#so basically any ship is valid at some point

[red-riot-unbreakable-heart]

Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋 PART 2

Part 1: Linked Here!

AO3: Linked Here :)

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Ship: Shoto Todoroki x Fem Reader! 💋

Genre: Fluff, Romance, S*xual Tension, Making Out

CW: MDNI!, A18+, kissing, romance, sexual tension, semi-spicy scenes, lemon

Scenes from the afternoon hookup replay in your mind over and over as you sit in the library at a battered old desk in the history section. All you can think about is Shoto’s mouth. And his hands. And his abs!! And his sweet face.

You twiddle your pen in your hand as you try to draft out an essay for class. Unfortunately, every time you try to jot down a few thoughts your mind goes blissfully blank and you remember the tender way he spoke to you.

"How am I going to get anything done now, knowing that you can kiss like this?"

“You’re so beautiful. Your skin is so soft…I never realized how great it would be to touch you.”

“Find me later so we can discuss this.”

You look down at your watch excitedly – 7:55 PM. You eagerly wait for Shoto to appear so the two of you can talk and – with any luck – canoodle amongst the history textbooks. You sit patiently as the time ticks by.

Soon it’s 8:30 PM. You’re not worried, though. Shoto probably assumed you’d want to get some work done first.

9:15 PM rolls around and you start to get worried. You try to distract yourself with school work as doubt creeps into your mind.

10 PM – Shoto still hasn’t showed.

“Shit shit shit.” You check your phone again and again as you wade through the endless wave of homework your teachers have assigned. You keep losing yourself in a math problem or in a passage of your History textbook, only to remember with a jolt that you were expecting to see Shoto and the bastard hasn’t showed.

At 10:30 PM you realize with a sinking feeling that it’s almost past curfew. You pack up your things and prepare to head back to the dorms. There’s a heavy feeling in the pit of your stomach that you can’t shake.

You slide your books into your bag as a anxious thoughts dance through your mind like annoying fruit flies: Does Shoto regret your mid-afternoon hookup? Is he going to pretend it never happened? Did you push him too far? Does he think you’re a slut for stripping off your shirt and basically pressing his face into your naked breasts!? The synapses of your brain jump through dozens of equally horrid and embarrassing scenarios as you march back to your dorm room, blushing furiously with humiliation.

You run through the afternoon’s events in your head for what feels like the hundredth time, trying to find a clue as to why Shoto would have left you waiting alone in the library. Your cheeks burn hotter as you recall the gentle way Shoto had kissed your neck before leaning in to capture your lips in one of his first kisses. "How am I going to get anything done now, knowing that you can kiss like this?" You shiver as you think back to how gentle he was, how each caress felt so loving and intimate.

You shake your head to clear it. Shoto must have a valid excuse for not meeting you in the library as he had promised – no boy could kiss someone that intimately and then instantly cast her aside, right?

Before long, you’re walking through the doors of Class 1A’s dorm building. You shiver with discomfort as you recall how earlier that day you essentially scaled the side of a building for a boy. Does Shoto think you’re an absolute fool with the extremes you went to for a quick make out session? You hope not.

You walk up the stairs and past the common area. You see most of Class 1A studying quietly. Sero, Izuku, Kirishima and Ida sit around one of the kitchen tables reviewing their math homework while some of the girls compare English notes on the couch. To your relief, Shoto isn’t there. Mina waves to you enthusiastically, beckoning you to join her and YaMomo as they review the finer points of Hamlet. You politely decline and make a beeline for your room. You turn the key in the lock and it clicks – within moments, you are blessedly alone.

You toss your heavy book bag to the ground and prepare to wallow in self-pity. It’s 10:56pm and Shoto still hasn’t reached out to you. Your phone is vacant of text messages and your brain is absolutely fried from schoolwork.

You dim your room lights and switch on the favorite fairy lights for some peaceful ambiance. Time for some self-care, bitch! You think resolutely as you swap your uniform for your favorite pair of pajamas. You toss your phone to the floor with abandon and climb into your comfy bed. You breathe in deeply, allowing yourself to revel in the coziness of the dorm room.

You take out your five-minute bullet journal and write a quick list of things you're grateful for: 1. The opportunity to study at UA 2. Your lovely and encouraging friends and classmates 3. Your cozy room and the roof over your head 4. Shoto’s mouth 5. Shoto’s abs 6. Shoto’s goddamn hard AF dick

Um. No.

You snap the journal shut before you get too derailed.

You pull your comforter over your head and sit in silence for a moment. You’ve never been the kind of person to go completely boy-crazy. You always used to make fun of those girls who would go gaga over pretty boys and their texts and their kisses. But as you recall the searing way that Shoto kissed your lips earlier that day, you suddenly understand what all the boy-crazed girly hype was all about. Oh my god. You have a crush. A big sloppy embarrassing crush.

In the silence of your room, you suddenly here a buzzing noise coming from the general direction of your book bag. You struggle to disentangle yourself from your sheets and your journal goes flying. You ignore its crash landing as you slip from your bed and collect your phone from where it lays abandoned on the carpeted floor.

It’s Shoto.

Your heart skips.

Todoroki: Y/N. Are you awake?

You bite your lip, unsure how to respond. Did Shoto just send you his version of “U up?”

Y/N: Yes, I’m still up.

Todoroki: I know it’s late, but can I stop by?

You tense. Oh God – he’s going to come by to tell you that he’s not interested. He’s going to thank you for your time making out and say that you probably should avoid hooking up in the future because it’s a huge distraction. You’re sure that whatever he has to say is going to be negative and leave you feeling embarrassed. Why else would he have skipped out on your rendezvous in the library?

You take a deep breath. You have always been fairly practical with a mind for strategy, two qualities that had really set you apart when you had taken the UA entrance exams. You know that the best course of action here is to rip off the Band-Aid sooner rather than later. Better to know how he feels about your hookup now

Your heart sinks as you type out:

Y/N: Sure, I’ll leave the door unlocked for you. Just come in. Try not to be seen by anyone.

Todoroki: Of course. See you shortly.

Your heart beats double time as you look down at yourself. Your pajama set consists of a silky blue top with matching shorts that don’t leave much to the imagination. You chew on your thumb nervously – should you change into something more appropriate? No – Shoto has seen your boobs. A little bit of leg is not going to kill the half hot half cold hero in training.

You quickly remake your bed and kick your book bag beneath your desk so that the floor is clear. You plop down on your smooth comforter and wait, knotting your hands together as you anticipate Shoto’s arrival.

A few anxious minutes pass, and then you hear gentle footsteps pad down the hallway outside your door. The knob turns quietly, and in a moment Shoto Todoroki steps across your threshold, quietly closing the door behind him. He reaches down to turn the lock with a gentle snap of his wrist.

You take him in – he’s wearing a pair of grey sweatpants and a soft white t-shirt. You’ve never seen him dressed so casually before and you assume that these are what he wears as pajamas in the privacy of his own dorm room. His hair is tousled and damp from a recent shower, and the burned side of his face shines where he’s clearly applied some kind of scar cream or moisturizer. His outfit projects a comfy air, but his expression is dark and stormy. Your heartbeat quickens in fear – what could possibly have caused him to be in such a tempestuous mood? Was this about your kissing?

You bite at your lip with worry. But when your eyes lock, his expression softens. In two quick strides, he’s at the bed. He leans in close so that your noses almost touch.

“Hi.” He says softly, before dipping his mouth to meet yours. You blink in surprise as your mouths melt together. His eyes flutter shut as he sinks into the kiss. Pleasure radiates up and down your spine as you kiss him back. He places both his palms on your hips and pulls you closer, letting out a small moan of satisfaction as he slides his tongue into your mouth. How silly you feel for thinking he didn’t want you like this!

After a few moments, you break apart.

“Hey there.” You whisper, bringing your hands up to cup his beautiful jaw. He leans in to kiss you again and you hold him in place. He stops and looks down at you inquisitively.

“I waited for you in the library, you didn’t show.” You say slowly, softly.

“My father decided to take me through some drills in one of the school’s gyms. I only finished a half hour ago.” His expression becomes dull as he speaks. “I’m sorry to leave you waiting. I wanted to see you - but I’m not allowed on my phone during training.”

Relief must have flooded your features, because he tilts his head to the side questioningly. You hold back a giggle – the way his head is tilted makes him look like a sweet dog asking its owner for a treat.

“What’s wrong?”

You sigh and pull yourself further onto the bed, patting the spot next to you as an invitation. Shoto climbs up next to you, sinking into the deliciously soft fabric. His eyes widen slightly in surprise.

“This is so comfortable.” He says, pressing his palm into the plush fabric beneath him. You recall his sparse traditional bedroom and realize that he’s never laid on a proper puffy mattress before.

“Hold on – it gets better.” You say pushing him off the bed so you can pull down the covers. You slip beneath the comforter and gesture for him to rejoin you. He climbs in clumsily, unsure how to position himself within the sheets. You prop a pillow beneath his shoulders as he lays down on his side. You toss the comforter over the two of you and lay across from him, feet almost touching beneath the warm layers of bedding.

“Cozy?” You ask as Shoto settles into the bed.

“Yeah.” He says in quiet voice, propping himself up on an elbow. “I always thought beds like this were excessive but…maybe there’s some merit to this.” He eyes a blue Squirtle plush that sits next to you in the bed. “Can I…hold that?”

You grin, biting back a laugh as you reach over to grab the Pokémon plush. “This is Squirtle – he’s one of my favorite plushies.” You hold up the stuffed animal and wiggle it in front of Shoto’s eyes as if it’s dancing. “Squirtle, Squirtle” you say in a low tone, trying to emulate the television character’s voice the best you can.

Shoto gives you a weird look. “I don’t get it. Why are you just repeating its name in a strange voice?”

“Shoto…have you…have never seen Pokémon!?” You almost screech in disbelief, before throwing a hand over your mouth to quiet yourself. You quickly remember that you are in the dorms and the walls aren’t super thick.

“No, I wasn’t allowed to watch television unless it was about Pro hero work.” Shoto says, a tinge of sadness flowing along with his words. “But it looks cute and round and I really just want to hold it and squish it?”

“Yeah, that’s the general reaction to plushies. Dude, we need to get you that whale pillow you liked on Pinterest. You need more cuteness in your life.”

“Well I have you, don’t I?” Shoto smiles softly. “You bring more than enough cute into my life.” He reaches out and grabs the plush from your hands and squishes it a bit. “But this is pretty nice, too.”

Your face grows hot at the compliment. Shoto tucks the Squirtle under his arm and shifts around in the sheets until he finds a comfortable position. He looks adorable and soft as he cradles the bright plush in his strong, muscular hands.

When he finally settles in, he looks up at you enquiringly. “What’s wrong?” He repeats, looping you both back to the conversation form earlier.

“So…” You sigh with embarrassment. “When you didn’t show up and I didn’t hear from you…” You pause and Shoto gives Squirtle a squeeze. “I thought you didn’t want to see me again. Or at least that you didn’t want to make out with me again.”

“Oh.” Shoto wasn’t expecting this. “I thought I made it very clear how…enthusiastically…I enjoyed our time together this afternoon. I didn’t realize I had left any room for you to question my attraction to you.”

“That’s nice to hear…but when you didn’t show at the library or send a text, I assumed the worst. My mind kind of went into full-blown panic mode. I thought maybe once you had time to reflect on our hookup, that you realized you didn’t like it or that you didn’t really like me. To be perfectly honest, I’ve never felt that way before. Usually something like this wouldn’t bother me.” You take a deep, steadying breath. “But I think I really like you and want to be close to you, and the thought that you might not feel the same was tearing me apart for the last couple of hours.”

The words come tumbling from your mouth before you can stop and think them through. Why are you saying all of this!? Why does being around Shoto make you feel so comfortable and open to sharing? It’s so weird – and you’re absolutely sure he’s going to think you’re some kind of over sharing freak for telling him all of this.

Shoto looks at you thoughtfully for a long moment before speaking. “Something I have always admired about you is your ability to be straightforward about what you’re thinking and feeling. Most people aren’t like that, and I have a hard time navigating more subtle situations. Thank you for telling me exactly what you’re thinking – I value it so much.” He runs a hand through his slightly damp hair, moving the bangs out of his bright eyes.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I had abandoned you. I wanted to come to the library so badly. I want to kiss you so badly – it’s all I’ve been thinking about tonight.” His voice is so earnest that you believe him.

“Let me match your honesty with some of my own - my father is extremely strict. Ever since I was born, he’s pushed me to be better. To be stronger. He wants me to surpass him. He wants me to take All Might’s place as the number one hero.”

You gasp at this. Of course you knew that Todoroki was ambitious, but this…

“I don’t have any intentions of becoming harsh and cruel like my father. I’m not even sure if I want to go for the top spot on the hero charts.” He admits, almost bitterly. “That’s the path that my father has laid out for me. He’s obsessed with my training. With my ‘potential.’ But he doesn’t seem to give a fuck about how I feel. Excuse my language.” Shoto looks so sad, so despairing. He hugs the plush close, his chin tucked into his chest as he continues.

“I just want to help people and make them smile – just like All Might. But my old man just doesn’t seem to get that. Today, when he noticed how distracted I was… he didn’t ask if something was wrong. He just pushed me even harder.” Shoto avoids your gaze. “I think he purposefully pushed me to train into the night to keep me from meeting up with you. In his eyes…you’re a huge distraction for his prized creation.”

