#edit: bullying everyone meaning bullying the characters....should have clarified | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

note-boom · 2 years

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Getting Around Here...

All right, we’ve reached the point where I’ve been told I have 1000 posts on here, so I’m gonna make a navigation/what’s this blog about post so I don’t go insane...

What’s This Blog About?

Basically this started as a realization that I was saving way too many BSD-related links on the app I use to keep track of all my obsessions, reactions to things, etc. So I figured a Tumblr blog would be the solution, and now this is my archive of things I would usually just save as a link elsewhere (plus some thoughts of my own to spice it up a bit.)

Navigation Stuff

Now how do I tag things for future explorations?

Fandom Tags: #bsd, #bungo stray dogs, #bungou stray dogs (will be updated if I switch/tack on other fandoms)

Character Tags: In general, I just use [acronym] [character’s most used name]. Like #bsd atsushi. Sometimes, I use two like #bsd edgar allan poe/#bsd poe or #bsd gogol/#bsd nikolai gogol but only when I’m not sure what their most used name is. There’s also #bsd characters (for unnamed characters or just incorrect quotes) this one (when there are too many characters to tag) and group specific tags (armed detective agency, port mafia, bsd guild, soukoku, shin soukoku, there’s no naming consistency)

Meta Tags: #bsd musings (for literally anything that contemplates bsd) #bsd theories (for theories, specifically) #character analysis (metas about characters)

Specific Media Tags: #bsd official art, #manga things (anything that features the manga panels) #anime things (anything that features anime screenshots and the like) #light novel things (anything referring to the light novels) #stage play things (anything featuring stuff about the stage play) #bsd fanart, #bsd edits, #bsd gifset, #bsd fanfic. Of course, there will also be tags for the light novels specifically, which is usually just bsd [light novel name], and wan.

Additional Tags: #humor, #alternate universe, #crossover, #random fandom spamdom (generally fandom related either because of my tags or the post’s contents itself) #bsd fandom slander (mostly a subset of humor that lovingly slanders the characters) #not fandom spam (has nothing to do with the fandom specifically) #spitting nonsense (my posts) #rambling in the tags sorry (when I get a bit TOO carried away) #note re-reblogs (currently nonexistent but the time will come...i advise blocking this tag lest you wake up to find 50 posts rereblogged because I didn't want to queue them...)

Spoilers tags will be tagged bsd spoilers (for all of them), manga spoilers/bsd manga spoilers, and anime spoilers/bsd anime spoilers.

In (Rambly) Conclusion

Why am I writing this like a three-point thesis...ah never mind.

And that’s how I sort out my obsession with this stupid show. If any other piece of media seizes me by the throat like BSD has, then I’ll probably start posting about it here (but my fixations are usually short lived and thus onto main sideblog they go).

I tend to...ramble in the tags a lot, which I mildly feel bad for (there’s a reason why I generally just privately save things). So if you’re seeing this because I spam reblogged you and you wondered who in the world was crowding your notifs with tags, I’m sorry. I also try not to crawl out of the tags too much, though, just do so if they don’t fit my rambles (oops....)

I try and lessen the blow by slapping most everything on the queue (but I don’t tag what I queue, let there be CHAOS), so maybe that helps a bit?

That said, I DO love tags, so feel free to spam reblog whatever you want from here and comment-tag as much as you want...I LOVE seeing people say stuff (whether I agree or not, this IS just for fun). I don’t usually use the comment/reply section or the like button because I don’t actually do anything in my main blog (I just work off sideblogs, heh), so I’ll likely abuse the reblog button a lot or just hope my vibes of appreciation are psychically felt.

OH RIGHT!! Asks are always open. Feel free to scream at me about literally anything, ask anything, or share cool links and shiny stuff I can reblog/save (the last one especially because I am a magpie of fandom things). I generally have to be asked things to talk about them, so I do warn you that the right ask can really get me going.

And with that, back to spamming I go!

#spitting nonsense #to those of you who reached the end of this post i am shaking your hand #also some additional stuff?#i cope with liking bsd by bullying everyone as much as sobbing over them #and....honestly i cant think of anything #edit: bullying everyone meaning bullying the characters....should have clarified

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griimhilde-a · 3 years

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if you know, you know.

——— a response to those who refuse to move on.

EDIT: after some encouragement and realizing that, while i tried to be respectful and private about this situation, i was not given the same treatment, i’ve decided to be upfront and filterless. here is a link to my page of receipts that i did not provide in this post.

i would like to point out that when i made the DNI, it was buried and sandwiched in my super long rules purposely so that it wasn’t explicitly visible and drawing attention. it was specifically put there for mutuals to understand my boundaries for the new blog, and as soon as i moved blogs, my guidelines underwent heavy reconstruction and the DNI section was removed overall ( i don’t like DNIs for myself ), as well as on this blog. all statements made in the DNI were what i felt to be true and based off of not only my experiences, but others’ as well, backed up with evidence i have saved that i didn’t feel the need to provide because it wasn’t meant to be a big deal, but i also felt i needed to explain why this person was on a DNI and that it wasn’t done out of malicious intent. again, if something sounds bad it is because “bad” things were done and i can’t control that.

reading the call-out had me ( and others ) confused on where it was i had bullied her, when i had her blocked since november, where it was i had manipulated her, and so forth. i’m always wanting to be a better person, so i was extremely confused on where i had done anything wrong. i also didn’t appreciate my new blog url being attached to it as it had nothing to do with it and i was trying to move forward, and it read very much like an attempt to blacklist. despite everything, i never wanted it to be a spectacle. the pinned, public call-out by this person doesn’t read to me as someone wanting to move on, but wanting to drag things further. this is not a call-out post, this is me defending myself. i will not name drop. if you know who this is about, i ask you just read this to understand the full story.

this is going to be a long boi ( i really tried to keep it short but alkfjdklfksldf nope ). i would also like to apologize for any dryness here, but i am aiming to just state facts as they are. it feels ---- ridiculous writing this all out because it’s something that could and should have been handled privately. but, here we go !!

everything on the DNI is true. i will not post or reveal the sources because one, they are not my stories to tell, and two, i am not going to give her the excuse to bother them. they deserve to be safe, and i am walking proof of what happens when you speak out against someone like her. if i have to bear that burden, then so be it.

it stopped being about “just a url” a long time ago. it became more about how i was treated in that interaction, and how i was continued to be treated afterwards. not to mention the increasing tension within the rpc and having to second-guess whether or not i was truly wanted. it was about how it was affecting those around me, my time in a hobby i love, and my mental health. the amount of times a mutual has tagged me by accident when they meant to tag her is insane. it most definitely did not feel good !!! if that kept happening, it was a problem. i also had to shut off the anon feature because of the amount of anons i was receiving. some had good intentions, but others had resorted to hate.

regarding the messages on discord --- i stand by them. i thought if you were friends with someone on discord and have previously talked over time, it was okay to message, otherwise what was the point of discord? i didn't realize it would make her uncomfortable to do so, and i’m more careful about how i approach people now !!!

regarding the messages: there was no change in tone other than that i grew exhausted and extremely anxious ( shaking !!! palms sweaty !!! knees weak !!!! mom’s spaghetti !!! ) and wasn’t in the proper mindset to sound happy while i was being invalidated to my face. i have even apologized there if i came off as mean. i don’t “present myself” in a way. that’s just how i talk, i prefer communicating one-on-one and i try to alleviate tension that arises no matter what because these types of conversations aren’t always a walk in the park. i wanted things to be good and not stressful for all parties involved. i’m sorry my tone came off as insincere. after being in desc rpc for a year, i was a little surprised seeing a near-identical url so i think it was fair for me to message her about it. she made the decision use it, and i was allowed to react. it was said misspellings in urls made her anxious so i wanted to help and i was shot down and vilified, essentially told i made her feel unsafe and shouldn’t have messaged. if it wasn’t okay to claim i felt “unsafe” and “paranoid”, why was it okay for her to claim the same based on a choice she made herself, but not me to feel anxious about those choices?

i have never told a blog to block her. i have never initiated conversation about her, nor have i spoken negatively about her as a person. ever. i have, in fact, even stated that i didn’t want anyone blocking and that it would be okay to interact. here’s one example after i was approached about her. i cannot control what other people do.

hardblocking her on my end was to avoid seeing her on dash as much as possible.

i am allowed to softblock / unfollow people who interact with her after months of trying to be okay with it. what kickstarted this process was someone i thought was a close friend had dropped me and suddenly i realized i didn’t need to sacrifice my comfort for the sake of keeping a mutual. if they could do it, so could i. while i adore the descendants rpc, the rpc is not a family, we’re not obligated to interact IC or be mutuals with every single person in the rpc. it’s not causing a rift when we don’t interact on dash. i have even emphasized that i would love to stay in contact via discord and write there if possible !! why am i being vilified for trying to make my blog a safe space for me?

