discourse related

Hello, I am here to interrupt your peaceful scrolling experience with another fun little update on the current worst person in the TWST fandom (and a contender for the top in Genshin as well). Yes, yes, I'm sure some of you are tired of seeing me by now.

For those of you who are new to this madness and are interested in reading the backstory for what I mean, please make your way over to my FIRST MAJOR POST and my SECOND MAJOR POST as well as my LAST BIG UPDATE on the topic. Also, I encourage you to go through the evidence hashtag on my blog for further information.

For everyone who has been following along: Ray/Jordan/The Rat currently has two blogs that are revamped burners and appear to be getting ready to post her usual BS soon, those being lumineisqueen and fandomlover3458. If you haven't already, block her there.

Time for my favorite copypasta: Yuuna/Marie/Lumine/Ray/Jordan is a user in the TWST and Genshin fandom with a long history of racism, Sinophobia, homophobia, and TERF behavior, in addition to spamming tags with repetitive content and being linked to the harassment of other users.

Summary and More Below the Cut ->

I'm a bit late in answering this, but just confirming it.

Ladies and gentlemen...

I feel like TWST is trying to pull a 'history is written by the victors'/unreliable narrators (or history books in this case) when it comes to their villains. Not saying people can't or shouldn't be uncomfortable with the inclusion but I don't think the game is trying to claim that he was good. I'm personally interested in seeing what they do with his character, even if Frollo is someone I'd fight.

Hello Anon, thanks for your message.

First of all, I absolutely agree that the original Frollo needs to get punched out. Full stop.

But to the first half of your ask, yes! Absolutely! I am so curious as to what the reasoning behind the difference in "reality" as we know it versus the history of Twisted Wonderland is. Because if it was a history that was written by the victors, then by all means, shouldn't the world be a wasteland or in complete anarchy? All of those power hungry and literally villainous people coming into power would mean they would definitely be duking it out with each other if they existed in the same time period. And given how some of the stories were going and involved heavy magic, several of them literally could have been alive at the same time (ahem, a literal god and a fairy witch who sold her soul to hell).

There could be another twist though, the events of the Disney movies could be much farther in the past that we realize, and TW really WAS plunged into chaos as a result of these villains winning. But then something happened, and they realized that ruling over a dying world isn't all it's cracked up to be and they worked to resurrect what they destroyed. I think that would be mind blowing. Do I think Frollo would have taken part in that? Hell no, dudes a mortal racist. That's not happening.

But it would make his rewritten history make more sense. Essentially, there could be centuries of "dark ages" that no one knows about because it was wiped from history and people's memories. And to prevent the same thing from happening again, the villains wrote themselves as good guys so people wouldn't be tempted to follow their path of evil (doesn't stop teenage boys from spiraling into mental breakdowns, but at least they tried). And the fact that the original "good guys" were not completely expunged from history only supports this idea. Their stories are twisted too, some even being split down the middle (e.g. Aladdin being both the good-natured poor boy who married a princess and also a trickster who tried to deceive her but was stopped by Jafar), but they're still good in the end if RSA being the foil to NRC is any evidence.

https : // kotaku . com / disney - twisted-wonderland-frollo-hunchback-ios-android-1849694445

Thanks very much Anon!

I took a look at the article and others are free to do so as well, I have to say I didn't run into any tweets like the ones shown there when scrolling through Twitter myself, even though I was actually trying to find them. They were probably already drowned out by fans who were overly excited for the event.

I have to say, I agree that people are allowed to be uncomfortable. I myself am not super crazy about the idea of a Frollo character, as I said before. But, there are a couple of points I want to bring up.

I don't think his inclusion is very different from the inclusion of Scarabia, as in people should not be reacting much more strongly to him than the dorm. I think that the controversy and people's reaction to the use of Aladdin to center a dorm around was quite valid, and I hope that my previous words on this blog can back that up. The movie itself was controversial for its portrayal of middle eastern people, still enforcing eurocentric beauty and behavioral standards as the norm or what is good, and everything that came after it as a result of misinformation from the movie.