Suddenly you notice how exhausted Shoto looks – there are pale bags beneath his eyes. You scan his body and see light bruises beginning to form on the exposed skin of his arms. You wonder - just what kind of training has Endeavor been subjecting him to?

You had never guessed that behind Shoto’s calm and collected exterior, there is just a normal teenage boy trying desperately to please his father, while simultaneously trying to defy him. The whole relationship seems complicated and messy and you’re sure what Shoto is telling you is only the tip of a chaotic Todoroki family dynamic iceberg.

“Oh, Shoto.” You say softly. You scoot forward and wrap your arms around him. He freezes, unsure of what to do but nevertheless comforted by the sudden closeness. You reach behind him and card your fingers through his hair. You see goose bumps emerge across his skin, and realize that he likely hasn’t been touched this way before.

“Is it okay to touch you like this?” You whisper.

He breathes out a shaky “yes” as he moves to toss the Squirtle plush to the floor. Once his arms are free, he works to wrap them around you. He rests one strong hand on your back and slings the other around your delicate waist. He draws you close to him and holds you tightly as you continue to run your fingers softly through his two-toned hair.

He’s silent as he buries his head into your shoulder. There’s an emotion that’s radiating off of his body that you can’t quite place – sadness? Frustration? Maybe even relief? After a few moments of running your fingers through his hair and gently up and down his back, he finally starts to relax. The tense muscles in his shoulders loosen, and he seems to come back to himself.

“I’m sorry Y/N.” He whispers, muffled as he turns his face into the crook of your neck. “I’m not great at expressing my emotions. I can try to put it into words…I’m feeling so weighed down right now.”

“Because of your father’s expectations?” You prompt, running a light fingertip down his spine. He shivers a bit in response, but not in an unpleasant way.

“Sometimes I wonder if he sees me as a real person, as a son. Or am I just his big project?” Shoto wonders aloud, his voice a bit strained. You feel his eyelashes flutter against the sensitive skin beneath your jawline.

“Shoto...that sounds like a lot to carry. You’re just a high school student – your father shouldn’t be putting that kind of pressure on you. It’s not normal.” You tuck a lock of red hair behind his porcelain ear. “This situation sounds so complicated. It’s no wonder you feel so conflicted. I’m here any time you need a friendly ear to listen as you work through it.” You continue to caress him softly over his clothes. He begins to lean into your touch hungrily. “But right now – at this moment – you’re safe. In this room, in my arms, you don’t need to hold other people’s expectations of you in your heart. When you’re with me, I want you to feel that you can just be Shoto.”

You still your fingers as you let your words sink in. Shoto is radiating a deep sort of sadness that you wish you could smooth away with your fingertips.

“Thank you.” He says, his voice breaking a tiny bit as he processes your words. After a few beats Shoto exhales deeply, his breath ruffles your hair. “I’m not used to talking about these things. Actually, I’m not really used to talking much at all. Or being touched.” You can feel the blush on his delicate cheeks warm the skin of your neck.

“I can tell.” You say before you can stop yourself. To your surprise, he chuckles.

“I don’t know why it’s so easy to do these things with you – talking, touching…kissing.” He lifts his head off of your shoulder to look you square in the face. “There’s something about you…”

Suddenly, the room feels as if it’s charged with Denki’s electrification quirk as his bright mismatched eyes meet your own.

“I think I’d like to continue exploring this with you.” He says matter-of-factly, moving his legs to intertwine with yours.

“W-what does that mean?” Your breath catches in your throat as he dips forward to kiss down your neck.

“It means…I want to keep doing this. Kissing. Talking. I suppose I want to keep getting to know you like this? Intimately.” He places a soft kiss in the hollow behind your earlobe. “Would you like that as well?”

“Yes.” You breathe, with zero hesitation. He smiles into your neck before running the edges of his teeth lightly across your smooth skin. You let out a soft moan in response.

“Good. Then we’ll figure this out together.” He moves to kiss your cheek soundly before releasing you from his embrace. “But right now it’s well past midnight, and we both need our sleep if we’re going to continue to be top of our class alongside YaMomo and Ida. If we both let our grades slip, it might tip people off.” He moves to get off the bed.

“Hey – wait!” You grab his arm and pull him back under the covers. “I have no problem with you staying here for the night.”

“But wouldn’t that be inappropriate?” Shoto’s face reddens, but he lets himself be drawn back into your gentle embrace.

“Would it be anymore inappropriate than you making out with my tits?” Shoto’s face burns an even brighter red at this question, but he also looks quite pleased with himself (you assume he’s recalling the way he kissed down your breasts earlier that day as he smirks). “Sharing a bed should be perfectly responsible as long as we keep all of our clothes on. You said you want to explore? Well get over here and let’s figure out if you make a good big spoon.”

This earns one of those rare full smiles from Shoto – he practically glows. “Alright.”

He pulls himself close to you. You reach above your head and switch off the string lights that wind their way around your room, and the tiny dorm fills with darkness.

You turn to face the wall and scoot your body back until you feel Shoto’s solid warmth. He reaches around to pull you close until bodies are touching, flush together. You tuck yourself into Shoto’s warm, muscular body and sigh with contentment.

“So do I make a good big spoon?” He questions, tentatively nuzzling his face into your hair and inhaling deeply. “Mmm, your hair smells like lavender.”

“We’ll need plenty of practice to truly ascertain the full range of your spooning abilities.” You say in a faux-academic voice, causing him to snort out a laugh. “But so far you’re doing great.”

You interlock your legs and pull his strong arms around you. You wiggle a bit as you try to find the comfiest spot in the mattress. You unintentionally grind a bit against Shoto and jolt when you feel something hard pressed against the curve of your ass.

“Sorry.” He mutters softly, embarrassed.

“Maybe I’ll take care of that for you tomorrow.” You yawn as you close your eyes and settle in for a good night’s rest. You grin into the darkness as you feel Shoto’s dick get even harder as he mulls over your response, wondering at what you could possibly mean by “take care of that.”

You didn’t realize you were so tired. You’re dimly aware of Shoto’s breathing growing slow as he drifts off into a comfortable sleep. You smile softly to yourself as you slide further into his embrace. This poor, touch-starved boy has been through so many terrible things and your heart aches for him.

Even in sleep he’s tense, his jawline stiff and his muscles almost locked around you. But he’s warm and soft and smells like jasmine and mint tea. You hope that for the next few hours you can provide him with a safe harbor to rest and escape his troubles. You let your eyes flutter close and breathe in deeply, dreaming of Shoto’s sweet face as you fall gently into sleep’s embrace.

#shoto fluff #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha manga #bnha #mha #boku no academia #boku no hero #shoto todoroki #shoto x reader #todoroki shoto #todoroki #shouto todoroki #todoroki lemon #BNHA lemon #todoroki x you #todoroki x y/n #todoroki x reader #shoto x you #shoto lemon #shoto x y/n #shoto todoroki x reader #shoto todoroki x you #todoroki fluff #light smut #shoto first kiss #first kiss mha #first kiss bnha

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Aita for not making any of my characters, that I have to crank out daily, pansexual/polysexual/omnisexual specifically and only making them bi?

🏳️‍🌈👶🏼 so i can recognize this later lmao also I'm not panphobic or anything, this isn't about the validity of the label, pan is fine.

So i (20snb bi) have a project I'm working on where I take all the characters from a specifc media I'm into and pair them up with each other to make every possible ship kid from every possible ship(excluding characters who are kids themselves or are related or something, that shit is gross). Basically taking every character and pairing them up with another and creating a kid I think they'd have. Its a big project with lots of characters and I'm easily over 400 at this point. I really enjoy this, even if I'm not even 25% complete.

However I set a schedule for myself that at least one ship kid needs to come out each day which, considering I draw them, color them and give them some development and some even have siblings, (The refs themselves easily take me an hour to an hour and a half) I have to make lots of them quickly to keep up with my daily grind. I've been doing this project for over a year and although it's stressful, I can get them out quickly with breaks for myself.

Their character sheets all have some pretty basic info like their name, gender, pronouns, personality and more but it also includes their sexuality/orientation. I have a pretty basic list of options for what their sexuality will be: straight, lesbian, gay, Enbian, bi, Aro, ace and aroace with a few random things like polyam, WLW and a good amount of the something-loving-something/juvelic terms. I did this because, well, there's not many entirely unique orientations outside of them and although I love mogai/xenogenders and complex identities, I dont want to potentially drag up discourse or bring problems to my budding art blog over it. Its just not worth it to me to turn something I really care about on its head, even if I like microlabels.

In this case, I'm using bi as an umbrella term as most of the other terms share the same definition with slight variations in wording or action but not much difference in practice. We all like everyone, it's basic stuff. However, apparently this is a problem.

I've gotten one or two anons asking me questions about my guides asking some kind stuff like is this lesbian ship kid a butch or femme or Is this picture of them now or just at the age you put on the ref and other harmless stuff. Then things got rude with some Nbphobia but thrice now I've gotten asks:

1. Asking snarkily if im a panphobe

2. insulting me for not specifically writing pan or Omni and just writing bi.

3. Saying that I "clearly dont care about pansexual representation." Then brought up how my primary oc is native american so i clearly care about representation but that oc used to be a sona and I'm native?? Its confusing. (And Lowkey racist shit to just assume any native character is a "diversity quota" character instead of just a person existing but I digress-)

Im not pan, im bi so ig these people assume I'm not cool with pan people which isnt true? I have nothing aginest them, they are just pretty similar and I dont feel like it matters if they are specfically bi or pan or poly or any other label. I don't go into details like that for any other sub-group, not even pronouns and I included combinations and some common Neopronouns. I understand the importance of representation but my project has less than 50 people looking at it every day, Im not netflix or something. I'm one guy on the most LGBT blogging site with a big project and very little audience, I'm not showing people who wouldn't already know what pan is that pansexuality exists.

This project isn't that deep considering the characters in question aren't human/dont have human characteristics.(no it's not hazbin/helluva) Also ive never spoken about lgbt discourse or stated anything remotely close to it beyond the guides just passively having characters who are an LGBT identity. I've not even mentioned all the potentional orientations they could have so I'm not sure where/why this came up in the first place. The most politcial things ive said are calling out a creator in my fandom who outed themselves as a transphobe and mentioning im pro-palestine. That's it.

I mean this is pretty low stakes, I can just block these people and be done with it and this some seriously online shit but I just wanna check.

Am I being an asshole for just writing bi instead of specifying their mspec label because I have to produce characters quickly and I don't see enough of a difference to warrant a change/specification that would ultimately slow and clog an already stressful and complex project?

I dont think I am but idk lol

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[pyxilatezero]

Need I say more?

I think the people, objectively, have spoken.

if I were to add in my opinion you’d see that I contributed a few fanfics to the mix

Main reason for my dislike of White Knight: I hate Jaune and Weiss is my favorite character, so I think she deserves better. I know some people won’t say this is a valid reason but Jaune originally and currently isn’t written very well. You basically have to give him his own episode to flush out his plot line, (like in the first season and every season afterwards where he’s important) and he’s not a main character so he takes up screen time. (They do the same with Oscar and the rest of JNPR Instead of doing a JNPR episode, they do each of them individually with sprinkles of plot in between) Honestly, a relationship between him and Weiss would be a bad idea. Case in point:

Volume 1 White-knight Moments:

Jaune unsuccessfully flirting with Weiss (+1)

Volume 2 White-knight Moments:

Jaune unsuccessfully flirting with Weiss (+1)

Volume 3 White-knight moments:

… PYRRHA! (-1)

Volume 4 White-knight moments:

… (No interaction; no points awarded or deducted)

Volume 5 White-knight moments:

Jaune does a common courtesy and saves Weiss’s life (does not count; he would react the same for anybody- ‘nO hE wOULdn’T’ shut up Victoria if any of your friends were dying you’d save their life) [+0.5]

Volume 6 White-knight moments:

…

Volume 7 White-knight moments:

…

Volume 8 White-knight moments:

…

Volume 9 White-knight moments:

Weiss admires Jaune over the fact that he’s mature, and supports him like a good friend after Ruby runs away. He reverts to his old form, and we never hear from them again. (+2)

Total score: 3.5/9 (trying to be generous, I really am)

Main reason for liking Whiterose: Enemies to friends to lovers is an adorable trope, and they get a lot of screen time together in the first few seasons. Also, Monty himself shipped them. While I won’t say Whiterose is objectively better than White Knight, I am going to say that when I include my own opinion, it is better. Weiss and Ruby’s relationship feels more like a slow burn than Yang and Blake’s. We get scenes that could be interpreted that way in almost every season since Volume one. Let me go through them, and to show how unfair this is, I’m not allowed to add more than 1.5 points:

Volume 1 Whiterose Moments

Ruby and Weiss are off to a rocky start, but slowly warm up to each other as time goes on, and they get closer. They have a mildly, could-be considered romantic moment where Weiss makes Ruby coffee so she can stay up to study. (+1)

Volume 2 Whiterose Moments

In the food fight, Ruby dramatically catches Weiss when she falls and pretends to cry over her. (Not really much, but it’s something). Ruby and Weiss consistently pair up to get things done throughout the season, especially when looking into information about Cinder. (+1)

Volume 3 Whiterose Moments:

Supporting each other when Winter gets there (that is Volume 3, right?), excellent teamwork in the first stage of the Amity Arena battle, and Weiss’s concern for Ruby when she disappears. (+1)

Volume 4 Whiterose Moments:

Thinks about each other, but otherwise, nothing. (No points awarded or deducted)

Volume 5 Whiterose Moments:

Weiss remember’s Ruby’s coffee taste. While this could be something any friend does, they spend time together, reflecting over beacon, and Weiss helps Ruby’s sister Yang through an implication that she’s doing it for team RWBY, but especially their eccentric fluffball of a leader. (+1.5)

Volume 6 Whiterose Moments:

Ruby saves Weiss on the train, Weiss saves Ruby in the battle against the mech, and they spend time together in the village with the grim. I should give two points here but I’m loyal to my word. (+1.5)

Volume 7 Whiterose Moments:

Ruby and Weiss sitting together during training, and Weiss supporting Ruby when the team splits up. (+0.5)

Volume 8 Whiterose Moments:

Supporting each other all throughout the volume by working together, and acting as teammates and partners. (+0.5)

Volume 9 Whiterose Moments:

Ruby supports Weiss after her being upset about the fall of Atlas. (Jaune’s interaction with Weiss, -1 point- would have been two, though)

6/9

In any scenario, Whiterose wins. Im sure other people could come up with reasons to disprove me, or say I’m biased (I am, this is in no way objective), but these are the things I saw with my own eight eyes because I own three pairs of glasses, and heard with my (admittedly failing) teenage ears.

