redwoodalchan | Entries tagged with oh god why

We all know there are many problems with Tumblr culture, one of the most obvious of which is that it tends to be a breeding ground for what Harp refers to as BAW-ers. But it occurs to me that not all Tumblr jerks are in the holier-than-thou vein--some of them seem like they're just jerks for the sake of being jerks. I've heard tell of people on Tumblr doing things like...

-Laughing at Europe for having heat waves in which people have actually gotten killed
-Laughing at Europeans for complaining about high temperatures that Americans are mostly used to
-Laughing at those who erroneously claim Europe isn't a racist place--while talking over actual Europeans who face racism!

...and so on.

Unless this is really more of the same holier-than-thou crap, just in a different form.

Current Mood: cynical

So Rowdy C reviewed a dead baby comedy known as "Mr. Pickles," and as I watched the review, I wonder if he feels the same way about that show that I feel about Shittted! Because the stories do seem like they could be fairly similar on some levels (though I have NO interest WHATSOEVER in testing that theory--the review of this thing alone made me want to cry in a corner).

I mean, I've encountered quite a bit of sick and wrong and horrifying over the ages, but this is like, "can't sleep, monsters under the bed will brutally murder me" grade sick and wrong and horrifying here!

Oh, and I'm not providing a link to the review. I refuse to go near that review again. If you really want to watch it you can go to Rowdy C's homepage and look it up on your own time. Just keep in mind, I sporked Shittted! and "Elfen Lied." That should tell you something about how bad this is.

Current Mood: distressed

Have they forgotten that my Harry Potter Abridged series isn't meant to be a serious discussion of the books? Like, I tried to make a joke about Voldemort emulating Hitler in the first chapter of DH and they just had to turn it into a thing about how the Nazis bombed the orphanage he grew up in. Yes, that's a theory that's out there, and it does make sense; but a) it's fanon, not canon and b) it's not half as funny as mocking Rowling's utter inability to write her villains as convincing Nazis! What's it to them whether it finds its way into my parody or not?

And I'll admit I've been known to incorporate bits of fanon I like into my Abridged series, but the focus, first and foremost, is on making fun of the stupid crap that's in the books, not on rewriting the series to account for every theory the DTCLers have ever entertained. If I really think a fan theory is important and want to talk about it, I'll write an essay on it!

Also, I wish they'd stop fighting each other about what this or that Slytherin or Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw is really like, when the essential problem is that we have no way of knowing what Slytherins and Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws are really like or really think or feel about anything because we never get anyone but the Gryffindors' side of the story. To be fair, that's not limited to DTCL, but it's still stupid and I wish people would stop (this might make a good rant in its own right, thinking on it...).

Current Mood: grumpy

Look, I'm glad that you're so happy and content in your atheistic ways, but for fuck's sake, if I specifically create a forum post asking RELIGIOUS Iron Maiden fans what they think of Iron Maiden's music, that's not your cue to come in and announce yourselves as proudly atheistic (duh)! Last I checked, you can't be both religious and atheistic--the moment you become one, you stop being the other. Go somewhere else where I'm not trying to draw specifically RELIGIOUS fans out of the woodwork!

No love,
Me

I'd complain but the problem is threads in the fan club get derailed all the time, so I'll be the one who looks mean-spirited if I do.But if atheists hijack my thread and start waving "Starblind" around like a victory flag as proof that look, Iron Maiden were pro-atheist all along, I think I might throw a fit.

(I'm sorry if I sound overly harsh on atheists. It's not that I think there's anything inherently bad about atheism, really. What I don't like is atheists who try to change my or anyone else's mind about their beliefs, or hold themselves up as inherently more enlightened than religious people. To me they're no better than fanatical evangelical Christians)

Current Mood: cranky
Crossposts: http://sweettalkeress.livejournal.com/34699.html

So there's a YouTuber called Film Theory who did a video on how Christian Grey treats Ana the same way cult leaders treat their victims. It's quite interesting.

