Why Aren't You An Avengers Hater?

Fascism sells a synthetic nostalgia.

How your disabled character's allies react to their disability can make or break the representation in your story: Writing Disability Quick Tips

[ID: An image with “Writing Disability quick tips: How your character's allies react to their disability matters” written in chalk the colour of the disability pride flag, from left to right, red, yellow, white, blue and green. Beside the text are 2 poorly drawn people icons in green, one is standing with their hand up to the face of the other, who is in a wheelchair. /End ID]

Something I brought up in my big post about Toph Beifong was how the other characters reacted to Toph pointing out that things were not accessible to her and setting boundaries regarding her disability, which were ignored. I had more to say about it than I thought I did, as it turns out (when isn't that the case lol) but I feel like this is an important aspect of disability representation that is all too often over looked.

You can write the best, most accurate portrayal of a specific disability ever put to screen or page, but it won't mean much if all the other characters, specifically those we're supposed to like and empathise with, treat your character terribly for being disabled and having needs relating to said disability, especially if the story justifies their behaviour.

You see this most often with autistic characters and especially autistic-coded characters. The character in question will be given a bunch of autistic traits, most often traits relating to not understanding certain social dynamics or sarcasm, and when they get it wrong, the other characters we are supposed to like jump down their throat, tease them or outright abandon them. Autism isn't the only disability that gets treated this way, but it is one of the more common ones that get this treatment. It doesn't matter if you do everything else right when creating an autistic character if the other "good guys" constantly call them annoying, get angry at them or laugh at them for the very traits that make them autistic, or for advocating for their needs.

Likewise, if you have a leg amputee character who is otherwise done well, but is constantly being criticised by their allies for needing to rest their legs or taking too long to get their prosthetics on, it undermines a lot of the other work you've done. Same goes for having a wheelchair user who is accused of being a bore or a stick in the mud because they point out the places their friends want to go to on a group holiday have no wheelchair access, or a deaf character who is accused of being entitled for wanting their family to learn to sign, or anything else.

This isn't to say you can never have moments like these in your stories, but its important to remember that a) people with the same disability as your character will be in your audience. If you spend a whole season of your TV show shaming your autistic character for real traits that real autistic people have, they're not exactly going to feel welcome and may not want to hang around. b) it's going to very, very heavily impact people's perceptions of your "heros" who do this, especially in they eyes of your audience members who share the character's disability or who have had similar experiences. This isn't like calling someone a mean name or being a bit of a dick when you're sleepy, it's going to take a lot to regain audience appeal for the offending character, and depending on exactly what they do and how frequently they do it, they may not even be able to come back from it at all. And finally, c) there should be a point to it outside of just shaming this character and saying the other guy is an asshole. Like I said before, you're character is criticising real people's real disabilities and the traits or problems that come with them, things that they often have no control over, it shouldn't be used as a cheap, quick way to establish a quirky enemies to lovers dynamic or show that one guy is kind of an ass before his redemption arc. If you really must have your characters do this, be mindful of when and how you use it.

There's a huge difference between redemption and humanization. I feel like a lot of "redemption arcs" aren't actually redemption at all, they're just attempts to humanize the villain so that they seem multi-faceted, but people read them as "redemption arcs" and think that that is meant to justify all the evil they've done before and negate whatever made them a villain in the first place. I think true "redemption arcs" are actually kind of rare because true redemption would take making the villain acknowledge their crimes, reevaluate their actions, actively choose to do better, and then proceed to make amends and become a better person, and that would this take more time than most stories are allowed to give their characters.

I've also seen people argue that a character has to be poised for redemption from the jump for it to work because once a character does something "too bad", they can't be redeemed. I completely disagree because redemption isn't justification or forgiveness, so no matter how horrible a character's actions, they could choose to become better, but because a lot of people (including writers) think redemption means "erasing the character's flaws and making it so they did nothing wrong ever", a lot of attempted "redemption arcs" just end up erasing a character's entire history or justifying every evil thing they've ever done. And yeah, in these cases, the only way to make a character go from a villain to a perfect cinnamon roll with no flaws *is* to have been planning it from the beginning and make sure they never do anything that can't be explained away later.

TLDR: real redemption arcs require a lot of self-awareness, patience, and growth, which are things that are rarely actually allocated to villains, and that's why real redemption arcs almost never get executed. The reason people think redemption arcs are overdone is because there are so many attempts to either humanize a villain that get misconstrued as redemption or attempts to blatantly erase who a character was in the name of "redemption", which is really just poor character development.