Using Frollo is in the same vein, it's just very controversial and could have been done without, but it's done so now we have to talk about it. I doubt anyone is going to look at the statue of Frollo and wonder who he is, and even if they've never seen the movie they know the premise of the game, so by using logic they can gather he's probably another villain. A particularly bad one, but yeah. They can do their own research if they really don't know.

The point I'm trying (and I feel I'm kinda failing to get across) if that people absolutely have a right to be uncomfortable about the use of a truly heinous villain in the game.

I myself have experiences that directly resulted from the very present racism against Romani people.

But the game is not condoning his actions, nor saying the actual Frollo ever was a good person. Until we get answers as to why the game world's history is so different from the Disney movies, there's no clear explanation as to what caused the characters to be viewed so differently and we can only theorize.

The way I look at it right now, his inclusion in the game at all is iffy, no doubt about it. But, the TWST character, Rollo, is essentially a caricature of a caricature of a fictional villainous character. In-universe, think of it like this: if he does not turn out to be a racist prick like the Claude Frollo from the movie and he is simply meant to have a design that takes inspiration from him, that would mean that he is just like all the other characters who are somehow tied to the other Disney villains. If he looks up to the TWST version of Frollo, that admiration is highly misguided and based on a history that has been super sanitized and, at a glance and without knowing the "truth" (based on the films and flashbacks), is actually not that bad of a moral compass.

Even the quote that the rat clown (incorrectly) used that were apparently pulled from the game itself, all they say is that Frollo was very fair and a great man, that he saved his city from being taken over by villains. If that's all the people of Twisted Wonderland know, obviously they're going to think he's a cool guy. How much of the history that we know today has this same issue? We'll likely never know unless we dedicate ourselves to digging for the truth and even then, so much is lost to time that we may never discover.

Also, I saw it mentioned that Frollo was supposedly based on a real person, but a quick internet search only tells me that he was an entirely fictional creation of Victor Hugo, the original author of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Now, that's to say that he likely was created to embody the very real racist sentiments expressed by people like him in history and Disney did not fail to make that very clear in their adaptation of the book.

Aside from the meta talk, if he does turn out to be a super racist, he's very much going to be the antagonist of the event, meaning the player and the other characters are going to be...fighting racism, essentially. Which I hope is a plot people can get behind. If not, then again, he's just like all the other characters and was a victim of falsified history. The discussion of whether a person can truly be blamed for their beliefs and actions under an oppressive regime or resulting from fake facts is a whole discussion that I believe is worth having, but this post is already way too long as is so I'm cutting it here.

not only with mulan, but also with some of the chinese characters in genshin. i'm not in that fandom, i tend to stay far away from it, but judging by many other's reactions, she did a piss poor job at establishing her character's backstories. she's calling out racists when she's one herself.

the phone call is coming from inside the house

Hello anon, thank you for your message!

You are absolutely correct. This blog is a literal chronicle of nearly every shitty thing she's ever done, anything missed was likely because she deleted her accounts before we could grab them but there's piles upon piles of stuff dedicated to her anti-Asian history.

Hey there, Anon. Thanks for your message.

Here's a link to a previous post that I made with some evidence included: discourse related : Hi, just wanted to ask why lesbiansinfandom wanted... (tumblr.com)

But a brief explanation of what happened is the troll is...a troll and was parading around the idea that GM was somehow sexist and promoting forced marriage because the characters were trying to [checks notes] make a ghost who had kidnapped their classmate agree to marry them so they can save said classmate by banishing the ghost to the afterlife. But because the ghost is a woman, this is trickery and deceit and therefor sexist and inexcusable. Furthermore, the troll claims that the characters getting mad at their classmate for trash-talking them for [checks notes again] having no game and being unable to seduce a ghost means they deserve to get slapped. But at the same time the slapping promotes domestic violence or something and even though the woman is the one forcing the marriage the whole event is sexist because, because, because.

