenda the other day #like the whole point in how much I study different body types is to make people feel represented and valid and happy #I was at the river recently #and looked down and immediately thought of one of the comments I got on insta #like ‘haha wow tummy. very Andrew core’ #and my brain went !!! gotcha bih! #like damn #it really works every once in a while huh #also. #princess bride my beloved #not art sorry guys #asks #anon

[short-serketing]

The people I've seen who're upset that Louis was made a pimp in the Interview With The Vampire TV adaption because they feel it is terribly out of character for our dear, brooding, gentleman vampire are sending me into orbit thanks to the propulsive force of my rolling eyes.

BOOK LOUIS OWNED HUMAN BEINGS AND FORCED THEM TO WORK ON HIS INDIGO PLANTATION, GIRLIES, C'MON

Him being a brothel owner/manager is a change, yes, but the writers are clearly exchanging his canonical participation in one disgusting system of human exploitation (slavery) for another (prostitution).

Some people have likely forgotten things as the book originally came out in 1976 and they may have last read it anywhere from a year to forty seven years ago, and his slave owning ends fairly quickly into the first book, but the point still stands.

#to be clear we love and support sex workers in this house (support decriminalization) #and that includes acknowledging survival sex workers who only got into it because they had no other options #I'm just tired of seeing people express the shallowest reasons for dismissing the show #it's valid not to like it but IMO its phenomenal #nearly every change they made big and small were good decisions #interview with the vampire #iwtv #amc iwtv #amc interview with the vampire #louis de pointe du lac #louis iwtv #the vampire chronicles #anne rice

[sysig]

Bad time of it, all things considered (Patreon)

#Doodles #SCII #Helix #ZEX #Blood #Just a bit but y'know - Enough #It honestly made me So sad that it took until his canonmates saw it happen that someone /finally/ acknowledged his spontaneous cuts D: #Like I get it it's dark and it's hard to see but his skin just opened up and he made a noise about it! The possible danger!! #And then by that point he's just so used to everyone ignoring it that their concern for him is barely even a factor weh ZEX ;; #Plus it's just a cool effect haha - sudden blood from nothing! Very rich mental movement #At least Max had someone concerned for him about it <3 Not that he could do anything about it but even just the validation of seeing it! #He has enough cuts on him :( Poor tenderized flesh #He gets all crabby from being sore from healing constantly haha :'D Of course he would! #One thing I found very interesting was the scar sidedness :0 Most of the examples in the gallery have his scar and missing eye opposite #But that's not necessarily the case! I actually scoured mid-read and there /are/ a couple instances of matching side! #They're very tiny so I overlooked them upon first viewing hehe ♪ But they're there! It's very interesting to me! #I like the aesthetics of the opposite - probably because I'm more used to it lol - but I can see the appeal and reasoning for the other way #I do honestly enjoy how much is open to interpretation and allowance uwu♪ And what's consistent! Like how it's always his right eye :D #That tracks hehe ♫ #Haha his meeting with his delightfully inept counselor - I'm pretty sure I was actually more angry about his supposed injury than he was #He chilled out pretty quickly while I was just - A Scratched Cornea??? The disrespect!! #So happy with his eyebrow expression on that one as well ah <3 #It really does make me curious for how the staff is kept there - they don't /seem/ malicious during the day! But they're also unaware #It's interesting where the lines of reality are between everyone :D Very interesting ♪ #Capping off with another song my playlist is looking quite healthy now hehe #Flagpole Sitta is one of those songs that only comes up for me every half dozen years or so but when it Does - phewph #It is /such/ a ZEX song to me now hehe <3 The flirtiness and exasperation - the defeatism even! So many killer lines #I think my favourite is ''I'm not sick but I'm not well'' ask me to read into that I will I'm gonna I'll do it even if you don't ask me lol #So fun to draw those lapses in control the poor dear ♥ #The digital reconstruction there was a lot of fun as well actually :D I think I nailed it :3 Pulled around from all over the page! Pleased ♪

