#not because I don’t like that fanon lore but because I think it should stay as fanon lore (i feel the same about ghost cores) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

m4ndysk4nkovich · 7 months

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i’ve talked about this many times before but i’ve decided to make an entire post about it:

what is it with gallavich fans and separating mother’s from their children?

so, to preface this, yes, i am a gallavich fan. however, i am a gallavich fan who is a fan of other characters besides ian and mickey, and a gallavich fan who tries to stick to the shows canon, and not just fanon.

a lot of gallavich fans are obsessed with the idea of galladads. and you know what? good for them. i personally dislike galladads, but if you like it, i have no problem with it. my problem is galladads but with gallavich raising other characters children, portraying the mother’s of these children incredibly wrong, and just having very misogynistic undertones.

the prime example of this is franny. let’s face it, a lot of you hate debbie. it’s okay, whatever, that’s your opinion. do i agree with it? fuck no. do i think it’s stupid? yes. but whatever. my main issue with this is that galladads fans will cling onto any small scene of gallavich interacting with a kid, and make it into a parenting thing. and galladads fans are willing to mix up the canon lore and make it their own to fit their headcanon. in 11x12, it is revealed that debbie’s girlfriend is leaving to go to texas, and debbie AND franny are invited. debbie looks hesitant. she spent the entire season trying to salvage the house in chicago. she delivered a whole monologue to sandy about why she’s sticking with her kid. seaosn 11 showed debbie’s growth as a person and as a mother. you can tell that people look over all of her scenes because they literally refuse to awknolege this, and it’s like they only pay attention to the words “franny” “kid” and “daughter” in her scenes. let’s face it, debbie has attachment issues and spent years fighting for her kid, you couldn’t pay her all the money in the world to give up franny (we literally learned this in season 10), and, mickey had a maximum of four (maybe five) scenes where he interacted with franny. the reality of it is that ian is actually her favorite, but i guess that doesn’t help. but regardless, a big part of debbie’s character since season 1 was her loyalty and her want to be a mother. she spent seasons 6-11 fighting for her kid, and you guys just believe that she’d flee to texas? the invitation was for both of them, not just debbie. shut up!!

next is yevgeny. i understand this one a bit more, i did love early season 5, but we have to understand mickey’s feelings about yevgeny. yevgeny was the product of rape, the rape of mickey and the rape of svetlana. i don’t know if i believe that yevgeny was his, but i don’t really blame mickey for distancing himself. in season 6, he seems to still be kind of interested and content with yevgeny, after season 6 we don’t really hear him talk about his kid (because legally, yes, that’s his kid), and i’m not entirely positive that had svetlana and yevgeny stayed until the end of the show, mickey wouldn’t have talked to them both. but if mickey wants nothing to do with him, that’s reasonable. what isn’t reasonable is just deciding that svetlana is abusive and deciding that mickey and ian should raise him, or something like that. i don’t think svetlana would be opposed to letting mickey see him, but idk (@svetlanayevgenivna, you could probably say something better about this, idk what to say). anyway, svetlana fucking loves her kid and she wouldn’t just give him up.

freddie/unborn gallagher child (from lip and tami). i’ve seen this a few times, but basically it’s just ian and mickey randomly raising/becoming guardians of fred and whatever the other kids name will be. newsflash! mickey and tami aren’t best friends. they interacted like, three times total and the one positive interaction was more ian and tami than tami and mickey. why on earth would tami let ian and mickey raise her kids when she literally said she doesn’t trust ian to babysit freddie because he’s a convict. and honestly, though i didn’t agree and i don’t really like tami, i think that’s valid because it’s her kid and her decision. HER kid. not ian or mickey’s.

if you want to give ian and mickey their own kid, go ahead, but it’s seriously annoying how some of you are fascinated by the concept of taking a womans child. stop.

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gayemeralds · 1 year

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Sorry to bother you with this i love all your takes except the shadow ones </3 but speaking of him and not even as being my fave but "blorbo in law" i have to disagree and defend him. Personally as an only game enjoyer i think his character hasn't been butchered like people say at least in the games except for forces(with the infinite thing), by contrast in all the other sonic media (that sega hasn't confirm canon btw)yeah there i can clearly see the butchery and occ moments and also a lot of misinformation due to his popularity that is exaggerated that has created a distorted version of him, maybe your dislike and desinterest of him has to do more with the fans and fanon perception influence? And the fact that with his polularity he is bound to be shoved everywhere, cuz to me the distorsion about his character comes from fans and outside sonic media that are not the games.

Also it's kinda funny and not a coincidence to me your love for gerald(not that he isn't interesting but come on he didn't love shadow, that was his creation and possession to help and save maria, yeah it is a complex relationship with affection for his creation but not love)(and i can never side with the doctor frankestain archetype as a good guy) and dislike for shadow lol fhdh Anyway those are my two cents trying to see it from a more neutral position✌excuse my english

hm.

1) it’s true i fucking HATE fanon shadow. people scrape off all of his interesting personality bits to make him more palatable and shippable. often they just make him exactly like knuckles but with More Trauma and slightly Angrier and that annoys the hell out of me.

2) it is also true that i hate the marketing they do with him. i hate the sonic twitter takeovers with him. and i HATE how he’s just often shoved into places where he shouldn’t have been (ie sonic colors & sonic frontiers twitter takeovers. he wasn’t IN THOSE GAMES. why is he THERE). they’re using him as a markability tool and little else and that’s honestly a huge disgrace.

3) my main issue with game shadow and other versions of him is that i just don’t like the direction they took with his character, at the very least lore wise. i think he should have stayed dead. sa2 was a narrative best self contained. the whole amnesia plot line was fucking stupid considering sa2 was ABOUT discovering shadow’s past. why have him forget it. the alien thing is fucking hilarious but also objectively kinda dumb as well. they brought shadow back from the dead and didn’t have a cohesive story for him because his arc was already solidified in sa2 and they just. keep repeating that arc over and over again, of him being Mad and then remembering Maria’s promise and then becoming Normal. because they want to keep shadow as sonic’s edgy rival without giving him a good enough reason to be. boom & forces are the worst examples of this. that’s my main issue with him. they don’t know what to do with him- his story is basically over with but they keep bringing him back over and over for no reason.

4. there’s honestly not that much evidence to support that gerald DIDNT love shadow. he literally gives shadow a soul based on maria in sonic battle. he cheers shadow on to destroy the black arms in shadow the hedgehog 2005. i really do think that gerald did love shadow, which makes it a whole other layer of tragedy for gerald to decide his hate for humanity outweighed his love for shadow and altered his memories to destroy the world. im just not fond of the narrative that gerald never loved shadow and only thought of him as an object when i don’t particularly think that’s true. i think it erases a whole level of nuance to both gerald’s character and shadow’s frustrations. he loved you but that wasn’t enough.

5) you’re welcome to your own opinions but like. can people stop telling me im wrong. you literally don’t have to defend him to me.

#i just think they should have let shadow stay dead at the end of sa2 i don’t think they’ve done too much that’s particularly compelling #to warrant him to stay alive #sonic battle & 06 were fantastic and i don’t mind his stuff in sonic rivals #but after that i think there was a big shift to make him a more Generic EdgyRival #which just. completely throws away what made him likeable in the first place. he WASNT a generic rival #that’s what made him interesting #anyway.#master emerald brothel

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fantomette22 · 10 months

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7, 10 and 12 for the ask meme!

Ask here

7 what character did you begin to like not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

Freaking bloody crow. I hated him som much but and look at me now. Imagining tragic backstory and how he was the cutest baby at Cainhurst!!

You can thanks Crow (heraldofcrow) for it the blood bird can got into my head 😂

10 best part of fanon

Hm…. Well idk xD i was thinking of like the fandom in general but no so let’s say the Byrgenwerth squad ✨ that a few people have stories/ hc about. You know when all the group was at Byrgen i love those so much like you can guess. Plus smt that is not talk about enough in my opinion is the times of the old hunters shenanigans too.

12 the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

🤔 depend what an « unpopular character is » but hm does gehrman count (ok sorry xD) hm does Annalise count??

Like come on it’s Annalise Queen of the Vilebloods ✨i need more content! More angst! There’s just so much potential i don’t think she was straight up evil but she sure didn’t do just do good things either…

I have a couples of stories idea sourounding her and i like them.

But if we take smn who don’t have much content in game hm Caryll or Dores perhaps?

Why? Well Caryll is just THE mvp ?? Do i need to explain

For Dores well in my hc it remind me of Eileen vibe but more wild crazy and bloody who wouldn’t love it lol and all the lore with gatekeeper and Willem like damn even in madness they stay at his side wow

(Alternatively Archibald ! One day i will share stuff about the guy)

#my asks #ask game

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valenhell · 3 years

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From the studio that brought you “I can’t find good Byler fics in the ao3 tag”, comes:

"The Definitive Byler fic rec list"

Literally no one asked for this but because I spent the majority of last year (...and 2019, and 2018...) reading byler fics and coping with life, I thought I’d make a list of some of my absolute favorites.

The other day I was basically starving for some byler fics and the angel @magicalfairy provided me with some of her faves so I thought I’d do the same, because I love reading, and I love all of these fics and I appreciate their writers💗 And fic writers in general, come on!

- This is a mix of long works and one-shots/short stories. - Everything is mostly fluff with a tad of angst and a lot of internalized homophobia conflict. - Every fic is completed, except for the ones I mention that they are not. - I try my best to lay out the stories in a way that I won’t spoil you the plot but also warning you of some stuff you might don’t like. Either way, all of these fics are correctly tagged by their respective authors/owners, so read at your own risk. For better understanding, in between brackets I denote Rating, Words and quantity of Chapters. - I feel like I should clarify, none of these are narrated in the singular first person. None of that “And I told him...”, no.

Long fics

a dream always the same (T, 99k, 35 chapters) What happened in those few weeks between the Battle of Starcourt and the Byers leaving Hawkins. Literally a satisfying and very needed fill in of season three, with a good dose of Mike’s thoughts and conflict. Mike’s characterization is specially amazing in this one. The writing style is amazing and I know the author put everything into making it historically accurate, and it was really sweet. You probably read it, it’s by the amazing sevensided here on Tumblr🧡

Spring Break (T, 120k, 14/15 chapters) The slowburn of my dreams. Lots of internalized conflict and conflict with each other. Conflict within the Party (uhh kind of), conflict with Mike and Will. Byers family has moved and the kids are visiting! Chaos. Characterization is on point. Yeah, I know it’s unfinished, but the fourteenth chapter actually serves as a pretty nice ending.