regarding the “vagues”: they were all responses. a mutual wrote the post, i reblogged it, my tags were in response to the post ( said mutual’s url wasn’t even blocked out so ... ). if it felt like a vague, i can’t control that. the meaning behind the url post was circulating on dash, i didn’t see any vaguing in it other than me recounting my process of choosing this url, which was true ( was i not allowed to participate?? ). the shrek meme was in response to a public dash event ( which i originally thought was a joke ) that had received copious amounts of criticism for. it wasn’t a vague and it was explicit on what it was referring to, it was meant to be silly dash commentary, nothing deep.

this is in my rules but i have explicitly stated that my headcanons about my characters are not a vague if they differ from yours. the talk about hair styles was actually initiated in a conversation with my friends in private. it had absolutely nothing to do with her. if it sounded like a drag, i encourage everyone to look at how i’ve “dragged” many other things including the original outfits for descendants, evie thinking mermaid dresses are ugly, evie not liking wine, and so forth. my portrayal of evie =/= other portrayals of evie. while she may never do so-and-so, it doesn’t make it wrong for another portrayal to do it. ( why was my blog being kept tabs on and compared with, in the first place? that’s not duplicate friendly ).

regarding sex week: i've stated it was an inappropriate event because the descendants rpc had been heavily criticized for smutting and felt it wasn't the best response, nor was it the best way to promote sex positivity. it was insanely uncomfortable to witness, as someone in this rpc. it doesn’t matter if the people or the muses involved were adults, i would still call it inappropriate had it happened in any other rpc. it wasn’t a “block and move on” situation. i’m also allowed to defend myself because i didn’t want to be associated with something she posted. i didn’t want it tied to my url. i would like to clarify that when i said "embarrassing" in the responses under that anon, it was directed at the anon for misreading the url, nobody else. ostracizing occurred when the descendants rpc was being added to DNIs because of sex week / smutting, which was posted by this person ( if you post it, you start it. simple ). i had been blocked simply because i am a descendants blog and that had never happened before.

i was also notified that people uninvolved with this have been namedropping me on dash in an attempt to have me “written off” ( their words, not mine ) because my rules stated that i was open to exploring evie’s sexuality. below is a screenshot of my rule regarding smut. i deleted the rules page from this blog when i moved so i snatched it from my other canon descendants blog that i reuse on all blogs. the second is my elaboration on sexual content in my new evie rules. the third is what’s on my google doc, a condensed version of my rules. there is a major difference between smutting and posting a public dash event dedicated to sex versus being open to explore sexuality as a topic. they are not the same. also, me not choosing to smut does not dictate my opinion on smut, so do not make assumptions about that either. if you want to move on, why are you still talking about me on dash, especially when unprompted? if you just want to move on, why are you upset that i’m not “written off”?

this person has vagued me multiple times ( which they conveniently did not show in the call-out ), this person has been shown to talk badly of me in private ( and now, publicly as well ) ---- all of which i have not done. i have screenshots sent by others to show for it, but do not feel it’s relevant to share because this is not about her. this is just about defending myself.

i have spent three months apologizing for feeling things, apologizing for reacting, apologizing for things i should not have been apologizing for. i have spent so long accepting blame because i felt it would help. i’m done doing that. i know what i did and what i didn’t do. people know what i did and didn’t do.

all in all, i am confused on why a call-out was made when the content provides nothing other than catty remarks meant to air out personal drama. the messages exchanged only show how i tried to remedy things. the screenshots of my “vagues” were just responses, and most of which had nothing to do with this person. my initial silly dash commentary and later discomfort over a sexual dash event posted by this person is not a vague.

if you ( referring to maker of the call-out and others who partook ) are upset about people not talking about me in regards to the “rest of the call-out”, maybe consider the fact that there was nothing about me in it that warranted a call-out in the first place. people saw that i did nothing wrong. the only thing of substance in the call-out was something the maker themselves did : the public, sexual dash event. people are allowed to identify that as a more prominent issue as opposed to how my messages or public posts could be perceived through basic, biased narrative manipulation.

me deciding to unfollow / softblock blogs that interact with this person =/= involving the descendants rpc or making it public. i am allowed to softblock whoever i want to cultivate my dash experience. most people i know have it in their rules that they are okay with people softblocking for their comfort and that it won’t be taken personally. you know what IS making it public and involving the entire descendants rpc? this person messaging a descendants server and name dropping me in the server, reducing the situation to just being about a “url” and publicly announcing it in the server. here are the facts to consider: her message was sent jan. 21. my DNI went up feb 2.

so, regarding the call-out: there was no bullying, no manipulation, no harassment, no gaslighting, nothing from my end, and the call-out shows precisely that the claims are just that: claims. whatever was felt is valid, but feelings =/= gravity of the actual action itself - the most common thing pointed out in therapy: feelings are valid, but are they justified? call-outs should be reserved for people who cause actual harm, not because someone wants an excuse to blacklist. if i am a “bully” for unfollowing blogs for my own comfort, then i think the rpc really needs to reevaluate what these terms mean because the misuse is harmful.

here are the things i did do: treated everyone i talked to with respect. approached things civilly. communicated. tried to accommodate for others. attempted to make a safe space for myself. did not involve the entire rpc by announcing it in a server. did not make a call-out post nor pin it. did not continue to name drop afterwards despite claiming to want to move on.

this entire situation is absurd and should have never been public, much less made a call-out for !! while this was meant to defend myself and state facts, i understand it may not change minds. a friend has told me that people will hate me because they want to hate me, no matter what. and i can’t do anything about that !! all i have to say is that holding hate in your heart never ends well. i hope everyone can find peace at some point.

so please, let me move on. let me write with my friends. let me unfollow / softblock people to keep my dash comfortable. let me take a break from descendants while also having the choice to return at anytime. please stop talking about me when i’m not even giving this another thought and haven’t since i moved blogs. please stop name dropping. stop keeping tabs on me, stop stalking my new blog. please leave me alone. i hold absolutely nothing against anyone i may have softblocked / unfollowed or am not currently interacting with on my new blog. my IMS / discord is always available, you will not be violating my safety by messaging me, everyone is welcome, but i also understand if you feel the need to separate yourself !!! as for those of you who have interacted with the call-out post, i wish you the best but i hope you understand why i do not want to interact with you by any means in the future.

i’m hoping this post lays everything to rest, seeing as my first one did not. honestly, what are you trying to prove if you still have to post about this? it helps nobody. this back-and-forth is exhausting and unneeded. no more. let’s be better people, yeah?

i hope everyone takes care of themselves, i hope you all have a great day / night !!! thank you for reading this long boi !!

#this is a long boi.#thank u to everyone who's offered their support these past few days!#i refuse to let people push me out with baseless claims !!!#so here are all the facts #i really don't want to talk about this anymore but if u need proof of the things this person has done u can msg me #otherwise. this ends here.#pls don't reblog!

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rachelbethhines · 4 years

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Tangled Salt Marathon - Happiness Is

This is possibly my favorite episode of season two. Yet, it is also the point the where the series starts to fall off a cliff. Only that’s not something that you would realize upon a first watch; just in hindsight and only with some basic knowledge of the behind the scenes drama that led to this and the fall out with the fandom that followed afterwards.

Summary: Rapunzel begins to feel homesick for Corona when she finds an old letter written by her father in one of the many lanterns sent from her previous birthdays. In attempts to uplift her spirits, Rapunzel explores the island and comes across a magical idol that brings instant happiness to whomever possesses it. Rapunzel begins to hallucinate her family and friends back in Corona and soon shares the idol with the rest of the group. However, everyone starts to become obsessive over the idol, desperately wanting it for themselves. Rapunzel tricks everyone into giving her the idol, but when the Lorbs try to help Rapunzel, they fall under the idol's control and soon begin to terrorize the village.

Let’s Start with the First Elephant in the Room; Frederic

So throughout the episode Rapunzel is struggling with being homesick. Which is fair enough, that’s an understable reaction to being on the road for months by now. However, to showcase this Rapunzel keeps seeing hallucinations of her father. There are some other characters too, but her dad is the first person she sees and the only one in Corona with speaking lines. He’s the one to tempt her with the idol.

Did we just forget that Frederic is her abuser?

Look, even if you accept his apology in Secret of the Sundrop and believe he has learned his lesson, that doesn’t just erase the pain he caused her. Her thoughts about her father should be more realistically complex then this. Now add in how she makes a such a clean break from her other abuser, Gothel, but still holds him on a pedestal shows a disturbing bias on the part of the writers.