I’m sure I’ll get flak for this from both sides of the shipping community, because admittedly, the RWBY fandom can be toxic (but it’s almost any fandom at that point) saying I either graded White Knight too harshly or I gave too many or too few points to Whiterose, and I also did all of this off the top of my head, so I apologize for my many mistakes. I have two last statements:

Rosegarden: 0/9

Oscar is 14 and Ruby is 17. If I, the same age as Oscar as of 2023, would not date Ruby at that time, it’s probably wrong. When it comes to relationships for younger people, it’s best to avoid age gaps larger than 2 years. It’s also best to avoid relationships altogether until you can at least go for a learner’s permit. I rest my case.

edit 3: alright, some people have corrected me on the age part, apparently he’s fifteen. I don’t hate Rosegarden, but something about Ozpin and Oscar being the same person makes me really uncomfortable (again, as someone who is younger). Thats the only reason I didn’t give it any rating- it just feels too close to, well… I don’t really have to say it. Especially when the whole point of things is that Oscar and Ozpin are becoming the same person.

Bumblebee: 8/9

It’s canon, bro. It does feel slightly forced at times, but they’re a strong couple who supports each other and helps each other through trauma. You go girls, lesbians all the way (insert lesbian pride flag here)

edit: got someone sending in a message about neither ever going to be canon. You’re right, but thank you so much for crushing a high schooler’s hopes and dreams. Have a nice day

edit 2: I prefer icerose over whiterose but I’ll get what I can take (canon ruby x ice Queendom Weiss). This is just an overall argument.

#rwby #whiterose #rwby weiss #rwby ruby #rwby jaune arc #weiss x ruby #jaune x weiss #character review #ship dynamics #canon probably deduction #but not really? #anti white knight rwby

[andthebeanstalk]

the average person doesn't expect you to be a perfect ethical consumer, that's not possible for the vast majority of us. but what youre saying is it's better to do nothing at all and choose the worst possible options (sweat shops, overseas shipping waste, idea/product theft, all wrapped up in SHEIN) than to put even the tiniest effort in where you can.

[they are referring to this post]

What I said was "some people are doing literally everything they can to survive and have no extra bandwidth to spend extra time and money on their purchases, and it is cruel and therefore un-punk to gatekeep punkness and add additional shame to these people's lives based on that fact."

I think it's still a good thing to try to ethically consume; I literally never said it wasn't. I had never even heard of SHEIN before. Rather, I am much more concerned about what I saw as arbitrary gatekeeping based on ability and income.

And frankly how dare you claim that I am supporting sweatshops and abuse by saying that this additional work you are demanding (in this case, presumably, vetting every clothing company you buy from) is not always possible for people. It is not a light accusation to accuse me of supporting abuse.

"How dare you say we piss on the poor", Etc. 🙄 this isn't Twitter. You are determined to enforce moral purity, but you are failing to see the nuance.

Because when I say "no extra bandwidth," I mean no extra bandwidth. This is not the "car shows it's on E but actually secretly it has a lot of gas left" situation that abled people constantly assume disabled people mean when they say they are at their limit.

This is "at a certain point, people will hit a wall in terms of money and time and energy, and any energy spent after that comes directly out of their life force."

So the argument "okay but just spend a little more time money and energy actually" is not a valid one.

And the argument "if you are not able to do this specific task, then it means you're not doing anything else to make the world a better place" doesn't exactly impress me either. You said yourself that it is impossible to be a perfectly ethical consumer for most people.

How do you know what else people are doing to resist oppression? How many hours per week until your standards are met?What if someone works 3 jobs? Does that mean it's harder to be a good person if you're poor?? Why do you get to decide what specific avenue of bettering the world is the most morally repugnant or acceptable? What kind of proof of goodness and effort would make you satisfied enough to lay off on the shame?? Who are you helping??

Clothing is a fundamental human need, and some of us have to buy cheap fucking clothes quickly. Billionaires are buying their seventh yacht this month. The people who own fast fashion companies are abusing their workers and putting local affordable clothing stores out of business - and this applies for basically every company with price points that low because governments are failing to regulate corporations to enforce basic human rights.

I have $300 to spend on a new wardrobe as my old clothes have fallen apart or become too small. Do you have a way for me to get a new winter coat, 3 flannels, 10 shirts, 3 dress shirts, new sandals, 10 pairs of pants, 5 bras, 12 pairs of socks, and 10 pairs of underwear within that budget and also definitely 100% ethically sourced, with free returns in case it doesn't fit? Or will I simply have to use the cheap stores?

I have about an hour to spend on this per week. Should I continue to wear small and tattered clothing until I have the time, money, and energy to meet your standards? Did you know there are more empty homes in this country than homeless people? If I decide to splurge on only 100% ethically-produced products, and I can't make rent, and I become homeless, are YOU going to be there for me?? Or are you busy litigating the endless tiny shames of poverty in your own community?

So I ask you again, are you sure this is where you want to direct your punk energy? Because energy and time, as it turns out, are limited resources. And I would never expect you to secretly have more than you claim to have.

#original #punk #hopepunk #cripplepunk #i swear to god #reading comprehension website #how dare you say we piss on the poor #jfc 'what you're saying is we should do nothing' - what I'm saying is YOU are doing nothing by enforcing this boundary #you have to give people more credit than this. i believe you want a better world too. and it would be cool if you used your energy to #instead ask 'how do i fight for the people in my community to be clothed and have the time and income to shop ethically?' #or 'how do i support activism that pushes for regulation that could control these companies?' #monitoring how poor people spend money is a supremely Republican thing to do. as is demanding clear moral purity from every scenario. #you want a better world too. you want to demand your peers do better. - fine. good. #but you need to be asking if you have remembered and included everyone's needs when making statements like this. #capitalism is all for forgetting about poor and disabled people and refusing to believe their limits. #shame is a necessary weapon in fighting greed but it IS a weapon. be so careful where you point that shit. enough shame can kill a person #and a lot of us are already defending from it from all sides. #shaming a person who is already at their limit for not doing more is an act of cruelty. think very carefully about what that means please. #i literally don't even know what SHEIN is lol i just know classism when i see it #but I've had friends whose clothes were visibly falling apart with no income and so much so shame so deep in their hearts they were dying #and if they had seen that post it would have made them even sicker and gotten them no closer to the dignity of being properly clothed #shame is a weapon and /you need to be careful!!!!/

[fandomforg]

i love star wars time travel fix-it as much as the next guy, but we need to be thinking bigger! none of this ‘clone wars obiwan goes back to his childhood’ nonsense, let’s see how far we can rocket some unsuspecting force sensitive back in time

now, i’m not familiar with anything outside of movies/tv shows, so someone else could probably rocket them further, but i wanna send like rey, freshly skywalker’d, back to like pre jaster mereel’s death. yes i want her to be like 10 and feral and adopted by jaster. because he’s my favorite and i said so.

so she’s just standing there with her yellow lightsaber that is now far too big for her child hands, suddenly she has a shiny new buir and an eight year old brother that seems vaguely familiar??? like his name rings a bell?? but what could this little kid possibly do that would have such an effect on galactic history that she would know of him like 90ish years in the future???

so basically rey’s wracking her brain for that one pre-imperial history class she took that one time for anything useful she can do to help save the future. all she’s able to come up with is pretty much ‘palpatine bad’. rey would totally just go off on her own to kill him (and make sure he stays dead, the crafty bitch), but jaster seems strangely reluctant to let his ten year old daughter take a ship by herself to assassinate an extremely small-time politician from a peaceful world without any sort of explanation.

but regardless, rey kinda just ends up butterfly-effecting stuff as she grows up a little bit. like preventing jaster’s death and galidraan. in turn, leading to jango not building his revenge army and a generally more stable mandalore system, maybe?? all the while, she’s is getting some sick mando training and super cool armor, like any self-respecting jedi-adopted-by-mandalorians would.

actually, at galidraan, rey’s able to meet up with some jedi for the first time! hooray! dooku’s not quite sure what to do with this strange, unknown, armored, force sensitive teen with a weird, jerry-rigged lightsaber.

rey takes this opportunity to lay out every bad thing palpatine has done/will do in the most incoherent way possible. when asked how she knows this, rey panics and answers that the force told her so. unbeknownst to her, this is actually a completely valid answer to give these jedi masters, and the incoherence of her explanation made it seem even more plausible to be a string of confusing force visions, rather than being completely made up. the masters, particularly dooku, promise to look into the possibility of a sith and ask rey if she’d like to come to the temple with them.

she, of course, goes ‘yes, absolutely! i’ll go tell buir and jango that we’ll all take a trip to coruscant together!’ and the masters just grimace and go ‘yeah for sure that’s definitely what we meant’

they go to the temple, and amongst talks about the sith, and jaster just having a delightful time in the jedi archives (rey has a delightful time too, just think of how master skywalker would react to all these jedi texts!), rey gets to meet a preteen obiwan! fresh off of child soldier-ing on melida/daan! he’s a little traumatized at the moment, but rey is just so excited to finally recognize a historical figure other than her shitty grandpa. she then obviously latches onto little obiwan and like. vibes with him. obiwan is a little baffled by this cool older mandalorian teen that seemingly wants to be his best friend, but he’ll take all the friends he can get after the stressful few months he’s had. rey scares off anyone (padawan, knight, or master) who might give obiwan any shit for melida/daan related stuff. or just anyone that gives him any shit at all.

eventually, palpatine is arrested for tax fraud. he actually is pretty new at the whole ‘sith machinations’ thing at this point, so he didn’t hide his simple tax fraud very well and after his arrest, the jedi are able to get him for the more sith-y crimes. so then the jedi go on the hunt for the sith master.

while they do all that, rey is able to go back to mandalorian space with jaster and jango, making sure to have weekly holo-calls with obiwan and his friends. rey may really miss all her friends and the whole support system she left behind in the future, but she’s got a pretty good support system here as well. hopefully because of her, those friends she left behind in the future will be able to live full, free, and peaceful lives.

#i kinda half wanna make finn go back in time with her #just for the excellent sibling shenanigans #i don’t actually think it would change much other than just ‘finn’s there too!’ #which is honestly very fun #so you can imagine he’s there too #star wars #fanfic #rey star wars #rey skywalker #time travel #time travel fix it #jaster mereel #jango fett #count dooku #obi wan kenobi #finn star wars #forg post

[bcbdrums]

I saw the Reddit drama. Please explain why Drakgo is a more interesting ship than KimRon.

first, thanks for the ask! second, whoaaaaaaa i wouldn't presume to label one ship more interesting than another. some people will find ships interesting, others won't.

i'll give a diff example. in my other current hyperfixation, soul eater, my friend adores Ship A while i'm all about Ship B. her ship IS interesting to me! i think those chars are the most shippable in the show, they're basically canon w/o PDA, and they are deeply complex both as individual chars and as a couple.

they're just... not the ones i'm hyperfixated on. doesn't make them uninteresting.

what makes a person's brain and heart grab onto one ship and not another? who can say.

a lack of personal interest in a ship does not make it objectively uninteresting, or worse... and a ship having way more attention than another in fandom doesn't objectively make that ship more interesting, or better.

