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Salty fandom sideblog | lots of complaining, sometimes i write image descriptions | [Icon ID: a screenshot of fizzarolli with a displeased expression. /End ID]

[atomikats]

curiouser and curiouser

[orphetoon]

go watch project hail mary NOW!!

[dannythedanman]

To any diehard tadc fans who get upset when people say the show needed more writers, just know gooseworx thinks so too lol

[deepfrieddeltarunememes]

chapter 5 brings us allies who ragebait transgender people but in like a gender affirming way

[deepfrieddeltarunememes]

[opheliathegrey]

[scribz-ag24]

heartbreaking, the boring twink is the more self-aware, responsible adult among the dark world leaders. he didn't threaten to kill any kids.

[jorongbak]

So if Caine and Kinger finally have a father-son relationship… does that mean Kinger calls him by his first name, all three middle names, and last name when he’s about to unleash the full force of his parental wrath

[tmblr-sexy-garbage-man]

Alright, Chapter 5 is barely 24 hours old, so I apologize if these takes turn out to be lukewarm or obvious in hindsight, but I need to throw this out there or I'm gonna explode.

I wanna talk about Flowery.

Everyone fucking hates Flowery. Why?

Everyone is comparing his reveal to Tenna's, but those circumstances could not be more different in terms of narrative. Tenna is, from the jump, supposed to be light-hearted and fun. He is the personification of the Fun Gang letting loose and having a good time. This is what makes his eventual reveal that he's working with the Knight into an actual betrayal. If we didn't trust Tenna, that moment wouldn't work.

With Flowery, the vibes are rancid from the moment he's revealed. He's charming and charismatic, but something is off. Not to mention that Ralsei absolutely despises him.

So, why make Flowery unlikable? What's the point?

Well, the point is that Flowery is the exact opposite of Tenna.

With Tenna, we like him, but he's wrong.

With Flowery, we hate him, but he's right.

Everything that Flowery does to Asgore is an exact mirror to what Ralsei did with Kris and Susie at the beginning of the game. In fact, the entire chapter is a complete mirror of Chapter 1's dark world!

Flowery gives Asgore a home, gives him friends, tells him that he's special. And yet, we spend the entire chapter trying to get Asgore out of that situation, with the understanding that it's dangerous.

But what about it is dangerous? The denial of reality? Because Susie is now living in a dark world. The exact thing that Asgore gave an entire heartwarming speech about not doing.

When Flowery tells us that we could close Castle Town instead of his dark world and we would be no closer to the Roaring, we hate him because he's right. When he says that all the flowers want is to live and a chance to make Asgore as happy as he's made them, we hate him because he's right.

And, at the end of the chapter, he tries to defeat us with the power of friendship. The other flowers never turn on him. He uses a mercy attack against us, and Kris responds by hitting him with a sword.

Y'all, were supposed to hate Flowery. And we're supposed to feel uncomfortable about why we do.

[carlyraejepsans]

so to summarise: she DID overdo it in a very much uncharacteristic one-time-only way, she's not an alcoholic, kris was never locked out of the house (they pretended to be as part of their plan to get susie to the church dark world), toriel DID try to call, she WAS worried, sans told her he saw kris and susie hanging out and not to worry and let them spend time by themselves since they're teenagers and THAT'S when she let herself get loose, she DID realise she made susie uncomfortable and feels bad about it and hopes she didn't push her away and that she'll be back because she likes having her around, she DID notice kris was upset, her air of middle class respectability is a façade and she's probably struggling with her finances just as much as asgore, she's just more careful with her money. also sans stocked up her fridge and took out the trash before he left (my man🤝)

TLDR: never fucking doubt me again. big analysis papy untouchable

[wishihadacake]

Some more thoughts in the aftermath of ep 9:

- It seemed clear to me in ep 9 that Jax has a distorted perception of people and reality, and that's what's reflected in the different doors in his head. He gaslights Ribbit about their vulnerable conversation and tries to force reality into the shape he's comfortable with. He really did think Gangle liked his attitude towards her.

But it's layered. I think he both believes it and doesn't. He believed it enough to abstract instead of asking Pomni (who he sees as a potential manipulator) for help. But he had enough hope that his distorted views were false to give Pomni the key in the end.

- I wish Jax had just been the main character from the start. Maybe GW didn't trust in the palatability of that story enough to give it the full focus of the show.

In the end it did kind of feel like most of the parts of the show that were really interesting to me were smoke and mirrors in service of not being up front about how the show was all about Jax. I don't feel like I learned much about Pomni, the main character, at all.

- "Isn't She Lovely" my read on that was that Jax just barely got to the point of accepting herself and then the light from the flash grenades kicked the abstraction back into gear and she "died". Less than 1 minute old and already abstracted, RIP 😔

- Still feeling salty about Caine's miraculous and unexplained change of character. Out of all of it, I feel that was fumbled pretty badly in terms of storytelling. It's not that it wasn't moving, or interesting, or believable. But the whole sequence is so poorly communicated that even after watching it multiple times I'm still not sure I have the right end of the stick for when things were happening, forget about Caine's internal state; I've got no clue.