Also where’s this love for Arianna? You know the only real mother on the show? The show that’s aimed at little girls? The one parent who hasn’t flat out abused the main character yet?

Seriously, Chris, what the fuck?

This is a Missed Opportunity

So part of the reason why I like this episode is that we get insights into each of the characters and their desires. As such this is one of the few episodes where the group actual feels like a group friends. However, Cass’s vision is wasted here.

So at first glance this seems to aline with what we know of the character thus far. She loves her dad and wishes to impress him. That’s only if you take season one into account, though. Later episodes will contradict this goal. If you wanted to set up praise and validation in general as Cassandra’s motives, then here is where that should have happened.

Show her getting a medal, have cheering crowds surround her, have her be a hero, or something. You can’t claim her relationship with her parents as the driving force of behind her later actions if you don’t actually involve one of those parents as part of the resolution to her arc.

Either she lacking attention from her dad or she’s jealous of Rapunzel. You can’t have it be both because those two things don’t intersect. Rapunzel is not and never was a threat to her relationship with her father.

So Umm...I Don’t Think This Plot Point Has the Impact That the Writers Think It Does

So this hilarious, and it is intended to be funny, but it’s not for the reasons that the show gives.

The idea is that this is some shocking revelation. That Rapunzel would never do this under normal circumstances and it’s a hint that the idol is corrupting her.

Only the rest of the series doesn’t aline with that at all. This is just the real Rapunzel behaving as the she normally would but without the usual veneer of excuses.

It’s funny because it’s the show calling out Rapunzel hypocrisy for what it is plainly, not because it’s out of character.

But funny only gets you so far. The show is perfectly happy to play up Rapunzel’s awfulness for laughs, but then conventily ignore it when it comes time for the characters themselves to call her out on it so that she can grow and learn.

The show runs under the sitcom idea that comedy excuses all sins; which then backfires horribly when it tries to be serious and mature.

You can’t joke that the king threw a random person in a stockade for little reason and then expect us to still like him when he persecutes a child. Same applies here.

The sitcom set up only works when there is minimal at stake and all parties involved are equally awful in their own ways.

Then Why Not Just Go Home?

Once again, there’s nothing at stake in season two. Rapunzel has no real reason to be on this trip. Nothing is stopping her from just going home if that’s what she wants. The idol only makes her happy because it shows her want she wants, but she could actually have what she wants as soon as the next ship arrives. So what’s the issue here?

This is why you need external conflict in order to make internal conflicts work. There’s has to be something preventing the main character from achieving her goal or otherwise she just comes across as a dumbass.

And Now Here Comes the Second Elephant; Varian

I have several things to talk about here, and none of them actually concern the scene itself but the creator’s treatment of the character and the show’s fan base.

For you see, Chris did a very, very stupid thing.

He wrote the character driving the plot out of the show. The character who also happens to be the most popular person in the series. Only to then use said character’s VA and this one cameo as promotion for this whole season.

Needless to say, fans were disappointed.

However, the Tangled fandom is exceedingly polite; more so than most. The lack of Varian was met mostly with confusion, and maybe a few off handed jokes, rather than anger. When opportunity arose people naturally had questions concerning the character.

And that’s when Chris put his foot in mouth.

This Tumblr post details how Chris got kicked off the Tangled The Series Discord by bullying a bunch of Varian fans while on there.

https://starxapple.tumblr.com/post/617852117763391488/zhantiri-uuugh-fine-since-people-are-getting

I shan’t get into it fully, but for those who discovered the show after season two had aired, this caused a massive backlash from the fandom.

A good chunk of the fandom just walked away, and rightly so. The few that stuck around despite these remarks found themselves harassed by certain sections of the fandom who saw Chris’s bullying as permission to pursue the same behavior. However, most importantly, the ratings plummeted.

Season one hovered around the the 1 million mark, give or take a five point difference. The first part of season two dropped to half of that, and after this episode and the hiatus it sunk even lower, down to the mid-thirties. That’s over 20,000 people who just jumped ship over this. That’s not a normal decline.

No matter what your personal feelings are of the character of Varian or how he was handled in the show, that’s still a massive PR fassico that cost the series big time.

To add to this mountain of bullshit, there was also a massive walk out of crew members after season one had finished production. Most of them women. They even desperately threw out ‘we’re hiring’ calls to cover this. Which given that’s it’s Disney and that nepotism is usually how one gains employment in the entertainment industry, something unusual must have happened behind the scenes. Especially if most of the people who left were women.

We’ll probably never know what really happened. People don't usually talk about behind the scenes stuff like that due to contracts and the aforementioned nepotism. However, all clues point to Varian.

Something changed at the last minute concerning his story. Chris himself had confirmed as much when discussing the note and the Brotherhood. We also gotten other hints that content was edited out at the last minute. Plus the writing becomes more shoddy as the series goes along, showing how slapped dashed everything is together.

Then there’s the rumors.

I must stress to you that this is only a rumor. As pointed out earlier, most animators aren’t in a position to talk freely about what goes on behind the scenes. Do NOT harass them over it or make things awkward by asking them to clarify this. However it’s been suggested that the female crew warned Chris that removing Varian from season two and re-writing his story, along with making Cass the villain, would be a bad idea before they left and Chris didn’t listen. Much to his folly.

Chris is no longer a Disney employee and has yet to move on to any other projects. He says he left, but I more suspect that Disney just didn't renew his contract and no one has picked him up since. I take no joy in the idea that someone may have lost their job, but if true, then Chris has little to blame but himself.

So What Did Change?

We don't know anything for sure. We know from discussions about the note that there was a proposed Brotherhood plot that involved Varian that was then cut. There was also talks about a Cass and Varian team up in season three.

This was then changed to the Saporian take over, which is foreshadowed in this scene. However even that got edited down and under the flimsiest of excuses.

One of the writers, Ricky, suggested that they thought cutting back to Corona would be too confusing for the audience; which is a load of bull. I mean how poorly do you think of your audience’s comprehension skills that they wouldn’t understand a change of scene or a flashback? Yet you fully expect them to pick up on your lazy foreshadowing involving the mirror? So much so that you sent them on a quest to find it between seasons two and three.

Then there’s this gem from Chris.

Ok ignoring the fact that you so totally could have featured both Gothel and Varian, seeing as they serve two different functions in the story and mean different things to Rapunzel.... What guilt?!!!

Rapunzel doesn’t ever act guilty over anything involving her treatment of Varian.

That’s when you realize Chris isn’t talking about her feeling guilty about Varian’s predicament. He’s saying that Rapunzel feels guilty of leaving her father behind with this ‘dangerous’ criminal. Which is a big fuck you to everyone.

That’s why Frederic is the center focus of Rapunzel’s hallucinations. Why she’s more concerned for his safety over Varian’s trauma. Chris really be out here trying to use the abused 14/15 year old orphan as a scapegoat for the grown ass dictator who ruined countless lives. Because he thinks a grown woman should feel guilty for leaving her abusive father behind and pursuing her life’s dream.

Dude, I try not to assume the worst of people just cause they write fictional characters that I dislike, but Chris really makes things hard not to when he treats his self insert this way.

Oh but we’re not done yet.

When Varian Fans Complain About the Lack of Varian; We’re Complaining About the Lack of a Coherent Plot.

Certain sections of the fandom, bolstered by Chris’s BS, try to act like simply being a Varian fan is grounds for dismissal of any criticism of the show and it’s writing. As if having personal preference for something makes you automatically ‘entitled’ or some such bull. Yet doing so ignores the fundamental complaint that they are making.

We’re not whining about our favorite character not getting enough screen time. No one would have complained about his lack of presence in season two if they had properly resolved his story in season three and had Chris not been a dick to the fans. But it becomes evidently clear as the series goes along that removing Varian left a major hole in the plot. One that makes the entire story and the rest of characters suffer as well.

Think season two is boring? That’s cause they cut out their main villain at the last minute and failed to replace him with anything.

Upset that Hookfoot was brought along for zero reason? He’s the replacement character for Varian who no doubt was going to appear in season two originally.

Wish there was more on the Brotherhood and the Dark Kingdom? Their story impact was greatly reduced when Varian was written out.

Are you a Eugene fan and mad about how the Dark Prince plot went nowhere? That’s cause the original Brotherhood/Dark Kingdom plot was dropped when Varian was.

Dislike how Cassandra’s character was ruined with her villain arc? She was originally meant to be possessed but was changed last minute to be a Varian rip-off in the hopes that she would gain some of his popularity.