[trans-estinien]

people really love to conveniently forget trans men exist when they talk about feminism. or if they dont they make us out as also part of the problem as if we somehow are able to have the same amount of privilege as cis men. absolutely wild

#“not all men” is a valid statement because its fucking true #like guys. seriously. not every single man is evil #feminism isnt about putting men down its about raising women up to be equal and getting rid of gender inequality #sorry im seeing a massive uptick in people hating on trans men for being men lately and its fucking stupid #like yall are doing a great job at making me feel ashamed to be a man who likes men. awesome thanks guys #i dont normally make posts like this but its been rattling around in my mind for a few days now #its always put out like. all men (trans or not) are Inherently Evil and all women (trans or not) are Inherently Victims #which is absolutely the stupidest shit ive ever seen #and they also leave out anyone who doesnt fit into the man/woman dichotomy. and if they dont its always seen as woman lite #which is also stupid as fuck #not every nb/agender/other person is feminine asshole #anways. case in point. can we stop demonizing masculinity while also discussing the effects of misogyny and the patriarchy please. #because both of those things are very real and very much do hurt people #but im sick of people lashing out at trans men as if the problem magically doesn't affect us anymore because we are men #because guess what! newsflash! it affects trans AND cis men too!! #i shouldnt have to explain it should be obvious but like. im tired man #sorry ill forever be annoyed at women who just hate every single man who dares breathe in their direction because they COULD be an asshole #if you hate someone because of their gender no matter what gender it is i Do Not Trust You #anyways thanks for coming to my ted talk. replies are off cause i dont want to argue with people i just want to express my opinion

[alectoperdita]

I wanna protect everyone who's still willing to draw joukai art in this day and age while braving how it's increasingly the fandom black sheep ship and tumblr's shitty reblogging drought

#not gonna lie I get so mad sometimes when I look at the notes and reblog rates of this ship's art compared to others #not gonna say which but it feels like every damn one at this point #but I can't blame anyone who gives up because they don't feel like they're getting validated for their efforts #makes me sad when they do or decide it's better to invest their time in other ships #understandably not everyone can keep going on spite like I do #🧂🧂🧂 #yeah yeah preaching to the crowd #there are many rare pairs out there with it worse #but at least no one is telling them that their ship is abusive or lecturing them #or i hope not because that shit is patronizing as hell and people should stfu #unsurprisingly I still have a chip on my shoulder there #look my brain is in an awful place because of work and I'm gonna rant about fandom instead

[dawnstarranger]

Listen everyone has their own metric for what good writing is and isn’t but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t get me down a little to see one of my faves dragged through the mud by both haters and fans alike on a pretty much weekly basis

#yes this is about Salvatore #I don’t mean this to say you can’t dislike or hate his work because that’s valid too #I just mean that he’s become one of those writers where it’s okay and trendy to shit on him and he’s popular enough that it’s excused #I feel like there’s a lot of irl fans who crap on him because they inherently don’t like the over-the-top rule-of-cool style that is FR #and it’s okay to not be into that side of fantasy #but you aren’t the superior reader because you love GRRM-esque super serious grim dark content #also I haven’t personally met a long running series where I loved every single book or plot point #it’s pretty normal when you look at a 40 book series to find that some arcs/books are a bit better than others #and I feel like people jump on certain books and take it as ‘see? any talent he ever had has gone down the drain’ #like my dude it’s okay if you didn’t love a few of the books just skip and move on #add to that he’s a prolific writer in general and I’m sure some books got more time and effort from him than others #it’s fine and normal and not a sign that he’s the worse ever ffs #also there’s a part of me that doesn’t like comparing authors working in shared worlds to authors writing totally independently #because some plot points are set by the publisher before pen ever hits the paper #and again you don’t have to think Salvatore or anyone is a good writer #but I always factor it in when I see plots that seem to come out of nowhere and the like #anyways that’s my rant lmao #constructive criticism of any writer is fine and I’m not knocking that before anyone gets their knickers twisted