This is where it starts (M, 148.8k, 24 chapters) Aged up characters. The Party is in college and Will disappears again, but now it’s different. Mike knows he didn’t vanish from thin air, and the discovery he and the Party end up making is pretty insane. Mystery solving/fantasy/third dimension, throw in a bit of D&D and Mike realizing some shit, and you get this marvelous fic. It’s a breath of fresh air. The world building is definitely one of the elements that stands out the most, because it’s very nicely described, it sounds like a dream and it’s completely immersive. Absolute gem of a fic.

there’s a Starman waiting in the sky (M, 30.6k, 8 chapters) Do I need to say anything? Will is out there living his best life and Mike realizes that wow, umm, maybe his best friend looks a bit too nice with that costume... and wait, is he getting horny? It’s actually really fun and sexy.

The Evening Speaks (T, 23k, 7 chapters) In where Mike is a late-night college radio host and Will is the art student that stays up till late to catch up with Wheeler on the Mic. They flirt through songs y’all, this one is really sweet.

heads or tails? (E, 24k, 3 chapters) Aged up characters. I know most people don’t enjoy sex in fics and with specific characters but this one is insanely well written. It’s a slowburn that commits to the tension and with every word you are grasping and anticipating their next move. I think you can find the author here on Tumblr as yousaidyes🧡

The Man of Average (M, 56.7k, 5/? chapters) Aged up characters. No but you don’t understand, the writing here is absolute gourmet. The story is exciting as well, it’s super interesting. Weirdly enough, for being very aged up characters, they are well characterized but they don’t feel like teenagers. They are naturally Mike and Will. The author really captured Mike and Will’s essence. I know, it’s unfinished and it’s updated very rarely, but this is the typical fic you can’t believe someone just posted on the internet for free. I will say though, I think it’s definitely not for everyone. Read at your own risk.

Heartstrings (E, 82.8k, 24/? chapters) Aged up characters. By the same author of The Man of Average. A collection of memories, the road to Mike and Will’s happy ever after. And fucking hell!!!!! You’ll cry and get angry, you’ll cheer for them, then you’ll want to crash their faces together because god dammit you love each other!!! But yeah, same thing here. The writing and the way the story is laid out as a nonlinear narrative is brilliant. And I also think this is one of the best Will versions I’ve read. The author might as well be the og creator of this two characters tbh. You can find the author here as mylesimeblr🧡

Sinners behind the walls (T, 1.5k, 1/1) And because I can’t stop recommending this author, a little thing of Mike tormenting himself but also being too deeply committed to Will.

The Red Envelope series (T/E, 167K, two completed works) Something happens that Will thought was impossible and from there, pure drama and romance. Anything by this author has the potential to become your absolute favorite fic, but this series in particular is amazing. I doubt that any of you haven’t read this, but it doesn’t hurt to put it in this list. I’m pretty sure the author is serendipitous-magic on Tumblr🧡

A New Fight series (T, 91k, two completed works, one WIP) And finally the Star Wars AU that we all needed. But this isn’t your typical “Mike is Han”, “Will is Leia” and “El is Luke”, it’s way more interesting than that, and the author has appropriated the Star Wars world like no other. I’ll admit I’m not a 100% fluent in SW lore but this is amazing to me either way. This author is also on Tumblr, tea-for-one-please🧡

- Yes, most of these are (if not all), in a way, canon compliant/canonverse/canon continuation into fanon. (In a way)

One-shots and short stories

Sundae for Two, Please (G, 4.8k) Steve being the supportive friend and older brother these kids collectively need. (not Jonathan erasure, we love him). Steve is very sweet himself, and this little cute thing through his POV is gorgeous. Yes, it’s byler.

Backstage (T, 10k, 2/2) Jonathan, you forgot to mention to Will how hot your new band’s guitarist is, dude. Now he’s hyperventilating and weirdly flirting with him in the corner. Background Stonathan because why not.

102 Peach Street (G, 3.8k) Established relationship, but not only that, they are married :’’))) PURE fluff. Extreme fluffiness. Diabetes.

sweatshirts and bottled up feelings (T, 3.2k) Or, Mike thinks that the sweatshirt Will wears looks insanely good on him. And kitchens are for lovers.

kiss it better (T, 16.3k) Basically one of the best character studies of a few precise moments of Mike and Will’s relationship and feelings.

will wonders ever cease (T, 11.3k) #i ship will and happiness. Omfg what a beautiful piece of fanfic. Will centric, this kid really deserves all the good in the world.

The Calm After the Storm (T, 1.6k) Tooth rotting fluff, boyfriends in love. Boyfriends being lazy, cuddling, love words, kisses. Boys loving each other’s company... Basically, Mike and Will in their element. What more can you ask for?

neither of us ready to let go (T, 4.8k) That scene from season three, but a bit of a fix it.

Still in love (G, 1k) Domestic, married life au fluff. Y’all, I’m a sucker for established Byler, even if I can’t find many fics with it. But this is very sweet. It takes place in 2020, but I don’t think there are any mentions of the COVID-19 crisis that I remember.

I Nver Find Out ‘Til I’m Head Over Heels (G, 12.5K) Classic 5+1 fic. If you haven’t read it, where have you been? This is your moment. In where Mike keeps inviting Will to the school dances and Will thinks it’s just a joke until he realizes it’s not.

Before You’re Gone (T, 5.9k) Will is leaving Hawkins and Mike thinks this is a great moment for a confession. This one I discovered last friday, thank you friend @magicalfairy 💗

You’re weird Wheeler (M, 4.5k) Mike unintentionally starts a tradition of going to each other to talk about their sexual encounters just after they finish. Will keeps getting more explicit with the details he shares, and he makes his best friend interested. This one is really fun y’all.

Out-Of-Town Friends (N/R, 4.6K) It’s not rated. I haven’t re- read it but I’d say it would probably fall in a T rating. So cute!! Will has new friends and sneaks off every friday and the Party doesn’t know where he is going, so Mike decides to follow him and is surprised.

Snowed Under (G, 1.3k) By the same author of The New Fight series. Mike is spending christmas by himself in college because a snowstorm hits Chicago and Nancy can’t drive to see him, but then he has a surprise visitor. Ahhh just a lil sweet holiday fic. Super cute.

you love me anyway series (T, 7.1k, three completed works) Literally just the cutest thing ever. Established Byler. Will loves to take pictures and he loves taking pictures of Mike. It’s adorable.

you wanna be friends forever (i can think of something better) (T, 9k) This one is so amazing. So. Amazing. From Will’s POV, my kid deserves the world and he gets it.

okay not to be okay (T, 4.9k) Mike is a bit sad but then everything is okay.

can’t hold out forever (G, 18.4k) Y’all!!!!! 5+1 sweetness. Mike has been falling in love since kindergarten. And it’s long af, you’ll enjoy it.

even if it takes forever (G, 1.3k) College short AU, they miss each other, they love each other, they promise all to each other. It is sappy y’all.

clear as day (N/R, 18.4K, 4 chapters) It’s not rated, but I’d say it falls in the T category. Strangers to friends to lovers. And also, everyone is pretty gay; we have our dynamic trio Mike, Max and El as disaster lesbians (and gay). Will works at the library and he is also gay. Lucas and Dustin and Will are the best friends we needed. It’s very sweet and the Party is kind of formed here!

I went overboard with the one-shots, so you must have realized how much I love long one-shots and I favor them over long works lmao but they are all amazing!!! If it’s on this list, I probably read it at 2 am, sobbing in my bed. So. Hope you enjoy it☺️🧡

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heraldofzaun · 3 years

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This is my “Viktor has never been a stereotypical evil villain, you guys are just mean” post.

Hi. Well. That says it all, really, but I guess I should elaborate. I think that Viktor has always been a victim of society [cue Joker meme], it’s just that what society has shifted over the course of his lore update.

With new lore, it’s very clearly Piltover casting him out for his (in my opinion, pretty unethical from the get-go) ideas on free will/worker safety/etc. and that subsequently making him worse. But with his previous lore - what I run off of on this blog - I’ve seen a lot of commentary about how he’s always just been “evil”, or that his motivations weren’t defined, etc. And while I can agree that his old lore certainly has less of a word count (5x less, actually) and doesn’t make his motives crystal-clear, it’s just not true that his original incarnation was just a villainous scientist. (Nor is it true that he was perceived as one by his old fans!) It takes a little bit of looking at Blitzcrank’s lore, and the Journal of Justice (hey, remember that?) to see, but it’s there... So, here goes. I’m sorry for how long this ended up being (2k words!) - it ended up touching on a lot more than just Viktor.

Viktor’s always been stolen from. (Except for Blitzcrank’s newest lores, which contradict Viktor’s new lore, which... That’s a topic for another time.) It’s always been Professor Stanwick Pididly (now Professor Stanwick) who’s done the stealing - originally, he was a professor at Zaun’s “prestigious College of Techmaturgy”. In new lore, he’s a professor at an unnamed academy in Piltover. I think the best way to track the new/old changes is bullet-points, rather than writing this all out. Tumblr doesn’t allow T-charts, sadly.

Professor Pididly in old lore:

Zaunite professor.

Stole Blitzcrank (well, the accolades for developing Blitz’s sentience) from Viktor and Viktor’s doctoral team. (While this is headcanon, I’ve always assumed that Stanwick was Viktor’s (and Viktor’s team’s) doctoral advisor. I can’t quite imagine how else he’d pull off stealing a group project like that.) Viktor subsequently withdrew from the college and “barricaded himself in his private laboratory”. (Which is his house in my personal take, because really - what sort of doctoral student can afford a lab?)

Blitzcrank’s case reached Zaun’s legal system, resulting in a “legal maelstrom” (Blitz’s original lore) that ended with Stanwick presumably being legally declared Blitzcrank’s creator.

Blitzcrank’s lore states that “most now know the truth” in regards to who his creator is. This is important for later, so stick that in your back pocket.

Pididly is referred to as “Professor Pididly” in JoJ issues 3, 18, and 23, which are given the dates of August of 20CLE, March of 21 CLE, and June of 21 CLE.

