#i’ve been in fandoms since i was a teenager

[sharpth1ng]

Since the photo of the pope on Stu’s fridge has been discovered I’ve seen a lot of takes about how Stu would definitely have religious guilt and would have more issues with his feelings for Billy. I want to be clear I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that take, it’s definitely something to explore if it interests you but it also flattens the breadth of responses to a religious upbringing and religious trauma. There are so many ways a person might respond to that kind of experience and it doesn’t just stop with internalized guilt.

What about the people who just kind of never fall in line? They’re punished for it over and over but it doesn’t make the religion make sense to them. And maybe they learn over time hide their disbelief, they learn to be quiet at church and hide their same sex partners but the moment they’re 18 they are gone.

What about the people who believed when they were young and have had an experience to change that? Maybe they saw religion used to justify the mistreatment of a sibling or a friend, and they thought “if there is a god, they wouldn’t think this is right”.

What about the ones that swing hard in the opposite direction? The ones so angry with the beliefs instilled in them that they do almost anything they can to enrage their religious family? They may not even be doing this intentionally, but teenage rebellion is teenage rebellion, and if your family is catholic then Catholicism might be what you rebel against. What better way to rebel against the anti gay religion than to kiss another boy? Do you know how many queer pagans and Satanists I know who have a history of religious trauma?

Have you ever felt so mistreated by someone or something, so deeply wronged, that almost anything they disapprove of becomes enticing? I definitely have.

And here’s the thing with Stu, he might have a religious family but he sure does talk about sex a lot. Unabashedly too. He spends the night at his girlfriends house, and she confirms that they have sex. He fills his house with people, feeds them booze, and kills a bunch of them. This isn’t giving me the picture of a fearful catholic son.

Before I saw the pope picture I had already been writing Stu’s family as conservative and religious. He definitely grew up with the idea that sex is a sin and gay sex is even worse. But he’s not a guy that likes authority. He likes sensory pleasure and chaos, and at least some of that is a rejection of his upbringing. Dude watches slasher movies and raunchy comedies like clerks. He fucks and he talks openly about it. He gets drunk and he directs his best friend to go take his girlfriends virginity in his parents bed.

He’s rebelling.

To me? Yeah he might have been the kind of kid who had religious fears and guilts when he was younger. He’s definitely been baptized and his family probably still makes him go to church sometimes. But he’s not isolated. It’s the mid 90s and he has access to more media than kids did ever before. He’s had access to alternative view points, narratives that contradict the ones instilled in him when he was young.

And the 90s are a time characterized by a loud rejection of convention. Grunge rocker Kurt Cobain wears dresses, the riot grrl movement is in full swing, and people are getting really into modern forms of paganism. It’s popular to reject your parents beliefs.

There’s an interview with Neve Campbell where she talks about how she thinks Billy and Stu were partly motivated by the rage of being unable to be themselves in Woodsboro and I think that works really well here. What better what to say a fuck you to your religious parents than to have buttsex with a pretty dude and kill a bunch of people?

Again, this is just the way I see the character. There’s nothing wrong with different interpretations and fandom would be boring if we all saw these characters in the exact same way. But yeah just an alternative way to look at it.

#religious trauma #Stu Macher #scream 1996 #stuilly #billy x stu #Billy loomis x Stu Macher #character analysis #just sharp things

[oappleofmyeye]

Just know that on your 25th birthday, we’re taking you out back like ‘Ol Yeller

#does it sound ridiculous? #because it’s supposed to #are you mad because older people are still enjoying shit? #i’ve been in fandoms since i was a teenager #i’m now 32 married with two kids #you don’t pay my bills #so hush your mouth #kore blabs #ageism #tw ageism

[archduke-enver-gortash]

posting on here is like my sisyphean boulder i'm constantly rolling tbh

#god i am trying so hard to just have fun and be myself #but when i do that i'm immediately a strange outsider creep #and since i can't really mask my version of masking is just not talking and then obviously you don’t find any joy in fandom spaces either #i will always be a shitty unlikable freak no matter how much i pretend otherwise. it was obvious from the start that getting involved in #fandom spaces was a fucking mistake. it's always a mistake because you're some laughing stock at best and a horrifying freak at worst #i don't blame people for not liking me i've realised what an awful person i am long ago #but it's always so hard witnessing something like fun social groups from the sidelines knowing you'll never be a part of it #this is why my mental state has been deteriorating so severely in the last few months. that Realisation once again nothing fucking changed #i know it's stupid to get so upset over fandom but it's only a pattern for me #i stopped trying to be friends with people when i was a teenager because it hasn't worked a single time #this attempt at integrating myself into the wotr and bg3 fandom by sharing my shit was just one mistake #gortash/zeke is so different from anybody else’s work and i wish i could find joy in something that it isn’t fucking deranged but i can’t #like yes it’s just fandom bullshit! gortash/zeke is a fucking oc x canon ship! why am i getting so upset over it! #i love writing them. i’ve never been this happy writing anything. and it’s entirely indicative of a common pattern in my life #when i earnestly share parts of myself/things i’m passionate about people get creeped out. and honestly? rightfully so #i would leave the discord servers i’m in because it’s fucking crushing me dude. this is so petty but i’m so jealous of what you people have #but in one i am server owner and i don’t want to just dump that responsibility onto someone else and then dip #and in the other two i’m not sure anyone would even notice that i’m gone but i still worry about being rude #though i’m not entirely sure i didn’t get invited to one of those just so people could laugh at me. idk probably just being paranoid but i #it’s been gnawing at me #ok no if i’m being this vulnerable on tunglr.com i can also say that part of me staying is also still having the hope that i could fit in #one day. logically i know it won’t happen but it’s nice to have hope sometimes #watching you all from through the window having fun like a creep #so yeah. i’ve always felt like this but it’s been rapidly getting worse with my failed attempt at the bg3 fandom #idk just been crying non-stop for the last few hours. went through an entire pack of tissues in an hour it’s very disgusting #they’re all lying around me as i’m typing this like a pillowfort of snot lmao #so yeah. idk. if someone could come over and lobotomise me that’d be nice. orin where are you when we need you most #i never had any friends irl so i foolishly gave this a shot. i’m sorry #also doesn’t help that i can see someone dropping me for people that are easier to be around in irl rn #it just hurts because it’s always like that. someone you are around when you have no other option at best. not even that sometimes

[persimnon]

mayday, mayday!

#in no way do I think tumblr is going down anytime soon #but i’ve realized I’ve always had an naive sort of idea that tumblr would be a constant in my life and forever evolve as I grow #it is just that intertwined with the way i use the internet. i have been here nearly every day since a month after i turned twelve #like i hope this isn’t pathetic to admit but this place was and is a cornerstone of my adolescence #tumblr is my word of mouth. it is my fandom home base. it is my diary sometimes #and it’s not that I can’t learn to use another platform. it’s that the continuity is important to me #my blog is a stream of every love and passion and obsession of my entire teenage hood and as of now the beginning of my adulthood #the thought of having to move somewhere new and break off from this massive and fundamental chunk of my life is hugely upsetting #not to mention my mutuals! and everyone I follow! it’s impossible to round everyone up again if. god forbid. we all have to leave here #and of course blah blah blah everything in life is temporary learn to accept change yada yada #but it’s been part of me long enough where i have a hard time picturing how i could even go about leaving this behind #anyway. nothing bad is happening yet. I’ll stay here until it breaks entirely #blither blather bother

[azumetapraline]

it’s always

ALWAYS

the same fucking story

me: i think i like this game. no particular favorite character of mine. oh dear! maybe this time i’ll be spared! maybe i’ll enjoy this media normally for once! brain: actually, i thought about it, and i’ve assigned you your new favorite character. here. you now must think about them H24. me: aw heck! guess i have to do that then! me: … at least i enjoy them normally. i don’t really feel like shipping them. it’s not like i NEED to always ship my favorite characters, right?? of course i can like them and not ship them with other characters! i don’t have to ALWAY— brain: hey actually, i forgot to tell you something. this character of yours, they would look cute with this(these) character(s). here, some ship ideas. don’t worry if you aren’t interested right now! slowly, they’ll grow, blossom and take over <;3 me: FUCK

#you can reblog! #yeah it’s about danganronpa (v3 to be precise) #but it happened for every single fandom i’ve been in since my teenage years #and probably before #guess it’s just how my mind works #gosh i need to finish my semester’s work #then AFTER i can go feral over gay people #AAARGHGHGHG #azu's rambles

[harrysfolklore]

I DESPERATELY NEED THEM PIASTRI FICS 💳💳💥

FIRST OSCAR FIC 🥺 i know this concept has been done before but i loved how this one turned out and i hope you do too ! lmk your thoughts

