Quartz-Rose and not-owned Pearl
Jan. 4th, 2016 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaThe new Steven Universe episode seems to be contradicting all the Pink Diamond stuff I hate and also the basis for evil Rose stuff too! Best episode.
I am full of so much gleeful schadenfreude I might end up posting on tumblr, even! We'll see.
I am full of so much gleeful schadenfreude I might end up posting on tumblr, even! We'll see.
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Date: 2016-01-06 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-06 07:25 pm (UTC)Stage One: Oh hey cool, there's a pink diamond and Pearl wears a pink diamond when she does her space suit and diamonds are really strong and Rose has a shield and is really strong, what a clever theory picking up on background hints.
Stage Two: Why is everybody saying Pearl hates Earth and all humans and is only here because she's Rose's property? Also, it seems like their society was a caste society so it's not much of a rebellion if it's one of the gems who was in charge disagreeing with other gems who were in charge. Plus, if the pink diamond is Rose's symbol wouldn't Pearl have that plastered literally everywhere and not just pull it out for the space suit?
Stage Three: Oh come on guys, if pearls are supposed to be slaves to their owners than why does Jasper take one look at Pearl standing on the planet her owner was last seen on and be all "pft defective" at her? She wasn't doing any of that pile of autistic twitchiness you guys headcanon her defectiveness to be! Her defectiveness has to be her standing there holding a weapon, it has to be something Jasper could see about what she was doing!
Stage Four: God damn it what Peridot is groping when she calls her fancy is from her most recent reformation after we JUST GOT an episode about how being in tune with yourself lets you form the best body for herself, why is this proof Rose-Diamond bought a blinged out pearl who is inherently fancy why can't it be proof of PEARL IMPROVING HERSELF AND MOVING BEYOND HER BASIC FUNCTION LIKE THE WHOLE EPISODE WAS ABOUT oh no you're too busy saying Pearl is racist against pearls to care and also how she probably only did anything because Rose taught her to.
Stage Five: FOR GOD'S SAKE EVERYONE YOUR DESIGNER PURSE CAN'T "REBEL" BY BEING CARRIED AROUND BY ITS OWNER TO HIT PEOPLE WITH LET PEARL HAVE HER DAMN AGENCY.
Pearl has opinions! Pearl has SO MANY opinions on ALL THINGS! Pearl DOESN'T ACTUALLY LIKE ORDERS, she's so incredibly passive aggressive if anyone does anything she doesn't like, BUT she just doesn't believe in herself. So she's not fighting in Rose's name for what Rose believes because she hates humans but loves Rose enough to pretend to care about them, she's fighting in Rose's name because she knows it doesn't matter what stupid stuff some dumb pearl believes, but look, a REAL PERSON said it!
Why was Pearl so crazy obsessed with Rose not falling in battle? Because Peridot makes it clear that pearl ownership isn't any sort of brainwashed devotion and just transfers to the next eligible gem. If Rose is out to the picture, if she can't be Rose's pearl, Pearl reverts to the property of whatever other gems are around.
...
But I may upgrade my hatred for the monarchy aspect soon given that apparently the few people who were finally convinced this episode that maybe Rose isn't a diamond have all shifted to, "Okay what must have happened is Pink Diamond started the rebellion but then got killed by the others and Rose is mindlessly serving the will of her departed ruler just like Pearl mindlessly serves Rose because obviously anything important, including fucking rebellion, must be done by a ruler. Also all Rose's cool powers probably were given to her by the dying Pink Diamond because commoners are scum."
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Date: 2016-01-06 07:34 pm (UTC)Your complaint forum is already amazing, by the way. Saying that black people are discriminated against is racism! Being an American and criticizing your own country's education system is racism AND fascism AND communism! Saying that it's bad that people die from being shot is disrespectful to people who have died from being shot! How the fuck are we going to keep escalating from here throughout the month? I'm scared.
