#i still get thrown by fandom culture despite having been here for most of my life bc. do you not love this character bc of everything they

[aalghul]

senselessly hating on a character ≠ talking about the characters flaws and failings (which make them compelling and worth engaging with) is still kicking people’s asses

#i see this so much coming from white women and their faves (often also white women). why are you calling someone misogynistic for mentioning #a real and not ooc or poorly written mistake the character made. if she was a flawless god then she wouldn’t be interesting #i still get thrown by fandom culture despite having been here for most of my life bc. do you not love this character bc of everything they #are? their role in the story in other characters’ lives their flaws their fundamental misconceptions #or are we just here to fight about who the most objectively perfect character in the entire universe is

[deannaroxannewrites]

Tropetember Day 8 - 5+1 / 3+1

You're in my sickbay again...

Pairing: Leonard McCoy x GN!Reader

Fandom: Star Trek (I was writing it as AOS but pretty sure it works for TOS as well if that's your jam)

Rating: Teen and up

TW: Mentions of torture, mention of injuries

AN: Day 8 of @tropetember. Not a massively in depth fic, more like snapshots of situations that occur through the relationship.

3 times Dr McCoy didn't want to see you in his medbay and 1 time he did

Find this story on Ao3 here.

Word Count: 1.3k

1

While you hadn’t been expecting to be beamed directly into the quarantine suite in the Medbay of the USS Enterprise, after three months working with Captain James T for Trouble Kirk, it wasn’t totally surprising either.

Kirk had been invited to a celebration feast in a system you were exploring, but had only been allowed to bring one guest. As Chief Security Officer or CSO, you had been volunteered for the position.

You had done everything you could to keep the Captain away from anything questionable. Sadly, conversations with him usually went something along the lines of:

“Jim, no”

“Jim, yes”.

It was something you regularly discussed in your sessions with the ship's newly appointed counsellor.

Since quarantine procedures were only instigated when the transporter detected an anomaly in the crew members being transported, and assuming it was due to Jim, you just sigh to yourself and shake your head.

“I told you to watch him closely!”

The southern drawl didn’t soften the accusation, even deadened as it was by the plexiglass divider that separated Quarantine from the rest of the medbay.

“I did! I don’t understa…”

You trail off as you have a sudden realisation and groan.

“I found him with his tongue down the Princess’s throat.”

Dr McCoy gives a long suffering sigh.

“I’ll have to run tests on both of you. The transporter team couldn’t definitively tell if you both have it.” He pauses and looks you up and down. “I expected better of you Lieutenant Commander”

“Yeah, cos you’re so much better at this than I am. It was Orion herpes last time, wasn’t it?”

The CMO just smirks and tells you to stop pointing fingers before sauntering off towards the storage cupboard. You respond by flipping him off. And you maybe watch his ass a little.

Turning to the Captain, who has been uncharacteristically silent until this point, you channel your inner McCoy.

“Goddamnit Jim!”

Jim decides that you and Bones are spending too much time together.

2

When Scotty had called to warn Dr McCoy of an incoming victim of an explosion in engineering, he had not expected it to be you.

“You’re in my sickbay again sweetheart.”

He uses a sing-song tone that he doesn’t employ with the rest of the crew. Nurse Chapel, who is at the other side of the bed, takes note to check in with the Captain as to the state of the betting pool. She believes she may have lost.

You nod in response to the doctor’s enquiry. You’re in far too much pain to think of anything more complex than that in response.

“What were you even doing in Engineering?” he grumbles to himself, moving around in the space to grab hypos, bandages, burn salve and a dermal regenerator. “You’re almost as bad as Jim and Spock.”

You try to focus on him but you’re struggling to stay conscious. It’s not aided by the painkillers he dumps into your system.

McCoy gently moves you to be laying on the bed. He’s concerned at the extent of the damage done and the nerve trauma to your arm. To ease your pain, he hits you with a sedative and you’re out like a light.

-------

You groan as you come back to consciousness, the light of the medbay hurting your eyes.

“Welcome back darlin’” you hear.

Smiling despite yourself, you squint in Leonard’s direction.

“I was helping with the repairs on the lower decks. I assumed it was safer than an away mission. Apparently I was wrong.”

Surprised laughter bubbles from the grumpy doctor as he agrees.

“Well, get yourself rested up. I’m serious this time. I don’t want to see you back in my medbay.”

“Sure” you agree, both of you knowing it won’t last for long. Occupational hazard. “Dinner and a movie on Saturday if the mean Doctor lets me go?”

3

It made a change for a mission to go wrong due to something Spock did but in a culture that valued feelings as much more important than logic, it was not that surprising.

Most of the crew had made a successful escape but yourself and Dr McCoy had been taken hostage during the initial skirmish. You’d been thrown in a cell together and that had been that.

Or at least, so you’d thought.

You’d been dragged from the cell, questioned and beaten in front of McCoy in an attempt to find out details of the Enterprise and it’s crew. You hadn’t broken, but by the time you’d been rescued, you definitely had at least a couple of broken ribs, a black eye and various assorted cuts and bruises.

Len was quiet as he helped to repair your injuries. Where you were black and blue, his torture had been psychological. He couldn’t get your screams out of your head.

Noticing his distracted state you grasps his jaw gently, disguising the wince it bring when it pulls a little, and raise his eyes to yours.

“This isn’t your fault.”

His eyes dart away but you stay firm.

“I am trained for this, Len. I’d do it again to protect you. But you’re going to need to let the guilt go.”

He sighs heavily.

“I’ll try.” He pauses to run the regen unit over your upper arm. “You’ll need to do me a favour though.”

“Anything.”

“Go on a date with me?”

Mr Spock had been on his way to apologise for the consequences of his actions but is distracted by the fact that he has won the betting pool. He better inform the Captain and come back later.

1

You’re still not sure how it happened. As CSO, your main responsibility was the Captain and when things went wrong, his safety was paramount. You couldn’t check on everyone else. You just had to trust that your team was doing their job.

You hadn’t even realised Len had been hit until you landed on the transporter pad.

There had been so much blood.

Now, you were pacing outside the OR. It had been hours since the beam out when finally M’Benga pops his head out.

“He’ll be ok. He won’t be working for a few weeks but he’ll be ok.”

Your knees give out from under you and you land heavily on the chair behind you. Tears of relief escape without your permission and you drop your head into your hands.

M’Benga gives your shoulder a squeeze, letting you know where Len is being moved to and giving you permission to stay with him, before heading off to finish cleaning himself up.

You take a deep breath and approach Len’s bed. His larger than life presence is softened in sleep and you can’t help but notice how fragile he looks.

Taking his hand, you place a kiss on his knuckles and then rest your head against the mattress. After nearly 36hrs awake, you’re out like a light

-----

You wake to the feeling of fingers running through your hair which you automatically nuzzle into. It’s nice. Comforting.

It takes longer than you’d ever admit to orient yourself, but when you do, you raise yourself and meet Len’s eyes. He has a soft smile on his face that you can’t help but mirror.

“Sorry for dropping in, I know you didn’t want to see me in your medbay.” It’s a cheeky comment but it widens his smile into a grin. You pat yourself on the back for lightening the atmosphere.

“I’ll let you off this time.” His voice is a bit scratchy from lack of use but it sounds like the finest music to your ears. How could you have been so close to never hearing it again? He continues, “care to join me for dinner? I’m afraid there’s only jello.”

You laugh at the silly grump of a man in the hospital bed. Your best friend. Your favourite person. The love of your life.

“I’d love to.”

#tropetember #fanfiction #star terk #star trek aos #leonard mccoy x reader #leonard mccoy x you #leonard mccoy x y/n #dr mccoy x reader #captain james t. kirk #3 + 1 #torture mention #injuries

[firelxdykatara]

zutara fandom is such a fucking hypocrite. you all call a native woman who loves her husband, who lives happily with him a trophy wife and a breeding machine, simply because you don't like kataang, despite the fact that in the canon she is still a respected matriarch of the tribe, a healer and trained avatar and has outlawed blood bending. you came up with the trophy wife yourself, but blame it all on bryke. didnt you have a popular headcanon where she has 5 children, abandons her nation to live as the "water tribe ambassador" in the fire nation. yknow because erasing her culture sounds cool i guess

Literally what are you talking about?

Pointing out that Katara is treated, post-atla canon, as Aang’s trophy is not ‘calling a native woman who loves her husband a trophy wife’ because like, I’ve got a newsflash for you, Katara does not exist. And criticizing the way the white men who created her chose to destroy her character in post-canon materials and the sequel show is not the equivalent of being racist or misogynistic--it’s actually calling out the racism and misogyny inherent in her treatment by the show’s creators!

Secondly, I’ve written extensively before about how Katara’s ‘achievements’ post-canon actually aren’t. The show pays minor lipservice to what Katara accomplished, but doesn’t actually show that she did anything worthwhile with her life other than have the Avatar’s children. She ‘outlawed bloodbending’? Sure she did, that’s why she was present at the trial for the most infamous bloodbender in history, right alongside her husband, brother, and friend..... oh wait. She ‘is still a respected matriarch of her tribe’? Sure she is, that’s why she was able to talk sense into her people when they were on the brink of civil war, that’s why people listened when she raised her voice and told them to stop being idiots, that’s why... oh, wait, none of that happened because she stayed in the healing huts the whole time. Oh, but she was ‘a healer’--not just that, but one of the greatest healers who ever lived? Sure! That’s why she was able to heal Korra’s bloodbending related injuries- hm, no, but I’m sure that’s why she was able to heal everyone else when their injuries were revealed to have been caused by bloodbending- no, wait, but I’m POSITIVE it’s why she was able to heal Korra’s injuries when she was recovering from mercury poisoning- wait, she didn’t do that either!

It’s encapsulated pretty neatly by this paragraph:

 [The problem is] that virtually none of these accomplishments matter in the context of LoK. Very little that Katara did during or after the war is so much as referenced, and even the things that are referenced matter very little. Katara never talks about her life except as it pertains to Aang, or her children. She doesn’t get to do anything during the series either, despite there being multiple things that–were it not for her entire personality being vacuumed out with almost surgical precision–she should have done if she were being kept true to character, or if she, like, cared about her family and people at all. (Things like, oh, attending her own granddaughter’s Air Master ceremony, or lifting finger one to save her family when they were in danger, or lifting finger one to step in when her people were getting thrown into a whole ass civil war...... ...)

@araeph‘s Consumed By Destiny series is also relevant here, because it goes into far greater detail about Katara’s utter lack of a character in LoK and the comics, especially as compared with her character in the original show.

As for my ‘popular headcanon’, I do indeed headcanon Zuko and Katara as having five children (though my conceptualization of their family will be different from others, everyone has their own hcs about the steam family and that’s so sexy of us), which should probably be the point where you realize that Katara having three kids with Aang is not what I have a problem with lmfao. But where the hell do you get ‘abandons her nation’ and ‘erasing her culture’ from ‘Water Tribe ambassador’???? Literally where????? The entire point of Katara being ambassador to the Fire Nation is to represent her culture in global matters of state. It’s so that she can be the voice for her people on the world stage, ensuring that their wants and needs are heard and fulfilled as the world moves forward and the nations grow together. It’s literally the complete opposite of ‘abandoning’ her nation, her people, or her culture, because everything about who they are and who she is will be everpresent in her life (and her husband’s life) because she’s thinking about them and acting for them in everything she does politically.

Just say that you hate people headcanoning Katara as having more agency in her own life and influencing global politics than canon allowed for her and go, honestly. Stop pretending you give a shit about Katara when you hold so much hatred for people envisioning something more for her than just being ‘the Avatar’s girl’ for the rest of her life.

#atla #katara #zutara #kataang salt #salt for ts #yall really come crawling outta the woodwork for this huh lmao #Anonymous

[memorydragon]

It wasn't a dream, it turned out.  Either Lan Xichen had just woken up from a decade long nightmare, or he was suddenly and inexplicably in the past.  He wasn't sure which theory he preferred.

If he was cursed, there was no one he knew who could have done it.  He'd been in seclusion for months, only seeing his brother or uncle on occasion.  Wangji's husband was the only one who might have managed such a feat, and despite Lan Xichen losing his temper at the Guanyin temple, Wei Wuxian hadn't seemed to harbor ill-will towards him.   But here he was, in the Cloud Recesses before it burned down, not allowed anything remotely sharp in his rooms (sword included), with both his brother and Uncle hovering constantly after his breakdown.  Whenever he tried to speak of the coming war or other things from the future, they looked at him like his wits had been lost on a nighthunt.  

So since I’m typing this monstrosity up before continuing writing, I thought I’d post little tidbits as I get to them?  It’s been a while since I’ve actually posted anything, so like... we’ll see how it goes.  I’m pretty sure no one is actually following me for potential Mo Dao Zu Shi fic, but hey.

Anyway, I might actually use bits of this part for a summary if/when I ever actually post anything.  Spoiler alert 1:  He’s suddenly and inexplicably in the past.  Spoiler alert 2: It’s most definitely his brother-in-law’s fault.  Really, who else has a ton of good intentions and history of those good intentions blowing up in everyone’s faces?

I’ll probably be tagging this Time Traveled and Traumatized (not an actual title for the fic, but very apt for a working title, I thought), so if you want to block, that’s the tag to go for.  It features Lan Xichen being Even More Traumatized so that he can get the Most Hugs and Gusu Trauma parties galore.   It’s also currently written to 89 pages in my notebook and only just now finishing the Cloud Recesses arc.  Yeah, it’s gonna kill me.  But damn it, the scene I want to write is at the end, so here I go.

A general note: I’ve lived in China for years now, but I’m still a foreigner who will get things wrong.  Please do let me know if I do end up fucking up culturally, because it’s certainly not intentional. 

Second note: Lan Xichen is ace.  It’s my fic and that’s how I’ve decided to roll.  You don’t like it, please block the tag.  Though if you’re follow me and you don’t like ace fics, that’s probably on you by this point.

Also, I think I’m going for a very, very different Lan Xichen then a lot of fandom seems to write.  Mostly going to be a Frankencanon of the novel and donghua, with a few details of other canons thrown in based on personal preference (example: I love a tiny, fierce Wen Qing from the live action, just because).  Don’t expect regular updates on this, as I’ll just be posting as I’m typing and will eventually go back to Writing Mode which is writing by hand.  I also won’t post any actual chapters until I’ve completed the whole damned thing, because that’s how I roll. 

This is mostly just something new I thought I’d try. Is it promoting?  Is it just me sharing bits to keep my sanity?  Will it Ever actually be finished?  Your guess is as good as mine.  But enjoy?

#mo dao zu shi #Time Traveled and Traumatized #Mem's fic #Lan Xichen is straight up not having a good time being a teenager again #Especially not since he has to go through the war a second time #obviously wangxian is going to be a ship #Lan Xichen did consider hiding his brother away so that they'd never meet for a few moments #But really he knows that Wei Wuxian is Actually Good for his little brother so long as he's not self destructing #So now he's gotta figure out how to stop that #There will also be some 3zun mentions but that one is Complicated af #Sworn Siblings is gonna go different this time #Also I'm not sure how this happened but Lan Xichen became a Disney Princess? #whoops #He's also very much a Romantic capital R who nearly kills himself because he to be Lonely under the moon and play music #without any protection from the elements #which even though he's a cultivator he still kinda needs #Also rather than lie he pretty much tells everyone straight up he's from the future. #He's Cassandra'ed himself quite badly but lying is prohibited and he sucks at lying anyway #So the truth #This is so self-indulgent it's ridiculous ngl

[pi-cat000]

BNHA: Kakashi dimension hops crossover (1)

Summary: Kakashi gets dumbed into the My Hero Academia universe through random plot devise.

Characters:  Kakashi Hatake

Fandoms: My Hero Academia and Naruto

WARNINGS: Mentions of violence/injury

Inspired by Unforeseen Mayhem by Aerugonian 

Here is their tumblr (all their work is so good)

(NEXT)

...

Kakashi thinks he might have died. He remembers the flash of steel and Obito’s face or maybe it had been Madara. His memory of the events leading up to the attack are hazy after receiving one too many hits to the head. What he does remember is the slowly spinning, hypnotic red of a Sharingan, and the quick build-up then explosion of chakra.

Then there was excruciating pain in his left eye and…darkness…

…

Kakashi opens his remaining, usable eye to gaze up at tall angled structures that stretch into a grey overcast sky. He can’t feel the left side of his face, his limbs are numb and unresponsive, and there is the damp of blood soaking through his hair. The bone-deep ache of chakra exhaustion is so all-encompassing that he can barely lift his hand let alone stop the bleeding. Around him, there are several people yelling in shock and surprise. Civilians he vaguely notes as he clings to consciousness. There is no sign of Madera, Obito or any of Kakashi’s allies for that matter.

