#end rant

[buddyhollyscurls]

*taps mic* hello i am once again here to discuss the subversion of gendered tropes in the apothecary diaries when it comes to jinshi and maomaos growing romantic relationship and I'm surprised I didn't say this before bc its one of the most obvious examples but

can we talk about the way Jinshi just like... follows Maomao's lead? essentially. like not to say he doesn't take initiative or take charge of things but like.... can we talk about how he observes her (before she starts observing him too is what I'm referring to) and it's crucial to how he falls in love with her so much so that it's the one constant you see in official art; him watching her as shes inspecting plants, him literally following behind her. he learns from her not only about plants and poisons and medicine but about how to navigate the world outside of palace walls yk or how ppl outside the palace (esp women) live

and its so distinct bc usually in these historical dramas its always the WOMEN who learn from men. like its always the women who live sheltered lives and learn from men about the "real world"

jinshi is not afraid to be guided by her or learn from her, or even recognize that she may know more than him in certain situations, he values her intelligence even tho he's not only a man but a man of royal birth like literally who is doing it like him for real for real

[frownyalfred]

I'm seeing a lot of "ugh, so we can't even criticize fic authors anymore?" posts popping up on here and the ao3 subreddit and I just want to say, for the record: No one's saying you can't criticize (fanfic) authors publicly. They're saying it's rude and antithetical to positive fandom experience. And, yes there's a difference.

If this website was a conference and I had just spent a whole afternoon listening to a presentation on [unpopular fic trope] and after that was done, I got up on stage and very publicly told the audience that [unpopular fic trope] was illogical and anyone who writes it is woefully misinformed and should be banned from writing [relevant character], that would in fact be a dick move.

"But the canon character would never--" it doesn't matter. You're shouting down the hall at the person who just happily did a whole seminar on their OOC version of that character. "But I don't like that the author chose to make them--" good, you're well-acquainted with your likes and dislikes, time to find another fic.

We all run into fics and interpretations we don't like. But there's a huge difference between loudly talking about it on Tumblr where the author can see it, and just venting in a private discord or other group. Also, gentle reminder that this is a hobby for most writers and something they do purely because they enjoy it. Stop being massive dicks just because you feel entitled to a certain flavor of fanfiction you will probably be chasing until the Reformation of Krypton.

[wafflesrock16]

Am I the only one seeing a huge uptick in Mass Effect AI art? Like WTH? Some of it is painfully obvious/bad but others are passing. I also saw/read something that someone fed another artist's lineart/characters into an AI art generator and the RAGE I felt on that artist's behalf was a visceral thing.

Don't be a dick. Keep art human.

[thatrandomblogsays]

Me: *reading a post that makes the joke “Peeta dropped the baby bomb, Gale drops bombs on babies”* haha good one

Also me: you’re missing the point! You’re missing the point! YOURE MISSING THE POINT! He grew up starving. His best friend almost died of hunger. Most of his people live in poverty. He watched children die in a bloodbath every year for the capital’s entertainment. The girl he loved went into the games. Was tortured by the capitol. His district was bombed out of existence. Nearly everyone he knew was killed. Their only crime was being fed up of being hungry and oppressed and sharing the same district as Katniss. All those innocent people. Murdered. He had to take refuge in a district that was bombed out of existence and forced to live underground. Of course he joined the war effort. Of course he designed unethical bombs and battle tactics. He wanted revenge. He wanted the capitol to have a taste of their own medicine. He wanted the rebellion to succeed. And tell me you could live through what he did, and that no part of you would be screaming for Justice and vengeance. Gale is you. You are Gale. He represents a part of feelings and actions that reside within us, even if you don’t act on it.

“But he killed prim!” Exactly! Gale loved prim. She was a second family to her. He looked after Katniss’ family. He saved them from the district 12 bombings. He loved her. He never would’ve put her in danger. He never would’ve put in order for a bombing if it would kill Prim. But coin would. And did. She took what was meant to be a tool of Gale’s righteous revenge for all the suffering he and his people suffered through, only for someone in power to take it and use it to kill someone he loved.

There’s some many lessons to take. We can’t control the things we create. War spares no one. Even justifiable rage and actions can end up rebounding and hurting those you love instead of your targets.

“He drops bombs on babies” is too simplistic of a takeaway and does a disservice to the story and Gale.

[fizzigigsimmer]

Not enough people talk about what a piece of shit Neil Hargrove is. I've actually seen people defend this man before, but it's always dragging Neil hours on this blog.

On top of abusing his wife and child, the only other things we know about Neil are that:

Less than a year after replanting his family in a new state far from any other family or friends who might care about them, the child he abuses dies in what he believes to be a tragic accident.

Max says that her mom has always had terrible taste in men, ergo Neil Hargrove was not an exception.

Less than nine months after Billy died, unable to cope, Neil started having "fights" with Susan that he never had before. Although it's never explicitly said, given that he's a canonized abuser one has to assume the worst here. One should also note that it's common for certain types of abusers to focus their abuse on a single individual. A "Scapegoat". When that person is gone, they don't stop being abusers. They just find a new victim.

Neil divorces Susan, and in Max's words "abandons" her and her daughter in poverty, leaving them to move to a trailer park, driving Susan to drink and depression.

* I was so caught up in the awfulness of this man beating on women and children that I completely forgot he also called his son a slur.

This man was a piece of shit. He's not written to be anything other than a piece of shit, and yet, it's crazy that he receives more sympathy from the fandom than the child he abused. Bonkers.

[inkedinserendipity]

rereading system collapse is so funny because murderbot's humans (and its asshole research transport) are like. illogically protective of it. some variation of this interaction happens like four times in fifty pages:

murderbot, standing around and stalling, having a mental breakdown: come on murderbot you gotta be better than this you can't just be having [redacted] do your JOB

ratthi/iris, who know this, distracting it: do those hatches look weird to you? those hatches look weird to me. murderbot, based on your thousands of hours of media consumption, do those hatches look weird to you?

and then to make it worse, feat. poor tarik:

tarik, on a high-stakes mission spearheaded by a secunit who is sending absolutely zero information back to the rest of the crew: ? status update?

iris/ratthi/art-drone, pulling out knives (/bombs): hey tarik? can you leave our murderbot alone? that's our specialest little secunit? it's got anxiety and it's doing its best so fuck off?

and then they start verbally stabbing him.

the amount of glee these scenes give me. i genuinely forgot how quickly they all rally around murderbot. and then there was that scene where murderbot went oh no, was tarik security, i don't want to take his job, and art-drone was like that was NOT his job he was NOT security and actually fuck that guy and YOU are security for my crew and if anything ever happened to you i would BOMB A PLANET

[angel-fruitcake]

what irritates me more than anything else is how there are people still denying the romantic nature of destiel. if you don't like it or don't ship it for any reason, okay! that's fine! that is a completely valid thing for you to do and i respect your choice!! but the second you start trying to tell me that it isn't canon, in the year of our lord 2025, that's when i snap. it has been well established by the fandom AND the cast and crew of supernatural that Destiel Is A Part Of The Canon Story. stop trying to take that away from us, we have been gaslit and traumatized enough for a fucking lifetime! no more! there's no law stating you have to ship something just bc it's canon! but for the love of god learn the difference between disliking something and denying it's existence!!

[zerosuitsammi3]

This shit always pisses me off. Don't ask sex workers for free nudes. You don't walk into a pizza place and say hey can I get a pizza and when the cashier gives you the total you day nahhh I'm not one of those people who pays for pizza. You're just a freeloading piece of shit.