CAN a person make canonical objective arguments for or against ships? certainly.

let's just grab characters from KP to use as example. Bonnie and Brick. canonically a couple for more than one episode! we do not get a lot of canon info onscreen for them, so most of the interest in them would have to come from fan creations. compare to Kim and Ron, who have infinitely more screentime together, infinitely more individual character development than Bonnie and Brick both as individuals and as a couple...

one could argue that Kim/Ron is more interesting than Brick/Bonnie. there's more to grab from the canon at least. but if a person wants to draw/write/talk at length about Brick/Bonnie? why not!

no reason to be hating on any ship. if it's not your ship, then just...don't engage?? especially if you're against said ship.

now me, personally, i find Drakgo more interesting than Kim/Ron. (altho recent convo with @creatorping got my Kim/Ron juices flowing again). Drakgo just appeal to me more as characters, with their gritty backgrounds, a lot more unknowns to explore, the challenge of two villains developing a mutual trusting relationship so they can have a happily ever after... that just grabs my mind and heart more than the perfect girl and her adorkable boyfriend. it doesn't mean Kim and Ron aren't interesting, cuz ohhhhh they are! mostly post-canon for me because...who ARE they, after high school?? who is Kim other than the student who saves the world? what's she gonna do with her life? and what is Ron gonna do? he absolutely can't go to the same college as her, and she can't ditch a good opportunity to go to a community college with him... my hang-up has always been that Kim wasn't given enough individual development onscreen to do anything interesting with her post-canon. but aforementioned convo with Ping changed my mind, heheh. 😏

in any case, the point... one ship isn't more or less interesting. one ship isn't better or worse than another. it's us, the viewer, who either will or won't be interested.

so as i've always said.... ship and let ship. don't like? don't interact. don't hate on someone else's ships or headcanons or POVs... (reddit...)

and, that's not the same thing as discourse. discussing characters, discussing points of view, interpretations... sharing various headcanons... with willing parties who want to enter into that conversation! THAT is a major part of fandom! but it's all in how one goes about it. and! should people come to disagree about interpretations of characters, also fine!

i think the issue arises when people start to act like... my interpretation is correct OR, my interpretation is the only valid one. when people get up on that horse, that's where the problems arise... it can be tough if you feel like you're the only person WITH a certain POV, but... again, if the folks you're chatting with aren't into it, then find other people. i'm in that boat with some soul eater headcanons, but, that's okay. i don't need to convince everyone else in the fandom in order rto enjoy my thoughts. i'll still talk about them, but, not with the idea of telling anyone my view is the only view. that's the antithesis of what fandom is about. i'll talk about them because i enjoy talking about them, to like-minded folk, and on my own blog which is what a blog is for.

and, idk why it shows up so often in the KP fandom, especially the Drakgo side, that people can't simply say "hey i have this headcanon!" and someone respond with "oh that's neat!" and just. happily co-exist. everyone creating their things, sharing their things. and people will like what they like, as they always have, in every fandom. and if they don't like someone's idea, that's fine too!

but it's not worth fighting about?? it never is! it's just not that important. it's fandom. it's fun. it's our escape. if one feels SO strongly against a concept, or ship, or whatever.... then you don't interact with it. you don't make it your mission to disprove the other person. you don't actively seek out opportunities to hate on a point of view you dislike. that's not how fandom is supposed to be. find your people, and chill with them.

let's all be positive in the various fandom spaces.

i hadn't intended that to be such a rant, but...well, there you have it. sorry it probably was not what you wanted to hear, but yeah. thanks again for the ask!!

#kim possible #drakgo #kim x ron #kimron #soul eater #drakken #shego #drakken x shego #ron stoppable #ask answer #bumping this up in queue for REASONS lol

[bonearenaofmyskull]

The OP has turned off reblogs at the time I'm posting this, so it seemed wise to move this discussion about the authenticity of Hannibal's love for Will over here. I want to give it its due, and the open invitation to discuss was out, so here is some context and my response.

The original ask went:

Hi! I've wanted to write about this for a long time, and your blog seems like a safe space. Let me give you a heads up—I am not against shipping at all. I am aware of the antis in your ask box, but I promise I am not affiliated with them. This is just a friendly direction. So, if you are truly open to discussion, I want you to view Hannibal as a selfish, manipulative, and extremely violent person. Notice how he is power-hungry and wanted to keep Will in his chokehold, never viewing them as equals. Hannibal created this delusional image of Will in his mind and inserted himself into Will's delusional world. Look at his actions again in season 3. Can you point out one scene where you can write, "Oh yes, Hannibal loves Will"? The problem with the antis is that they are questioning Will's feelings for Hannibal when they should question Hannibal's feelings for Will. Hannibal only liked Will when Will behaved like Hannibal—notice that in season 2. Does it change your view on them now?

OP didn't have anything to say to this, and my response was critical of anon's choice to bring this to OP's inbox, but the relevant part of what I said to the current discussion included the following:

...the basic rule [of writing discourse] is--if you're the one to posit the claim, then it is your job to support it.... You can't possibly do the leg work needed here to give your side its due. This is such a hefty claim that you've posed--that Hannibal's worst personality defects negate any authenticity/sincerity in his emotional response to Will--that the support it needs is probably running in the 6k words range. Or more.

To which @melancholymournia responded:

Let's start a discussion then --

I believe Anon has a valid perspective. They were seeking opinions and I believe it's within their right to do so. Anon's main argument is that Crimson should view Hannibal as an antagonist, as he embodies a sinister role in the narrative. Hannibal's love for Will is portrayed as selfish, driven by desperation for understanding. Anon points out Hannibal's creation of a false image of Will in his mind, particularly evident in Season 1's exploitative and abusive behavior. Anon contends that Hannibal only appreciates Will when he mirrors Hannibal's actions,evident in s2 and Will's attachment stems from trauma and a sense of justice. Will attempted to kill Hannibal numerous times and even succeeded, but Hannibal's plot armor consistently saved him. Despite this, according to Bryan, it's "Will Graham's story," implying that Hannibal's eventual demise was always a possibility. Hannibal maintained manipulation over Will even in Season 3, from start to finish. People's justification of the Dolce scene and romanticizing the gallery scene surprises me, considering both instances involved plans for mutual harm. Despite Will expressing fatigue with the chase, questions about why he fell for Hannibal linger. After discussions, it became clear to me that his attachment wasn't love but a trauma response to his abuser. In Season 3, even when Will urged Hannibal to leave, Hannibal surrendered, manipulating the situation rather than acting out of genuine love. Hannibal caged himself to ensnare Will, who later moved on with a family, but the fandom struggled to accept it, mirroring Will's Stockholm syndrome-like attachment to Hannibal. Hannibal continued harming Will, sending the Dragon to kill Will's family to manipulate him into a meeting. Ultimately, Will chose death to escape both Hannibal and himself, feeling a resemblance to Hannibal in his mind. Throughout the seasons, Hannibal's actions show a lack of genuine love, portraying him as a greedy figure taking relentlessly from Will and ultimately causing his destruction.

I think this is a teachable moment about meta and what it needs to be successful. So this is my response--partially aimed at the content of what you've said here, and partially aimed at talking about meta itself and what it needs and how to do it justice.

I think when we're thinking about writing meta that is successful, we need to be thinking about what it is we're trying to achieve. Personally, I ascribe to the belief that "the aim of argument, or of discussion, should be progress, not victory." This doesn't mean I or anyone else won't fall victim to being petty once in a while--we're all human here, I think--but that if we're doing our jobs the best we could be doing them, then we should be focused on getting to a shared deeper understanding of the text, rather than on trying to "win." Above that, I think our fandom has lost a sense of this in its discourse in the past couple months.

In pursuit of that, I don't think how you opened, with defense of anon, was wise. This argument, if it needs to be made, needs to be made for the perusal of the fandom, not specifically for one person. Crimson neither needed nor wanted to be a target. "They were seeking opinions" and having a "main argument is that Crimson should view Hannibal as [anything]" are essentially exclusive statements. Anon was not trying to get Crimson's opinion: they were trying to sway it. You stepping in to defend anon when more people than just myself have recognized the troll-y or even malicious aspects of the ask puts your argument in a bad light, which honestly doesn't serve you well. If your primary purpose is to make the argument (and actually sway opinions yourself) rather than to defend anon (create teams/advance fandom drama/"win"), then it would be better delivered if you maintained an air of neutrality by at minimum, avoiding commentary on anon themself.

That could be done by starting your own post and tagging the interested parties and just focusing on the topic at hand and ignoring anon. Or this could be done in your response by saying something along the lines of just "This is an interesting idea that I haven't seen discussed enough. I think..." and then proceed to say what you think. That then shifts the conversation to the claims being made rather than the people who make them, and how they made them. (Note my primary objection to the original ask is exactly about anon's behavior and choices rather than to the points themselves.)

So setting the issue of anon's choices aside, we next need to look at who the audience is (the broader fandom) and how they can be swayed. Because isn't that the goal, here, ultimately? It sounds like what you and your friends want is to shift general fandom attitude away from the merry-murder-husbands interpretation and into something more cognizant of the fucked up nature of the show.

And this is not in and of itself a bad goal overall, depending on how far you take it. But whether you succeed in this goal or just end up driving people out of the fandom because of the drama or because they become disillusioned with the ship itself is a very fine line to walk, and I'm not sure the people who have been walking it lately realize just how delicately they need to step (not necessarily you specifically--I don't remember seeing your name around before this tbh). It's not progress unless people come around to your way of thinking without becoming fed up and hurt and leaving.

(Obligatory reminder to my own follower base here: I don't condone people going around to anyone's inbox or comments specifically to harass them, regardless of what their opinions are. I am fully of the opinion that we can all play in the same sandbox together without throwing sand in each other's eyes, even if we think the other sand castles are ugly.)

One troubling fact of the whole-fandom-as-audience as it exists currently is that people have differing notions about what the fandom believes on the whole. To sum up, there seems to be three camps: "merry-murder-husbands," "Hannigram-BAD," and "Wtf happened to my peaceful fandom."

If you haven't deduced it already, I belong to the third group.

Merry-murder-husbands and Hannigram-BAD both seem to largely think that everyone who doesn't belong to their own group belongs to the opposing group. But I don't think that's a useful place to write meta from. Tonally, it's going to be off-putting from the very start to anyone who isn't in your own camp, even if their camp is just "Wtf." Getting your point across is also going to be extra difficult if people are from the opposing group--they're going to feel attacked or at the very least, condescended to.

For starters, your (and anon's) talking points aren't going to be focused on what matters to the Wtf crowd. Where this comes up in this particular discussion is with these points here:

Hannibal as a selfish, manipulative, and extremely violent person.

He is power-hungry and wanted to keep Will in his chokehold.

Hannibal as an antagonist, as he embodies a sinister role in the narrative.

Hannibal's love for Will is portrayed as selfish, driven by desperation for understanding.

Hannibal maintained manipulation over Will even in Season 3, from start to finish.

People's justification of the Dolce scene and romanticizing the gallery scene surprises me, considering both instances involved plans for mutual harm.

Hannibal continued harming Will, sending the Dragon to kill Will's family to manipulate him into a meeting.

Hannibal caged himself to ensnare Will.

To the Wtf crowd, this is sort of like arguing that water is wet. Is Hannibal, the biggest pile of dicks that ever existed, actually a big pile of dicks? Well, iunno...you tell me? Nobody from this crowd is arguing that Hannibal isn't a big pile of dicks. So this is basically spinning your wheels.

As to the merry-murder-husbands crowd, this is all justified because deep down, Will is just as big a pile of dicks as Hannibal, and Hannibal being a big pile of dicks to Will just uncovers Will's true dick pile qualities so they can go off and live as merry-piles-o'-dicks together. Now, personally, I think this particular response is full of circular logic and just plain wrong, but the point here is that you're never going to win against it by writing points that play into it. This crowd will move the goalposts on this discussion to a discussion about Will's character, and then you'll be dealing with that instead of the points you want to be making about Hannibal.

This also sets aside that some of these points could be argued against on their own specific merits. Does Hannibal really want to keep Will in his chokehold, or does the real excitement for Hannibal come when Will turns the tables on him? That's a whole meta post by itself, frankly, and more than we can discuss here feasibly. But it does highlight another problem with these points: some of them are interpretations and conclusions in and of themselves, not actual points of evidence.

There's an additional problem in the overall argument with multiple points being about Will rather than Hannibal:

Ultimately, Will chose death to escape both Hannibal and himself, feeling a resemblance to Hannibal in his mind.

Despite Will expressing fatigue with the chase, questions about why he fell for Hannibal linger. After discussions, it became clear to me that his attachment wasn't love but a trauma response to his abuser.

Will's attachment stems from trauma and a sense of justice. Will attempted to kill Hannibal numerous times and even succeeded, but Hannibal's plot armor consistently saved him.

Will…later moved on with a family, but the fandom struggled to accept it, mirroring Will's Stockholm syndrome-like attachment to Hannibal.

Despite this, according to Bryan, it's "Will Graham's story," implying that Hannibal's eventual demise was always a possibility.

The original anon defined this problem as "The problem with the antis is that they are questioning Will's feelings for Hannibal when they should question Hannibal's feelings for Will," but these all shift the discussion back onto Will, into places that serve your opposition rather than serving you. So even if you "won" this part of the argument--which is easier said than done--you still wouldn't have proven your point about Hannibal, you will have just made observations about Will.

Again, this is all beside the point for the Wtf crowd, and playing into the hands of the merry-murder-husbanders.

So what do we have left? These are the rest of the statements:

Hannibal surrendered, manipulating the situation rather than acting out of genuine love.

Hannibal's actions show a lack of genuine love, portraying him as a greedy figure taking relentlessly from Will and ultimately causing his destruction.

and

Hannibal created this delusional image of Will in his mind and inserted himself into Will's delusional world.

Hannibal only liked Will when Will behaved like Hannibal—notice that in season 2.

Anon points out Hannibal's creation of a false image of Will in his mind, particularly evident in Season 1's exploitative and abusive behavior. Anon contends that Hannibal only appreciates Will when he mirrors Hannibal's actions,evident in s2.

I've grouped them like this because they are each united by theme: one, that, as I put it in my original reblog, Hannibal's worst personality defects (his selfishness, manipulation, and sadism) negate any authenticity/sincerity in his emotional response to Will; and two, that Hannibal's image of Will in his mind is incorrect enough that it means that he's fallen in love with his idea of Will, rather than with the man himself.