( Warning: Abuse, rape, etc. (obviously) )

Current Mood: discontent
Crossposts: http://sweettalkeress.livejournal.com/34102.html

This is something that's been on my mind for a little while now, and has been on my mind even more since I watched this video (warning: "Family Guy" spoilers, blood content). The video makes a good point about the growing trend of fans apparently thinking it's okay to kill off a character just because they're annoying or not particularly liked, and how troubling this trend is. What's even more troubling to me is that people say the same sorts of things about real people some of the time. I'm sure we've all seen examples of this. "This fan wrote a bad story whose message I don't approve of, therefore they should die." "This celebrity was mean to another celebrity I like, therefore they should die." "This person killed someone, therefore the death penalty is the only way justice could possibly be served." And whether the people saying these things mean it literally is not the point; the point is it's considered perfectly acceptable to wish death on pretty much anyone who does something unpopular or morally wrong. I wouldn't necessarily say our entertainment (with its focus on standing up to, beating up, and/or killing physically-stronger opponents) is entirely to blame for this, but I think it's very much a chicken-and-egg problem, and I don't think it's an accident that there's so many parallels between what people say about characters that aren't particularly liked and what people say about real people who aren't particularly liked.

Admittedly you do get into more of a gray area when you're talking about people who do morally-reprehensible things. This is why people can sustain debates about the morality and efficacy of the death penalty. But it's one thing to have a death penalty, and quite another to justify or glorify the mere act of killing "bad" people, even in fiction or throwaway conversations. One of the things that most impressed me about the anime "Birdy the Mighty: Decode" is that it went out of its way, particularly in the second season, to point out that there is NO such thing as a justifiable murder, EVEN IF THE TARGETS ARE TERRIBLE PEOPLE.

But some people don't even stop there. There was an article on LiveJournal a few weeks ago about how the guys who bombed the Boston Marathon had been tried and sentenced to death for killing so many people. Now, I'm not someone who has any sort of objections to this per se (though some people seem to), but what troubled me the most was that there were at least one or two comments on the article about how these men ought to be tortured to death. I repeat: these men had already been sentenced to die at the time. That was not up for negotiation or debate. Yet you still had users essentially making the case that, oh, merely killing them isn't good enough, we had to make sure they suffered horribly before they died. But why?! Torturing these men before killing them won't bring their victims back to life. And if the argument is that it will enable them to feel the pain of their victims, or the victims' families, well, here's the thing. Back when I was sporking some of the paratext about that book-which-must-not-be-named I expressed glee at a picture of the main character being tied up and abused, because I hated him so much. But one of the comments pointed out that what would be better revenge would be to dispose of him quickly and quietly, denying him the flashy, torturous deaths he was so fond of dishing out. And that's kind-of how I feel about these guys. The best thing to do would be to simply kill them with no fanfare, and have everyone get on with their lives. If they actually were tortured to death it would cast them as victims of America's criminal justice system on the one hand, and make it acceptable to descend to their level in the name of "justice" on the other.

It feels vaguely "Black Lagoon," actually. Everyone kills, so killing an opponent is to be expected, and the only way to show someone as particularly awful, or punish said person, is to make the death extra torturous, humiliating, or widespread. But is "Black Lagoon" really the world we want to live in?

Current Mood: grumpy
Crossposts: http://sweettalkeress.livejournal.com/34032.html

So apparently there exists in the Pit a fanfic crossover of "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" and "Xam'd: Lost Memories." Oh, yeah! Why anyone would think it would be a good idea to combine a series for six-year-old girls about ponies and an adult anime series that prominently features such delights as a teenage boy eating his own head and parents lamenting the disappearance of their children, I have no idea. I've briefly read through the three chapters or so of the fic, and...it seems that it basically follows the storyline and even the script of "Xam'd" pretty much line by line, only the "Xam'd" characters are replaced by characters from "My Little Pony." Did the author even watch "Xam'd" past the first two or three episodes? Did they just assume that friendship was as important in "Xam'd" as it was in "My Little Pony" (which isn't true, BTW, or at least not in the simplistic "Friendship can do anything!!" way I commonly see it touted in children's entertainment)?

In short, what the fuck?!

Current Mood: giggly
Crossposts: http://sweettalkeress.livejournal.com/33766.html

( Contains references to abuse )

Current Mood: frustrated

So far I've composed a document that contains every chapter up thru 18. Ordinarily I'd read through it once, then go back, close-read, and compose the spork (or, as I've been doing more regularly, close-read and spork as I go). Since I'm only sporking two chapters, though, I may have to reevaluate.

I've already read the two chapters I'm supposed to spork, just to get a feel for what's in them. I've since gone back and begun reading from the beginning, and I'll read up to my assigned chapters. Once that's done, I think I'll go back and close-read two chapters at a time, until I once again get back to my assigned chapters, at which point I'll compose the sporking itself. I don't see any reason to read any more, though, unless I decide I love it so much I simply must spork another chapter.

