one thing I really like upon watching true detective season 1 (again, bc I’m unwell) is the difference between how marty and rust hold emotion. half the time marty is barely able to contain uncontrollable rage and anger, sometimes turning red, besides that he’s either chewing on the inside of his cheek annoyed as all get out or holding all of the sadness and horror in the world in his eyes (the clip where he has to watch the vhs tape….his face afterwards…yeah). meanwhile rust goes through life with a seemingly permanent grimace and empty eyes. haha yeas

🔥 villains. 🔥 the hellfire club 🔥the difference between naive and unintelligent characters

Welp, this all got STUPIDLY LONG and I’m really sorry. Under a cut because HUUUUUGE.

🔥 villains.There’s just been a robbery! All the jewels in the museum’s vault have been stolen! The culprits are….Sabretooth and Magneto!Yeah, that doesn’t sound right, does it? Thievery isn’t really something either of them do, they’re not bank robber or cat burglar types at all. And Magneto’s not a fan of Sabes to my memory, it’s unlikely he’d work with him unless it was essential to his ACTUAL goals…which this isn’t. But hey, they’re both bad guys, so they must do ALL the bad things! No matter what it is, it’s in-character if it’s evil or unlawful, right?This is the logic that I see running both often in fandom, and also sometimes with canon writers. There’s a mentality that if someone is villainous or bad in ONE way, then they must be villainous or bad in ALL ways. I think there’s always been this misunderstanding, as people do tend to think in black and white a lot, but I think it’s also increased with the rise of purity culture in Tumblr, where people/characters/works are All Good or All Bad, and if the bad guys aren’t depicted as 1000% heinously evil then it’s APOLOGISM. An example in RP would be that more than once I’d had people expect Fabian to be a racist. I can see why, given that he expresses sexism, classism, a bit of ableism, and disgust with physical mutations. But not only does he never express racism, he never expresses racism DESPITE AMPLE OPPORTUNITY. Think about it—his main antagonists are Magneto (Jewish) and Quicksilver (Jewish and Romani), he once personally fights Bishop (Black and Indigenous Australian) one on one, he’s on one team with Shinobi (half white, half Japanese), and his allies/underlings in the second-gen Acolytes included people who are African American, Moroccan (and Muslim-coded), and Inuit. And he never, ever, EVER even THOUGHT anything related to race (or religions that are usually implicitly tied to race) about ANY of them. Given how blatant his other prejudices are, I think he would very much let the reader KNOW if he were racist, anti-Semitic, etc. An example in canon…look, I’m sorry to bring up this dead horse again, but it is the best example that I presently have—Sebastian Shaw making the “women’s work” comment. As with Fabian, I get why it makes sense on the surface. He’s a powerful man, the proverbial rich old white guy, and he’s part of an organization where women walk around in lingerie as a general rule. It seems like it makes sense, it does, I grant that. But then if you actually look at his history…for 40 years of canon, he’s been allies and enemies with many powerful women, and never made a remark about their gender, never relegated lesser or menial tasks to them, never treated any of them differently as partners or foes, he actually never even flirts with any of them, be they opponents or partners in crime  (except that ONE issue when Emma is in Storm’s body and he kisses her…yeah that was a weird issue, why does a telepath need a gun to switch bodies?) Which is pretty unusual for a male Claremont villain. And he actually reacts with “I…see.” the one time a comrade makes a genuinely sexist remark. He doesn’t agree with him, he’s more like “wow ok I can’t believe he said that but I guess I’ll let it go since I want to recruit him” So, it’s actually VERY odd for him to suddenly say something like that, once you know the character. Especially since, like Fabian, he had TONS of opportunity in the past and he’s also not a character that most writers want to seem sympathetic or likeable. So it’s unlikely the writers were just trying to make him look good by playing down some secret sexist tendencies all this time or something. It’s more likely he just doesn’t have them BUT IS STILL A HORRIBLE PERSON! He just doesn’t need to be horrible in every way! Most people, even the MOST terrible, aren’t horrible in EVERY WAY POSSIBLE.That’s also why I try to avoid having Fabian being too homophobic (beyond “I can convert lesbians”) or transphobic, despite the fact that I *could* justify it (since those things are very intertwined with sexism)—because he’s awful enough. Giving him additional bigotries just seems stupidly redundant and cheap. Especially since I think people actually hate a bigoted character more than they hate a murderer; like I feel like if Duggan ever graduates to Shaw making a racist or homophobic remark, I might have to close his blog, but it’s fine to have blogs for fictional serial killers. By the same token, a villain having good traits doesn’t somehow eliminate their bad ones, especially if the good and bad traits are unrelated to each other. A mass murderer supervillain is not “actually a good guy deep down” because he loves his family; it’s