Wish Zhan Tiri, Demantius, and the Disciples actually went somewhere and that ZT had coherent plan? That plot were changed last minute to make Zhan Tiri a scapegoat for Cassandra now that her story was changed to replace Varian.

And of course let’s not ignore the character who suffers the most from lack of Varian.... Rapunzel.

Chris’s defense for leaving Varian out of S2 is that it’s “Rapunzel’s Story” and that Varian was only ever a plot device meant to push her along on her quest. Which means that Rapunzel no longer has anyone pushing her along on her quest!!!

All characters are plot devices. If they aren’t there to serve a story function then they need to be cut. Even Rapunzel herself serves a plot function. She’s meant to be the protagonist of a coming of age story. Which means she needs both an external conflict to face and an emotional arc where she grows as a person. Varian is the plot device that serves both of those functions but he’s now been removed and is no longer allowed to serve his original purpose.

Chris reached into the machine while it was running and pulled out one of the main gears and acted like he always meant to do that. He legit sat there and pretended that everything was running smoothly even as smoke poured out and warring alarms blared. He then tried to shove bubble gum in its place hoping no one would notice as everything fell apart around him.

Cause he’s the thing; no idea is without merit. It’s all about presentation. Removing Varian from season three still could have worked, but it required A.) replacing him with another foe and B.) making sure his arc still got a proper conclusion.

I’ll talk more about Varian’s half-arsed redemption when we get to it; but for now let's focus on the more immediate problem. No one thought to give season two an actual overarching conflict in light of Varian’s absence.

That’s a fundamental oversight that pretty much signals that season two was re-written at the last minute. You have an overarching plot in an action adventure show but no main adversary? I refuse to believe that everyone involved was too stupid to do that on purpose; but if they were rushed and lacked a crew because they walked out due to last minute story changes....yeah that’d I buy.

Because there’s more than enough options to go around; Lady Caine, The Baron and Styalan, Hector and/or Adria, Zhan Tiri’s Disciples ect. were all options. So was keeping the rocks a threat, or have Cass start her villian arc earlier; with proper motivation this time. They could have even come up with someone entirely new.

You had over four years to plan this shit out; why is it not more well put together?!

How Come Rapunzel Can Easily Admit Fault to Pascal But Not Anyone Else?

Pascal should have sat perched on Varian’s and Eugene’s shoulders giving Rapunzel ‘I’m done with this’ looks all throughout season three. It’s apparently the only thing that she responds to.

Why is the untalkative camelanion the only one allowed to call out the main character’s BS without going villain?

Conclusion

That’s all there really is to talk about in this story. The actual episode itself is good. It’s the behind the scenes crap that bubbles underneath its surface that needed to be discussed. That way when going forward with the marathon you’ll better see what I’m talking about when I explain how future episode suffered from the lack of planning and foresight.

#Varian #tangled #anti-tangled #anti-rapunzel #cassandra #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #tts #rta #king frederic

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 4 years

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Okay so tumblr did something super weird with the formatting and I couldn’t fix it; for some reason it had the page cut under the ask itself (as if the ask itself had the page cut in it) so I literally couldn’t edit it out and re-format it right. So I just took a screencap of the ask and I’ll respond via a standard textpost.

Gonna give a little warning because I’m gonna be talking about child abuse a bit.

Glad to hear it, anon. :) I try to keep an open mind with these discussions.

Tbh, I kinda get uncomfortable with some of the stuff I've seen in her tag regarding Zuko especially. I've seen a handful of people kind of dismissing him as being whiny or sensitive, and I just don't really vibe with that. I don't have anything against any of the people I've seen posting it, but I just don't vibe with.

I'm also gonna take the opportunity to try to break some of the misconceptions about the Azula fandom by saying that I don't feel afraid or intimidated to kinda go against a good portion of the fandom in a sense. And that's because, fellow Azula fans have never really outcast me or tried to fight me for saying that I think that Azula's a bit of an abuser. The Azula fandom imo, isn't full of bullies and hateful people; everyone I have talked to has been very open to a nice discussion. I think that it just depends how you approach them with your arguments.

All of that said, Imma get back on topic here; It’s a little tough to talk about Azula's flaws sometimes because I feel like (though, thankfully this hasn’t happened on tumblr to me yet) that some people take pointing out flaws in your faves as bashing them or posting hate.

But honestly this is really cool to hear because back when I first opened up this blog I used to do that thing where I’d justify everything that my faves did, which was a bit of a problem because my faves are all antagonists! xD So there has been a lot of progress made.

I think that there are three main reasons that people have a hard time admitting that she’s an abuser too.

I think that the biggest one is that a lot of Azula fans lately have been massively on the defensive. There has been quite a bit of hate in her tag, there have been things said by the writers (taken the wrong way or not), there have been a lot of generalizations, and so on. And all of it kind of puts fans on the defensive. I see so many posts about how Azula is irredeemable and just the worst, most evil character in the show and so people kind of swing hardcore the other way (Azula did nothing wrong) to make up for all of the demonizing she gets. One extreme usually leads to another. Seeing Azula get so much shit, like being called a killer and a sadist, provokes the Azula is a cinnamon roll reaction. Basically when a fandom gets put on blast for being 'the crazy' or 'mean' side of the fandom, I feel like it creates a cycle where that part of the fandom starts to actually act meaner because they feel backed into a corner. The more they are called 'delusional' for seeing good in Azula the more radically they will start to defend that belief until the shades of grey start disappearing, if that makes sense.

But this is just a theory of course.

The second reason I think that people tend to dismiss the things she does do wrong is that there's this association with criticism and hate. And this goes beyond the Avatar fandom. In general I feel like people find it hard to say bad things about their favorite characters because they feel like they're bashing their character and/or they don't want people to think that they are being negative. Plus it's just kinda hard to say bad things about something you like/love. Speaking as someone who used to do this; I always felt really weird about or like I was being negative when admitting that things I like have flaws. I'm not exactly sure why I used to feel like this because it wasn't an, 'I seem myself in this character, so insulting them is like insulting me' thing because I usually have almost nothing in common with my faves. Idk, it's just always been way easier for me to find things I like in a character I hate than it is for me to find things I don't like in a character that I do. On a personal level, it might just be because I'd rather focus on liking things that I like than hating things that I hate?

I guess that I think that it's just easy to forget that 'I don't like xyz aspect of Azula' is not the same as 'I don't like Azula at all'. I think that it's possible to love a character but not love everything about them, just like real people; you can love your mom to death but there will always be those things about her that drive you nuts.

And really, imo, I think that fans who are able to see flaws with their faves are the ones who understand them the best. I'm definitely not saying that the people who don't see/acknowledge their fave's flaws don't understand their fave. But I think that they are missing out on very crucial aspects of their favorite character. If you like a character you should like them for what they are in canon, not what you want them to be or what they could be.

I see a lot of potential for growth in Azula. I see potential for a redemption arc and I do love what her character can be. But I also love her character as is. Currently in canon, she's manipulative and goal driven to the point where she has a disregard for people. Currently she's an antagonist and I love her for that. Because antagonist, unredeemed Azula is the character I liked in the beginning. I don't condone her being manipulative and I don't like that as a personality trait. But I do love it as far as, she is a fantastically written antagonist. And those cold, manipulative, abusive traits add to her complexity when juxtaposed against her own abuse, insecurities, and need to be loved.

And that's kind of what I mean when I say that, if you like Azula, you should like her despite the flaws. If that makes sense. I feel like people who say that she isn't an abuser (at least to some degree) kind of have a misunderstanding of her character. I think that one of the points of her character is to show that some abused kids don't come out okay. It's a tragic reality.

But with Azula I think that there's still room for her to change and start to break that cycle. I feel like she'd have a much harder time doing it than Zuko, because she has been subjected to his mental abuse in close range for much longer than he has. And I think that it would be something she'd struggle with her whole life, but I see good in her.

That said, I think that the third reason people have trouble seeing her as an abuse is because it is just really hard to see abuse victims become the abuser. I've mentioned before, but I come from a family where the chain ended with one of my parents. Said parent has told me many times how hard it was to fight that kind of upbringing. That's the real tragedy of abuse, it just goes on and on until you're mentally strong enough to fight yourself and break that chain. And the sad thing is, that some people just can't seem to do that. And I think that when discussing Azula, this comes into play a bit; it's just hard to look at even a fictional abuse victim and knowledge that they've become the abuser because it is all that they have known.

It's just a really hard topic and that's why it's so easy for discourse like this to get heated; a lot of people have an Azula in their lives or relate to her in some way.

Thanks for the ask, sorry it took so long to reply! I wanted to make it thoughtful and word everything the best that I can.

As always, everyone is welcomed to chime in and give their own opinions.