Comics making 2 final: part 1/3

this isn't kirby anime slander I swear

"No one remembered my birthday-" Well, but did YOU tell anyone it was coming up and you wanted to celebrate it with them?

"I wish someone would see through it when I tell people I'm fine-" Well, but have YOU considered not lying when people ask you how you're doing?

"I am so resentful of my friend because they keep doing this thing that really bothers me-" Well, but have YOU directly communicated that the thing is bothering you?

"I am burning out because my friend keeps expecting me to help them with serious struggles-" Well, but have YOU tried to establish the boundaries you need to feel okay?

"No one ever asks me about this thing I really care about-" Well, but have YOU brought it up yourself?

"I miss my friend but they haven't texted me-" Well, but have YOU been reaching out to them?

Sometimes people are mean, uncaring assholes, in which case you get to be mad. But sometimes you just need to communicate better. Try communication before you assume someone doesn't care!

How to spot a (heart wrenching sad cat) Charity Scam

So I've been get a lot of requests for money in my askbox lately, from users I have never seen before! Usually sad cats, sometimes gender affirming medical bills, a queer person being made homeless etc etc... and guess what? None of them are real! It's scammers who have learned how to work tumblr's userbase and prey on our general sense of community and charity.

Here it is, so sad! So tragic! But let's note a few things:

It's generic. They don't know me, I don't know them. it's addressed to 'friend', no use of nicknames or usernames.

Even the cat and the problem are generic 'little kitty' who has 'urgent needs'. This is not how real people talk, this is because this scam is being used over and over with different accounts a different 'cats'.

Praying (uh huh.)

Asking you to reply privately- This is so people don't spot the scam and point it out the mark and because if too many people posted replies to the same message it would beome really obvious that this is a scam. If they're looking for 'boosts' so badly, then why do they need you to reply privately?

Now that I'm suspicious, let's investigate.

Sent me an ask and then followed me! Sounds like they're just hitting up anyone and everyone, but even more likely they have a list they're working from.

(I get so many, I'm probably on a mail-out list a mile long, just being hit up for cash. Likely I fell for one of these once and got my name added to every scam list for miles, but oh well.)

So let's see if they're a bot or a real person!

The blog looks genuine enough, they've got a bio, a fandom etc. And it says they're an artist!

And of course there's that sad cat post, pinned right to the top, so I don't have to look any further through the blog for verification... Looks super legit, pics of the cat, pics of the bill... of course anyone can print out a bill and take a picture of it...

As I do scroll futher, it's full of reblogs making this look like an active user. So how can I tell it's not genuine?

Well, if they're an artist they probably post right? Doodles? Pictures? Let's have a look at their origional posts.

The fastest way to do this is by using an outside tool like Original Post Finder.

just type in the suspicious username and go...

Voila! As suspected, the only post this bot account has ever made is Sad Cat Post.

Confirmed: Scam. Do not give your money to these guys, it looks so real but they're just here to make you feel like a bad person for not handing over everything you can. Charity is wonderful, supporting friends is wonderful, but tbh save it for people you actually know irl/ mutuals you have an actual relationship with. Don't believe any rando who comes knocking!

Love and kisses, stay safe out there.

honestly seeing godzilla minus one just made me even more jaded to the monsterverse fans who act like it doesn't matter if the movies are badly written because "it's just a godzilla movie" as if there isn't physical proof in both minus one and also shin godzilla that godzilla films can be more than that.

but EVEN THEN i'm not even fucking asking that the monsterverse fundamentally change to become poignant pieces about ptsd and survivor's guilt and government inaction, i'm fine with them remaining fun little action movies primarily about big monsters punching each other, literally all i'm asking is that the human plots do something other than (a) put me to sleep or (b) barely hold themselves together long enough to get to the next scene.

pacific rim is a film first and foremost about big robots punching big monsters, but it also has a genuinely well written human storyline with fleshed out characters. it doesn't have a half-baked plot built only to loosely connect the monster battles, it has an actual story.

like you guys "fun action movie about big monster battles" and "decent script" are not mutually exclusive and it's an insult to the kaiju genre to act like they are. and you should also take it as an insult to the fans that studios think they can ship out rushed scripts because audiences will give them money for it anyway. like, besties, i like the monsterverse. i just also acknowledge that the movies are lowkey shit and want them to be better and hope they will be in the future.