actually VERY common for even genocidal dictators to care for their own. Hell, not to go all Godwin, but Hitler was an animal-lover and had a beloved dog. You can certainly point to good traits to show that a villain isn’t ALL bad (which as I just said, I support) but not being “all bad” isn’t the same as “actually a good person and just misunderstood!” Like, Shaw being an egalitarian in a lot of regards or was good to Madelyne Pryor or loved his father, doesn’t change he’s a heartless, morally bankrupt monster who abused his son and sold out an entire oppressed species (his own, no less) for his own financial gain. Mystique is an incredibly complex character, far more so than Shaw, but her love for Destiny and Rogue and many of her other good points don’t change that she hunted down other mutants for the government, abused her human son for not being a mutant, has committed rape by deception numerous times (though I think that’s due to the writers not realizing that’s a thing), constantly tries to manipulate her daughter’s life and choices, and I’m pretty sure I recall an issue where she framed a guy for domestic abuse just for funsies?Basically, villains are people. They have individual different traits and beliefs and motives, and those things will drive them towards individual different types of villainy. One villain probably won’t do the same kind of villainy that another does. Likewise, someone being a shitty person in one way, or many ways, doesn’t mean they will be in ALL ways. Pointing this out isn’t the same thing as denying their flaws or defending them, but some people do do this and that’s wrong too. Nuance needs to be allowed for. Pointing out Shaw isn’t awful in every way doesn’t mean I think he’s a misunderstood woobie whose crimes should all be forgiven. Pointing out Mystique has done awful shit doesn’t mean I think she’s pure evil and all her complex points should be ignored. It just means I don’t think characters should be strawmanned by fans OR writers as paragons or demons, especially when it contradicts what canon has actually established (with the caveat that canon is dumb sometimes too, and also some characters canonically ARE one extreme or the other, but I’m talking about ones who AREN’T)🔥 the hellfire clubI’ll give two on this! One is “unpopular” just in the sense it’s not something I’ve ever heard anyone express, but I’ve never heard an opinion in opposition to it either. The other is “unpopular” in that it does directly contradict a popularly held opinion.The first is that I think it’s stupid that Grant Morrisson made The Hellfire Club into a strip club, and it’s stupid that writers since depicted it this way. The Hellfire Club is shown in the 80s and 90s as being, first and foremost, an elite social club for the wealthiest and most powerful people in society. It’s basically a big posh country club, and most of its members are just regular people. Super duper rich people, but still normal people, lots of old money and new money and big business owners and politicians and probably royalty/nobility. Most of what they’re doing is big fancy, stuffy galas and balls, that kind of thing. But under the surface, it’s hinted that there is indeed a much more sexual underside to it. The female staff wear very fetishy maid costumes, the female Inner Circles literally have dominatrix lingerie as their getups, and while we actually never see what goes on beyond the closed doors in the 80s, nor was anything directly stated, the hints are definitely there that it’s as libertine in the private rooms as they are prim and proper in the ballrooms. We don’t know WHAT exactly is happening, only that it’s dark and decadent and surely sexual in some kind of “abnormal” (read: kink shaming) way.And then it turns out it’s just a strip club where the dancers wear corsets? Really? REALLY? I’m sorry, you expect me to belief that these oh-so-forbidden and secretive sexual delights that are available only to the richest and most powerful people in the world are…a TITTY BAR WITH NO ACTUAL TITTIES EVEN OUT???? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! It’s so fucking juvenile! It feels like something a 13 year old made up while trying to come up with the mos edgy, shocking, “sexy” thing he could. It just…doesn’t work. It doesn’t work firstly because it completely took away the whole “upper class veneer” that is as much an essential part of the HFC as the sex. In fact, I think more so. Writers, artists, and fans all like to focus on ZOMG THE SEXY COSTUMES but thematically speaking, I think the fact it’s an elite organization exclusive to the super-wealthy is much more important; that should be what they’re really about as villains, but writers end up focusing way too much on the shock value of the kink, and that’s how you wind up with stuff like this. The second reason it doesn’t work is that…it isn’t even shocking. When what they were doing was kept hidden, the reader could imagine no limit of decadence and depravity. When it’s revealed, and revealed as something that’s frankly super and common and TAME (seriously, strip clubs aren’t edgy these days) that you can get anywhere else, you’re left wondering why exactly anyone gives a shit about being in the HFC if this is all it really is? We should NEVER get to see what the HFC patrons truly do in private, and we should definitely never get shown that it’s just watching a