When his vision dims for a second time he thinks that this, this would be his last breath. Alone, severely injured, in a foreign location and with only civilians as help? It was a death sentence.

He is wrong in the end.

…

Kakashi wakes up in a strange hospital bed surrounded by the strangest people he has ever seen. He also wakes up covered in bandages, his more serious injures either treated or in various stages of recovery.

The air is dry with a distinct lack of chakra. It is something he would usually only see in a prison cell made to contain dangerous shinobi in which chakra draining fuinjutsu arrays were applied to the walls and floor. There are no fuinjutsu arrays here. This is not a prison cell. For one, there is a large window. Secondly, there is a constant stream of doctors, nurses and other patients moving in, out and around the building. Finally, the door to the room is not locked. It doesn’t even have a lock.

After memorising the comings and goings of the people working in the strange hospital, he takes some time to scout. Even while injured and drained of chakra, he has enough skill and experience to avoid the workers and other sickly people he shares his room with.

 The world outside his window is one of cement, concrete and brick, with tall imposing structures covered in reflective glass standing higher than any building he has seen before. The closest point of comparison he has are the buildings in the Hidden-Rain and Stone villages but even those are a loose approximation. The hospital is both similar to Konoha’s main hospital, abet a lot bigger and full of strange equipment and technology. The people, despite their lack of chakra, display odd and inconstant abilities, techniques and physical deformities. One of the doctors has a lizard tail and he catches a glimpse of a man with a wooden block for a head. He sees a woman heal a cut with a simple hand wave. Either he is in an unusually elaborate and detailed genjutsu or he is very far away from Kohoha.

Everything is so odd and strange that he is well and truly stumped, leaving him with nothing else to do but quickly return to his hospital room. At least the weird chakra-less people are non-hostiles and willing to provide much needed medical attention. Though he is, as of yet, uncertain about the purpose or motive behind said medical attention seeing as he was a complete unknown to them.

After some consideration, Kakashi decides to wait. He has no idea how he ended up in the place aside from a loose theory that involved his still healing Kamui Sharingan. Additionally, there was no use trying to get back home with stab wounds, his leg broken, his ribs cracked, his shoulder muscles torn and his chakra levels so pathetically low that he’d probably kill himself if he tried.

He takes solace in the fact that his presence, while probably missed to some extent- he likes to think so anyway- wouldn’t impact the outcome of any major conflict. With Naruto’s stubbornness and Sakura’s tenacity, home would be waiting for him, even if he took a bit of time getting there.

…

After a week of information gathering -ie pretending to be unconscious and listening to conversations- Kakashi concludes that the people operating the hospital are relatively harmless. They seem to be under the mistaken impression that Kakashi is a citizen of their village and thus automatically entitled to medical attention. This is despite his lack of identification or history with the place. Such a thing would never happen in Konoha as even civilians were carefully monitored and tracked. Without identification or relatives/friends to vouch for them, a civilian would more likely be thrown out of the village than given what was surely resource-consuming medical treatment. It is lucky for him that there are apparently so many civilians in this village that their shinobi-equivalent forces couldn’t properly keep track of them all. Another point in favour of it not being any sort of hidden-village or any place he was familiar with.

 “Oh, thank goodness!” Says the greying, middle-aged man in a white coat as he approaches Kakashi's bed, “You’re finally awake. How do you feel.”

“Ah…a bit tired,” Kakashi plasters on a confused smile, raising his undamaged hand to rub the back of his head, hunching his shoulders for good measure. The perfect image of a disoriented patient.

 “What happened? Where am I?”

There was only so much he could achieve be pretending to be unconscious and snooping around at night. It was time to get a real feel for residents of this strange place and figure out his next move. This meant integrating into the local culture.  

“No need to worry. You’re in Hosu General Hospital and you’re well on your way to recovery,” A nod and the doctor moves forward to stand beside his bed, “A little drowsiness is a normal side effect of the pain medication we have you on. Now, if I may have your name?”

“Kakashi.” If they hadn’t recognised the Sharingan when they had bandaged it up, then they most likely wouldn’t recognise his name either.

“Well, Kakashi,” The man says with no hint of acknowledgement, “My name is Wada Yasutoki and I’m here to make sure you are recovering properly. Can you tell me if you are feeling any discomfort or pain at the moment?”

“Hmmm…my arm and leg?”

“Would you be able to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10?”

Kakashi thinks for a second and shrugs, “3.” Honestly, he only notices the pain when he’s consciously paying attention.

Another nod and Doctor Wada fusses about, examining the bandages around his shoulder and then his leg, “Well, they seem to be healing as well as any broken limb, maybe even a bit faster. And the stab wound near your chest is almost completely gone.” A thoughtful hum follows the statement. “If not for your left eye I would say you had a healing or regeneration quirk…hmmm…maybe a passive healing factor linked to your quirk…?” Wada looks to him, waiting for confirmation and Kakashi shrugs. From his nightly snooping he knows that ‘quirk’ is the term for the bloodline ability things the people here had.

The Doctor doesn’t press the matter instead asking, “Is there any discomfort in the left side of your face?”

“No.” Kakashi doesn’t want the people here touching his eye any more than necessary. The fact that it is draining charka at its usual sluggish rate was a sign that it was, at least, somewhat functional and that’s good enough for him. He guesses he should be thankful for landing in a place with medicine advanced enough to save it.

“You had us concerned when you didn’t wake after we saw to all your injuries,” The Doctor continues, “Your left eye took quite a bit of damage and we were worried that there might have been some sort of brain injury. If you feel dizzy, lightheaded or confused please, do not hesitate to call a nurse.”

The man shakes his head and sighs, “Now, I understand if you want a bit of space after going through such a traumatic event but if you could provide any details concerning the predicament that ended with you so badly injured it would be a great help to the investigation.”

Kakashi gives a faked confused hum and smiles apologetically, “Sorry Doctor Wada. I'm having trouble remembering much of anything really.”

“Nothing? No details about the potential assailant at all. What they look like? Their quirk?”

“No. Where is Hosu General Hospital by the way?”

His bland expression obviously causes his doctor some concern as he is subjected to a penlight being shone in his uncovered eye.

 “It is located in Hosu City, a ward of Tokyo. Where is the last place you remember being?”

The names mean nothing to him.  Kakashi schools his features into one of complete confusion, “I don’t remember.” 

It’s not even a lie this time. 

After the admission,  Doctor Wada only grows more concerned and Kakashi is subjected to many reassurances that it is completely normal to forget a few things after a brain injury and that he shouldn’t worry himself too much. The level of comforting and reassuring is a bit much if he is being honest. Never before has he longed for the cold frowns of  Konoha’s medic-nin.

“I’ll have to schedule you in for an MRI. If you’re having trouble recalling basic facts alongside your long-term memories, then there might a serious problem.” The older man finally concludes, having run through an extensive list of questions regarding Kakashi’s history all of which he answers with vague half-truths.  Where did he grow up? Somewhere with a lot of trees. Did he have any close relatives? He thinks they might have died when he was little. What does he do for a living? Commission work. Did he have any colleagues? He doesn’t know where they are. So on and so forth.

“It’s a shame your ID and phone were missing when they found you. Stolen by the bastard who put you in this situation no doubt,” the Doctor sighs again, “We might have been able to track down your records. Oh well, we’ll do our best with what we have.”

Kakashi doesn’t speak, pretending to be deep in thought. Mentally, he pats himself on the back for an infiltration gone surprisingly well considering his lack of preparation and the flakiness of the ‘sorry I don’t remember my backstory’ excuse.

“I don’t suppose you remember anything about your quirk,” the doctor asks, “Ocular quirks can have odd effects on brain activity and ability to process information. It might give us a place to start.”

From what he had seen, ‘quirks’ tended to have a specific function but he is still trying to figure out their limits. All he knew for sure was that none of them used chakra.

“It’s called the Sharingan.” He offers to see what the doctor does with the information, “I don’t remember much else about it.”

“Hmmm, ‘copy wheel eye’…it’s a descriptive name at least. Maybe a quirk that deals with memorisation or information recall. I will see if I can find it on the Quirk Registry. Hopefully, that will be enough. ”

Kakashi nods loosely in agreement, filing away the fact that there was a Quirk Registry for later contemplation. 

(NEXT)

#bnha #bnha fanfic #mha #hatake kakashi #hero killer arc #crossover fic #dimension travel AU #culture shock #boku no academia #naruto #kakashi headcanons

[umbry-fic]

On the Matter of Ears

Summary: Colette didn't always grow her hair out this long.

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Crestoria Characters: Lloyd Irving, Colette Brunel, Lutesse, Genis Sage, Arche Klein Relationships: Colette Brunel/Lloyd Irving, Colette Brunel & Lloyd Irving, Colette Brunel & Lutesse Rating: T Word Count: 2756 Mirror Link: AO3 Original Post Date: 26/06/2021

Notes+Warnings: Spoilers for the entirety of Lloyd's side story in Crestoria! Don't read this if you don't want to be spoiled!!

This goes into expanding some of the concepts the side story introduces and their possible implications.

~~~

"You need to start hiding these ears, Chosen," Lutesse said, tugging hard at the pointed ends of Colette's ears. It hurt, but Colette did not pull away, for she knew from experience that that would only warrant further punishment. Besides, it's not as if she wasn't used to it. "Maybe consider growing your hair out?" the elf suggested, rubbing at the ends of the golden hair that fell to the middle of Colette's neck, tucked behind her ears.

"But none of the other elves in the village have to hide their ears..."

The protest fell from her lips before Colette could stop it. She clapped her hands over her mouth, expecting a tirade of stabbing words to spill out of the chief's mouth.

Thankfully, it appeared Lutesse was in a gracious mood today, for she didn’t raise her voice into a thunderous scream as she usually did whenever Colette showed signs of impertinence. She only continued calmly speaking.

"All the elves who leave this village, no matter for what purpose, have to cover their ears. Your case is no different. Hiding them will help you escape the detection of any humans you come across on your journey, such that you may succeed in bringing glory to us instead of being hindered by those idiotic buffoons."

Absent from Lutesse’s face was the kind smile she presented in public. Instead, there was a small frown on her face and a furrow in her brow, a familiar expression that struck fear into Colette’s heart, for it heralded much worse. “And you’re not an elf, Chosen, even if you look like one.” Lutesse’s voice dropped into a dangerous snarl as she broke her regal posture to lean closer to Colette. Colette froze, heart stuttering in her chest as she resisted her urge to back away. “Pray do remember that you were given the honour of resembling our perfect forms, but that you’re nowhere close to it. You’re not even a half-elf,” Lutesse spat, venom dripping from the last word like it was a curse. “Understood?”

"Y - yes, Chief Lutesse… Crystal clear..." Colette whispered in reply, bowing her head and hoping that would be enough to appease Lutesse.

"And are you not tired of Lloyd pulling at your ears? Covering them will most likely solve that."

"I think that'd just invite Lloyd to pull my hair instead." Colette smiled weakly, heart swelling in envy at the faint tinge of fondness she could hear in Lutesse’s voice when she brought up Lloyd. There was no trace of that whenever Lutesse looked at her. There was nothing but cold detachment, one that translated into the way Lutesse touched her, like she was handling an object instead of a living, breathing person with dreams and desires. For a tool that was only useful for a singular purpose did not deserve love, only to be beaten back into shape with no care as to whether it would shatter, for any break could be mended.

"No matter. Start growing your hair out, Chosen. I expect to see it at your shoulders by the end of the year."

Lutesse walked out the doorway, ending the conversation with the unspoken "or else" choking the room.

Colette remained in the middle of the room, staring down at her shaking hands as tears rolled down her face. She was safe to cry, now that no one was here to witness it.

Moulded in the shape of an elf, but yet not one, forever lesser than one… Then what was she? Who was she?

~~~

When Lloyd finally awakened after his horrifying fall from the cliff, he never commented on her ears again. He used to tease her about their shape, sneak up from behind and pull on them until she flinched away. Even though the elves who trained her recommended that she stay away from him to prevent the bullying, she couldn't help but ignore that advice.

For there seemed to be so much pain in those russet eyes, even as he teased her relentlessly. She’d even caught Lloyd sneaking out at night multiple times to do nothing but lie atop the grassy hill and stare up at the skies, tears leaking out from the corners of his eyes. Longing for something that had been lost, perhaps his parents? She could empathise with that, the desire to be loved, to have a family.

There had to be more to Lloyd that he was hiding for some reason she couldn't glean, and she wanted to help soothe that pain she could see, in whatever way she could.

She didn't even mind the bullying all that much. It paled in comparison to the worst that Lutesse had put her through. And even if Lloyd treated her meanly, he was the only one of the children who dared to approach her, the rest shying away from the Chosen. It certainly wasn't normal, but it was the closest she was going to get to it.

And it was her fault that he’d gone over the cliff in the first place.

But when he awoke, those russet eyes snapping open to meet her worried, tear-filled blue ones, he'd forgotten everything. The way he'd treated her before, the shape of her ears that were now covered by the hair that reached her shoulders, her name, all of it. It became a fresh start, their new first meeting, and yet it felt like she was finally meeting the boy hidden away behind the front, the true Lloyd.

And what an incredible person that was. Lloyd treated her as if she was just like him. A child, a friend, a person. Maybe he didn't even realise that she wasn't human like him. Perhaps the fact that he was the only human in this village had slipped his mind, despite Lutesse stating it at least once a week, for that was just like Lloyd. Or perhaps he simply didn't care. She didn't need to know, for all she did know was that it made her heart soar. His presence made her feel so comforted, let her know that someone appreciated her for just being her. Helped her forget that… she wasn’t a person at all. And that was all that mattered.

Watching the way his eyes shined in wonder and a smile broke on his face as she revealed her wings before the Great Pasca Tree filled her with joy - that she could elicit happiness in the boy that had been the first to treat her as a person, the boy that she had fallen in love with.

But it would all have to end someday, right? What would happen once she fulfilled her purpose? Without mana, Lloyd would…

She didn't want that! Lloyd was a human, and Genis was a half-elf, but they were both so precious to her. Even Raine! They were all good people! And surely there was good to be found, even in those who lived outside the village. One just needed to look for it, to work for it!

But arguing with Lutesse proved futile, ending only with a stinging cheek and pooling tears, the line she always ended the argument with remaining in Colette's mind, like a poison that couldn't be purged.

"This was the sole purpose you were born for, Chosen. Without it, you are nothing. Worthless. Do you think your oh-so-precious friends would spare you a second glance if you weren't the Chosen? How about if we made another one of you? Would they even realise you’d been replaced? Or would they just continue on their merry day as if nothing has changed?"

Colette wanted to believe that Lutesse was wrong - that her friends would notice that something was up immediately, that they would know that she had disappeared. But the same doubts continued to plague her.

What made her… her, other than the fact that she’d been created by the elves?

Nothing...

It didn’t matter. If she chose to fulfil her purpose, or abandon it. Once she was no longer useful… Then it would be time for her to be thrown away, as any defective tool would be.

~~~

The outside world proved to be more magical than Colette could have thought possible, once she was finally allowed to step foot outside on the guise of the journey to tune the Great Trees. A journey that exposed her to so much and one that she wished could go on forever.

The flora and the fauna... All the people, the towns, the culture... It was all so colourful and exciting. Sure, it wasn't perfect - Arche shouldn't have been treated the way she was, and sometimes people could be petty and hurt each other, stabbing daggers into each other’s backs. But it was a work in progress, just like everything was. Much like the Elven Village had many areas that it could improve in, despite Lutesse and the other Elders harping on about its perfection. The world was imperfect, and that was made it beautiful and worth protecting.

Her desire to go against her assigned purpose was only further cemented, as she decided that she would do the same at the other trees as she had at the first. She would not go against the wishes of the trees themselves - to see this world continue to grow - for forcing the trees to destroy the people they loved seemed like the cruellest form of torture, one she did not want to wish on anyone. She would not let the selfish desires of others drive her, would not let herself become a vessel for the elves to carry out their egotistical destruction. She would not create a world where her friends, where Lloyd, was not allowed to live.

But she wondered how the people in the towns would treat her if they could see her ears, the physical characteristic that marked her as one of the elve's creations and the one thing she couldn't run away from. They treated her like a human right now, but her ears continued to burn under her hair. She knew she was just doing the same thing as Genis, but it still felt like she was lying about who she was - just another lie to add to the mountains that had left her mouth. The knowledge that she could never be normal, that she would never be able to fit in anywhere, writhed in her mind.

She supposed it didn’t matter. The path she had chosen to take would one day catch up with her. Lutesse would not let her off scot-free. Perhaps there was nothing she could do to stop Lutesse from replacing her with just another Chosen, but she would achieve all she could now.

Even if she was to be derided as a failure, even if she was to be abandoned and forgotten, even if she was to be punished for her transgressions and doomed to fade away into nothing more than dust…

She would work towards a world where her friends could smile. That was enough.

