#not tagging as anti because this post isn’t about picking sides

[anxiouspotatorants]

Alrighty, time to get into my theory about how each of Rory’s three main love interests represent different versions of the bad boy trope! So, I’ve seen some discourse about how certain characters are not actually bad boys and how others are and how that relates to Rory, and it made me go into this big reflection over what defines the bad boy archetype and how it’s changed from iteration to iteration. Long story short: it made me realize that all three of the boys (yes all of them) are one version each. So here’s a massive rant where I explain how that works, with Dean as the «good boy gone bad», Jess as the «bad boy made human» and Logan as the «rich bad boy».

Note: I am writing this as someone who ships literati, so know that my analysis will be biased. That being said, I want to focus on how the boys inform the bad boy archetype (and the other way around) and not on the value of their relationships to Rory. So think of this as a defense/deconstruction of certain characters rather than another round of «who should Rory have ended up with?».

Out of all the boys, Dean is the one who is rarely defined as a bad boy, and with good reason. Seasons 2 and 3 played him up as the «good» against Jess’ «bad», he is routinely described as the perfect first boyfriend (and by Lorelai no less), and he’s the one with the most traditional small town outlook on things (liking the concept of a housewife, being a chaste boyfriend in the first round, getting along with the parents etc). But that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of people despised him by the end of the show, since he cheated on his wife with Rory and made her the other woman. And I think this very action is what solidifies him within the good boy gone bad-trope. I haven’t found a lot of writing on this sub-trope (although one could argue it falls under the face-heel turn trope), and it has very vague limits, but I believe that it exists anyway. A good boy gone bad is a male character that started out in a piece of fiction as all around «good». He respects rules, gets along with parents, might even be a bit of a «nice guy» with/without the entitlement. But something in the story (sometimes a build up) will trigger the good boy’s transformation into a bad one. Sometimes it’s getting sick of being an outsider/underdog, sometimes it’s triggered by romantic conflict. I would argue that this transformation begins for Dean when Jess and Rory get together. While Dean has been a jealous and arguably possesive boyfriend before he breaks up with Rory, he still hasn’t done anything that properly makes him a “bad boy”. But once Rory and Jess are a couple everything changes: he threatens Jess in private, insinuates that he can manipulate the situation to his favour and that he can «steal her back», physically fights Jess at one point and arguably marries Lindsay in part to rouse jealousy in Rory. This transformation is fulfilled once he has sex with Rory for the first time while still being married. He might continue keeping the good boy image, and his infidelity is definitely turned into something that harms Rory’s image more than his, but his actions still qualify for the subtrope. (I also want to note that Dean is introduced in season 1 with a leather jacket and love of motorcycles so… do what you will with that information)

In spite of how often Jess is defined as the bad boy of the show — and by other characters in the show at that — a lot of viewers don’t actually think of him as one. And that’s understandable. I think a lot of people in my generation and onwards have grown up with very simplistic iterations of bad boys that follow the formula to a T. They’re aggressive, violent, wildly sexual and usually downright toxic (see: After-series, Jacob post-transformation in Twilight, 90% of erotica novels). And the women in these stories usually exist to «give in to animalistic urges» and heal the bad boys with their love. Taking even the quickest glance at Rory and Jess shows you how this is not the case. He’s more basket case than sex god, is repeatedly denied second chances at love with Rory, and has to heal and improve without her, out of frame. But I don’t necessarily think this makes him less of a «bad boy». While I despise the overuse of the term «realism» in popular media analysis, Jess is arguably a «realistic bad boy». He embodies most classic bad boy tropes (if not all of them), but each trope is then humanized within him. Jess gets into fights, but the two moments we know about in detail are with a bully and with Dean (and both fights are initiated by the others, not Jess). He’s the first boyfriend that Rory acknowledges/explores her sexuality with, but they never technically consumate (and good for Rory, the Keg! Max! scene is a massive yikes). He’s a high school drop-out, but because he worked too many shifts at Walmart. He reads classic literature (yes, a lot of bad boys in media do this) but is a total nerd about it (see: Bukowski v Austen). He has mommy- and daddy-issues, but they are fleshed out and given the space to exist on their own rather than as in relation to Rory and making her love him more. And while he heals through love, it is not through the active romantic love of Rory, but the familial love of Luke and his eventual love for himself. A crucial factor for Jess is that he gets to exist outside of the romance. His most important relationship in the show is perhaps not with Rory but with his uncle Luke. It is this relationship that introduces him to Stars Hollow and it’s this relationship that officially heals him. The last time we see Jess in the original run, when Rory admits to trying to hook up with him as revenge against Logan, Jess claims that he deserves better. And he does. He’s a human, and more than that, he has spent years working to become the person he has become and to get a chance at a loving and respectful relationship. Jess still loves Rory enough when he lets her go to not hold a grudge, but he also now loves himself enough to know he deserves better than to be the other guy twice. He is the bad boy made human.

But whenever people argue that Jess isn’t a bad boy, they usually claim that another boy in the show is. And while I still think Jess is a bad boy, I don’t think that means that Logan isn’t one. Logan simply fits into a very specific subtrope: the rich bad boy. I can’t trace the origins of the rich bad boy, but my (and probably many’s) first introduction to the trope was Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl. Where the classic bad boy has a problem of reputation and in some cases specifically struggles economically, the rich bad boy is partly bad because of his wealth. The daddy issues come from a tyrannical capitalist father who expects his son to be a carbon copy. Instead of a motorcycle he drives limousines and expensive cars. His sexuality is informed by lavish parties, a casanova-lifestyle and general hedonism. While the classic bad boy drags the woman «down» into his world, the rich bad boy drags her «up» into his world of wealth and «civilized» violence. The woman exists to bring the rich bad boy «down to earth». To teach him values of fidelity and kindness, and to show him he is more than his money/work. And as a reward the woman gets to live out the materialistic fantasy: expensive gifts, exclusive balls, luxurious trips around the globe, you name it. If the classic bad boy is about the inherent eroticism of anger/violence, the rich bad boy is about the inherent eroticism of wealth. And Logan fits this archetype to a T. His initial relationship with Rory is «no strings attached», he apologizes with expensive gift giving, and he introduces her to exclusive hedonistic circles like the Life and Death Brigade. He cheats, he recklessly gets into dangerous situations to simply feel something, he has a dysfunctional relationship with his father, and he loves Rory partly because she simultaneously does and doesn’t «belong» in his world. I also think that either end for him (breaking out of his father’s shadow or falling back in it) is realistic for the rich bad boy. Which end he gets simply depends on whether the author desires an endgame relationship for the rich bad boy or not.

So that’s it. Mind you, me categorizing Rory’s boyfriends as different kinds of bad boys doesn’t necessarily mean I would tie them exclusively to that trope. The Gilmore Girls writers did an incredibly good job at writing fleshed out characters that grew outside of their stereotypes and created their own molds. And one could argue that if you make the definition of a bad boy broad enough, most flawed boyfriends will fit into the trope in some way. That being said, I’m currently standing by my analysis. Not only do I think it’s fun to view the guys through such a lens, I think it helps flesh out Rory too. She isn’t necessarily drawn to ‘bad’ men, but her track record does show that she deals with a lot of inner conflict about her love life, and that this is externalized with incredibly flawed (and sometimes ill-timed) relationships to men who have a lot to figure out themselves. Honestly I’ll probably pull a full analysis on her love life one day too, just not yet.

At the end of the day I think who people root for depends on what kind of bad they’re either drawn to or willing to excuse. If you like the idea of someone going mad/bad with love, you might prefer Dean. If you like a character who is undeniably human (as in has good sides but can be so so so flawed), odds are you’re a Jess-person. And if there’s just something about grand gestures and finding a «real» person in a sea of «fake», you’re probably a fan of Logan. It really is a case of personal preference.

#I’ve had this in my drafts for over a year and finally it’s time #I wanted to add a ‘Poor Little Rich Boy’ by Regina Spektor reference for Logan so bad #but yeah just because I ship literati doesn’t mean I don’t think the other ships are valid #I’m genuinely starting to think that the point of Rory’s loves is less about a competition for who is best #and more about an inkblot test that allows the audience to analyse and ship as they see fit #gilmore girls #gilmore girls spoilers #jess mariano #logan huntzberger #dean forester #not tagging as anti because this post isn’t about picking sides #literati #gilmore girls meta #gilmore girls discourse #the potato rants

[observers-journal]

I dont know about you but recently I just saw someone here on tumblr using the Tenoch Huerta tagged doing the whole "you people should believe all victims because now there are mutiple woman accusing him. But you will defend white people like Ezra Miller"

Bffr.

Having you not been keeping pace and pretending to be ignorant. Many people on tumblr have been showing evidence that Elena isn't a victim, that all her so called "acts for women rights" is just her wanting political power, how she is light skin Latina who follows political that are anti-LGBT and trans. DOESN'T ANY OF THAT SCREAM 🚩

But know I bet you the who posted that isn’t keeping up with Mexcian news or how many people from MEXICO are admitting they thave either been threatened or assaulted by Elena or her family. Or better yet any document evidence against Elena that show poof she is a feminist. Even the other actress and feminist aren't clean one of them refined a man's life after convincing another actress she was SA or how the other feminist is a FRIEND of Elena which would've been fine since friend supporting friend if Elena didn't had such a dark history.

And I'll tell you this much. When this SA allegations came up I was on Elena side, however knowing Tenoch slander history I did found it suspicious. When more evidence came our that was AGAINST Elena I realized she a victim anymore regardless of her acid attack. Even if the evidence that Elena provide from her anon victims they still falled apart. While yes Tenoch being silence since the allegations is suspicious we don't know what going on on his end but I think when a other females that claim the FEMALE ACTIVIST is threating them, blocking any JOURNALIST who wants more of the story, the company that she is accusing to protect Tenoch providing EVIDENCE that they paid her, and looking beyond the Tenoch situation ND more towards Elena. People need to realize to stopping believing in the victims if there is so much evidence against them.

I think whatvi hate about this situation is that since this event is taking place in Mexico is harder for American media pick up to story unlike stories like Jonathan Majors case or the Johnny Deep case. And even when media picked up the SA allegations they didn't bother to continue their research and then dropping it leaving only the headlines the SA allegation 🙄. When there is so much more to this case that is proving innocence of Tenoch. I think unless there are other Americans who are still keeping up with this story they will know that Tenoch is innocent while Elena is a piece of shit while the majority would see his allegations.

That's a great take on the issue, Anon!

I find it infuriating, but I'm not surprised. In today's time of information overdose, all anyone cares about is the sensational news. So the allegations story made for a nice spicy, juicy piece of gossip, and it spread like wildfire. Coz people love to gossip, oh look at this actor (and racists going to the extent of labeling him as a sexual offender/addict coz he's a brown man 🙄).

Nobody cares about context, nuance, or bothering to do a little bit of research. Coz who will put all that effort! Because if anybody put even the slightest of effort, it is crystal clear who is innocent and who is not in this case. In fact, the more people here and on Twitter are investigating, the more disturbing things are emerging. We can now see there's a group of people who have come together with the sole purpose of destroying Tenoch's reputation and career.

I am a 1000% sure Tenoch is dealing with this just fine on his end. Unfortunately he is used to shit like this, although perhaps not at this scale. But I'm certain he's preparing a legal case, and there was a video posted yesterday wherein a Mexican lawyer covered the legalities of this case. All the evidence is in his favor. It's good he's staying away from social media, it will do no good to his career or his case.

I wish our group here had the means to make all this investigation gain more traction. We are trying our best, so are the folks on Twitter. But I'm also of the opinion that the American media and people have forgotten about it already. The public tends to have short-term memory. Do journalists care about clearing a man's name they very conveniently labelled as guilty? Of course not 🙄 most journalism is trash these days, barring few.

#anon asks #tenoch huerta #tenoch huerta mejia #jose tenoch huerta mejia

[mommalosthermind]

How do you block and filter fics with rampant racist micro aggression since that's never tagged properly and the writer will have a white meltdown if they're ever confronted with the fact their fic is racist?

I honestly can’t tell if this was in earnest or if it’s meant to be another Gotcha! Attempt from one of the anti-censorship posts I’ve annoyed people with, so I’m going to assume it’s the first and do my best to answer.

As a white woman, I am definitely not someone who should be speaking on racism, since the systemic issues I deal with are very very different.

Unfortunately, though, your experience with such a fic is going to mirror what I’d imagine is also your experience with most other forms of media which don’t flag that kind of behavior: bail. Back out. Don’t finish the thing that is upsetting you. Possibly, (as I’ve done with authors on issues that hit home for me) take note of who’s behind the thing so you know to avoid them in the future, as they’ve broken that trust.

This is also known as curating your space. I don’t remember if I go on that rant in the other two (three?) posts that seem to have picked up, but that’s the READER’s side of the equation. Find your garden and tend it well, keep it how you like it, because it is for you and you alone.

My job as a writer is to tag to the best of my ability so you know exactly what you’re bringing into your garden. I don’t want to spoil your flowers anymore than I want someone to trample on mine.

Hopefully, as people talk about this more, authors will be more open to tagging/ modifying and/or adding a footnote for things exactly like this.

Micro aggressions are especially difficult, since (again, pulling purely from my lived experiences) getting folk to agree on what ‘counts’ is rough. But as an author— I want to share my stories. That’s the point! If I’ve written it, then I damn well better be self-aware enough to tag it, and be willing to ADD TAGS so I’m not breaking trust with the people I’m trying to give nice things to. Hopefully that makes sense?

I’m gonna say that again since I feel it needs it: if you’re comfortable enough to write the Real World problem happening, you’re fully capable of being able to recognize why someone might like the warning. Be kind. Tags only work if you use them.

On AO3, I believe they recently made it possible to block an author entirely, so they no longer show up in the results for your searches.

I’ve run across exactly one author I’d have blocked if it was possible at the time, because he refused to add tags to a story that… really needed tags. And, going through the comments in later chapters, dozens of people have asked him to update tags. He claims that doing so will ‘ruin the story’ despite the graphic raped-to-death-then-magically-revived bit having literally nothing to do with the plot at all. Instead, it comes out of literally nowhere in an otherwise really well written tale, and was deeply deeply upsetting to the point that his response to my first chapter squee was “yeah, tell me if you still like it after chapter X”. (Unfortunately i am a very fast reader and had already gotten that far and bailed immediately. Dude if you KNOW it’s THAT upsetting to so many people ADD THE TAG.)

I’ll never read anything he’s written again, just like I refuse to read anything by JKR ( awful human) or Terry Goodkind (I can’t stand how he handles his female characters. At all.)

Obviously these two examples are not identical, but it’s the main comparison I have on hand.

This isn’t meant to sound like I’m belittling or downplaying that concern at all. But until people get better at tagging—and I really wish traditional books and other media would ALSO tag, because I’m very very tired of running into Specific Things without any fucking warning— you have to protect yourself and your happy place by putting up a fence, and booting unsavory things right back over it.