Also, you need to finish Undertale so that I can take you on a guided tour through the wonderful world of its very own Bad Fandom Opinions. It's the wildest fucking ride.
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Date: 2016-01-06 08:06 pm (UTC)But most of it is just people being stupid.
Your complaint forum is already amazing, by the way. Saying that black people are discriminated against is racism! Being an American and criticizing your own country's education system is racism AND fascism AND communism! Saying that it's bad that people die from being shot is disrespectful to people who have died from being shot! How the fuck are we going to keep escalating from here throughout the month? I'm scared.
I'm like 90% sure it's just that someone noticed me saying mean things about guns and tried to call in the cavalry, and the reason they seem incoherent is because the first someone tried to give them bullet points to attack me on.
Also, they're gun nuts and I should've realized that yes, they'd totally miss that I just find/replaced my way through an existing gun nut screed despite reading it being perhaps the only form of news they ever consume.
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Date: 2016-01-06 08:17 pm (UTC)As a preview to Undertale fandom, did you know that attempting and/or actually committing mass murder is often a symptom of mental illness, so you should never judge someone for doing that or else you are gross and ableist?
Come join the fun!
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Date: 2016-01-06 08:22 pm (UTC)I want to! But so much work! I meant to do it Christmas but I forgot how much extra stuff I'd have to do. And now it's pokemon drama time, so not until Feb.
And I'm going so much slower this time because I want to see what all the options do and I spent like ten minutes just petting the dog.
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Date: 2016-01-07 03:33 am (UTC)
Date: 2016-01-07 11:51 pm (UTC)I'm in an argument about this right now, actually! Did you know that also, affability and tragic backstories completely excuse attempting and/or actually committing mass murder and they're a perfect innocent woobie who did nothing wrong? If you think this is horrible you are evil headcanon police, so let's just agree to disagree.
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Date: 2016-01-08 01:13 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2016-01-08 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-09 03:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-09 03:04 pm (UTC)[Chara doesn't kill anyone in the game. That's something that you have to acknowledge, just as it's acknowledged in the game on numerous occasions. Frisk doesn't kill anyone. Chara doesn't kill anyone. You, the player are the one making the decisions.]
[If you look around New Home, there's PLENTY of evidence that suggests that Chara, for all their emotional damage and psychological pain, loved their family. The hand-knit sweater that Asgore has, implied to have been made by Chara. The fact that the only thing they have on their side of their room is a picture of the family, facing the head of their bed. They weren't perfect. They were manipulative and bore psychological scars from what was clearly a past of abuse.]
[It is EXTREMELY rude, however, to waltz in and start telling someone that their interpretation is obviously wrong, that the character they strongly interpret as redeemable is clearly an evil p.o.s., and implying that they didn't understand the game and that they're absurd.]
Remember a while back when I was so confused what Soft Chara was and why it pissed you off so much? Now I know.
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Date: 2016-01-11 10:34 pm (UTC)This is one of my favorite things that softcharas say, because they are SO insistent on it and it has no basis in fact whatsoever. All we know is that Chara remembers Asgore having the sweater, which, duh.
Fun fact: I am currently backseat playing an indie RPG by one of the leaders of the Soft Chara camp. It is exactly as preachy and as bafflingly backwards in the morality it is using that preachinesss in service of as you would expect, if not moreso. The really delicious irony is that my friend who's playing it and I are stanning for the villain-ish character we're clearly supposed to hate, in part because she is the only one in the party who never wanted to destroy the world and eradicate humanity. I'd like to coauthor a review for Dragon Quill when we're finished, if Farla's cool with publishing it.
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Date: 2016-01-12 04:16 pm (UTC)Personally, the thing that annoys me the most is when people insist it's wrong to hold Chara accountable for anything just because they had a tragic backstory. Like, no, Freudian excuses can EXPLAIN bad behavior, they don't EXCUSE it. It might be an extension of Tumblr's bizarre black-and-white worldview where everyone must be perfect or irredeemable with no middle ground, but just, gah, these people have no sense of scale.