Side note: According to Orianna’s judgment, which is dated May of 21 CLE - stay with me here, it’ll make sense - Blitzcrank entered the League “years before”. As League at this time was mostly running in time with the real world, this makes sense - Blitzcrank was a 2009 champion and Orianna was released in 2011. Judgments seem to be dated to a few days before a champion’s release, in order to tie with the lore - one had to be “Judged” before made a champion... but I’m rambling. Anyways, years before, back pocket.

Is referred to as “Chairman Pididly” in JoJ issue 27, dated August of 21 CLE. “Chairman” seems to be a title given to those in political power in Zaun. Another example is Chairman Magnus Dunderson, Zaun’s “Chief Executive” (issue 5). (I could’ve sworn that there is canonically a “Board of Executives” in old lore Zaun, but scrubbing through the JoJ on the wiki hasn’t turned it up - just Blitzcrank’s lore mentioning the “Council of Zaun”. Maybe it was fanon? Anyways.) Back pocket!

Also stole some work from Viktor in order to revive Urgot. Urgot’s revival was reported on in issue 3 of the JoJ, and the confirmation that it was from Viktor’s work is in Viktor’s original lore.

Professor Stanwick (Pididly? I feel like they ditched his last name because it was “too silly”, also because Stanwick sounds British-adjacent anyways and that’s Piltover’s “thing” - but anyways) in new lore:

Piltovian professor.

Stole Blitzcrank from Viktor alone, who made the robot to help clean up a specific chemical spill. Viktor went to Zaun for a few weeks and came back to find that Stanwick had “held a symposium on Blitzcrank and presented Viktor's research as his own”. Viktor subsequently continued on his studies, culminating with him later being expelled for “violating basic human dignity”. Viktor returns to a laboratory that he had in Zaun.

Blitzcrank’s case is solely a university matter. Viktor petitions Jayce to help support his claim, but Jayce is Jayce and doesn’t help out. The “matter [is] decided in Professor Stanwick’s favor”.

Blitzcrank’s lore doesn’t really say anything about if people know that Viktor made him (them, technically, but Riot doesn’t get to make the robot non-binary), but I guess it’s implied in the 3rd iteration? (That would be the first new one, after the IoW retcon making most champions’ 2nd lores being the same lore with any reference to the titular League of Legends removed.) He works with Viktor in that one. It doesn’t fit with Viktor’s updated lore at all, actually, because it mentions Stanwick absolutely zero times. (A post for another day...)

Has nothing to do with Urgot, since Urgot’s different now.

So, the general plot of “professor rips off a student” is there, it’s just got an added layer of “professor rips off a foreign/out-group student” in new lore to tie into the overarching idea of Piltover exploiting Zaun. (Is Zaun considered foreign? Yes? No? It’s sort of textually implied sometimes to be another city, but can it actually be when it’s physically underneath Piltover? Is the metaphor in new lore a class thing, then? Is it both? Am I supposed to take Viktor’s Russian accent into account when reading this text? I don’t know.) Anyways, so far so... same, in the broad strokes. Unless Viktor’s villainy in old lore is specifically because someone from his city ripped him off, I don’t know how you can compare new/old lore and say that old painted him as a villain.

But what about the everything else I put there? We’re getting there - that’s part of Viktor’s in-universe stuff. I’m taking a quick detour out of universe, to Jayce’s very first lore...

Which had Viktor stealing a techmaturgical device from Jayce. While I can’t cite this, sadly - thank you, Riot deleting the old forums and me not having the patience to look through archives at the moment - there was a backlash around this on the forums. Why would Viktor, a character who’d been stolen from, steal in turn? So Jayce’s second lore, the one that most people were familiar with before the new lore update, was made. Now Viktor stole a crystal after trying to partner with Jayce, Jayce was less well-established as an inventor, he had a bit more character... All good things. (Also, this is probably where the new lore direction of them being former college colleagues come from.)

Also, as an aside: this is the first use I can see of crystals specifically being described as arcane power sources... The only other discussion of magical crystals was the Brackern... which was then merged into magical crystals having to be from the Brackern... Which means that...

But anyways! Clearly Viktor fans didn’t see him as a villain in 2012, or at least not one that would victimize others in the same way that he’d been hurt. They made such a fuss about it that Jayce’s lore was changed to paint Viktor more sympathetically! (When’s the last time that there’s been that much backl- oh. It’s Seraphine again. Anyways.) So, again, Viktor’s perception as an evil scientist mostly seems to have come from people who weren’t really familiar with his lore. So... case closed?

Except that I also want to talk about in-universe things! Everything that I told you to put in your back pocket! Because this post is already over a thousand words and I have thrown myself firmly into this vortex.

Viktor’s victimization by society [Joker meme] is actually probably worse in old lore, which is a fact that I think has been pretty overlooked. While new lore Viktor gets kicked back down to Zaun and gets his work stolen in academia - with Stanwick presumably never being questioned on whether or not he made Blitzcrank, because there’s that whole “Zaunites are bad” thread that is both in and out of universe... Old lore Viktor sure does get it worse, although I admit that this requires some interpretation of canon. His thing with Blitzcrank was, again, a “legal maelstrom” - and with Blitzcrank being considered a Zaunite celebrity before this court case, it seems relatively easy/logical to infer that this maelstrom was a very public case.

So all of Zaun gets to see Viktor crash and burn in court. I’d say that’s a bit worse than just academia seeing it, as is the case in new lore.

And then there’s Blitzcrank’s lore flat-out saying that “most now know the truth” about who made him. (While this lore does predate Viktor’s existence - isn’t it odd to think about a Blitzcrank made by a faceless team of generic doctoral students, rather than Viktor... and a faceless team of generic doctoral students? - I see no reason not to take it as canonical for Viktor’s original lore. There’d been minor lore touchups before, so if Riot wanted Viktor’s creation of Blitzcrank to be an unknown... they could have edited Blitzcrank’s lore.) But Viktor’s still on the fringes, and nothing in his lore (which, again, was written years after Blitzcrank’s) seems to acknowledge that by the time he enters the League we have confirmation, date-wise, that it’s been years since the truth came out. (Orianna Judgment, etc.) That’s to say: people knowing that Viktor made Blitzcrank does nothing for him - he gets no apologies or anything like that.

Of course, if you take League lore as happening concurrently and nix the Judgments and the League, I guess that this is tenuous - but working within the framework of when he was released, it seems clear to me that the implication of all this lore is (whether it was intended by Riot to be read this way or not) that no one in Zaun cares that Viktor was stolen from. It’s an open secret. No one’s seeking justice for him. But it gets worse...!

So, it’s generally known that Stanwick didn’t make Blitzcrank by the time that the JoJ is running. And he’s just a professor for most of the run of that part of the lore, until... Issue 27. In which he becomes Chairman Pididly, someone who is now implied to have political power. (I have to assume he gets the position due to the political goodwill from Noxus that his revival of Urgot must have brought Zaun, but that’s just interpretation.) But! Even though most people know that Stanwick didn’t make Blitzcrank - that he stole Blitzcrank - he ends up not losing his university job (he’s still Professor Pididly for most of the JoJ, after all) but... gaining political office!

All of this is to say that Zaun is so crooked that you can have the fact that you stole from someone and ruined their life revealed... and get a promotion to government! You can shatter an idealistic man who had a “hope to better society” and make him into someone like the Machine Herald and face absolutely zero repercussions. I think that that is significantly worse than how new lore Viktor’s victimization by Piltover consisted of an academia-only dispute that left him with just some bitterness... New Viktor was, after all, kicked out of Piltovian academia for ethics violations, not for Blitzcrank.

Everything surrounding old lore Viktor is a bit harder to piece together, since you have to look through a few lores and make a few inferences, which is why I think that people don’t realize exactly how bad he had it... (That and time erasing memories, or people being new to the fandom, or people not being interested in Viktor, or...) But he had it bad, and I’m honestly disappointed that we never got to explore much of Zaun’s particular brand of corporate corruption in canon. Now they’re the perpetual underdogs, both victims and villians, and Riot isn’t quite sure how to write them beyond constant exploitation from Piltover. (Even the chem-barons have taken somewhat of a backseat lately in new lore, from what I’ve seen - Piltover seems to be the primary cause of Zaun’s ills, because the combined region is now an upper city/lower city metaphor about class. The chem-barons just seem to be written as a result of Piltover’s ignoring of Zaun - because Zaun seems to be more of an undercity than a sovereign city or state, but that varies depending on whatever piece of lore you’re reading and... Another post, another time.)

So. TL;DR: Viktor’s always been a character who was victimized by a city, be it Zaun or Piltover. Viktor’s always been a character more complex than just a maniacal villain, although it takes more work to see that in his old lore as compared to his new. (His new pretty much screams “we are trying to make him and Jayce morally grey”, after all.) This victimization is arguably worse in old lore, as it’s implied that he went through a very public legal case that ended with Stanwick taking credit for Blitzcrank. In addition to that, Stanwick’s subsequent shift to politics implies that Zaun is so corrupt that most everyone knowing that he’s a thief isn’t an issue at all. He’s untouchable.

Viktor’s always been the result of an idealistic man being crushed by a society that doesn’t care for him and his dreams. That’s nothing new.

#headcanons | beneath the mask #worldbuilding | a smog shrouded city #//lightly seasoned with 'i have my qualms about new lore' seasoning.#//all quotes are from respective lores. i am not fully citing them because if i use apa format for a league meta post i'll simply expire.#//oh also fun fact ionians are referred to as 'peaceniks' by zaunites in that same JoJ issue i pulled the dunderson info from.#//which is cool because that's somewhat canon info (other than zaun being german for fence and some other vague name choices) that...#//zaun was probably intended to be somewhat eastern european flavored from the getgo. so. hc validation.#//admittedly the nik suffix as it is used there is an english variant borrowed from russian/yiddish so... you could argue against me i guess #//but i think that's a much further stretch than my interpretation. anyways i've rambled more than enough.#//you can tell where i started getting super conversational here + when i stopped caring about if i stuck to 'stanwick' or 'pididly'

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border-spam · 3 years

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Does troy really have a split jaw or is that fanon?

It's total fanon!