—side note: for those worried about spoiling the plot you can…skip the tags... just know you’re choosing to walk in blind. OR! And I wish i could figure it out—you can add! A hyperlink! That takes you to the footnote at the BOTTOM to add things that deserve a warning but might be spoilers! There’s even a tag for that! ‘More tags in notes!’ These are good and useful things! Use them so your readers can better curate their spaces!—

The system isn’t perfect by any means. There are a million ways to improve, and we’re trying! But please, please y’all use the damn tags because right now it’s the only system we’ve got. Take care of each other.

#momma talks #answered asks #anon #Not sure i worded this well but i fuckin tried damn it #ao3 #tags #racism #fics #curating your spaces #writing

[sophieinwonderland]

Hi! I know the Dreamland System irl (been friends since high school) and I’ve been in the tulpa community way longer than they have. Coming up on 6 years, actually! But could you cool it with talking about them (Halberd) pls? I know they’re hospitalized at the moment but it’s unnerving to see you talking about them regularly like this. Do you think you would mind talking about something other than a traumatized vulnerable system in need of serious help?

I don’t follow you (but from tulpa to tulpa - hi!!) And honestly I don’t agree with a lot of Hal’s alters’ takes, but it just doesn’t seem right, what you’re doing. I know you don’t know them, but they were majorly traumatized and ultimately assaulted back when we were in high school which all started from people telling lies about them behind their back.

Hopefully they won’t know about what you’ve been saying here, but I just thought I’d shoot you a heads up because you might not know what they’ve gone through and how that affects them today. Even though Hal probably isn’t going to see this, I thought it would be the right thing to ask you to leave them alone for their sake. I’m really worried about them!

If it would be of any benefit, I could maybe pass along a message to them about your feelings and how their actions have affected you too! I can see how they’ve been kind of hypocritical about this, but as far as I know their concerns with racism and stuff were always about your actions and not you specifically! They’ve gotten into activism over the last few years and I can assure you while they may be misguided or misinformed, their intentions are good. From what I know from our conversations about existing as a system online, they’re mostly trying to stand up for marginalized people in the system community.

I’m not the one picking them up from the hospital, but I am a dear friend of theirs and will be in touch with them after they’ve been released. Let me know if I can pass a message along! It would do them and my own system a lot of good to see this put to rest.

(You don’t have to post this if it makes you uncomfy of course! I hope you and your host are staying safe and hydrated ❤️)

I'm sorry. I didn't know what they went through. I do... wish that they had considered their own actions before the posts they made about me for all that time, and how that can hurt others.

Anyway, I think I've gotten out most of what I needed to say and won't mention them again after this post.

This post... does also get a little venty too though, so there's your warning.

This has been... a really sucky position to be in... being attacked and smeared by someone for months, finally saying a couple small things about them, and triggering this type of reaction. I'm having to defend myself from abuse accusations, while still trying to put out fires they set and continuously stoked (the zoophilia allegations, being a major one) and still being upset at them tagging me in response to a post where I explained that tagging people makes it easier for potential harassers to get to them.

So I'm in a position where I feel like I need to share my side of the story before the attacks against me escalate and get even further out of hand.

And I feel like I need to balance all of this while... genuinely not wanting to cause this person I used to like and get along with harm.

I mean, part of the reason that I didn't address the personal attacks for so long was because I know that I have a large blog and some of my followers can be a tad overzealous. (I love this community, but when you have 1500 followers, it only takes a small percentage of them to get aggressive and decide to resort to sending people hate anons. Another reason that I generally avoid engaging with anti-endos directly. Despite them taking it as a personal offense that I often screenshot without tagging them, this is done for the protection of the people I respond to. I generally only tag these days when I deem it absolutely necessary.)

I took a small precaution with my vent post and turned off reblogs to make it less likely they'll find it. I'll turn off reblogs on this one too.

And in a perfect world, that would be enough. I blocked their accounts that weren't blocking me already. They shouldn't see my posts.

And yet I can't shake the feeling their friend group is still watching everything I say, discussing it in that server of theirs, and will probably send it directly to them once they're out. And so any precautions I take to avoid hurting them further, while still trying to defend myself, are likely moot.

As for passing on a messages about how their actions affected me... I don't know what the point is.

Why would I want you to tell somebody dealing with suicidal ideation right now how much it hurts to see someone you used to like and respect turn against you? To have them namecall and attack you constantly? All while you stay quiet because you feel like anything you say will make things worse? (And yes, it does feel extremely personal when my name is mentioned constantly on their syscourse blog.)

Maybe there was a time to have that conversation with them but that time has long since passed.

Telling them that right now doesn't seem productive at all and only causes more strife.

If their other friends do decide to show them this last vent of mine, then that's on them. I've done what I can to keep this post from getting beyond my own blog. But I'm not going to ask somebody to deliver that message to somebody who is vulnerable right now because them knowing would only serve to make me feel better.

I guess... if you want to pass on a message... tell them that I'm sorry that I hurt them... tell them that I hope they're well... and ask that they not contact me or @ me again. Maybe that sounds cold, but I genuinely believe that's going to be the healthiest thing for everyone involved.

(Actually, if you don't mind, maybe ask them to avoid any accounts that have them blocked since last I heard, they were talking about remaking their post @'ing Eeveecraft on their main blog since Eeveecraft only blocked the syscourse blog... that's very much not okay. And I certainly don't want to see them develop a habit of that.)

There. That's it. Now I've said everything I have to say on the matter.

Thank you for being a good friend to them. I'm glad they someone like you looking out for them. 💖

#syscourse

[ddyfckr]

WHAT  NOT  TO  DO  WHEN  INTERACTING  WITH  MY  BLOG PLEASE  REPOST  FROM  THE  SOURCE :     DO  NOT  REBLOG !

BASICS !

NAME / ALIAS :     Kraehe

AGE :     over  25

PRONOUNS :     she / her

BLOG  TYPE :     single muse,  selective,  mutuals only,  private

TYPE  OF  MUSES :     canon

GENERALITIES !

TRIGGERS  PEOPLE  MUST  TAG :     necrophilia,  bestiality,  trypophobia

INTEREST  TRACKER / CHECKER :     i  don't  have  one

REBLOG  KARMA :     i  practice  it  sometimes

RULE  PASSWORDS :     i  don’t  have  one,  i  send  passwords

3 - 5  ESSENTIAL  RULES  PEOPLE  HAVE  TO  RESPECT

antis  to  not  follow  me.     i’ve  already  had  to  block  a  few  people  who  have  in  their  rules  they  won’t  interact  w/  those  who  write  problematic  topics…     despite  the  fact  that  i  literally  state  in  my  rules  i  write  problematic  topics !     read  my  rules,  it’s  obvious  when  you  don’t.

i  don’t  really  have  rules,  besides  my  previous  statement,  that  i  expect  others  to  abide  by.    just  as  long  as  people  act  like  adults,  tag  their  posts    &.     are  chill,  i  don’t  really  care  about  what  people  do  on  their  blog

3 - 5  IMPORTANT  PET  PEEVES  TO  KEEP  IN  MIND

vaguing.     it  makes  me  super  anxious     &.     nervous  because  i  don’t  know  who  to  trust,  whether  i  even  should  to  begin  w/  or  like  i  have  to  pick  a  side  without  me  even  knowing  the  who     &.     what’s  going  on.     at  the  very  least,  tell  me  it’s  not  a  big  thing  so  i  don’t  have  to  worry

not  informing  me  if  something  i  do  is  bothering  you.    ya  got  two  options  fam,  either  tell  me  what’s  going  on  so  we  can  work  it  out  civilly    &.     come  to  an  understanding,  or  just  block  me.    it’s  all  good,  we’re  all  here  to  have  a  chill  time - curate  your  online  experience.    i’ll  do  the same

pressuring  me  to  join  servers.    it’s  happened  in  the  past - no  is  a  complete  sentence

not  respecting  my  portrayal

getting  onto  a  soapbox     &.    telling  others  what  they  should / shouldn’t  roleplay  or  write.    you’re  an  adult - you  can  block, you  can  blacklist    &.    you  can  unfollow.    people  can  ship / write  what  they  want,  no  justifications  or  trauma  required

2 - 5  THINGS  THAT  WILL  LEAD  TO  INSTANT  ( SOFT )  BLOCKING

if  i  don’t  vibe  w/  your  blog / portrayal     —     this  one  isn’t  bad  or  anything,  it  happens

if  i  get  insecure when  mutuals  interact  w/  duplicates  /  duplicate  anxiety     —     again,  it  happens.    doesn’t  mean  i’m  trying  to  start  shit  or  started  hating  anyone,  i’m  just  kind of pathetic  at  times

2 - 5  REASONS  YOU  DON'T  TO  FOLLOW  SOMEONE

if  they  have  ‘ don’t  follow  me  if  you  write  XYZ / are  a  proshipper / interact  with  - insert  dozens  users  here - ’  or  any  variation  thereof  in  their  rules

if  they  have  ‘ you’re  allowed  to  warn  me  about  users  with  current  problematic  evidence ’  in  their  rules.     i  think  we  all  generally  do  this  w/  our  closer  mutuals / friends    &.     that’s  fine !     but  when  you  declare  it  in  such  a  way,  it  makes  it  seem  like  you’re  almost  on  the  lookout  for  ‘ problematic ’     (   i  use  that  term  loosely   )    users constantly     &.     that  makes  me  side  eye  you  hard

if  you  proudly  declare  yourself  to  be  pro  callout

disorganized  blogs / layout / formatting,  low  effort  blogs,  uncut  posts,  lack  of  overall  aesthetic.     shallow ?     to  a  certain  point,  yes     &.     i  do  apologize,  but  it’s  just  personal  preference.    it’s  not  a  dealbreaker  though - if  your  writing  is  stellar     &.    you  clearly  put  effort  into your  muse,  that  trumps  all.    the  opposite  is  true  as  well :     pure  aesthetics,  extremely  heavy  formatting  that  i  can  barely  read / comprehend  w/  absolutely  no  writing  is  a  dealbreaker

lack  of  age.     i’m  really  only  interested  in  writing  w/  people  21+.     ideally,  it’d  be  25+  but  that  would  narrow  my  search  for  roleplay  partners  immensely.     but  yeah,  age  has  to  be  somewhere  on  the  blog  for  me  to  even  consider  following  back

TAGGED BY :     nobody.     original  HERE TAGGING :     @bigveee @succu4life @goetiia @ladiesofhell @fizziifrxg @jesterslut @kugel-bitch @mobstah

#❮ * 𝗔𝗥𝗖 𝒊 [ . . . ] ooc : 𖤐 ── dash game . ❯ #❮ * 𝗔𝗥𝗖 𝒊 [ . . . ] ooc : 𖤐 ── mun . ❯

[drunkengodsofslaughter]

On the topic of actor opinion, I absolutely agree with what you guys said. People pick and choose what actors say and what they think is then canon. Like Natalia mentioned countless times that Nancy can be cruel but it gets ignored. Same with her saying Steve was Nancy's first love, while I personally also don't agree with that given how in the show Nancy emotionally cheated from the beginning, people also ignore her because it shatters their illusion that Steve was good to Nancy at one point, so much that he couldn't surpress her emotions for a year or so.

I also hate how Dacre denied in interviews that Billy was racist and that he simply was protective of Max. It just gave people an excuse to ignore the whole racism argument when it's clearly there in the show. They also ignore Caleb when he says Billy was racist towards Lucas. Like two actore two opinions what should you believe now? If you play a questionable character you should own up to it. I don't mind actors giving inside to their characters, I know Dacre fought hard to try to humanize Billy and he related to him on the abuse level but he shouldn't have downplayed Billy's obvious faults. You can acknowledge both. And I get why you're so anti Billy if his stans harassed you at one point. Like the other anon said there are extreme people on both sides. I've seen people wish death on others, calling them names just for liking Billy and the other way around. Both sides fuel this war which just escalates. You should be able to put your opinions on Billy in the tag, without getting harassed as an anti when you analyze his behavior. But because his stans get bullied and also harassed, they are extremely hostile towards anything negative even if it's written in a respectful way. This is just an observation I made the past few months. I had two friends being harassed by Billy stans who purposefully go in the anti tag to argue. But there are also Billy stans who keep it respectful. There should be a way to discuss his character in a way that's respectful. Like I find him interesting with how Billy reacts to abuse and what it does to him, while still being able to recognize his actions hurt other people and should be discussed as such.

sorry about the late answer. anyway yeah people really be picky about the actor interviews and it’s soo weird to me. ngl i don’t really know what natalia says about nancy cuz nancy isn’t a character i think that much about except when i’m discussing her with other people (also i don’t really watch those interviews) but yeah people just pick and choose.

honestly anything that dacre says about billy annoys me and it’s just him giving the advantage to billy stan’s despite him saying/going harmful shit. to me dacre is just weird about this whole thing. the fact that billy’s racism is just throw under the rug annoys me soo much especially cuz billy stan’s just always ignore that shit and when you bring it up they’re like ‘well his father was like that’ BUT BILLY IS THE ONE DOING THE ACTIONS ON SCREEN! like bro they need common sense and need to stop harassing people who don’t like billy (yes i’m glaring at that one person who purposely goes into anti billy tags and argues with people about billy’s horrible actions). lol typed this out before fully reading bjt yeahhhh exactly everything that you said! i never would go send hate to billy stan’s i’ve only lashed out when they’ve been mean to me like constantly replying in my posts about how billy wasn’t obviously going to run over the boys because what was he going to do leave their bodies there like he would have gotten caught and he had to think about getting arrested like it’s such a weird thing to say. yeahhh anyway point is people are so weird about billy and it’s just weird and annoying at this point

#stranger things #answered asks

[ashpentagram]

I’m not an anti Vivziepop kind of person nor blog so seeing people reblog my stuff and tag it like it is is actually kind of funny because critiquing isn’t the same as being “anti” anything. You can enjoy basic concepts and things and not be a hater. I do hate some choices and I’m rather blunt when it comes to that sort of thing, but it’s not like… “I hate the creator and I hate the show and I’m spewing unconstructive hate and opinions hoping to garner attention from others who agree.”

It’s chill if you take my opinions as that I guess, it’s not really the point of them being written out there though. I mostly write my posts from the place of a fellow writer and as a once-die-hard fan who had some of the rosiest glasses on. It’s not impossible to enjoy content and have no deeper desire to pick it apart, and it’s fine to enjoy anything at purely face value, but I think labeling all forms of critique as “anti” or “hate” is a bit silly and only perpetuates a further divide between people in an already constantly on-edge fandom.

I don’t really consider myself as part of the fandom mostly because where I once felt very welcome and very safe has kind of become a steady source of agitation because people can be really really annoying about it on both sides of the spectrum people around this content.

Not entirely sure the point of this is, but basically, if you see my posts on here tagged as anti, just understand I’m not tagging them like that. I tag my stuff as critical, but never anti. Have a good night. Hopefully I find energy to work on that stolitz post at some point because I need to completely organize my thoughts on it.

[fozmeadows]

race & culture in fandom

For the past decade, English language fanwriting culture post the days of LiveJournal and Strikethrough has been hugely shaped by a handful of megafandoms that exploded across AO3 and tumblr – I’m talking Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Dr Who, the MCU, Harry Potter, Star Wars, BBC Sherlock – which have all been overwhelmingly white. I don’t mean in terms of the fans themselves, although whiteness also figures prominently in said fandoms: I mean that the source materials themselves feature very few POC, and the ones who are there tended to be done dirty by the creators.