Yeah, can't say I'm surprised. Twitter is even more of a dumpster fire than Tumblr in that regard. I personally don't use it as a source for fan translations and with what's happened in the past on that site regarding misinformation through incorrect translations and overall way too much drama, I think it's worth avoiding. I do feel for the creators though, I might take a look to see what's going on just to inform myself but that's way beyond my ability to help.

https://www.tumblr.com/annathenerd/699108757319368704/people-going-he-may-not-be-the-same-as-frollo

On another note... I read the article that was made for it. The person isn't really critiquing TWST. Rather, they are saying to wait and see what else unfolds in the event before making more judgements. So the article author is actually thinking

I'm actually pleasantly surprised about the article turning out in that way, I'd like a link to it if you don't mind. I mean, my point from before still stands but it's nice that this was an exception, given how TWST was branded as the "Genderbent Disney Villain Otome Game" by the same genre of game journalists. But good on this one person, I'll give them their deserved credit.

Anyway, into the nonsense:

I honestly laughed at this because of the vague posting but I'll go ahead and avoid tooting my own horn and say that there are probably many people with similar thought processes to yours and mine and she likely was not subtweeting me after seeing the answers I gave earlier today. But that's not the important part, I'll just jump right into it because I'm getting sick and tired of the picking and choosing going on here, so why don't we go through ALL of the main Disney Villains featured in TWST and see how they measure up to someone like Frollo?

https://www.tumblr.com/annathenerd/699043417737576449/no-seriously-why-are-you-people-simping-for-a?source=share

everybody point and laugh

Hello hello! Welcome back, thank you for your message.

Unfortunately this whole thing seems to be making TWST trend and reach a wider audience. I think there is already an article saying TWST is racist for adding him.

Sadly, I saw this coming.

Not surprised whatever that person's name is now is using it as a talking point now.

As I said in my answer to your previous question, I hope that the people with common sense are going to take a step back and wait for the entire event to be released before passing judgement. I do agree that Disney is toeing a very fine line by including a character based on Frollo, considering my opinions on how they would handle other controversial movies like Mulan (I got full body tremors typing that) or something even worse like Pocahontas.

They also have already made a couple of whoopsies in game, such as how they designed the African characters and Sam's "aesthetic" being taken from voodoo practitioners despite him not being one himself, plus more but I'm not going to list every infraction. I've never excused them for these issues, in some cases they've even listened to people and fixed them. And they've already handled other issues better than expected, which is a lot when knowing where it's coming from. The standards are kinda low.

If I were you and anyone in the TWST fandom who actually enjoys being here, because the rat clown doesn't even seem to actually like the game and is only interested in "fixing" it and trashing it every chance she gets, I would ignore any kind of article that comes out critiquing the devs' choices. Because as is the case with most video game journalism, the articles are written by people who don't even play the games they're writing about or just suck at gaming in general but think that taking a passing glance or trying a single playthrough (and sometimes quitting before getting halfway) is enough for them to earn the right to broadcast their opinion.

The most productive discussions I've seen have been between people who are a) actually part of the player base and have a good understanding of how the world and story work, and b) genuinely interested in hearing other people's opinions and are open to changing their own through these types of conversations. I hope that once the even fully releases we'll see some more of that and it doesn't get drowned out by whiny purity culture babies who see a sequence of colors and get sent into a blind rage.

I wonder if they know that liking a character =/= condoning their actions

They made another post on this same issue that I will show in a bit in the answer to another ask, but it's just...I'm so perplexed. First of all, people have been simping for Frollo himself since the og movie came out, no one cared about who he was as a character because they were all adults with braincells who could understand that "oooh crusty gilf with a side of religious trauma who sings Hellfire" and "that man is a violent racist and predator" were not two things meant to be tied together when discussing him. I'm not judging, my tastes can get questionable at times to.

Second, the whole point of TWST is making people LOOK at the og characters through the lens of a new generation falling into the same or similar pitfalls that their predecessors/idols did, while also having the chance to be forgiven because they were misguided, not because they actually wanted to, say, rule over people with an iron fist (Riddle) or straight up kill their rival to ensure their success (Vil). It's meant to make people think that these villains were all people (not human per say but "people") who were not given that second chance, were not stopped before it was too late, and were not guided to the right path.

People are so quick to dismiss "evil" as something only being done by monsters, that human beings are not capable of it, but that's so wrong.