woman pole dance with Victorian underwear on. That doesn’t make the HFC look sexual, it makes them look like PRUDES!Honestly, I do actually love the sexy sinful decadent aspect, but it’s overtaken the “extremely rich and powerful people trying to rule the world from behind the scenes through political and economic manipulation” aspect (which is far more interesting and villainous) that I kind of wish sometimes they had been created without the kink or colonial cosplay aspects, and instead had just worn some 80s powersuits.Now, here’s the “unpopular as in contradicts the popular” opinion. I see the Hellfire Club described a lot, in canon and fandom, as an organization of powerful MEN, as a bunch of MEN who just want to control others, as a BOY’S club…but aside from Sebastian Shaw, all the most prominent and effective members of the Club have been women? I mean, think about it. The names most synonymous with “Hellfire Club” in fandom are Emma Frost, Selene, Jean Grey as Dark Phoenix, and Sebastian Shaw. Shaw’s the ONLY dude that really gets any focus from writers OR fans; the women are almost always utilized more by writers and remembered more by fans. Heck, in the London Branch of the Hellfire Club, NONE of the male members of the Inner Circle even got NAMES, while ALL the women did. Now, of course, individual women in an organization being successful in said organization and beloved by fans/writers, doesn’t mean the organization itself can’t also be sexist. And like most people, the disparity between the costumes of both the Inner Circle and the mere staff does lead me to believe that it was probably founded and run only by men originally, and I bet women probably weren’t even allowed in for a long time (especially given that it was established in the 1700s) But that’s my HEADCANON. That’s what I EXTRAPOLATE. But what’s actually on the page IN THE PRESENT is women that are on equal footing with men, or superior to them. They’re not just simply ALLOWED in the Inner Circle, they’ve been dominating it from the first appearance with Emma ruling it alongside Shaw over Leland and Pierce, and then Selene coming in to challenge Shaw and Emma (with Shaw being terrified of her) in a way that none of the other members (all male—Leland, Pierce, Von Roehm) could. Gender is never brought up by anyone, even the most despicable male HFC members like Donald Pierce. So while I believe it was founded by sexist men, the Inner Circle seems pretty egalitarian now.But of course, there’s the costumes. I absolutely think it’s a sexist setup that the men get to wear (super ugly) period cosplay while the women are in fetish lingerie. It seems to be the standard uniform, and the fact that they haven’t CHANGED it shows that there’s definitely still some sexism.Except…it doesn’t seem to be a rule in-universe that the women HAVE to wear them? We actually see female members of the HFC, such as Selene, wearing clothing other than that while hanging out there; there’s actually a scene wear Selene is wearing pants and a sleeveless turtleneck with gloves. Maddy also wears a lot of black leather when she’s a member, but it doesn’t look like the Hellfire Club ladies getup, it looks like all the other stuff she was wearing in the 90s. And when Selene, Emma, etc., AREN’T in the Hellfire Club…they often still dress exactly like that, or in a similiar manner. I think it’s pretty clear that no one is MAKING them wear the uniforms, they just LIKE them, they’re probably “encouraged but optional” or something like that. And Emma even has that WHOLE DAMN SPEECH about how this is her armor, how it empowers her, etc. That said, while I don’t think any other CHARACTERS are making these women dress like that, I do think the writers/artists are. If a real woman made the speech that Emma did, I’d be like “ok sure, you go girl, do what feels empowering for you”. But Emma ISN’T a real woman. Every word in her mouth in that panel is being put there by Chris Claremont, a horny man with a dominatrix fetish who is trying to justify it by selling it as feminist. That is what it is. But just because that’s the case on a meta level…on an in-universe level, no one makes these women dress like this, and that’s very evident, and while the way they’re treated by writers/artists is definitely affected by them being women, the way other characters, including the Hellfire Club men, treats them, isn’t. At least not til shitty recent stuff. (I’ve seen some people think SHAW made the women dress like that….yeah, sure, like he could make SELENE do anything? He’s completely afraid of her but somehow can make her wear something she doesn’t want? Emma and Selene dress like that no matter where they are and whether they’re presently HFC members or not, but somehow he’s making them do that? HOW DOES ANYONE GIVE THIS GUY THAT MUCH CREDIT?)Basically, I think people are TRYING to be feminist, but it often ends up feeling like SEXISM to me? Because it’s totally ignoring and erasing the power and agency that these women exert in this organization, and often even claiming that it’s actually the men who have all the control, when aside from Shaw it’s usually the ladies running the show. It just seems disrespectful to me. It’s like, as much as people are claiming to hate a lack of agency for female characters, they seem more comfortable with that idea than a situation where women actually HAD it. Maybe it’s