Periodically, this has led POC in fandom to point out, extremely reasonably, that even where non-white characters do get central roles in various media properties, they’re often overlooked by fandom at large, such that the popular focus stays primarily on the white characters. Sometimes this happened (it was argued) because the POC characters were secondary to begin with and as such attracted less fan devotion (although this has never stopped fandoms from picking a random white gremlin from the background cast and elevating them to the status of Fave); at other times, however, there has been a clear trend of sidelining POC leads in favour of white alternatives (as per Finn, Poe and Rose Tico being edged out in Star Wars shipping by Hux, Kylo and Rey). I mention this, not to demonize individuals whose preferred ships happen to involve white characters, but to point out the collective impact these trends can have on POC in fandom spaces: it’s not bad to ship what you ship, but that doesn’t mean there’s no utility in analysing what’s popular and why through a racial lens.

All this being so, it feels increasingly salient that fanwriting culture as exists right now developed under the influence and in the shadow of these white-dominated fandoms – specifically, the taboo against criticizing or critiquing fics for any reason. Certainly, there’s a hell of a lot of value to Don’t Like, Don’t Read as a general policy, especially when it comes to the darker, kinkier side of ficwriting, and whether the context is professional or recreational, offering someone direct, unsolicited feedback on their writing style is a dick move. But on the flipside, the anti-criticism culture in fanwriting has consistently worked against fans of colour who speak out about racist tropes, fan ignorance and hurtful portrayals of living cultures. Voicing anything negative about works created for free is seen as violating a core rule of ficwriting culture – but as that culture has been foundationally shaped by white fandoms, white characters and, overwhelmingly, white ideas about what’s allowed and what isn’t, we ought to consider that all critical contexts are not created equal.

Right now, the rise of C-drama (and K-drama, and J-drama) fandoms is seeing a surge of white creators – myself included – writing fics for fandoms in which no white people exist, and where the cultural context which informs the canon is different to western norms. Which isn’t to say that no popular fandoms focused on POC have existed before now – K-pop RPF and anime fandoms, for example, have been big for a while. But with the success of The Untamed, more western fans are investing in stories whose plots, references, characterization and settings are so fundamentally rooted in real Chinese history and living Chinese culture that it’s not really possible to write around it. And yet, inevitably, too many in fandom are trying to do just that, treating respect for Chinese culture or an attempt to understand it as optional extras – because surely, fandom shouldn’t feel like work. If you’re writing something for free, on your own time, for your own pleasure, why should anyone else get to demand that you research the subject matter first?

Because it matters, is the short answer. Because race and culture are not made-up things like lightsabers and werewolves that you can alter, mock or misunderstand without the risk of hurting or marginalizing actual real people – and because, quite frankly, we already know that fandom is capable of drawing lines in the sand where it chooses. When Brony culture first reared its head (hah), the online fandom for My Little Pony – which, like the other fandoms we’re discussing here, is overwhelmingly female – was initially welcoming. It felt like progress, that so many straight men could identify with such a feminine show; a potential sign that maybe, we were finally leaving the era of mainstream hypermasculine fandom bullshit behind, at least in this one arena. And then, in pretty much the blink of an eye, things got overwhelmingly bad. Artists drawing hardcorn porn didn’t tag their works as adult, leading to those images flooding the public search results for a children’s show. Women were edged out of their own spaces. Bronies got aggressive, posting harsh, ugly criticism of artists whose gijinka interpretations of the Mane Six as humans were deemed insufficiently fuckable.

The resulting fandom conflict was deeply unpleasant, but in the end, the verdict was laid down loud and clear: if you cannot comport yourself like a decent fucking person – if your base mode of engagement within a fandom is to coopt it from the original audience and declare it newly cool only because you’re into it now; if you do not, at the very least, attempt to understand and respect the original context so as to engage appropriately (in this case, by acknowledging that the media you’re consuming was foundational to many women who were there before you and is still consumed by minors, and tagging your goddamn porn) – then the rest of fandom will treat you like a social biohazard, and rightly so.

Here’s the thing, fellow white people: when it comes to C-drama fandoms and other non-white, non-western properties? We are the Bronies.

Not, I hasten to add, in terms of toxic fuckery – though if we don’t get our collective shit together, I’m not taking that darkest timeline off the table. What I mean is that, by virtue of the whiteminding which, both consciously and unconsciously, has shaped current fan culture, particularly in terms of ficwriting conventions, we’re collectively acting as though we’re the primary audience for narratives that weren’t actually made with us in mind, being hostile dicks to Chinese and Chinese diaspora fans when they take the time to point out what we’re getting wrong. We’re bristling because we’ve conceived of ficwriting as a place wherein No Criticism Occurs without questioning how this culture, while valuable in some respects, also serves to uphold, excuse and perpetuate microaggresions and other forms of racism, lashing out or falling back on passive aggression when POC, quite understandably, talk about how they’re sick and tired of our bullshit.

An analogy: one of the most helpful and important tags on AO3 is the one for homophobia, not just because it allows readers to brace for or opt out of reading content they might find distressing, but because it lets the reader know that the writer knows what homophobia is, and is employing it deliberately. When this concept is tagged, I – like many others – often feel more able to read about it than I do when it crops up in untagged works of commercial fiction, film or TV, because I don’t have to worry that the author thinks what they’re depicting is okay. I can say definitively, “yes, the author knows this is messed up, but has elected to tell a messed up story, a fact that will be obvious to anyone who reads this,” instead of worrying that someone will see a fucked up story blind and think “oh, I guess that’s fine.” The contextual framing matters, is the point – which is why it’s so jarring and unpleasant on those rare occasions when I do stumble on a fic whose author has legitimately mistaken homophobic microaggressions for cute banter. This is why, in a ficwriting culture that otherwise aggressively dislikes criticism, the request to tag for a certain thing – while still sometimes fraught – is generally permitted: it helps everyone to have a good time and to curate their fan experience appropriately.

But when white and/or western fans fail to educate ourselves about race, culture and the history of other countries and proceed to deploy that ignorance in our writing, we’re not tagging for racism as a thing we’ve explored deliberately; we’re just being ignorant at best and hateful at worst, which means fans of colour don’t know to avoid or brace for the content of those works until they get hit in the face with microaggresions and/or outright racism. Instead, the burden is placed on them to navigate a minefield not of their creation: which fans can be trusted to write respectfully? Who, if they make an error, will listen and apologise if the error is explained? Who, if lived experience, personal translations or cultural insights are shared, can be counted on to acknowledge those contributions rather than taking sole credit? Too often, fans of colour are being made to feel like guests in their own house, while white fans act like a tone-policing HOA.

Point being: fandom and ficwriting cultures as they currently exist badly need to confront the implicit acceptance of racism and cultural bias that underlies a lot of community rules about engagement and criticism, and that needs to start with white and western fans. We don’t want to be the new Bronies, guys. We need to do better.  

#race #racism #c-drama #fandom #fan wank #fandom wank #microaggresions #culture #the untamed #bronies #whiteness #ficwriting #fanwriting #cultural bias #discourse

[gralunaisland]

An Anti's Request for Discussion with a Pro-Gr///via Fan

Honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever understand gr///via fans at this rate, so I’d like to do something proactively.

My friends keep telling me not to tag "gruvia" because that’s Tumblr etiquette, and I completely understand their sound advice.

However, I’m thinking, will it be okay to tag it to ask for a discussion? I’d like to hear the opposite side.

So here’s my official request for pro-gr///vian fans: would one of you be up for a discussion? A discussion about why you think your ship is a good one? I’d love to have a peaceful, respectful debate, devoid of ad hominem and offensive language.

I have hope that there’s a gr///via fan who’s out there ready for a harmless conversation on this topic. We’re big kids. We can discuss ships without taking personal offense, right?

If you want to discuss with me, please comment below your reasons for liking gr///via or juvia or whatever!

Please do not however comment on my other posts for discussion. This post is where I have delegated my discussion. I appreciate people making comments with questions or critiques about particular parts of other posts on those same posts, but people have been just being rude there while picking fights with me, and this blog is still an Anti-space. Thank you for complying!

And N.B., I am not putting any Anti tags because Pros may have those blocked and this post exists for the purpose of having a discussion with the Pros. I am not not-tagging it because I want to sneak attack the Pros. I am also not not-tagging it because I have turned over to the Pro side in case that wasn’t clear haha. I simply want to hear an argument that isn’t heated and pointed from their side to see if I can understand them better.

Edit: I’d originally made an edit where I added that I would stay an Anti, and thanks to a Pro commenting, (quite rudely I must admit), I’ve decided to get rid of it as it isn’t conducive to discussion. I do not think my mind will be changed, but that doesn’t mean I cannot be open to what they have to say. That was my sentiment from the get-go, but my wording needed work. Thank you, Pro, for the criticism!

Edit 2: Also, I didn’t think I’d have to clarify this, but I would like an actual discussion, not someone sending me the link to their post and telling me to figure it out myself. The point I’m aiming for is a peaceful debate, a live conversation where we can answer questions as they arise. I want to be able to actually connect with a Pro on this matter, to see if there’s any common ground, and even if there isn’t, to give both sides a chance to defend their position in a way that’s digestible, at least legibly, to the other. Is that really too much to ask?

Edit 3: Just a PSA I suppose, this isn’t a trap somehow😅. If you want to discuss, discuss. If you don’t, block me and skedaddle on your way. But discussion is a two-way street, so I don't get why a commenter is calling me a bad guy for responding to someone who was kind enough to try to engage in a conversation with me. Both sides get to talk. I thought that was clear when I said debate…

Anyway, have a wonderful day! Thank you for your time as usual!

#let’s be mature guys #honestly curious what people have to say on this subject #pro gruvia #juvia lockser #fairy tail discourse #fairy tail discussion #fairy tail debate #request for discussion #fairy tail #gruvia #gray x juvia #gray fullbuster x juvia lockser

[the-lone-witch-and-secret-room]

On Boschlow, Skarlow and imaginary moral superiority

Alright, before anyone wants to yell at me for putting this in the ship tags, this is less an “anti ship”-post and more of an “I want to have this conversation with shippers because I think it’s important to talk about this”-post.

So, Boschlow has always been a fairly popular ship in the fandom, which doesn’t really surprise me, because the whole bully/victim dynamic is just incredibly popular, no matter which fandom you enter.

As a person that got bullied throughout the majority of my high school years, I have thoughts about this dynamic being so popular in general, but that’s not what we’re here to discuss today.

Recently, there has been an increasing number of Skarlow shippers making art and writing fics.

What makes this so different from Boschlow?

Essentially... nothing, and that’s exactly why I felt the need to make a post about this.

I’ve seen a bunch of Skarlow shippers say they do not ship Boschlow because Boscha is an awful person, putting themselves above the Boschlow shippers and making Skarlow a “superior” dynamic, based on... what, exactly?

From my perspective, there’s exactly two things Skara has on Boscha when it comes to shipping her with Willow. One being, she hasn’t thrown trash on her—which is an incredibly low bar to set.

The other thing? Skara acknowledged Willow’s Grudgby skills at the end of WILW.

And that’s a scene that gets misinterpreted a lot. See, people take Skara being nice to Willow here as a sign that she’s a way better person than Boscha, that she’s changed, and so on and so forth.

But this is untrue.

What exactly is it that changes between the beginning of WILW and the ending of the episode, between Willow and Skara specifically? It’s that Skara has seen Willow is good at Grudgby. Grudgby is something of value to Skara, thus, Willow’s skills impressing her makes Willow someone worthy of being treated well.

The ending of the Grudgby episode isn’t everyone except Boscha suddenly magically being better people. They’re all still very much bullies. They’re just now seeing Willow as someone who is better than other people because of her skills—and should therefore be treated better.

Boscha isn’t as willing to share her imaginary pedestal with Willow. But that’s the only difference. All the Grudgby girls are currently still on that pedestal. They’re just seeing Willow as someone worth sharing it with now. If they saw someone being “weak” the way they thought Willow to be previously to the match, they’d bully that person the same way they did Willow.

This isn’t any of them being better. This is all of them behaving the same way they always have. Willow is just moving up in their social hierarchy.

It shouldn’t take being good at some magical sport, or being a talented witch, or whatever the heck, to decide not to bully someone. NOBODY deserves to be bullied. Even the weakest, least sporty witch of the Boiling Isles should be treated with the same amount of respect as any of their classmates. Your value as a person shouldn’t be defined by how good you are at something. You have value no matter what you are and aren’t good at. And that’s something Skara and the others still fail to acknowledge.

Also I think it’s worth noting that even when they were treating Willow better at the end of the episode, they didn’t go out of their way to apologize for how they’d treated her before. They acknowledged her skills and don’t at all comment on how they treated her previously to the match.

If it takes some huge effort from Willow and her friends for the Grudgby girls to treat her with even an ounce of respect, that’s not character development. Character development would be them changing their general behavior. Acknowledging the way they’ve treated others was shitty, apologizing for that and actually working on being better. Is there a possibility this might happen? Sure. But you guys basically pretend WILW is their redemption arc already fully done. You’re giving Skara and the others credit for something that currently haven’t even happened.

And the option of them ditching Boscha (which also currently hasn’t happened) wouldn’t be a redemption arc either, even if it could be part of one.

Cutting toxic people out of your life can help, but Amity’s redemption arc was that, plus her explaining herself to Willow and giving Willow time, and actually acting on her word of not letting her friends pick on her again. Amity making it up to Willow wasn’t that she cut out Boscha and Skara. It was that she not only promised to be better but acted accordingly, standing at Willow’s side when she needed her.

(And Skara not constantly being a dipshit when she’s in the background is not a valid argument for why she’s a better person than Boscha. Boscha is also a harmless character when the episode isn’t focused on her, e.g. in Covention & Sense and Insensitivity. That Skara isn’t actively bullying her friends—which, uh, most people like their friends? This shouldn’t be that surprising?—is not a thing that should earn her any points in being “nicer” than Boscha.)

Do I think it might be a bit easier to get through to Skara than Boscha when it comes to letting go of current behaviors? Possibly.

From the way their characters are written and with how Boscha refuses to acknowledge Willow as equal even after the Grudgby match, it’s fairly obvious that it would need some pretty major event to get through to her. There’s an extra step here with Boscha (needing to learn to acknowledge others as having equal value to herself) that Skara doesn’t need to take.

BUT that one step in what should be a fairly long journey for either of them is far from enough to justify one ship being better than the other.

From the way I’ve seen it written (and unfortunately also experienced it in the comment section of my own fic), a bunch of skarlow shippers like to excuse Skara’s behavior by entirely pinning it on Boscha, pretending she’s actually a great person and that it’s only her friendship with Boscha that makes her toxic—and also that Boscha is the only one that should be held accountable for everyone’s behavior.

I am not exaggerating, I got a comment that essentially said “this shows wonderfully that Amelia and Skara are actually good people that unfortunately met a horrible person that had too much control over them.”