I've also been reading the Divine Comedy in all its gory glory! No big surprise, this author's gotten the title wrong. There's so much of an emphasis on Beatrice in this book yet Beatrice isn't even a character in the Inferno, except insofar as she's the reason Dante goes on his quest in the first place. She plays a bigger role in later sections, but here's the thing: this book's not called The Divine Comedy As Reimagined by Twihards, or even Gabriel's Paradise or something; it's Gabriel's Inferno! Yet it has virtually nothing to do with the Inferno! When I think of the Inferno I think of the vivid descriptions of Hell and sinners and punishments and monsters, yet that never comes up!

Current Mood: determined

I get Chapters 17 and 18. It looks like they're the chapters where we learn about the heroine's dark, tortured past. Also she and her man are domestic together and this author spends way too much time describing what they wear and eat, and has them come up with eye-bleedingly awful nicknames (Angelfucker?! REALLY?!). And her man sounds like my mom, on days when I'm recovering from some great physical or psychological ordeal.

In fact, I'm reminded of nothing so much as Cori Falls.

Current Mood: blah

So upon further consideration, a large chunk of that rant is her going "Making my favorite characters die is bad bad bad! Oh but I don't have a problem with these OTHER deaths because X Y and Z!" Like that time she talked about how it was okay for Goku to die because it feeds into Japanese spiritual beliefs--something that could be said to apply to Jessie and James as well, were one so inclined. It makes me wonder if that rant might have been more sensible and acceptable if she'd simply spelled out, "Look, my favorite characters are super precious to me, so just don't kill any of them in any stories you send me, plzkthnx," and left it at that. But that would require a level of self-awareness that she didn't seem to possess at the time.

It also makes me really glad that I haven't been a Cori-esque fan for years, if I ever was. If I reacted the way Cori did every time one of my favorite characters died in a show I wouldn't be able to watch at least half of my beloved anime shows. If I tried to watch "Xam'd" with her mentality I'd be throwing a fit every episode from the quarter-way mark on!

Current Mood: complacent

For what it's worth, I always get a bit offended when people seem to want to argue that if you can't get out of whatever bad situation that's automatically your fault for not trying hard enough. Like, the kind of people who'll tell you that if you're poor, you just need to get more jobs to stop being poor, or if you're being abused, you just need to stand up to/get away from your abuser--or that if you're not willing to do literally anything it takes to end the environmental crisis you're automatically part of the problem. I mean, I'm sure there are some people who can always pull themselves up by their bootstraps or are super resourceful or have nothing to lose or whatever, but I'm pretty sure those kinds of people are the exception rather than the rule. And to insinuate that it's somehow a failing on the part of the suffering person if they can't fix all their own problems, just strikes me as very uncaring, you know?

Current Mood: blah

Here it is. Contains potential first-season spoilers.

Mostly all I'm getting from this is that whoever this person is, they completely missed the point of the series (case to point: "Birdy the Mighty: Decode" is NOT an action series--it is an action series in about the same sense that "Heat Guy J" is an action series and if you knew anything at all about the person who made it you'd know he doesn't DO straight action series). However, it's still pretty funny, and an absolute goldmine of "Birdy the Mighty: Decode" screenshots, which I'm grateful for since I'm putting together a powerpoint about this show for a panel on its creator.

Also...I'm glad I'm not the only one who picked up on how creepy Shyamalan is. I wouldn't go so far as to outright call Shyamalan a pedophile or a date rapist (since he never actually rapes anyone in-story, at least as far as we know), but this person isn't wrong when they say that there's something not quite right about the way he treats Sayaka....

Current Mood: cold

You know one thing that really grinds my gears? People who can't tell the difference between liking something they see in media and condoning it. People who think that liking a nasty or unpopular character automatically means that you would support that character in real life.

And, I recognize that there will always be people for whom the likes of Edward Cullen really are their perfect men. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the notion some people seem to have that merely liking a character automatically means that you support/want to have sex with that character, regardless of your actual reasons for liking him or her. The hatedom against Snape from the Harry Potter books seems to be a classic example of this--there seem to be a few people who will always believe the worst of Snape's fans, as though the mere fact that they like him and find him sympathetic means that they support him calling Lily a bad name or picking on Harry. There have even been people who've tried to peg fans of Snape as racist (which admittedly partly had to do with the genuinely bad behavior of a few people who happened to like Snape, but STILL).