MASTERLIST | MY PATREON

liked by madisonbeer, oscarpiastri and 2,574,339 others

yourinstagram GUTS has been out for a week !! what’s yalls favorite song? 🤧

view all 15,965 comments

ynfan1 DONT MAKE ME CHOOSE

mtv definitely get him back!

ynfan2 choosing a favorite guts song is like choosing a favorite child

dualipa STUNNING ANGEL 🤩

oscarfan1 can oscar reply to this i want to know his favorite song

↳ oscarfan2 wbk he has this album on repeat

chappelroan lacy oh lacy 😩

oscarpiastri Love is embarrassing or logical

↳ oscarfan1 THERE YOU HAVE IT

↳ oscarfan2 whatever you do don’t picture oscar singing love is embarrassing like a teenage girl

↳ ynfan1 crying bc i bet yn has no idea of who he is

liked by landonorris, charles_leclerc and 287,689 others

oscarpiastri F1 race winner has a nice ring to it 🧡

view all 7,773 comments

oscarfan1 FINALLYYY MY WINNER

landonorris Congrats mate ! Deserve it 👊

↳ oscarfan2 LOMLS

mclaren YES, YES IT DOES! 👏 So good today, Oscar. 🧡

longansargeant So proud of you mate 🙌

oscarfan3 do you think his crush will acknowledge his existence now that he’s a winner?

↳ oscarfan1 wait who’s his crush im out of the loop

↳ oscarfan3 singer and actress yn lol

↳ ynfan1 i love this lore so much

//

liked by oscarpiastri, arianagrande and 2,740,727 others

yourinstagram tickets for the GUTS tour are on sale now who’s cominggggg🥶

view all 16,725 comments

ynfan1 LETS GOOO

chappelroan i can’t wait for thissss💜

ynfan2 tour of the decade already

mtv pop princess is coming

oscarfan1 do you think oscar woke up for the fan pre sale and got into the queue and all

↳ oscarfan2 you BET

oscarpiastri Count me in ♥︎ by author

↳ oscarfan1 HEEEEELP

↳ ynfan1 yn liked his comment 😭

↳ oscarfan2 somebody check on oscar please

//

liked by yourinstagram, landonorris and 288,293 others

oscarpiastri Days off 🌊

view all 7,238 comments

oscarfan1 this is the hottest man alive

mclaren 🙌

oscarfan2 not him posting this right after yn followed him 😭 we know what you’re doing sir

ynfan1 yn likeddd

↳ ynfan2 i love how both fandoms are rooting for them now

landonorris Looks dope 👊

yourinstagram niiiiceeee 😃

↳ ynfan1 HELLO????

↳ oscarfan1 now he’s for real going to pass out

↳ oscarfan2 i bet he’s staring at his phone wondering if this is real or if she was hacked

↳ ynfan2 i know this woman SHES FLIRTING

↳ ynfan3 come on girl give him a chance

four months later

//

liked by ynfan1, oscarfan1 and 17,397 others

f1gossip Oscar Piastri with singer and actress YN in Los Angeles today 👀

view all 3,028 comments

oscarfan1 OMFG

oscarfan2 no way…

ynfan1 YALL, HE GOT IT

oscarfan3 i cannot believe my eyes, oscar has been simping over her on the internet since 2020 and how we have THIS

ynfan2 i really need to know how did this happen

oscarfan4 okay but THEIR SMILES !!!!

ynfan3 finally a guy who’s not a loser and/or an old ass

liked by oscarpiastri, sabrinacarpenter and 2,836,473 others

yourinstagram pastry boy clearly didn’t wait until i finished sneezing to take this picture 🤧

view all 17,826 comments

ynfan1 IS SHE TALKING ABOUT OSCAR??

oscarfan1 PASTRY BOY AS IN OSCAR PIASTRI ?

conangray love me a soft launch 🧐

↳ ynfan1 OMFGGGGGG

ynfan2 i can’t believe she’s potentially dating someone her age and with a job FINALLY

oscarfan2 oscar is proof that persistence is key and manifestation works

landonorris Typical pastry fashion

↳ yourinstagram idk how you deal with him all the time

↳ oscarfan1 ALSJAO THIS IS TOO MUCH

↳ oscarfan2 i need her to befriend the entire grid ASAP

oscarpiastri But it made it to your Instagram, so you’re welcome

↳ yourinstagram well thank you you’re very humble

↳ oscarpiastri Anytime 🤍

↳ oscarfan1 I’VE DIED DEAD

↳ ynfan1 stop flirting in front of us HELLO?

after the date

//

liked by oscarpiastri, chappelroan and 2,027,933 others

yourinstagram the GUTS tour takes tokyo today !!! this is going to be one of the most special shows ever 🥺

view all 25,736 comments

ynfan1 AHHHH

ynfan2 huuuhh is she planning something ??

conangray that’s my best friend 😍

oscarfan1 oscar dating a popstar is the best thing ever look at herrr

landonorris Can’t wait 🙌🏻

↳ landofan1 HUHHH?

↳ oscarfan1 is he going ?? WITH OSCAR ??

sabrinacarpenter 💗💗💗

oscarpiastri Please sing deja vu tonight

↳ yourinstagram you got it

↳ oscarfan1 AH I CANT BELIEVE WE MIGHT HAVE OSCAR (AND LANDO??) ATTENDING HER SHOW

//

liked by landonorris, yourinstagram and 538,299 others

oscarpiastri I had the best time ever in Tokyo 🙌🏻

view all 8,626 comments

oscarfan1 BABYYY

oscarfan2 i love him so bad

mclaren 🧡

ynfan1 oh we know why he had the best time

logansargeant Little boy in love

↳ oscarfan1 HWEEELP ME

landonorris Why are you posing like a five year old?

↳ landofan1 HEEEEEELP ME

↳ oscarfan1 i love them bad

↳ yourinstagram I SAID THE SAME THING !!

↳ ynfan1 man i love this

yourinstagram no picture credits ? really ?

↳ ynfan2 AHHH

↳ oscarpiastri 📸 credits to Miss America

↳ oscarfan3 WHY AM I CRYING

liked by oscarpiastri, madisonbeer and 2,197,499 others

yourinstagram night version. 📸 by vroom vroom guy

view all 17,836 comments

ynfan1 OMFG???

oscarfan1 VROOM VROOM GUY?

mtv 🏎️ & 🎤 together was the best thing that happened to us

ynfan2 it’s actually so refreshing to see her dating someone her age who she can have fun with and not some pretentious old ass man who mansplains her

landonorris My children 🫶🏻

↳ landofan1 lando is the biggest shooter for this relationship

oscarfan2 oscar really bagged his biggest crush by being on her comments all the time that’s persistence

alexandrasaintmleux Belleeee 💕

↳ yourinstagram aleeeex i loved hanging out with you let's go out without the boys soon

↳ charlesfan1 LET ME IIIINNN

ynfan3 and when yn writes a song for him

logansargeant I can’t wait to meet you!

↳ yourinstagram pastry is sooo wrong for not introducing us yet

↳ oscarfan1 oscar wdym you haven’t introduced your gf to your best friend

oscarpiastri 😍

↳ oscarfan1 OSCCCC

↳ ynfan1 he’s down bad i get him

//

liked by oscarfan1, ynfan1 and 18,826 others

ynupdates YN and Oscar out and about tonight !

view all 3,022 comments

ynfan1 OH LOOOORD

oscarfan1 I CANTTT

ynfan2 i can’t stress how good it is that she’s dating someone her age enough

oscarfan2 KING OF MANIFESTATION

ynfan3 i mean we already knew they were together but seeing them with all this pda is so cuuuuute

oscarfan3 IM SO JEALOUS

liked by oscarpiastri, troyesivan and 2,965,278 others

yourinstagram 5 new tunes for ya !!!! GUTS (spilled) out friday!!!

view all 25,926 comments

ynfan1 WTFFF I DIDNT SEE THIS COMING

ynfan2 CLAIMING SO AMERICAN

dualipa YEEES ❤️‍🔥

oscarfan1 i’m pretty sure there’s an oscar song there i just KNOW IT

ynfan3 more angsty breakup songs IM READY

landonorris 🙌🙌🙌🙌

oscarfan2 ready for oscar to annoy lando with those on repeat

mclaren We can’t wait to hear all of them 🧡

↳ oscarfan1 MCLAREN INTERN ARE YOU OKAY?