This strips Skara and Amelia of any accountability for their actions. And the idea of Boscha being an evil mastermind that forced all her friends into doing things they never wanted is... quite frankly, stupid, and also untrue. Skara actively encourages Boscha making fun of Willow at the beginning of Understanding Willow:

In the same episode it’s also stated that Amity “let her new friends bully [Willow] for years”, which definitely includes Skara and isn’t just about Boscha.

Skara looks really pleased when Boscha takes Willow’s hair clip at the beginning of WILW, just appears bored and not at all sympathetic when she throws gum at Willow, and grins gleefully when Boscha suggests using the others as target practice later in the episode:

Also, in Once Upon A Swap, Boscha’s entire squad is messing with people all over Bonesborough. Skara is throwing monster balloons at the city when Boscha isn’t even present:

Not only that, but a very large portion of the episode has Skara and the others literally ditch Boscha in favor of an even meaner person (King in Luz’s body).

King states, and I quote, “Hey, impressionable youths! Under my command, you could learn how to do some real damage.” after unleashing a monster on the city. And the entire group cheers him on and decides to follow him.

If Skara was actually so much better than Boscha, why the heck would she run after someone that is worse than her when given the opportunity?

And here comes the thing that a lot of the Skarlow shippers refuse to acknowledge because they for some reason feel the need to have moral superiority over Boschlow shippers: Skara isn’t a nice girl. Skara is a bully. And Skara should be held accountable for her actions in the same way as Boscha. Saying everything she did was just Boscha forcing her is entirely untrue to canon and just a lame excuse to make your ship look better.

Boscha and Skara have both bullied Willow for several years. If you want to ship either of them with her, even if you just want one of them to be friends with her, that needs to be acknowledged and definitely not excused. Even if you treat Skara’s bullying of Willow as something she did only due to Boscha (which, again, is canonically complete nonsense), she’s still hurt Willow to pretty much the same extent as Boscha has.

That a person isn’t as into the bullying as someone else doesn’t make it hurt any less for the victim of the bullying.

No matter if you ship Skarlow or Boschlow, commit to the reality that Skara and Boscha are both Willow’s bullies. Quit pretending Skara is so much better than Boscha, or that she isn’t responsible for her actions.

She is just as responsible for bullying Willow for years as Boscha is.

I’m so sick of hearing how Skara’s bullying is far more redeemable than Boscha’s. It’s not. Stop declaring bullying that doesn’t get physical harmless. As someone who was “only” ever verbally bullied, let me tell you that after four years of not seeing that person I’m still scarred by it. Stop getting your head so stuck in high school movies. Just because not every kind of bullying involves someone getting shoved into a locker doesn’t mean it’s not harmful.

Even worse: the take that people are shipping Skarlow “because they realized shipping Willow with Boscha is inherently toxic”. Tell me again why this “revolutionary” movement deciding that Willow deserves better then turns around and ships her with another one of her bullies?

This isn’t about treating Willow better. You’re just making Boscha seem unreasonably evil for no reason, and treating Skara as her not at all responsible victim, so you can ship Willow with her and don’t have to acknowledge that Willow is a victim of both of their bullying.

This needs to stop. Skara needs to be held just as accountable as Boscha.

If a Skarlow shipper exclusively comes from a perspective of “I think their personalities would mix better”? Sure, whatever, they may or may not, but that’s a valid opinion to have. But don’t start shipping Skarlow because you think you’re being better to Willow than the Boschlow shippers.

This whole thing isn’t a movement to get Willow a better girlfriend, lol

Both of them bullied her. Both ships are bully/victim dynamics. Skarlow does not actually have any moral superiority over Boschlow. As much as you refuse to acknowledge this, these two ships share the same basic dynamic.

Stop pretending shipping Willow with one of her bullies is leagues better than shipping her with another.

#also I wanna clarify I don’t think either character is irredeemable? #they’re fourteen year old kids of course they can change and shouldn’t be treated as irredeemable monsters #but like. stop pretending Skara already had her redemption when it didn’t happen #Willow park #the owl house #toh #skarlow #Boschlow #Skara x Willow #Boscha x Willow #owl house #toh Boscha #the owl house Boscha #toh Skara #the owl house Skara #FanFiction #fanart #toh fanart #toh fanfic #toh fandom #owl house fandom #toh Willow #this has been a PSA by a bullied person thank you for reading #reblogs are very appreciated because the more people see this the better #eleena rants #rant #long post #bullying TW #look at me being controversial on main again lol

[tillthelandslide]

A Distracting Kiss

Request from the kind @pixie1484 : “Hey there.I would love if you could write a medical fanfic where Henry is sick and needs to take injections but is really scared and is a big baby when it comes to needles..Thanks a bunch💕”. I really hope you enjoy you, thank you for being so patient with me, sorry it took a while. 

Authors Note: Hope you enjoy this fluffy piece, we wanted to include Henry’s lovely bottom haha - L 

Tag list : @harrysthiccthighss @thereisa8ella @magdelen69 @henrythickcavill @hc-geralt-23 @kissthatlifeaway @darkbooksarwin @august-w-princess @speakerforthedead0 @pixie1484 @constip8merm8 @tigerbroadwaybaby @agniavateira @summersong69 @aestheticallywinchester @stephartrave @al-wiisa @henrycavillfanpage @intenselikes @anat2507 @ellixthea @aguspalazzo @1ookatthestars00 @wintersoldierslut @michelehansel @cavill-sass @thecavillstache @xelizabethvalentinex

(if you would like to be added to my tag list, feel free to message me, if you are new to my blog then I post Henry Cavill fanfics and make Henry Cavill fake Instagram posts, my requests are open so feel free to request anything  and I will try my best to make your vision come to life)   

Today was the day Henry would be getting his injections. He had texted you and begged you to come along with him, he was beyond nervous and it made you giggle. You couldn't understand how your best friend, the strongest, biggest, bravest person you knew, a man who performs dangerous stunts and fight sequences, was so afraid of a few injections. You kind of loved that he was nervous, not in a horrible way but it meant you could be there for him in a way no one else could. You and Henry hadn't known each other that long, you met him in the set of the Witcher where you worked and had hit it off immediately. Your friendship was very flirty and to those who didn't know you, well they would've guessed you were a couple. You remember attending the wrap party for the witcher and Henry had been attached to you, constantly holding your hand, or placing his hand on your waist, even pulling you to sit on his lap when he had had a few drinks. You didn't mind the dynamic of your relationship, but there was this unspoken tension between you, one in which drew you together, you were in love with him but never knew he felt the same.

You arrived at Henry's house and let yourself in with a spare key he had given you. You closed the door behind you as Kal ran up to you, you knelt down and pet him on the head, your fingers massaging behind his ears.

"Where's your daddy, big guy?" you said, making Kal pant happily at you.

"Henry?" you called out, placing your keys down on a table near Henry's door. You heard him grunt from the living room so walked there, Kal following closely behind you. You were met with Henry pacing back and forth, his index finger and thumb pulling at his bottom lip. You walked up to him and wrapped your small hand around his, making him stop pulling his lip.

"Hi." you said, moving his hand which was now in yours away from him.

"Hey" he grunted. He got like this when he was nervous, moody and brooding.

"Hen. Calm down it's going to be fine" you said, walking to sit on his sofa, you had some time before you needed to drive him to his appointment. Kal jumped up on the sofa, sprawling himself out across your lap, pouting up at his dad nervously.

"Henry Cavill, please sit down. Cmon your making Kal nervous" you said sternly, making him look down at Kal and pout.

"I'm sorry buddy" he said, stroking his head.

"Come here" you said, moving your legs further apart and gesturing for him to sit on the floor in between your legs. He did as he was told, his back facing you. Your hands rested against his shoulder, gently massaging them to try relieve some of the stress. You could feel Henry's shoulders drop as soon as you started massaging them, you could sense that he had calmed down just a little bit.

"Now listen to me okay? You're going to be fine, I'll be there the whole time, you can hold my hand if you want.

"Hmm. It's going to hurt isn't it?" he said, looking at you over his shoulder, he groaned when you loosened a particularly hard knot in his shoulder.

"It feels like barely a scratch" you said trying to reassure him. You could tell it hadn't worked because his lip was being chewed by his teeth.

"Henry you're going to bruise yourself" you said referring to his incessant chewing.

"Hmm" he said not listening to you, you leant forward over his shoulder, and did the first thing that came to your mind, which in this case was to place a kiss against his cheek, very close to his mouth. He stopped chewing his lip instantly, making you smile triumphantly. You stood up, offering him your hand which he took and you helped pull him up, his hands came to rest on your hips almost instinctively, yours resting on his shoulders.

"You'll be fine" you repeated, making him nod, although it was half-hearted. He pulled you against him, wrapping himself around you in a hug. You loved this vulnerable side of Henry and loved that he rarely showed it to many people, naming you feel special. One of your hands moved to the back of his, playing with the hairs there to try soothe him.

"We gotta go" you said, making the both of you pull away. You grabbed his hand, leading him to the door, you picked up your keys. You left Henry by the door, sorting out Kal as he was too preoccupied to do so. You looked down at Kal and spoke to him.

"We'll be back soon okay? Be good, you've got water and food and the back door is open slightly so you can do your business. We won't be long" you said, stroking his head, he soon huffed and walked away making you chuckle, he really didn't care that you were leaving. You looked back at Henry who was staring at his feet, his bottom lip back in between his teeth. Your small hand resting against his face, pulling him from his thoughts as you looked up at him, sympathy written across your face.

"Ready?" you said, your hand dropping to grasp his. He nodded and you opened the door, closing it and leading Henry to your car. You drove to the appointment, telling Henry to take a seat whilst you spoke to the receptionist. You were called in shortly after and Henry was told to sit down on the examination table.

"He's really nervous huh?" the doctor said to you, making you nod. This was Henry's doctor so he knew him well but he had never seen him this nervous before and he commented on it to you.

"It's just going to feel like a little scratch" the nurse said, making Henry nod, she began to prepare the injections and you stood next to Henry, him immediately grasping your hand.

"Why is the needle so long?" he said, you could feel him beginning to shake.

"It's okay, it's okay. Y’know I wouldn't let you do anything that would seriously hurt you, right?" you said, making him nod as the nurse came back over, she began to find his vein on his arm and he looked at you, you had never seen him look so worried.

"I'm going to administer the injection now okay? You'll feel a short scratch and that's it" the nurse said, Henry didn't reply so she didn't start yet. Henry was just looking at you and he was shaking so much, an idea came to mind so you nodded at the nurse. The needle was placed against his arm and as she was about to inject it, your fingers grasped his chin and you pushed your lips gently against his. He moved his lips against yours, completely forgetting about the injection.

"There's the first one done." the nurse said, placing some cotton wool on his arm and smirking at you. Henry looked between you and the nurse, dumbfounded, he didn't feel a thing, probably too distracted by your lips against his.

The whole time the doctor was preparing another injection, Henry's manager who had organised this had also informed them that he needed an anti-sickness injection as he was going to be doing a lot of travelling.

"So we've also been informed you need an anti-sickness injection, now this injection requires me and the nurse here. It has to be administered through the glutes, it will hurt a tiny bit more than the one in your arm and you will feel a numbness for a few hours after" the doctor said calmly, you could tell Henry was still a bit nervous but you think the kiss that happened was distracting him enough so he didn't get too worked up.

"Due us both needed to help, you can't be by his side unfortunately, you can take a seat here" the said kindly to you making you smile.

"That's fine" you smiled back, going to move away from Henry, who didn't let you and squeezed your hand harder.

"I'm just going to be sitting right here" you said, the chair was placed a tiny bit further away from him but he'd still be able to see you. He nodded and let you go. The doctor instructed him to lie down on the bed and pull his trousers down which he did and he then began inserting the injection. Henry's face pinched up slightly and you could tell he was uncomfortable, he wasn't in pain however which was good.

You tried to make him more comfortable by making a joke "Nice bum" you joked, making him chuckle (and the doctor and nurse too).

"There we go, all done" the doctor said, finishing up the injection.

"Now as I said, your glutes will feel a little bit numb for a while and may feel achy tomorrow but that feeling should go away in a day or 2. Same goes for your arm. If you have any problems like bruising or bleeding, come and see me" he said as Henry got ready, sitting up from the table.

"Thanks doc" Henry said, back to his usual self, shaking his hand.

"Thank you." you said, shaking his hand too.

"Might need your help to calm a few other patients." he said, making you laugh.

You drove Henry home, opening the door for him and smirking at him as you both walked inside.

"What?" he said, laughing to himself at how ridiculous he was behaving.

"Nothing" you shrugged, still laughing to yourself. You walked to the kitchen pulling out two glasses and filling them with water, walking back to his living room and sitting next to him on the sofa, passing him a glass.

He raised his eyebrows at you as he took a sip.

"Never known you to be such a big baby" you teased, nudging his shoulder.

"Hey that's mean" he said, pouting.

"I'm only joking. I like vulnerable Henry" you said smiling at him.

"Don't get used to it" he said, smiling and taking a sip from his water, leaning forward to place his drink down. He groaned as he did so.

"Man, my butt really aches" he said, making you check out his butt.

"Did you just check out my butt?" he said, making you giggle.

"It's a nice butt" you shrugged, not caring that you were being so open.

"Thank you and thanks for everything you did today. Nice trick by the way" he said and you presumed he was talking about the kiss.

"Anytime" you said, jokingly winking at him.

"Might have to take you up on the offer" he said, leaning in slightly.

"More than welcome to" you said, leaning in slightly too. Henry pushed forward a tiny bit more, pressing his lips against you lightly. His bottom lips felt slightly chapped, probably from how much he had been chewing it, but you didn't mind, his lips felt good against yours. It was just a sweet kiss but it was nice. Henry pulled away, pulling you into a hug, your head resting against his chest.

"You should know you're special to me yn. Not many people get to see me the way you saw me today" he said seriously.

"You mean to tell me that you don't act like a big baby to everyone" you said, making him laugh sarcastically.

"I'm serious though." he said, looking down at you.

"I know" you said, smiling sweetly up at him "I appreciate you being like that with me" you said, leaning up to place another sweet kiss against his lips.

All you knew in that moment was, you and Henry hadn't defined what you are, but you knew you were something to him, after all many people get to so the vulnerable Henry, or his nice butt for a matter of fact.

#henry cavill #henry cavill imagine #henry cavill imagines #henry cavill smut #henry cavill fluff #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill and kal #henry cavill angst #henry cavill headcanon #Henry cavill requests #henry cavill fake instagram #henry cavill fics #henry cavill fandom #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill x you #henry cavill superman #august walker #august walker smut #august walker imagine #henry cavill au meme

[doreamu-san]

An analysis of SolKy

Hello! Thank you so much for clicking on this. A while ago, I was asked to do an essay explaining why people ship SolKy other than the whole rivals/opposites attract reason, and I got a lot of feedback stating it was useful for newcomers to the ship! As a result I’ve decided to post this on tumblr, but just on the ship’s tag as to not bother uninterested people.

A couple of disclaimers before I begin. This is firstly just my own opinion, so whilst it makes sense for me, other shippers may disagree with my points. I’m also not claiming they are canon because they are not. But I do hope it’ll give some insight into why some people like me enjoy them together.