Did Caine learn everything he needed to learn about humanity from five minutes on Facebook? Is that what I'm meant to take away from this sequence? After literal years of one on one interaction with humans, after delving so deep in their mind files that he could construct physical bodies to represent them, a few instagram posts is all it took to make him give up his mysterious blue powerball and give them literally everything they've been asking for for (again) literal years?

Or was it because they "killed" him? Am I meant to take away that only actual murder could convince Caine to be a productive member of their little society??

And to be clear, I straight up don't care what the 'answer' is or if it's something I agree with or hate, I'm pissy because I'm worried that the show didn't actually care about any of that and there is no answer.

- I like Ragatha and Pomni in any configuration possible but I'm a bit confused about how I was supposed to take the pink lit extended hug and weirdly long over the shoulder glancing walkaway. The lighting and physicality felt like romantic love, the walkaway felt ominous. None of it went anywhere?

- "Not even I know what's out there" yes he fukcjubg does that's the fgajcneing bin he's been in the bin wtf

- okay, maybe the void has more in it, like random wifi connections. If that's the case maybe we should fucking explore that shit, Caine.

- Alright I'm gonna get dragged back into complaining about Caine inconsistencies

- I DON'T KNOW, I just wish this was two different shows: The Amazing Digital Circus and Young Dumb BunnyGirl Fucks Up Everything All The Time

so we could spread some of this character development around

I'd have watched and loved both shows

- I love the show. In spite of my criticisms, I am not disappointed in the outcome of the show. It has surpassed all of my wildest expectations in both content and craft.

I hope Gooseworx makes another cool project and I hope she hones her skills so she can focus all the sparkly attention grabbing anglerfish lore lures into the parts of the story she's actually interested in exploring

[sapphiresaphics]

I wonder how many people understand that these are two separate things happening in different times. One is Caine coming more and more into existence and discovering the obsolete unused brain scans, and the other is Caine gaining access to the random WiFi hotspot that just appeared temporarily (as they often do) nearby. They’re both moments of self discovery which is why we cut back and forth between them, but they are undoubtedly not happening at the same time.

I worry people might think these are congruent events and be confused why Scratch suddenly appears in the circus but is never seen again afterwards. That was them showing how Caine used his powers to figure out how to use the brain scans. It was a flashback. And it’s juxtaposed to him using his powers to learn more about the outside world and about the remaining circus members.

[marymsjay-art]

- What are you waiting on? ⭐ -

[pouletpourri]

well she had it coming

[irreparableteacup]

i only like enemies to lovers if it’s gay because i think men who are mean to women don’t deserve to live

[permian-tropos]

Sorry for stealing this post to disagree but as an Enjoyer I feel the best approach to m/f enemies to lovers is if them being enemies makes them equals. Having an enemy is like having a shadow or a reflection. They occupy the same spaces of the world as you but have a conflicting/contradictory impact. You push, they pull.

Misogynistic men are not okay with having a sworn rival, an equal and opposite enemy, who is a woman. In ETL m/f where the payoff is an overturning of patriarchy and misogyny, the woman escapes confining paternalistic expectations by being an enemy to the man, who becomes drawn to her playing this role of equal to him. He becomes more satisfied with the self-actualizing struggle between them, than a heterosexuality that would stifle her and rob him of a partner. The eroticization of this un-patriarchal equality between them, fueled by them being enemies, eventually resolves itself into them being lovers.

Source: I’m queer and I say so.

[irreparableteacup]

i only like enemies to lovers if it’s gay because i think men who are mean to women don’t deserve to live

[crovidlover]

And who tf said the guy has to be Mean to the woman for them to be enemys? Who's to say they can't have a perfect respect for the others personal being, while still going toe to toe in combat.

[heytherepixiestixx]

He really hit the nail on the head on the problems with the show

[glamrockmike]

can i just say? i should have learned this lesson ages ago but pro-and-anti communities both embody two extremes that disregard nuance and promote harmful ways of thinking as a result of that lack of nuance. like, people can so fully dedicate themselves to the stance that something is immoral and wrong that they become like a katamari ball just collecting any and every piece of corroborating ‘evidence’ they can on why they’re right and other people should kill themselves over disagreeing even slightly with their points. and then what happens is people who are pro-that-thing get defensive and take up the other extreme, so you get two groups taking violent potshots at each other instead of thinking critically and with their grey matter on the actual subject at hand, be it fandom discourse, shipping, bigger problems like celebrities and public figures causing real harm, niche issues for a community, etc. like the pressure to conform to the ‘good and right’ side can be so strong or so repulsive it radicalizes people from careful thought and compassion. insert favorite screenshot of a post ever: like man i think it depends.