And that's where I hope the new event takes us. This new guy, Rollo or whatever his name is, is clearly meant to be the antagonist of the story. But TWST has yet to give us someone who is completely unredeemable, and I doubt they're going to waste a good character design and Live 2D model for that. We just have to wait and see what happens, because if his introduction was any indication, he clearly has it out for Malleus (and potentially fae as a whole) for some reason.

Sigh.

I've been pulled out of retirement. I'm alive and kicking and so is the bane of my existence.

I'll be honest, I haven't checked the TWST tags since my last post. I've been busy with real life stuff and was kinda getting bored with it, since I'm managing both a JP and an ENG account all of the reruns and lack of new stuff was causing me to lose interest.

But then the announcement for the 2022 Halloween event AND the Ch. 7 release trailer dropped and it's like someone threw coal into the crusty old train engine that is my brain. Soooo, I'm back. For now. Let's get into the shortest analysis I've probably ever done.

She-of-many-names looks to be taking a middle-road approach this time around, posting an age of 15 years and leaving out the whole trans part of her previous identities. What's more surprising is her completely leaving out anything about her being black, though I suppose if you're trying to pretend like you don't have a record a mile long of shit you did in the past using your race as a weapon, it's in your best interest to hide it if you want to continue to start shit for no reason. Which we know is her favorite hobby by now.

Continuing from this point, she took a hard left from her previous tactics, instead of going for anything related to race, sexuality, age, etc. she's now weaponizing Jewish stereotypes as well as speaking for mentally ill and disabled people. And it's not like anything she said was revolutionary or wrong in a vacuum, if it was coming from anyone else--say it with me now--it would be a whole 'nother story. But we know what's going on, we've been here since the beginning. You're not slick Anna.

I don't know who, when, or what drove the idea into her head that if she spouts random talking points that anyone with a brain (and not racist, anti-Semetic, etc.) would agree with, people won't be allowed to argue with her. That's kinda been her whole position all along, except for the fact that she projects those ideas onto the wrong people and things so no one would ever take her seriously. This is putting all the anti-Asian racism aside, if it wasn't for that she would just be stupid.

And let's not forget the self-victimization, she has to sprinkle that in now and then to make sure that everyone knows she's a poor, defenseless, uwu minor who is getting bullied for DARING to...to...MAKE ORIGINAL CHARACTERS. Idiot. No one's falling for it.

I do have to applaud the people who answered her post about disabled characters with genuine intentions, pity they don't know who they're dealing with.

I'm pretty sure that's everything. It looks like her other blogs lumineisqueen, fandomlover3458, and deadyuunaacount are all still active but silent for the time being.

Much appreciation to the many people in my inbox who still seem to think I'm some kind of authority figure on this whole mess. You guys are doing way more work than me now, so take care of yourselves, alright?

Although she seems to exist on those two accounts there doesn't seem to be more activity...

I'm not getting my hopes up.

No time for that though

I have to speed run the Summer GGA event in genshin impact since it's only around a couple more days!!!

And I didn't do any of it yet...

Goodluck to you!

Hello anon, thanks so much for your message! I’m doing great, sleeping and hydrating :)

I’m not sure what she’s planning, but I don’t have my laptop for the next week so I won’t be able to post or keep as close a watch for a while, I hope everyone can bear with me until then.

They were pretending that they were getting hate for having female twst ocs and got asks saying "what? are you sure?" and "I don't know. Other people have female twst ocs and aren't getting hate."

genshin-lumine also complained how people were making more male twst ocs than female ones (again, not true). People got mad at them for that, but they hid it all by reblogging a ton of female twst ocs to hide it all. Unfortunately, some people bought into their bullshit and reblogged their post (that I wish I screenshotted) about how female twst ocs receive a lot of hate solely for being female. Most reblogs tagging it like #sexism, #femaletwstocsdeservelove, #femtestocsappreciation. Things like that. Though I don't think those were the exact tags, but the sexism one was definitely there.

As a result of this, someone made a post to give male twst ocs appreciation and then that twstfemocs account was made in retaliation. They just started flooding the tags with female twst oc appreciation posts and that drowned out the male twst ocs ones.

That's pretty much all I remember

Hello anon, thank you for sending this in.