#critical thoughts

[wayward-delver]

I'd say let's agree to disagree, but insulting our intelligence/taste for liking it AND endorsing hatred to the fanbase is so uncalled for.

(I can respect your takes, even if I disagree with most of them, but why are you making it personal?)

[dorkynerd23]

Ah, he never changes..Vanitymoth is back with another shitty review and this video proves he truly doesn't understand or gets Murder Drones as a whole, say whatever you want about the finale as I've had a few issues about the finale myself and think it could've been a bit better but it was at least satisfying and entertaining. I'm not even surprised by this (in the slightest) since as I've said in my post about Vanitymoth, he's almost never positive about whatever he reviews, he barely has ANYTHING positive and praise to give when it comes to the pieces of media he reviews even though there are things you can praise but Vanity choices not to, it just feels like he has very high standards and if they don't meet up to his expectations then he just sees them as bad overall and sees his opinions as definite facts everyone should take to heart and listen to, this dude is just insufferable both to listen to and watch.

He also hearted this comment here...As someone who's in both communities I personally don't think the MD community is as awful and terrible as the Helluvaverse community can be, tbh. Yes, the MD fanbase has shown to be terrible and awful but that's all fandoms, all fandoms are toxic and terrible no matter how big and small, and just for the record the MD fanbase has been called out before by many people. And one more thing, although all fandoms are toxic, there's also good aspects to them as well too. There are good aspects to the Murder Drones fandoms as I've met and see many incredible people in there, despite its bad aspects in the fanbase it's still a fine enough fanbase with some bad and good apples but again, no fandom is perfect and you'll always have good and apples no matter what fandoms you're apart of.

But I'm overall tired of Vanitymoth and can't stand him for the life of me, he's very unbearable as a cartoon reviewer and just doesn't understand MD, this comment says a lot honestly and I personally don't think he's truly ever cared about the show because he gets so much wrong about this series and these characters and overall gets them wrong and mischaracterizes them to make them look worse as a result and to fit his own narrative and shitty theories.

Listen, if y'all want someone, a YouTuber who ACTUALLY understands and gets Murder Drones, actually understands the characters and gets everything right about the show and the theme of it itself, if y'all wanna watch a reviewer who gets MD, please go watch Sarcastic Chorus. Although I don't always agree with his opinions, he's always valid and positive with his opinions even when seeing the flaws in whatever he reviews, he's a great and much better YouTuber than Vanity. And just like @wayward-delver said when it comes to Sarcastic Chorus, SC genuinely understands how the show was meant to be understood and watched, he sees the hard work, love and dedication that went into the show and he's also able to point out flaws without being a dick and shooting down the fans of the show.

[nonbeans]

Matt really wanted them to die during this series huh lmao

[fantasyrantsblog]

Sarah J Maas

Why this will be the only post I make about SJM and the controversy surrounding her art.

Q. Am I a fan of SJM?

A. No, I am not. I have read her books starting with ACOTAR, moving on to TOG and finishing off with CC. The first ACOTAR book took me 8 tries and I barely made it through. The second book was okay but left a bad taste in my mouth at a key point that I will get into. I had a lot of people who told me I had to keep going and I had to finish everything and I did. Because I have read her books, I can confidently discuss why I disagree with much of the content.

Now moving on to my issues:

Obviously, the Breonna Taylor ACOSF post. No matter how you decide to frame the post in order to offer some forgiveness to this action, it has never been addressed and still remains up. There are large parts of many communities who find this offensive and hurtful, if you do not find this hurtful, you do not get to decide that other's shouldn't. MAYBE SJM was sitting heavy with Breonna Taylor's death and already had post her publisher asked her to make regarding ACOSF so she decided to add it in. But also, MAYBE she thought if she didn't say anything she would get eaten alive. Regardless of how you decide to interpret this action, the addition of Breonna Taylor's death to this post was in bad taste and reads as an afterthought.

Something I haven't seen a single person talk about and it was my biggest ick when I first read ACOMAF: When Feyre first meets the Inner Circle and is told about the Illyrians, she is told in the light of them being barbaric. They're already considered a "lesser" race because they aren't High Fae and now within the first introduction to the main character and the reader, they're called barbaric. However you believe their practices to be, they did not have to be a POC race. The did not have to be the first all POC race introduced in the entire series and then regarded as such. Not only that, but none of the character's address their racism when interacting with the Illyrians. SJM has managed to pull 3 men from the race, one mixed, and have them all deny the rituals and put them above everyone else. She made them more palatable to you as token POC by having them sympathize with those they are not in league with. As a white woman writing this, it may not have been intentional, but lack of intention is also hurtful. These are are personal biases that are presenting themselves front and center. This is what it means when you support an author and their views bleed into a story they are writing. She is STILL writing this series and utilizing these previously made biases to jump forward with her story. Barring all of the other issues regarding her clearer issues with writing POC, this is an example how even miniscule details can create molehills.

LGBTQ+ representation is next on the chopping block! Does her representation of the community encapsulate some experiences? Absolutely. Is she expected to encapsulate them all? No, not by any means. And yet, she still managed to oversexualize the community and represent a singular and tiny facet. She, like with the POC, displayed her biases and beliefs. This may be unintentional or not, we don't know, but what we do know is that her characters in the queer community are oversexualized and hypersexual.