↳ ynfan1 she’s the people’s princess

oscarpiastri I can confirm those songs are amazing

↳ ynfan1 he already heard them IM SO JEALOUS

↳ oscarfan2 spill the tea are any of those about you

//

liked by yourinstagram, charles_leclerc and 869,044 others

oscarpiastri I laugh at all her jokes and I say she’s so American. So I might just be in lo-lo-lo-love 🧡

view all 9,725 comments

oscarfan1 LAJSIAHAUAB

oscarfan2 I 😭 CANT 😭 BELIEVE 😭 THIS

ynfan1 she’s wearing a friendship bracelet for him MY HEART

charles_leclerc I’m happy for you, son ❤️

↳ charlesfan1 CHARRRR

ynfan2 this is so cute i can’t also when did that sneaky shit go to his race

ynfan3 YN LOVER ERA YN SIMP ERA YN WAG ERA

oscarfan3 long story short: never give up on your celebrity crush

logansargeant ❤️❤️

landonorris Young love, so adorable

ynfan4 THE LYRICS REFERENCE

francisca.cgomes 🥺🥺🥺

↳ ynfan1 she’s already so loved by the wags

yourinstagram love youuuu, pastry 🤧

↳ ynfan2 i love all the nicknames he uses for him

↳ oscarfan1 pastry, vroom vroom boy. she’s just so romantic

#oscar piastri x reader #oscar piastri #oscar piastri fanfiction #oscar piastri smau #oscar piastri fake instagram #oscar piastri x you #oscar piastri fanfic #oscar piastri fluff #oscar piastri fic #oscar piastri x yn #f1 x reader #f1 fanfic #formula 1 x reader #charles leclerc x reader #formula 1 #oscar piastri writing #harrysfolklore #f1 grid x reader #max verstappen x reader #lando norris x reader

[malinthebodyguard]

Young Royals is anti-monarchist propaganda (always has been) 

I think it’s fair to say that most of the fandom was quite happy with the finale. However, I’ve seen a handful of posts by people who were unhappy, specifically  those who were unhappy with Wille giving up his place in the line of succession. These criticisms range in everything from dismissing Wille’s choice (Wilhelm has made a harsh decision without thinking of the consequences, this won’t actually make the media circus around him go away), to those disappointed in how the monarchy in general was represented (Wille could have modernized the institution, no one in the show attempted to consider how the monarchy could be good, actually). I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s feelings about the finale. If you didn't like it, that’s more than ok and I don’t want to argue with anyone about their taste. 

But when it comes to criticism about Wilhelm giving up the throne,  I do find myself frustrated at what I see as a fundamental misunderstanding of what this show was trying to communicate. Young Royals, plain and simple, is a story that  denounces the incompatibility of antiquated and hierarchical institutions (Hillerska, the monarchy) with equality and justice. 

If you’ve had the displeasure of being my fandom friend you’ll know that I’ve spent the last 3 years yelling about how this show is about abolishing the monarchy. I even wrote a lengthy  fanfic with the sole excuse of having Wilhelm arrive at this conclusion. Still, I knew that whatever statement the show wanted to arrive at, we’d only really be getting to it at the end of the show. 

Seasons one and two were setting up all the characters on the chessboard for the end: Wilhelm is the Crown Prince, although he does not want to be. He and Simon are in love, but Wilhelm’s role drives a wedge between them. Erik’s legacy and August's spot next in line are keeping Wilhelm in his place.

 From episode one, I think the show was telling us about the many things that are wrong with the monarchy, but I don’t think it’s until season three that these discussions become more explicit. Is this why some people were disappointed by the ending? Maybe so. Still, I wanted to look at how season three in particular answers some of the questions or issues  people are bringing up regarding both the monarchy and the Wilhelm’s choice. 

What do you like about the monarchy? 

Season 3 Episode 4 is the first time we hear an explicit discussion about why the monarchy could potentially be a good institution. I’ve seen some people complain that the show didn’t give this idea enough thought. 

I completely disagree with this take: the short conversation Wille and Simon have in this episode  is succinct, but still effective at presenting both arguments in this debate. A  longer and more drawn out conversation would have been a bit unrealistic and probably boring to watch. These are not academics having a debate, but two teenagers who are talking about what for them is emotionally charged.

There’s also no need for a longer, more detailed discussion. Wilhelm does provide a very good answer to the question: The monarchy is there to unite the people. To be a neutral party in situations when the government cannot or will not interfere. 

A quick civics lesson: In parliamentary democracies, the monarch serves as the Head of State. 

This role is predominantly representative, although in many places the government is formed in the name of the monarch. This could, theoretically, grant them some political power-- since they could technically reject the winning party from forming a government. However, in most parliamentary monarchies, the King or Queen simply has to accept whatever decision is made based on election results.

However, the value of the Head of State is precisely in its apolitical nature. Regardless of who’s in power, the head of state is a neutral ambassador of the nation, both in and outside of their country. Their job is diplomatic and representative, and one that is thoroughly divorced from politics. This is what Wilhelm meant when he said that the monarchy was there to ‘unite the people’. Whenever I’ve spoken to pro-monarchy folks about their beliefs, they cite this as the reason why they like it. 

It’s easy to see why Wilhlem would latch on this as his main argument to defend the institution. I don’t think there is anything inherently bad about having a separate head of state that represents the country. I don’t think the major grip with this issue is the having a head of state, but the fact that the head of state is a hereditary position. Simon says this himself twice in this episode: the issue is not that the head of state exists, but that the head of state is not an elected position. Furthemore, the head of state is a role that is imposed on a person not by their talent as a public speaker or negotiator, but by a simple accident of birth. 

The job’s legitimacy or importance should not be above any individual’s right to autonomy and self-determination. Furthermore, considering that taxpayers are the ones who finance this position, shouldn’t they be able to elect who it is? 

Let’s imagine a scenario where a friend tells you they’ve gone into a career because everyone in their family works in that industry, and they simply had no choice in the matter. It wouldn’t even matter if they were good or bad, they had a job in this career guaranteed from birth. 

 Would you not be concerned that maybe your friend is unhappy for a rather unnecessary reason? Would you not think that perhaps someone who actually wanted the job would be better suited for it? Would you think it right for a company to hire someone simply because of their family history? Would you consider any of this fair? And what is so special about monarchy that makes us have a different answer for it than we would if the question was about law or medicine? 

You’ll always be famous. 

Another common criticism I’ve seen is that Wilhelm will inevitably regret his decision, especially once he realizes that public scrutiny will not be going away. This is true, Wilhelm will likely always  be a figure of public interest. But to me, this has always been a negative consequence of the monarchy, and I have a hard time seeing this is a valid reason why he should stay in it. 

From the second we meet him, we know Wilhelm is uncomfortable with both the public attention and the scrutiny placed on him. However, this goes a bit further than that. I’d argue than more than the  scrutiny itself,  Wilhelm is weighed down by having to keep a public image. Because, remember folks, Wilhelm is not merely an awkward teenage boy with acne and a crush. No, no, Wilhelm is the State. Wilhelm is going to be a publicly-funded representative of the nation . This means, of course, that there’s a narrative, as he mentions himsef, that needs to be put forward. One that’s generic, serious, and unproblematic: 

From the get go, Wilhelm is uncomfortable with the inauthentic and performative aspect of his role.This is a constant we see with Wilhelm in seasons one and two: every ‘performance’ he has to do fills him with nausea, anxiety, or some sort of discomfort.

In season three, Wilhelm begins acquiescing to this performance. Uncomfortable as he may be, for most of season 3 he’s accepted that this is his role. However, the attention this season shifts from Wilhelm to Simon, who’s now the one facing public scrutiny. The difference is that, unlike Wille, there’s no role for Simon to play. Nothing about who he is or what he believes is compatible with the public image the monarchy is putting forward. The only thing he can do in this situation is disappear, and Wilhelm is tasked with having to ask that of him. 

I know a lot of people were exasperated at Simon’s very bad and clumsy social media presence. I’m not gonna argue that my boy wasn’t being a bit cringey, because he absolutely was. But I think the larger commentary here has more to do with the expectation that these two teenagers have to censor and edit themselves to comply with a particular PR image. 

Ultimately, the criticism that Wilhelm will always be famous leads us straight back to the institution. Why does an underage boy have the same PR expectations as a politician? Why is a teenager dating his classmate + being cringe online justification for doxxing him? Unfortunately, no abdication is really going to undo any of this, and things are certainly going to be crazy once Wilhelm announces he’s stepping down .

However, this time around both he and Simon will at least have the agency to decide what they want to do with their public image, including the decision to disappear from the public completely if that’s what they want.