Sorry if I'm bothering you. I came across your blog and it's rare for me to find someone critical of idw (I feel the same). Can you tell some of the problems you have with them? It's okay if you don't want to. Just happy to know I'm not the only one (My friends are huge fans of idw).

Hello, kindred spirit! I'm sorry that I'm not answering the question so quickly!

Well, it's nice to know that someone is also unhappy with IDW and wants to know more about it! Get ready, this will be the opening of Pandora's Box.

Out of a million of my claims, I will try to build a constructive list.

1. IDW does not build lore of the universe. They didn't have enough for this for 17 years or whatever they wrote comics. What kind of innovations, adequately embedded in lore, do we have? What lore did we get? No, we don't really know anything, neither the origin of transformers, nor what's going on in the universe, the rules change at the click of your fingers.

A couple of egregious examples.

Explanation of female transformers. Experienced IDW authors for 3 or about as many retcons could not explain it all, which is why the whole fandom got mad, tired and asks not to explain anything at all, so as not to see idiocy anymore. That is, they give the authors the right to be lazy, but more on that later.

You can say that it's really "everything is complicated and explanations are not needed, female characters have the right to exist!". They have, that's not the point.

This problem is solved simply — there is no need to explain the female characters, you need to explain why Cybertronians, in principle, have a humanoid form. That's all, any explanation from this point justifies both female and male, and androgynous, and any other, as well as all kinds of genders. As an example, Primus has seen enough of the variety of organics and made his creations roughly similar. All. I had to sit for 10 minutes to come up with this, and this is not the most brilliant idea. The IDW authors had 17 years, they didn't come up with anything.

Another example is Conjunx Endura. I understand perfectly well that the authors of the comics wanted to appeal to the fan base writing fanfiction. But you need to be able to do it correctly. You can't just take a phenomenon invented by fans and shove it into an official work without any explanation of this phenomenon inside the lore. Especially since many fanfiction writers do it! You can find works with such beautiful and logical explanations that it seems ingenious. But the IDW authors are above any explanation. And yes, there are not always explanations in fanfiction, but we compare non-professional writers who post their works on the Internet for free with experienced authors of an official work that is sold for money. Who should put more effort into their work?

I'll just explain. For us humans, romantic love seems obvious, but it's not a particularly common evolutionary invention. If an intelligent species evolved from some elephants or killer whales, then the priority would not be a pair, but a kinship relationship. There are a bunch of animal species that don't create pairs at all. So how and for what purposes does such a phenomenon as Conjunx Endura exist in the society of transformers? They do not breed in pairs, they do not have any very harsh living conditions where a partner can help with survival. Something from Primus? Some kind of "power of love"? Who knows, the authors don't care, the fans of couples are happy and draw tons of art and write tons of fanfiction, and they don't need more. And I understand that in the original very first cartoon we were shown that Cybertronians know how to love. But this is a cartoon for children, of course there will be no details, these comics are designed for an older audience who can understand complex explanations.

Age-related burnout is something like a disease ending the life of a transformer. What do we know about it? After what time does it come? For what reason? What is it like? And why should the reader know this, it is there and that's it.

Similarly, for all IDW's love of violent scenes and cutting transformers into pieces, we don't really have a single image that normally shows the anatomical structure of a Cybertronian. They didn't even bother to come up with names for body parts. When I needed to find names for the most basic body parts, I found about 10 fan interpretations for each and 0 official ones! I'll repeat it. THEY HAD 17 YEARS TO DO IT!

About changing bodies and genders to more suitable ones. Again, it is too directly written off from humans, although we are talking about alien robots. Humans have biological and socio-cultural reasons for this. How does it work for transformers? Different types of sparks were canceled by the retcon, so it is impossible to talk about some kind of accordance. Just fashion or aesthetic preferences? Well, that's something. But why, according to this logic, we were not shown examples where transformers change their alt-mod, because they felt that it would be right? No, it's too difficult, because the reader is too stupid and will not understand the allegories or signs of alien psychology of another intelligent species. Again, I'm not against it, but while it's clear how it works for humans, everything here works on the principle of "because".

And these are the biggest examples, but with the little things and everything else, it's about the same. These comics don't build the world, you don't want to dive into it, because almost nothing is known about it, except for a short period before and during the war. It's unclear how it works.