I think we can all see that the second of these--although perhaps the more accurate one--is going to be plagued by the moving goalposts I mentioned above. In order to prove it, you've got to prove that Will isn't the person Hannibal perceives him to be. That might be doable with the Wtf crowd (probably why I see it as a more accurate concept, since I'm in this crowd), but it's going to be MONUMENTAL to try to get the merry-murder-husbands to see it this way. If you're willing to fight those off, well, you might make some headway with people who are more open-minded.

But it's going to be complicated by the fact that you're going to have to also prove the first claim in order to make the second stick, because the problems with the first one will set up problems with the second. And that first claim is going to be real difficult to prove.

Here's why: the basic presumption of the first claim--Hannibal's worst personality defects (his selfishness, manipulation, and sadism) negate any authenticity/sincerity in his emotional response to Will--is that it defines love in the kind of platitudes people use when they're teaching their children not to allow others to mistreat them. It's syllogistic.

A. Hannibal is greedy and manipulative and destructive with Will.

B. Love is not greedy, not manipulative, and not destructive.

C. Therefore Hannibal's feelings for Will are not love.

But we all know the problem with a syllogism: if either of the premises are false, the conclusion is also false.

In real life, premise in B. may or may not be a useful way to look at love, but that's beside the point here. The question is, Is the premise in B. the way the show Hannibal presents and defines love?

Fortunately for us, the show has given us two explicit statements on love and what it is and what it means, one in "Shiizakana" and one in "Secondo."

In "Secondo," the conversation is between Hannibal and Bedelia:

B: What your sister made you feel was beyond your conscious ability to control or predict. H: Or negotiate. B: I would suggest what Will Graham makes you feel is not dissimilar. A force of mind and circumstance. H: Love. He pays you a visit or he doesn't.

This view of love is that it is outside of the control of the one who experiences it. In order to support that Hannibal does experience this kind of love when it comes to Will Graham, then all you have to prove is that he had super strong feelings toward Will that caused him to be out of control, to badly predict his own behavior, and that he did stupid shit rather than negotiate his choices well. I think...well, these are all fairly easy to prove. Hannibal set his whole neatly curated world on fire for Will, all the while thinking he was in control when he was totally out of control. This would be the "Did you think you could change me, the way I changed you?" problem. Up until the moment that Will points out that he already did change Hannibal, Hannibal really thinks he's negotiating this force of mind and circumstance just fine. Meanwhile, he makes himself sad by getting Will incarcerated and mad at him, he plays his get-out-of-jail-free card with Miriam Lass, and then this loses him his very favorite murder identity of the Chesapeake Ripper, and eventually his home, practice, ability to live under his own identity and ultimately his freedom. The fact that he tries to control something that is very much out of his control is evidence for, not evidence against, defining his actions as motivated by love. At least by this definition.

The other definition presented in "Shiizakana" is probably the more damning one:

H (in Will's mind): No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. By that love we see potential in our beloved. Through that love, we allow our beloved to see their potential. Expressing that love, our beloved's potential comes true.

If we stop after the first statement ("No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them") then it might seem like we have something workable with regards to the idea that Hannibal is in love with an idea of Will rather than the man himself. By this reasoning, because he's focused on his image of Will--his imago--then his love is less than fully aware of who Will really is. So maybe it's not really love.

But unfortunately that isn't the end of the statement. Seeing that person's potential (Hannibal's idea of Will) is part of being fully aware of them, by this definition. Will then coming to see that same potential in himself--the cause of him throwing them both off the cliff instead of just Hannibal--happens through Hannibal's love for him. And if Will does go full dark murder husband (the jury's still out on this, obviously, and will probably be out forever), then that would be because Hannibal expressed his love, in all those selfish and destructive and manipulative ways. Even if Will doesn't go full dark, where he has expressed his darkness--with Chiyoh and her prisoner, with touching Frederick Chilton's shoulder, with attempting to kill Hannibal himself, with his deceptions and manipulations and obvious enjoyment of terrorizing Freddie Lounds, etc, etc, whatever--is still that potential coming true.

This is going to be a really difficult point to argue past, especially because the show is largely concerned with transformation as an expression of love, all the way back to Garrett Jacob Hobbs and most of the murders of the first season. It may not be the way one should view love in the real world, but it's the way love is defined in the murderworld of Hannibal.

And that even leaves aside numerous other points, including but not limited to:

violence as an expression of love and/or sex

Bedelia--who herself disagrees with Hannibal's assessment of Will's character--nonetheless defining Hannibal's feelings as "in love"

the imago as an image of a loved one carried by the unconscious during a person's entire life, which is still defined as love even though it idealizes that person

the fact that Will planted Hannibal's imago himself

So if this is something that you really want to pursue, all this is what you're up against. It's a tall order, and that's probably why no one has really broached the issue much in the past except as a sort of moral judgment against shippers.

The limits of what I've laid out here include the interpretation of the cliffening being Will's rejection of going full dark. That's got some room to move, but it's problematic because if he fully rejected the concept of that being his potential, then he doesn't actually need to throw himself off the cliff, and additionally, it's undermined by the Bedelia leg-eating scene which suggests Will's involvement. Ultimately, it's also fully speculative--you only have those two scenes to work with, and everything else that falls under the general umbrella of speculations about S4 and beyond are just that--speculations. Not evidence.

There's probably an argument somewhere that the show draws a distinction between wholesome love (like Jack and Bella) and Hannibal's kind of love, but I don't know if that distinction is strong enough that Hannibal's love is not love at all, in the show's terms. Especially because Jack and Bella's love is partially defined through how her coping with death changes them both. But you still have the problem of it being about different types of love, not one thing being called love and another thing not. Overall, this would be hard to find all the pieces of and would require a lot of studying the stories about love that are outside of Hannibal and Will, and this would be challenging even to me, but it might be worth a look if someone wants to do that massive amount of homework.

I guess that's kind of where all this ultimately leads me, and back to the original point I made about why this kind of discussion doesn't belong in any one person's inbox. These are big questions: they can't be fully argued in a couple paragraphs. At least not well. The fandom is sorely missing meta writers at the moment who are willing to take the trouble to do the full amount of homework and effort that is required to really say something insightful. Mostly it just seems like people want to toss off a couple paragraphs and "win."

That's always been a problem with meta in fandom. It isn't a problem we're newly inventing. Everyone has opinions, regardless of the amount of thought they've put into them--but for the Hannibal fandom specifically there used to be more people who were willing to really dedicate themselves to getting to the bottom of things, to making progress understanding the show be the purpose of discussion and analysis, rather than achieving victory over a perceived group of people who are understanding the show "wrong." Right now there's...maybe one?

To be clear, I don't count myself as in that group of one person who is willing to work that hard. At least not for the most part. There's nothing wrong with opting out of that effort.

But there is something wrong with pursuing that "win," if it comes at the expense of people's peace of mind, the fandom family's unity, and deeper understanding of the show.

So if you want to have these discussions, please have them, but have them at the level that they deserve to be had. If there has to be a call to action at the end of the post, I suppose I'm asking people to do the homework--to watch the show ten more times, start to finish, to have the episodes ready to go at a moment's notice during a discussion, research existentialism and Christianity and Revelations and the original books and films and what Bryan Fuller and the cast have said and what the other meta writers said over the past eleven years.

But at the very least, let's stop letting our annoyance with each other dictate our understandings of the show itself. Yes, some interpretations and some people can be super annoying (believe me, I've been there!), but that has no place in generating bias over what the show itself has to say.

#hannibal meta #hannibal #bear replies #hannibal lecter #hannigram #will graham #hannibal fandom meta #what is love #oh baby don't hurt me #don't hurt me #no more

[dearweirdme]

Responding to some of the comments from my last mole anon ask I'm not new to the group but I am new to the ship. I first started listening to the group around 2018 but watching stuff like Run and the festas a few yrs later and from that, I wouldn't have guessed taekook were dating or even one of the closest friendship. They seemed touchy yeah but i think that for the whole group tbh. It wasn't really until solo era that I started focusing more on fan stuff. I'd say before that I was more fo a casual fan who enjoyed watching the content but wasn't really desperate to see everything bts. Like I knew the basics and the memes but never really was inclined to delve any further and my knowledge of shipping was mostly critical. I did see some of the narratives in the backlash to shipping such as taekook being less close than other members and with (what I now know is edited) official content reinforcing that, it was much easier to believe that than a secret taekook love affair.

But Layover turned out to be one of my favorite albums because it was closest to my musical tastes and culture of music i grew up with and so I started hitting up twitter and specifically searching stuff up to discuss more about tae and his musical influences coz I thought he did such a great job with that album and had some real soul in it despite not being raised in that culture or country of that kind of music. And I think because of the algorithms and how popular taekook is that's when I started seeing my taekook posts pop up on my timeline and from a ship critical perspective, I brushed most of as delulu coz wlmy first exposure of ships being discussed in fandom was that it was weird and inappropriate to ship.

And the stuff that I did see out of morbid curiosity (and I admit it wasn't a lot at that time) just really validated the 'fake' accusations because it was all slow mo'd edits and taekook seemed to have 7 different anniversary dates according to the taekook stuff I read so it was seeming more like shippers were just trying to fit a circle onto a square hole or something. Plus I'd see people responding to those slo mo edits with the real time links and that made it seem even faker.

The I recently saw the mole video on twitter that brought me here and that was the first thing were I couldn't really rationalise it with a platonicary answer because one of the first things I can remember doing in a relationship is laying in bed counting and mapping each others marks and freckles.

So that to me seemed just highly romantic for a couple of bros.

Except I lost the video on twitter so I tried YouTube to find it, nothing. Searched the Internet on general, nothing and I ended up stumbling across this blog. I think I discovered while browsing after seeing a response to an ask that I thought sounded fair enough a d really kinda middle ground for a shipper. It was framed as like 'idnk for sure but here's what I think' and after looking for the link and coming across people who were more definitive in their theories and stuff, I thought somewhere like here would be the best place to ask for the info.

Because at that point, shipping didn't have any good associations to me and I wasn't really comfortable with my own speculation that the mole vid was leaving me with but I also couldn't stop second guessing my own first reaction to deny, deny, deny and make an excuse for it.

So my intentions really were to post here, get a link to the vid, watch it again and be like 'oh yeah, that's been blown out of proportion. No ships sailing here' like I had when people sent those real time links in response to ship edit videos.

(Except we all know what happened next)

While waiting for a response which came pretty quickly, I was looking up for more info on taekook in general and was coming up with mostly horse shit but I was also noticing the more reasoned stuff now that I was actively looking for it.

And in the response, DWM mentioned and tagged the taekook timeline which really topped off me taking a second look at the ship because again it was presented as kinda 'this is what I think, beware, I could be just high on delusional and this whole post could be wish fulfilment but here's what happened and what I think' and angles like that I can appreciate because I find it way more trustworthy than someone presenting a theory as fact which is what it felt like taekook lyves was doing a lot of, imo.

The timeline really sealed the deal for me, tbh, because seeing all their interactions in one place and running on concurrent really blew the hinges off the 'distance' narrative.

Which lead me to the ultimate question which I think is the fossil fuel that taekook sails on; what's with all the fucking secrecy and what's bighit hiding??

Because to me and with the timeline on front of me there was no distance on their distant relationship.

And so I've recently started a rewatch of some of their biggest hits. Like I started with bon voyage and I'm kicking myself and wondering why I didn't consider stuff like the room choosing situation in Bon Voyage Morrocoo or Malta wherever they were, more closely. I can't even explain why I just took it at face value as a joke because looking back JK made it so damn obvious.

And I started noticing the subtleties of their touching and the lack of space. I think part of me started reqatching the BV and Run episodes to be kinda proven right that there was nothing more to the ship and I was being delulu but the more I watch, the more Im starting to notice and those fossil fuel questions keep popping up in my mind.

And as a logical creature who said taekook isn't real when I couldn't see anything proving it, I can't then refuse to consider the possibility that it might be real now that I'm seeing stuff that I consider legit proof or support of a relationship.

As for theories, I don't want it to come across like I'm acting smarter or more superior than anyone else because I think everyone is working off theories even the people who don't believe in it because none of us know these guys or their lives but I don't like when theories are pushed as fact or manipulated or framed as the only possible conclusion to a question. Like could I make another theory as to why taekook ate mapping out each others moles, yeah, course I could but based on my own experience perception and no real clear arguement otherwise etc---the romantic reason is still the strongest supported to me.

So I don't have anything against theories just the way they're framed.

So yeah I guess that's my looong (sorry) story about how I accidently became a taekook shipper.

Hi again mole anon!

It’s really nice to hear your story actually. I think skepticism is definitely a good way to get into this. Also, props to Kayla @taekooktimeline for documenting so well 💜.

#taekook #fandom shenanigans

[silviakundera]

Underrated aspect of A Journey to Love is how the ensemble's perspective is being widened & complicated by their experiences. Intro talks about a war that just ended between An and Wu. An are assholes, going around kicking everyone's ass for $$

First the spy squad from Wu country just want to complete 1 stupid doomed mission, in order to clear their sworn brothers' names who fell in the final battle. No real agenda or deep thoughts besides this personal obligation and Employee Following Orders. Avengers assemble! Our FL Ren Ruyi is on the run and was a Scarlet Guard spy member from enemy country An who are holding the Wu emperor hostage... but the Wu spy chief ML does only a spot of mild torture and basically tolerates this secret because (a) he's determined to retire and (b) she is retired (c) her identity doesn't match any know big enemy of his spy org and the state. But he doesn't want her around.