Queer representation 

This a sentiment that has been in the fandom for some time now. This was the main argument why some people wanted Wille to stay in the monarchy. Sure, the institution has always been about bloodlines and tradition. But wouldn’t it be so nice to have Wilhelm as a symbol for the queer community? I’ve always found this idea a bit shallow. I’m not sure how much of a symbol of a queer and progressive country Wilhelm could be, when the whole idea is predicated on absolutely no one having a choice in the matter. Is it really impressive to accept the queerness of the guy you already had no choice in accepting?  

There’s three scenes in season 3 where the potential Wilhelm -and by extension Simon-  could have for the queer community come up.  Farima brings it up in the first episode, but the framing here is reversed. Wilhelm isn’t serving the LGBTQ community by being a queer Prince, but the monarchy is using Wilhelm (and his queerness) to appear progressive.

The show, however, does humor this idea with the May 1st photo. We see what Simon and Wilhelm could potentially do for the community by simply existing as who they are: they’re inspirational. It gives Simon, briefly, hope that maybe something good could come out of this. 

But this moment is quite literally framed by politics. It doesn't matter that Simon is not participating in that manifestation, anything that is slightly connected with politics is a challenge to neutrality of the monarchy. This same idea is stated more explicitly int the next episode, when Wilhelm is reviewing the options for his charity.

Ultimately, any action significant enough to be truly impactful, would be bordering the limits of what could be considered political. He's got to stick it out with these quite frankly boring and limited themes, all for the sake of staying on the very narrow lane of things that are not political.

The weight of the crown. 

Stories about Kings and Queens usually carry the same fundamental tension of duty vs self. 

In order to rule, our protagonist has to sacrifice themselves, usually for the sake of their country and people. The Crown is an excellent example of this type of story. Sacrifice in that series is framed as something noble and selfless. 

Young Royals started out with this same fundamental tension, but the main difference is that Young Royals has framed this debate as a question: 

Why should Wilhelm give himself up, his happiness, the love of his life, and  his mental well-being? What’s so important and valuable about this institution that requires this sacrifice?

Wilhelm’s journey is about accepting and voicing his answer. He doesn’t want to be Crown Prince, he doesn’t want to be King. 

But by virtue of taking part of this journey with him, we’re able to examine this question from a different perspective: Is this institution valuable enough to justify all of this? I think the show is inviting all of us to evaluate this situation and arrive at the conclusion that it isn’t.

Even someone like August, who wanted this, is weighed down by the realization of just how much the crown weighs. Of course, a big part of the fandom probably doesn’t live in countries with parliamentary monarchies. Still, considering the worldwide popularity of the British Royals, for example, I still think it’s a worthwhile exercise to question the validity of these institutions. Are they really worth sustaining? And if they’re not, why should we continue to drag them on into the present, citing tradition?

#young royals #prince wilhelm #Wilhelm #wilhelm yr #simon eriksson #Wilmon #Politics in Young Royals #august horn #yr meta #my and

[art]

Creator Spotlight: @velinxi​

Hello! I’m Xiao Tong Kong, better known as “Velinxi.” I’m the creator of the webcomic Countdown to Countdown and have been doing freelance artwork since I was a teenager. I love telling stories with my illustrations! Tumblr was where I first got my start as an artist, specifically a small fandom artist as a hobby… and now I’m somehow here! When I’m not trying my best to stay awake in front of my tablets, I’m usually cooking, gaming, or sleeping. Sometimes all three, in my dreams.

Check out our interview with Velinxi below!

Did you originally have a background in art? If not, how did you start?

Yeah! I’ve basically been on track to become an artist since I was a child. I went to a middle school with an emphasis on arts and a high school specializing in it. I went to SVA briefly for computer arts but dropped out to pursue freelance and webcomics after my first year.

Over the years as an artist, what or who were your biggest inspirations behind your creativity?

My biggest inspirations growing up were Yuumei and Shilin Huang, two titans on DeviantArt back in the day. They still inspire me today, but the list of inspirations has grown exponentially over the years, including artists, movies, entire art movements, etc.

What was your thought process behind the creation of your webcomic, Countdown to Countdown?

Well, Countdown to Countdown started as a passion project back when I was 15, in high school, and pretty depressed. I just wanted to draw whatever story I thought was cool, inspired by my favorite media at the time. There was a very loose beginning and outline, but I was truly just writing as I drew the story. That’s why I had to stop the comic in 2018 and restart from scratch the year after. Now, the story has a set story and a clear outline. It still has similar roots, characters, and themes of neglect, abuse, and escape—but I think the story is a lot easier to follow now. It’s got an artstyle I can actually keep up with in the long run. The origin of why CTC exists also remains the same: I simply wanted to make a story I wanted to read for myself. Which happens to be about two dumb boys with superpowers navigating a hostile world that wants them dead or caged—together.

Have you ever had an art block? If so, how did you overcome it?

Oh, all the time. It’s part of the process. Personally, though—I just have to draw through it. Every month on my Patreon, I have my patrons vote on a theme I have to draw by the end of the month, and I try my best to make it as interesting as possible. I draw quite a few—tens even, of doodles or compositions for each of these themes to try to make something that tells a story while still being aesthetically pleasing and clear. I think pushing myself like this helps with art block, really. I also do remember to take breaks and simply consume other media I like! It gets the inspiration juices flowing.

Advice you would give to an aspiring creator?

If you do one—your first webcomic should be a short, fun, messy thing. It’s not often you can get it right the first time, but you’ll certainly learn a lot through sheer experience. This goes for a lot of things in art, to be honest.

What is a medium that you have always been intrigued by but would never use yourself?

3D Animation. I briefly learned it at SVA, and I think that’s enough of that tech for me. I accept that there are some things that are truly beautiful if done right, and I am too simple and lazy for it.

What is your goal for the rest of this year?

Get Countdown to Countdown book 2 finished! And live HAHA

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

@yuumei-art on Tumblr, still! They’ve been a huge inspiration for digital artists and storytellers online for years. I have no doubt that many digital artists of my generation have been influenced by them, and they’re still here, making beautiful art and stories. It’s a thing to behold.

Thanks for stopping by, Velinxi! If you haven’t seen her Meet the Artist piece, be sure to check it out here. You can also follow her for more amazing art over at her Tumblr, @velinxi!

#creator spotlight #artists on tumblr #velinxi #xiao tong kong #countdown to countdown

[dem-obscure-imagines]

For the Longest Time

Steve Rogers x Reader

Fandom: MCU

Summary: In 1943, Steve was visited by his soulmate, a girl from the future who already knew him. Decades later, after waking up in a brave new world, Steve meets his soulmate again, except she hasn’t met him yet. And she won’t travel to 1943—or know he’s her soulmate—for another year.

Note: This is a continuation/prequel/whatever you wanna call it to A Long, Long Time, a Steve Soulmate AU I wrote a while back. Long story short, I watched Knives Out again and got Steve Rogers brainrot. Happens to the best of us. I might write a third part if there’s interest…

Warnings: Canon-typical violence

Word Count: 2.2k

Reader Is: Steve’s Soulmate, Super-Powered, Female

Steve remembered the day you’d met—for the second time, though he didn’t realize that right away—like it was tattooed on his brain. It was a few years after he’d come out of the ice and he had taken Tony’s advice to get out more, which had led him to the mall.

By some stroke of fate, it happened to be the day a pyromaniac with a flamethrower was there, but before he could even spring into action, you did, hands out in front of you and what seemed to be an invisible shield poised there, redirecting the flames and protecting the teenage movie theater employee that had nearly been caught in the crossfire.

A quick flick of your wrist knocked the attacker’s gun out of his hands, giving Steve the opportunity to step in and apprehend the guy.

You sat on a bench after, breathing heavy, a cut on your forehead from the shattered glass of the skylight. The paramedics were taking care of the civilians, and Steve wandered right over, impressed.

“Are you alright, ma’am?” He asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just glad everyone is okay.” You told him, meeting his eyes.

He finally got a good look at you and froze, looking bewildered. A deer in headlights. “You’re…”

It was you. Of course it was you. Since the moment he’d been unfrozen, he’d been looking for you. His soulmate. The girl from the future that popped in on his twenty-fifth birthday, turned his whole life on its head, and then left without warning, hours after their first kiss. Back when he was five-foot-nothing with asthma and more medical conditions than he could even remember.

Back before he was anything.

And you’d loved him anyway. You’d given him the day of a lifetime and hope for not only a future, but for love. That someone could love him for him despite it all.

“I know.” You knew? “I…I don’t know what it is or…why I can do it.”

Your powers, you meant. You thought he was talking about your powers and not your name, which was burning a hole into his wrist beneath the thick leather band keeping it hidden.

“Right. Well, it’s…” He sighed, gathering his words, hiding the elation and pain behind a warm smile. “It’s a good thing you were here. I don’t have my shield on me.”