because they’re villains, maybe it’s because the costumes really are distracting and unequal no matter how the writers try to justify it (again, I wish they’d just gone with business suits), but there seems to be an overall fandom determination to insist on women like Emma Frost and Selene as victims or simply accomplices to a greater (male) villain, rather than embracing them as the Top Tier Bad Bitches they were/are, and, again, that seems more sexist to me than not. But I worry people will think I’m sexist if I say that. But you know me, you know I LOVE agency for female characters, and how I rail against it when see them ACTUALLY lacking it in comics, so you know it’s not that. I think it’s just a part of the rise in purity culture that even “progressive” people would rather see a woman forced or coerced to be a victim than choose of her own volition to be a villain and be GOOD at it :/🔥the difference between naive and unintelligent charactersWell, firstly, obviously there IS a difference. Naivete is just a lack of experience or learned knowledge, neither of which has anything to do with intelligence. A naive character may make mistakes in a new situation based on their lack of knowledge about it, and that may LOOK stupid to those who have this knowledge, but it’s not the same thing. I think we can agree that, say, Tony Stark isn’t stupid, but if he had to navigate in the wilderness, he might do things that experienced hikers and campers and outdoors people know are SUPER BAD IDEAS. Because this isn’t something he knows about or has experience with.So, I think considering characters who are new to this world (as is common in comics—lots of people from other dimensions, planets, and times) as stupid because they don’t know a lot of things we take as a given, is erroneous. I think it’s pretty common for fandom to look at, say, Longshot or Thor, and deem them as basically being idiots because they’re not familiar with their new environments…when in fact, we’d all be acting the same if we wound up in Asgard or Mojoworld. Not that there’s not other reasons they can’t be idiots, but not knowing what a toaster is isn’t one of them.The big difference is that naivete is a temporary state, and I think both writers and fans forget that. The character’s naivete will gradually decrease as they learn more and more. So if you’re writing an Avengers fic where Thor has been on Earth for five years so far, he probably knows what a toaster is, can order normally at a restaurant, isn’t confused by normal sights like cars or traffic lights or computers, etc., but could still be confused if he went to a Midgardian country with very different cultural norms than the ones he’s learned in the United States. Likewise, I can keep Malcolm perpetually baffled by new worlds in RP since time is kinda wobbly here and can be static or move forward or back as we like, but if I were writing him in a linear story, he would have to learn along the way about the technology and norms of other worlds as he experiences them; if he didn’t learn, THEN he would be unintelligent, not just naive. If he touches a hot stove once because he didn’t know what it was, and it burns him, that’s naive. If he touches it twice to test if it does the same thing again, that’s curious and maybe even smart, despite looking stupid to others. If he keeps doing it every day by accident, then THAT’S an idiot. Also, even a naive character may still be able to deduce that certain things are bad ideas, dangerous, etc. For instance, let’s say my character is a normal everyday girl sucked into a fantasy realm. She doesn’t understand the language, and the people around her don’t look like anything humanoid, but when all of them go quiet and still when a larger, more decorated one enters, and they all give it a lot of space, she can probably deduce that this is someone of great importance, and she probably should do what the others are doing and not risk pissing it off. She may know nothing about these beings or their customs, but she still can use her powers of observation and common sense. It may end up being a TOTALLY wrong move—for instance, maybe newcomers are meant to come introduce themselves to the leader by touching them–but it was a good, sensible guess. Whereas if she’d just walked up to the being and given it a good swift kick, that’d be unintelligent to an almost unbelievable point, and no amount of “she’s just naive!” could excuse it.Oh yeah, and optimism doesn’t automatically equate to naivete either. To be honest, I think that extreme cynicism is just as naive in its own way as thinking everything is sunshine and daisies, and I’d like to see this explored more in fiction rather than the perpetual “happy positive people are dumb and naive and just don’t know better, whereas the grumpy cynics are always smarter and more experienced” that media is so fond of.TL;DR Not only is naivete not unintelligence, it also should be a temporary state. It’s definitely cute to watch a naive character stumble around their new experiences, but in gaining those experiences, they’re going to become less naive, and make few mistakes. Naive characters should also still be capable of acting in ways that are sensible, even if they end up being wrong for the new situation. And being positive doesn’t automatically equate naivete either, nor does negativity equate to the reverse (and can be naive in itself)

