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A Mysterious Face · 2mo

You seem to have the wrong impression. Can't really blame you for thinking that. You seem like you're about to explode, chill out. If I wanted to offend you then there's a surefire way to provoke you don't you think?

Well, since you say you're biased then I got my answer. You created the atmosphere and expectation of fairness so I thought you were all about that kind of stuff. Your posts talk about how you use facts in the novel to judge whether a character is good/bad, and you won't let your feelings dictate your analyzation so that left a strong impression that you were trying to be fair. That's because people who claim to be non-bias and fair say the same thing. Anyone who judges whether or not a character is good/bad/evil is projecting themselves as someone who is giving fair judgment (I'm just speaking about good/bad/evil specifically). A lot of what you said gave me the impression that you believed what you said to be true (I'm referring to all characters too).

Also you've mislead me into thinking you're not okay with bias people because you seem to hate it when others have a very different kind of bias that you think shouldn't be allowed. It seems I've misjudged you. You seemed like someone who wanted to understand the way others think and a strong bias will get in the way of that.

For clarification, I know Taku ain't the G word, none of the love interests are anyways. I'm not about that silly way of living and thinking anyways.

Considering the hate that's been spreading around lately regarding Taku and the timing of the message, it'd be easy to suspect that both are connected. Even putting that aside, the fact that I've been sent what seemed like a calling-out about how much I love Taku, which I never once attempted to deny let alone downplay since the day I got into Slow Damage, added to my bafflement and vexation.

But now I'm starting to suspect the actual reason that you're asking me about this whole thing. Before I get to that, however...

Once again, it's no secret that Taku is my favorite character. I love him for his good traits and for his flaws and his role in the narrative, all of which combine to make him a complex character. So it's only a given I'm biased towards him. That, too, is no secret. Everyone is bound to have a bias towards their favorite character to some degree, just like everyone's likely to be biased against their most hated character. And one's favorite/hated character will always differ from person to person.

However. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm in denial about his flaws, be it in his personality or in his actions. If anything, I freely admit to them. When I do make an analysis, I always do my best to take into consideration a character's personality and motives, and/or the context/nuance of each situation. I make sure that if I say anything, however I personally feel about it, my discussions are substantiated by dialogue, clues, confirmations and the like, all of whihc I lift wholesale from the VN (even with its flawed localization) and all its supporting material. If I say something that is pure speculation or a mere headcanon, then I always preface my claims with that disclaimer.

I can't say I execute 100% fairness since I'm human, not a robot, but I still do my very best in exercising objectivity in my metas, and with that, ensuring that my metas are backed up by canon no matter what. Again, making metas are something I do for fun, not because it's my job or my obligation. Because Taku is my favorite, of course he's my strongest muse and is what inspired most of my metas/analyses.

Besides that, part of the reason why I'm driven to make metas about Taku more than the other LIs (who themselves I've seen get misread as well) is because he's the one who gets misunderstood the most. Severely misunderstood, even, since he even got the groomer allegations, and that's only one of the many harsh but baseless things I've seen get thrown around when it comes to him. You even seem to acknowledge this, based on your last sentence.

And generally speaking, while alternative interpretation will always come into play for any work, when a character/scene/story gets mischaracterized so severely, be it either out of sheer hate or blinding love that they poison the well or spread misconceptions, it does make me quirk a brow, wince or even bristle.

As for the whole "judging if someone is good or bad or right and wrong" out of a place of projection, generally speaking, whether you can personally relate to the character/narrative or not, I believe that one should always remember what the narrative itself intends to paint as right or wrong, good or evil, and the like. Like I said, we all perceive a work differently, but when it comes to viewpoints, there's always a boundary between the reasonble and the outright confusing and off-kilter ones. As a friend of mine said when it comes to discussing about a story and its characters, "If we can’t even reach a basic understanding or agreement of morals, ethics, and whatnot then any conversation is going to be a dead end." Fiction isn't reality; but saying that anything goes and is all good in fiction or that nothing of a work or its characters are A or B and et cetera wouldn't really make for a fruitful or even sensible discussion.

With regards to people having different biases, I won't hesitate to admit that I have seen takes (and it doesn't even have to be Taku being called the G-word) that baffle me and immediately give me the impression that striking a conversation with the person sharing those takes will only start something bad. Such is inevitable with any fandom. There are some people who you just won't "click", and something you can tell by instinct after seeing a few or enough posts from them. Of course, I'm open for discussion about this and that, but for how there's always a chance that me and the other party can come around and/or see where the other is coming from, there are other times when I know that our opinions are just irreconcilable, like oil and water. I do my best to be open-minded, but the latter case can happen, to which then I won't try to engage and risk a heated debate. While I do state my opinion on the takes that I can't wrap my head around (to put kindly), I don't nail those opinions to the front doors of the people whose opinions I don't jive with or outright disagree with.

Now as for the point I wished to get to, I remember the majority of the posts I've made, so from what you've said in your previous ask and in this one, I'm guessing that you might have been offended at what I've said about either Madarame or what others say about him, or at least how it came across to you. If that is the case, then I will again repeat what I've said in a few posts/replies: I like Madarame, but I can also see, understand, and accept why some are going to feel the opposite. I can dissect him and talk about his actions and motives and why they make him an effective foil/antagonist, though my awareness of how a fandom generally works nowadays has made me worry multiple times that it sounds like I'm reading him (whose route is definitively the farthest thing from sweet fluff) for filth when the two facts are not necessarily correlated. There's no doubt that I find certain claims about him to be rather perplexing because I can't comprehend how one could come to that conclusion even as I tried to look at it from every angle, which only ties to what I've said in the previous paragraph.

But really, even with all that I've said, if my posts still irk you or just don't sit right with you, whatever the actual reason for that is (if my guess is mistaken), like what I've stated in my previous answer: there is always the option to mute/block me. And I say this out of civility, not anger or spite.

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