“Mine is built in.” You chuckled.

“You, uh…have a cut. On your forehead.”

“Oh, do I?” You reached up and found it with your fingers and they came away a bit bloody. “Shit.”

“Come on.” He offered you his hand and you took it, letting him lead you over to the counter of the theater. “Hi, do you have a first aid kit?”

“Yeah, of course.” The girl at the counter said, rushing to grab it.

Steve patched you up with gentle hands, off in a corner on your own. Staring up at him, you finally realized the obvious. This was Captain America. And he was using a careful finger to spread a triple antibiotic ointment on your cut.

Play it cool, (Y/N).

“Do you do this often? The hero thing?” Steve asked.

“No.” You shrugged. “Haven’t had much opportunity thankfully. I mean…I’d like to, I just didn’t know how to…get into it, I guess. Any email I sent to Stark or S.H.I.E.L.D. or whatever would end up on a slush pile.”

“Well, I’ve got some connections. If you’re seriously considering it. I can’t say I recommend it, but…Obviously you’ve got that protective instinct and you seem to work well under pressure.”

“My heart is about to leap out of my chest.” You admitted, laughing as he carefully laid a Bandaid over the cut, closing the kit.

“That makes two of us.”

“But, yeah, if you think I’m really cut out for it…I’d love to help.”

***

It was those words that sealed your fate. Three days later, someone from Stark Industries got in contact with you and before you knew it, you were on a plane to the Avengers’ remote facility in Upstate New York with a bag full of clothes, a handful of books, and a dream. You met the others, Wanda, Natasha, Bruce. Eventually Bucky came into the mix, too, Steve’s friend from before the ice who…had a staring problem, you were pretty sure. He kept looking at you, seemingly bewildered you were there.

You never did figure out why.

After a particularly tricky mission in rural Kentucky, you had landed yourself in the infirmary, taking a pretty long nap complete with an IV and a heartrate monitor.

It was Nat that found Steve in there, wringing his hands, tears in his eyes. It was the one secret he still had: you were his soulmate and wouldn’t know it for another six months. Your name had been etched onto his wrist for seventy years, through the transformation, through the ice, through everything.

“She’s gonna be okay, Steve. Bruce thinks she might wake up soon.” Nat comforted, sitting in the chair next to him. She put a hand on his shoulder, confused by her friend’s sudden mood.

“I know, I just…” He shook his head. “I’m worried about her is all.”

Nat pressed her lips together, tilting her head. “This seems like a little more than that. You wanna tell me what’s really going on?”

That was her super power, he remembered. She was a human lie detector.

“I can, just…not here.” Steve nodded, leading her out of the room, out of your earshot, but still in sight thanks to the soundproof windows.

Nat’s hands settled on her hips, waiting for an answer. Instead, Steve took the cuff off of his wrist and held it out to her, letting her read the letters that had been etched there for the better part of a century.

Her jaw dropped. She stammered, arms crossing. She met his eyes and when she saw the sadness there, the guilt and longing, her expression softened.

“I should have told her. A long time ago, I should have told her but I can’t. In six months, on her twenty-fifth, she’s going back in time to 1943 to meet me on mine. And it…didn’t seem like she knew until she was already there.”

“So you’ve just been holding it in this whole time?” Natasha asked. “You’ve been in love with her…”

“Since the forties, yeah.” Steve nodded. “My great lost love, as Tony likes to call her when he rags on the band I wear.”

“Does he know?”

“No. Just you. And Bucky.” Steve amended. “He was there when she…”

“Right. Weird.” Natasha let out a long sigh, looking through the window. “Well do you need any help with that? I can get some information out of her. I’ll be super subtle, I promise.”

“I don’t know. She probably thinks my soulmate is dead, too.”

“Ironic.”

“No kidding.” Steve sighed. “Well, I guess if she says anything, let me know. It’s kind of a relief someone else knows.”

“We’ll get you through it, Steve. Six more months. That’s nothing.”

“Yeah.” Steve gazed longingly through the window. “I’m gonna sit with her for a while. I don’t want her to wake up alone.”

He slinked back into the infirmary and sat in the chair beside your bed, watching your steady breaths and listening to the beeping of the heart monitor. Natasha watched him through the window, heart strings pulled as tight as they’d ever been. Her best friend was in love and there was almost nothing he could do about it.

***

Three months later, you, Steve, Bucky, Sam, and Nat got snowed in on a mission in Alaska. The little cabin you’d been sent to was unreachable by any of the jets the team could send and besides, it wasn’t worth the risk of Clint or someone getting stuck out there in this.

But despite the fireplace raging with fresh-chopped wood, you were still shivering, all wrapped up for the night.

Steve watched you, forlorn. Natasha nudged him, motioning towards you. He chuckled and shook his head. He couldn’t. Right? What, take advantage of you in your vulnerable state.

Bucky seemed to agree with Nat, grinning into his mug of coffee, giving him some caffeine for his night watch.

Steve got up off of his seat, walked towards the fireplace and adjusted the logs, adding another small one for good measure. He looked back at the others, who were aggressively encouraging him to go over to you, and gave in.

He knelt down in front of you, clearing his throat, which caused you to jolt awake.

“Is everything okay? Are we under attack?”

Steve chuckled. “No, uh, we’re all good. Are you cold?”

“Kind of, yeah.” You admitted. “I’ll be okay, though, I promise.”

“Do you…want some company?” He asked, unsure of how to word it. “I…run warm.”

“Do you mind?” You asked, sitting up a little.

His heart raced. This was going better than he thought. “Here, um…” He raised the blanket on top of you and wiggled in underneath you, letting you lead as the two of you settled.

“God, you do run warm.” You hummed, all but collapsing against him, a hand flat against his chest while you adjusted.

“I didn’t always.” He said, voice sincere. “Buck and I used to have to share a bed in the winter. It was brutal.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Yeah, he snores.” Steve joked, earning a laugh.

“Oh I know. I can hear him three doors down back at home.”

“And I can hear you from the other room!” Bucky called, sending you and Steve into a fit of giggles, like kids at a sleepover. “It’s a small cabin.”

You heard him and Sam devolve into a bickering match about the truth of whether or not Bucky actually snored that loud.

You looked up at Steve, asking “is it okay if I put my arm here?” while carefully draping an arm across him.

“Yeah, of course.” He nodded, leaning against the pillows and pulling the blanket up around your shoulders.

You rested your head on his firm chest, listening to the way his heart was racing. Cute.

The drowsiness took over almost immediately, his warmth lulling you to sleep after a long day undercover out in the snow. You were asleep in minutes, breaths slow and long and even.

But once he was absolutely sure you were out, Steve pressed the gentlest kiss to your forehead, grateful beyond words to have you in his arms again.

***

“You thought today was her birthday???” Natasha asked, incredulous in the kitchen.

“I got nervous!” Steve defended. “I saw it on her whiteboard in front of her door and I thought—”

“I think Scott wrote that the last time he was here. He keeps track of all of that.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.” Steve replied, shaking his head. “Well, does she have any birthday plans?”

“Yeah, Wanda and I are taking her out shopping this afternoon. Tony gave her his card. And then the party tomorrow night.”

Steve nodded. “Okay, good. That buys me some time.”

“You got a plan?”

“I’ve had a plan.” Steve admitted. “Been sitting on it for about seventy years, in fact.”

***

You got out of bed, got dressed, and headed to the mall with Natasha and Wanda. The same mall, in fact, that you and Steve had met in the first place.

“Where was it?” Wanda asked, wearing a very fashionable pair of shades.

“Right over there.” You pointed to the spot in front of the movie theater, up on the second floor of the mall. “Guy with a flamethrower and a dream. He’s in jail now.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what you get when you dream of arson.” Nat said, causing you and Wanda to laugh.

You shopped around for clothes, got some pretzels at the Wetzels, and window shopped. You already had what you were pretty sure you were going to wear the following night. It wasn’t every day one of the Avengers turned twenty five and met their soulmate. Tony was determined to make it a spectacle. He had a habit of doing that, it seemed.

In the food court, you seemed kind of down, chin resting against your fist. Wanda picked up on it first.

“It will all be okay, (Y/N). There is nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah, I know, I just…I don’t know. I’m stressed about it. Tomorrow I get the answer to the question I’ve been asking for twenty-five years. I just can’t believe it’s almost here. And…I don’t know, there’s just a lot of variables. What if they don’t like me?”

“Come on, (Y/N), what’s not to like?” Natasha said, digging her spoon into her blizzard from the Dairy Queen.