~~~

When Colette awakened in the middle of the volcano, with lava roaring around her and Lutesse’s contemptuous gaze trained on her, all she’s focussed on is Lloyd’s voice. The voice that she had grasped onto in the darkness, the rope that was extended to her and that had pulled her out.

She leapt into his arms without a second thought, hanging onto his words and the hope it gave her, the light that burned away the guilt that flooded her.

His hands ran through her hair as he continued to whisper in her ear that he wanted to stay with her, and do his utmost to grant her wish.

It was only when she walked out into daylight and fresh air again that the realisation hit her, with Lloyd’s hand gripped tightly in hers and her friends smiling faces surrounding her.

She was free, free to release herself from the title of Chosen. But… to do what, and to be who?

~~~

"I don't like my ears much," Colette whispered, removing the comb from her hair and setting it down on the nightstand, raising a hand to play at the locks that fell to the middle of her back, her right ear poking out of the golden veil. She didn't know what prompted her to speak up in the silence of the inn room, to finally blurt out a secret that had been securely locked in her heart for more than a decade. Only that she knew it was safe to say whatever it is she wanted, for the only one here to hear her was Lloyd, and she believed that he would always protect her.

"Really?" Lloyd replied, coming up behind her and running a finger over the shell of her ear, making her shudder from the sensation. He's so incredibly gentle, so different from all the other times Lutesse had forcefully tugged at her ears to punish her. She shouldn't need to recall those memories anymore, but she was helpless against them crawling back into the forefront of her mind. "I think they're beautiful."

"Thank you." Colette couldn't help the flush that filled her cheeks from the compliment Lloyd had paid her. "But... it marks me as Chosen, doesn’t it? It means I'm not human. I'm not an elf or a half-elf either. So... What am I? Where do I belong? What purpose do I have?"

Even now that she was free to journey together with her friends for however long she wanted, she was still plagued with the same fetters that dragged her down, screaming questions into a void that did nothing but echo her voice back at her.

"Hm..." Lloyd wrapped his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder. A comforting presence, one that chased away all her nightmares. "You're just you - Colette. And that’s special. I promised to make a world where everyone can be happy and free. That includes you, and I promise I will keep going until you learn to smile freely. No one gets to answer those questions but you. And if you don't have the answers right now, then we can find it together. We have all the time in the world."

"Thank you..."

His hand came up, wiping away the tears that he somehow knew would spill over, as she placed her hand over his, interlocking their fingers. She let her eyes flutter shut in the comforting silence, knowing that she might already had her answer, even if she didn't have the courage to speak it yet.

That the place she belonged was right here, by Lloyd's side, fighting for his beautiful dream that she also believed in.

~~~

Maybe it's not that much of a surprise that the first place Lloyd kissed her was on the tip of her ears. It was just like him, to shower her with love, especially the part of her that she despised. In hopes that, maybe, she could one day accept herself.

It becomes his favourite place to kiss, over and over again, each time causing her to drop whatever she was holding, blushing. Always so tender. Ticklish, but filling her heart with a warm joy, and instilling her with the confidence to keep going.

~~~

Snip. Snip.

Colette watched the golden locks fall to the floor, calmly placing the scissors on wood.

There. Done.

Her beaming face was reflected in the mirror, her hair now a satisfying length that ended at her chin.

"Colette! Are you ready?" Lloyd's voice came through the thick wooden door, muffled and accompanied by knocking.

"Yep!" Colette replied, skipping over to the door and pulling it open.

"Oh! Oh, wow..."

Lloyd appeared dumbstruck as he stared at her new haircut, bringing up a hand to stroke the ears that were now exposed. Colette leaned into his touch, giggling.

"I was tired of hiding. So... How do I look?"

"You look incredible," Lloyd whispered, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead as he took her hand in his. "Absolutely incredible.

"Shall we go, then?" she prompted, squeezing his hand. “I’m sure Genis and Arche are waiting.”

"We should. Before Genis starts making us do all the chores again for being late..."

The two of them walked down the corridor, laughing at what the other said, prepared to face another day.

~~~

Thank you, Lloyd. For always treating me as a person, one that loved and could be loved.

Thank you, for giving me the courage to just be me, and to find my own place in this world.

#tales of symphonia #tales of crestoria #colloyd #lloyd irving #colette brunel #genis sage #arche klein #lloyd side story #lutesse #fanfiction #one shot

[xoxo-ren-xoxo]

smptwt as of 04/07/2020

Right. You asked for it, so you shall recieve. Below the cut is probably one of the most thought-out, in-depth, hopefully unbiased (but probably not) and above all helpful accounts of what the fuck is happening in the smplive and lunch club fandoms right now. I will be covering everything I can- but in the case that I’ve forgotten something, please let me know so I can have a crack at making an update.

Before the cut, I’d just like to link my first three posts about this same topic, covering my thoughts and the events of the last couple of months of drama. It feels so strange that I’ve made so many of these, but as long as they help people, I’ll keep making them.

Part 1: https://crunchy-corvid.tumblr.com/post/619547090403622912/the-cscoopsmptwt-drama

Part 2: https://crunchy-corvid.tumblr.com/post/619746266158661633/more-on-smptwt-long-post

Part 3: https://crunchy-corvid.tumblr.com/post/619886809143476225/smptwt-part-3-030620

I’d like to preface this with a huge thank you to everyone who helped me collect and compile information for this post- and those who helped censor twitter handles and edit screenshots. Without you, this post would have never been made. 

Thank you to everyone on the Cancelled Heaven discord server:  https://discord.gg/emrh2u

Now, onto the thing.

So we’ll start at the beginning with the easiest ‘drama’ (I hate calling it that) to cover. Charlie (slimecicle) tweeted on his second account and it caused a little upset. It’s not much but it feeds into a greater conversation that I think is relevant here: 

We’ll start with Charlie’s original point, then move on to the reply. Obviously, this post was poorly timed, because everyone thought it was about the Cooper (cscoop) drama, when in reality it was just a general comment. I saw a lot of replies along the lines of ‘it’s okay you can @ cscoop’ and similar things. If you’ve read my previous posts you’ll know how I feel about the Cooper situation, but regardless, there are a few reasons why this is a Bad Take/poor interpretation of what Charlie said.

Charlie and Cooper are friends. They haven’t fallen out as far as we know. Charlie is left-wing, and definately doesn’t seem like the kind of person to be friends with someone who is racist/transphobic/sexist etc. So why would he be talking about Cooper in this post? 

Also, Charlie is clearly talking about people who still say slurs, not people who have said slurs in the past. This is how I read it, a jab at streamers and gamers who use ‘dark humour’ to justifty their actions. A lot of people seemed to relate this to Cooper, despite him never trying to justify his use of slurs. The people who did try to justify his actions this way were fans, not the man himself. So again, this post doesn’t relate to Cooper.

On to the reply, which sparks a different conversation all together. While I see where the commenter is coming from, and agree with them to an extent, Charlie is allowed to have his own opinion on the matter. And he is right. Using insulting language against heterosexual people does create a larger divide and doesn’t get anyone on our ‘side’. It just makes us look immature and causes a lot of straight cis people to assume that we hate them. 

On the other hand, I do think that saying things like ‘disgusting hets’ can be a funny joke if you are saying it to your friends who don’t have any issue with it. You probably shouldn’t get into the habit of saying things like that though, just in case you actually hurt someone with your words. Both sides of the argument have pros and cons, so anyone angry at Charlie for his opinion really have no reason to be.

Charlie’s reponse to this comment was reasonable, responsible, and mature, and he is clearly showing that he understands the concerns of his audience. This is all I’ll say about Charlie in this post. Honestly, he’s generally unproblematic and ‘safe’ to keep watching, if you enjoy a very drama-free environment. Have fun!

Now I’ll move on to Ted. He’s made some great points recently about cancel culture which I strongly agree with. Here’s his first tweets:

I don’t have much to add here, this is perfectly valid in my opinion- though I feel like sometimes you can tell a lot about a person by the people they follow. For example, if someone follows Trump, Ben Shapiro, and a bunch of right-wing youtubers, they probably agree with a lot of the things they say. But I think the point Ted is trying to make is that he shouldn’t be harassed about drama his friends fall into. If he isn’t involved, leave him out of it. 

Next we’ll take a look at his tweets on stans, probably sparked by the drama with Carson, which I will be talking about later. 

Again, I have no issue with what Ted is saying here. His idea is a good one, and a fun way to distinguish casual fans from people who create art, content, and (appropriate) fanfiction for the ‘flandom’! 

Basically, how I see it, is that a ‘fan’ is a casual viewer who doesn’t really get involved in the flandom, maybe posting about smplive and/or lunch club occasionally, but not being too involved. A ‘flan’ is someone who interracts a lot, creates art and fiction that respects boundaries, and posts more about the boys than a casual fan does. A ‘stan’ is a stalker-fan, creepy and obsessive, too invested, maybe creates art and fiction that crosses boundaries, and obsessively posts about the boys.

I think this new terminology is really cool and Ted is smart for coming up with it (also, probably hungry when coming up with it too). I think that the term ‘stan’ should be thrown out and used to describe the ‘bad’ side of fandoms. There is a risk that people will hide behind the term ‘flan’ to disguise the fact that they are a stan, but this is still a good step foward. 

But you’re not here to listen to me ramble about Ted or Charlie. You’re here for Carson. So let’s get on with it.

Carson made a series of tweets talking about stans, much like Ted did later. He seemed tired of stans harassing him about his friends, a sentiment shared by Ted (who faced very minimal backlash over his tweets). Here’s what he said:

Which is something I fully agree with. For big content creators like Carson and his friends, stan culture is absolutely insane. Recently they’ve been trying to ‘catch out’ many people who are part of smplive and/or lunch club, most obviously with Cooper and Schlatt but I’ve seen the others getting ‘called out’ too. Carson’s anti-stan stance is well-known in the flandom (yes I am using that word get used to it) so these tweets didn’t surprise me. 

For some reason stans seem to think that if one creator is okay with their behaviour, every other creator is too. This is not the case. Carson was within his full right to say these things about stans.

Obviously the replies got out of hand. People became horribly angry very quickly, and clearly Carson had already had enough because pretty soon he started blocking stan accounts- which only made them more mad.

Of course, there were supporters and anti-stan comments out there too, such as this fun exchange:

But a whole lot of people got angry. Carson was trending for a while, too, after he started blocking stans. Unfortunately some people did get wrongfully blocked, which sucks, sure, but use of an alt account or logging off of twitter can solve that problem (this can also be said for stan accounts. Carson didn’t stop any of them from viewing his content, just blocked them so that he didn’t have to see their tweets).

Carson did this for his own mental health. After a long conversation with older people who have been in fandoms for decades, I can tell you that being at the top is always hell. New threads created about you every day, friends you can’t trust, and people giving you shit for things other people said. I can’t imagine how someone as popular as Carson has dealt with this for so long.

People who were blocked started to claim that they were having panic attacks, that they hyperfixate so they can’t help being obsessive, and that Carson doesn’t care about mental health for these reasons. They said some pretty toxic and manipulative things and a lot of people clearly didn’t know what they were talking about:

First of all, these comments on the Katerino and Fitz situation are honestly disgusting. These people are only proving Carson’s point that stans will be super supportive one second and turn around to hate you the next. To bring up something like this, something completely unrelated and highly personal- knowing Carson will see- is disgraceful. To speculate about a relationship that Carson has explicitly stated he doesn’t want people to speculate about just to try and make a point? Horrible.

A lot of stans seem to have this ‘we made you famous so we dictate how you feel’ mentality, which I hate. Exactly as the reply says, they sound like toxic parents with these words. To think you deserve ‘respect’ from someone after accusing their friends of horrible things and harassing them to the point that they block you is so manipulative and quite frankly cruel.

Again, Carson has the right to block anyone he wants. Creators are not your friends, they are entertainment. If you are making them upset and harassing them, you shouldn’t get mad when they block you. 

Listen. It can be tough, finding out that someone you look up to has blocked you. Yes, I’m sure people had a not-so-nice time with their mental health when it happened to them. But in most cases, they were blocked for a reason. Some people were even literally asking to get blocked and then got mad when they did. But again, no one has been barred from viewing Carson’s content. He simply blocked people who he didn’t want to see in his comments section.

You have freedom of speech, but you don’t have freedom from consequence. If you say something that hurts someone else, you’re not always going to be free from their judgement. 

Carson has been very open about his own struggles with depression and imposter syndrome recently, and people are viewing his actions as... hypocritical? This is flawed logic. Carson blocked stans because they were bad for his mental health, the fact that some claim to have had ‘panic attacks’ as a result is not on him. He has the autonomy to block who he wants to block. 

Wilbur Soot made some comments about the situation, which can be found in this video from 7 minutes 30 seconds in, and goes until 10 minutes and 11 seconds in:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/667971714

What Wilbur says here is completely understandable. He doesn’t have a problem with stans, but doesn’t speak for anyone but himself. Just because one person is okay with something doesn’t mean someone else is, too. 

Also, a lot of people think that it’s okay to hate on someone like Carson or Schlatt, then turn around and stan Wilbur, which is kind of fucked up, because they’re friends in real life. How would you feel if someone was super nice to you, then turned around and harassed your friends?

A lot of people claimed to have ‘hyperfixations’ on Carson or lunch club, which they used as an excuse to be obsessive and creepy. This is bullshit, but someone else explained it a lot better than I could:

And I absolutely agree with this. You cannot use neurodivergence to explain away your creepiness. That’s just offensive to people who do hyperfixate, and leads to even more problems and misunderstandings.

Carson did a stream much later where he talked about all of these things, and boy did that go well (not). Here is a clip of him talking about hyperfixations:

https://m.twitch.tv/clip/SuaveBlushingDotterelBCWarrior

Now, here’s where my support for Carson falters. He should have done more research on what hyperfixations really are before he said things about them. He hurt some people with what he said, and just saying he’s uneducated on the topic isn’t really an excuse.

HOWEVER. Carson was given very little time to research (about 24 hours between his original tweets and his stream) and, more importantly, it is very obvious that the use of the term ‘hyperfixation’ has been warped and manipulated by stans who are misusing the term to excuse their behaviour. Carson probably saw stans using it and assumed it was something synonomous with ‘obsessions’.

What he said was poorly worded, but the point he was making is the same as the (much more researched and informative) tweet above. Anyone getting mad that he is somehow ‘invalidating mental health or autism’ with his comments clearly don’t understand the point he was trying to make in the first place.

And here’s a clip of Connor talking about it, too, as well as defending Carson’s right to block people as he wishes:

https://www.twitch.tv/connoreatspants/clip/YummySlickPlumageSpicyBoy

https://www.twitch.tv/connoreatspants/clip/JazzySpotlessMelonMoreCowbell

What he said here is completely valid, a little poorly worded in the same way as Carson’s statement, but overall something I stand behind.

Some people are claiming that Carson is being manipulative or ‘gaslighting’ fans and stans:

Carson is not against fans who create cool stuff for him and his friends. He is against the people who harass him, accuse his friends of horrible things, and try to look for every little thing they’ve said and done wrong. This is what he said, and people got mad at him for it, and so he blocked them. That is it. There is no gaslighting. There is no manipulation. I’ve seen much more manipulative things coming from the stans’ side of things.

Now we move on to Noah’s reply to Carson’s tweet. Which, yes, caused a whole new can of worms to be opened.

Now, for those like me who have trouble figuring out Noah’s way of speaking, let me translate: ‘stans are insecure people who start to feel entitled because they’ve started to view a streamer they like as a friend/someone who shares their pain.’ 

For those of you who don’t know, this is what ‘don’t negotiate with terrorists’ means:

However, almost predictably, stans saw the word ‘terrorist’ and lost their goddamn minds. That, coupled with the complicated phrasing of Noah’s words, caused a lot of stans to freak out.

This conversation is full of Bad Takes, but my main issue is that they are trying to diagnose Noah with an actual mental illness. That is not only offensive to people who have that illness (especially calling him ‘insane’ in the same sentence, as well as implying that having said illness makes you a bad person) but is also highly hypocritical since so many stans claimed to all be neurodivergent themselves. 

Also, 90% of his fans aren’t stans. They’re mostly fans or flans. You are a loud minority. You aren’t as powerful as you think you are. Noah even started to retweet hate comments, that’s how few shits he gave. He also shows that he is concerned about people making things up about him, which is understandable.

Plus he outright said that stans are not fans of him, which in most cases, they’re not. Noah’s content isn’t as widely watched as some of his friends’ stuff, and a lot of stans don’t watch his streams.