EDIT: There are a few things that I don’t think I was clear enough on with the initial post lol. First and foremost, I’m definitely not saying that these three reasons are the only reasons people don’t talk about Azula’s flaws. @wingsfreedom made a good point about differing ways of interpreting scenes. That’s another biggy.

The other thing I want to clarify is that I don’t think that Azula is a full on abuser. I think that she displays tendencies and does some abusive things. But I also don’t put her on the same level as Ozai. I feel like she’s a bit more merciful than him. Like Ozai is pretty much too far gone; he’s an abuser and his mind is set there. Azula, I think still has the capacity to break the chain. She’s not a lost cause. I also feel like she can be reasoned with more than Ozai. Ozai is all about power; Azula is motivated more by desperation (be it for her father’s love, to keep the last bit of control she has, and to keep her friends). It still leads to that harmful behavior, but I don’t think that she’s a lost cause like Ozai. Like, she has some abusive tendencies now, but I can also see her being able to break the chain under the right conditions. If that makes sense.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #Azula #Azula Discourse #Discourse #Zuko #Fandom Discourse

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teal-crown · 5 years

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(Hopefully) Finishing this situation

Alright, lies have been spread, people are being harassed; so hold my ducking iced tea!

This is what I have to say about what happened while I was sleeping. I'll try to cover everything I want to say in the most organized way I can.

First of all, regardless of what I think about Yomi's public answer, I don't think it was right to set it up as a "democracy" asking your followers to decide if you indeed should credit me or not.

It needs to be YOUR own decision, and you must take the responsability.

I don't want to review and comment on everything you said there unless I am forced to after this, which I'd rather not since I want this to end. I want to finish this whole ordeal, so yes, please to credit me, Riicu and the clothing blog.

To all of you guys who are still not sure if I designed Mira or not, I'm here to answer you, since Yomi DIDN'T provide a truthful answer to that, and now people seem to think that I simply copied an outfit, instead of doing creative work design.

To start this off, I wanted to answer this anon.

On the anon's first statement:

To answer you, anon, you clearly didn't read my previous post carefully, and you seem really annoyed and agitated, so let's examine it together calmly, shall we?

Also please be more courteous next time, as I never lacked respect to any of the people envolved in this.

In my last post, I said:

"I did those things in such a short amout of time, and even though it started fun, it progressively started kind of sucking my energy and I felt for the first time what it was like to overwork myself. (...) And did I tell him it was tiring me? I didn’t have the guts to, until I left. I felt guilty if I took more than two days off because of the things he said. (...) He reffered to the things I did as “assignments”. He would tell me that “maybe you’re not up for the task” “Are you turning down an assignment?” if I showed myself a bit relunctant and now I realize how innapropriate those comments were…and how dumb I was to not step out sooner."

I did art for him, expecting help on my game. It was not supposed to be "free" art. I didn't tell him sooner because of his comments, as I mentioned, since they made me uncomfortable and I was way too naíve. That's why I didn't stand up for myself sooner, I felt guilty if I wasn't capable of working with him, as he would throw those comments to my face.

I was manipulated, that's why I said " and how dumb I was to not step out sooner". It's up to each of you to decide if that was enough of a reason.

I DID tell him how I felt when I was leaving, so it wasn't through my post that he saw my feelings for the first time.

Now. Concerning Mira... Lies have been spread, and I'm here to tell you guys the whole truth about it, since Yomi WASN'T truthful regarding this topic in his answer.

Yomi, you know lies have short legs.

First of all you denied, you swore with your feet together that you didn't acknowledge me as the designer of Mira, but would still credit me, since “ she did put up through all of the extremely pressuring work I’ve put her through “

And you did something so low... Yomi, you convinced people that I straight up just copied the design of a random lolita outfit. Thanks to that, people are starting to think that I didn't do any creative work design, but that is a complete LIE. And I'm here to prove that and clean those dishes.

In your autoproclamed first "apology" you got quite a lot of comments, one of which caught my attention.

and your answer was

However you did not provide proof in your second “apology”, like you said you would so I did step in for you and asked you to edit the post

which, as I expected, Yomi didn't.

The shoes were based on this last one!

These are all the refferences I have on discord. Yomi did delete quite a few, but I DID a mix between them. I can't find them all, but I did find recently one on the lolita clothes blog that might have been probably the one that inspired the design the most: [Link]

As you can see, the top part was inspired by this one outfit, but everything else is quite different, and I took all the creative liberty I could to design the rest of the outfit.

For example, I added poofy shorts, and the dress became a long shirt, and the shoes have stripped socks behind them, as well as the lovely choker that I always love to put in all my characters ahaha

The crown/halo was inspired by a character that Yomi had in a game, if I am not mistaken. You can see the refference for that in my previous post.

Though, now that I think about it, you really SHOULD credit, not only myself, but also Riicu, the original artist of the previous design. And perhaps this lolita clothes' blog too.

You're welcome, for me going to search for the refferences for you. Though perhaps you couldn't even find them because you deleted your account.

Still, I commented them on your post for you, and you pretended not to see it, so, what else can I say? A cheesy "how would you feel, as an artist, if you were in my place"?

It's up to you, reader, to see for yourself and take your oppinion on weather or not I made the design distinct enough. I think I did, and I personally love the design. Artists should get all the help they can when it comes to exposure, just like every other creator. Not only that, but it’s also an amazing thing to add to a portfolio. I don't think you understand that Yomi, and honestly I'm not expecting you to, anymore. I lost all my hope I had for you to make the right decision the moment you straight up lied publicly and played victim.

If this doesn't prove that I designed Mira, along side with Riicu and with the assistance of this blog's amazing clothes, then I don't know what else to tell you guys.

That's what I wanted to clarify.

Now, last thing I want to mention, is about something that has been bugging me. I read nearly all the posts from everyone, so this part refferences a bit of everything that was said.

Okay...so

You, reading this. You read my post? You read all the other posts? From all the devs? And from Yomi? And from Lulluria?

I think you need to read absolutely everything to have a completely formed opinion on this whole mess. Check the comments, check the reblogs and read everything with plenty of attention before forming an opinion.

We all have different values, so it's completely understandable if people are divided. However, sending hate messages to people is NOT okay. No matter who you agree with.

Though, I'll still defend what I believe is right, just like Lulluria (by the way, I admire your art a ton! It saddens me that we are on opposite ends of the situation, and I personally don't think you should insult people so agressively, since we are all trying to stay calm here. Just wanted to quickly address this.), the other devs, Yomi, and the people who have oppinions to share.

Please answer these in your mind: have I been rude to anyone, in any way, shape or form? If I did insult anyone, did I offer a plausible explanation for it? Have any of the other devs been rude to anyone? How many, from so many of the ones who spoke? Have Yomi or Lulluria been rude to anyone? Was there name calling involved in both parties?

If you've read my post, you can conclude I wasn't rude/bullying anyone. I openly expressed my reasoning, my goals with the post and said nothing but the truth.

Is is toxic to stand up for ourselves and hope to be credited and end such a cycle? That is up for you to decide.

A lot of us are being guilt tripped into believing this is all our fault. That we are ruining Yomi's "reputation". And honestly? Just check my first post. I clearly stated what I wasn't working towards.

Yomi is digging his own grave, in my point of view. We gave him the benefit of the doubt and we wanted him to do the right thing. That’s all we wanted. Now we want this to be over more than anything, and just like I take responsability for starting it out, I hope Yomi takes responsability for hiding behind Lulluria's words too.

I don't agree with the whole toxic story about the discord group, as I have mentioned before. But even if I did, it is not relevant to this discussion, since most of the devs affected aren't even active there, let alone a bunch that aren't even there.

We are not talking about a community only. We are talking about individual people.

I think that focusing on trashing a community doesn't help the argument, it even leads to missing the point, and leads to misconceptions about the individuals. It doesn't help solve anything either. Finish, over, end. Though, It’s not like I am entitled to stop it.

Just because you had experiences in the past and got an impression of a group of people, it doesn't mean that all of the people that fit into that category are like that. It's just childish to keep that mindset. And I speak from experience, as I used to hate girls in general when I was younger. But thankfully...I grew out of it and met amazing people.

This is also the first time I'm involved in some kind of drama, hopefully it will be the last too.

Alright, done.

With the best of intentions, I want credit for my work, which I can't understand why Yomi is denying himself to do it so hard. I've already proven more than once, that I designed it. It would also be super nice to credit Riicu and the lolita clothing blog!

I hope no more lies are spread, and for this to be over.

I think we all need a fresh breath of air, and to calm down.

Thank you so much for the attention and support.