“I don’t know…It’s just a lot to think about.” You said, leaving it at that. You didn’t know how to begin to explain to them that you had feelings for someone already, one of your coworkers no less, and someone who already had a soulmate, despite the fact that he’d lost her nearly a century before.

You wondered why Steve never looked for her. Or maybe she’d passed before he even resurfaced. It was sad. A guy like that didn’t deserve the heartbreak. He deserved to be loved.

The three of you finished your shopping trip and then returned to the Facility, where you unpacked the new odds and ends you’d acquired. Steve checked on you again, offering you words of wisdom, a comforting hug. He promised that your soulmate would love you, whoever they were.

Little did you know, he already did.

#steve rogers #steve rogers soulmate au #captain america #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers imagine #the avengers #marvel #captain america x reader

[dreamchasernina]

So since the fandom has come back to life and there is not enough Kataang content on this app I will start sharing my two cents. Yay.

I want to start off by saying that as the show was airing, I, as a 10 year old, did kinda ship Zutara. Let’s face it, that scene in the catacombs was a turning point for a lot of shippers. But that was before I saw the final season a couple of years later. When I rewatched the show as a whole, as a teenager I was over Zutara, honestly their interaction kind of felt awkward to me, because they were enemies for so long. So I was all for Kataang. Now, that I’ve rewatched it for like a 1000th time, as a 28 year old, I finally see Kataang for the amazing pairing that it is.

Anyway, I’m not here to hate on anyone, you can ship whoever you like, and I love Zuko so you will not see me slandering his character here. Plus I don't feel the need to hate dump on a character to make my ship feel superior (*cough* unlike some Zutara shippers *cough*).

Ok, so. I feel that when people think of Katara, and her part in the show, they remember her as the responsible one in the group, the "mother" of the group, the sensible and caring one. Yes, when Katara’s mother died she had to step in and take the responsibility of the mother in the family, like Sokka says in the Runaway, and that stayed with her throughout the show. But, I hate that that’s the only thing she’s remembered for, because that’s just the result of her trauma. I feel like most people ignore a very crucial part of her character. Yes, she is the responsible in the group, but when she gets a chance to just be a kid, that's what she is.

People forget about the fun loving side of Katara. The one that goes penguin sledding and remembers how she hasn’t done it in a long time because life hasn’t allowed her to. The side of Katara that gets obsessed with Aunt Wu’s prediction because she is just a regular girl who’s fascinated by her love life, and dreams about what her future husband might be like. The girl that tries flying on the glider with Teo. The girl that relaxes on Appa and lets the hippie girl braid her hair, completely forgetting about the next task in their journey. People forget the side of her that dances in a cave, forgetting about the war and just enjoying life. Let’s not ignore that whenever Katara has a chance, she just enjoys being a kid, not just a badasss waterbender travelling with the Avatar.

And when Katara brings that side out, you know who’s right by her side? Aang. He’s not just by her side, he’s the one initiating those little fun moments. Penguin sledding is his idea, he’s the one to remind her that even though she’s been through a lot, and has a lot of responsibilities, she’s still a kid. He’s the one to organize the dance party, in a middle of a war, in the enemy's terrorory, he still finds a way for them just to be kids. And she’s right there with him, dancing. He’s also taking part in her obsession with Aunt Wu, not belittling or making fun of her faith, but taking part in it. Also sitting right next to her in a flower crown and enjoying the music the hippies play.

You cannot ignore that part of Katara, the part that shines when she’s comfortable, the part that just wants to be a regular kid and have fun. And that’s the part that Aang brings out in her. He’s the Avatar, the weight of the world is literally on his shoulders, but he still finds a way to enjoy life and be a kid, even after going through the worst trauma you can imagine. And he’s there to remind her that even if you’ve experienced the worst, you can still find joy in the little things. She literally says in the first episode - Aang brought something we haven’t had in a long time - fun. And that’s what he brings to her, this light, and that’s why she’s so drawn to him.

Isn’t that what we want for Katara, after the war is over? To just let herself be a kid, not to miss out on that part of her life, now that she doesn’t have to worry about their survival? And the best person to bring this joy and childlike wonder back into her life is Aang. And that’s why I think that Aang is truly the best one Katara could have ended up with.

#atla #kataang #avatar: the last airbender #aang #avatar the last airbender #Katara

[ober-affen-geil]

It’s ace week again and I want to start by saying I appreciate the constant and consistent rise of overt queer representation in media. I really, really do. This post is not about that, but I did want to start by recognizing that we are definitely seeing a positive trend of queer rep and I’m not begrudging anyone that.

On the other hand.

Why is it that Sex Education, a show lauded for its depictions of teenage sexualities of all kinds, only openly discusses asexuality in one Very Special Episode?

Why is it that Brooklyn Nine Nine, a show respected for its diversity, only mentioned asexuality once and it was clearly meant as an insult?

Why is it that Faking It, a show inclusive of many teen sexualities and groundbreaking in its inclusion of a main intersex character, only references asexuality in a single throwaway line meant as a “we’ve collected them all” joke?

Why is it that Heatstopper, a show that gently yet explicitly includes all sorts of different identities in its main teen characters, doesn’t have a single reference to asexuality? And if Isaac or Tori were meant to be included as ace rep, why weren't they identified as such the way the rest of the characters were?

Why is it that Jughead, a character known in the entire run of comics going back to 1941 as having two defining characteristics: a disintrest in girls/dating and an obsession with food and who was made explicitly asexual in a 2016 run, was not made asexual in Riverdale when the opportunity presented itself?

Why is it that when fandom was presented with Good Omens they chose to call it “not queer enough” when the option to see Aziraphale and Crowley as ace or aro was very obviously there?

Why is it that I’ve seen BoJack Horseman, a show that has earned every Emmy it has won, praised as groundbreaking for having main reoccurring character Todd Chavez’s asexuality be a part of several different storylines only ever from asexual sources?

I know why. Do you?

Happy Asexual Awareness Week.

Edit: I did address this in a reblog but since a lot of recent people seem to be finding this through the tags and this is happening with enough frequency I will add it here.

To all the helpful people in the notes telling me that a) Alice Oseman is aroace or b) that there are plans for explicit ace representation in season 2 of Heartstopper or c) that there are other publications within the Heartstopper universe that examines aspec characters...thank you. I know. That is actually most of the reason Heartstopper made it onto this list.

Because what that means is, a creator that *has* explicit aspec rep in other works, *has* explicit aspec rep in the main work that is the subject of the adaptation, and *is* aspec themselves made the choice to relegate explicit aspec rep to a second season that had not yet been secured at the time of writing season 1.

Setting aside that I know fuckall about what the adaptation/creative process was like or what TPTB were like during said process, from my perspective that fucking sucked. A lot.

Happy Asexual Awareness Week.

#rant #personal #tw aphobia #asexual awareness week #ace week #asexuality #a riley special #continuing my grand tradition of soapboxing during this week

[crazylittlejester]

honestly, the fandom dismisses wars trauma a little too much. Have you noticed it’s always never brought up in his character studies? And when it is, it’s totally brushed off him and cia had a WEIRDDD age gap. It’s also weird hyrule warriors never acknowledges this. I honestly don’t think it’s gonna be recognized in LU but idk. It’s just weird how quickly the fandom brushed over all that. What’s your opinion? Cuz you have cool opinions lol

Disclaimer: Everything you’re about to read is my opinion and my interpretation of a game. I’m not talking about headcanons (unless otherwise specified), I’m just talking about my experience with the game and everything else. All of this is from MY perspective interacting with the canon material from both Hyrule Warriors and Linked Universe. Also! I am dyslexic, my bad for oddly autocorrected words or weird spelling mistakes

A huge reason I started yapping so much on this blog was because I saw a lot of people either actively disliking Wars, making fucking INSANE comments about his body, overly sexualizing him, or just straight up dismissing him all together and it helped me get over my posting anxiety because it genuinely made me so upset. He’s been my favorite character since only a few posts into LU (i originally liked Twilight better based sheerly on design but it took like only a few posts before that changed), and I love HW Link in general, and I thought it was actually crazy that more people didn’t like him. I’ve written several of my own characters studies on him, some of which I’ve posted, others lay trapped in my old laptop in the form of a full on analysis paper, never to see the light of day

You can send a full grown man to war and he will come back with trauma, imagine what happens when you grab some poor teenager and tell him everything relies on him. Literally forget Cia for a minute, Link as a teenager was taken and shoved into a full on war where his men turned on him and in order to survive, he had to kill. Monsters and hylians alike, it was him or them, and he’s the one who made it out. Not to mention he was constantly running all over the battle field trying to prevent the hylian captains from being defeated, and he most certainly lost many people he cared about just because he couldn’t get there in time. He had to carry around the guilt that this war was started because some sorceress was obsessed with him ON TOP of that