The design of the split lines across his cheekbones and chin coupled with the cheek clips and v shaped hinge outline next to his ears lead to a lot of people coming to that same outcome, that there is something up with his mouth from a prosthetic/mod standpoint.

So much of his design is never mentioned once or referenced in any way (hightech spinal rig with tattoos under it, neuro connector, mech arm that's much older and doesn't seem related to the spine and neuroport, implants on bicep, face mod etc) that like Tyreen's scars and possible lower body Siren markings, fandom took over when it came to coming up with logical explanations for 'em.

This actually touches ground with some Ao3 comments I wanted to share as they are all Leech Lord compliant, so I'll list them here alongside links to the fics they were related to (note warnings!)

You leave no avenue for characterization unexplored. Troy's facial prostheses finally receiving backstory is amazing

- Maw (Gore/Bodyhorror)

I LOVE the idea of it being not just decorative shit on his face, but my MO for any content I make is always based around asking why, over and over, and trying to make sense of what material I'm using in the first place. The modded mouth is a popular piece of fanon but you know... why? Why would he do that shit to himself. WHY would he want to be grotesque, why would he be chasing the reaction people would have to it when canonically he seems to really not be interested in fan attention the same way Tyreen is, what's the difference to him between being adored as his persona or being lusted after as a monster, etc. I just love deep-diving into the logic behind character and world building? It's what adds meat to the bone for me.

Big 'ol character and worldbuilding / lore responses list under the cut -

He could afford better robots but these ones UNDERSTAND Ty, don't you get it?

- Good night in (tooth rotting fluff)

Hey just because it's mangled and broken, and can't perform its intended function to a degree expected of it by everyone around it... and it's got rusty sharp bits it accidentally hurts you with sometimes... and it's cranky but it doesn't mean it... and sometimes it errors out in a way that's mildly disturbing in a way you can't place.. uh.. doesn't mean you should just GIVE UP ON IT you know? He can fix them :) They will be fine :) No one should just throw away something that's trying so hard just because it's damaged... haha... :')

It's so hard seeing how much they tear each other down when they're the only thing they have left. And what a poor self-image Tyreen has beyond all that glitter and bluster...

- Wolf in sheep's clothing

The twins function well enough as a unit till tensions rise, and I was trying to seed in The Leech's influence on them in earlier work like this too - towards anyone else Ty would become MORE aggressively confident, more assured in her complete and utter dominance of the situation, her flawlessness, but against Troy who see's her for what she is, it turns inwards and eats at her instead of lashing outwards. He switches from relatively submissive around her to almost surgical levels of dissection, he knows exactly how to go for the jugular with words, and doesn't hold back. She's The Leech's mouth but he's its eyes and it's only when they lose control emotionally enough for it to claw to the surface of their psyches that you get an idea of how much it really affects them individually. GB had an absolute goldmine on their hands here of cosmic/body horror and the concept of toxic family when all you have is each other, there's so much to work with, and I figure it's a factor in why some people still really enjoy messing around with Calypso content.

I like how you allow Troy to be a disabled character, how his congenital defects and prosthetics colour his outlook and appear in ways big and small in all these vignettes. It's easy, I think, to see him as largely untroubled by his health apart from when he needs a charge from Tyreen in the game, but you allow him to struggle with his weakness.

- Chronic (Drug use)

I'm really glad to hear that's coming through in the writing because it's something I noticed a lot too. Very often when Troy, or other characters canonically disabled / chronically unwell are written it's "told" and not "shown". Chronic pain, illness, it's not something that is just a little tickbox in a life or some descriptive terms added to a character synopsis, it's something you live and deal with. There are bad days. There are times it is a negative that has to be worked around or faced in ways that aren't pleasant. It doesn't make you lesser or weak to have times where illness does leave you unable to function to a level you want to, it's not a failure for you to be unable to perform tasks when a disability or flair up means it's not viable. I feel personally that by showing scenes like this where his health and body issues do have a very visceral and impossible to ignore the effect on his ability to function, and going through his mental processes of dealing with and managing them, it brings the character across as stronger than if he never seemed to be shown dealing with symptoms or weaknesses. People are more than their disabilities and conditions, those aren't just kinda taglines to add onto a character's description and then never address. I feel like doing that in a way undermines what people deal with who manage chronic illness, pain, and who have disabilities that affect their daily lives negatively. Appreciating the effort it takes to manage them is important.

What I really like about these is that you can really understand as a reader how their dynamic must have evolved. How even before Leda's death Tyreen would have felt demonized while Troy got the attention because of his condition, because he was less willful.

- Starlight, Moonbright

Ah man, absolutely - and that shit stayed with them. It wasn't his fault and he never wanted it, but of course their parents would have had their extremely ill child at the forefront of their thoughts, especially during weeks when he was.. bad. Tyreen by nature even without The Leech's influence is a little attention seeker, she'd be the life of any party and she BLOSSOMS if she's got the spotlight, but as a little kid who's got literally no one but her parents and her brother, and who all three of which can't give her nearly as much time as she deserved? That's rough. That's really unfair. That coupled with The Leech's warping effect on their egos as they grew up and the bitterness and resentment they harbored in different ways created a reverse dynamic. She'd never be out of the Galaxy's attention again, and he'd have no choice but to take his rightful place in her shadow.

I love how you illustrate both how much more, and yet how much less Troy is now. How the blameless child, full of potential, is inextricably linked to the brutal, larger-than-life avatar he fashions.

- DeLeon ( Graphic Violence / Gore / Hallucinations)

He's molded the monster he is now out of the bones of the man he should have been - there's no going back really. There's nothing left to go back to. He broke Troy DeLeon apart to build the persona that acts like an iron lung now, suffocating him breath by breath while forcing him to still take them. That life is over, he killed it before it had a chance, but the idea of it is still there in his subconscious. Somewhere in the absolute trainwreck of Troy's brain is the tiny, flickering belief that maaaaaybe one day this will all be over and he can shuck off the bracer and spines, peel off all the shit he's covered his skin with, and just go back to not being Calypso. DeLeon here isn't some aspect of his mental state or his sins haunting him - it's The Leech, spitting venom at a host it loathes in something that's not sound or comprehensible language. His subconscious has just translated it into something it can understand - his greatest regret.

On if Borderlands Humans originated on Earth -

There's a really tenuous link between BL verse and rEarth, but it's there and can't be ignored. The cultures, accents, terminologies, so many are Earth specific despite these people being spread across galaxies, so hell yes - Earth as an emergence point makes total sense. The next question then, is why is it never mentioned - and you can cover for that with a lot of things like say, tt was so long ago that it's not relevant to anything that would ever be discussed, or it could be a mass evacuation from a catastrophe there is little record of now. I like to go with something along those lines, that the first human Siren host emergence on earth just absolutely decimated the planet. Like, we were doing fine till this random woman somewhere in the ass-end of nowhere develops weird markings overnight, then goes apocalyptic. The first Leech maybe, not understanding her powers and having them rip across continents in a spread of crackling electric death that only left husked shells of plants and animals in its wake, or the first Firehawk who went nuclear and burned the sky, or the first Voidgrasp who lost control and began to collapse the planet's core - some extreme shit that had humans fleeing en masse with barely any preparation and HUGE swathes of history and knowledge left behind. That would cover so many social things surviving into the BL verse, cultures, accents, cooking, that shit comes with us regardless of what we were able to throw into escape ships. Like so much data would be stored on any tech and data arrays within the vessels people would use to leave a dying planet even in an insane rush, but that shit waters down over time - if you're farming barely edible plants on some planet that smells like farts, are you really gonna be that stressed about teaching your kids history from a lost planet when your current concerns are not being eaten by something with 19 legs and 4 buttholes? Don't think so.

On if the other Siren entities are as influential to their hosts as The Leech -

I touch on it a wee bit throughout LL, but the others are FAR more passive and meld more to their host's whims. The Firehawk Siren wouldn't.. like.. care? If the host was burning down a planet or fighting off an evil corporation? They are removed from any nonsense happening on this side, they might not even really be able to tell, it's like asking an amoeba or a collection of sentient atomic particles what its opinion is on Brexit. That's not really its priority. The Leech is so aggressive in its control of the twins and desperation to drive them towards an outcome it desires only cause it's split, broken, removed from the song, and completely lost. We're talking a caged, half-mad animal removed from its natural environment and left totally isolated from its own kind for millennia. It's in pain, it's confused, it wants to find its way back to the song and the others and where it belongs, but it's stopped by a barrier it can't comprehend ( the twins and being ripped between them), so in its impotent rage it feeds back that hatred onto them. It's not really sentient in the way we would describe functional intelligence, but it wants, and craves, and FEELS. And it feels very, very angry.

Big thanks to @undergoingcalibrations for talking through so much of this with me!

Asks are Open!

#borderlands #borderlands 2 #borderlands 3 #bl3 #troy calypso #tyreen calypso #calypso twins #sirens #leech lord #my hcs #my writing

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senadimell · 3 years

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Boromir for the character ask?

send me a character and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them: Honestly? His focus. He's a problem-solver. He focuses on whatever task is in front of him, and while he's the golden child, I honestly don't know if he'd be the best fit for Steward because he seems to be at his best when he's thinking about concrete solutions to discrete problems.

Oh! The other thing is that he evaluates the advice given to him for what it is, not based on the authority of the advisor. He’s not going to accept bad advice just because it comes from a trustworthy source, and he’s going to be honest about his thoughts. So he’ll trust and respect the advice of the council of Elrond, but not to the point where he doesn’t ask questions or question things that don’t make sense (I’m thinking about Caradhras here) It’s a good skill to have as the de-facto heir to Gondor, and it makes sense that he’s not in awe of elves or Gandalf and acts among them as a guest but also as an equal at least in political status, though his experience is vastly more limited.

At the same time, he’s not arrogant or haughty. He's a team player. He’s supportive of decisions for the most part, though where the ring is concerned, things get skewy. He’s not the kind of person to rub mistakes back in your face. He’s compassionate and understanding (which we see even in the way he treats Frodo as he strives for the Ring).

least favorite thing about them: Honestly Boromir doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I suppose his positive traits are also double-edged swords. Focusing more on the advice than the giver sort of has Feanor vibes? And you can see where his focus leads him when he talks to Frodo about why he wants the ring and how he would use it. He can see his corner of the world (Gondor) and his place in saving it (political, but primarily military leadership), and it’s his practicality, drive, and focus that the Ring exploits. He’s too busy thinking about what he must do to save the day that he misses the grander scheme (yet he’s doing it because he cares! he cares!).

brOTP: Um, Faramir, I guess. Though I guess it’d be kinda sweet if he’s got a brotherly relationship with Bergil. I can easily imagine Bergil hero-worshipping Boromir, and so I think it’d be sweet if Boromir did acknowledge him and know him by name.