#rosary of the reaper #RPGMaker #horror rpg

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notashrew · 5 years

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In this time of Tumblr being, well, Tumblr, I think it’s good time to sit down and change the meaning of term “forced diversity.” Because Tumblr has a reputation of being over-zealous about whatever its people are standing for to the point of harrasing people for reason they do not deserve and ruining their reputation and lifes, in the name of being accepting and ““““tolerant”“”” about minor groups like LBGTA+ and non-caucasian/non-white

Let me clarifyi:

Old meaning:

Term used by usually -phopic or racist people who do not accept whenever a media creators, such as movie makers, comic artists and writers add characters, who’re other than straight and white (and usually men), in their content. Especially if the media hasn’t had these groups before for whatever reasons

New meaning:

When someone who’s not part of creating the canon content (a member of a fandom, for example) changes the canon traits of a character into something else they clearly are not, like their ethnicity or other feature that’s canonically been confirmed. Does not include headcanons about something that’s not been specified by canon, like if character’s sexuality hasn’t been named or clarified.

This is pretty much the same thing as “tumblrfying” something. I want to bring this up because I’ve seen fandoms where people take the canon character and change them into something else they clearly are not, like turning clearly white person into black even when absolutely nothing says they are other than caucasian. And I don’t mean to say this in racist way, because diversity is good and I love if there’s other characters than just cookie-cut white straight neurotypical men.

But when you’re changing a character into something they’re clearly not, you’re just making yourself look like a fool. They can be trans if not otherwise stated, they can be gay or autistic if not otherwise said!

Have your headcanons! You’re allowed!

But something like race cannot be headcanoned. But there’s people in Tumblr who’re obsessed switching them from white to other, and don’t even flinch an eye at it when they’re editing the character’s skin color to dark, but don’t change any other features. And in result the character ends up looking really, really bad design. (If you want to have fun with this, remember to change other ethnic features too if you please. The design makes more sense then)

I’ll make an example of Team Fortress 2 because I’ve seen this a lot in the fandom lately and how people present it makes me hate the fandom for it

(source: http://www.teamfortress.com/gargoyles_and_gravel/)

(edit source: fagfortress2 in Tumblr)

First of all, that’s absolutely horrible edit. You can’t just slap the different color of skin on the person and call it a day. It doesn’t work that way and you’ll have horrible thing in your hands in the end. It’s ugly and looks very unatural. Not to mention, you made a character who already is black even darker. His ethnicity won’t change to any more diverse by making him darker when he already is black. Like seriously.

Now the problem is not that very should not have diverse, non-white-straight-male characters. This is what I mean by changing the meaning forced diversity. You are on purpose changing the features and traits of a character into something else in the name of diversity.

And like I said, yes the character can be non-cis-het because you can’t see those things from the outside. But then there’s this: People who start a riot, if a lesbian character is given a male partern in shipping manner, suddenly change a male character into gay - and very often explicitly gay and gay only- even when in canon they have had a woman partner or love interest. Now that doesn’t mean they’re entirely straight, bi/pan/poly people exist. But people will terminate you if you don’t agree with their headcanon of the character being explicitly gay. If you want to agree with canon, but want to make them be non-straight, make the character bi/pan/poly!

And the worst part about this whole thing is? The fandom, who wants the community being open and welcoming and friendly for everyone, they surely do bully and harras and mock people who don’t agree with something they made up themselves. You can’t just decide “hey it doesn’t say like this in original source, but I believe this character is [insert minority] and if you don’t agree you’re -phobic and horrible person!!!!” and feel like you’ve done the good work. I see a lot of actually good and sweet and very accepting people getting harrassed and bullied by people who claim to be fighting for good and more accepting environment, ruining the lifes and well-being of content creators who don’t deserve it. Just because you came up with an idea and others who didn’t know about it are now toxic ones. When in reality it’s you.

I’m pretty sure most of these people who make such edits and then make blacklists about Tumblr users are just trolls and they should be ignored. But they can be just as harmful as people who take the Social Justice Warrior title too far, to the point of rather harming than fixing anything. They speard filthy rumors of good artists and people don’t even do fact checking, sending more hate and shit on them and ruining their possible good future as artist, or even their mental health. For rumors that aren’t accurate at all.

It’s disgusting to see people even make BLOGS and DISCORD SERVERS specifically to hate and mock people. Seriously. People create platforms to hate something they could just avoid by blacklisting, blocking or simply ignoring and looking away. And then they blame the artist for making them uncomfortable by whatever reason. Like it’s the basic rule and etiquette of Internet: If it has a warning of something you don’t want to see, don’t look. Blacklists exist to keep your dash clean from content you don’t like. Block users you don’t want to see. Unfollow someone making the content appear on your dash. Blacklist the tags or possible trigger words. If you don’t like it, don’t look. Don’t throw the shit on someone who created something else you don’t agree with. You have all the power of using the Internet and you choose to complain about seeing something you could avoid of seeing? Shame on you, not on them.

No, I’m not saying there shouldn’t be more diverse characters. No, I don’t say you should stop making other than white cis-hets. No I got absolutely nothing against other groups of people.

I have a problem with those people, who harras others for sake of their own headcanons and in need to be more superior than others in the community. You can have headcanons. But remember that they’re still headcanons. And people don’t have to agree or think in the same way as you do.

And that’s why I’d like to start using term “forced diversity” in it’s new meaning.

#welcome to my rant talk #in this essay i #but seriously fuck these people and you ever even considering my friends being -phobic about anything when theyre not #im disgusted with tf2 fandom's shit right now #not pointing at you actually good people youre great #but shame on those who do this shit #i needed to steam this out #im done #tf2 #i want to tag the fandom now because thats where im seeing this shit altho im sure its a common problem elsewhere too #pep talk #tumblr #sjw stupidity

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natsthinkitythinkthinkthonk · 5 years

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Kokoro Connect Scandal

Sources:

Main Source from Paste Bin This is where I got most of the information from. Everything is basically cut and edited from there.

Shakingtheworld (Tumblr)’s post This helped me with the “Who’s involved, and what did they do” part.

AnimeNewsNetwork This helped me cover the aftermath of this incident.

I made slight edits to the source material given if I found that language wasn’t specified, if things weren’t clarified, or if it used harmful language that can get in the way of the point itself.

So, what happened?

Before the Kokoro Connect anime began airing, a prank was being planned on an unsuspecting and aspiring voice actor that ended up being more of an abuse in power than a simple joke. The producer, who seemingly planned all this is called Yamanaka Takahiro, and works for King Records. Around 2 months before the anime began airing, there was an event held for fans that was hosted by 3 of the voice actors from the Kokoro Connect anime. They were Terashima Takuma, Mizushima Takahiro and Oogame Asuka. The event was also shown online via ustream for public viewing. Prior to this, Ichiki was called into an audition for the anime where he was told he would star as an anime original character. The producer had planned everything out in detail. He had other fake voice actors there also auditioning for the role, along with the various staff for the anime, like the director and sound producer. A hidden camera was placed in the auditioning room. Ichiki was shown fake dialogue and fake character design for his role, to make it seem more convincing. During the audition, Ichiki had to say various lines in different ways, the director insisting he say it with the loudest voice possible. Two months later at the publicity event, Ichiki was called on to stage. He was not called into any rehearsals or given a script for the event and was just told to arrive for a surprise announcement. He was lead to believe that his anime original character would be announced. As he appears on stage, he introduces himself and video displayed on stage. The video explains that the audition was fake and the role was made up, too. He's not starring in the anime. During the video, they play his audition with spliced and unusual questions edited to further embarrass Ichiki. This tape was all narrated by Terashima Takuma, one of the main voice actors of the anime, included lines mocking Ichiki, his audition, and his career. Instead auditioning for a prospective role, he's been given the job of "Publicity/Promotional Chief" and he is to go around Japan, promoting the anime at various events. Ichiki is given various tasks that he must meet, otherwise he will be forced to participate in "punishment games".

How was this discovered?

All of the above events were mostly unknown until recently when people found a tweet by Kikuchi Hajime (from Eufonius which is the band that performed the anime’s opening) making fun of Momoi Haruko. Momoi tweeted about being happy that people were singing her songs. This encouraged some people check his profile and other tweets, and they noticed a tweet from him about how easy it was to manipulate a certain "someone," because he thinks he can get by in the voice acting (VA) industry with hard work. That certain "someone" being Mitsuhiro Ichiki.

Kikuchi later apologized for his comments, but both Kikuchi and Momoi have stopped using the service since then.

Who’s involved, and what did they do?