But anyway, here’s one good take I saw floating around:

After this, before his stream, Carson deleted his original tweets and spent some time with his family, which was a sensible and mature thing to do at this point. 

During Carson’s stream, someone notified him that his ‘fans’ had started to doxx stans. Here is his reaction:

https://m.twitch.tv/callmecarsonlive/clip/SpicySassyGerbilArgieB8

A lot of people got mad that he didn’t do more to stop the doxxings, but I want to raise the question: what was he supposed to do? He can’t control his ‘fans’ (another breed of stans who don’t call themselves stans were doing the doxxings, to be honest) and he said not to do it. He was streaming, he didn’t know how serious it was or even if it was true, at that moment, what was he supposed to do?

It did get serious. People I know were doxxed. Anyone posting anything (positive or negative) about lunch club, smplive, and Carson were in danger. It was not fake like some people claimed. The twt handles in this post are blurred out because of the doxxing threats. I am making this post at my own risk, but I do feel that tumblr is safer than twitter at the moment.

This being said, it is in no way Carson’s fault how out of hand this has become. He has been against doxxing in the past and his sentiments haven’t changed. He has said more about the doxxings in replies to tweets such as this one:

Also, here’s what the mods on Carson’s discord server had to say about the situation. They’ve clearly talked about this with Carson, and are strongly against anyone who is doxxing these people (especially since a lot of the people being doxxed are minors).

A similar sentiment was shared on Ted’s discord server:

Here is what ItsAsaii had to say:

So that’s basically where everything stands right now. If you want an even fuller update on everything, check out Carson’s stream ‘afternoon fellas and fellettes’ where he talks about everything.

Here’s the last tweets I have from Carson regarding the whole situation:

And I agree fully with what he has said. And again, Carson doesn’t owe stans anything. Just like what was said here, he had subs and fans before he had stans, they did not ‘make’ him, and they cannot control him.

This is all I have to say, for now. If I have missed anything or you’d like me to cover anything else, please let me know. If I have hugely missed the mark and said something super wrong/offensive, let me know. If you’d like me to talk about a streamer or youtuber not related to lunch club, throw me a DM or an ask and I’ll try to compile some things, even if I don’t watch their content or know who they are.

If you’d like up-to-date information about drama in smptwt, streamers, and youtubers, join the Cancelled Heaven discord server- which I linked at the start of the post. 

I thank you all for reading, and suggest that you reblog this so that as many people as possible can see it. If you want to risk it, go ahead and link this post in a tweet or something, but please do be careful. 

For some ‘extra reading’ (watching) I highly recommend Contrapoints’ video on cancel culture: https://youtu.be/OjMPJVmXxV8

And Philosophy Tube’s video on artists and fandoms, there’s some really insightful things about parasocial relationships: https://youtu.be/3IG0Y63LkDM

Lots of love, and have a great day <3

#smptwt #smplive #lunch club #callmecarson #ted nivison #slimecicle #cscoop #twitter #twitter drama #twt #lctwt #stan culture #cancel culture #long post

[calliecat93]

ST: TNG S6 Watchthrough Episodes 14-17

Face of the Enemy: Troi has been kidnapped and forced to look/pose as a Romulan officer. Why? The one responsible isn’t saying, but to say that she’s unhappy would be an understatement. As it turns out, Troi was abducted by a part of the resistance from Unification and they need a Starfleet officer in case their current plan goes south. They even mention Spock… IDK if I can see him approving of an abduction but maybe they just forgot to mention that he disapproved that part… then again I guess it makes logical sense. Eh, whatever. So… this is by far the best Troi episode that they’ve done thus far. She was kidnapped yes, but she is NOT playing the damsel-in-distress. She’s not victimized. She’s not sexualized. She’s not forced into a poorly conceived romance or undergoes anything gross/f*cked up. She has to act the part of a cold-hearted authoritarian among a ship of Romulans and she is freakin’ badass. Especially when she decides that she’s had enough going and thoroughly tells off her kidnapper N’Vek and that he will listen to her. 100% perfection. They even managed to make her empathic abilities useful. Did putting her in the uniform cause this? Did they get it out of their systems in Man of the People? IDK but I am all for it! It was also an awesome look into the Romulans and the going-ons on their ship, something we haven’t really gotten since TOS’ Balance of Terror, and all the Romulans are done very well. N’Vek kidnapped Troi but he did it for his cause and is a great morally grey character, and the female Romulan Commander Toreth is an excellent antagonist. Plus it’s nice to see more of the resistance and to see them within the Romulan ranks. It was an excellent episode and I freakin’ loved it~! Thank you show for giving Troi the badass episode that she deserves (even if it was this late in the show's run), now keep it up! 5/5.

Tapestry: Two Q episodes this season? Hell yes~! So… Picard dies. Welp. Q decides to take this to give Picard an offer: go back in time and undo his greatest regret, the incident that caused his artificial heart that he told Wesley about in Samaritan Snare. Back when he was a hot-blooded rebel who got himself into a fight that got him stabbed in the heart. In doing so, he now has a chance to correct all the wrongs and settle all he regrets in his life since that day. So up to this point, Q’s episodes since Q Who, while still entertaining and interesting, had been more light-hearted. Q still came off as an all-powerful being (Deja Q aside which him not being was the plot point), but his antics had been more comedic or light-hearted in comparison. In this episode, he’s acting like a trickster as per usual, but again more with the purpose to teach Picard a lesson. Why isn’t made very clear aside from maybe he just likes Picard (take that however way you’d like), but it’s nice to see this version of Q again while still utterly stealing the show. Picard got to undo the event… but would it have really turned out any better had it not happened? Would not making mistakes, having regrets, and making all the supposed ‘right’ choices when he should have had truly made a better impact in his present? That’s the funny thing about life, it’s easy to look back and go ‘if I had done this one thing differently, it would have been better’ and te desire to correct it is very powerful. But with mistakes comes the ability to learn. To grow. To mature. You’ll always have guilt and regrets, but you have to accept that this is what you chose and go about your life. Picard is a man full of thrown-away opportunities, pain, and so much more… but it also caused him to become a strong leader, intelligent, a risk-taker, and even with all his faults become a better person in his present day. Now obviously he doesn’t actually die, but he sure as Hell learned the lesson. The life he would have lead would have been unsatisfying, his old regrets replaced with new ones, and been unfulfilling for a man like himself. Now he can truly value the one that he has and the people in it. This was a fantastic episode. It’s crazy how Picard went from one of my least favorites to now one of my absolute favorites. His development and growth from a strict, aloof authoritarian to a much more reasonable father-like figure and much more humbled man and the captain has been excellent, and this episode just helps further that. The only real complaint is there’s not much time devoted to showing how his crew ended up without him, but that’s minor and doesn’t take anything away at all. Very well done~! 5/5.

Birthright: Okay, guess we got a second two-parter… and apparently it crosses over with DS9. Didn’t see that coming. But alrighty, I’m game~!

Part One: So the crew is on Deep Space 9 to assist in repairs of some incident involving the Bajorans and the Cardassians that I guess I’ll find out about when I get to the show. While there Worf is approached by an alien who informs him that his dead father? He may not be dead after all, having been kept in a Romulan prison. Worf doesn’t take it well. He ain’t the only one having daddy issues. While working with DS9‘s CMO Dr. Bashir, Data gets knocked out has a vision of Dr. Soong (a much younger one than in Brothers). Normally Data can’t dream so he’s pretty taken aback by this. So as a first part, this was pretty good. It sets up Worf’s plot well with him deciding to break into the Romulan camp to find out the truth and rescue the Klingons there. Data’s plot is overall nice. He’s never dreamed before so him trying to track down why is very understandable, especiallya after Picard suggests that he quit going through facts and try a more creative outlet to get his answers. So what happened? As it turns out Dr. Soong made it so that when Data reached a certain cognitive point, he would obtaint he ability to dream and he made an AI version of himself to talk to him. I guess he would have explained this to him in Brothers had Lore not shown up/had he not died. It was a really touching moment. Soong’s still not exactly the most ideal parent, but his AI copy seemed legit proud of how far Data’s come. Is it out of ego, legit parental pride, or both? That’s up for you to decide. As this is my first look at Bashir… so far I don’t have too manys torng opinions. he seems to act more liek a Science Officer or Engineer han a CMO, but he is cute and so far liekabe. He’s curious about Data, but doesn’t dehumanize him like Maddox in The Measure of a Man did, if anything he notes Data’s more human-like elements like being able to grow hair than any of the nuts and bolts. He seems pretty well liked from what I’ve seen int he fandom, so I’ll see how that holds when I reach DS9 but I like him so far. I do have some issues, but that more impacts the Overall so I’ll save it for there. So we end with Worf discovering his father’s true fate… and he’s informed by the Klingons there that he’s never leaving the camp. Welp. How will Worf get out of this one in Part 2? We shall see. 4/5.

Part Two: So what the heck is going on? Well, Worf’s father is infact dead, but there were captured Klingons. As they weren’t able to die with honor nor could they return home as it would dishonor their families (Klingons prefer death to capture), they chose to remain in the camp and live out the rest of their lives there. So now Worf is among multiple Klingons, the vast majority of which know nothing about their heritage, culture, and customs and had it outright demonized. To them, the lives they have are the norm and they have no desire to change it. Worf may have been out of touch with Klingons due to being raised on Earth, but at least he can explore it and get in touch with it. The ones in the camp? They can’t do that. They’re essentially in a gilded cage. Yeah, there's the argument that they achieved peace between Klingons and Romulans… by imprisoning said Klingons and demonizing their culture to them with the older Klingons allowing it. Though it seems it’s also because of broken spirits and the dishonor they’d have faced otherwise which is worst than death to them. There’s even one girl, Ba’el, who is half Klingon, half-Romulan… and despite what gets said I don’t get the sense that her parents' union was a fully consensual one. This was pretty good. Worf has found a group that like him were out of touch with their heritage, and he is now able to educate them and guide them. With all that’s happened and his struggle to be a true Klingon and find his way, this was really nice to have. He’s still clinging onto his hatred of Romulans and this episode isn’t going to help it dissipate, but at least it was addressed and Ba’el being upset at being judged due to how she was born was very much justified. Heaven knows that the themes here are still very much relevant in today’s time. Worf’s guidance pays off in the end and at last, they can be free. The younger Klingons have a rough road likely ahead of them since we know that Klingon society isn’t exactly the easiest to get through, but at least they have a chance at freedom. It was a very strong Worf episode and it was great to see~. 4/5.

Overall: Okay, so overall… it’s pretty uneasy. The Worf parts are good.. As I said, it was nice to see him in a position to give guidance to a group even more out of touch than he is. It was very wel done. The issues are mainly with Part One. We have this plot where they go to DS9… and we are barely there. We have Dr. Bashir… and only him. None of the other characters. We don't even see O’Brien despite him having transferred to DS9 at this point. Maybe the actors were busy sot they could only pick one but it kinda makes doing a crossover cheap. Bashir doesn’t even get a lot to do, you could write him out and very little would change. On the upside this means that viewers who haven’t watched DS9 won’t be confused nor would DS9 be required viewing, but it also kind of defeats the purpose of bringing DS9 in. It’s essentially just window dressing. Data’s plot, while nice, is completely dropped in Part Two. It feels like they were required to do a two-parter, didn’t have enough of the Worf plot to fill it out, and came up with the Data dream plot and using DS9 to fill it out. The crew also don’t really do anything in either part. As such, aside from getting Worf into the place he needs to be, Part One feels irrelevant. As such, I can’t give it a perfect rating. It was still good, but as a two-parter Part One bogs it down, but still allows for Part Two to happen. Overall, pretty good. 4/5.

#st watchthrough

[loopy777]

Nickelodeon gives you the task of writing a series based on Korra's earthbending successor with no limits on what you can do. How would you write his story?

Interesting that you say “his.” There’s no rule that the Avatars have to alternate gender, but at this point the fandom assumes it so much that I’d just go with it to avoid controversy.

Anyway, I’d probably turn Nickelodeon down if they wanted me to write Korra’s successor. I have no interest in the future that seems to be getting established in LoK. I want the franchise to stay in the past forever; there’s more than enough room, and I’d even be open to throwing away the concept of “canon” to tell stories that might merely be in-universe legends.

But, I’m going to try to answer the question in good faith. If I was a professional television writer/producer, and my career depended on saying yes to this and trying to do a good job, here’s what I’d do:

Working Title: The Last Avatar

Our star is a poor Earthlands boy. The Earth Kingdom collapsed years ago, Balkanizing into a bunching of struggling nations divided up haphazardly among various tribes, local cultures, and convenient geographical groupings. Our Boy is an Earthbender, but he hasn’t pursued any official training because it’s largely a waste of time and money. Instead, he’s been working his way through an education, learning about robotics and spirit-energy, because demand is high for that knowledge. He repairs old robots for spare money, and even has his own glitchy assistant -- who can transform into a van -- who he likes to trash-talk to show his love. He’s a huge nerd.

Actually, the only reason he can defend himself with Earthbending at all is because of a classmate and friend who’s passed on her own lessons. This girl is one of seventeen young adults who currently use the Beifong name. She’s a Metalbender using her ability to innovate with circuitry, very interested in technology and business, but she also values some of the old ways and thinks Bending is an important part of Earth culture that should not be ignored.

Our Boy knows he’s not the Avatar because the Avatar is a super-famous influencer, activist, pop-singer, and advertising icon. She lives in the Fire Nation and has green hair. You should picture Hatsune Miku for her. There are bigger celebrities, and none of her movies have been huge hits, but the Avatar still has enough culture significance that she was born famous and has managed to stay in the news.

By the way, Fire Nation culture is dominant. All the best stuff comes from the Fire Nation. Their movies, television, music, and video games are popular all over the world. Their technology is better. Their quality is life is better. They have the best doctors, the fastest internet, bigger apartments, the most prestigious schools, and the best jobs. Immigration is limited by law, in order to maintain their high quality of life.

The United Republic and the Water Tribes have seized some former Earth Kingdom territory, so their influence has expanded. The United Republic invested heavily in technology, and they’re now a dystopian cyberpunk nightmare with a government that just does whatever its corporations say. The president of the United Republic is a position that rich men use to become richer. The Water Tribes are a lot better, having managed to transition to a constitutional monarchy and maintain something like a balance between life and technology.

Note that I didn’t say “spirituality and technology,” because the two are one. All technology is spirit-powered. Spirits can meld with the internet. Spirits can inhabit robot bodies. Spirits and humans meet in abstract Virtual Realities where the difference between the two disappears.

And all of this orderly chaos is set to collapse when Our Boy accidentally Firebends during a dangerous action moment. He and Beifong Girl realize he might be the Avatar. But Hatsune Miku has demonstrated command of all four elements. On separate occasions she’s been seen and filmed Earthbending, Firebending, Waterbending, and Airbending, sometimes two at once. So how can Our Boy also do that?

Beifong Girl urges him to contact the Air Nation and the descendants of Avatar Aang to find out. Except, when he does with her family’s help, Dual-Benders -- warriors using two different elements -- try to kill him. He’s been betrayed by the Air Nation- and possibly the Beifong clan. His friend helps him get away, but she isn’t sure she can trust her family. They both go on the run, not sure what to do.

The mystery of what’s going on will drive the whole series. Here’s our cast:

Our Boy: The true Earthbending Avatar, completely untrained. He’s a poor nerd thrown into the deep end of a global conspiracy, but fortunately he has a robot who transforms into a van, so at least he has transporation.

Beifong Friend: Our Boy’s best friend. Not a love interest. She’s the youngest Beifong cousin, an Earthlands patriot who wants to raise the former Earth Kingdom out of its divided state using technology. She’s also far too gentle for her family of power-hungry vipers, but she’s still a great Earthbender and will become a Metalbender warrior before the end.

Fake Avatar Hatsune Miku: An artificial biological/spiritual construct of the Red Lotus, able to Bend two elements at any one time by swapping out a set of four spirits (all of whom are intelligent, devoted solely to her, and have different personalities), and the center of a conspiracy that she’s the Avatar. The Red Lotus built her and are using her to advance their plans. She joins the hunt for Our Boy, officially decrying him as a Disciple of a Vaatu cult trying to destroy humanity. However, she eventually begins to have thoughts of her own and resent how she’s used and abused as a tool rather than a person. She becomes our Deuteragonist, going rogue and having her own journey and arcs that intersect with Our Boy. Depending on fandom reaction, she might becomes Our Boy’s love interest, but might also become just another friend. She eventually frees her spirit friends, giving up all Bending powers.