OTP: none? look, I rarely ship and even more rarely out of canon.

nOTP: also none? Shelob? The Ring?

random headcanon: I dunno...

unpopular opinion: boromir has dark hair Sean Bean is an actor he’s not the only face

So I feel like there’s a bit of a structural problem with the LotR fandom. Characters are often written in pairs or as foils, and inevitably the comparison starts to turn towards “who’s better?” Then, if you don’t ship them, there’s a tendency to aggrandize one character’s virtues and minimize their flaws (which tends to happen everywhere), but then the comparison game starts. Because they have a paired character, the natural next step is to lionize your favorite by de-emphasizing the other character’s strengths and virtues (and sometimes also highlighting their flaws). (I’m not immune to this by far, btw, and am possibly about to engage in it.)

This happen the most with Frodo and Sam, but I think you also see it in Boromir and Faramir. Because obviously, in the books, Faramir is the golden child. Not in his father’s eyes, of course, but narratively speaking. And I have mad respect for him.

Most people don’t try and diss Faramir (because frankly. it’s hard. like, what are you going to say?), but there’s a tendency to downplay the fact that Boromir is his culture’s golden child, and Faramir...isn’t. Which isn’t to say Faramir isn’t beloved by those who know him, but his strengths are not valued in the same way that Boromir’s are. Faramir knows this. And given Boromir’s attitudes discussed above (how confidently he assumes his position in the world), I can’t believe he’s the 100% supportive, loving, sensitive, protective brother that fanon depicts him as. I don’t see how he can be.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe the brothers love each other deeply. But growing up with siblings has taught me that it’s possible to love someone and yet be deeply wounded by them due to the casual and inescapable intimacy of your relationship? You can share more inside jokes and weird stories than anyone, yet you can never get away from how deeply they know you--not your thoughts, but who you are at home and who you were when you were seven and how you acted when someone broke up with you or what you did when your parents were furious.

You also know exactly how you match up against them, because you will always exist as a unit. And because your relationship is as natural as the lens in your eye (you can’t imagine viewing the world without it), you forget about the other as a person and just say something and don’t think about how it hurts them. You can joke about this one thing and your sibling can carry around the hurt for years and you didn’t even know. And maybe the hurt isn’t even your fault--maybe they were just sensitive and you had no way of knowing, but the hurt doesn’t go away for the lack of malice. And even best-friend siblings are capable of malice towards each other at times.

So Boromir is good at things that Faramir isn’t, and Boromir knows it. He’s probably ribbed his brother in what he thinks is a playful way about when you’re going to shape up, or do X, or do Y, or why do you do that, anyways, or do you realize that’s a little unbecoming? maybe you should stop that. You know Father’s going to think that you’re... And he doesn’t realize how those slights can add up over the years. I do think he’s said things to his peers about his brother that have ended up hurting him. No matter how pure and nice he is, that sort of thing is unavoidable, and due to his cultural upbringing I don’t actually think he’d question the appropriateness of his attitude/acceptance and glorification of martial prowess at the expense of those who don’t have it in the same degree.

I think this passage is really telling:

For on the eve of the sudden assault a dream came to my brother in a troubled sleep; and afterwards a like dream came oft to him again, and once to me. 'In that dream I thought the eastern sky grew dark and there was a growing thunder, but in the West a pale light lingered, and out of it I heard a voice, remote but clear, crying: Seek for the Sword that was broken: In Imladris it dwells; There shall be counsels taken Stronger than Morgul-spells. There shall be shown a token That Doom is near at hand, For Isildur's Bane shall waken, And the Halfling forth shall stand. Of these words we could understand little, and we spoke to our father, Denethor, Lord of Minas Tirith, wise in the lore of Gondor. This only would he say, that Imladris was of old the name among the Elves of a far northern dale, where Elrond the Halfelven dwelt, greatest of lore-masters. Therefore my brother, seeing how desperate was our need, was eager to heed the dream and seek for Imladris; but since the way was full of doubt and danger, I took the journey upon myself. Loth was my father to give me leave, and long have I wandered by roads forgotten, seeking the house of Elrond, of which many had heard, but few knew where it lay.'

There’s so much you can read into this. Faramir has this dream, and he has it many times. We know he’s a lover of lore and no less devoted to his kingdom than Boromir, though his love is expressed differently. He is “eager” to heed the dream. So would I if I was having prophecy dreams all the time.

But is Faramir a member of the fellowship? No. Why? Because Boromir “took it upon himself.” He wanted to do it, he thought himself the better candidate (and Faramir the worse), and he argued his way into doing it against his father’s wishes. Coupled with Denethor’s later attitude towards Boromir, I’m inclined to believe Boromir was uniquely able to obtain this quest for himself because Denethor has a soft spot for him.

I find myself inclined to disregard Boromir’s account of Faramir’s motive (”how desparate was our need”), because it sounds like he’s justifying the appropriateness of his actions. If it’s just about the great need of the kingdom, it’s nothing personal that one brother goes and the other stays. That view implies that Faramir’s interest in this mission is primarily utilitarian in purpose, with a little academic curiosity--that is, it’s nothing personal. Doesn’t matter who goes! Not as long as we protect the kingdom! Which...just doesn’t square with his description of Faramir having repeatedly cryptic dreams that he wants to understand. I can almost guarantee that Faramir wants to know what those dreams meant more than Boromir.

It’s a bit tragic, because ultimately Faramir was more suited for the quest than Boromir (tramping about in the wilderness doesn’t seem to be a problem, he’s also a team player, and he’s much more willing to accept the power of the Ring/not downplay its personal danger, and would be able to see it in a bigger picture beyond just Gondor). Ultimately, though, if Boromir was the one to catch Frodo in Ithillien, the story would have a veeeeeeery different ending. (Gollum would likely be dead, and I can’t imagine he’d be inclined to just. let Frodo and Sam go free.)

I kind of view their relationship as a much less antagonistic version of Agravain and Gwalchmai from Gillian Bradshaw. (Agravain is more of a jerk than I can ever imagine Boromir being, and has a wicked temper).

Also none of this is to say that I don’t think he’s not protective of his brother.

So a lot of words to say: I don’t think the Boromir and Faramir relationship is as uwu cinnamon roll as it seems in fandom. I think they loved each other, but I think Boromir did have a tendency to take what he wanted when he thought he deserved it and not give it a second thought, even when it was at the expense of his brother. Sure, he’d defend his brother night and day, but I expect him to be a bit of a jerk, be unaware of the extent of his behavior, and also see little wrong with it (the ring quest seems to have crossed a line, by the way he justifies it).

Still, they do love each other deeply and genuinely. It’s just a little more conflicted.

song i associate with them: Requiem, from Dear Evan Hanson. Not a particularly creative association (and I don’t associate him with Connor at all), but his death comes as such a shock at the beginning of TTT and brings with it so many mixed feelings due to both their relationship and the circumstances of his death. Nobody’s mourning is straightforward: not Frodo, or Denethor, or Faramir, or Aragorn, or Merry, or Pippin. His absense is woven throughout TTT and even RotK, in plot and in emotion and in theme.

favorite picture of them:

Don’t really have a favorite, but this one is nice.

The Sean Bean runners-up: one, two

#asks #answers #boromir #did not think i had this many thoughts about boromir!#thank you so much for the ask!

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faelapis · 4 years

Text

so. while this was confirmed a year ago, new tweets by ian jq have reawakened the discourse about humans being the first intelligent life gems encountered. note intelligent life, not organic life. alien animals still died from previous invasions, but humans are the first intelligent creatures gems encountered.

apparently, the party line on twitter (where nuance goes to die) is that it’s too “convenient” that humans are the first other intelligent species gems met.

i take a few issues with that assessment:

a) “it was pink’s first colony, isn’t it convenient the diamond concerned with organic life owns the first planet populated by intelligent organics? wouldn’t they have died if any other diamond got them? isn’t that super lucky?”

no. we know rose/pink was very interested in organic life from before earth. she always thought aliens were cool, interesting, fun, and liked learning about them and keeping some as pets - such as the rainbow worms. we know she visited the others’ colonies, even if she doesn’t own them. she’s the only diamond who is simultaneously “selfish” enough to visit colonies up-close on a whim because it’s fun AND doesn’t see herself as too good to play with local organics.

so, then, why on earth (hah) wouldn’t she care if there had been intelligent life on any of the other planets? she didn’t fight for earth just because she “owned” it. she cared because she was able to form connections to humans... which she would have done regardless of which diamond’s colony it was. if anything, ownership is a hindrance to her usual romps, because blue & yellow expected her to stay put in her moon base. smile and wave. be a “leader”.

b) “how is it realistic that humans are the first intelligent life gems have met?”

the SU universe as a whole is not a universe filled with life. it has been framed as cold, animalistic, overall lifeless, purposeless, and one in which you gaze at an empty sky and beg for an authority figure to give your life meaning. this works much, much better if life, especially intelligent life, is incredibly sparse. they are small flickers in a cold void. it adds to the feeling that both humans and gems feel of loneliness and pointlessness, where you create these intricate structures of organized almost-religion to feel devoted to a purpose. this existentialism, which we will explore further below, is a huge part of SU’s themes.

c) another theme - and this one is important - is that gems and humans have been treated as this mirror parallel of life, people, and society (tm) for the entire runtime of the show. hence, steven as the bridge. a bridge, usually, connects two sides, not five. they are more similar than they are different - to the point where you can use gemkind to comment on how humans are like, and see some of the horrors and tragedy of what humanity looks like “from the outside”. not once has there ever been implied to be any other intelligent species to disrupt this elegant, thematic dichotomy. ever.

d) unlike fanon speculation, the show has always been very careful about never implying there were any previous rebellions. SU is not a star wars-esque universe populated with a million different intelligent species and cyclical rebellions + alliances between them. it is a big, cold, empty void, with tiny pockets of fragile life. which is part of why the connection between two alien species is so remarkable. it is the exception, not the rule.