Even once you’ve read this essay, you can still dislike SolKy. This isn’t an essay stating you have to ship them.

This will be extremely long as I basically cover every single interaction they’ve ever had with each other since I know some people sort of gloss over their dialogue, so grab yourself a drink, get comfy, and I hope you enjoy reading!

(Last edited: 09/05/2021. This will be updated again when Strive releases!)

How this all began

If we’re starting right at the beginning, it’s common knowledge that Ky and Sol weren’t exactly on great terms and often clashed most of the time due to their conflicting beliefs. Ky saw the world in terms of black and white, and had very strict rules on what constituted as right and wrong. Sol seemed to think differently and went against that, which was a stark contrast compared to the other Order members at the time.

Considering that they were in fact, in the middle of a war, you would think that generally people would be willing to put their differences aside and work together.

But Sol wasn’t like everyone else, going off and doing his own thing instead of actually listening to orders, so it’s understandable why Ky found him rather irritating.

However, Ky did grow curious of Sol. Obviously curiosity does not equate to love, but it is the basis of Ky wanting to become more friendly with and know more about Sol. There seemed to be something that Sol knew but Ky didn’t, but how was that possible..? As a result, despite how infuriating he could be, Ky sought to seek out the truth and so fought him for answers.

In regards to why exactly they fight (aside from the fact that this is a fighting game), Ishiwatari wrote something called ‘Hostility is Akin to Love’ right above a picture of them fighting:

Hostility is akin to love Thinking of your opponent’s actions to fight, Reading your opponent’s inner thoughts to fight, Planning attacks that will hit your opponent to fight, And then transmitting your thoughts with those attacks, The more you think of your own advantage, at the same time you think of your opponent, In the instant you mix with your opponent, a passionate feeling arises, and blood boils, Reality is hurt, and you wound your opponent, Hostility is akin to love. — Guilty Gear Isuka Mook

It states how fighting someone can be close to feelings of love because you have to think about what your opponent is doing, as well as how you’re going to respond to your opponent. Overtime, you start to memorise how your opponent thinks, and as a result you’ll know them on a deeper level.

So considering the above, this explains how even though they weren’t on friendly terms, they still formed a bond with one another.

Now we’ve established how exactly their relationship started, and why Ky was curious about Sol in the first place, let’s look at things from Sol’s perspective.

Sol’s attitude towards Ky

We know that Sol was also pretty annoyed by Ky, which was totally justifiable given the extreme way in which Ky thought the world worked. But Sol didn’t exactly dislike Ky.

In order to provide some evidence that Sol cares about Ky, let’s cover that infamous scene everyone likes to reference which shows Sol crying over Ky’s dead body:

Sol:     "I came to pick you up." Ky:      "Always coming late... you never could fix that..." Sol:     "You..." Ky:      "As to be expected... until the very end... I could never beat you..." Sol:     "Don't say anything!" Ky:      "I have... a request..." Sol:     "I said shut up!" Ky:      "After Commander Kliff... carry on... the Holy Order..." Sol:     "Stop it... that's your job!" Ky:      "Please... promise me..." Sol:     "Dammit..." Ky:      "If it's you... you can do..." Sol:     "Hey.... what's wrong. Hey! KYYYYYY!" — Guilty Gear XX Drama CD Side Red, Battle of Rome — Deathmatch

A lot of people bring this quote up when discussing SolKy and yes, it does show Sol cares about Ky considering how Sol never really cares about anyone in general, but the fact that Ky’s death managed to make him emotional shows what an impact Ky had on him. There are however more quotes that show Sol’s feelings.

There’s this scene in the GG Xtra manga, Ky and Sol get attacked by a mountain-sized gear. In order to save them, Sol rips off his limiter and Dragon Installs. This scene is very poignant when you take into consideration what Sol said in After Story A:

Sol:     "Back during the Crusades, before we met... Kliff told me this rumour about a prodigy swordsman." Sol:     "If you couldn't guess, that was you. I didn't give a shit at the time..." Sol:     "But then I saw you on the battlefield." Sol:     "I saw someone out there who surpassed all of my expectations. Or perhaps I should say 'something.'" Sol:     "No openings, no wasted movements, no carelessness, no hesitation, no embarrassment, not even any honor. No chivalry or mercy. A being unaffected by emotion." Sol:     "You were a killing machine. Taking down gears with brutal efficiency." Ky:      "...That was a long time ago." Sol:     "I'm not done talking. I've seen the face of the 'serious' Ky." Sol:     "Then one day, you challenged me." Sol:     "You wanna know what I thought right then?" Ky:      "..." Sol:     "I was afraid. Hell, I was scared shitless." Sol:     "'He figured out that I'm a Gear, and he's come to kill me.' That's what I thought." — Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-, After Story A

Sol admits that he knows just how scary Ky can be. Since Ky was extremely against Gears, if Ky found out that Sol was a Gear, then Ky would have most likely attempted to kill him. But Sol knew this and was willing to die for Ky’s sake, and transformed anyway:

Ky:      "Sol..." Ky:      (Really... that's really..) Ky:      (That's really you!?) Ky:      "SOL!" Sol:     "Shut it..." Sol:     "I didn't do it..." Sol:     "To help you out—...." — Guilty Gear Xtra, Chapter 5: Unspeakable Thoughts

Going off on a bit of a tangent from Sol’s feelings, but I just want to point out Ky’s state of mind at this point. Ky in this time period was still very anti-Gear, as it was only through this moment and his encounters with Solaria and Dizzy later that made him change his way of thinking. It took a long time for Ky to accept Gears, and he still had the remains of that mindset in him when he had Sin, as he refused to make eye contact with him because Ky was ashamed of having a Gear child. So the fact that Ky knew Sol was a Gear, believed all Gears were evil, but still decided to accept Sol into his life and wanted to support him regardless of that, is interesting.

Back to Sol, another small quote that manages to show Sol’s feelings towards Ky is this:

Sol:     (Maybe I'll finish them off while I'm at it...) Sol:     (But that would mean breaking my promise to Ky...) — Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R, Sol Badguy Path 2

Now, Sol doesn’t care about 99% of what other people do as long as they don’t get in his way. The fact that he intends to keep his promise with Ky suggests that he holds Ky in somewhat ‘high’ regards compared to others.

There’s also this quote that shows Sol is thinking about Ky in Overture:

The frustrations of the man wielding a giant sword were piling day by day, and a familiar face appeared in his head. What’s he up to right now? “Hmph, whatever…” With a feeling of self-contempt, Sol Badguy shook his head. What am I getting sentimental for? — Guilty Gear 2: Overture, #0 “Noise”

And when Sol encounters Raven later on after seeing Ky incapacitated, Raven points out how he can tell Sol is upset, meaning Sol’s not really doing a good job of pretending he’s still indifferent to Ky.

Raven: "You're as ruthless as ever, huh, monster?" Sol:      "Look who's talking." Raven: "Can you not put down your sword and talk? I understand you're upset with Ky Kiske defeated." Sol:      "I'll ask your corpse for answers." — Guilty Gear 2: Overture, #5 "Gaze of the Chronicle"

Sol’s thoughts about Ky become even clearer during his confrontation with Sin when he’s under the influence of Valentine, where Sol defends Ky’s actions and tries to make Sin understand Ky is not 100% at fault:

Sin:     "Can you see it? Can you feel it? This is my real power. This is my mother's strength." Sol:     "But it's light. It must be from your father." Sin:     "Shut up! Don't ever mention him!" Sin:     "He abandoned my mother and me using justice as an excuse!" Sin:     "Who cares about the King!? Who cares about the people!? That man, and that Kingdom, not one of them can protect a damn thing!" Sol:     "I don't give a damn about your family." Sol:     "But you know what, Ky may be a stubborn idiot, but at least he's true to his beliefs." Sol:     "A punk like you is still alive thanks to his justice." — Guilty Gear 2: Overture, #15 "Roaring Compass"

Okay, that’s the pre-Xrd era for Sol done, now to focus on Ky’s pre-Xrd’s emotions.

Ky’s attitude towards Sol

We’ve established earlier that Ky was annoyed by Sol and disliked him in the Crusades. However, afterwards it seems as if Ky saw himself as friends with Sol:

Ofc1:   "All of them seem to have been destroyed by... fire?" Ofc2:  "Yeah... why could that be?" Ky:      "........" Ky:      "Change our course!" Ky:      "Head towards the Eastern United States!" Ofc1:   "May I ask why, Chief Ky?" Ky:      "To meet an old friend." — Guilty Gear Xtra, Chapter 4: Former Friends

We know that Ky outwardly expressed his first signs of liking Sol when Sol stole the Fuuenken and Ky chased after him, only for Sol to win in their duel, and Ky says this:

Ky:      "Promise me one thing..." Sol:     "..What?" Ky:      "We'll meet again." Sol:     "Hmph... Well, if fate brings us together..." Ky:      "..That's fine." — Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R, Sol Badguy Path 1

It’s pretty interesting that Ky wanted to see Sol again despite how Sol never used to listen to his orders, and how Sol never even tried to act like what the Order expected their men to act like (chivalrous, putting the people first, etc). It at least shows us that Ky saw possibly the potential of becoming friends with Sol. And Sol didn’t even say straight up ‘no’ or ‘in your dreams’ or whatever Badguy-esque notion he usually would’ve done, so we can assume he doesn’t mind seeing Ky again either.

Then they don’t speak to each other properly for 5 years until the tournament that Testament holds, though they have probably ran into each other a few times within those years.

A common misconception people have is that during those 5 years, Ky was obsessed with Sol and would constantly try to find him. Obviously, this is not true. Ky was busy with IPF stuff and Sol was hunting Gears down.

However, it’s not as if Ky completely forgot about Sol — he was just probably at the back of his mind, and Ky does admit that he has been chasing after Sol the most more than anyone else:

Ky:      (Waiting outside for me when I left the ship... burning red flames. Soon, they seem to take the shape of a man... and he appears before me. Yes... it's him. The one I've been after the most... it's him.) — Guilty Gear X Drama CD, Vol. 1: Track Seven — Crater

There’s also these two other quotes:

Ky:      (Sol...) Ky:      (Why are you so stubborn about doing things alone?) — Guilty Gear Xtra, Chapter 5: Unspeakable Thoughts

You can interpret this in two ways: either Ky wants to help Sol out and/or he’s curious as to why Sol always does stuff alone.

And then there’s this:

Ky:      "Maintaining peace, law, and order. That is my duty." Sol:     "Whatever..." Ky:      "You and I, we are cut from the same cloth." Ky:      "How long are you going to keep that facade?" Sol:     "..." Ky:      "Answer me Sol!" — Guilty Gear Judgment, Sol and Ky Ending

Being ‘cut from the same cloth’ is quite a strong statement. The phrase means that Ky thought he and Sol were similar somehow, and that he shared something with Sol. Regardless, the ‘how long are you going to keep that facade’ at least shows that Ky knows Sol is intentionally acting distant/rough/etc. and that its not actually who he is.

Jumping to pre-Overture, just before Ky gives Sin to Sol, Ky is in a really depressive state due to all of the stress he’s been going through. This leads Dizzy to contact Sol. The fact that Sol is called means that Dizzy knows that Sol is possibly the only person who can help Ky at that point, which puts some emphasis on just how much Sol means to Ky or at least affects him.

Before I move onto Xrd, there’s this part where Ky gives his son to Sol. This proves he trusts Sol so much considering he was asking him to take care of Sin for a long period of time.

Ky:      “Sol....I want to request something...” Sol:     “...hnn?” Ky:      “My son....Sin..can you take care of him for a while?” Sol:     “...what did you say?” Ky:      “I know it’s unreasonable but...I still want to ask...” — GG2: Overture Story, Sol's Story

The Xrd era (because it is so long, it needs its own section)

The Xrd era is extremely interesting to me, because Sol and Ky have some more in-depth conversations, and boy, do they have a lot of conversations.

Focusing on Sol first, theres a scene in REV where Sol asks Ky why he isn’t interested in his past:

Sol:     "Why don't you ask me already?" Ky:      "Ask you what?" Sol:     "About my past." Ky:      "I can ask you?" Sol:     "I guarantee, it won't be interesting." Sol:     "Every other word that came out of your mouth was 'Duel me,' or 'I challenge you!' You were so eager to fight and..." Ky:      "........" — Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-, Story Mode: Chapter 03, Sense A

Given that Ky was constantly pestering Sol about his background in the past, it makes sense why Sol is suddenly a bit confused about Ky’s sudden change in behaviour. But it also shows that Sol wants Ky to know about his past. After ~170+ years of being alive, Sol wants to finally open up to someone again, and he specifically chose Ky for this. It shows in the very least Sol trusts Ky and knows him well enough to decide to let him know about who he used to be.

And then Ky says this, which is basically him just showing Sol how much he cares and understands him:

Ky:      "Sol. Of course I have an interest in your past." Ky:      "But wanting to understand someone and trying to understand everything is completely different." Ky:      "Right now, Sol Badguy's future matters much more to me, than Frederick's past." — Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-, Story Mode: Chapter 03, Sense A

There’s also this scene in SIGN:

Ky:      "I don't know your history." Ky:      "I don't know if you had friends once, or if you fell in love, or why you burn with such hatred for That Man and the Gears..." Ky:      "I don't even know your real name." Sol:     "..." Ky:      "But I do know a great deal about a man named Sol Badguy." Ky:      "Blinded by vengeance, he lost sight of himself, and now he runs from the truth that frightens him." Sol:     "...Say that again." Ky:      "Tomorrow always comes, Sol." Sol:     "..!" Ky:      "If tomorrow promises to be cold and dark, I cannot stand idly by... even if I know my efforts will come to nothing." Sol:     "... The self-righteous apple doesn't fall far from the tree." Ky:      "I don't expect the world to change tomorrow, but I do hope that, today, perhaps my words will reach you." Ky:      "Sol..." Ky:      "I'll be waiting for you. We'll all be waiting for you. Sin, Dizzy..." Ky:      "Once all this is over... come home." — Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, Story Mode: Chapter 04, Kaleidoscope B

Three things to take away from this:

Ky admits that he doesn’t know anything about Sol’s background, but that he knows a lot about the current Sol, and then goes on to explain how Sol acts. Which to expand on, means that although Ky used to care about Sol’s past, he doesn’t really mind about it anymore because Sol’s past won’t really change much who Sol is to Ky now. Also, the part where Ky explains how Sol was ‘blinded by vengeance,’etc. shows that Ky knows Sol’s current personality well enough in order to be able to distinguish his behaviours. Which is interesting because nobody has been around Sol long enough to be able to know him really well unlike Ky (Aria and Asuka count too, but they were around Sol when he was Frederick, and Sol seems pretty adamant on the idea that he’s a separate person from Frederick.)

‘Come home’ is pretty significant, as it implies that it’s almost like Ky is saying home is with Sin, Dizzy and the Valentines, and so when Sol is done getting revenge on That Man, instead of letting Sol just wander off alone, Ky wants Sol to be a family with them.

The fact that says Ky says ‘I’ll be waiting for you’ separate from ‘we’ll all be waiting for you’ implies that either Ky’s want to wait for Sol is somehow different from everyone else’s or it’s just for the sake of being dramatic. I interpreted this in both ways, as it seems like Ky knows that Sol treats him differently compared to others. So in a sense, by Ky emphasising that he’ll be waiting for Sol, it might make Sol more likely to ‘come home’.