Water Sage-Candidate: A young man who is training to be a Water Sage/Shaman. He’s a new-age hippie type who distrusts technology but likes people and spirits, wanting everyone to be nicer and more supportive to each other. He’s suspicious of what’s going on with this supposed Vatuu cult, despite his master (a Red Lotus infiltrator) telling him to trust in the true Avatar. When Our Boy and his friends come to Water Tribe territory, he joins up with them to help expose the truth.

Air Detective: An Airbender, a master detective and manhunter, who has been tasked with helping to track down Our Boy. It turns out she’s honest and completely ignorant of what’s really going on, so as she hunts Our Boy, she realizes the greater conspiracy at work- one that seems to have set its sights on the Air Nation back during the height of Avatar Korra’s influence. She’s older than the main cast and largely separate from them, but she does spend a lot of time with Fake Avatar Hatsune Miku and becomes something of a mentor to her. She struggles balancing Airbender ideals and her own cynicism about humanity, and is probably the best fighter in the story.

The Red Lotus: Our villains. They have infiltrated every level of every government in the world, and have figured how to replicate what Raava did with Wan- use a melding between spirits and humans to swap out Bending powers. They have managed to get up to a human/spirit combo being able to actively use two at a time, but they’re hot on replicating the full Avatar experience. The idea is that they eventually want to give everyone full Avatar powers, ruining the office of the Avatar and empowering everyone with the strength to topple governments and businesses. Any single person can knock over a building and kill thousands. And for those who are incompatible with the melding process and explode- well, those are necessary losses. Red Lotus foot soldiers will often have, as one of their two elements, Firebending.

Red Lotus Traitor: A NonBender history nerd from a Red Lotus family. The more he sees as he’s initiated into the family business, the more horrified he becomes, but he successfully manages to hide it- which is good, because recruits who balk tend to wind up dead in ‘accidents.’ When Our Boy comes to the Fire Nation, he and his friends encounter the Traitor, which brings them to the Red Lotus’s attention, but the Traitor finally breaks free and gets the group out, joining them.

Boss Red Lotus: The leader of the Red Lotus. A NonBender. She and her family -- siblings, a father or mother we can maybe tie to a character in LoK, and maybe a kid or spouse -- are running the whole show and have inherited the plan that the Red Lotus are executing. What separates Boss Red Lotus is her personal investment in Fake Avatar Hasune Miku. She thinks of herself as Miku’s mother, and has become more interested in creating a higher form of life than merely giving humanity Avatar powers. She grows more obsessed when Miku goes rogue and commissions a more advanced clone.

Fake Love Interest: A love interest for Our Boy who is a little bit weird and a little bit cool, very pretty in a vaguely gothy way, and fond of bugs. This is actually Koh in disguise as a human, and the romance doesn’t work out. It will be awesome, trust me.

The bulk of the series is Our Boy and his growing group of friends tooling around the world in their robot-van, chased by Fake Avatar Hatsune Miku and the Airbender Detective, slowly uncovering the Red Lotus conspiracy and eventually rising up to save the world with the help of everyone who isn’t evil. The setting is dark and inspired by science-fiction, and there’s a theme of rediscovering the past, but the past doesn’t always hold the solution. Sometimes, the past merely contains the mistakes that led to today’s problems. The redemption of the world usually comes from getting in touch with the culture of the past, and mixing that with the wondrous new technology available today.

The ending I’m envisioning is a kind of embracing of the Red Lotus’s plan, but a non-destructive form. Everyone gets all four elements, but no one is killed by it, and the power level is completely normal. The Avatar, though, is the sole person to be able to Energybend, and it’s this role -- being able to explore the limitless potential of humanity -- that makes the Avatar important going forward. The significant Red Lotus are all sucked into hell or the Fog of Lost Souls or something, except for those who die outright, with the rest being rehabilitated.

Romance will be downplayed, aside from the fakeout with Koh, but if any of the recurring characters show some chemistry, there’s room to develop it. The Fake Avatar Hatsune Miku should be designed to be the audience’s tortured, angsty, badass waifu.

The next level of development for these ideas should come from the Concept Artist team, especially focusing on the weapons used in this setting. This will be followed by a more detailed revision by me with major plot points, and then going to the writers’ room for development of the first season. Entire characters or concepts may disappear or be added during that time.

Merchandising should emphasize the Tron Lines on everyone’s clothing that glow when Bending. Also, the Robot Van can be expanded to a whole line of transforming robots toys, although the word “transform” should not appear in any official material. We see video games as a major licensing opportunity, with a possibility for “canon” stories set in the same time period, intersecting with the cartoon’s main plot. To this end, final character designs should perhaps be modeled on voice actors, so that face scans or motion capture can be employed for AAA video game appearances.

And that’s my pitch.

#Anonymous #warning: i don't hold back with this

[clarenecessities]

so shit’s fucked

here is a timeline

09/03/2019.

two people in a 70 person server discuss the SU movie in the general chat channel, using spoiler tags because it had just recently been released. this lasts five posts.

09/07/2019.

alyson comes into the general chat channel and says man, isn’t it a bummer that SU is n*zi apologia and racist and actively harmful?

Donnie says yes, it’s harmful, but drop the n*zi comment because RS is jewish (alyson does not, then or the other two times donnie asks, despite donnie being jewish himself). He later says he doesn’t care about SU at all

Synth says it’s understandable that people would drop the show because of poor handling or the racism issues, but agrees that n*zi is too far when there’s genuine propaganda out there

Beta says yes, the writers could have handled things better, but reducing the message of the show to “n*zi good” is a deliberate misinterpretation

A fourth person comes in briefly to say they also don’t care about SU and that this should probably be in the discourse channel.

About halfway through the conversation, after his second request to stop calling SU apologia was met with a sourceless insistence that other jewish people criticized it (though alyson did not specify whether they used the term n*zi apologia), Donnie told her she was taking this very personally, which Alyson met with “Am I? I said a thing, said it was unpopular, and left it. and then got swarmed?”

At this point she held ~46% of the conversation.

She then abruptly left, saying, “like. Hooooboy, there's so much assuming and passion and defensiveness going on here, so I guess I'll leave since I've seen this all before and know for a fact that no one is going to let it rest.“

She held 41% of the final conversation. Everyone who weighed in was either explicitly open to criticizing SU or completely indifferent, and were simply asking her not to refer to the work of a Jewish nb woman as n*zi apologia.

09/10/2019

Alyson writes a post. The introduction is more or less “if you uncritically like SU, unfollow me” and goes on to say she underestimated how few people in the neopets fandom recognize its harmfulness. She says she’d been thinking about leaving the Neolodge discord for a while, but her mind was made up on the 3rd when she saw "a lot of hype and support" (5 posts), four full days before she posted in the general chat. She says she "was swarmed by questions asked by people who didn't want to hear [her] answers." (there were two questions asked of her: “did you just kind of want to get mad at us for enjoying steven universe?” and “were you venting?")

She says that SU is her “litmus test” of sorts, implying--possibly by accident--that she was then testing the Neolodge by dangling some SU-discoursey bait. 

The post was tagged #the problem isn’t liking a thing and #it's denying anyone from not-liking it for very valid reasons

Except the problem was demonstrated to be specifically that she was asked not to use a particular term to describe that not-like

7 months later, 4/16/2019

There is a Neolodge board on our own neopets.gov. Alyson shows up and is polite & sociable until more people that she recognizes filter in. She neomails hollis to broach the subject of what had happened in september, saying “from what i remember it was mostly synth who was very reactionary and aggressively posting at me because i criticised steven universe“ which, if you’ll review the logs, is both not about synth, who only posted twice (probably an honest mistake), but also grossly mischaracterizes the nature of the incident. Over the next day or so she and Hollis discuss the nature of the lodge and what transpired in September. Hollis emphasizes that the Neolodge has never been a place for bigots or their sympathizers, and Alyson goes radio silent.

4/24/2019

Alyson writes a new post. It tells a different narrative than we see play out in the logs. Her summary of events is as follows:

So, when wondering on the chat if anyone else was critical of the franchise, instead the chat suddenly sped up and i was swarmed by a bunch of anti-criticism fans who almost immediately -instead of reading my beginning attempts to elaborate on where i was coming from- posted over and over again that rebecca sugar is a marginalized voice and as such, immune to criticism, and how dare I insinuate a jewish woman of writing nazi apologia.

To reiterate, she began a discussion. Every person who responded was either openly critical of SU or indifferent. They were not suggesting RS is immune to criticism because she’s marginalized; they were in fact largely agreeing with the criticisms that Alyson raised, but asking her to be more conscious of the impact her choice of terms could have (and in fact was having).

I (a neurodivergent, mentally ill, pansexual aromantic woman, aka also a marginalized voice) was talked over and treated as if i ate babies. Obviously, I left the neolodge discord after that.

Again, she held 41% of the conversation--and by her own admission had already been planning to leave the Neolodge, and had thrown down this final ‘litmus test’ despite not wanting to engage with the results.

Now, obviously marginalization isn’t a contest. There’s no “I have more problems” or “I have worse problems” that will ever get us anywhere constructive. As I said in my own reply to her post, this was not a matter of RS being untouchable because she’s marginalized, but of Alyson’s behavior when asked not to draw the comparison between RS’s work and literal N*zi apologia.

Hollis refused to read and think about what i had said and the information i linked to, despite apparently going back in the discord chat and viewing the whole mess, where i had also laid out information to back up my observations.  Instead, my voice talked over, my words and concerns discarded, I was treated as if I had committed some heinous act, and if i had changed as a person then maybe they might let me back in to the neolodge.

Now being privy to the entire conversation, I can assure anyone reading this that Hollis read & thought about everything Alyson said very seriously. We had an in-depth and nuanced discussion, and ultimately realized that this was not simply a matter of whether or not SU is a poorly handled cartoon or full-on apologia. It was a matter of Alyson’s unwillingness to engage in a discussion she herself began, her repeated refusals to respect the comfort and wishes of our Jewish members, and her later misconstruals of the conversation as a ‘bombardment’.

Alyson insists she did not call RS a n*zi, and that critiquing the show is not equivalent to doing so, but unfortunately ended that thought with this:

Words mean things: look up apologia.

Now, I’ve already pointed this out, but apologia means “a formal written defense of one’s opinions or conduct.” Thus, every time Alyson has insisted SU is actual, literal N*zi apologia, she means that a Jewish nonbinary woman conceived of and executed an explicit defense of fascism, n*zis, the H*locaust, regardless of how involved she was or wasn’t in the production of the show itself.

Personally, I choose to believe that Alyson herself is unaware of the definition, and instead meant that SU makes excuses for fascism, or alludes to n*zis, or much gentler (if still harmful) language. I choose to believe that she’s conflating it with an apology, and simply didn’t follow her own advice.

The Neolodge is home to actual children/minors/underage people and most of the people in the incident were younger than 21. That is children.  I was getting annoyed at young non-adults. 

This is blatantly false. The Neolodge has always been a minor-free space, and there’s been discussion of upping the minimum age to 20. That Alyson herself is 30 may have skewed her perception, but as you can see in our response to this angry anon, we have always been concerned with the protection of minors & the promotion of a safe, comfortable atmosphere.

Alyson goes on to say that she had liked & trusted Hollis, and this came with no prior warning--presumably because Hollis had been polite and even friendly when she came to our board, and they hadn’t interacted much over the previous months since her exit from the discord.

So if you’re like me, and don’t put up with bullshit, and refuse to lie down and let bigotry get further footholds into western culture and be lauded for it, consider staying away from the neolodge and users like hollis and synthaphone

I still don’t quite understand how we got here, tbh. People standing up against a stark refusal to respect someone’s comfort as a Jewish person has somehow been skewed to mean they’re the bigots, and “western culture” is in danger, specifically from this gay nb & their nefarious lesbian pal, who spoke the least of anyone in the conversation.

I can’t speak to what’s going through her head right now. I don’t even know if she read the replies enough to know she was spreading misinformation about the Lodge’s age restrictions, let alone her (hopefully accidentally) drawing an obliquely antisemetic portrait of RS. I’m not even mad at her at the moment so much as confused. I genuinely don’t understand her rationale or what she thinks would motivate us to do the things she says we’ve done. I don’t think she’s a bad person, or even that her actions would be unfair if the situation were what she’s purported it to be.

But the fact of the matter is, it isn’t. She tried to start a fight seven months ago and has been hanging onto it since, convinced that she was in the right, never considering the express opinions of the people she claimed were so passionate about the show she so loathes. She’s attempting to drag Hollis’s name through the mud because they were kind enough to give her a chance to explain her side of things & she squandered it by instead parroting the talking points of the video we had all watched back in September, when she originally posted it.

She’s throwing Synth in for good measure, because they’re the only person she could be bothered to identify.

It’s not a true account of events, she made no effort to have a good-faith conversation at any point (particularly about her own behavior), and frankly it’s unfair. It’s easy to dump snippets of DMs and announce that you’re blocking anyone who disagrees with you, sure--it can even be good for you. But in this case it’s more of what we saw all those months ago in the discord, when she tried to stir the pot and left after scarcely 30 posts had gone by; it’s cowardice. It’s a way to frame the narrative in such a way that she can maintain her illusion of moral superiority, secure in the knowledge that everyone who has criticized her or her behavior is a bigot and and writes n*zi "apologia” apologia.

She’s isolating herself from the community one group at a time, and I still don’t know why, because she won’t talk to me about it. She won’t talk to any of us about anything that isn’t SU, and I don’t care about SU. I care about her & her motivations, and I’m starting to accept I’m never going to truly know either.

#neolodge #neotag #skidget #cthulhusquid #bam-monsterhospital #drama #long posts #i did math for this you guys #you don't understand

[chaoslordjoe]

RWBY - Do I Ship It #2? Ruby Rose

I’ve decided to continue this whole shebang with going over ships for individual characters each time. And for this one, we’re looking at our favorite cooking-deepthroating reaper, Ruby Rose...That may be one of my favorite character descriptions I’ve ever typed.

With introductions outta the way, let’s talk some Ruby ships.

White Rose

kinda leaves me indifferent?

overrated

would read a fic about it

Ideally, White Rose has become one of those ships that half of the FNDM loves to hate. But me, I’m not as triggered by it, let alone nowhere near as angered by it’s presence simply because it’s not Bumbleby.

Unlike BB, in which it’s presence makes me wanna slug my screen every time I see a comment thread screeching high praise about it, I can look at White Rose and just be more like: “Eh. It’s okay.” Simply because I have seen WR content that I enjoy, and that at least many WR shippers know when to shut up when they’re called out unlike Wasps.

Really, a lot of the content has a lot heart put into it to where I really can’t get mad at it. I know it’s a WLW ship. I know that’s become a thing to generally hate among RWBY fans. But I do think that WR is the lesser of two evils between that and BB not because I have a lot of friends who ship it, but because I think folks crap on it way too much compared to the demon that BB has become.

Am I saying there aren’t toxic WR fans still around? Hell no. They need to be called out on it, too. But I’m also generally more relaxed about the ship. Nothing major really.

Ladybug

I SHIP IT

CUTENESS OVERLOAD

underrated

hELL YES

Ladybug has become a recent addition to my ship list a while back. But I’ve fallen head over heels for it in such a short amount of time.

Even many folks I’ve spoken to who tend to gag at the mention of WLW ships in a fandom as egregious as RWBY’s agree that the Bugs are really harmless given soft the content of this ship often is. I’m not saying that Ladybug is all “wee-hee-we’re-a-couple-of-happy-go-lucky-dorks” because that would make it unoriginal and boring to read in many cases.

No, the reason I’ve grown to adore Ladybug so much is because I’m one of those who parrots how much of a missed opportunity (like the show is as a frigging whole) how many interactions there could be between Ruby and Blake.

Why wouldn’t they? They’re both into fantasy stories, both have darkened color schemes, and share some general views on why they fight. Really, Ladybug is just a good way for me to fill the void of just how much Rooster Teeth doesn’t give a fuck about how to organize their characters properly?

Volume 5 gets Freezerburn, and not onwards? Come on, RT.

But before I end up turning this into a rwde post, let’s just move onto the next ship.

Nuts & Dolts

I SHIP IT

CUTENESS OVERLOAD

Soulmates

I WOULD DIE FOR IT OKAY

Yeah this one was pretty obvious. But who cares?! I frigging adore Nuts & Dolts.

Let me just be clear in saying that I can ship it platonically/romantically, simply because I love the bond that Ruby and Penny share. They’re both hyperactive, kindhearted and strong-willed girls with a penchant for bladed weaponry and wanting to make the world a better place for everyone.

This initially made N&D into a guilty pleasure ship for me. But over time, I just couldn’t resist or get mad at it because I love how soft it feels. Same reason as Ladybug for the most part. But overall, I like N&D because of just how much soul there is between two people who were born differently with a set of powers that aren’t what you’d call “ordinary”.