This was said earlier by an anon on a post I reblogged, and I’ve been saying it myself for months but I will say it again: If Warriors had been a girl and been obsessed over that same way, I fucking GUARANTEE you people would be taking it more seriously

I literally just typed in the character name and the game she’s from and that is what google had to say about her. If an older man was described as ‘harboring serious affections’ and having a ‘desire to claim’ a teenage girl I literally don’t think it would’ve been glossed over or ignored like it is

I don’t think nintendo was ever gonna elaborate or really recognize it in the game, they never go super in depth on anything in Zelda games from my experience, and I doubt Jojo will really get into it in LU mainly just because she has so much going on with eight other dudes and potentially two more (based on the header on the linked universe blog)

I saw a lot of characterizations of Warriors and opinions of him that made me so confused and also a bit mad, such that he is a womanizer or a stupid twink (of which he is neither), and that’s a huge reason I started writing fanfiction for this fandom. Firstly to just create more content for my favorite character because I rarely saw any that focused on him, and secondly because I didn’t like some (NOT ALL) of how I was seeing him characterized. (i cannot emphasize enough: NOT ALL people in the fandom characterized him this way, I saw plenty of amazing and beautiful characterizations of Warriors)

I do not think he is a womanizer at all, in fact I fully believe his flirtatious behavior is a defense mechanism. I think his ‘woman problems’ are the fact that he’s afraid of women (especially older women) he doesn’t know or trust, but also that’s just my opinion. And I am genuinely a bit worried that now that people have stopped talking about how they noticed he seemed off a few updates ago and now that they’re saying he’s back to normal that people are going to start reducing him to a stupid dramatic twink again, as if Warriors was not the one who came up with the initial plan to fight Dink and was not the first one to fight him. As if this is not a man who lead a god damn army. As if everything he’s done and everything he is no longer matters because he’s ‘pretty’

anyways I have a lot of thoughts about him in general and im just glad the fandom has been treating him better as of late, but i am a bit worried it’s just gonna go back to how it was

thanks for the ask!! sorry i got a bit carried away 😭

#linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu character analysis #hyrule warriors link #lu warriors #lu wars #lu warriors analysis #jes talks #jes ask

[chalkrevelations]

Further to this :

I’m posting one more time on this, and then I’m hoping I’m done. But I continue to see bad-faith takes on the settlement statements that were released this week, and I’m so done with the double standard from so many people in Kinnporsche fandom who have spent the past three+ months engaged in hypocritical bullying and victim-blaming and/or remaining damningly silent in the face of actual, public and visible abuse of Build Jakapan.

This wasn’t even a he-said, she-said situation. This was a months-long campaign of cyber-bullying, harassment and abuse – verbal, emotional and psychological – that Poi carried out against Build online, in the open, with no attempts to hide it. We saw her abuse him, repeatedly. We saw her be homophobic toward him, and not only did everyone who was ready to rush into battle against Build for supposedly being homophobic while making money off the queer community now stay silent about it, Poi got almost 10K retweets of it, so all those people who’ve wanted to cancel Build since last summer? We can see how much their allyship is actually worth. We saw the release of the VP novel with his bruised, bloody and battered face on the cover like some kind of disgusting revenge fantasy splayed out in public. We saw her release messages about sexual matters that were insinuated to be his private messages – which, like everything she’s ever posted, have not been verified as real and correct, in the setting of her admission of lying and faking and making false accusations with other material she released. But if they were real, the release of those messages would be on the same spectrum as revenge porn. We watched her commit outright theft of his belongings, and we watched her lie about his words and actions in an attempt to drive a wedge between him and his fans, we watched her punch down at those fans by invading their privacy as surely as she invaded his, we watched her make it all as filthy and gross and mercenary as she could in order to besmirch it as much as she could, watched her laugh about how much fans cared about him like he doesn’t deserve any kind of care or concern, like he’s a dog she can kick around without repercussion.

And antis joined in that abuse, plenty of people in the fandom were complicit in it – lies were collected and reblogged and spread around as supposed receipts of what a terrible person he was, by people who repeatedly represented themselves as “neutral,” without the least bit of concern for the provenance of those rumors, which were already in unbelievable supervillain territory and sure enough, turned out to be actual legal slander. People posted things like “burn in hell,” or made and spread vile memes when he left BOC like the whole thing was something funny, to laugh about, rather than a serious issue like accusations of intimate partner violence. He was called trash, garbage, an incel – at the same time people were vilifying him for supposedly cheating on Poi, so which is it? Is he an incel or was he fucking half of Bangkok? In one of the most breathtaking instances of victim-blaming I’ve seen in a long time, people amplified and spread the lie that he slept with Poi to get his role like it was some kind of gotcha, as if – had it been true – that wouldn’t have been evidence of Poi’s harassment and sexual abuse of him. The casting couch isn’t any less abusive when a man is subject to it than when a woman is subject to it. If it's gross and abusive for Harvey Weinstein to do it, then it would be gross and abusive for Poi to do it, and the way some people acted like it would somehow be Build’s fault? I’m sure every actress in Hollywood would love to hear that. Or would it be OK because he’s a man? Because that sounds awfully close to those creeps who say that teenaged boys should think they’re lucky when their female teachers molest them. (Or maybe when women in power over them on the filming set coerce them into giving massages?)

And as we saw all this happen – even as people patted themselves on the back and reassured each other that this wasn’t a witch-hunt, that it wasn’t an online mob working itself into a frenzy - 99.5 percent of the people who had been so very concerned with compiling and spreading everything and the kitchen sink during the initial feeding frenzy on Build went aggressively silent in the face of Build’s legal claims, including defamation, coercion and other abusive behavior by Poi. Suddenly, we started getting calls for circumspection and civility - aka silence - now that Build and his reputation and his career already had been savaged. Now that it was becoming evident that these same people were complicit in her abuse of him and had helped create the very scenario he said that she had threatened and kept him under control with. Now that they had helped an abuser get their satisfaction during what is traditionally the most dangerous time for abuse victims – when they try to leave.

Suddenly people were just done with all of this, just so very tired of it - now that the damage was done, and what was left was clean-up of the havoc they had helped wreak.

This fandom has done nothing to change my opinion that this whole debacle was never actually about genuine concern over intimate partner violence, but was rooted in shipwars - going all the way back to last summer, when someone went digging back through Build’s socials to find comments eight years old that could be blown up by Twitter cancel culture just as the Vegaspete storyline kicked off, VP was increasingly pulling attention, and BBB’s facetime was increasing. Not a single thing I’ve seen since then – since Build was identified as the soft target of the VP ship and discourse around him was poisoned by purity cancel culture – has convinced me otherwise.

People in this fandom took a deadly serious issue like intimate partner violence, and they used it as a tool for their petty shipwars, and they used it to get a little hit of self-righteousness, as a little “moral” crusade that allowed them to get their Two-Minute Hate on in a way that was deemed socially acceptable and gave them a taste of blood because it was wildly successful in the real world in a way keyboard slacktivism rarely is. It’s very telling, though, how much concern they actually seem to have for abuse survivors when they won’t even call out abusive behavior happening publicly, right in front of their faces. I guess some abuse victims do have to be perfect, or maybe it’s that some people do deserve to be abused, despite the claims when people were simping for Poi?

It’s very telling when their biggest concern appears to be using abuse claims as a cudgel to make themselves feel righteous - because it appears that’s all Poi ever really was, a tool for some people in KP fandom to beat Build with. If they actually, honestly gave a shit about her, someone would have shown concern about her mental health and whether she has any kind of support network at all, rather than egging her on, encouraging and amplifying her abusive and out-of-control behavior online. I’m not going to deny that I dislike Poi, that I’ve found her distasteful and incredibly off-putting since watching her behind-the-scenes behavior with the KP cast, including trying to yank Build to the edge of a balcony on a high-rise building as he tried to resist and laughing about being called out by Jeff for sexual harassment of a minor. But one of the things that I also found disturbing about this whole debacle was the way people encouraged and enjoyed - relished - behavior that ought to be concerning for her mental health.

And even now, I’ve seen people act as if the behavior that Poi and Build have admitted to in their statements was equally bad. Sorry, no, him secretly recording a conversation that was evidence of her abusive behavior is not equivalent to her faking pregnancy claims against him and insinuating that he was the reason she got an abortion or miscarried. I’m sure all abusers would love it if conversations in which they talk about their abusive behavior were kept private and secret, but I'm extremely suspicious of anyone who wants to act like that recording shouldn't be released - they should ask themselves why they're ok with abuse being covered up.