... record scratch: He compromises. Ok. I do want her around. I won't get attached but ok, she's helpful. I'll even trust her to mentor the princess as we travel to rescue the Wu emperor.

She is only a tutor, though! Won't get her involved in his country's buisness.

Yet then she joins a battle and risks her life to save a bunch of theirs. Ok, ML widens his POV again. She can be their partner!

Everyone loves the mysterious friendly & feral assassin.

Then the squad finds out her identity and tries to kill her. His defense of her inclusion in the group has expanded: (a) her identity doesn't match any known enemy of his spy org and the Wu state, (b) she saved our lives, and crucially (c) she Isn't Born in An Country [isn't truly An] + (d) she was working at the command of her superiors just like we do, a cog in the war machine, and also only killed shitty members of our spy org we don't like

Ok. Now she's on the team. ML & FL are dating now and all the kids ship it. There is 1 (one) Scarlet Guard enemy county spy they accept and support.

But at the same time, she's begun to care about them in return. And we're really IN IT now.

Let's mentor the princess and throw shade on the Wu emperor, considering how our actions matter & how powerful people affect the average person. Caring for the citizens of Wu. They deserve better than their ruling class.

Being generally supportive & respectful of Ren Ruyi's love for the fallen An empress and RR's quest to avenge her.

The Wu delegation willing to (tentatively) ally with RR's former disciple, a marquis of An.

An marquis revealed to have gone against orders to respectfully bury the bodies of their Wu soldier friends, because in his view all loyal soliders deserve it.

The Wu delegation digging up the bodies of their dead friends, to give them a final send off, and mastering their grief to wrench it back from turning into hatred of the An people - focusing their rage and hate on selish & war hungry leaders, not the soliders and generals ordered to fight.

The focus of their resentment now turned to the right direction, expands their thinking & their plotting to have a consideratiom for all the residents of An and Wu, a care for humankind. An citizens are no longer the automatic enemy. ML tells the emperor of Wu to go fuck himself, directly to his face.

Caring about injustice done to some Scarlet Guards and wanting to save active !! "innocent" Scarlet Guard lives. (So far from the starting point! No background check to validate that X, Y, Z don't apply to these people. No rejection of the ML by the delegation or threats for daring to care about a random Scarlet Guard's life or death.) I sure hope the An emperor pays big for being bad at his job, but we gotta be careful about how we deal with him and not mess up An for the nice jewelry makers & brothel workers who live there.

"Having compassion doesn't mean irresolute."

#a journey to love #cdrama #meta #“a journey to love” 🤔 #is this dumb title Actually Good 🤔🤔🤔 #cdramaedit #its not that they wont kill scarlet guard anymore #thats not it #its that they have wholly personalized these people now #they operate their spy craft as necessary tasks #to achieve goals #without dehumanizing or depersonalizing #without othering #if they could save An or Wu regular people #the main cast would all care to do that now #galaxy brain is understanding that #states are bad actors #and people are people who should not be disposible and without agency #knowing in a better world that would be true #free the White Sparrows ✊

[zukkaoru]

could you tell me more about why you dislike femskk?

okay disclaimer before i begin: this is not meant to be a dig on every person who enjoys femskk. the biggest reason i don't like it is honestly because it's just not my cup of tea and honestly it really makes no difference to me if other people like it. but beyond that my biggest issues with it are

1. the phenomenon of fans "yuri-ifying" the most popular m/m ship and then using that to prove they like female characters and f/f ships. this is not a bsd-exclusive thing; it happens with stsg too and i don't like femstsg for the same reason. but there's a big difference between actually liking female characters and just genderbending (or even making transfem) the big m/m ship. i literally went to the f/f category in bsd on ao3 the other day looking for fics and about half of them are skk fics instead of fics about like. the actual female characters in bsd. who i was looking for fics of. similarly, there have been some redraw trends going around twitter - specifically the i prefer girls cover redraw - and i have seen. i don't even know how many femskk redraws of that (along with a couple femfyolais and a femrimlaine) but only one redraw with actual female characters from bsd. same with the scene 14 redraw that was going around, and while that one wasn't originally two female characters, i have still seen significantly more femskk (and femsigzai, femsigchuu, femfyolai, etc) than i have ships with even one character who is female in the source material.

and imo this phenomenon is made even worse in the bsd fandom bc so many fans just see bsd as the skk show. so of course they're writing off the actual female characters; they literally don't care about anything besides skk. and obviously i can't do anything to force anyone to care about other characters but like.... bsd has so many other wonderful characters and dynamics (both romantic and platonic) that a good half of the fanbase won't even glance at because they're not skk. i do like skk, but bsd is about so much more than just them. they are, objectively, only one small part of it. like if you only care about skk, then just be outright about it and don't pretend you're "proving" you like female characters and sapphic ships bc you like femskk too

2. of the fans who only like skk and nothing else about bsd, most of them. don't even characterize dazai and chuuya correctly? i think the some of the best skk characterizations i've seen have been from people who actually like other characters and ships too, and some of the worst skk characterization i've seen has come from people who literally don't care about any other ships or characters. this isn't a hard and fast rule obviously but even with 30k skk fics on ao3, i have struggled to find ones that actually feel true to their characters. and the characterization seems to only get worse when it's femskk. if you're just going to turn femdazai and femchuuya into two completely different people, what's the point in it even being skk? why not write k.ousano or h.igugin or even a ship with one canonically female character? if you have to change the core characteristics of both dazai and chuuya... do you even really like them?

3. about femdazai: i actually don't mind the transfem dazai headcanon in general but most fans get her wrong. i made a post about it here but basically so many times i see femdazais that are just. completely unrecognizable as dazai. you can't strip away core aspects of dazai like idk the fact that dazai doesn't show any skin from neck to toe just because you made her a girl. i have seen some femdazai that's good! but i have seen so much that is just fundamentally wrong for dazai's character as a whole. mostly on twitter.

4. about femchuuya: i really truly just don't get femchuuya. i THINK the hype here is probably bc lesbians seem to get attached to chuuya (which. valid. i am also a lesbian chuuya fan.) and so they want to draw a chuuya they can be attracted to (i.e. femchuuya) which like. cool whatever i'm not here to judge. but looking at it from a "would this character actually identify as female" perspective, i don't actually think i can picture that for chuuya. maybe it's just because i so strongly hc them as nonbinary? idk. this one is honestly just a neutral "i don't see that but you do you"

tl;dr: from what i've seen, femskk is often mischaracterized, and genderbending the big m/m ships in a fandom is often a way fans "prove" they like the female characters and f/f ships while not actually caring about anything other than their main m/m ship

#the first point is also why i don't particularly care for fem any m/m ship in any fandom. that's not exclusive to femskk #femskk is just. there is a LOT of it that i see and i would much rather see more art/fics/etc. for the canonically female characters #i don't like k.ousano but i would prefer they have more fics in the bsd f/f tag on ao3 than a ship that. isn't canonically f/f #like it's already hard to find f/f content (and just stuff for female characters in general) in ANY fandom #so to have to filter through not only femskk fics but also other canonically m/m ships made fem #while i'm specifically looking for fics with yosano lucy higuchi lucy louisa margaret gin etc etc is. frustrating #i'm not saying femskk shouldn't be a thing or that they shouldn't be in the f/f tag but #i wish they weren't the number 1 f/f ship in the fandom #i wish there was more of a balance and the canonically female characters got more appreciation from the fandom in general #so anyway this isn't me trying to sway people out of writing/drawing femskk bc i know that's never going to happen #it's just a wish for more bsd fans to appreciate other characters too #also sorry if this doesn't make a lot of sense; i had to pause halfway through to go pick up my sister sfdghjkjl #and once again this is not an attack on femskk enjoyers or anyone specific!!! just me having opinions abt the fandom in general #asks #anon asks

[loveharlow]

I understand that jiara isn’t everyone’s boat even im kinda against it but people saying “kiara is annoying” is not a valid point. Most of that thought process just came from tiktok without any explanation to it

i agree, i think calling kiara annoying based on the ship itself isn't very reasonable. i dont see kie as an overall annoying character, but she just has some contradictory character traits/values sometimes.

the main things that threw me off from kie was her OUTLANDISH behavior is season 2, like that shit was actually ridiculous. bonkers even. yelling at Ward as if that man wouldn't delete her existence...

and the way she did Pope. Like damnnn girl, its okay to not like a guy but she literally told him "its not gonna happen", then kisses him, puts that punani on him, tries to hook up with him AGAIN at the beginning of season 2 and later says she only did so because she was wasted (which she clearly was not), only pursues him further because JJ tells her basically "he'd do anything for us" just to ultimately break the boys heart again and get with their mutual best friend (even tho pope was over her at that point). i dont like how she used someone who was supposed to be her friend to figure out what she wanted. like, i felt like her and popes relationship for the most part of season 2 was like this girl who knows this guy likes her and she doesn't like him but she likes the attention.

and a part of me also feels that sometimes kie only really hangs out with the pogues as much as she does to piss off her parents.

with jiara as a ship, there's just nothing there for me. i truthfully feel like if JJ and Kie weren't in the same friend group, they would probably never even talk. the pogues are their only real connecting point in my opinion and the writers really rushed their story and just threw them together for the fans.

#harlowhasmail💌 #jj maybank x reader #jiara discussion #anon <3 #ask

[alagaesia-headcanons]

There's something inherently ugly about how you ship Murtagh with Orrin. It's one thing to not like the main ship for a beloved character as set up by the author - valid - but it's another to push half of said ship away to force in your fave pasty white boy. You can write meta after meta after meta all you want about how poor Orrin is done dirty, or how that meanie Nasuada hurt him, or how the books don't put your fave background character on a pedestal, but all your writing amounts to is the fact that you've imprinted on Orrin and are now using him as a vessel for your original character. In your writing, he's not a character from the series anymore - he's your OC wearing Orrin's face and bearing Orrin's name. Which, it isn't bad to expand upon a sidelines character. But it's the way you turn around and spew how fandom fave Murtagh is in love with your OC that really shows the truth and the rot festering in you. You can cry and bemoan the romantic love Paolini has written between Murtagh and Nasuada, but your essay won't amount to jack shit if you're just going to turn around and replace Nasuada with your OC and suddenly sing it's praise.

Before you start decrying all of this, ask yourself: why are you so desperate to discredit canon's romance? It's one thing to think they should both remain single after the trauma they experienced throughout the series - fair take. But then why are you so eager to prop up your own ship? Is "Orrin" inherently more worthy of of Murtagh's love? Or is Nasuada simply not worthy, but instead in the way, in your eyes? You can wish all you want for people to love your writing, but that doesn't hide the rotten foundation of your ship: sidelining Nasuada to uplift your white fave and wanting him to have all that she does. No amount of rambling meta about how they're a "good ship" and they would work will ever cover up your inherent biases and -ism's that your poor sad white boy's ship is built upon.

For the love of god.

Anon, let me just say this to you directly- block me. It's that easy. Sending something like this instead is an embarrassment. But since you've already said your piece, I'll go ahead and say mine.

Let me first bring up what you oddly wouldn't directly accuse me of (maybe even you knew what a blatant straw man it is), that being racism. I'm not going to make light of this. Racism in fandom is a real issue, and separating a ship with a character of color to ship white characters can be a symptom of that. I have never turned a blind eye to this and I make a continual effort to remain conscious of it because it's incredibly important to me that I'm not contributing to this kind of prejudice in fandom.

This pairing started years ago when I thought of a crack ship polycule with all three of them. Over time as I considered that, the idea of shipping Murtagh and Orrin developed into a distinct concept which I found more intriguing than shipping Murtagh and Nasuada. At that point, I made an active decision to examine my interest and determine if it was grounded in the way canon presents the individual qualities and dynamics of these specific characters, independent of the broad groups any of them fall into, or if it lacked any such basis in canon and only stemmed from an unconscious bias of mine. And if I didn't find any substantial elements of canon that supported the idea, I intended to put it away and work through my bias.

So I looked, and I found I could fully explain the reasons the ship appealed to me through the details in the books. I never made some public announcement about taking this issue into full consideration because it shouldn't be performative. Holding myself accountable is a basic personal responsibility which I take seriously, not something to make me look better. But it’s always felt meaningful to simply convey that I care about putting thought and reason into my ideas and my preference for my ship isn’t baseless. I’ve done that, but it seems I should be more direct here.

So let me lay out my thought process. Why am I not interested in shipping Murtagh and Nasuada? The things that deter me personally are both emotional and logistical issues. The major emotional issue to me is how disparate their priorities are. Murtagh prioritizes protecting loved ones, which causes issues when he accepts and complies with awful acts while trying to defend them. Nasuada prioritizes the good of her cause, which causes issues when she dismisses another person’s wellbeing when it’s in the way of her goals. Murtagh’s character arc is about learning the best thing he can do for his loved ones might be accepting their willingness to make sacrifices, suggesting he becomes aware of his issue and would try to correct that going forward. However, Nasuada still doesn’t seem aware of her issue after the war, given her policy about magicians and her minimal concern for Roran, so that still presents an underlying problem that would badly exacerbate their serious trauma until it’s addressed.