As someone who’s been called “unique” or other labels with the disability I have, I usually find it very pretentious and downright grating to see stories that are supposed to be uplifting about being born in a different manner because that can be really damn annoying after a while.

Yeah, stuff like disability or other stuff is under-represented in pop culture. But often it’s portrayed in a very “Hollywood” fashion even if it’s not a work from that culture and work mindset.

I’m not saying N&D is one of those “unique” portrayals, but as something that shows what happens when two saviors who wanted a normal life have someone in each other that they can trust and even love for their shared experiences of being born differently.

Which is why I’ve grown to accept Ruby and Penny as the popular fan portrayal of being girlfriends or platonic friends. They have so much in common, which makes it that much more endearing for me personally.

Okay. Those are some Ruby/Other girl ships outta the way. Now let��s discuss some Ruby/guy ships...Here’s where it gets a little odd.

Lancaster

BROTP

overrated

no thanks

Oh boy. I’m probably gonna get some flak for this entry...

Let me just be clear that this is a post that is NOT meant to attack any particular shippers. This is me stating what I feel about certain ships and me occasionally talking about how I think they would turn out. 

It’s not my headcanon interpretations, per se. But instead it’s more how I picture it based on my experience with viewing relationships in my own life before I started discussing fandom ships.

Now that I have that out of the way, let’s discuss Ruby/Jaune.

When I first started watching RWBY, my first ship, like many others was Arkos (more on that when I cover Jaune). I felt that Pyrrha was just the right fit for a lovable dweeb like him with how it helped kick-start his character development and the framework for how he would improve himself overall.

Granted, I wasn’t really expecting Arkos to be canon since Pyrrha had died in V3. It was a tragic outcome for a ship that had so much buildup. And most of the FNDM agreed that Jaune needed a hug along with his friends to help him through it.

When I started to hear about the fact that Jaune was shipped with other girls in the main cast, I wasn’t really shocked since White Knight was already fairly popular. But when I found out about Lancaster, it was like: “Wait a second, people actually ship him with Ruby?”

Was more confusion than astonishment, to be honest. I didn’t really think that it would’ve been fitting despite how close and similar both team leaders were. But I decided to bite the bullet and give it a try with reading a couple of Lancaster works.

I got bored.

I’m not so much angry whenever I hear about Lancaster as I am just not impressed by how much fanon works recycle many tropes and plot elements.

Ruby is secretly in love with Jaune.

Jaune does something adorkable or manly which attracts Ruby.

Ruby makes/attempts to make a move on him with some crazy or titillating way that, while in-character for her, has been repeated one times too many in this or other ships featuring her.

Jaune is generally being a good boi throughout. I like Jaune, but I feel that he’s put in too many fanfics in which he’s overly good and pure. Again. It’s fitting for him, but sometimes a bit of difference in fan interpretation is nice. Make him angry, have him lash out at his friends at times. Just don’t make him a “perfect” boyfriend.

Both dorks often have to hide their relationship because of the possibility of Pyrrha being jealous, Yang going apeshit, or other characters reacting the way they do which is often buzzwords in a fic like that.

Lancaster shippers, I am not attacking you since this is your thing. If so, fine. But it’s not mine as I am giving an attempt to give constructive criticism about some of the ships listed here while talking about ships I like to make these posts all about even ground.

I prefer to see Ruby and Jaune as besties. Hell. I prefer to see them more like siblings considering how much Jaune acted like a big brother to Ruby on the road to Mistral with how Yang was bedridden with depression in V4. I also think that Jaune needs a friend right now rather than a love interest. The same could be said for a lot of characters right now, but that’s a different topic.

My biggest criticism for LC is that while I understand the similarities that they share, it’s the whole “opposite-gender-leads-fall-in-love” trope. This trope can be done right *coughRENORAcough* but is put in so many works that I’m not one of those fans who’s impressed with it.

The ship isn’t original, but it’s nothing to make me wanna rage-post like I’m Keemstar on Red Bull or the like. And I know people who are into it, to which I tell them: Good for all of you. It’s simply not my cup of tea.

Rosegarden

would read a fic about it

meh

not really my thing

Oh god, how I wish it wasn’t harvest season!

Kidding. Kidding. Rosegarden is legit, and all my friends in the group who ship it are wonderful people.

Another ship that I can’t really get angry at since compared to other ships that cover things like young love or ships of people who were born differently (see my Nuts & Dolts entry), RG is pretty fucking harmless and I can tolerate it more even though I’m not into it.

While I understand why it seems hypocritical of me to share and repost stuff related to RG on occasion, this is simply because I have reason to share it based on how much I’ve interacted with shippers and how I’ve actually had productive discussions with them outside of their ship.

It’s the community which I like more than the ship because of how much more chill they are. But there’s also a big reason why I know that some people crap on this one.

Ozpin.

Dude, if I had a Dollar for every “RG-is-pedophilia-because-Oscar-is-Ozpin’s-puppet” fallacy that was posted I wouldn’t be needing a stimulus check. Let me explain to y’all why that’s bullshit.

(RWDE mode online)

Is Ozpin eons of years old? Yes. He’s from Humanity 1.0 and was thrown into the bodies of men in the modern world in his war against Salem. It’s a rough situation with a lot of baggage to any relationship he puts up or wishes to even build-up and I don’t think it should be swept under the rug because there’s a lot of stuff that should be brought up about the guy.

Is Ozpin intervening on any potential interaction between Ruby and Oscar? No. Canon or no, Oz has been a neutral party in whatever interactions the two kids have because it’s not really his business. Do you honestly believe that if Ozpin would be the kind to boss his host around that he would attempt to butt in on their friendship?

As an Oz critic, I can say that while I understand both interactions, I draw the line at this ship being considered pedophilia.

I mean, come on! The FNDM ships Ruby with villains like Roman, Cinder and Salem, who are adults when she’s a teenager! And suddenly it’s okay to claim pedophilia just because Ozpin is present?! ARE YOU HIGH?

If we’re going with that logic, fine, just have Ozpin ascend from his brain after Salem is 86′d, THEN we can have a development in RG’s friendship whether it’s romantic or not. But leave the fans of this pairing out of it!

(RWDE mode offline)

The reason I don’t ship Rosegarden is because I’m not a fan of the whole “young love” trope either. I wouldn’t mind it so much if Oscar wasn’t relegated to a support role due to being an Oz host and he had more screen time rather than the old wizard.

Maybe I’m just too cynical about stuff like this to really care. But the point is, I can’t get mad at this ship either and I’m willing to read up on it in small doses.

Strawbana

I ship it

CUTENESS OVERLOAD

the sexiest pair

we need more of it

underrated

Sun Wukong, you magnificent monkey bastard! You always seem to brighten my day whenever I’m looking through critical discussions related to this show.

Much as I love BlackSun, I’m definietly curious to learn more about other ships involving my homeboy here. Solar Flare, I also like. But Sun/Ruby? Thank you sir, may I have another!

Ugh. Can’t believe I just quoted Animal House to describe my love for this painfully underrated ship. Somebody get me some soap...

Other than their VAs being married in real life, I like Strawbana/Red Sun the same reason as Nuts & Dolts with this being a ship that features two extremely upbeat characters finding love in one another with just how much they kick ass for the reasons of just being good people.

Kinda/sorta the only straight Ruby ship I’m into just because of how much they could rub off on one another, and how much I’d love to see them interact more in canon material. Not just the show but any other tie-in stuff.

Next time, we cover Weissu.

#rwby #rwby shipping #ruby rose #weiss schnee #whiterose #blake belladonna #ladybug rwby #penny polendina #nuts and dolts #jaune arc #lancaster #oscar pine #rosegarden #sun wukong #strawbana #not rwde #rwby discussion #rwby analysis #rwby thoughts #rwby ships #shipping

[sepialunaris]

The thing is, I know Kyle was gonna be redeemed in the last movie, like almost everybody would know that disney would choose that road. But do I like the way they executed it? No. Its no surprise, its just disappointment. Honestly we were clowns that disney would even break the mold and embrace that their story mustn't always mean redemption, but still deep down we knew it would be like that. We just hoped that it wouldn't be.

Kyle is a metaphor of neo-nazis and shares incel characteristics. There has been no valid reason to root for his redemption, and there has been no significant flashback showing how he was when he was good. We don't sympathize with him and TLJ was supposed to do that and it only made me dislike him when I was neutral with him in TFA. And his redemption fell flat after all the murderous shit he did throughout the era and well at the beginning of the movie. And then his redemption falls flat. So at this point why even redeem him at all? Just make him a full evil interesting villain, an actual reverse Vader. That would make a satifying narrative than a halfassed attempt of redemption that has been thrown away in TLJ and when jj started the movie with him murdering people.

And then people argue, Vader or sometimes Maul, they got redeemed but no one complained. Well because they are not like Kyle. Anakin suffered throughout his life from both Palp's machinations and the world around him, he was a slave and was selarated from his mother Shmi that loved him most and was unable to save her, he has a support system that keeps falling apart (Ahsoka being framed and leaving, Obi-Wan hiding shit from him and him doing the same, Padme being overcome by her feelings that her groundedness when with Ani), and Anakin is overly selfless that it becomes selfish, he is motivated by love but goes to extreme measures that is destructive for himself and the people he loves. It made it easy to see why he fell. Not condoning his actions as Vader but you get a sense of tragicness in his story. Narratively, he got redeemed in the end, but no one, not even in legends, absolved Anakin off his sins. Leia, both in canon and legends, hated Vader, her abuser, even after knowing he is her father. And once she understood why Anakin fell, she still didn't forgive him. Vader is still demonized by the galaxy, and the traumatized people under his rule are validated as well instead of being brushed off as "he's not like that anymore." Anakin might've done one last good thing in his life after decades of evil and he might become a force ghost, but his legacy of terror can never be erased and it is forever tainted, which he does indeed deserve despite how tragic it is.

Maul, was a child that has been abused from childhood to adulthood by Sidious. Stolen from his family and tortured. And then when he 'died' his master cut all ties from him. And he launches his vengeful quest against Obi-Wan. You understand that he jas tragic past too, but unlike Anakin he had no room to grow and try to become good because he was abducted and tortured for so long. He neevr chose this path, Obi-Wan even told him this. But he does have layers and limits, like how he genuinely loved his brother and mother, and regrets their loss when he tried to find Ezra as his apprentice slash brother. You can sympathize with him but you also understand that with no chance to bloom, he is malice and evil embodied. And this means his death was not redemption, he might've had a brief moment of kinship with Obi-Wan but it doesn't mean he is good now. We just feel bad about him that's it, nothing more. And Obi-Wan understands this, that he never had a chance to escape revenge and the dark side, and comforts the person who had hurt him so much in his last moments.

Now Kyle. Kyle had everything. Kyle came from a loving household and people that cared for him. Leia, Luke, and Han cared for him so much and i believe that when they felt Palps or Snoke was influencing him, they tried to stop him, only ultimstely Ben chose to follow Snoke. He had no tragic backstory or any past pain to motivate his fall, its only his quest for power and completing his grandpa's 'legacy.' Palpatine had reason to manipulate Anakin in a guise of doing good, wanting to save the people he loved, but what would he promise to kyle? power. And that's the line. Anakin fell for love, kyle fell for power. All the pain he felt, he inflicted on himself, because he wanted to be more powerful. Killing Han Solo, would make him powerful, kill Han Solo he did. How are we supposed to sympathize with this?

However this doesn't mean this is bad, in fact this makes him interesting. When done correctly it could've been intriguing. Kyle is one of the few dark siders that chose just for the sake of it, and is actually conflicted by the light. Just like how someone in a good family could subscribe to radical doctrines despite their upbringing. The problem is post TFA and the fandom tends to woobify him and his mistakes. Ben solo did do wrong, heck he might've been more wrong than the cooler previous sith lords we already have in the movies, choosing evil for no selfless reason and without a tragic history of pain. There is no reason for erasing this. Yet here we are, we're kyle's inner conflicts sre protrayed as his tragic suffering when he brought it upon himself and he gets turned into some hero character. And I feel like this is why his redemption didn't work. Anakin fell for love, returned also for love (even if it didn't repent him). Ben fell for power and suddenly he went back because he felt guilty about it? We have no clear image of the person Ben was before he fell so its hard to empathize with him or his redemption, then just might as well make him full villain or at the very least if he is to be good at the last second, don't make him romance his enemy/victim and don't treat like his old sins don't matter because.....

Excluding other media, the Vader in the original trilogy has never been shown to be explicitly killing innocent people as often. The Death Star may or may not count but it wasn't his direct doing. Kylo already killed villages of innocent people personally (because we disinclude DS so I'll disinclude Starkiller Base, even if Kyke never showed disapproval of it unlike Vader). There is a jarring conteast on how kyle is frequently shived to our faces as a "murderous dude that likes to common cultural cleansing" while Vader in the movies is more of a "cruel general to his enemies." Because of this his redemption in the movie doesn't feel flat, yet the other media show us he is truly more than that and his past sins and actions still echo through the galaxy. Kyle is murderous on screen and when he suddenly gets redeemed without any remembrance of the victims he killed, my reaction would be like "wait what how about the innocent peeps that didn't know about him that he killed at the start of the movie." Its a thread that left loose to facilitate the white boy redemption that didn't need to happen. And Rey herself treats it like an afterthought too, kissing the evil incel boy despite knowing what he has done.

Tl;dr: Kyle is a worse villain than Ani because he chose the dark side for power while ani did it for love, which would've made his character interesting if they didnt treat him like some tragic angel

#saw some people complaining that we have no common sense fro whining like we didn't expect it #yes we did we just dont like how it was executed #tros spoilers #anti reylo #anti tros #anti tlj #anti rian johnson #anti rj #tros #star wars #sw #star wars the rise of skywalker

[normal-thoughts-official]

*breakdances softly* Thoughts on florist Magnus and tattoo artist Alec?

*waltzes aggressively* well i definitely do now

okay so like i am vaguely aware that you probably wanted me to actually create a story like i did for the other asks;

because listen, florist Magnus???????? i had never thought about it before, but that shit is THE BOMB

in indonesia, particularly Bali, flowers hold special significance both in the social and religious sense; they have meaning, they have history, and they have everyday uses and are a part of everyday life; people grow flowers at home, give them as gifts, have entire markets entirely dedicated to the trade of flowers. and yes, i know magnus is javanese, but this applies to pretty much all of Indonesia, including Java, and Jakarta has its own traditional flower market with flowers from all over the world and some of the sellers being in the business since the 60s, not to mention that many balinese ppl immigrated to Java and the two islands' histories are deeply connected. so nothing is even stopping me from believing that magnus' mom was a balinese migrant living in Java. which is exactly what im gonna do in this specific AU at least

So Magnus was actually born in Indonesia, where he lived for most of his childhood; until his mom suddenly died of a terrible disease and he was kind of thrown into living with his father, who, despite having him registered and being his legal guardian, had never so much as bothered to meet Magnus before this point

His father was also Indonesian but had long since moved to the US, so magnus' life was completely turned upside down. And despite providing financially for everything Magnus needed, asmodeus never really bothered with him beyond the basics; Magnus was pretty much self-raised

So for the whole time he lived with him, he ached with memories of his mom and his country. And what he remembered best about her was the flowers. The jasmines she used to grow at home, the unique smell they left on the water she used to wash his hair; the offerings of frangipani she would leave by their doorstep everyday, intricately sewn together and leaving the smell of both the flowers and the incense with them as they left to the ports; the flower boards she would give him on his birthday, different patterns every year, and somehow she would always find plywood and tahi cotok to make them the traditional way instead of the modern with styrofoam

Magnus refuses to let any of these traditions die; once he finally graduates and leaves his father's home (forever disappointing him in his refusal to take over his business) he dedicates almost all of the space in his home to a greenhouse where he can grow all of the indigenous indonesian flower species without worrying that they will die in the distinctly not-tropical climate of New York; he leaves offerings in his doorstep everyday, facing North for Vishnu, so as to bring harmony not only in his life but in his whole community as well. And he's a florist.

He knows both traditional indonesian flower meanings, and western flower language, and often mixes the two since the flowers in these cultures are so different. He makes bouquets, arrangements, and flower boards, keeping the tradition alive even when he's far away from home. This way he feels like he belongs, like he carries a piece of his mother with him everyday, and reminds himself that, even if he's been taken away from his home, it won't be taken away from him

It's pretty much only him in his shop, but his friend Dot also makes deliveries and helps him keep the shop running. He has a few regulars and all in all he lives a stable, happy life.