e) many of us who looked at homeworld in a not-badfaith light already came to the conclusion that humans are probably the only intelligent life they’ve met. (based on what we know about the universe, its logic, the themes, the implications of other colonies, pink diamond’s personality, no other species ever bonded with enough to fight for, etc etc,)... and those of us who did, including myself, have (lovingly!!) compared the crystal gems to hippies or eco-terrorists. this 100% holds up to how homeworld gems generally, and the diamonds specifically, see them.

this is why blue thinks a “solution” to pink being sad about the invasion is to create the zoo. it’s a petty conflict, from her perspective, of environmentalism vs conservationism. like how, if a capitalist is kinda sad about a rainforest being bulldozed, you might as well just take some pretty toucans and panthers and stick them in a zoo. they’re preserved for humans to enjoy. problem “solved”. it worked with the kyanite colony & rainbow worms, why not here?

this is part of why lapis accuses the CGs of not caring about gemkind. they put this silly little dirtball above gemkind, starting a war that hurt (”real”) people?

this is also why pink, mocking the other diamonds, says “you wish to save these life-forms at the expense of our own? ha! don't be absurd!”. gemkind needs resources to create more gems. so, to the diamonds, of course that’s more important than Making The Bees and Monkeys Sad. they’re not even directly killing them, they’re just taking resources. it’s not “””their fault””” they need ‘em too, gems are more important. the same way, to us, humans are always the most important. many of us don’t give a damn about how we hurt animals.

f) it galls me that anything but the darkest possible interpretation, even when it makes perfect sense with what we know, is always seen as “convenient” by people who watched nostalgia critic once and think they’re now great media critics. i saw similar comments to jasper being brought back to life, even though it made perfect sense with what’s implied about the powers of the diamonds. most of that, too, was woven together by paying close attention to implication, not outright stated in a lore dump - but that doesn’t make it “convenient” in the bad way. it makes it the logical outcome of this world, if you paid attention.

like jasper coming back to life, it also told us something thematic about the diamonds’ absolute power over life & death. steven is kinda horrified, even if it’s a good thing, that things can ever be fixed. he still feels like he needs to be “punished”. he holds this toxic mindset that punishment is more important than healing, because of the pit of self-harm he’s fallen into... which is kind of how some people see the diamonds, and the world as a whole.

even if things can get better, it doesn’t matter. at least not as much as punishing and distancing ourselves from the “bad people”. even though, actually, things CAN get better, and that’s more dependent on systemic change than it is on punishing “bad” individuals... that doesn’t fascinate them. it’s a fucked-up idea of “consequences” that is sadly prevalent in fandoms: they’d rather the world be doomed if they get to kill the bad people for it, than the world being slowly healed in this bittersweet way that includes everyone.

and i’m tired of that. on the whole, fiction is a reflection of this very dour, justice-oriented view of the world where we can only gain satisfaction from punishing the bad guys responsible. SU’s response to that is, that actually, just this once... no! the world gets better, and the “how” doesn’t revolve around individual punishment. it’s trying to heal everyone.

g) it seems to me that for a substantial amount of people, “convenience” has less to do with the themes and logic of the world than it does with wanting canon to live up to their fanon image of homeworld and the diamonds. even if that means a ton of offscreen intelligent life dying Just for the sake of a 1-v-1 earth-vs-gems conflict, with no agency in the story. i don’t understand how that would make it better. all other life we’ve seen have been animals. pink was around for other colonies - even if she didn’t personally “own” them - yet didn’t care deeply enough to fight for them. because she couldn’t bond with worms the same way as humans. (yknow, unfortunately, for the worms :’<)

also, you don’t NEED other species of intelligent life to have been made extinct to still have a somewhat cynical interpretation of the diamonds’ intentions here. even if it makes the world less grimdark in praxis. it’s not enough to be aware of humans in the abstract, blue and yellow still won’t listen. you need to actually interact with humans in order to learn about / care for organics that don’t serve a purpose in your system. this was just the first chance gemkind had to do so. it makes sense that some would be curious, while others more jaded and dismissive, after encountering a universe mostly made of the lifeless & animals.

to give the other diamonds some credit, they’ve probably encountered plenty organic life, and thus have built up a bias that everyone but gemkind are aimless, animalistic life forms, and its up to them to give themselves purpose. why should humans be any different? oh wow, they live in groups? big whoop. so do ants. they build nests? so do birds. they babble? so do parrots and rainbow worms. they still serve no purpose. they still die if you breathe on them.

it’s only when blue meets greg - thousands of years later - that we see even the tiniest of cracks, in which blue is made aware of some level of emotional intelligence, but is still firmly entrenched in the view that he’s just a Slightly more advanced organic than others. like... puppies comforting you. she was surprised he could even do that much. this was a slow process for rose as well!

but anyway, at the point of the war, to many gems, they are concerned first and foremost with gemkind. life matters because of your singular, gem-oriented “purpose”... but some gems, like pink, who never saw herself as a justified goddess, take the opposite approach. they don’t see themselves as “above” other life out of either lack of awareness of the capabilities of intelligent life forms or a self-appointed Higher Purpose. they’re curious, and then, willing to fight for life they can bond with, once they learn to love.

which brings me to...

h) how a big theme of the show as a whole is selflessness vs selfishness.

here, the crystal gems as a whole have actually been on the side of selfishness, from homeworld’s perspective. the end of gathering resources would mean they would no longer create more gems. which, to HW, is selfish. which... of course it is, if you think you’re the only intelligent life out there.

the way homeworld gems express themselves is through an elaborate system of self-perpetuation and creation, in which the emergence of more gems is a higher purpose for the collective. the individual doesn’t matter. to them, the random creatures they find on other planets do not matter. they’re just organics.

humans matter to pink because she’s, like i said, curious about alien life, and less convinced about her own purpose... but also more personal, relationship-driven, and cares about what happens the specific individuals she subjectively bonds with, rather than prioritizing the overall “needs” of her species, like a good queen bee is “supposed” to do.

homeworld thinks that no individual feelings - even a diamond’s - is more important than perpetuating of the system that gives their species meaning. most gems are happy to be shattered for that cause, because they’ve never formed those “selfish” relationships that makes life worth living without purpose. so actually, yes, this works with pink’s motivation, and blue and yellow not being as easily swayed works with theirs.

(all of this is extremely relevant to the arc steven has in “future”, btw. he needs a reason to be needed, purpose. and pearl’s arc, white diamond’s arc, jasper’s arc, etc etc - living for purpose vs living for relationships and selfish exploration of the self is a massive theme of the whole show!! at leaast if you pay attention to anything more subtle than merely “here’s a lore dump!”, which the show has always avoided. it’s more sublime than that. you, too, are supposed to only have a small, subjective understanding of the world, like steven does, which teaches you to value subjective perspectives. your purpose is not higher than the agency of others, and you shouldn’t control the world.)

i) it makes dramatic sense, actually, to center the conflict around the first time gems have met another species that stand a chance of understanding them! hence steven is a bridge. that’s a good basis for mirroring two species, a conflict that raises interesting questions about how we, too, see non-human life, the premium we place on emotional connection vs “purpose”, and how even when we learn to value humans that are different from us, we might still fuck around and bulldoze a rainforest, if it’s convenient and we can justify it internally.

and again, it’s more logical. as we know it, the story went “long ago, gems took resources all over the universe, until pink found a species intelligent enough some of them learned to bond with on a deeper level than Cool Pet Worm”, NOT “long ago, gems zapped a bunch of intelligent species - which we will not mention ever, or give any agency in the story - and pink just ignored that, until she randomly decided humans were more important than all those, for no reason, even though she’d met countless intelligent species before”.

the former makes more sense in ~every reading of canon, be it thematic, logical, personal, character-driven, etc~... except the one most favored by SU’s most badfaith of critics, which is that the only “logical” way for the story to go is one in which we can safely label the diamonds as inhumanly, unchangably bad, rather than having base assumptions, motivations and logics that aren’t so different from many non-dictator humans.

i think for some, they protest not because that makes more sense on a thematic, logical or character level, but simply because they want to. they’re USED to being fed that narrative satisfaction has to do with seeing the bad guys face comeuppance, in place of inclusive, welfare-oriented healing. faced with storytelling that rejects their view of justice while also openly being subjective, sublime, and loving of all of its characters, not just the “nice” ones, they see it as a “failure” to be what they’re used to.

if the world CAN systemically heal in a way that includes people you personally don’t forgive, that must be a “flaw”. if those “bad guys” haven’t actually killed hundreds of intelligent species offscreen who have no chance to heal, that doesn’t fuel your justification for the most cynical interpretation of justice possible, so that, too, “must” be a “flaw”. if it’s framed as possible for them to work towards undoing their harm, that deprives you of the satisfaction of edgy punishment for unhealable hurt, so that, too, is of course a “flaw”. any world where healing is possible for everyone, and the perpetrators can contribute, must be a “flaw”, to a mind only concerned with the validity of vengeance.

even when the story is perfectly candid that you’re personally allowed to be hurt and traumatized (like steven - and most characters, really), you’re still allowed to feel... you just can’t expect society as a whole to abandon its “inclusive healing” model and function on your logic; that your pain is solved by vengeance. it isn’t.

in short, cry about it.

#steven universe #homeworld #the diamonds #rose quartz #pink diamond #rose diamond #jasper #su theory #su future #su analysis #and by 'a few issues' i mean 'let me write you a novel about why this was always canon'#i know it must be a big blow if you've decided you're morally superior for hating SU based on fanon assumptions #but that's kinda on you fam. stop listening to bad youtubers. and do indeed cry about it - it's healthy

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drops-of-moonlights · 3 years

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What are your issues with S3 of Winx Club?

Okay, so. I am going to get long and ranty and annoyed overall on this post. I shouldn’t even have to preface this, half of the people that follow me have critical thinking skills I hope, but you can have whatever opinion on S3 and all the things I’m gonna touch on this post, I do not care and you should not either, live your life however the fuck you want yadda yadda yadda. Now:

The first thing that comes to mind is the pacing, and just how fucking terrible it is. Every single event takes so long and its so slow for the first 18-or-so episodes (a lot of situations really did not require two episodes), only to be suddenly kicked into high gear and have 7 different “final” battles one after another. It felt like it was just happening to end the season already and so they could keep working on SOTLK, and like I get you’re working on both and all but you COULD have afforded to at least PRETEND you gave a shit, Rainbow.