There’s also a scene that shows Ky knows Sol’s personality well:

Ky:      "When I look at you, Sol, I see a man who is afraid." Sol:     "... What?" Ky:      "It became clear when I watched you caring for Sin." Ky:      "You work very hard to keep everyone at arm's length." Sol:     "..." Sol:     "I got Gear blood in my veins, and it ain't friendly. It's always there in the back of my head, whispering that I oughta just destroy all of this." Sol:     "The only way I'm gonna get some closure is tracking down That Man and beating some answers out of him." Sol:     "And if he doesn't have 'em..." Sol:     "Then maybe there really isn't a good way to live." Ky:      "That's why you close your heart off." — Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, Story Mode: Chapter 08, Hope A

There’s also this:

Ky:      "Not all people have the strength to stand on their own." Sol:     "..." Ky:      "If only life were simple, and the right path was laid out before each of us..." Ky:      "But even then some would leave it, and some would struggle with walking it. Such is human nature..." Ky:      "The truth is that no path will ever be 'right' for all people. Each of us must find the one we are meant to walk--and sometimes that is where none exists." Ky:      "That is what I learned from you." — Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, Story Mode: Chapter 08, Hope A

This just shows that Ky actually learnt something from Sol. Which I think is important because Ky is someone who always used to be very strict to his ideals. The fact that he learnt something from Sol that had an impact on his mindset means that Sol actually managed to have a great impact on Ky.

There’s this scene where Sol finds out that Aria isn’t dead when he confronts That Man, and he has somewhat of a mini mental breakdown. So Ky excuses them from the room, and goes outside to talk with Sol:

Ky:      "Sol. The grudge you hold is certainly not something that can be taken lightly. And, whatever answer you think you've found, I doubt any of us will be able to stop you from seeing it through..." Ky:      "But we have very little time left. Right now, we need the Gear Maker's help." Ky:      "So, I'm begging you... Just for now. Why don't you stay outside with me." — Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-, Story Mode: Chapter 06, Cause A

The last line that Ky says is interesting because it’s obvious that he’s just trying to calm Sol down, and Ky thinks that if he stays with Sol outside for a bit, he’ll be able to help him calm down. Furthermore, Ky thought it was more necessary to pause everything and help Sol out rather than keep listening to the plans of what their next course of action would be.

Ky does have the habit of comforting Sol. One of the more significant moments is whenever Sol refers to himself as a monster:

Ky:      "Yes, he took away some of what makes you human, but that doesn't mean he altered your mind or your soul." Sol:     "So what?" Ky:      "I want to believe that you'll fight for the people of this world." Sol:     "Are we seriously having this conversation?" Sol:     "Look, kid. I'm a monster. I'm here to do two things: Destroy That Man, and kill all the other Gears." — Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, Story Mode: Chapter 04, Kaleidoscope B

To expand a little on Sol’s mindset, it’s common knowledge that Gears were generally in the past regarded as akin to monsters. Now we don’t have any solid proof Sol is referring to himself as a monster because he’s a Gear, or because he feels guilt about the whole Gear Project, etc. But we do know it’s something he’s affected by given that he constantly refers to himself as one.

So the fact that Ky constantly reassures him that he’s not one, and that Ky didn’t treat him differently after finding out he was a Gear, must be comforting to know.

Then at the end of REV, there’s the scene where Daryl is about to shoot Sol, because he (quite rightly) doesn’t trust the fate of the world to be left to Sol. And so, the kids get beamed up, but Ky asks to be left behind:

Ky:      "But, if you plan on targeting Sol, then you must leave me behind, as well." Daryl: "What!?" Zappa:"60 seconds until impact..!" Sol:     "What the hell are you doing?! Stay with Sin!" Ky:      "I am well aware that this is a one in a million chance..." Ky:      "But, if I survive at the expense of my dear friend, then there is little reason left for my ruling this world as king." — Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-, Story Mode: Final Chapter, Fireworks

This was a really odd moment because Ky’s life was never in danger at that moment. If he had been sent on board Daryl’s ship as originally planned, he would have been safe. But Ky intentionally chose to risk his life, and its kind of startling because Ky has always put his people above everything. There were times when he put the people above his own family, like when he kept his family a secret instead of coming out with the truth about them in order to remain as King to protect his people.

So Ky suddenly going ‘I would rather die with Sol than take care of my people’ is really extreme. Also Ky was willing to leave his family behind, which is even more extreme. So this just really proves how highly Ky regards Sol considering how he would rather die with him than live without him.

Some concluding notes

I think Sol and Ky’s personalities do work really well. Perhaps not in the Crusade era, but if we take a look at the Xrd era, they have shown to get along and have deep conversations with one another that they both enjoy. They know each other extremely well; they know how to support one another when life gets a bit too much and they’re also capable of telling one another when the other is wrong.

Sol teaches Ky that life isn’t as simple as it seems, and that (figuratively speaking) he shouldn’t stick exactly to the textbook. He’s able to see under that perfect image Ky puts up about him being able to cope with everything, acting as a source of stability when you consider how Sol has been the only person who’s been around Ky since the very beginning.

Throughout all of Ky’s life, he’s been under so much pressure. From being Commander in the Crusades, to becoming the Head of the International Police Force, to becoming King. In every situation, people are constantly relying on him, and his environment is changing rapidly. But despite everything, Sol has always remained the same. He looks the same, acts the same, etc. Ky can rely on Sol and trust Sol. He’s like a source of stability for Ky in those hectic times.

And Ky provides something similar to Sol too, given how often he ran into Sol time and time again. When you’ve been alive for so long, it’d feel reassuring in the very least to see a familiar face. And Sol does seem to get less annoyed each time they meet each other again, considering like how in Overture he voluntarily went to go see Ky after seeing himself on a wanted poster.

Ky also gives Sol the chance to open up to people again and form connections with them, something that Sol has been reluctant to do. Sol needs someone to care about him, and Ky proves that by constantly reassuring him and never giving up on trying to help Sol, even though he kept getting pushed away.

They may not be canon but I really do love how they work together. Yes it’s true some people may like them because they are ‘rivals’and seeing rivals get together and bicker is great, but actually I think when people focus more on how much they support and rely on each other, as well as the fact that they do get along, them being in a relationship is more convincing.

Whilst this essay focused on their canon interactions, there’s plenty of other great material out there. For instance, the Guilty Gear 4KomaKINGS manga provides plenty of great SolKy interactions (like the time Ky wanted to have a friendship diary with Sol, only to get rejected and start crying about it. Of course, take these interactions with a pinch of skepticism considering the frivolity of the source material.)

And that, was my very long SolKy essay. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading! Though you may not have agreed with everything I have said, you still continued reading, and I am grateful for that. Thank you for showing such enthusiasm and loving this franchise.

#solky

[herglowinggirl]

Hello, familiar anon here, I didn't ask the question about an SOK ending where Yun lives and gains redemption. I also wouldn't mind having my own tag. I haven't found any other evidence of Yun shipping Kyoshi and Rangi outside of "The Boy From Makapu". How does Kyoshi view Yun later in her life( up to the first year after "The Meeting", creating Kyoshi Island nearly 25 years later, the last years of her life)? Would Kyoshi ever mention or talk about Yun after the events of The Shadow of Kyoshi?

hello! and yes I have some thoughts on this and how it would impact the advice Kyoshi gave to Roku and Aang. this got long but I’d love to break down parts of it to write fic, which I think I will do and perhaps post before Kyoshi Fortnight. But I digress, it’s long enough that I have decided to use subtitles. If anything skip to the end about the advice she gave Roku and Aang I think it’s most relevant to what I want to say and also my favorite part.

what I talk about under the cut: the ways I believe yun’s death would impact kyoshi’s actions after tsok and what the advice she gave aang and roku actually means (my thoughts on “only justice will bring peace” means)

would kyoshi talk about yun during her lifetime?

Yes. First off, it would be impossible to avoid him in the political landscape, because it is mentioned that he passed lots of judgements and signed treaties, ect. Although Kyoshi has grown in her leadership style and it’s turned a little (a lot) anti-establishment, she would still need to deal with the fallout of Yun not being the Avatar, because there would be a need to re-sign treaties and settle disputes with people seeking to take advantage of others now that the Avatar has “changed” would have to be dealt with and in tandem, Yun’s legacy.

But also, in a duology that features grief, I find it a natural continuation of the narrative that Yun would be mourned. You don’t stop knowing or loving someone after they pass, and I feel like mourning all of Yun—the boy he was, where he came from, his legacy, the decisions he made, the impact he had on the people around him, even how he hurt people—is only natural and is slightly unavoidable. I think Kyoshi mourns all of her deceased loved ones. 

Just, like the concept of this: she’s always hated pai sho but now when she faces a board in her gut and in her throat things feel wrong because it reminds her of what Yun had to do to survive. A breeze smells like the flour and air Kelsang sent into her face the moments before everything changed. She collects pebbles that Lek would’ve liked. Rangi brings her fire lilies for an anniversary and she starts crying. She sings songs with Wong that were her parent’s favorites that coincidentally, Kelsang knew too.

community in grief and kyoshi’s relationships

He was Rangi’s friend, too. Auntie Mui and Hei-Ran are sure to mourn him in their own ways. In tSoK Kyoshi calls her team Avatar a group of contradictions and misfits and in his way, Yun was too. The false Avatar. What a title! 

A continuation of the concept: Rangi and Kyoshi remind each other of him every day for a while, swapping stories about him when it gets to be too much, making eye contact when they can hear his voice making light of something stupid an official has said. Hei-Ran makes her do drills she made Yun do. Auntie Mui makes his favorite dish on his birthday that they do not pass in silence, because then what would they be, that group of misfits, to forget another outcast? If they don’t mourn the boy from Yokoya who will mourn them, or who would’ve mourned them if they hadn’t been so lucky? Who will care for the beggars and orphans of the world if not the Avatar who was once one of them and her companions? In a way, the retribution and pain of it all is justice for the life that Kyoshi took. Like, there’s just so much to unpack in the way she says “Was I right about anything at all? What will they say about me? Avatar Kyoshi, who killed her friend because she couldn’t save him?” But I don’t think her guilt would silence her. 

That being said, Yun was fundamentally a victim of a system that failed him. The same one that failed Kyoshi. In another way, her actions are justice on a world that failed her and her best friend and the similarities they shared, and she’s able to take those actions because of the way that Yun impacted her, for better or for worse. So yes, I think during her lifetime, she would speak of Yun and who he was, not letting people forget the ways they (and she) failed him and how easily everyone wants to forget their failure. It brings me to the way she was so angry with the Earth Kingdom establishment for discarding him and trying to hide history away. I don’t think she’d ever do that, even if she did...uh, dispatch him.

kyoshi, immortality, and her role as an avatar

I’d like to turn to two passages:

Kyoshi: “The way you describe it, you’d have to decide what version of yourself you’d be stuck as, forever.”

Lao Ge: “Exactly! Those who grow, live and die. The stagnant pool is immortal, while the clear flowing river dies an uncountable number of deaths.”

and

In the future, perhaps, she’d become finalized like carved stone. It would be easier to deal with the world then. She could only hope.

[...]

She still had to be careful not to lose her balance and fall. Kyoshi kept her eyes focused on her difficult path, sometimes stumbling but making sure to catch herself, taking one step at a time.

This isn’t directly related to what I think she would say, but more about how she lets her experiences, and therefore, her experiences and relationship with Yun, affect who she is. Here, F.C. Yee is detailing the person we see in her cameo in A:tLA. It’s a testament to her growth, yes, but also to how she lived so long. She’s allowed to grow now, while she’s young and still learning. But eventually Kyoshi’s growth will wane, leaving us with the iron woman we saw in A:tLA. 

Remember when I said I would call F.C. Yee a sap for the very last Kyoshi POV line? It’s the last sentence in my second excerpt, is that Kyoshi is allowing herself make mistakes. It’s pretty obviously a little deeper than the concept of walking down a slope: She became one of the most revered Avatars, we know how her story ends, if not lots of the in-betweens, but F.C. Yee tells us right here in that sentence. She changed and she learned. 

I think, however, that eventually she had to pick a place to stop in order to stop aging. If I had to pick a point where she became “immortal” I’d pick Rangi’s peaceful and timely death surrounded by her loved ones on Yokoya (not Kyoshi Island since I’m going to maintain that her A;tLA cameo was “immortal” Kyoshi) and I think Lao Ge killed her—or at least convinced her to let go.

further thoughts on her longevity: rangi’s role and future

Ok before anybody comes into my inbox like “um zey herglowinggirl I need you to know that actually Rangi also lived to 230 😌″ because I understand the sentiment it’s more like here’s what I’d like to discuss: Kyoshi can’t be immortal around Rangi because Rangi is in so many ways her catalyst for growth. First off, it would be completely out of character for Rangi to be immortal, because she’s constantly moving and being and feeling and judging and that changes her. Positive jing. And Lao Ge says it: “those who grow, live and die.” Rangi believes in the best and strives for the best, for perfection. For Kyoshi to freeze herself and become immortal, that would require picking an imperfect state. And as we know, Sei’naka women do not accept imperfection 😤. 

Although Rangi promises to always be by Kyoshi’s side, I think in the latter years of Kyoshi’s live it’s more like the impact that Rangi has had on her in that frozen state. That voice of Rangi’s is part of Kyoshi in those years. However, without Rangi, it is unlikely that Kyoshi will always or commonly choose to act on it. It’s stated multiple times throughout the novels that Rangi is Kyoshi’s center and that she doesn’t know who she’d be without Rangi, but I think the logical conclusion is immortal. With Rangi’s death she becomes her own center by stopping her growth; with Rangi’s death she just becomes...that stone she was talking about, where it does get easier to make decisions because you’re not striving to constantly change and grow. It’s almost a coping mechanism, if you will. Because Kyoshi is more than Rangi, can function without Rangi, it’s just not necessarily pretty.

lao ge’s role and future

Which brings me to my “in my personal version of canon Lao Ge kinda maybe killed Kyoshi” point. Rangi is in no way Kyoshi’s morality, but she is very much the idealistic ‘better’ half. With this catalyst of hope and change gone, I think back to the creation of the Dai Li—it very much sounds to me like something Jianzhu would do. Kyoshi, who had previously been the breakdown of negotiations, created a secret op police force? 

I think the moment Kyoshi started being the establishment, the moment she was the band-aid instead of the solution (much like Yun was, hint hint) Lao Ge would’ve paid her a visit. Either this or the creation of the Dai Li created a catalyst for perhaps an existential crisis, perhaps just being tired, perhaps simply knowing what is best...Kyoshi is, and always will be, a sworn criminal who cannot uphold the law, only her own judgements. She is both the law and the breaking and bending of it, and when she loses this balance when Rangi falls from her side and she becomes her own rock I think it would swing her away from her center, and this is where she becomes immortal. Eventually, it would become enough of an issue for people to intervene and tell her that her time as an Avatar is coming to an end. 

advice to future avatars

This is my favorite point and I’ll tie it back to Yun in just a second. I have posted about thinking about the impact of Yun’s death on Kyoshi and how that would’ve impacted her legacy and the advice she gave Roku and Aang before. Honestly what strikes me is how proud Kyoshi would be of Aang. The way that each Avatar must learn to forge their own way and become their own person and what their era needs, balancing themselves, is something so lovely. I think Kyoshi would’ve absolutely loved how Aang took the advice of his predecessors and said “no, I know what would be better for me,” and I think post-tSoK Kyoshi, who has learned she has to forge her own way and style as a leader, would love and be so proud of him for that. 