He meets Alec when he decides to make his first tattoo - a string of jasmines around his elbow, the national flowers of indonesia and also his mom's favorite. He chooses Alec both because of his mesmerising drawing style and his history of working and good recommendations from other dark-skinned people; his friend Catarina also tattooed at his shop, although with his sister, Izzy, who was the one who actually ran the shop

Alec is impressed by how well Magnus handles the pain; it's his very first tattoo and elbows are a bitch. Magnus doesn't tell him that after living with his father for so long he's used to the pain, but he does tell him about the meaning of the tattoo, the flowers, and his mom. He's surprised by how much he's saying to this guy he barely knows, but there's something about wanting to be distracted from the sting and having to be alone with this guy for who knows how many hours that keeps him talking. Alec listens to it quietly, focused on his work, and Magnus isn't even sure if he's actually listening, which kind of also works if he's being honest. Of course, Alec is; listening to Magnus talk is very nice, his voice is soothing and the way he talks about his mom and his passion for flowers is really touching, not to mention Magnus is just interesting; alluring, if you will. But he doesn't have much to add, so he listens

A few days later, Alec shows up at Magnus' shop, all private smiles and wandering eyes, and asks him for help with a birthday present for Izzy. He wants to make her something special, to thank her for her support when he came out and just support in general. It surprises Magnus, but Alec says that Izzy has always liked flowers and from the way Magnus was talking about it the other day, well, he seemed like a good person to help him with this present. He really wanted something to convey his gratitude

Magnus is pleasantly surprised that Alec remembers so much of what he said; even more so when he's careful not to step on Magnus' canang sari at the doorstep, with the incense still burning; and he's absolutely delighted when Alec says he wants Magnus to help him make an arrangement, not just make himself, and that he's willing to pay extra for his consulting (Magnus has never charged extra for consulting, because he really downplays his talent and work and loves sharing his knowledge; but it does feel nice to be valued and have his work acknowledged). So Magnus runs all of his ideas by him, shows him the flowers, and Alec carefully handles and smells them and listens to Magnus' suggestions and slowly makes his own based on what Magnus has been saying. Alec shows respect to the flowers and it's cute to see this big, buffy guy covered in weird tattoos and wearing a leather jacket going around and carefully handling the flowers Magnus grows.

Alec, on the other hand, is just fascinated by everything Magnus says and shows him, and his burning passion for what he does, and how clearly he likes to help people even if it means downplaying his own work

Wow this is actually starting to resemble a plot??? I'm shook

Anyway it takes them a long while to figure out what they want to do, and Alec actually ends up deciding on making izzy a flower board once Magnus mentions them offhandedly. Once Magnus assures him it's not offensive if he makes them with the proper care and respect for its meaning, they settle on working on that.

Listen I need excuses for them to interact okay. Also the idea of Magnus teaching Alec how to sew flowers???? Beautiful

Cue some gay shit, at least once Alec puts a flower behind Magnus' ear and tells him that it suits him, more often than not they find themselves having a lot of fun - Magnus teases him mercilessly over how bad at sewing he is, and Alec is deeply offended (except not really)

Once he even tries to challenge Magnus at doing something from Alec's element and see how well he does, only to be sent into the deepest despair when it turns out magnus is excellent at drawing

Magnus thinks he hears a muttered "of course" but he cant be too sure

Anyway they fall in love

Alec asks him out by making him a bouquet of magnus' favorite flowers, plus flowers that symbolize everything he loves the most about him (his uniqueness, his kindness, his fierceness, his determination in doing what he thinks is right, the joy he brings for everyone around him, his dedication to others, etc). Magnus all but swoons he is very charmed

They get married idk it always ends with them getting married when i have a say in it. Bonus points they get to be showered in flowers like in traditional indonesian weddings, which sends a very happy, very giggly magnus with petals still on his hair into absolute delight. Alec carries him bridal style to the bed and carefully takes the flowers off his hair and kisses him tenderly on their honeymoon and gggggggggggggggg.

Im gay and cant do this anymore im gonna get into a coma

Also, I will take this opportunity to just let it be known that y'all should feel absolutely free to take any and all of my posts as writing prompts; you dont need to ask for my permission to use the ideas, theres no way ill actually do them all and even if i do i dont mind that there are different versions of it going around; hell, i think that's amazing and exactly what fandom is for. Just link the post and if possible send me the fic because i'd be delighted to read it! What I'm trying to say here is, someone should write this

Also, I'm not hindu, so if any terms I've used are offensive or incorrect please let me know and I'll change it accordingly

#ask #cap-mars #sh #shadowhunters #magnus bane #alec lightwood #malec #malec fic #malec au #fic #overflowing trashcan #long post #florist au

[rankakiu]

Thoughts of the Droid: Miraculous Ladybug Season 4 spoilers.

Hello, people of Tumblr! How have they fared in life? As always, I hope very well. People, a couple of days ago I learned about the existence of spoilers that reveal details of the fourth season of the Miraculous Ladybug series. Truth be told, these spoilers not only give me a bad feeling but also show in their entirety the creative problem that writers are going through, who, apparently, have run out of good ideas.

For example, we have that the characters of Kagami and Luka will be akumatized… AGAIN. What reasons will they have to be akumatized? And why precisely them, when basically there are other adolescents and even adult characters that we have not yet seen transformed into temporary villains? Not only that, but they also mention that it will finally be revealed which shipping will "win" in the future: whether Adrinette or Lukanette. Interesting detail, since at no time is Adrien and Kagami mentioned, giving you to understand that our favorite Japanese will end up losing. If you ask me, this “amazing” spoiler is everything, less amazing, for the simple reason that everyone in the fandom knew from the beginning that Marinette and Adrien are destined to be together.

But, most striking, for me, without a doubt is that they have announced a new character that will replace Chloé as Queen Bee. For those who have followed my blog and read some of my previous posts, it is no longer a secret that Chloé is one of my favorite characters in the series. So you can imagine my feeling when I hear this news. Basically, it felt like a good blow to the testicles (sorry for the expression).

It bothers me, yes, but more than anything I feel disappointed and ripped off with this change.

Why?

Well, I have the whole reasoning behind and this is where I will expand as much as I can.

First, the leaked video, even if they don't show an image, we have a lady (who I imagine is an animator or screenwriter ... or both) who describes the new Queen Bee as "She is sweet, she is not mean."

Who told you to say that line? Thomas Astruc!?

Returning to the topic, this is where I wonder: Is it really a mandatory requirement that the superheroes of this series are all sweet, kind and faultless people? (The latter is in doubt, seeing past chapters) Apparently yes, since people dislike superheroes who are dark vigilantes (Batman) or antiheroes who fight evil under their very dubious moral and ethical code, almost nonexistent (Venom, Spawn).

Oh, wait, those characters I just mentioned are popular, they have been since their beginnings and even though decades have passed, they are still very dear characters in popular culture.

With Chloé we had a bratty superheroine, pretentious and at all times she kept showing off and having a very high ego ... but still, she was a superheroine who was really able to risk her life for a common good. In addition, her personality made the dynamics of the team more interesting and entertaining. On the one hand, we had a Chloé who wanted to be a superheroine because of the emotion that it entailed. She sought to be a heroine for the attention and fame she obtained. Obviously, those two points are not commendable reasons to be a superhero, but these were eclipsed because more than anything Chloé sought to be a heroine to help Ladybug and feel useful, making a difference in the world for good. And now, with this new sweet girl, this dynamic will be forgotten.

Second, the spoilers mention that there will be more "secret siblings." That being the case, there is a possibility (remote but after all) that the new Queen Bee is a sister or cousin of Chloé. Here I will be honest and I differ with the majority of opinions I've seen about it: I would like the new Queen Bee to be Chloé's sister. It is one of the few ways I would accept, almost without questioning or protesting, this new heroine. The other way I would accept this new character is to not share any biological trait with Chloé, but to get to interact at a very personal level and, above all, to interact in a very good way, that is, despite their disparate personalities, get along very well and even be friends. Why not risk presenting this interesting scenario?

Right, the writers of the series do not like to take risks.

Third, the spoilers mention that Chloé will be akumatized… AGAIN. Which proves what I said above paragraphs: Writers are running out of ideas. If you ask me, it is already tiresome to see the same characters being akumatized over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Of course, they change the reason why they are akumatized and the name and design change, but that does not help to make it more interesting, to the contrary, it creates the problem that the characters do not grow emotionally and with that, there is no real development of their characters.

Bitterness aside, I'm really intrigued to know the reason why Chloé will be akumatized again. And even more so if it will be a different fourth Akuma or one of its three previous forms will return. One part of me wants her fourth akumatization obeys the reason to be replaced by a new heroine. If you ask me, it would be a good reason.

Fourth and most important to me: Replacing Chloé with a new heroine will cause the little development she has had to be thrown away. Those who are fans like me of the character, will not let me lie and it has been frustrating and a disappointment after another to see a chapter where Chloé is shown more deeply, after another chapter to see how it is again an unpleasant brat. 

I am going to tell you a little story and in the end, you will understand the reason for my disgust.

You see, I saw the Miraculous Ladybug series, back in 2017, about two years after its premiere in 2015. Don't believe it or not, the first season caught me the moment I saw that series. What I did was to see one chapter per day and when I finished watching it, it left me wanting more. To follow the story and its characters. As you may have guessed, Some of the chapters where they showed a little more of Chloé, made this character catch my attention and gradually become my favorite character. You cannot imagine my emotion when in those years they had confirmed that Chloé would have the Bee Miraculous and that she would be a superheroine named Queen Bee. Seeing the great results they had achieved with the first season, I assumed that in the second season I would see much more of Chloé and her training as a heroine. Which translated into more development.

Also by that time they had announced a special three chapters, "The Battle of the Queens" and whose chapters would be centered in Chloé. Imagine: more expectations were raised since it seemed to me that in three chapters they would develop Chloé better and that at the end of that special she would begin her arduous but satisfying journey to become a more dignified person and a trusted heroine. I am sincere, when I heard about this special, I did not want to see any other chapter, but only those three.

Finally, the day came when these special chapters were released.

You don't know a huge disappointment that I took away.

Wait about two years for a special that was disastrous from start to finish.

Do not misunderstand me, if there are extremely rescued scenes and moments, but they are very overshadowed by the mishandling they gave to those three episodes and something tells me that they did so on purpose to further sink the development of my favorite character.

The point is that, in my opinion, writers cannot or rather do not want to give the character an authentic redemption and development. And in fact, having this new Queen Bee has proved it that way. What bothers me most about this issue is that they are going to develop this new character, instead of giving it to Chloé. And this is where I wonder. And wouldn't it have been better to have the new character from the beginning be Queen Bee? Why did they give Chloé that opportunity, if, in the end, they weren't going to do anything significant with my favorite blonde? Why create those expectations if in the end all they do is destroy them in this outrageous way?

What was the use of seeing a Chloé feeling deep sadness and disappointment to see that her childhood friend did not arrive at school? What was the use of seeing a furious Chloé and then in bitter tears when her idol, Ladybug, told her she was a liar? What was the use of seeing a sincere smile emanating from her when she made peace with her friend Sabrina? What was the use of seeing a Chloé with fear of losing Adrien's friendship? What was the use of seeing how butler Jean comforted and encouraged Chloé? What was the use of seeing a Chloé crying bitterly when she learned that Adrien was no longer going to school? What was the use of seeing a Chloé, on the verge of tears when her mother did not consider her exceptional or even her daughter? What was the use of seeing a Chloé open her heart and feelings to Ladybug? What was the use of seeing a Chloé, fighting beside Ladybug? What was the use of seeing her as Queen Bee?

Just to give me false hopes and that in the end, all that development so little, but so genuine will end everything in the trash.

Maybe I am being a bit rude. Perhaps this new Queen Bee is a hoax, as it was years ago the supposed existence of Amber. Maybe it's just to distract us. Maybe now if they give her the development that Chloé needs. Maybe so. I want to believe it. I really want to believe it ...

But I don't have many expectations after this spoilers.

Moreover, I do not make expectations so high and hopeful, for the simple fact that lately, the series has left much to be desired with this third season.

If basically the writers give Marinette a vexatious and humiliating treatment, to the sweet Marinette, to Marinette who is “our everyday Ladybug”, to Marinette who has always shown to possess a pure and kind heart, to Marinette, a character so laudable that we need this way in our real world, to the character that Astruc insists on that you must support and not Chloé….

So what's left for me as a fan of Chloé Bourgeois?

This is all I have to say about it. Of course, when all these chapters that have announced the fourth season comes out, rest assured that I will make the respective reviews. In spite of everything, I will continue to stay with the series for a while, especially for the good times that the fandom has provided me and will continue to do.

With this, I feel that I have finally relieved myself.

Thank you for reading.

Greetings

Rankakiu

#miraculous ladybug #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir #tales of ladybug and cat noir #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #ml ladybug #ml spoilers #ml leaks #ladybug spoilers #chloe bourgeois #chloé bourgeois #queen bee #ml queen bee #a little of ml salt post #opinions #thoughts #honestly though #seriously though #rankakiu

[culturechroniclesblog-blog]

Neon Genesis Evangelion & Making Arthouse Work

There is a lot of arthouse media out there. Anime certainly has its fair share, and who hasn't watched a Lynch or Jodowrosky film solely to lord your cultural sophistication over your inferiors? Most of them share a common thread of being “art for art’s sake”: impressive on an aesthetic or thematic level while a little lacking in character and narrative, which leaves its wider appeal, ah, limited at best.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a show that cannot escape its ending. The show’s final stretch is totalizing in the popular discourse - everyone knows it "goes off the rails" in its latter half. Evangelion becomes an arthouse show, throwing reality to the curb in exchange for an assault of abstract and introspective setpieces. At age fourteen when you inevitably first see it, your mind is blown by it all, which is fair if it’s your first taste of the genre. However, coming back to it over a decade later like I did, having seen way more avant-style media than is probably healthy, I expected to enjoy the show but also see it just-another-entry into the genre.

Instead it held up masterfully. Evangelion is replete with flaws if you look at its whole picture, but in the execution of its arthouse appeal I saw it soaring past its competition in so many ways. In hindsight it had to - why else would an entire generation of fans trumpet it as one of the most successful shows of all time despite all those rails it went off? Evangelion, through undoubtedly sheer luck and insanity, stumbled on a way to make arthouse work for audiences beyond its niche, and I think that is the key to what makes the show as a whole function so well.

A World Without Uncertainty

As previously mentioned, most avant animation & film privileges aesthetics first in its visuals. The goal is to evoke a mood or feeling, and whether or not it really connects to the narrative is pretty secondary. I am certainly not bashing that - the way this challenges the viewer creates a unique experience. But even I will admit that sometimes it makes it, well, a bit hard to care about what’s happening on the screen.

Evangelion dodges this problem pretty much completely by making so many of its visual elements extremely direct. Honestly if you look at the majority of the more out-there sections of the show sequence by sequence, they would barely qualify as out of the ordinary! To choose one, take one of my favourite moments from Episode 26:

This sequence is not a mind-boggling piece of animation, at all. The concept of an outer frame that contains fast-moving images that reflect the nature of that frame is not new - ever seen this before?

--- It even has a red background, the hacks! ---

Not exactly the peak of avant-garde cinema here. Evangelion adds to the directness because this sequence is playing to illustrate that, literally, Shinji's identity is composed of the people in his life, and his desires are shaped by how they see him. It’s one of the core themes of the show - other people's conceptions of you are, in a way, just as much "you" as your own conception of you. What better way to illustrate that concept visually than having those people flashing through the frame of your body? While still an abstract animation sequence, it is not at all "art for the sake of art". It’s tied directly to the narrative, with a clear meaning - there is even dialogue partially explaining it.

This clarity exists for most of the more out-there sequences in Evangelion. The show's real "challenge" to the audience comes in how it strings sequences like these together, often at a breakneck pace. While in isolation they are only borderline abstract, when thrown together you are pounded down by the mix of themes and aesthetics. Look at Asuka's breakdown in Episode 22:

The scene has a cool visual design with the color contrast, to heighten the faceless crowd vibe - which it should, because Asuka is constantly fighting to not drown in a sea of anonymity, to stand out from the crowd and be the best pilot, to rely on no one but herself - and yet she constantly fears she is doomed to fail. This pretty-clear sequence, though, jumps quickly into this:

Then goes into this:

--- Eat your seizure-warning heart out, Pokemon ---

And in 20 seconds the show has thrown a half dozen thematic ideas at you via abstract representation. The viewer is absolutely overwhelmed on their first viewing from this, it becomes an aesthetic and you get that unique “arthouse experience”. But almost none of it is art for art's sake - you are watching a plot, a narrative, it almost all has dialogue explaining it. If you slowed it down you could get almost all of these scenes on the first watch, and on a rewatch you will probably pick it up fully. It’s this merging of abstraction and concreteness that elevates Evangelion above most other arthouse animation I've seen; you are constantly challenged, but never so much as to surrender and give up.