Would they call a woman who secretly recorded evidence of being abused a liar?

   (ETA 5/15, 1630 - Several people have messaged me to let me know this post has breached containment and is loose on Twitter. I would respectfully request that everyone follow Build’s own expressed wishes - and mine - and do not engage with antis. This includes @ing specific people with links to this. I could have attached individual names to many of the bad-faith behaviors I talk about in the post, but there are reasons I didn’t. People have already spent three months punching down at Build’s fans, as well as at him. The behavior of his fans reflects on him - however unfair that may be - and must remain above reproach. That includes not picking individual fights. If someone is encouraging this, consider that they are likely a plant, a fake fan trying to goad others into bad behavior to try to make Build look bad. If I find out anyone has done this, I will block you. Thanks.)

#build jakapan #kinnporsche cast

[prince-liest]

some recent thoughts on Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao, and why even though I find Nie Mingjue very frustrating in the midst of his Baxia-induced anger issues, I think he’s also a pretty sympathetic character as a whole and it’s really understandable why he thinks the way he does

(as someone who ships 3zun and nieyao, and through the lens of “Jin Guangyao is my blorbo”)

I’ve seen a tendency to paint NMJ and JGY’s relationship in black and white in terms of who was fundamentally more in the right, which to be honest is not really the approach I take to fandom in general. to me the tragedy is that NMJ and JGY before JGY's casting-out had immense respect and perhaps even love (platonic, romantic, whatever) for each other. in the end, a lack of mutual understanding of each others' circumstances that could have otherwise eventually been overcome was driven, by bigotry, Jin Guangshan, and the Nie cultivation style, into becoming an insurmountable difference that eventually killed them both

NMJ definitely Did Not Get where JGY was coming from when JGY was making survival decisions and keeping secrets. he was simply not raised in a way where he ever even had to think about the types of choices that JGY has been forced to make since he was quite young. but at the same time, NMJ was a teenager raising his brother and his sect from a very young age and I think it's a disservice to his character to fail to acknowledge that his entire life he expected to die a young and horrific death, just like he watched his father die, and that this expectation deeply colors his approach to the world. JGY plays the long game. NMJ does not get to think about that, he just has to raise his brother, win a war, and try not to drive his sect into the ground before he kicks the bucket in a violent and gruesome manner. he does not have a choice about any of these things.

and said things are extremely difficult to do, especially as a teenager, which I think is a reflection of MDZS's whole thing where their entire generation is just traumatized by war and conflict and a dearth of genuine, honorable guidance and leadership, which leads to such fractures

but it's also a series of tasks that required the kind of attitude that Nie Mingjue develops, and that in combination with Baxia’s influence gives him this really immovable perspective on life that he just won't budge on with JGY. I think it’s really significant that when Jin Guangyao does regularly play Clarity for NMJ, they get along quite well. and I also think it's really understandable why NMJ is so stubborn and headstrong - he's had to fight his way through being sect leader and not take "no" for an answer, because what the hell else can a young, new leader do to avoid being taken advantage of? frankly even if he had taken up a bit of whatever guile Nie Huaisang didn’t hog from the Nie gene pool... why would he direct it towards self-preservation? he has no room for that kind of fear because he is going to be dead in a few years.

importantly as well, Nie Mingjue unjustly judges Jin Guangyao because he is unable to understand the context that JGY is coming from, but that same righteousness is the reason that he's the first person to have given Meng Yao a fair shake and rewarded his hard work and labor, and that matters a lot to Jin Guangyao and their relationship as a whole. you can’t really have one without the other unless you give Nie Mingjue time to grow up.

unfortunately, Nie Mingjue died his 20s, and was in his teens when the Sunshot Campaign began. look me in the eyes and explain to me what kind of behavior you expect from a 20-something with a magic rage sword.

#mdzs #the untamed #nie mingjue #nieyao #jin guangyao #that parting sentence is intended humorously not genuinely #please don't actually do that #also #/gesticulates wildly at luo binghe lmao #all-considered #I feel like if I have sympathy for binghe then I gotta have sympathy for nmj yfm? #I repeat for the love of god please don't come argue with me I started rotations again and I'm too tired #this is just because I like writing meta about my blorbos #mdzs meta #meta #my writing #im 27 atm and pretty sure that im older than nmj was when he died #which definitely colors my perspective

[curls101]

Well, @quiddie you really made house for this lil chilli pepper in my brain, huh? A poem for Karna. Rotting teenager. True believer. Truest manifestation of the Hungry One.

Been a looooooooooong time since I’ve posted a poem on Tumblr, but the ravening war fandom is POPPING on here so yall also get this one

[ALT TEXT]

[Note: The spacing of this poem reveals that the first letters of each line spell out DEVOUR (ME) ]

lessons harvested from the corpse of Jacques Crudite 

Didn’t we all agree, at birth, we are those things that acid is made from? 

Our little world is rounded with hunger and cannibal urges. After all, a knife is just the conductor of a meal.

Easy to wish for kinder things. Easier to take. 

You will grow into your apologies. Beg forgiveness from the thing that answers, rather than the light it rattles in.

Violence has byproducts,

they have named those things: ardour, genus and naiveté. All of these are prone to spoil. Putresce in the sunlight. We dispose of them quickly in the greenhouse. We have no need of those things that cannot thrive in heat.

Our inheritance is not light,

but husk. Ear. Shell. Peel. Skin. Learn hunger, or die. The world is very simple. Become what they shuck from the rind. Hold it between your teeth. Taste it. Let it simmer in you. Bleed it back out.

Use what you have.

More parts of a plant are edible than you may think. What will they do otherwise?

Rot.

What curdles in your body is not a question of belief. It is here. It is already here. We call it common good. We call it provenance. We call it nature. It is ours. Our scorpion blood. Ours. Do not spit out a gift even gods cannot have.

(My love is sustenance. 

I alone carry the gift of enduring. I learned it with my hands. Pried it out. Cleaned all the blood off. I can fit my fist around it. I can give you the world. I can hold it. When your body can no longer burn, I will find parts to burn in its stead.

Early,

before anyone else is awake, I stare at the world from the rooftops and kill it with the sunlight. I watch the sun hit your body and I want to peel it from you. I have never felt anything sit at the pit of my stomach and stay. I want that to be you. I want you to be the decaying thing that keeps me eternal. I will find a way. I will make a way. There has to be more to me than the parts I carved off and left in the back alley to watch a man bleed out. )

#the ravening war #ravening war #ravening war spoilers #the ravening war spoilers #Karna Solara #Karna

[apostaterevolutionary]

Okay so. There has been a huge resurgence of House MD recently here and I find this both fascinating and a bit whiplash-y because I have a very particular relationship with that show and there’s no way to explain it without outing myself for doing a very weird thing lmao but here we go

So I watched the show when it was airing and I liked it. I was never in a fandom for it cause I was a teenager for most of it, I was still figuring out my own sexuality and had no idea why I kept being drawn to shows where there’s really messy homoerotic relationship bait, and I just liked the show (and was extremely attached to Thirteen lmao). I knew some people who liked it too but in a more typical ‘this is a show I like’ way. I had no idea it had such a fandom following at all

And the second piece to this is I have struggled with insomnia my entire life (I probably have a circadian rhythm disorder), and the important part for this explanation is I can’t sleep in complete darkness or silence. So I watch something. But it has to be the right something - too interesting and I watch it and stay awake too long, too boring and I end up not being able to relax

So to fix this problem: I used a show I liked, but have seen a lot. I picked House MD and I’ve been doing it ever since because it works and has continued to work and I don’t want to lose sleep by messing with my system

The thing is, I started doing this in high school. My late teens. I’m now in my early 30s. I have been falling asleep to House for over a decade lmfao. I still like the show, but I’ve seen it so much that I know the plot and sometimes diagnosis in most episodes (there are a few I don’t watch, the emotional ones that are too much, and the ones last on the discs [yes I am still using the same dvds I bought over a decade ago, they still work great] I don’t see as often simply cause I’m usually asleep before then)

So to suddenly discover my nightly sleepy time show that I only ever knew a few people who liked and mostly watched with my mother back in the day actually has a massive fandom following (which I should have known lmfao like come on it’s absolutely ripe for it, I just never made the connection) that is suddenly active again feels a lot like a bunch of people just showed up in my bedroom and it’s so weird skskdjsk

#I think at this point I might require the soothing sounds of medical malpractice and personal drama in order to actually sleep so #lmao idk this is just such an odd experience to me #my relationship with this show is so weirdly specific it’s jarring to see so many people suddenly into it skdkdk #anyway idk why I’m sharing this honestly I just think it’s funny #text #misc #shut up nerd #house md