Palestine: I often see many say that because she has not said anything about which side she supports, that means we cannot assume just based off of one article years ago. Yes, actually, we can. Why? Because despite controversy, she has not negated it! Additionally, the birthright trips to Israel are inherently Zionist. If she was able to proudly discuss that with her whole chest and then stay quiet when it's not longer in her favor, we can heavily infer that she either maintains her previous stance or does not care enough to negate it. Neither is a positive outlook on how she interacts with the community. Again, intentional or not, the hurt doesn't cease to exist just because it's not how you think people should react.

There are many other reasons and pieces of text that I can pick out over and over again but if you think reading shouldn't be political, pull out some highlighters and join my book club on Fable. Literacy rates in the Unites States are dropping drastically and it's a goal of mine and my fellow readers and writers to interact and dissect text. Reading is inherently political, the act of being able to pick up a book from the shelf and take in the words on the page is not a carefree activity. We, not just the U.S., have been fighting for education for centuries and whether you're reading smut or classics, both are equally political. If you're reading fantasy, you are reading about a world in which politics are involved, politics that reflect our world. Complacency is a killer of education.

[scriptmyworld]

the theory of imogen being in love with laudna and laudna straight up just not being aware of it keeps sticking with me (in a good way, in a very good way) and it’s making me think of the plausibility of it bc for all intents and purposes laudna hasn’t experienced what reciprocated romantic affection feels like. like imogen at least had samuel (the only man she’s ever loved) but the one kid that baby laudna had a crush on literally threw dirt in her face. she was the weird kid. her social norms are out of wack. as someone who struggles to see themselves as desirable and has for all of their life, understanding when someone is trying to flirt with me or get closer to me is still such a fucking struggle. and so we have laudna, who’s expressing her love for imogen the only way she knows how (affectionate, uplifting, all-encompassing. she has fixed imogen up like one of her little shacks and wholefully became her harbor), and imogen (“hearing the thoughts of laudna’s acceptance of her—knowing her spoken words were true”, a type of earnestness that you can’t help falling for even if you’re not a telepath) who’s been making do with things for at least a decade of her life, who hears laudna’s purest thoughts and figures that her feelings aren’t reciprocated because she doesn’t know that laudna doesn’t know what the fuck distinguishes romantic love from just. love. love that she hadn’t felt for 28 years. love that was stripped away from her by glowing green hands. love so intense that the visage of delilah briarwood begins to look like a mirror.

I don’t know where I was going with this exactly, but anyways their relationship is so insane I could spew forever

[enixamyram]

Final 4th War Thoughts

So the final battle in Naruto was a pretty big disappointment for me. I felt like that episode in general was rushed as hell. Like the ending of the battle, everyone waking up and the funerals seemed to be just glanced over before jumping straight into the aftermath back at Konoha when everyone's happy and healing. Maybe it's just me but I feel like they could have stretched the first half of that episode out and gone into a bit more detail for all the characters realizing the war was over or the heaviness of the funerals or something.

Anyway, I just wasn't all that impressed with it. I've already said I think it would have been better to have the final villain be defeated by someone from each village coming together and joining forcing in a way like how the five Kage came together again Madara. But instead we just got more Team 7 focus and I've already said many times why I dislike that particular so called "team".

So yeah, the Fourth Shinobi War started off really good but the whole thing feels like it just kind of fell flat at the last minute.

[isagrimorie]

After years in fandom, I've developed the skill of cherry picking things I loved in episodes, or seasons. So, up until the last moments I really enjoyed Kerblam!

And then McTighe made that twist and suddenly we're in a different story than the one we expected and the results ended up worse.

It also felt like the set designers and props people weren't in on the twist because everything about the episode up until the last moments signalled that Kerblam! was a bad operator and for all intents and acted like a work camp/prison:

- The 'group loops' aka ankle monitors for people on house arrest.

- The regulated hours for play and strict work with the Teammates acting like guards

- The Teammates acting like a Panopticon, putting the workers under heavy surveillance.

- The uniforms of the teammates more reminiscent to the police.

- The room Kira was in looked like a police interrogation room.

So, yeah, when the twist happened and it was revealed the culprit was Charlie all along I went:

Nothing in the set design, nothing how they signalled in this minutes before the reveal showed that Charlie was supposed to be the bad guy.

And then Charlie was the misguided bad guy??? Because he wanted more human workers???? And then he mentioned his generation won't just stand by?

It doesn't make sense. McTighe smooshed two things together and then now he made a mess of things because, what... he needed a Twist?

Which really the more I think about it, is I feel the only reason why he wrote the episode this way.

There is no possible way the Doctor, and specifically Thirteen, could just brush off Kira's death and then let the AI system continue to operate

This episode should have been a two parter sa the least because once again it felt like it sprinted to the conclusion without any resolution but the surface level.

This is why I want Kerblam! to come back in series 12, and let it be a Satellite Five situation where the Doctor realizes the consequences for letting Kerblam! contiune and then shut it down for good!

I enjoyed the episode for the character dynamics and the way I felt everyone well utilized, and how everyone was having so much fun, and we got a robot with anxiety!

And then the twist ending happened.

McTighe isn't just on the hook for this, there's Chibnall and the script editor as well. They should have caught that, so yeah.

(To be clear: the Doctor not caring Kira died, who she liked is OOC. Allowing Charlie to die? Not OOC).