What do you think of the controversy over Caulifla's super saiyan transformations and the Mary Sue accusations?

Goku was able to perform the Kamehameha, a technique that took the world’s oldest and most experienced martial arts master 50 years to get down, on his first try without ever even hearing about the concept of ki control in his life before Roshi showed him the technique. No I don’t care if Dragon Ball was mostly a gag manga at the time, that’s still objectively canon and Goku is frequently shown mastering techniques at extremely fast rates just through observation.

Vegeta revealed pretty much out of nowhere that he had learned how to sense people’s ki without a scouter just by realizing that Goku and his friends could do it and giving it a go himself, when the only time he could have possibly had to test this ability was during the ten odd minutes he spent conscious on that outpost where he had been sent to recover. Keep in mind, the ability to sense people’s ki was introduced as an ability Goku only gained because he drank the ultra divine water, and yet everyone could do it in Z with minimal explanation given and Vegeta just picked it up naturally.

Goten learned how to fly on his first try after a brief explanation as to how, and he and Tunks were able to master going super saiyan on their own with no help or instructions as little children, offscreen, and both were strong enough to given Gohan a run for his money as a super saiyan if Gohan’s reaction to sparring with Goten was any indication. With no other explanation than “Because mutant prodigy’s”. and as Gotenks they not only skipped right past super saiyan 2 to become a super saiyan 3 out of nowhere just as a quick plot convenience to get them and Piccolo out of the hyperbolic time chamber, with the implication Gotenks could have done it earlier easily if he wanted. SOMEHOW. And let’s not forget his technique he suddenly revealed he had where he spat out a squad of sentient ghost suicide bombers with his face (Just TRY and give me a sensible explanation for that. I DARE you).

Hit has an ability that literally allows him to boost his power and improve his skills so that he can match or even just surpass his opponents AS HE’S FIGHTING THEM, best demonstrated by how he quickly managed to catch up to and fight mostly evenly with Goku at kaio-ken x10 on top of super saiyan blue.

And I could give a number of other examples.

I don’t see nearly as many people complaining about any of these instances, and many of the people complaining about Caulifla don’t have an issue with those characters doing these things.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, people put WAY too much importance on super saiyan transformations. People complain about Caulifla and Kale’s transformations “Devaluing” the super saiyan transformation and making it less impressive and special.

Except, that’s literally all the franchise has BEEN DOING to the form since the Freeza saga ended.

Future Trunks’ debut pretty much debunked the possibility of it being a rare one of a kind legendary form, and soon after every single character with saiyan blood in them minus Pan and Bulla we met was able to go super saiyan. Multiple new forms were introduced as upgrades to super saiyan in Z, GT went and introduced super saiyan 4, something that actually LOOKS like a proper transformation. The recent movies adapted into Super introduced two new transformations that were literally called god forms, one of which required a special ritual involving multiple super saiyans to access. And of course there’s Broly’s legendary super saiyan transformation from his movies, which has been re-imagined as Super Saiyan Berserk for Super, and Super saiyan Rose, which is super saiyan blue with it’s colouring being altered by Zamasu’s corrupt divine spirit inhabiting Goku’s body. And Trunks’ rage mode.