Terashima Takuma - One of the male hosts at the live event, who mocked Ichiki and said he enjoyed watching a person crumble in front of his eyes [via a radio show with Kanemoto]. He was supposedly Ichiki’s friend and narrated his embarrassment tape. Kanemoto Hisako - Not at the stage event where Ichiki got humiliated, but in a later video inside a car, she electrocutes him as part of some punishment game and openly mocks him about not getting the voice acting role to his face and laughs about it. Yamanaka Takahiro - A producer from King Records who seemingly orchestrated the prank and also pranked both Ichiki AND Kitamura Eri at an event 2 years earlier where he showed a crowd the audition tapes without the VAs consent.

Hajime Kikuchi - A eufonius member who insulted a singer/VA Haruko Momoi for nothing that lead to the uncovering of this incident.

Oogame Asuka - she was at the event and seemingly knew what was going on and laughed at Ichiki.

Tomokazu Sugita - Apparently a friend of Ichiki, who, while Ichiki was a guest at Sugita’s radio show, talked about the incident and was very pissed when Ichiki said that it wasn’t staged nor faked. (He is the bro-est VA!)

Asami Imai - Consoled Ichiki about this incident when he appeared on her show.

Haruko Momoi - She tweeted that she was happy that people are singing her songs at karaoke and it was a dream of hers, in which, Kikuchi responded that it was lame. Fans got mad, search his old tweets, they find a tweet that says "There’s so many people who work so hard with low pay just because they are happy they are in the industry. They are the easiest ones to use, and they have no future. He doesn’t even seem to realize it, so it’s even easier. But we will never hire him.” They wondered what the hell this tweet is about, and they discover this whole fiasco about Ichiki.

Eri Kitamura - She’s a friend of Ichiki. She's not involved in this at all except for the rumours that she and Yamanaka were [allegedly] dating [which were probably false], and now she got caught in the whole crossfire. She was there when Yamanaka humiliated both Ichiki and her two years prior. What’s worse is that she’s being slandered as people are actually sending her dick pics and hate messages via twitter to the point where she had to delete it. Another rumour has it that Ichiki was getting too close to Kitamura, and that’s why this whole fiasco happened.

[Source: Shakingtheworld via Tumblr]

Yutaka Yamamoto “Yamakan” - He’s an anime director. His comment regarding this incident was he finds it ironic that those who enjoy bullying people on the internet (2ch) are trying to defend someone being bullied.

Just how bad was it? (in case you somehow needed more info to believe this is a terrible prank and situation that no one should ever go through)

At a later date, on the 2nd episode of the Kokoro Connect radio show, Terashima talks with Kanemoto. Here is a snippet of their conversation: Terashima: Publicity Chief Ichiki's prank was really exciting (lol) Kanemoto: I wanted to see it (lol) Terashima: That was probably a really historic moment. Kanemoto: I kept thinking about the event, wondering what Terashima, Takahiro, Kame-chan, were doing. Ichiki... Ichiki... he isn't in the anime (lol) Terashima: *laughs hard* Kanemoto: Oh so I heard he's the Publicity Chief Terashima: It was a prank shown live on niconico and ustream, but I also did the narration for the prank video clip. Ichiki didn't go to rehearsal and just came right in on the real thing. Kanemoto: Eeeh (lol) Terashima: (explains prank in detail) Kanemoto: Poor thing (lol) Terashima: It was a big impact, I didn't think seeing the moment a person crumbles would be so beautiful (lol) We used many people to pull it off, it's amazing right? (lol) Kanemoto: will Ichiki's character actually appear? Terashima: *laughs* How the hell would I know?!

During the publicity and promotional campaign for the anime in Osaka, a video was posted of Ichiki alongside Kanemoto. During this video, Ichiki is made to play a "punishment game" and the punishment is being electrocuted while reading off upcoming promotional events, and Kanemoto makes the following remarks: Kanemoto: You're really busy this summer! Isn't that great? Going from Kyuushu to Hokkaido (lol) Ichiki: As the Publicity Chief of this project, well after various things, I have to do it... Kanemoto: Wait, you "have" to do it? But didn't you want to do it? I mean what with that- Ichiki: No, didn't you see it?! Kanemoto: At the audition, you yourself said "I want to do it!" so passionately, didn't you? Ichiki: [Turning away from her] How can you say that when you know exactly what happened?! A few moments later; Ichiki: The people I just cannot stand are Terashima Takuma and- (low frequency shock) ooowwww Kanemoto: (laughing) Chief! Chief, come back! (he fell to the side out of pain)

On a more recent radio show, this is the conversation that flowed between Terashima and Kanemoto: Terashima: "I still want [other voice actors] to come here." Kanemoto: "Me too." Terashima: "I want to bring those who couldn't come." Kanemoto: "Yeah." Terashima: "Didn't Daichuu-san and Toyosaki-san come already?" Kanemoto: "They haven't" Terashima: "I want them to come. The Publicity Chief doesn't need to, though. (laughs)" Kanemoto: "(laughs) I see him at many places. We meet a lot. That's why seeing him has lost its "appeal". (laughs)" (Probably compared to the other guests) Terashima: "Appeal... (laughs)" Kanemoto: It's like, the first time I saw him (while he was doing the PR work) I thought "So this is the Publicity Chief, huh" (laughs) Terashima: "At first you're like "Do your best!", but then when you meet him (again, while he's doing PR stuff) all you can think is "Oh, I guess he's working hard then" Kanemoto: "Getting used to the things is scary." (laughs) Terashima: "This is bad, huh." (laughs)

How did other voice actors react?

As the 2ch investigation began, they started linking things together and found his appearance on a radio show with Tomokazu Sugita.

Ichiki was a guest on Tomokazu Sugita's radio show that often discussed video games, or "anigera". A keen listener sent in a letter regarding Ichiki and the "prank." Sugita got curious and asked Ichiki to tell the entire story. While Sugita is usually very chatty and jovial, but during this entire story, Sugita was very quiet and patiently listened to it all. At the very end, Sugita said, "If it were me I would remember the faces of everyone there forever." Sugita is a very popular voice actor. Among VAs, he has the highest number of followers on Twitter.

At a recent Namco Bandai Live webcast about video games, Sugita was a guest alongside Terashima:

>Sugita, after seating down, gets as far away from Terashima as possible. >He maintains his distance throughout the show. >Sugita does not glance at Terashima one bit during the show. >Terashima talks to Sugita but is ignored >While they're playing games, Sugita does not talk to him >Sugita: (Something about 00Gundam). Terashima laughs but is ignored >Sugita: (Something about signing). Again Terashima laughs but is ignored again. >Sugita: [BUSHUUU~~] Terashima: [At the end that's it? lol] Sugita: *Ignores Terashima* >Terashima does a body touch, Sugita completely ignores him.

Ichiki also appeared on Asami Imai's video game talk show where she interviewed him and asked him about this "prank" too. At first, she thought it was all a big joke and that he got the role in the end, but when Ichiki told her how he didn't get a role and was made to be the PR guy, she said that it was completely low of them and consoles him about it.

Has Yamanaka done anything like this in the past?

This was not the first time that Ichiki has fall victim to harassment. Two years ago, there was an event for the anime "Oniichan no Koto Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne!" which producer Yamanaka Takahiro, with VAs Kitamura Eri and Mitsuhiro Ichiki in attendance.

Yamanaka suddenly announced that they're going to play audio recordings from the audition for this anime.

Kitamura Eri and Mitsuhiro Ichiki reacted with surprise: "Hey, you didn't tell us you'd be doing that!"

Yamanaka: "Well yeah, if I'd told you, you'd have said no! (laughs)" Ichiki: "The audition recording... I auditioned for the lead but didn't get that. You're going to play the tape of me failing to get a part?" Yamanaka: "He’s a better fit in a different part, so we gave him that one instead."(Ichiki got a minor role as one of the 'AGE Team' members.)

Yamanaka played the recordings in front of the audience and often in auditions, VAs have to recite lines given by the producers. For Kitamura Eri, it was "But I haven't the doctor with onii-chan yet!". For Ichiki, it's "I just want to see a girl's naked body"

These are not the kind of things you want to publicly broadcast into a busy shopping street in Tokyo, especially when you are there yourself as a guest. The Japanese are very conscious of their self-image. One small stain can ruin their careers.

Aftermath

This prompted the official statement, signed by "The Entire Staff of Kokoro Connect," which apologizes for "insufficient consideration regarding performers" leading to "widespread discomfort and misunderstanding." The statement ended by promising that the entire staff of the series will seriously reflect on the incident in their future work on the program.

The staff added that they are investigating the possibility of taking measures against "illegal acts" made in regards to the unauthorized usage, alteration, and uploading of sounds and images related to the series, as well as the leakage of personal information and "human rights violations" of individuals involved in the series.