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Date: 2016-03-15 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-15 11:20 pm (UTC)I am way too tired right now to be coherent about all the ways that it is bad, but probably the most relevant one is that there's a bad end where instead of using her special unique power to save the world, Alto decides to instead use it to hasten the world's destruction. This could be fine. Characters can have dangerous and unpalatable sides and still be sympathetic and even heroic. Only, it's not treated like that, because the only character in the party who has a problem with this is Teagan, the Traitor we are supposed to view as Alto's horrible and deeply abusive former friend despite what we see on the screen looking an awful lot more like mutual toxicity (and despite the fact that at one point Teagan TRIES TO END THE AWFUL RELATIONSHIP BY LEAVING and is forced back into the party by Alto rounding up her friends to chase her down and beat her up until she agrees to come back and stop ever questioning anything Alto says, which we are supposed to view as a powerful and cathartic moment of Alto confronting her abuser - but I digress), and all of the other party members call her awful and controlling for trying to interfere with Alto's autonomy (to destroy the world) and beg Teagan in their suicide notes not to blame Alto because their choices (to kill themselves to avoid suffering through the process of Alto destroying the world) were their own, and Alto had a right to her choice (to destroy the world) too.
And this is only a small sample of the massive levels of WTF.
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Date: 2016-03-15 11:48 pm (UTC)Has anyone managed to make goatkid the REAL villain who bullied Chara into it only to betray him, or does fandom still have a few grains of sanity left? And if so, which character is it actually all the fault of?
and is forced back into the party by Alto rounding up her friends to chase her down and beat her up until she agrees to come back and stop ever questioning anything Alto says, which we are supposed to view as a powerful and cathartic moment of Alto confronting her abuser - but I digress
I feel like this is like this is the result of people's understanding of all human interaction being shouted positivity slogans.
Like those warring messages about how YOU MUST BE CONSIDERATE OF ALL MENTAL ILLNESS OR IT'S ABUSE and BEING FORCED TO BE CONSIDERATE OF OTHERS WHEN YOU'RE MENTALLY ILL IS ABUSE and so on, and it seems like people just pick the one that validates them best and act as repeater, so you get the Victim-Tyrant who is the only one who ever suffered and the world's refusal to remake itself around their problems is inexcusable malice.
and beg Teagan in their suicide notes not to blame Alto because their choices (to kill themselves to avoid suffering through the process of Alto destroying the world) were their own
But maybe catharsis can be healthy? Maybe getting all of it out in one burst of madness could let them move past it in their actual life? I've been mulling over if people vomiting out their id unexamined might still help them work through it, and if it's right to worry about it just passing along the same damage to those consuming it. And maybe the sheer madness of it makes it less likely to be passed along than if they were being kept in check by a partner or publisher and had to sneak it in or justify it better.
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Date: 2016-03-15 11:58 pm (UTC)Not exactly, but Feral's "Asriel saved Chara from poisoning themself and now they get to grow up together" series is quickly turning into "Asriel is a horrible, borderline abusive boyfriend who needs to make himself into a better person to deserve pure angel woobie Chara".
Also, it is Society's fault. Obviously.
"I feel like this is like this is the result of people's understanding of all human interaction being shouted positivity slogans."
Based on the evidence of the whole game, I can confirm this is exactly what's going on.
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Date: 2016-03-16 12:13 am (UTC)Which completely ignores that time they tried to murder a bunch of humans way before the start of the game, but, hey. SOCIETY.
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Date: 2016-03-16 02:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-16 03:04 am (UTC)I feel like there really ought to be more to Chara than just the personification of RPG dickery, since they were willing to die to accomplish freeing the monsters and they probably could've shanked Goatdad if it was just about killing all humans, but also, it was definitely an awful lot about killing all humans.
Arg, that's why I want to meet them for myself to try to get a better handle on it but genocide run slog.....eurgh.