2. The authors obviously like Decepticons and don't particularly like Autobots. And they try very hard to hide it behind the so-called "gray morality". The authors tried so hard to suggest that the Decepticons are not so bad, but at the same time, because of the rule of coolness, they left their actions far beyond the point of no return, when the arch of redemption can no longer work in the work.

I will explain this with the most striking examples.

Megatron. How the authors protected him with all their might. The fact is that the authors adored Megatron so much that they tried to give him everything at once. Megatron must be a cool destroyer who staged genocide on Cybertron and on other planets. But at the same time, he should personify a "misunderstood hero who fought for a just cause." Megatron throws from extreme to extreme. Then he orders to kill all living beings in the universe, and then he changes on the move and decides not to kill anyone at all, doing absolutely nothing to save his comrades. (Time of MTMTE and Lost Light events). He defected to the Autobots only out of self-hatred, and not because of regrets about his actions. He never says that he feels sorry for the murdered Cybertronians or the inhabitants of other planets.

And the authors are trying to emphasize this, then through Rodimus, who almost licked him and promoted the point of view that Megatron (the leader of the Decepticons) is not responsible for everything that has happened in the last 4 million years. Or through Whirl, who began to blame himself that it was because of him that Megatron started all this, as if Megatron could not think on his own.

But apparently the authors didn't have enough of that, so they introduced a Functionist Universe to show how bad it would be for Cybertronians without a revolution. After all, screens instead of heads are much worse than the genocide of their own kind and the deaths of countless living beings on other planets.

I am sure that even the authors introduced Holomatter technology to draw a hot humanization of Megatron. You just compare his drawing and the drawing of others.

The authors had 2 options — not to make Megatron a monster so that it all worked, or not to follow the path of his justification. For such an image that turned out, the only redemption is death, any textbook of screenwriting skill will say that. What did we get? An inarticulate, unsatisfying ending where we don't even know if he was executed or not for all his crimes that he didn't really atone for. In general, it is very interesting to send a galactic criminal essentially on a cruise initially instead of a normal punishment. The inhabitants of the affected worlds especially liked it, I'm sure.

Starscream. Of course, they could not ignore the audience's favorite. How not to give your beloved Starscream the crown and the status of ruler. Despite the fact that before that we were shown him as an incompetent leader who brought the Decepticons to an incomprehensible extent in the absence of Megatron, but no one on the planet remembered this when he became ruler. No one in the galaxy was unhappy that the second in command and accomplice of the intergalactic genocide became the ruler. Because the authors wanted a Starscream in the crown, which in the end did nothing but argue with Windblade, and then in the end unexpectedly committed a heroic act during the fight with Unicron. What led to this? Nothing really, it's just that the authors love Starscream, why explain.

It's about the same with Soundwave.

Thundercracker. The kindest Decepticon. Who was not happy with Megatron's actions, but still obeyed them, whined to himself, and only at some point the authors remembered that they needed to make him good. And one act was enough to declare him so. And even humans accepted his residence on Earth, which should not be, since his one act is not enough for everyone to take and forget who he served and what he did before. But add a dog, and everyone will stop paying attention to it, because it's all so cute.

Well, just look at all the "positive decepticons" who still hate organics, who do not particularly repent for their actions, but the authors present them to us as "good guys".

And what about the Autobots? And now they are partly defenders of an unfair regime.

About what was done with Prowl and Star Saber (here is my post about it) I can only keep silent. As far as I know, the comic book author at least hated Star Saber, so he made him like this.

It would seem that here it is grayness, there are no good and bad. But, as we have seen, the "good" Decepticons are not as gray and good as they are presented. But they showed us good Autobots, right? We'll see.

Tailgate is at first a good autobot, who, because of his strength, has become some kind of hysterical, driven by momentary inadequate emotions.

Rewind is a good one, we won't pay attention to the fact that he used Chromedome as a tool, in fact he didn't love him, chasing after his previous partner, but we will perceive these two as a good couple. Yes, by the way, the beloved fan couple and the representation proudly called by the authors do not really demonstrate a bit of a good relationship, only use and disrespect for the feelings of the partner.

Rodimus is a good one, although he is an infantile egoist who, after a moment of enlightenment, returned to his previous behavior, and treated everyone badly except our beloved Megatron.

And really good characters like Skids can be killed and forget about their existence.

But we have a bad Getaway, which could be an excellent example of gray morality, since he was initially right, but the authors could not allow this, so they turned him into a caricature villain and killed him.