None of that is a moral judgment on anything. Both of them could cause any number of other issues; it’s just stating where they stand. And I still think they could be written in a way that stays true to their characters while working through those issues so that they stay together. I think it’d be exceptionally challenging, and it still might not be to my own taste, but it has that potential. But there are also logistical issues. Nasuada is queen in Uru’baen. I genuinely feel like this is so meaningful to her character, a very fitting culmination of her aspirations, and if she were to take substantial spans away from her throne, it would be a disservice to how she was written. That said, with the way I characterize Murtagh, I really don’t feel that he would want to openly settle in a place defined by politics and power struggles. I feel like it would be very unfulfilling for him and Thorn, especially in the city of his tumultuous childhood and their tortuous enslavement. So given the dissatisfaction if Nasuada left the rule she wants and deserves and the discontent of Murtagh living in Uru’baen, I struggle to imagine them as more than a distant, intermittent relation.

So that’s why I personally don’t enjoy shipping them. Of course, it’s subjective, but I feel like it’s also fair, and you seem to suggest that you do too. So let’s move on. So now the question is if a potential relationship with Orrin would present the same or equivalent issues that I overlook just because he's a white man.

Naturally, this is subjective too, but I say no. Of course there are still possible emotional issues between them (if there were none it’d be boring), but they’re different. Given the way specific way Orrin grieves for his friends and struggles to have faith in their cause when he sees the risk of his people being killed, I believe he is also more focused on looking after individuals than pursuing a cause. I feel like that lays a smoother groundwork with Murtagh, who has been hurt by people who dismissed his wellbeing, and that reduces a lot of underlying pain between them. Orrin’s other struggles, like defeatism, fear, and hopelessness, as well as yearning for recognition and autonomy, align with Murtagh’s experience more in a way that makes their emotional issues more interesting to engage with.

With logistical issues, obviously Orrin is also a king. But I don’t find that presents the same issues either. I interpret that Orrin didn’t want to be king and isn’t content in that role. When the matter of Murtagh’s desire to avoid being openly tied to Surda’s seat of power arises, I find a much more interesting and balanced potential story where Orrin also hopes to leave his crown and they support each other in their search for a home that they can both make their own. The discrepancies I personally find so bothersome between Murtagh and Nasuada don’t come up with Murtagh and Orrin, so I enjoy their ship more. It’s just about my interpretation of compatibility. That is the crux of my thought process. No one has to agree with it, but I believe it stands as a fair assessment.

You insist that I ask myself why I prefer one ship over another. I've done that. I've already been doing that the entire time and will continue to do so. You keep whining that I make a lot of meta analysis about aspects of the characters and how I feel like they would or wouldn't mesh together, and yeah. That's the whole fucking point. In the same way I just did, those posts explore and articulate the concrete reasons one ship appeals to me and one doesn't. For years I've diligently asked myself why I'm drawn to Murtagh/Orrin more than Murtagh/Nasuada and I'm fully secure and confident in my answer that it's the emotional and narrative possibilities they have that appeal to me more. If I was given all the details of these characters, stripped of any names, descriptions, genders, ect. I know I would still really love this ship.

And that's not even to say that it's somehow "better" (it's just different in a way that suits my taste), or that Murtagh and Nasuada's relationship must be meaningless or non-existent if it's not romantic. In my story where I ship him and Orrin, he and Nasuada go through struggles, but as they grow, they're able to reconcile and learn to better support each other and their relationship ends in a much better place.

(Also, if you're talking about my “essay” that Murtagh's true name doesn't change because he fell for Nasuada, that's irrelevant to shipping them. The series could end with them getting married and they could be my all time otp, and it'd still be true that falling in love didn't change his true name. It's just a separate part of his character arc.)

For another thing, Murtagh and Nasuada are NOT a canon ship, and that does matter. For example, it has very different implications to change an interracial ship that is happily married in canon. In the IC, it is canon that they're attracted to each other, but nothing beyond that. (And I've never even discredited that! In fact, I've said their attraction is well written and in character. It's included in my story; I didn't overwrite it.) They're never in a relationship and there's no set up that implies romance is inevitable for their stories. You yourself acknowledge that there are very valid reasons to interpret that a romantic relationship wouldn't work between them!!! So if it's fine to not ship Murtagh and Nasuada as a couple, why is it suddenly heinous to imagine Murtagh with someone else?

It’s not. Your claims are far more baseless and distasteful. Why do you act like Nasuada couldn’t possibly be respected or worthy without Murtagh’s affection? Why do you act like pointing out her mistakes condemns her entirely, as if she’s not allowed to have any flaws? Why do you think a relationship with Murtagh is equivalent to all that Nasuada has? I won’t make your kind of moral accusations about a stranger, but I will simply say that I find that very objectionable. I love Nasuada for being such a unique, flawed, and fascinating character who is so much more than all that. And if you made such a volatile, deplorable, inappropriate response simply to the idea that Murtagh- a fictional character- could love someone else, you might need to take a step back. You’re being cruel.

(Also, I don’t feel like going through the whole “u just made orrin into an oc” shit tbh. This is long enough. I take care to draw my characterization from canon, but y’all can read my stuff and decide for yourself if you’d like. Although, saying I imprinted on him is the funniest part of this ludicrous message. You know what, yeah. I’ve tricked you all. You thought this blog was being run by a human being? WRONG. Baby duckling.)

#also being accused of having 'a rot festering within me' makes me feel like a fucking dark souls boss lmfao #long post #eragon #inheritance cycle #im getting this out of my head go be free #this was some cartoonishly villainous shit guys #also hate how they ignore the potential depth of nasuadas relationships with others- including women like arya elva and trianna #as if murtagh determines nasuada's importance and worth. gross

[daily-dose-of-imagines]

Ordinary

Anon asked: 🌈~Hello! New follower here, I love your content! I was wondering, is it ok to request a Monster Trio+Nami with a s/o who's basically a nobody? They don't have any special skills or talents, they don't have any devil fruit powers, they just...Exist. They basically help around the ship by doing basic chores while the crew go out. It's nothing bad or depressing lol. But maybe at one point, y/n's partner hears strangers make fun of y/n for being a "Nobody amongst the crew" but, y/n isn't bothered by it very much.

Sorry if this is long aha, I just always see reader's with super powers or some kind of special ability, it'd be nice seeing some reader's without any abilities c':

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Hello and thank you so much for requesting with us! I found the scenario quite interesting! ~~ as there is a rule that we only do three characters per request, I have elected to do the monster trio, sorry! But I still hope you enjoy these hcs!

>Admin T

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Luffy

Luffy would be the type to miss the little details in the moment.

He would notice offhandedly how you would help chopper clean his medical supplies or how sometimes you would take the time to deep clean dishes for Sanji.

He'd see it, but he wouldn't think much of it.

Not until someone else points it out.

"Hey, who is that stranger with the strawhats?" he would hear.

"Oh that nobody? No one else, but they aren't shit. Just ordinary." Someone else would say.

Luffy would stare, his eyebrows crunched together in anger as he listened to the two strangers talk about you as if you are useless trash. It would make him angry, and he wouldn't think about standing up and pulverizing them for you.

But you would stop him, a tight smile on your face. "It's not worth it. Besides, I don’t need their opinion for my validation.”

He frowned immensely, and glared. But he didn’t fight back, since you didn’t want him too.

But once you weren’t around to see, Luffy promised himself that he is going to beat them to a pulp.

Sanji

Unlike Luffy, Sanji would care very much that people around him were talking bad about you. 

Calling you useless, unwanted, so on and so forth. He wouldn’t let it slide.

The first time he hears such horrible comments, he is shopping with you , looking for some unique fruit to use for dessert.

And he hears the strangers whispering, he screams at the crowd.

You hold onto his arm, trying to pull him back from kicking any of the villagers.

“Come on, Sanji, it doesn't matter!” You would yell at him, trying to get him to understand.

“Like hell! They are being rude to you, someone who is  part of our crew!” Sanji would say that last part especially loud so that the strangers can hear him clearly.

“It’s okay! Really!” You assured him, pulling Sanji has hard as you can, quickly moving through the market. 

He begrudgingly follows, a huge pout on his lips. You pat him on the shoulder and laugh. “Are you sure it’s okay? Cause I’ll bet the shit out of them.”

You laughed harder and said “I am hundred percent okay. It doesn’t hurt. I know in my own way I am a part of the crew, and I am truly loved.”

Sanji smiled then and wrapped an affectionate arm around your shoulder.

“You bet your ass you are.”

Zoro

Zoro is going to be the most laid back about the accusations.

Only because he knows that they wouldn’t necessarily affect you like the other three might assume. 

“Oh look, it’s the servant of the group.” Zoro would hear while you two and the whole crew were passing through a small town. You were famous for just being so ordinary compared tot he rest of the strawhats.

He would glance at them, then at you. You still had a big smile on your face, seeming as if you didn’t even hear them.

Sometimes, they would call out to you and say names, and still, zoro would look to you and see if it bothered you, and most of the time, it doesn’t.

There will those days when the rude comments would make feel a little down, but that is Zoro will swoop in and tell you how awesome you are.

How you don’t need to listen to idiots like them, so and so forth.

Once he gives a good pep talk, you would smile a big, charming smile, and thank him.

“Anything for you. We would be fish food with you.”

#luffy x reader #sanji x reader #zoro x reader #luffy imagines #zoro imagines #sanji imagines #luffy scenarios #sanji scenarios #zoro scenarios #luffy hcs #sanji hcs #zoro hcs #one piece imagines #one piece x reader #one piece hcs #reader insert #x you #luffy x you #sanji x you #zoro x you

[olderthannetfic]

The racism discussion is making me wonder: when do you think it is a good time or what is a good way to discuss racist shipping patterns in fandom? Because I don't think it's productive to tell people "my ship not being more popular is racist" or "you liking this ship better than this other ship is racist." But it's hard to argue that hasn't been the case in some fandoms, where those broader preferences are obviously influenced by, at least, insidious cultural ideas about who is more attractive?

--

No matter how you discuss it, someone will be too fragile to handle it, so there might be good ways to talk about it, but there are no non-contentious ways to talk about it.

It's helpful to know what your goal is. Are you venting? That's valid. But if the objective is to educate people or to change behavior, you have to think about whether those people actually don't know the things you know and what will actually change behavior.

A goal of "If you would just think about X" is not useful. It ends up being a guilt trip and not a useful call to action.

Obviously, it's better to talk about aggregate patterns in aggregate, not singling out any particular fic. It's also probably more productive to talk about pan-fandom trends if the goal is raising awareness. People aren't going to change what they ship in the fandoms they're already in. Thinking more about those patterns might change what they ship in a few years though.

I would listen to people when they tell you why they don't ship a thing. They're often being defensive and annoying, but there's usually something worth noting in their responses too, and it usually points back to character tropes and what kind of roles get cast which way.

I would not undersell how much canon is contributing to fandom behavior. It's supremely annoying when people point to trends that have their root in canon screwing over characters and blame fandom.

I would also try to have a bird's eye view of fandom trends and contextualize them. Don't say "Fandom only likes white characters" or I know you're one of those jackasses who's still ignoring that Asian media is internationally popular. Don't pull the "Asians are basically white" thing if you want people to take you seriously and not just think you are the racist. People do that shit constantly while critiquing fandom racism.

Don't blame m/m shippers while being clueless about het shippers. Understand what the patterns look like on Wattpad and FFN, not just AO3. Understand how typical fandoms look, and by typical, I mean small and medium-size ones. Don't assume that MCU is a "normal" fandom and everything should look like it. Ditto Harry Potter or Naruto. Don't be like "But fandom often has whole archives about walk-on characters who are little more than a name!" when that's true only of a tiny handful of outlier megafandoms.

Basically, people probably won't listen to you anyway, but they definitely won't if you sound like a clueless n00b who wants to teach your grandma to suck eggs.

If you want people to change their unconscious ideas of what's attractive, that's a long battle. You're talking about fixing culture. That's not a small undertaking. You might be better off reccing media full of hotties that people may not have seen yet rather than discussing shitty patterns in shipping in media that's already popular.

Also... why are shipping stats on AO3 the measure of everything? It's good to explain why that's the thing you care about rather than claiming it stands in for all forms of fandom and popularity.

More than anything, if you say you're starting a discussion, be willing to discuss. Far too often, I see people making a proclamation and then being mad that the response isn't grovelling agreement. Even if everyone else is wrongity wrong wrong, if your intent is to talk them around, you have to actually try to do that by hearing them out and discussing their actual opinions, not railing against a strawman version.

As for what's a good time... any time, I think, if you're posting to your own tumblr.

[canonizzyhours]

RE: #222 and #220 This is pure speculation, but was wondering the same thing.

The obsession with steddyhands/edizzy/stizzy shipping could stem from any number of things (and we know when some people ship, they ship hard), but probably why some were so convinced of its validity or potential might be because this is a show that's been advertised/perceived as 'you never know what's going to happen next' and where 'so many fanfic-related dreams can come true' especially when related to queer fanfiction. Combined with the show's flexible disregard for the rules of reality (bird transformations, super fast healing, logic-defying dinghies, etc.), this could foster the perception that literally 'anything is possible.'