But that's simply not how it works. I like lots of characters who do lots of really reprehensible things, but I recognize that their behavior is wrong and don't try to emulate them. Liking Legato Bluesummers from "Trigun" does not make me a mass-murdering cannibal out to destroy humanity. Liking Clair Leonelli from "Heat Guy J" does not make me a mad bomber. Liking Mao from "Code Geass" does not make me a deranged psychopathic manchild who'd cut up her love interest with a chainsaw. Nor would I condone the behavior of any of these characters if I met them in real life. So why should liking Snape make anyone a racist? In all likelihood, there's a goodly amount of people (such as myself) who like characters such as the ones above, probably only because they're not real and their actions have no real-world consequences. Isn't part of the point of fiction escapism? And isn't part of escapism the idea that you can get close to things that horrify you while still remaining perfectly safe?

In addition, there is a difference between merely liking something and liking nothing except that thing (the latter of which I'd argue actually is cause for concern). As much as I love Mao, for example, I'd like to think I'd be freaked out if I met someone who went on about how he was the GREATEST ANIME CHARACTER EVER!! and every other anime character was worthless. In a similar vein, the mere fact that I happen to own a Cannibal Corpse album shouldn't mean anything by itself--but, if I refused to listen to anything that was not Cannibal Corpse, then I could see how my family would be worried.

...Yeah.

Current Mood: cynical

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Current Mood: annoyed

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Current Music: "Team Rocket: Double Trouble"

So apparently, females of any species (including humans!) are tastier meat than males. Something to do with fat ratios.

Also, rape is ridiculously common in the animal world. It's ALSO common for males to go out of their way to make sexual activity unpleasant for females so they won't have offspring with anyone else.

Excuse me while I curl up in a ball and cry. Someone prove me wrong.

Current Mood: cranky

Aaand, the first ever entry in the Awkward Fanfic Theatre is…
Title: What Pretty Girls Get
Author: GoodbyeCrimson
Fandom: Shiki
Pairings: MasaoXMegumi
Warnings: Abuse
Summary: “MasaoxMegumi.Oneshot.Megumi's always been prettier than Kaori...so why does she get the feeling that the plain-faced girl has something she doesn't? And why is she starting to enjoy hanging out with that creep Masao...?”

( Contains spoilers for Shiki )

Current Mood: pessimistic

...Although really it's more generally anime fans bashing Twilight. I'm getting sick of how they constantly make everything a "Hellsing" joke and constantly compare Twilight unfavorably to "Hellsing" for all the world as though "Hellsing" were the greatest thing ever! The latest entry on the Twilight-Sucks comm on LiveJournal was just a "Hellsing" AMV, and near as I can tell, that AMV didn't even have anything to do with Twilight!

I mean, okay, I'll admit that it's likely some of this is just me being a raving "Shiki" fangirl, but I'd like to think I'd get annoyed if they made everything a "Shiki" joke too (specially now that I'm no longer...quite as obsessed a "Shiki" fan as I used to be)!

Otherwise, I think this is probably half my annoyance at the common forms anti-Twilight discussions take, and half my sense that "Hellsing" just gets a ridiculous amount of hype from the anime fandom when I honestly have a hard time seeing how it's that interesting. In the former case, it seems like sooner or later anti-Twilighters inevitably fall back on comparing the Twilight protagonists unfavorably to either Leah or the "Hellsing" cast. I mean, I get that providing a good example of something to compare to a bad work is desirable because it enables you to explore just how something can be done well, but there are a million other things to compare the "Twilight" characters to besides just those things. They aren't the end-all, be-all. And in the latter case you have "Hellsing" fans going on about how Hellsing is the BEST THING EVER!! because its vampires are sexy and badass and don't sparkle, all while anime feminists go on about how Integra is the BEST THING EVER!! I think Shamanicshaymin put it best in one of her comments: they're putting these things so high on a pedestal that they can't see anything below. And that pisses me off.

Current Mood: cranky

So, Railrunner. What exactly does he do throughout the course of the story?

-Remorselessly and sadistically murders people in the most gruesome way he can think of
-Enjoys every bit of it
-Thinks of humans (by and large) as useless insects (not that he admits it, but still)
-Can manipulate people's limbs to get them to do things against their will/kill themselves
-Eats (near as we can tell) nothing but meat and sweets
-Will kill any enemies he doesn't consider his worthy opponents in the blink of an eye
-Is single-mindedly determined to torture and kill said worthy opponents

You know who else does all these things? Legato Bluesummers from "Trigun!"

Tip from the experts: if your oh-so-noble, chosen one Jesus analog hero has anything remotely in common with one of the most notoriously-evil bad guys in the popular anime fandom consciousness, YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING VERY WRONG!