I really can't think of a single character that was enjoyable. Not necessarily morally clean, but at least not disgusted. Maybe this is just my opinion, but I hate almost everyone in this line of comics.

3. Authors hate human characters. It's simple, the whole storyline is on the Earth. Humans are stupid and evil bastards who thoughtlessly fell for the Decepticons' trick, fought against the Autobots and tortured them. Yes, humans can do terrible things and most likely would have done something about it, but it feels like there was no place for humans in the vaunted "gray morality". Even if the authors have a teenager's brain with all this "humans suck!", they could try to make a good story. What did Spike do to deserve such a character portrayal? By being annoying in a cartoon? That's not an excuse.

4. Terribly boring MTMTE and Lost Light, a soap opera at its worst. Most of this sprawling plot could be spent on really interesting things.

5. The ending. No comments. The only plus is that it's finally over.

6. Reboot is just boring.

7. Shattered Glass — thanks them for remembering, but it doesn't even match the original, either in the image of the characters or in the plot. The plot is so-so.

8. Last Bot Standing is just some nonsense with an incomprehensible morality, an incomprehensible premise and some crazy image of random characters.

And all this is only a small part of my claims, which I was able to quickly recall.

You can say, and many will say, that this is unfair, because other works on transformers are no better and suffer from the same problems. And I will agree. But there is one detail.

Most fans do not put other works on the pedestal of the best media on transformers. Therefore, I have no complaints about other comics from Marvel or Dreamwave, because they are treated adequately. But there is such a rush around IDW that I'm tired of seeing endless proposing to put every character and every solution from these comics into new comics/cartoons/movies/games. I understand that compared to other works, these comics seem cool, but they have a lot of problems that should not be repeated. You need to come to something new, and not take the most popular and think that this is the key to success. Earthspark is going down this path, and it doesn't look good anymore. But if everything is covered with a sad Megatron and blue flowers, then everything is fine. And this is not so.

Perhaps not everything was bad, the beginning was promising and even interesting, but all this quickly turned into some kind of nonsense, fanservice and fulfillment of the wishes of the authors. In the end, I'm glad that their license was taken away from them, and I hope that the following authors will not rely on these comics in the future.

I don't like IDW for the reasons outlined above, but I hate these comics for the way the fandom treats them.

Thank you for wanting to hear me and perhaps listening to what I would like to convey.

"Don't Skip: Read My Story & Help 🚨🙏"

"A Plea for Hope: Ibrahim's Family's Struggle for Survival 💔"

2085/20,000 ‼️🚨

"I have returned to the UNRWA shelter, but it is set to be emptied on February 10, 2025. Sadly, I have nowhere else to go in Gaza. Urgently, I need to raise $5,000 to build a safe room for my children, as we will have no place to go in just a few days. Your support can provide them with the security they deserve."

Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #220 )✅️

Vetted by @90-ghost ✅️

I am Ibrahim Almughanni. I once dreamed of a peaceful future for my family, but those dreams were shattered by the horrors of war.

I am married to Soha Fouad,

and we have three children: Toleen, 9 years old; Wateen, 6; and Tayseer, 4.

My children from inside UNRWA shelters

"Toleen, Wateen, and Tayseer are currently in the UNRWA shelter. With your support, we are striving to bring them happiness despite the challenges. Please stand by us for the sake of these children."

gofundme.com

Donate to Support Ibrahim’s Fight For Survival, organized by Valeria V

Support Ibrahim's fight for survival I’m Valeria, and I’m organizing this fundraise… Valeria V needs your support for Support Ibrahim’s

The Day Our Lives Shattered

I remember the day vividly—explosions began in the distance, growing into a deafening roar. Smoke and fear engulfed us as we watched our neighbors flee in terror. We grabbed our children and ran, pushing through a sea of panic until we could run no more

The Day Our Lives Shattered

We once lived a simple and peaceful life, with my children learning and thriving. Now, we are left with nothing in a UNRWA shelter, lacking all basic necessities.

Your support and contribution can make a real difference and change our reality for the better. 🙏

gofundme.com

Donate to Support Ibrahim’s Fight For Survival, organized by Valeria V

Support Ibrahim's fight for survival I’m Valeria, and I’m organizing this fundraise… Valeria V needs your support for Support Ibrahim’s

✅️Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #220 )✅️.

✅️Vetted by @90-ghost ✅️