And again, characters have been shown gradually having less trouble acquiring the initial super saiyan forms, to the point Toriyama didn’t even bother showing us how Goten and Trunks mastered them and just made a joke about it.

I think people are still hung up on the whole “Legendary” status the form has in universe, and how the characters treated it as a big deal, and came up with their own vague, non-descript explanations for it like “It comes in response to a need” and whatever (So, yeah, what was Goten and Trunks’ need? To look cool for parties?).

When the truth is, given from what we’ve seen, the likely scenario is that the initial super saiyan transformation is actually a fairly basic technique that any reasonably talented saiyan can do if they try and have an idea what they’re going for, provided they concentrate hard enough. It was only considered legendary in universe because no one had any idea how to do it or what the heck a super saiyan actually IS, since no one had done it for a thousand years for some reason. I mean… Nappa thought that Gohan might have been a super saiyan because he was a hybrid, and Vegeta thought he had become one because he’d gotten a few zenkai boosts and he was royalty.

Super saiyan transformations really aren’t that big of a deal, in that case. They serve two main purposes, as a convenient excuse for our heroes to match their enemies, and as iconography for the series. People claiming that the super saiyan form is some special great thing that has to be earned are usually of the same mindset this fandom has that saiyan characters are intrinsically more valuable than characters of any other species, especially humans. Which is straight up wrong on multiple levels.

One of the complaints people used to have about the prequel trilogy of Star Wars was that having so many Jedi made them less “Special”, yet if the Clone wars and much of the other media set during that era and before it featuring large amounts of Jedi, sith and other force users proves anything, it’s that there’s actually MORE and better story potential to having a fairly sizable amount of Jedi and other force users around, and having them not be quite as OP as we would have thought, as opposed to the original trilogy’s strategy of having only a few of them and having them be super special people.

Caulifla was already a prodigy, If you look at her, she seems to be a rough counterpart of Goku, being a lot different to what we had been lead to expect universe 6 saiyans to act like, loving to fight and having a strong desire to get stronger, yada yada. As a super saiyan 2, she was able to fight pretty evenly with Goku using that same form, so she’s definitely waaaaaaaay stronger than Goku was AS a super saiyan back in the Frieza saga, and given the lifetime of training and natural talent it would have took her to reach that level on her own, that probably would have meant she’s an expert at ki control.

So, take everything I’ve mentioned into account, remember the series has a long established pattern of very talented characters learning new abilities almost instantaneously after seeing them, remember Caulifla saw Cabba go super saiyan several times right in front of her and that he gave her advice about how to do it, and her getting it down on her second try is hardly that illogical.

Her going super saiyan 2 is a little more sketchy, not helped by the fact that… well, the series has never finely ironed out HOW the upper transformations work and how characters go into them other than Gohan’s extreme rage burst. But I’ll just shrug it off as a surge of adrenaline briefly triggering it since she had to stop Kale killing Cabba quickly. She didn’t actually have the ability to go into it herself after all, she needed Goku to show it to her and to seemingly concentrate a lot harder, and then spar with Goku to get it down. So, a little eye brow raising at first, but nothing too egregious and I was willing to roll with it.

If she had started out going into super saiyan god out of nowhere, that would have made no sense and have been something to gripe about. But the way she gained her super saiyan transformations? Honestly, I don’t find it a big deal, really.

Super saiyan transformations have never been anywhere near a quarter as important as the character’s USING them. Caulifla is a fun and likeable character, and she could have plenty of potential to her if she’s brought back for more stories after the current saga. So that’s all I really care about in the grand scheme of things.

Really, I’m just glad that the franchise FINALLY got off it’s lazy butt and introduced a female super saiyan already. It’s refreshing seeing more women doing cool things in this show. Heaven knows we had an inexcusably small pool of powerful and competent female fighters in this series already. People nitpicking the mechanics of the forms, whether it’s been devalued by Caulifla using them the way she has, to complain about her being a bad character supposedly… with all due respect, I think their priorities are in the wrong places.