However, that doesn’t mean that her advice doesn’t have weight. I think mainly her “immortal” phase would perhaps have an impact on the way Yun impacts her advice. I think “only justice will bring peace” also speaks to the finality of death. Just like immortality, death keeps growth from happening. “only justice will bring peace” is also a nod to the way you must learn to cope with your actions and the way you feel about them. It’s also about Aang’s inner peace, which is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen mentioned. Everyone always wants to talk about what he should’ve done and how Kyoshi was right because she told Aang about her choice to let Chin die, but I think she actually guided him to the idea that you should be ok with yourself. To be confident in what you do and take up responsibility for your actions. Kyoshi wasn’t telling him murder was good. She was telling him she owned up to her actions and chose to make those decisions as an Avatar. To me, this finality speaks of growth after Yun’s death and the end of tSoK. She has grown and then frozen, but that means she has changed.

And although I don’t have an answer for what advice she might’ve given Roku, I think it’s a good way to interpret this. The only thing keeping Kyoshi from being honest about Yun’s death is the fact that Zoryu has “Yun” locked up. I think this is likely one of her biggest regrets, that she cannot be honest and responsible for something that weighs so heavily on her soul. This, I think, guides her advice. Only justice will bring peace. Now that I’ve thought it out, perhaps it wasn’t Lao Ge, and perhaps it was the idea that Yun had never been done justice and perhaps that turmoil never changed, which made her long-lived but not quite immortal. She cannot quite know the peace of death nor of life.

I think she must’ve told Roku that no matter what, he must accept the consequences of what he does. He’s not willing to loose that friendship and I think Kyoshi would’ve understood that, and the questions Roku would’ve had to pose himself as an Avatar. That is Kyoshi’s advice. Only justice, true justice in the form of accountability and self-actualization as a leader, will allow you to make good decisions. The acceptance of this: that whatever he does, he must be willing to accept it’s legacy, learn from it, and teach the next Avatar just as she let Yun’s death affect her leadership and what she taught. And I think that’s probably incredibly poetic, even if I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. 

#this might be my magnum opus. will someone on bryke's team just hire me to write an animated kyoshi novels please #honestly im filled with such love id do it for free nd everything #the shadow of kyoshi #avatar: the last airbender #yun #the kyoshi novels #rangshi #kyoshi #the rise of kyoshi #familiar anon #anonymous #answered asks #rangi #kyoshi novels meta #atla meta #z.txt

[thelargefrye]

your tiktok drafts getting leaked. ateez.

── summary. here’s some of your drafts that got posted after your tiktok account was hacked.

── warnings. suggestive stuff, alludes to sex, cussing, mention of toxic fans and antis, spitting kink i guess but just briefly, fem!reader

── developers note. this was inspired by venuswrld who had done this with her characters and i thought it would be fun to do it. also @sansbun​ the inspiration of one of the san ones lol. 

── tag list. @chrryhwa​

KIM HONGJOONG. 

draft one. 

you and hongjoong are sitting on your bed, filming in front of your small body length mirror. it then pans down to show a bunch of paints before a piece of text appears in front of the supplies. 

“we got bored so guess who is letting their boyfriend paint their back!! yay..”

it then cuts to show hongjoong straddling your legs as you lay down on the bed, a towel underneath you as you’re shirtless. hongjoong presses a quick kiss to your spine before he slowly starts to paint your back. 

it cuts once more to show the progress hongjoong has made before cutting again and showing the final product of a bunch of sunflowers as you sit in hongjoong’s lap as he holds the camera pointed towards the mirror from the beginning. 

draft two. AUDIO USED :: CAN’T HELP FALLING IN LOVE.

you were sitting in hongjoong’s studio, the camera facing you but you were looking at something in front of you. you look back at the camera and adjust it slight before a small block of texts appears as you flip the camera to reveal hongjoong sitting at his desk. 

the text reads, “thank you for everything you’ve done for me. thank you for me be with you in the studio. all our dates we’ve had and for letting me listen to all your songs.”

the song keeps playing as it cuts and you are laying in bed with hongjoong’s sleeping form cuddling into you another block of text appears, “i know i can be naggy and annoying, but it’s only because i care lol. i’m glad to know you are getting sleep at least, even if you do drool all over my hoodie. but still, i wouldn’t know where i would be without.” 

it cuts again to show you and hongjoong sitting on the couch, your head resting on his shoulder. hongjoong isn’t paying too much attention to you as his eyes are focused on whatever is in front of you two. a final block of texts appears, “thank you for letting me fall in love with you.” 

you look up at hongjoong with a fond smile before leaning over to press a kiss to his cheek making him look at you with a smile.

PARK SEONGHWA. 

draft one. AUDIO USED :: CHOKE.

you have the camera facing you, disco filter on as a block of text appears beside you, right as you point next to your head where it appears. 

“bitches don’t hate me because of me. they hate me because i’m dating their seonghwa oPPar. it’s toxic atiny, toxic atiny are bitches. sorry not sorry, don’t be a dick.”

you then throw a peace sign up as you stick your tongue out.

draft two.

you currently standing in front of your phone with the greenscreen effect on, a picture of seonghwa in a turtle neck behind you. 

“you see this,” you say pointing to the picture, “yeah, there’s a reason he was wearing a turtle neck during practice and it wasn’t because he was cold. just food for thought the next time he’s wearing a turtle neck.”

it then cuts and there’s a different picture behind you this time. it’s still of seonghwa but from ateez’s recent comeback during one of their fever stages.

“and you see him here? yeah, we fucked later that night because i thought he looked cute in that beret,” you said with shrug. 

JEONG YUNHO. 

draft one.

“kiss,” you say without warning as you lean over the couch, face turned to look at yunho who is sitting on the couch. he turns to kiss your cheek without hesitation and you grin before running away. 

“kiss,” you say again but in the kitchen this time. yunho smiles before kissing you once more and afterwards you run away like the first time.

“kiss?” it sounds like a question as you look at him with a cute expression on your face. yunho leans over to kiss your cheek, but you turn at the last second and his lips meet yours. 

you’re about to runaway like the last two times before yunho stops you by wrapping his arms around your waist and pulls you to his chest. a laugh leaves you as yunho covers the side of your face in kisses.

draft two. AUDIO USED :: MOTIVATE.

yunho is wearing his suit he had just worn for his recent anews video with smirk on his face as you straddle his lap. the camera is positioned away from the two, but still captures you running your hands down chest.

he can’t help how his smirk grows when you mouth “he motive me, yeah, that’s my baby.” which causes him to kiss you as flips you onto the couch. you say something, but the video doesn’t catch it and yunho only nods before taking his blazer off and tossing it over your still recording phone.

KANG YEOSANG. 

draft one.

the camera is facing yeosang who is sitting on your couch, looking down at his phone. your feet resting in his lap. you move one of your legs just enough to nudge him. when he doesn’t respond you do it again and again until he finally grabs your foot and turns to look at you.

“what?”

“do you love me?”

he gives a what the fuck face before answering, “of course. you think i would let the whole world know i’m dating you if i didn’t.”

“i know! i figured i would just check to make sure you haven’t grown tired of me!”

“i could never get tired of you,” he says and you make a weird noise before the phone is tossed the floor, but it manages to catch you throwing yourself on top of yeosang in order to kiss him.

draft two.

"yeosang asked me what would i do if he ever broke my trust,” you began, a fake smile on your face as you tried to have an innocent look as you tilted your head from side to side. “i told him if he ever broke my trust, i would break his band apart. he then asked what i meant,” you paused as a real smile takes over your fake one you had moments ago, “so i told him, ‘don’t break my trust and you won’t have to find out.’” you end it with a cute laugh.

SAN. 

draft one.

“i love atiny with all my heart,” you begin to say. you’re currently leaning into san who has his arm wrapped around you. “but damn do the delusional ones get on my fucking nerves,” you deadpan causing san to choke back a laugh. 

“like... i’m not gonna break up with love of my life because he’s your bias. and he’s not gonna break up with me so you can live you fifteen minutes of fanfic turned real life. because guess what? i’m the one that sucks his dick, not you.” 

san can’t help but laugh behind you as he turns his head away as to not show the camera he’s laughing, but it obviously doesn’t work as the video still catches the sound of his laugh. 

he turns back to you, still biting back his laugh, “god, i love you so much,” he says before kissing you.

draft two. AUDIO :: MY HEART WENT OOP.

you and san are standing in front of a mirror. the two of you dressed in your pjs as the song plays, right as the beat drops you both jump and when you land you’re wearing cute matching couples outfit. 

you shake your head before the both of you jump and land wearing cool streetwear. san shakes his head this time and you jump once more before you both land wearing cute maid outfits with cat headbands on top of your heads.

you nod your head and san smiles as he watches you smack his ass before you mess with his fishnets. san turns to face you and picks you up before kissing you.

SONG MINGI. 

draft one.

you’re laying in bed on your side, with a tired, unamused face as mingi is sleeping peacefully behind you. the only audio coming from the tiktok is of him snoring loudly making you frown. 

you zoom in on mingi’s face catching the line of drool coming out of his mouth and you zoom out to show an expressionless face.

draft two. AUDIO USED :: WII MUSIC.

you’re sitting in mingi’s lap head leaned back on his shoulder as you look up at the ceiling. it’s obvious you’re bored as mingi works on something, a song presumably, in front of you both. 

it then cuts to you now eating while still in his lap, as you occasionally feed him some of your food. he says something to you and you only nod your head taking another bite.

it cuts for a third to time to show you kissing mingi’s face and he doesn’t look phased in the slightest by your action. you then turn his head so he’s looking at you before kissing his lips as you let him go back to working, a smile on his face as he does so.

it cuts a final time to show you sitting on a couch with mingi resting his head in your lap with the text above reading, “finally got him to take a break!” 

JUNG WOOYOUNG.

draft one.

you and wooyoung are looking the camera making different faces and acting cute together. you then turn to look at wooyoung, who turns to face you as well. 

suddenly, you open your mouth, tongue sticking out. wooyoung smirks before he spits in your mouth and you swallow it without any hesitation as you both turn back to smile at the camera like nothing happened. 

draft two. 

wooyoung has his head buried in your chest with one of his hands underneath your hoodie. there’s a movie playing on the tv in front of you both, but it’s clear that wooyoung is fast asleep as you pet his hair.

some text is on the screen the whole time which read, “movie night but woo feel asleep 😞”

CHOI JONGHO.

draft one. 

you were standing in an elevator filming yourself in the mirrored doors as you showed off your outfit since you were feeling cute today. some text pops up that says, “can’t wait to get snapped in half like an apple hehe 🍎”

it then cuts to show you sitting on a bed filming in front of mirror. head messed up and top on the floor as you tilt your head from side to side. another piece of text pops up above your head saying, “my thighs hurt ✨” 

jongho appears behind you shirtless as he sits on the bed back facing you and showing the red lines running down his back and the text changes to say “but that’s okay i left him something as well hehe 🤪”

draft two.

you have an unamused look on your face as you begin to talk. 

“i am so fucking tired of people on twitter talking about jongho and mine’s relationship. and i’m talking about the ones saying he’s too young for me. like... bitch i’m not that much fucking older than him get over yourself. jongho isn’t gonna date you, so get off the little bird app and go do your fucking math homework, okay? thanks.”

#ateez x reader #ateez reactions #ateez imagines #ateez scenarios #ateez blurbs #ateez smut #ateez suggestive #ateez fluff #ateez #ateez hongjoong #ateez seonghwa #ateez yunho #ateez yeosang #ateez san #ateez mingi #ateez wooyoung #ateez jongho #other. #ateez.

[captainkirbypunch]

My love has left tumblr once again.

As many of you may know, the account under the name MDZADR, has left tumblr. They felt unsafe in their fandom, and as such have deleted their tumblr and AO3 account due to the bad memories linked to them.

As a part of their departure, they have asked me to post something in their name, as follows.

If you want more details about how I came to this realization, continue to read. If not, here is your summary:

TL;DR: For the safety and health of this fandom, I wanted to spread the word that Mooping-10 is filled with people who absolutely cannot be trusted, creating a very hazardous environment for the zadr community, and MelodyoftheVoid is connected to all of those people, living a double life amongst those of us that don’t “ship zadr correctly.” She has plenty of friends her inner circle knows nothing about, and nobody on either side knows who she really is. 

Full story below.

I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye. Nobody did anything to me today, but this just wasn’t worth it.

My AO3 and tumblr are both gone. I didn’t say goodbye because I didn’t want to look like an attention seeker.

Here’s the thing. I wasn’t going to name drop, but you guys need to know the truth. I’m instructing my boyfriend (hi y’all) to turn asks off for his own safety after this because this is going to be a nightmare, but... allow me to tell you the full story. I’ll try to break up the text so it’s less difficult to read, but this is important. I’m sorry to air discourse so publicly, but please... I need you to listen to me.

I’ll start from the beginning, without being vague anymore about who “she” is. I request that you please read the whole thing and not skip parts of it. The whole story matters.

I finally returned to the fandom about two months or so ago. As I’ve mentioned, I don’t do well in my thoughts while left alone too long, so I posted saying I would stop messaging people I knew because I didn’t want to bother them. There were only two people I was talking to at the time, but one of them is famous so I didn’t want to message her directly saying that. Doing so would have put her in a position of feeling obligated to say “you’re not bothering me” rather than just simply being able to sigh with relief from no longer being contacted. 

But the first person to contact me was the famous person, and she asked if I was okay, and told me she liked talking to me.

God, I actually cried.

But, that’s just her. Melodyofthevoid is the type of person to talk to people in the fandom, totally unaware of her demigod status. She comments on stories, interacts on posts, messages first... a pillar of kindness, so it seemed.

But let the story continue.

Over time, we were talking more often. 

Mostly sending memes (cause everyone I knew, myself included, aren’t exactly great at holding conversations. No shade. Memes are a love language). I was still in the hero worship stage of our relationship, so my view of her was that that was perfect.

Now, let me bridge a connection with a new story idea I got around December 28th or so, and my thinking she was perfect.

I had recently finished watching Madoka and questioned “If I had magical powers, what would they be?” It then turned into its own story idea, basing creators’ powers around the strengths and weaknesses in creations. I actually realized “oh fuck. My stuff is incoherent. My friends’ works aren’t too different...”

Thus spawned the name “Incoherent” for the project.

What does that have to do with this? Well, here’s the thing that really fucked everything up quickly. 

This was not on purpose, because originally the project (which I had told nobody of yet at the time) was all about improving your works, making platonic friends, dressing our personas in cute outfits, and writing fun magic.