Next topic is Valtor, who is my absolute least favorite villain in the series, and yes, I am including the S5-S7 villains on this. This is where it’s not much a fault of the character itself (well. not ENTIRELY a fault of the character), but a fault of both the narrative and (and for this I am petty) the fanbase. Valtor, to me, is the most generic villain in the franchise, a different flavor than Darkar but by no means less bland - Valtor is your standard “hot” prettyboy villain who tries to charm the protagonist to his side with the empty promise of answers, and THAT COULD HAVE BEEN INTERESTING... if the show ever bothered to do anything with it other than Valtor creeping on a senior highschool student for 26 episodes. Because it’s all a farce, there’s not an actual connection between them outside of Valtor feeding her lies about her retconned parent’s backstory (we’ll talk about this more later) and both of them having God’s power inside them. My second point on Valtor is that he singlehandedly ruined the Trix’s characterization to simply be your standard evil henchwomen that thirst after Valtor’s dick because truly they all have terrible taste in men, and nothing else, and it’s annoying as all fuck, ESPECIALLY when you compare the Trix as Darkar’s lackeys a season earlier, where they stayed mostly the same personality-wise and only allied with the Phoenix out of necessity and survival. And the worst part? Valtor doesn’t do shit in the season! Like, at all! He only ever gets Chimera, Cassandra and Diaspro on his side, blinds Aisha and that’s literally it as far as confrontations with the Winx go - outside of fighting them when they get the Water Stars and the three last battles, he spends most of the show’s time fucking around random planets getting weird magic and sitting broodily on a chair, and apparently this makes him a good villain???? Okay, sure.

And since I mentioned them, let’s get on the Water Stars for a bit, and while yes, this is the one part everyone agrees on that was weak as fuck, it still brings attention because WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. All this time there was this antithetical force to the Dragon’s Flame, super-mega-ultra powerful little thingies that could douse the Flame’s power almost permanently, AND YOU ONLY BRING THEM TO ATTENTION NOW AGAINST VAMPIRE AESTHETIC. Do you have any idea how fucking useful they could have been against the Trix in S1???? If they had gotten the little squishy motherfuckers two seasons earlier the War of Magix would have been over quicker. And it’s not like Bloom would have been in much risk, she barely had any Flame left in her.

In a similar situation, we have Enchantix, which is my second most-hated form after Tynix for similar reasons. One, where in the fuck were all the Enchantix fairies during S1? Fairy Dust is supposed to be this OP magic, and could have also been very useful against the Army of Decay. Two, the way to earn Enchantix, for what is retroactively just the final base fairy form, is far too obtuse and complicated for the average fairy, not to mention incredibly limiting - you just have to hope someone from your realm is in a dangerous situation so you can fling yourself into danger and probably die, and all you get for it are some opera gloves and a pair of barefoot sandals. Like sure a super powerful magic upgrade also happens but still, it’s such a specific situation to find yourself in that it’s no wonder no one ever graduates Alfea, it’s literally borderline impossible unless you like traveling. My last point on the transformation, and this one is a bit YMMV, 3 of the 6 Winx did not actually earn Enchantix. Bloom counts for this, but it’s an actual plot point (though it was terribly handled) so I let it slide most of the time, but Musa and Tecna? Musa didn’t even get to sacrifice anything, she just suddenly got the form and that’s it, GALATEA was doing more of a sacrifice to let everyone leave the burning library without her than Musa was. Tecna also got Enchantix without saving anyone from Zenith, and before you even type it out, no, it was never said Tecna saved the entire universe by closing the Omega Portal. None of the three English dubs nor the original Italian ever say this. That’s entirely just fanon. I have headcanonned it away as “some of the prisoners were Zenithian” to justify it for myself, but overall it was very obviously just shoehorned in because as always, the writers don’t know what to do with Tecna.

“But Drops! What about Nabu???” I can already hear you type, and no, I do not like Nabu. I don’t hate him either, outside of the fact I reject the idea of Aisha being into men in any way, shape or form, but he is very much worshipped as the Golden Child in the fandom and I’m tired of it. You can see a better description on my feelings about Nabu (as well as how the fandom loves to demonize Sky for the shit he pulled in S1 but hold nothing against either Brandon or Nabu, who pulled the same shit) here.

There *is* a part of S3 I like, that being the Solaria Usurpation arc, but it’s the one sole thing that I legitimately enjoy in the season and I’m not gonna stick around the fuckton of episodes that interrupt the arc just for that.

But what I hate the most about S3, above all this, is how goddamn irrelevant it is. Outside of getting the Winx Enchantix, NOTHING about the season is remotely relevant lore-wise or plot-wise, and the show itself acknowledges this! Even SOTLK pretends S3 never happened and the girls just got Enchantix somehow! Because of the drive Rainbow had to end the franchise’s original arc with fancy shitty CGI, they ended up making the original last season of the show, what was supposed to be the best thing before the movie, into the biggest waste of time instead. You can really just watch the episodes each girl gets Enchantix and then the final episode and you wouldn’t miss anything at all.

So the TL;DR for all this is “I hate S3 because Valtor sucks, Enchantix sucks, the pacing is garbage and there’s really nothing nice in it outside of like 3 episodes”, and I refuse to rewatch it ever again.

#Drops's rants and ramblings #Drops screams into the abyss for Winx #Winx Club

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petrenocka · 2 years

Text

Can I do a bible theory? is that allowed? Will the bible fandom come after me if I did this? Ah, whatever, here goes nothing.

Disclaimer: My knowledge of biblical worldbuilding and lore is not the best, but I hope this make sense to you.

So! Free Will. The thing that lets humans choose between good and evil. After a human lifetime is over they get assigned either to Hell or Heaven depending on how they exercised this free will. Good people go to Haven, which is the most fulfilling and happy experience possible, or Hell - the place of the ultimate suffering, if they were evil.

Now here i the important part - scripture describes being condemned to either Hell or Heaven as eternal. Meaning that after you are assigned an afterlife you stay there, no matter what. But, souls in afterlife are stil human, meaning they have the capacity to change, the Free Will. Specifically in Catholic bible fanon it is enough for a person to have a genuine change of heart to change the outcome of their divine judgment. Therefore, statistically, there should be good people suffering in hell, and bad people enjoying heaven.

Furthermore - In most teachings plentifulness and doing what you like leads to sin and giving up on material things, humility and a lot of times suffering lead to salvation. So it’s not just that statistically there will be people stuck in wrong places forever, its’s that the circumstances in both heaven and hell inspire such change.

With an infinite amount of souls entering afterlife, this would lead to a Heaven full of sinners, corrupted by the ultimate pleasure of their eternal life, and Hell, full of saints, changed by the untimate suffering of theirs. Kinda defeats the whole point of divine judgment, doesn’t it?

But God isn’t stupid! Dude made quantum physics from scratch, He’s the ultimate 5head. So what solution there might be to this problem that God implemented? Well... there is one thing that lets human souls undergo such changes. The Free Will. I believe that in the bibleverse, after humans die, God takes their free will away.

And that makes a lot of sense too if you think about it! A lot of hardcore boble fans, otherwise known as priests, clam that Free Will is God’s gift to humanity. Such as is life itself, this even being the reason why commiting suicide is consedered a sin. And it also lines up philosophically, because what is life without Free Will. Free Will is also the capasity to change, and growth, change and development is the very essance of what being alive means.

So what if the Free Will is an inseperatable part of Life?

This also lines up with metaphisics of bible’s world, as both Hell and Heaven are afterlifes, and therefore the land of the dead, and Earth is the land of the living. Similarly Heaven is forever good and Hell is forever bad, but Earth can change, as if this ver plane of existance has Free Will, just like it’s inhabitants, and you might already see where this is going.

Also doesn't help that the Udead - lifeless creatures, are most commonly depicted as slaves of something - lacking Free Will, be it instinct or a necromancer, or whatever.

So! To reiterate: Free Will and Life is one and the same. Therefore once you lose your life you also lose your free will. Which would make beings without Free Will dead, or undead, as they do still exists and capable of performing actions. such as souls od deceased humans...

... And Angels.

See, angels don’t have Free Will, they atre stuck with being Good and doing God’s bidding withou qestion. The only time Angels made a choice whas Lucifer’s rebellion against God, which resulted in Luc and his followers be cast into hell, and becoming Demons - beings only capable of doing evil.

So If Free Will means Life, and Angels don’t have it. This would mean that

Angels are Undead

And so are Demons.

#christianity #bible #analysis #theory

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la-carcassa-famiglia · 4 years

Note

yo do tell us about harmonization. i never really cared for the concept tbh i think because i dont really read many fanfics with the sky users (oops) so it doesnt come up often but i am curious to your opinion

Hoo boy I have a lot of thoughts and I’m gonna put it in a read more. Not just for length, but because I do feel like this concept is deeply flawed and I have strong opinions on it

For people who don’t know, harmonization is a fanon interpretation of how the sky flame’s attribute of “harmony” interacts with the other flames. Other flames can “harmonize” with the sky and create a flame bond, to the point where they can all feel each other’s physical/emotional pain or even hear each other’s thoughts. It can vary from author to author but these are the main themes and it’s a surprisingly very widespread thing.

▲ My main issue with it is the extreme codependency that happens between the sky and other flames. It just seems manipulative that because of this bond, you can’t ever leave the sky user, or doing so puts you both in excruciating pain. Even if I think most of Tsuna’s friends are loyal as hell by their own will, people can change and leave you, that’s a part of life. Harmonization takes away that agency and automatically makes the dynamic really unhealthy.

▲ The above point is even worse when they physically can’t be away from each other. Some fics have it so Lambo can’t have other friends?? These characters are all kids and I think this would fuck them up pretty hard developmentally, not to mention a majority of the authors writing these are adults and the theme of possessiveness is so creepy. Like some characters will tell each other “you have to stay with us/me for your safety” and that’s just, not great??