Then again, going through comments sections, people’s blogs and other sites, I’ve seen a frightening amount of disgustingly sexist and disturbing comments about Caulifla and Kale, and also the Kamikaze Fireballs, especially Ribirianne. And people actually freely admitting that Dragon Ball doesn’t need women fighters that aren’t all like Android 18. Soooooo… maybe the divisive side of the reactions to Caulifla are about more than just people hyper-focusing on lore and the informed “specialness” of super saiyan transformations.

This fandom DOES have a long standing and not well enough addressed misogyny problem, after all.

The last few episodes of Game of Thrones made me irrationally angry

Courteous warning in case the title wasn’t enough: spoilers. Do not read unless you’ve either seen the last season or like spoiling things for yourself (I have a friend who likes to do that. She may be a monster.)

I like Game of Thrones. I know, it’s problematic in about a ton of ways and many feminists hate it, which is fine, but I myself am pretty lax when it comes to fiction and choose to fight my battles elsewhere (but I must stress again that if you are the type of person who chooses to fight for more inclusive, less sexist fiction, I have no problem with that, and I’ll defend your right to call out whichever one of my favourite series you want without receiving fucked up threats from creepy edgelords). So, I like the show and have followed it for a while, and I’ve never been super annoyed with anything the show has done. Not even the Dorne bit, because I’m a heathen and haven’t read the books that far, so I was just slightly bored rather than offended by that.

However, this last season kinda pissed me off. Not the first few episodes, they were acceptable if not that riveting, but particularly the last two were just sort of... trash. They had some saving graces, like finally getting rid of that little bitch Baelish whom I’ve loathed since the beginning and who was number one on my needs-to-die-next-list (and don’t pretend you don’t have one of those, we all do), but otherwise I really disliked what they did with them.

Firstly, I hated what they did to Daenerys. I was never a huge fan of her, but at least she had managed to become a somewhat independent female character with something of a personality (unlike Cersei, who is too unilaterally evil and also pretty high on my needs-to-die-next-list). But this season, she started out okay but then turned into an idiot who for some inexplicable reason cared more about Jon Snow than about her dragon children and ended up being completely overshadowed by him and sleeping with him like immediately, which is just garbage character development in my opinion. And then it turns out they’re related too, so now it’s basically a discount incest couple going for the throne to replace the current incest couple. That’s not a plot twist, that’s what you write when you really need a plot twist but can’t think of one. So thumbs down for that.

Also, let’s talk a bit more about Jon Snow, mainly the fact that he sucks. I was bored with his adventures on the wall as soon as he got there and never grew to like the character, because he is so much of a Mary Sue that you could replace the words “Mary Sue” in the dictionary with “Jon Snow”. And in this season he didn’t just escape death again and fight off like a million walkers on that very convenient cliff that just happened to be there in the middle of a lake, he also did that stupid “I can’t lie to Cersei because my dad who wasn’t my dad wouldn’t have done that” which was apparently supposed to be cool and heroic but bleh, and then he seduced Daenerys with his awesome woman skills that he’s not supposed to have but still does for some reason. And was anyone actually surprised by the fact that he wasn’t Ned’s bastard, because I think it was always pretty obvious. If you have a Mary Sue with an unknown parent, you can pretty much bet your ass that they will be revealed to be related to royalty at some point. So that whole character, no, he is the current number one on my needs-to-die-next-list.

Speaking of death, that brings me to my last grievance which is that awful zombie dragon thing. That was just crap. We’ve been told that the dragons are really fucking powerful, and then the night king just throws one spear and it kills one of them immediately? I get that the night king is supposed to be powerful too, but if he was powerful enough to murder a dragon in ten seconds he should have taken over that entire world by now instead of slugging behind the wall. I also admit that I may have been slightly offended by that scene because the dragons are vastly more likeable than any of the humans on the show, and I may have cried during it and it’s also possible that I covered my eyes because I couldn’t look at it. Whatever, it also sucks as a plot, and the fact that Cersei somehow guessed that one of the dragons was dead was really far fetched and dumb too so fuck that whole thing.

Anyway, that’s my rant. To sum up, watered down Daenerys, Jon Snow in general and zombie dragons suck. But Tyrion was excellent as usual. And that Baelish death. And that scene where Sam was emptying shitty bedpans and then eating food that looked no different from the shit may have been the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen, but it was pretty clever.