In the wake of this situation, the official Kokoro Connect Bunken Shimbun online radio program for the show was cancelled on Friday.

Voice actress Eri Kitamura also announced that her agency deleted her Twitter account after she received a number of offensive messages regarding an unproven personal involvement with Kokoro Connect's producer Takahiro Yamanaka. Kitamura is not part of the Kokoro Connect's cast.

Mitsuhiro Ichiki wrote a post on his official blog regarding the incident. He began by apologizing for the worry caused by the incident, as well as the damage that has occurred as a result of it. Ichiki then asserted that he does not agree with the news reporting that believed it was a joke stemming from an abuse of power and a case of bullying. He believes that if it was indeed bullying, more would’ve stuck up and said something within the fanbase. He said he was shocked by the job appointment but took it seriously and with consideration. He also expressed his feelings of sadness that colleagues he has worked to build relationships with have been "slandered" online and says that he doesn’t hold any ill feelings towards anyone and is still on friendly terms with them.

Other voice actors involved in the production of the series and its promotion have also made similar statements regarding the incident, including:

Hisako Kanemoto

Takuma Terashima

Asuka Ōgame

Takahiro Mizushima

The Kokoro Connect Production Committee posted another statement on Tuesday. The committee members apologized for the further confusion caused by the "insufficient explanation" posted on Sunday. The committee asserted that the original intent was to appoint Ichiki as the symbol of the anime's promotional campaign on radio, via Ustream, and at events. He would struggle in the beginning but would overcome difficulties with his bonds with the others. The staff was also planning to make Ichiki part of the actual voice cast on or after episode 14 [even though the anime has 13]. However, they admit that they could not convey the original intentions of their plan due to their lack of careful direction and execution, which offended many people's feelings. They said that they took this seriously, will reflect on this, and apologized.

My Thoughts:

Wow, this ranks up there with the director of Net-juu no Susume. If you don’t know about him, I think that goes on a separate post. Let’s just say, I’m glad I found out after I watched the anime because the anime as a whole was great. The director just isn’t a good person.

But on this matter, I personally think that they handled the prank and the scandal poorly. Ichiki handled this the best he could, but the perpetrators should be reprimanded and punished accordingly. The fact that they still get work astounds me. Aya Hirano was cheated on by her partner. She said that, and now she gets far less work than she did before. Most of the work she gets are continuations of past ones. It sucks, especially since (in my opinion) she is far more talented than the people who cooperated in this prank. Her saying that she likes dating older men and got cheated on by her previous partner shouldn’t result in her end or people boycotting and destroying her products.

On the other hand, I’m not sure how you can let this pass through your mind that this is in the slightest bit is okay. This is clearly an abuse of power, and as much as there’s something to be said about climbing the ranks, this is simply not the case. There are several cases internationally about people who commit suicide due to the bullying from people that are higher-ups, and it’s disgusting. You should look up to these people, but they shouldn’t look down on you.

Takuma should be ashamed of the words he said and the humiliation he caused. Hisako should be ashamed for her contributions and her turning a blind eye and pretending like it was okay. And that producer Yamanaka should never have work ever again. I don’t care that he was a producer in great anime like Toradora and Kokoro Connect, he has no right to violate people like that.

Because of these people’s actions, Kokoro Connect will probably never get a second season (not counting the four episode epilogue). The profits and orders for this series tanked. The original creator and the other staff have to personally pay for mistakes that aren’t theirs, and the franchise will not be plagued by this scandal. Even Kitamura, who was not even involved in this directly, got boycotted by some over rumours. And all of this started because of some stupid mean-hearted prank.

#long post #seiyuu #seiyuu scandal #kokoro connect #my opinion

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superkaramels · 7 years

Text

@xsupercorpx : “Sorry I'm confused please remind me on what post did I comment on?. Never mind, but i still don't see how this answers my question. By the way I wasn't trying to hate on your account. I did go to the Karamel tag looking for supercorp shipperes who where posting hate in that tag to ask them to take it down. And happened to stumble upon this. I was just curious. And I mean no hate but just Because you ignore the bad he does or compares all the bad things to the good things he does and sees there is more good than bad doesn't erase the fact that he still does these bad things, but saying that means the supercorp shippers shouldnt ignore all the good things he does too. I know how to keep my opinion of A Character I dislike in my ship tag and I will say sorry on behalf of the supercorp shippers who do this to you guys. I cant change what they do with what they post but instead of fighting about it I would ask them to take it down. And the supercorp shippers are not the only ones who goes to the opposite tag to distribute hate. The karamel shippers do this on IG a lot. We post joke about monel that are funny to us to bring out a laugh but we don't set it in your guys tag yet they decided they want to fight about it. I know its not you but you should be aware that this is not one sidedactions.”

Sorry for replying via post, but this is a sideblog and if I reply with my main blog you may get really confused.

Okay, I totally get that you weren’t trying to hate on me, that’s the reason I answered you, because you were actually very polite and I appreciate that. I wasn’t trying to hate on you either with my answer. Just trying to clarify my motives. It seems like I didn’t do a very good job, did I? (English is not my first language and I suck at explaining myself). So I’ll try again: The reason why I made those gifsets (it’s not just that one you saw. I’m giffing every scene I consider to be important) is because I love that character and I think there are some scenes that are pretty underrated or literally ignored by some people and that are important for the development of the character.

I’m very aware that Mon-El is not perfect, far from it, and believe me, I have never ignored something he has done wrong. In fact I don't see characters I love (even tho I still love them) as perfect beings who can do no wrong. I don't do that with Mon-El or with any other character from any other show I watch. The fact that Mon-El made mistakes is what makes him interesting. That is the whole point of his plot, he is going from being a selfish and spoiled person (as he admitted in 2x16) to being a person willing to help and fight for what is right and to sacrifice himself for the sake of others. That is character development. The writers are trying to build "the hero's journey" and you may not agree, but I think they’ve done a very good job. The problem is that even though I'm able to point when he does something right or when he does something wrong, many other people see everything in black and white and they ignore things that have happened in canon. One of those things is that Mon-El in canon said that he does not like or agree with slavery (as it has been seen in 2x09, 2x16 and 2x17), something that the antis continue using as an argument to insult us.

I really appreciate that you were trying to help us. The fact is that we (karamel fandom) have asked these post hijackers/tag invaders to stop doing that. Their answer was always NO. All of them have always given us very rude answers. We see hate in our tags on a daily basis. Chris Wood (he's just an actor who's trying to do his job) receives hate on social media on a daily basis. I've receive death threats for shipping karamel (and I'm not the only one). People from our fandom who have been abused were treated as if their situation did not matter and have been insulted, people from the LGBT community who are part of our fandom have been called homophobic. Members of your fandom have created multiple tumblr accounts with pro karamel urls for the sole purpose of hijacking our post and insult us. They also decided it was a good idea to boo every Mon-El scene at a screening in LA (in front of producers and cast members of the DC/CW shows). Btw, that screening was a charity event for kids. It is one thing to defend your ship, it is another to bully people you know nothing about just because we don't like the same thing as you (again, I’m not talking about you personally, just explaining what’s going on here).

I’m aware that not evey SC shipper is a bad person, just like I’m aware that not every KM shipper is a good person. In fact, I’ve blocked some karamel shippers because I really don’t like the way they were behaving. On the other hand, I'm sure that I have 90% of members of your fandom blocked, either because they are very immature people and have insulted us in one way or another or because their only purpose in live is to make our tumblr experience a living hell. For example, I would love to reblog some Kara and Lena gifs because I really like their friendship, unfortunately I can't because most of the blogs who make Kara and Lena content are blocked.

I’m not aware of the situation on Instagram because I don’t have an account, and I’m sorry if members of my fandom have been rude to you guys, that’s not what we stand for. We have called out people who have displayed that type of behavior in the past. I hope it is resolved soon. I just wish everyone would stay in their line and let people enjoy whatever they enjoy. Ship wars are pointless and stupid and I'm ashamed that a wonderful show like Supergirl have such a toxic fandom.

In case I wasn't clear, I have never pretended to be rude or hate on you with this post. Just trying to make you understand my point of view, just as I try to understand yours.

Edit: I just checked your blog and I saw that you wrote an anti Mon-El post and you tagged it as #Monel. You know, if you're trying to get members of your fandom to stop doing that and you do the same, then what is the point?. Anti tags exist for a reason, please use them and don't post hate on the #MonEl tag. Let’s be respectful with one another. I'm politely asking you to remove that post from the pro tags, just like you suggested us to do in this kind of situations.

#Me #Ana for ts #this was a long post damn #karamel defense squad #Mon El defense squad

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