[katamarigender]

crushing a can against my forehead talking to this person grAH

#and not in a good funny way. #I LOVE YOU. WHAT DO YOU NEED ME TO DO TO PROVE THAT I ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT YOU. DO YOU WANT ME TO CLONE MYSELF? #MOVE TO YOUR CITY SO I'M WITHIN DRIVING DISTANCE WHENEVER YOU'RE NOT FEELING GOOD? SAY *EXACTLY* WHAT YOU NEED TO HEAR AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT? #you're making it sound like you want to meet me halfway but you keep. moving. the middle point. to be closer to you. #we're good friends when you're happy but any time you're feeling Less Than Chipper i'm suddenly not good enough? #IS it actually all my fault and i've secretly been horrible at communicating this whole time??? #do i not bare enough of my soul to you. is that it. am i too quiet for you. #well guess what! i don't open the floodgates cause i'm not sure you can take it! to be quite honest! #i tell you how i feel and suddenly i'm making things about myself and being dismissive of your feelings. #but it's okay if i sit there and let all your thoughts and feelings wash over me #and you expect me to just nod my head and tell you how valid you are. every. single. time. #you're lucky i'm not sick of it. #or maybe not because APPARENTLY you have a plethora of other people and friends you can go to. to get the response you actually want. #so why do you even still talk to me about it if you believe i'm just going to respond wrong every time... that's what i'm wondering. #maybe this is too mean...

[willowcrowned]

I keep thinking about that “your need to prove yourself will be your undoing” line, because it’s SO interesting to me in that there’s this acknowledgement there by Obi-Wan that external validation is something Anakin desperately wants—something Anakin thinks he needs—coupled with this refusal by Obi-Wan to give it to him because he knows that no external validation is ever going to be enough for Anakin. Obi-Wan knows that Anakin needs to stop trying to prove himself, to stop trying to please people, or else one day Anakin is going to be lead by that insatiable need to please into a situation he can’t escape from. But, crucially he doesn’t explain that to Anakin, and more crucially: he doesn’t understand where that need comes from.

Anakin, whether he’s aware of it or not, believes fundamentally that there is only one type of relationship where he doesn’t have to earn the right to be safe: familial. He was liked by Watto, but he wasn’t safe, and it was only his desire to please and his ability to do so that kept him from being hurt. His mother, on the other hand, loved him without any regard for his abilities, and tried to keep him safe because she loved him. Obi-Wan continually resists the effort to make him into any sort of familial figure—see: waving off Anakin’s “you’re the closest thing I have to a father” with a sarcastic comment and then taking a shot—which unwittingly places him into the category of person who needs something from Anakin. He, for Anakin, becomes someone Anakin has to please to keep himself safe.

So Obi-Wan’s refusal to give Anakin external validation is logical—right—because Anakin needs to learn that he doesn’t have to justify his existence, but Anakin takes that refusal not as the lesson Obi-Wan clearly thinks it is, but as an admonishment that he’s still Not Good Enough. All Obi-Wan wants is for Anakin to be able to have confidence in his abilities, to be able to look at himself and know he is enough. All Anakin wants is Obi-Wan to tell him he’s good enough—but Obi-Wan won’t, so he goes to Palpatine. In the end, he ends up exactly as Obi-Wan was afraid he would become: a masked shadow of himself, doing anything to earn the approval of someone he believes cares about him.

#anyways i think that if the jedi had decent therapists #and someone had been able to go tell obi wan about how different people have different responses to trauma #and different needs in recovering for it #and also untangled anakin's total mess of a psyche to him and given him the tools to deal with it #anakin wouldn't have made every single stupid decision he made from aotc to rots #because I do fundamentally believe that despite Anakin's genuine love for Padmé #he's still reaching for that relationship as a security blanket #Obi-Wan has rejected him over and over again #and he wants validation and affirmation that he's not a failure #padmé gives that to him! #especially when she shouldn't #which is why he's willing to go murder kids for her #between her/palpatine and obi wan/the republic #there's no choice #one accepts him and lets him slot them into familial roles #the other continuously rejects him and tells him he doesn't belong #from his point of view that is #anyways #thoughts #star wars #star wars meta #kenobi show #kenobi spoilers #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #obi wan and anakin