While listening to music and thinking of the story one day, my brain accidentally shipped my persona with hers, and I couldn’t unsee it. And I’m lousy at keeping my own secrets (other’s are different) so she found out on probably day one or two about my weird crush because of an ask meme of all things. 

She didn’t try to put me off any, which was another problem for future things to come, and so I decided that since Incoherent was finally making me feel alive again and feeling the euphoric feelings of love wouldn’t hurt anything (I figured they’d mellow out on their own eventually because that’s how infatuation works) since they helped fuel my inspiration, and then we would just continue from friends to better friends one day and this part of our lives would be over.

Besides, the forbidden is attractive somehow, and makes stories more entertaining. She’s aro/ace, so I had no chance anyway. Someone safe to crush on, in her own way.

This isn’t a story of a love betrayal however. There was no such thing. But it’s important to the story because Incoherent is where my mistakes were made, and hers brought to light.

By this time, I had a handful of people I was talking to, and I created a discord server for the project. Only my boyfriend (hi!) and I were in it at the time. I was not-so-subtly asking my friends what they’d look like if they were a magical person, what their names would be... I thought I would have had to lure Melody in to make her want to join us, but I managed to get her in very easily. Everyone was happy and excited! It was a no obligation, no time limit thing for us to enjoy, a little sandbox to play around in. 

Sure there were plans to make it bigger and I was working on art to the best of my ability, but it was gonna be a fun thing mostly. No pressure on anyone.

And how things started becoming a problem was that the rest of us posted publicly about the project and interacted with each other’s posts relating to the story, but she had started to interact publicly less and less with our things, and everyone noticed it.

It wasn’t because we were greedy and wanted the popular girl to reblog our things. It’s because we had a feeling she was ashamed of being seen publicly with us. The reason we were worried before then and started making that connection was because I mentioned I was going to ask another user if they were interested in joining Incoherent. Melody was the only one that seemed uncomfortable, and I messaged her asking about it. We agreed I wouldn’t invite that person but I knew things were off about it.

That person is like me. How long until Melody didn’t want to talk to me anymore? A few days ago, the other shoe finally dropped. A member of our little group and I were talking and (let’s call them Friend for simplicity. They asked to not be name dropped here) Friend was worried they had made Melody upset by tagging her in a meme picture they drew of her persona, and the two had agreed that Friend remove the tag. This spawned an anxiety-filled conversation where Friend and I expressed our concerns about Melody not interacting with the project, or us.

So since I wanted reassurance that that wasn’t the case, I messaged Melody with my concerns. I told her I had the feeling she was ashamed of being seen in public with us because of her friends, and she didn’t refute me. She simply told me to go get some rest. I messaged back with “I’m right.”

I deleted Discord off my phone for hours and nearly deleted my Tumblr, AO3, and the server after my boyfriend helped pass messages between us. Melody confessed that was the case because her friends expressed discomfort with my works, and she was playing both sides.

Her words, not mine.

Melody told me she would be withdrawing from the Incoherent project because it wasn’t fair to us if her heart wasn’t in it.

She didn’t stand up on my behalf when they said things about me. Her friends are the type who talk behind creators’ backs for shipping zadr “incorrectly.” Worse than antis because they actually participate in the “pro-shipping” side of the fandom. I broke that day and messaged her at 3 am.

We finally spoke at 3pm. We both missed each other. I tried to understand more. I wanted it to be more like a conversation rather than an interrogation. It was only one-sided however, and she never opened up further. And I made some mistakes and poor choices of words, and we ended up parting ways permanently right there. 

I nearly deleted everything, but much like a coma patient attached to many machines on a hospital bed, my blog was kept alive a little longer by people sending kind words in droves. I was briefly fuelled by spite, wishing to watch the world burn by making everyone on the "correct" side of the fandom upset by posting the worst, most vile content this fandom has ever seen.

I was also welcomed with open arms by a very kind server with fellow degenerates, all of them screaming and crying and partying when they managed to get me in their server. It was so heartwarming...

But as I spoke to others about my situation, I realized something. A disturbing pattern.

People telling me horror stories about how Mooping-10 was cult-like. How the people running it were antis. I was even told once that they have a secondary server where they go to have their talks and do their work, likely the place where the real bashing is held.

The server itself has rules against such behavior, but I suppose it's different when they do it.

One person (and this is the most unnerving part for me, personally) told me Melody actually set off alarm bells in their head without having even done anything yet, and the most disturbing part of the story was that one of the moderators was afraid and upset because they got Covid, and received basically no moral support at all. Only getting told "spoiler that. Sorry you got Covid".

I was horrified. That server has 100 people in it. How many of them are the same? They act like popular kids in school who picked up an unpopular main character and then bash others, and the main character joined in because they don't want to be left behind by their new "friends".

To put it short, back to my point:

TL;DR: I simply only wanted to spread the word that: Mooping-10 is filled with people who absolutely cannot be trusted, creating a very hazardous environment for the zadr community, and Melodyofthevoid is connected to all of those people, living a double life amongst those of us that don't "ship zadr correctly". She has plenty of friends her inner circle knows nothing about, and nobody on either side knows who she really is.

#Invader Zim #zadr #tagr #rapr #zagr #mdzadr #MelodyoftheVoid

[firelxdykatara]

not gonna lie I would love to hear more about the drama and infighting that went on in The Vampire Diaries fandom if you have the time (and also want to use that time to give your experience with the fandom, which from the snippets you've told sounds Not Fun so I get it if you don't want to lol)

oh god, there was like, SO MUCH, i just

i really feel like tvd is one of those fandoms that is so hard to describe without a lot of ‘you’d have to have been there’, but it really felt like this huge and all-consuming beast for about five years until the show finally imploded and the fandom basically turned on it en masse. (you ever see that post going around that’s like ‘if you ever want to know what true regret feels like, ask someone who once called tvd their favorite show’? still a mood, all these years later. basically the entire fandom thought the show should have just bowed out with whatever shreds of dignity it had left at the end of season 6, and became more of a hatedom than a fandom for the last two seasons. when you have an entire fandom cheering news of your show’s cancellation, i think that’s a sign you done fucked up, julie.)

first and most infamous, of course, are the ship wars. which are pretty much inevitable in any teen-centered drama, and i really think the CW fucking thrives on them, but it was particularly egregious in TVD’s case because not only was the base premise of the show a love triangle, but the two main romantic leads were brothers that the show constantly pit against one another--in pursuit of elena’s affections, but also because it kept up this insistence on the ‘good brother/bad brother’ dichotomy which stopped making sense after about season 2 (by which time we have found out that the good brother was never as good as he appeared, and the bad brother has been growing and isn’t nearly as bad as he pretends to be)--and the question of which brother ‘deserved’ elena (and no, what elena wanted very rarely factored into these discussions, especially in the team stefan camp because they turned on her when what she wanted was no longer The Good Brother, but i’ll get to that in a bit) was hotly contested.

i’m not kidding when i say the shipping wars were vicious. i started watching tvd shortly after it began to air, which was late 2009, and kept up with it fairly sporadically over the years. i didn’t come onto tumblr until 2011/2012, and by then, the fandom was already pretty much a garbagefire. there were anti ship and anti character blogs, any time something bad happened for one ship the rival ship would invade the tags to gloat about it (seasons 3 and 4 were especially rough, and i’m not gonna pretend delena fans weren’t just as bad about tag invasion and shit, but as that was my side of the road i saw a lot more of the stelena shippers being assholes, which soured my opinion on the ship a long time before i started rewatching and realized the red flags were there from the start), confessions blogs were popular also toxic as fuck (so much fighting happened in the notes of those posts, good gods), and this was right around when twitter’s popularity was on the rise and the line between Celebrity and Fan was thinning, so the fandom was absolutely atrocious to much of the tvd cast and crew.

(some of them deserved a lot of the later backlash, but in the early years a lot of it was ‘how dare you write the story in a way i dont like, you terrible fucking person’, and gods don’t get me started on the dobsley vs nian Thing)

i think what really encapsulates my feelings on the tvd fandom as a whole, though, is the way they (to this DAY) treated elena gilbert, which can be summed up in one meme that gained a lot of traction around season 3 if i remember right: that gif of pam from true blood, with the text altered to read “i’m so OVER elena and her precious doppelganger vagina!”

i swear at one time i had over half the active tvd fan accounts on tumblr blocked, because i got to a point where i would no longer tolerate elena hate, and she was (and still is, in what remains of the fandom; you’ll see a lot of ‘elena was one of the worst things about the show’ takes from ex-fans, too) one of the most widely despised characters in the entire fandom. because she -checks smudged writing on hand- was a traumatized teenage girl who -reads off a crumpled notecard- couldn’t always perfectly sort out her own feelings and -squints at the ceiling- sometimes made mistakes or bad decisions. (except a lot of the fandom also insisted that she was a mary sue who had no character traits or flaws or faults and it was like....make up your fucking minds???? is she a calculating conniving bitch whose somehow manipulating these centuries old vampires to tie them around her little finger or is she a boring flat character with no depth and no flaws??? jfc)

there was this massive double standard, too--like, stefan and damon could fuck whoever they wanted and that was fine, but elena was constantly raked over the coals for the crime of developing romantic feelings for the two men who had become constants in her life and whom she cared for deeply, and oh my GOD the slut shaming that happened when elena slept with damon was fucking wild. (and also happened in canon lmfao. like the show had one of elena’s best friends basically call her diseased on screen for falling in love with someone other than stefan. it was gross and ridiculous and the friend in question was also being a giant hypocrite at the time since she was happily flirting with someone who was directly responsible for the deaths of like four of elena’s loved ones and her own boyfriend’s mother but that’s beside the point) but like elena was called a slut and a bitch and a whore for ‘cheating’ on stefan (she hadn’t, and she had in fact broken up with him on screen the episode earlier) and ‘immediately’ jumping into bed with damon, even though none of them said fucking boo when stefan had one night stands or damon had fuckbuddies or whatever.

shit, caroline didn’t get any of this treatment when she started falling for tyler while dating matt! which isn’t to say i think she should have, just that i think it’s fucking ridiculous that elena was absolutely demonized by the fandom for daring to have feelings for two guys at once and eventually acting on them--despite the fact that the entire premise of the show was a love triangle. it’s not a love triangle if both sides don’t eventually get explored, and the crew had been pretty explicit about the fact that delena was going to happen at some point--but when it did, a huge chunk of the fandom absolutely threw a fit.

and a lot of these elena haters were alleged stelena stans, and i say alleged because they hated her so much for not wanting stefan’s dick anymore that it was clear they were really stefan stans and only wanted stelena to be endgame because they wanted stefan to ‘win’ at the end of the day, because ‘he’s the good brother’ so he deserved elena more.

it was all very gross and very misogynistic and very sex shaming (apparently delena was a ‘shallow’ and ‘superficial’ relationship because they had sex after two years of unrequited feelings slowly becoming requited and then pining for ages on both sides, and because they had a lot of on screen chemistry that the show capitalized on for years so of course they did a lot of making out and shit but it’s not like stelena didn’t have its fair share of making out and sex scenes, stefan was just too much of a coward to let elena top i’d apologize for that joke but i’m really not sorry because it’s true), and when i say it was egged on by the crew, that’s because they refused to let the love triangle die back in season 4 when it should have.

they insisted on stringing stelena fans along, dropping little bread crumbs to keep them invested, like dreams of a future where they were married and revealing that stefan was also a doppelganger and he and elena were descended from a pair of star-crossed lovers (a plot that ultimately went nowhere, to no one’s great surprise), and then fucking like. julie plec turned around and threw nina under the bus after she chose not to extend her contract and pretended that stelena might have happened again if she hadn’t left the show, which....i mean frankly i wouldn’t put it past her, but it would have been shitty writing. then again, she thought having a vampire pregnancy where a uterus was magically transplanted from a witch into a vampire that could somehow......carry the babies to term.... made sense and was a good way to accomodate candice’s RL pregnancy rather than like literally ANYTHING else, soooooo. but anyway julie saying that around like, end of s6 sparked off a new wave of nina hate and elena hate and ship wars bc they SEers took it as ‘confirmation’ that stelena was REALLY meant to be endgame and it was all just a hot fucking mess

another thing is that, while tvd was in its prime before the anti/purity culture shit started picking up any real steam, there was still this pervasive attitude throughout the fandom that if you liked Damon, you were A Bad Person. liking damon was apparently grounds for insults and harassment, and apparently he was The Worst Person on the Show even though literally nothing he does on screen is any worse than shit we know stefan has done (and frankly every other vampire too, but i mention stefan specifically because he was always held up--in the show but especially in the fandom--as the Good Brother while damon was the Bad One, and if you liked damon more then that had to mean your morals were dodgy and you clearly couldn’t appreciate what a heroic and saintly figure dear stefan was and....oops, i’m sorry, my salt keeps leaking -cough-).

meanwhile klaus quickly became a fandom darling despite not even really having much of a redemption arc (on tvd anyway, he just became more ‘affably evil’ as the show went on and more inclined to work with the main characters rather than try to kill them; i have no idea what went on over on his show, though), and like i can 100% appreciate liking villains and not caring that they do dodgy villainous shit, even just liking them bc they’re hot and wanting them to kiss a main character bc they have insanely good chemistry (yes i ship klaroline, no i won’t apologize for it, they could have been Really Great), it’s just really the double standard that gets me.

and all of this, incidentally, required ignoring some truly gross shit stefan was responsible for wrt his relationship with elena, that frankly it has always bothered me never really got addressed in the show. i get why elena herself would never be able to actually call him on it, but the fact is that he stalked her for months after he first saw her and thought she was katherine (meanwhile it only took damon .5 seconds to realize she was someone else entirely, but that’s another topic entirely), and then he deliberately inserted himself into her life because, in his words, ‘i have to know her’. he never gave a thought to how his presence in her life might affect her (or rather, he did, and tormented himself about it in his internal monologue, but never let this actually dissuade him from disrupting her life), and elena would wind up blaming herself for every tragedy that befell her friends and loved ones as a result of getting mixed up in vampire bullshit even though none of it was her fault--she literally blamed herself for existing but most of the fandom didn’t give a fuck about that lmfao--and stefan did shit like find out that she was adopted and then withhold this information from her until she got pissed about another secret he was keeping (her resemblence to katherine) and drop it on her to try and distract her from her very reasonable anger, and like... i should stop before this becomes a whole rant about how much i hate stefan fucking salvatore, but the point is, he did a lot of really sketchy shit he never answered for and elena never really took him to task for, and the fandom just kept eating up his insistence that he was the Good Brother and therefore he deserved to have elena, and if she didn’t want him anymore it was because she was a heinous bitch who didn’t deserve him.

uh.....i think i got off track there. and there’s probably a lot of shit i missed, like i think i was incandescent with rage for most of seasons 5 and 6 so i missed a lot of the interfandom shit cause i was too busy being increasingly pissed off at the show itself, but if nothing else this should give you an idea of how much of a goddamn cesspit the fandom was while the show as in its prime. there’s a reason both the show and the fandom have such a lousy reputation lmfao.

#the vampire diaries #tvd #tvd fandom salt #anti stefan #anti stelena #salt for ts #asked #Anonymous