▲ A huge part of KHR is showing how Tsuna develops positive relationships with the people around him, including anyone who isn’t a guardian. I think this concept really undermines his friendships outside of that circle (with Basil, Kyoko, Haru, Enma, etc). It’s like no matter how hard he tries to connect with other people outside of the fucking bond, it doesn’t count as a meaningful relationship.

▲ Another thing that rubs me the wrong way is that the guardians are drawn to Tsuna because of his powerful flames. Again, this also goes against the basis of KHR. Tsuna isn't some powerful badass that people are crawling over themselves to talk with. He's just an average kid who gets bullied. The reason all his guardians are so loyal to him is because he earned their trust by making real connections to them. They've gone through so much together that they're genuinely really close friends because of that, not because of some kind of supernatural property.

▲ I feel like there’s also a huge issue with consent where they can’t choose who they bond with. It’s a fated thing apparently. I’ve heard of a lot of abhorrent fics where Nana was forced to be with Iemitsu because of this and the content is pretty genuinely disgusting.

▲ It's not great how a lot of fics make it so the guardians are the only people that matter to one another. They don't have a life outside of Tsuna at all. At best it makes for bland characterization and at worst no one should rely on one person so heavily.

▲ This is a weaker point because we make fics to deviate from canon but I feel that it’s worth noting: it’s confirmed in canon that flames have no definite correlation to personality. If anything, it’s mainly their role in fights/a group. There are no set rules. It’s like zodiac signs, everyone has one and there are traits associated with them, but they don’t define your entire person. I get why people want to play with the correlation concept because flames are sick as hell but doing that by creating harmonization where it’s so absolutely ingrained in their existence is just... weird.

▲ Harmonization is usually paired with really weird flame lore. Like, they assign personality traits to the flames that are really extreme and just not how the character actually functions. One example is that cloud is supposedly very possessive and territorial, and they make Hibari act like a fucking animal and describe it as pack bond and that's weird as fuck. In the worse fics, it's really just an excuse to have ABO without making it an ABO fic. With minors. It’s so instinctual and animalistic???

▲ There's this whole thing about having one of each flame type to complete the set and feel whole I guess, which is already weird but also contradictory to canon. Tsuna has two mists and Xanxus doesn't have a cloud at all. Did Xanxus flame bond with the robot being powered by his adoptive father? What's going on there.

▲ There are cases where characters will use Rain flames to calm down a sad or angry person. In theory sounds fine, but usually in these fics the other person didn’t consent to it. It’s emotionally manipulative and you’re basically just sedating them. There is no communication going on and it’s treated like it’s a good thing and that the rain user is being helpful. In fact, there’s rarely any good communication in these fics at all. People just use their flames to do everything because they’re such a overwhelmingly big focus.

▲ Harmonization fics often seem like an excuse to put Tsuna in pain by losing everyone he cares about, and it ends up being more deeply uncomfortable than angsty or fun to read.

▲ WHAT THE FUCK IS A FLAME WOMB?? FLAME CHILDREN??? FLUSSY????????? WHAT THE FUCK ILL TAKE YOUR LIFE

#khr #katekyo hitman reborn #THIS GOT SO LONG WHOOPS #apologies if I got redundant #a lot of these points relate to each other #i just... really don't like it #don't even fucking come at me with the 'youre overracting with fiction'#hibari just really takes the brunt of it i think #hes not an animal hes not gonna start talking about caves and hunting and shit #yes ive read a fic where they made him do that #i hid an answer in the illusion #Anonymous

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ficforthought · 3 years

Note

I liked the way you gave 3 answers to a question about Jack visiting Sam & Dean from different POV. Could you expand on the non shipper perspective and God!Jack visiting the boys?

Thanks, anon, I feel like sometimes people don’t always appreciate that being a shipper means being unable to see things objectively in the overall sense of the show, which is entirely wrong. We know canon from fanon. I’m a fan of the show first and foremost and as such view it in a non shipper way the majority of the time, but when Wincest and/or platonic brotherly devotion is thrust in our faces on a regular basis it’s hard not to wander into that territory because it’s canon, it’s just up to us whether we see it romantically or not.

So, on that note, the original ask is here and I guess the only way I can expand on it is to mirror what we’ve seen on screen as well as give a bit of headcanon. I’ve always seen the way Jack views the boys, and subsequently what kinds of things he’d go to them for, quite differently.

Sam provides Jack with emotional and intellectual support, he’s more approachable and is always as honest as he can be. Due to the fact that Sam can relate to Jack’s situation I think the kid felt an immediate connection with him, and that only got stronger. I think Jack would go to Sam with anything he’s read up on and has questions about, and also theoretical things like lore, Sam’s his go to. I think Jack has always felt safe around Sam so he seeks him out for emotional comfort, whether that’s through encouraging words or physical touches like a pat on the shoulder, a hand on the back etc, because even though the Winchesters aren’t the most touchy feely guys in everyday circumstances, Sam is the one who did literally reach out from the beginning. The giant puppy we all adore causes people to gravitate to him and Jack is no exception, and Sam became a father figure to Jack more or less straight away - even Lucifer saw that, think the ‘Daddy Sammy’ comment.

Dean provides Jack with support in a different way. Obviously Jack was scared of Dean from the start, especially after being told Dean would kill him, but he also took that as a challenge, and Jack’s desire and need to prove himself to Dean is something that I love. He was tenacious, he was so desperate to do the right thing and get Dean’s approval for it. I feel like he definitely had a hero worship thing going on as well, and anything practical about hunting or life in general (think asking about dating/sex, learning to drive etc.) then Dean’s his go to guy. Although I do see Dean as a father figure to Jack I also see him a dual role because he’s like the cool uncle as well. I feel like Jack *could* go to Dean to get some of his emotional needs taken care of - the older man did offer an olive branch and tell Jack he’d done a good job - and we know that after time Dean had no problem showing his physical affection for the kid by way of hugs and neck grabs, mirroring a lot of things about the way Dean is on screen with Sam, which I love.

(I’m still VERY salty about the fact that Dean said that Jack wasn’t family and never apologised for it, we all know that nobody comes close to Sam for Dean but that was just a step too far for me. It’s not often I’m *really* disappointed in either of the boys, but that’s one thing that will stay with me. Also, the fact that neither of them hugged Jack goodbye in Inherit The Earth, because if there’s anyone that deserved a hug it’s that wonderful boy!)

In terms of God!Jack visiting and going to them for advice, I can totally see it happening. We can’t even begin to imagine how much Jack’s life changed, so much responsibility on his shoulders like that, *of course* he’s going to need his dads. He must be missing them like crazy, so in my mind he’ll be there for movie nights, pizza and beer, just enjoying spending time together, and seeing the brothers happy and in Heaven together after so long apart. Jack said he wasn’t going to be hands on but that doesn’t mean he won’t have dilemmas to deal with, he might have ethical considerations as well as practical ones, so of course he’s going to them for advice and support. He adores Sam and Dean so their opinions are so important to him, and although ultimately decisions are his, having a sounding board is always a good thing. Sam and Dean can offer the human voice and also give the benefit of their life experience, because although Jack hadn’t been on Earth long he has all that theoretical knowledge but not so much practical experience, so they can help with that. And hugs, they totally give him hugs, tell him how proud they are of him and well they should because he’s special, and precious and deserves all the adoration! *sniffle* 🥰🥰🥰

#asked and answered #ask ficforthought #my headcanon #sam and dean are jack's daddies #jack kline #too precious for this world #my special boy #my beautiful boys

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big4girl · 4 years

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ROTBTD TAG GAME

Answer these questions and tag your rotbtd friends! And please don't reblog this, put your answer in a new post 😊✨

name/nickname? You can call me J 😊

how did you get into rotbtd? Well, I watched Tangled the year it came out for my birthday and it quickly became my favorite movie at the time. The internet spiraled me and I found it when I was in middle school. I thought it was the best thing ever.

what made you stay/come back? I jumped in and out during middle school but I really dove head first when I hit high school and started writing, reading, and supporting the fandom a lot. And after that I’ve never left and I love that there’s still plenty of people who are fans.

out of the four movies, which one is your favorite? Again, Tangled holds a special place in my heart, but I truly love them all and I think Rise of the Guardians deserved more than it got. If they re-released it I think it would do much better now.

Dreamworks Dragons or Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure? RTA because it’s the only one I’ve watched all of and I have a big thing for lore and fairytales but I really do need to rewatch Dragons the whole way through.

which one do you prefer to be made a sequel of, Brave or Rise of the Guardians? Hard one. I think Rotg should get a show rather than a sequal because they have so much lore behind them. Maybe a Brave sequel would be fun to see how Merida’s grown as a person. Maybe something surrounding her becoming queen, kind of like Once Upon a Time did.

OTP/BrOTP(s)? I ship them all but I shipped Jackunzel and Mericcup first. I also hard Brotp Astrid and Eugene with Jack lol.

favorite character(s)? I love them all. I don’t really know that I have a bias towards one character more than another.

favorite AU(s)? I used to like Hogwarts AUs but now I’m more into the fantasy, seasons, and mythical stuff like that. I just want them to coexist, you know?

pick one! favorite B4 house placement in Hogwarts AU? | favorite B4 nation/bending headcanons in ATLA AU? I’ll do both. Personally, I could move them around unless I have further confirmation, but I like the classic Gryffindor Merida, Slytherin Jack, Hufflepuff Hiccup, and Ravenclaw Rapunzel. As for ATLA I think Waterbender Rapunzel (healing, change, “Deep sense of community and love”), Firebender Merida (Power, desire, and will “the energy to drive and achieve what they want”), Airbender Jack (Freedom, fun, peace), and Nonbender but Earth Kingdom Hiccup (Diverse, strong, persistant and enduring).

pick one! since this is 2020, any hot takes you want to give us? | what old fanon tropes that you still enjoyed to this day? Hot takes? I don’t know. I think that this fandom would still be mildly popular if there wasn’t so many ship wars and it wasn’t considered “cringey” to like this kind of stuff after a while.

Any fic recs? Or if you couldn't think of any, what was the last rotbtd fanfiction that you read? (It could be an old work or a recent one, do share!) I have a whole reading list for myself set up on wattpad but I haven’t had the time to read nor write lately since I’m going to college soon, but I love when people publish one-shots or short blurbs on here that I can read in a few minutes.

I tag all of you who want to do this! I’d love to see some other opinions.

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