(Note: When I say that these scenes are “direct: or “clear”, I don’t mean that they have only one meaning, or that everyone will agree on the meaning. Their meaning is based on many other scenes, each with their own ambiguities and layers, and those differences will multiply out over the course of the show to result in varied interpretations. That process is different, however, from scenes having only aesthetic content, with no or little inherent narrative grounding.)

Realizing the Obvious Over and Over

Okay, the art itself walks the clarity/abstraction line, but even if it is connected to the narrative, why do this? Why would an audience want something that was a "typical" show to move in this direction? A lot of viewers have commented on the severity of the "shift" in the later episodes of Evangelion (generally starting around episode 16), a disconnect the fandom has not failed to capitalize on:

This split has its own meta-narrative, based on the production history of the show. Anno's growing mental illness - always present from the beginning - and huge production woes involving having to scrap already-complete episodes, caused a "breaking point" around this time where he threw caution to the wind and let capital-D Depression take the wheel. While there is some truth to this in the meta-sense, I have never liked the idea that the show itself has such a split. I instead see the more arthouse final stretch as more-or-less a natural outgrowth of the narrative, not a meta-split. In particular, the arthouse second "half" only functions as a reflection of and continuation of the more traditional first half, and without that first half it would fall on its face.

To show why that is the case, I want to explain a type of narrative arc that really hits my personal aesthetic in long form media that I am calling now and forever more the "Multifaceted Character Arc". Essentially, these are when characters have a core arc, and over the course of events they resolve this arc - but the show or book or what-have-you is only halfway done. They could just have a second, different arc, but instead the resolution of their previous arc proceeds to be undermined, picked apart, and exposed as a partial lie, and the character realizes they haven't resolved anything yet; and so the same arc continues, but from a different angle.

Evangelion embodies this trope on turn-it-up-to-eleven steroids. Episode 16 might be the "split" point in the meta-sense, but I always looked at Episode 12 as the narrative split-point, where the first half "ends". Episode 12 wraps up with Shinji, Misato, Asuka, and Rei having a ramen dinner together after beating an Angel, and so many of their previous arcs are "resolved". Shinji has opened up, comfortable with his surrogate family and no longer pushing them away, Asuka is letting her guard down and actually thought about Misato when choosing where to eat, something early-Asuka wouldn’t be caught dead doing, Rei is socializing, and so on. Shinji even admits why he wants to pilot the Eva (praise from his father), which has been one of his "arc" question up until this point, and he seems to have finally figured things out.

--- This might actually be the last happy expression Shinji has till the finale ---

Of course, the directing will have none of that, because this is a false peace. Misato, who is wise to the wider narrative, knows exactly on how shaky a ground this is all built on, and gives Shinji the side-eye to prove it.

--- The “we call those daddy issues, Shinji” face ---

Episode 13 is a Ritsuko side-story, and episode 14 is a recap episode....look, I never said Evangelion was perfect, okay? But once episode 15 rolls around all of this narrative build-up starts being completely undone: Shinji and Asuka's stable-ish friendship gains some very-unstable romantic overtones, Misato has a full-on emotional breakdown, and we are off to the races in episode 16 as Shinji's newfound confidence and masculine need to wave his dick around for Asuka's benefit results in one-way ticket to psycho-analysis mind-screw station:

I could go into how these themes develop from here, but that isn’t the focus of this essay. My point with all this build is instead to focus on two core narrative elements: justification, and engagement. All of the out-there elements and pyscho-analytic themes of the second half of Evangelion are present in the first half, and were presented in a typical way - character interactions, dialogue, plot events, and so on. Remember that scene I mentioned before from Asuka's breakdown, of her being swamped by ghostly forms, and how it referred to Asuka’s desire stand alone from the crowd through her skills as a pilot? I know what it meant thematically, cause here is Asuka, implying to you, in dialogue, what that scene is going to mean 8 episodes earlier (“it” is “pilot the Eva”):

And this isn’t even the first scene this theme has come up in, I could pull up a number of screenshots if I needed to of her either implying or directly stating this desire, its conflicts, and having resolutions around them.

The avant latter half of Evangelion can throw half a dozen themes at you in sequences of abstract animation because you have already spent half a season thinking about these issues in normal terms. It’s the multifaceted character arc - they have been continually struggling with these issues and exploring different solutions to them, solutions that seem to fail. On this backdrop, to repeat these themes again using traditional narrative tools would be, well, boring. Evangelion isn’t an essay, it’s a visual medium; the show has set the stage with the regular visual tricks of the trade for exploring these arcs, but in the latter half of the show  it pushes what that visual medium can do. With that grounding, unlike in so much avant work, you can fully follow along with it. Essentially, Evangelion made you do your homework before the test.

The Ones You Love Mean More Than Anything

This groundwork is true on an intellectual/comprehension level, but it is also true on an emotional level; not only do you understand better these abstract elements, you also care about them, because they are not just referring back to factual elements but human moments. To take an example, Shinji and Asuka have several fight scenes that occur in abstract-head-space, and in one of them Asuka (wanna guess who my favourite character is?) is ripping into Shinji for how he fails to reach out to her, to make her feel wanted, and she mentions this:

The image here is one of many flashing across the screen at the time, but it’s a flashback to the aftermath of their kiss in episode 15. The “hold” here isn’t metaphorical; it’s a direct reference to how he didn’t hold her during the kiss. If you didn’t think it was clear, look back at the actual episode 15 footage - how the kiss scene focuses entirely on Shinji's hand in all its not-holding-Asuka glory. Like, really:

--- This shot is held for over 15 seconds, with only Shinji’s hand moving. Also a penguin walks by, don’t ask. ---

This is a really impactful call-back, part of the multi-faceted arc, as Asuka continually tries to figure out her feelings for Shinji and fails. Except, the scene being referenced here is not shot as a dramatic relationship moment, it’s a comedy scene. Its honestly hilarious, one of the worst first kisses ever on screen, to the point where Shinji almost suffocates to death because he is such a wuss and Asuka is such a tsundere. And at the end of the show they take this moment and transform it into part of Asuka and Shinji's relationship implosion. 

Which means that you care about it! Because you are going to care about two kids’ fumbling attempts at romance far more than an essay on isolation and connection, for all the reasons those narratives traditionally work. Real people never have endless strings of introspection - introspection is something you do on a life that you have otherwise been living, with moments of seriousness and moments of hilarity and dumbness. Evangelion can show that, because it isn’t drama 24/7. Its first 15 episodes have comedy, action, slice-of-life, the works.

I think this is the element that really makes Evangelion stand out - that it can push what is happening onscreen to the limits of abstraction, and you are not only going to understand it, but also remember the human beings it is all happening to. It not only put in the time to make these characters fully-fleshed out, but connects back its new later elements to the moments that made them so fleshed out. It justifies going as far as it does through its arcs, and engages you emotionally as it escalates, while so many attempts at arthouse media either fail or don’t bother with either of those key elements. Evangelion is a show that starts as a highly traditional narrative, ends as an arthouse film, and by binding it all together so tightly makes you think it couldn’t have gone any other way. Which, it turns out, is a pretty good way to make the arthouse elements actually work.

....

Oh yeah, so Neon Genesis Evangelion: 10/10. Like the score? We are supposed to do that, right? That’s my score.

-Tim

---------

Final Notes: I have a bunch of other thoughts on Evangelion, and so while I imagine a lot of the shows we watch are going to get one cohesive essay, I will almost definitely have some follow-up posts - this post is just the main one that connects so many of my biggest takeaways together. I definitely want to write a few on the plot issues and their (non)relevance, the ways Shinji’s arc is perceived by fandom, and some other topics, but I do want to put up a few essays on other anime so we don’t have a massive Evangelion dump starting out the project. Hopefully I will get some inspiration on more topics from all the great ~discourse~ going on around Evangelion right now, and we will see what gets written.

#evangelion #neon genesis evangelion #art house #avantgarde

[glarehand]

ranting a bit here bc as little as i interact w/ the rp community, largely due to focus issues, depression, and anxiety, i really do appreciate my mutuals, especially in light of being in different fandoms where things’ve happened and i just. Angery

so under the cut is a funny? irritating? text-wall about some star wars related stuff i’m bothered by lol

1. shipping; i like shipping. it’s fun, it’s interesting, i get to explore things in fiction that i don’t want to as strongly or at all irl as an aroace person, etc. first problem; i ship the clones bc i viewed them as, well, clones. an aggrandized version of that buzzfeed poll abt fucking clones, if u will. i view them as “brothers” in a wartime/militaristic sense because they’re... they’re clones. they’re the same person a million times that post-cloning, sought out ways to enhance their originality (tattoos, interests, etc) past their voices, abilities, personalities, and so on. they have originality but that isn’t compromised by their existence as people based off the same template. 

some people interpret them as literal brothers which is fine too! i only consider jango fett the father of boba fett/boba fett the son of jango fett, despite boba also being a clone. especially in mandalorian culture, adoption is as valid as blood, and boba fett’s relationship to jango fett absolutely strengthens this but it’s unique in that jango adopts one son/views the clones as the jedi army separate from himself and his son/dies without having any particular association with them.

but still, regardless, i can understand why people interpret them that way and i don’t have a problem with it and enjoy peoples’ differing interpretations. but when someone mentions that shipping the clones is undeniably incest (disregarding that cloning = incest is not by any means something that can be overlapped from fiction to real life so easily? it’s sci-fi so we also shouldn’t be seeking out real life parallels to things nor considering those parallels so hard proven?) it’s like... can you shut up for two seconds LOL like it... they’re... i don’t know how to explain to you that trying to draw hard lines between things unique to sci-fi and things in real life doesn’t work as flawlessly as that. if so, we could easily turn any other media into sci-fi or any sci-fi content into slice-of-life, deciding that of course the clones would be a million literal brothers and lightsabers would be 1000 degree knives and half the aliens would just be animals- like that’s stupid and disregarding the uniqueness of the media (though i adore aus- this isn’t a dig at aus or canon divergence bc that’s literally all i do)

and outside of some specific posts i’ve seen abt this, a groupchat i was in mentioned no rule abt this or any other ship related issues, meaning that i was existing inside the chat but with this heinous feeling secret? like i felt i either had to out myself for something someone else had decided was wrong or continue existing in the chat but not get too close to anyone, out of fear of a friendship being suddenly terminated over something as foolish as character interpretation (which can and should exist separately, at once).

in addition to the internal shipping/not shipping the clones debate, was clone/jedi shipping, preferred ships, and what this means in regards to what was left in terms of shipping options, if that was something someone wanted to engage in (which i do, and that they did as well)

2. for clone/jedi shipping, i understand the possible issues of a power imbalance or how the relationships are portrayed in media-only. but at the same time and as is mentioned above, we have to suspend our belief a bit for fiction, especially with sci-fi. the militaristic/war aspect of star wars is the point of that media; it doesn’t seek to glorify or mimic real life roles (ahsoka is a general at 14, amongst other things; that in particular allows for kids to feel like they’re part of the show, like they could do be a jedi and save people at age 14, because what would be the fucking point of it if we showed only adults saving the world/14 year olds with only 14 year old responsibilities? to an extent, it’s an escape and while it’s odd writing to hold ahsoka to the standards of mace, obiwan, even anakin, it should at least be a fantastical opportunity for self-insertion/daydreaming to an extent) it has a strong focus on rebellion which can be applied in non-physical/non-warlike ways, and isn’t without the fictitious aspect of fucking laser swords and telekinetic manipulation. the wartime aspects of star wars don’t need to be followed as closely as real life regulations and expectations; if done that way, even leia and han as a ship would involve a power dynamic seeing as he technically becomes a part of the rebellion under her leadership.

in terms of 3. show-only content and the above about power imbalances, that’s what fanfiction is for. in general and in relation to that chat, full of creators and writers and so on, fanfic is for elaborating on given content, filling in content that hasn’t been given, and for rewriting things you feel have been done wrong, artistically or just because you don’t like it. an example for me is barriss offee’s arc and timeline; not only does her timeline in the prequels differ from her timeline in the clone wars show but her character seemed to be thrown away so easily, her actions made out of character in addition to her fate being the opposite of what it had been in “higher” canon. there’s also the very valid interpretation of how bad it was that the show made the muslim-coded character a terrorist BUT even disregarding people’s headcanons of her as a muslim woman and just focusing on it in a sci-fi sense, it seemed very out of character, done just to create an antagonist and an opportunity for ahsoka’s development and disillusionment with the jedi/council so of course people gravitate to rewriting her arc/redoing her character/adhering to a mix of the canons, and so on. not that people who view canon as the most important aspect of a work are wrong but like, even fanfic that adheres to canon is in a way diverging from it; if what someone creates isn’t exactly how it happened on screen, canon-compliant, involves no ulterior emotions or added scenes, it’s based on interpretation. 

people who invest themselves in ships that have no basis (4) were also mentioned and that’s just as valid a part of creating. i understand in some cases, people will ship anyone together knowingly or unknowingly to fetishize gay relationships but it’s not a sin to decide you want to see two characters interacting more or want to elaborate on what canon didn’t discuss or want to create backstories and relationships out of the blue OR just outright decide you have two favorite characters and want to explore them together, even in just an nsfw sense.

so being anti clone/clone, anti jedi/clone, and anti any characters that don’t really interact is not only dictating what ships are “right” and “wrong” based on one’s own interpretation and willingness to strictly adhere to canon but what other options are you giving us to ship the clones???

again, not that nonromantic story aspects and single character discussion isn’t important but romance and romance options are important to people and if presented and possible, people shouldn’t be prevented from doing it just because people think it’s wrong with no legitimate basis OR don’t allow people to warp canon (especially canon they don’t like or think is contradictory and out of character) to suit what they wish to explore.

there was one option left though and i dislike the new association i have in my head of it now because of all the problems above, though i assume it wasn’t done on purpose: 5. disregarding in-show shipping possibilities for self inserts

i love self inserts and my love for them has been amplified by the chat i was in, making me feel more confident in doing it myself and i am very happy with that in that i can have more love for myself in writing myself and shipping myself with someone else. but it was odd that all other possibilities were almost struck down in favor of self inserts; if cloneshipping was automatically incest, disregarding that that’s not the conclusion everyone had come to? that my brain just didn’t assume it because it’s a sci-fi only situation?, jedi/clone ships were unhealthy and based off of power imbalances/characters not truly caring for one another, and shipping characters together for the fun of it had no value as characters apparently had to know one another enough/there had to be validity in it, the only option left was to rewrite canon but only for one’s own purposes, valid only in this one case.

that just annoyed my mildly and i know it most likely wasn’t intentional but overall, i’ve felt unable to have headcanons or do certain things at the risk of being visibly mocked for it; having different faves and ships and interpretations and kinks are all parts of people’s varying fandom experiences and to have people talking about how much they don’t like that on a very visible separate discord channel where i could go in and see? and just hope that something i adored wasn’t next? is not fun at all and genuinely impacted me to where i don’t really want to have fun with people i’d liked before, where i don’t really want to post and create like i was doing when i didn’t know people were deciding based on preferences what was morally appropriate.

one of the rules in the chat was essentially that anyone could have any fave character but that discourse still stood; yes but sometimes i just want to like a character or ship? without having to preface it with how i know x thing was bad and that i don’t condone it. 

kain highwind is my favorite final fantasy character- i don’t want to have to justify my love for him, in situations where i know he was in the wrong and in situations where i think the canon content contradicted other canon descriptions of him, creating two images of who they wanted him to be; i interpret him as i interpret him and it’s unique and dear to me. 

a lot of the time, i want to create and appreciate without having to make it right for someone else’s interpretation. i don’t want to approach a groupchat or even single person friendship assuming i’m going to have to defend my favorites as ultimately a representation of myself. when i do hold my favorites close to me as extensions of me, i don’t want to have to pit myself against someone else as if i’m invalid for how i feel and interpret and am.

in general, things quickly became not fun at all and i felt alienated by an entire group all at once. like it fucking SUCKS to feel like you’ve lost 6? potential friends in one place, 3 in another, in addition to having to be wary from now on when engaging with anyone else in that fandom and after losing two friends in real life over disagreements, both times because i was misinterpreted and had to then reconsider myself especially in relation to my mental illnesses and my neurodivergency. to then feel disliked for something as stupid as shipping preferences feels as it is- foolish and embarrassing and ridiculous.

i would like to make friends but i would like for friendships in fandom to stop being so circumstantial, especially on trivial things

#misc #personal post lol #i lost where i was partway thru i think so i'm sorry if it stops makign sense but i am frustrated lol #i'm mostly over it now but i #it feels weird to like see ppl i wanna talk to but feeling like i'm not allowed to bc of something this fucking dumb