Also, OFMD has consistently reassured the queer community that they're not bullshitting when it comes to featuring, highlighting, and supporting queer relationships, which apparently could translate to 'any ship you could dream of might actually happen here.' So from that point of view, the OFMD crew basically said ‘yes, let's do it!’ to so many beloved fanfic tropes and queer relationships except these particular OTPs. There's also the possibility of outright indignation - 'Well, you gave Fan Groups A and B their fantasies, why not me/us?' Plus the manifestation of Izzy's antagonist-to-ally arc was probably equated to meaning 'only positive things are going to happen to him from here on out,' so naturally this was going to progress into a romantic/sexual relationship with one or both of the romantic leads (whether out of genuine belief that it made sense and would be good for him or just because it would be a hot and sexy outcome). So this - as well as an article promoting and practically promising an Izzy/Ed/Stede love triangle - might be another reason why some of the shippers went beyond being just disappointed (which isn't too unreasonable) and plummeted into a sense of hurt and devastation. Maybe they felt somewhat 'betrayed' in a bait-and-switch kinda way by the revelation that pairing Izzy with Ed/Stede/both more than likely wasn't the even on the table.

Being upset over Izzy's death however, that's another matter...

#226.

related posts: #222, #220

#ofmd #izzy hands #steddyhands #canonizzyhours

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

In case you haven’t already been asked, can I please hear the soapbox about Aleksander being a direct take on Edward Cullen?

(Also your meta is astonishingly well written and well thought out and a delight to read!)

Thank you so much! That’s so sweet! Not to be vain, but well I am simply vain and like hearing that lol.

This is a fandom I’ve mostly avoided interacting with people in because I feel like there seems to be a very strong dichotomy between people who absolutely loathe the Darkling and all aspects of the villain ship and judge any engagement with it or conversely people who loooove him but are like “He’s never done anything wrong in his life ever and Alina’s actually evil and ungrateful for running away from him”

So I’ve mostly just been quietly posting fic in my own corner for as long as I’ve been on the periphery of the fandom. The current meta thing happened on accident but it’s been fun and I enjoy getting asks!

Anyway, this took me awhile to get to because I’ve been trying to figure out how to best articulate my thoughts beyond what I already generally said in that other post:

[Shadow and Bone was probably being written] towards the tail end of the post Twilight paranormal, and specifically vampire, romance boom. It was not at all uncommon to see unironic romances focusing on impressionable teenaged protagonists with poor self esteem, getting with 100+ year old love interests who, in singling them out (for their “maturity” and discontent from their peer group) validate their self worth, but also completely isolate and impose their own values on them.

The first half of the very first TGT book follows those same tropes pretty closely, and the initial romance heavy book marketing was basically indistinguishable from that crop of books.

To be clear, I think wish fulfillment stories are fine lol, but it’s really interesting to think of SaB (and the Darkling!) as a deliberate deconstruction in response to those trends.

So that does sum up my thoughts generally. But to get into it in more depth, let’s talk about Twilight.

Stories featuring teen protagonists and immortal love interests are older than Twilight, of course. But I’d argue that Twilight codified and popularized a particular version where the point is validation of self worth through the romance.

Comparing it to 90s versions of similar plotlines, BTVS, Vampire Diaries (the books), and Silver Kiss all have teen/immortal romances but the protagonist is already mostly self actualized or previously singled out as special in some way. It’s not dependent on the love interest noticing the protagonist to signify that she’s deserving of attention? If that makes sense? The romances instead hinge more on the protagonist having some sort of brush with death or other source of morbidity that allows her to feel kinship with the vampire and relate to him.

(I’m using specific pronouns because this is such a gendered and heterosexual genre and story type. I’d argue gender roles are an inherent part of how it functions)

With BTVS it’s Buffy’s entire alter life as a slayer and the violence and loneliness of it that her peers could never understand. Vampire Diaries and Silver Kiss both focus on loss of a parent(s) and the jarring alienation of grief.

Conversely, Twilight opens with Bella as an aggressively ordinary and unassuming girl. The narrative is very explicit about her not feeling very pretty or special in any way. She’s dissatisfied with her life because she constantly puts everyone else in it first, and though she is forever self sacrificing she also isn’t very vocal about it, so she gets no meaningful acknowledgement for how much she tries to do.

It’s also worth noting that Bella being the new addition to a very small town and all attention being on her is also a prominent part of the first book, so it’s really about superficial attention vs someone really Seeing Her. This is reinforced by her coming to Edward’s attention at all because a) he inexplicably can’t read her thoughts and b) her blood smells really good and is testing his morals and self control lmfao. Because again both of these things are superficial forms of attention and specialness and the particularly tasty blood— imo primarily being a very Mormon metaphor for violent sexual desire/impulses in men— is in-universe just overtly negative attention. But they fall in love despite all that, because she is pure enough and nice enough and interesting enough on her own merits that he sees past all that to who she is as a person.

Whether or not these themes are consciously employed, Twilight is inextricable imo from Stephenie Meyer’s Mormonism and that sort of very conservative perspective. In a way, the romance in Twilight becomes a metaphor for an inherently violent man (It’s not his fault though! He’s just cursed with sinful urges!) being faced with how pure and secretly special the protagonist is and being floored enough by it to instead fall in love with her. It’s about seeing her humanity and it being so shockingly unique to him apparently that it eclipses his predisposition to see her simply as one of three existing categories: an NPC, prey, OR despised temptation who exists solely to challenge his morals.

This is further explored by the werewolves as an incredibly racist mirror to this, and Emily as an example of someone whose violent spouse was not able to hold back… perhaps because she simply wasn’t special enough… or honestly perhaps because she didn’t see the value of their relationship and (iirc) didn’t want anything to do with him. Their relationship is apparently idyllic once she’s chosen to stay 😬 but that’s tangential.

This element of violence is something that the biggest and most well known Twilight imitator, Fifty Shades of Grey, definitely picked up on. (Unfortunately I’m also going to talk about Fifty Shades a fair bit to compare and contrast!) Where, its incredibly flawed swapping out of vampirism for perceived sexual deviance in the form of terrible BDSM etiquette lmao and just outright trauma notwithstanding, the main premise is just overtly “What if you were SO pure and sweet that an abusive and overtly sadistic man who is going out of his way to not see your personhood was forced to confront you as a human being and fell in love with you, enough so to change his ways entirely”

All this being said, I don’t think Twilight’s biggest impact on the paranormal romance genre as a touchstone was really as a metaphor for… uh being good enough to not be victimized by a man lmao. At least not all the time. I’d argue the most popularly recycled tropes are just that of an unassuming protagonist with low self esteem, who’s never really acknowledged by her peers, having her worth validated by an immortal creature. This validation comes from a hot immortal love interest being framed as inherently better and cooler than the guys all the other girls are dating, but also because immortality means that this older and more worldly character presumably has a much higher standard to clear! If this character is saying that the protagonist is shockingly special and interesting and worthy of love, next to all of her peers that he doesn’t even notice at all, that must both be true and a good thing. In this way, the love interest’s values, either inadvertently or deliberately, are the only values that matter. And rising to that standard is usually synonymous with isolation from one’s peers and even viewing them as lesser.

Meanwhile, another frequent trope in the genre is controlling behavior. This is typically just there as a way to highlight how much the love interest loves the protagonist, and maybe as a way to introduce some desirable undertones of danger/conflict. In Twilight’s defense, while Edward imposing his own values on Bella entirely, constantly ignoring the very few boundaries she sets, and being all around a controlling creep isn’t treated with a real understanding of its gravity, it’s also not presented wholly uncritically. There is a (very drawn out) arc over the course of the series where she allows her identity to be subsumed into him and existing only in terms of their relationship, but by the last book she does actually push back on plenty of his hard and fast rules— if still in that fundamentally conservative and Mormon way. She keeps the baby he doesn’t want; she gets to turn into a vampire and stay with him forever; her experience with vampirism ISN’T his experience with vampirism ie mindless bloodthirstiness lol; she doesn’t need to fake her death; her family and friends can continue to be a part of her life. But Twilight imitators usually don’t get that far!

So let’s finally circle back around to Shadow and Bone:

First of all let’s talk about its early marketing. Shadow and Bone’s earlier title was the Gathering Dark and iirc the first round of ARCs were even sent out with that title and this cover:

Notice the paranormal romance tagline of “A dark heart. A pure soul. A love that will last forever.”

Meanwhile this was the official blurb it was initially released with:

“Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart.”

And this additional very romance novel blurb that was on some other marketing material:

“Alina, a pale, lonely orphan, discovers a unique power that thrusts her into the the world of the kingdom's magical elite - the Grisha. Could she be the key to setting Ravka free?

The Darkling, a man of seductive charm and terrifying power. If Aline is to fulfill her destiny, she must unlock her gift and face up to her dangerous attraction to him.

But what of Mal, Alina's childhood best friend? Why can't she forget him?”

ALSO here is the romance heavy book trailer:

Fans of Darklina as an endgame ship will argue that this was indicative of there being an earlier romance focused version where they were intended to end up together. I… highly doubt that personally.

In all interviews, even the earliest ones, where Leigh Bardugo talks about the story and the characters and how she came up with them, she talks about it from a perspective that sounds in keeping with how the plot played out, as in, the Darkling existing to be a literal villain.

I think all this just places SaB as a Madoka Magica, or Doki Doki Literature Club type deconstruction where deceptive marketing is simply working very hard to preserve the twist.

I think the story itself engages with Twilight pretty directly. Alina, as a youthful ingenue protagonist with low self esteem, a feeling of alienation from her peers, and feeling constantly overlooked by everyone, including her childhood best friend who she’s in love with, fits into the starting point of paranormal romance protagonist really well. The question of superficial attention is even addressed by her being discovered as the Sun Summoner and having so many sudden expectations thrust upon her.

Her gaining the Darkling’s attention specifically is initially framed in a fairly similar way to The Tropes. He is the aloof hot immortal teenager, who for the purposes of the deconstruction, everyone already even knows is at least over a hundred years old. Moreover he’s essentially treated like their (desirable….) school principal lmao to just really hammer home that his opinions matter More but also to make it feel vaguely weird.

There are a lot of moments in early SaB where the Darkling singles Alina out in a way that’s meant to look flattering at face value but that she’s quietly a little unnerved by. Off the top of my head, there’s the bit where the Grisha students are arguing over who Alina will walk with (when presented to the Tsar perhaps?) and the Darkling sweeps in and is like “she will walk with me.” Obviously, when he keeps trying to single her out by allowing her to wear black, which is his personal super special color that no one else gets to wear. When Zoya, as Thee popular girl, gets called into the principal’s office and he reprimands her for shfhff breaking Alina’s ribs (I love Zoya so much), and in the way it is ostensibly a win for Alina— Zoya isn’t the favorite girl anymore— but it’s also so obvious, in a way that’s very accessible to modern teens, that he is NOT their peer. Like, in universe we know that he is their commander and has rank over everyone. But that’s a fantasy element that probably doesn’t mean much to your average teenager. Meanwhile there’s a strong 1:1 analogue for him being like a real adult in their lives, when they are deliberately framed as teenagers. And it’s genuinely unsettling!

(Worth noting that mid 2000s YA also had a fair number of uncritical teacher romances. Because in those again there is the element of the protagonist’s worth and maturity being enforced by this more experienced and cooler adult finding her desirable)

I feel like the grooming in SaB while genuinely the most integral and interesting element of the entire trilogy to me, is also in some ways the most poorly accomplished. Probably some sort of mix of debut clumsiness and what I feel like might be discomfort with the topic preventing Bardugo from really getting into it. But of the successful and subtler moments, something that stands out to me is Alina not feeling like she can talk about the Darkling kissing her by the lake. And then trying to downplay it like “he probably kisses a bunch of Grisha girls”

Like. If he is going around kissing teenaged students under his command that is WEIRD that is a RED FLAG lmao.

But Alina just doesn’t have that frame of reference! While slightly unsettled by his attention she is mostly, genuinely flattered by it. He believes in her! He doesn’t know why he cares about her opinions of him but he does 🥺🥺 She’s somehow, successfully managed to cut through his aloofness by virtue of her specialness, and seeing into his angst about making up for his ancestor’s crimes, and believing in his madcap quest to get an even specialer amplifier necklace (lol) for her so that they can save the world together! The first half of S&B follows the logic of a Twilight imitator paranormal romance very solidly.

I think it’s also really interesting how the Darkling’s scary shadow powers, and the concept of there being an ancestor/dark legacy separate from him that he supposedly wants to prove he’s better than works as an analogue for vampirism. There’s a pretty direct 1:1 of “It looks like he’s dangerous, but don’t worry it’s just a bad reputation. It’s not his fault and he feels really bad about it.” So it’s really clever imo when the reveal is that there is no ancestor, there is no separation, it was all him all along, he did it on purpose and he is not sorry! He is dangerous to her and it’s literally his own choice to be that way.

So if the Edward type is a love interest whose violence/danger is something that is inherent to him, but it’s also not his fault at all, and it’s something that can be overcome by Bella’s personal purity and goodness, the Darkling is completely the opposite.

The threat he poses to Alina is entirely of his own volition. It’s a cold and calculated choice to seduce her, and later to try to magically enslave her. Likewise it’s, in my opinion, absolutely integral to the story that his obsession isn’t with her as a person at all, it’s with what she represents. He can be faced with her, in all her vulnerability and complexity, as a genuine human being and simply not care to stop himself from wanting to hurt her or subjugate her. Her opinions and her personality do not matter.

She cannot simply love him into no longer posing a threat to her! It doesn’t work like that!

Anyway, as promised (threatened?) earlier I have some Fifty Shades of Grey thoughts pertaining to Shadow and Bone too. While Fifty Shades doesn’t have the immortal/magical aspect at all, it’s painfully blatant Twilight fanfic, and so Christian Grey still embodies this love interest type fairly perfectly.

And it’s just really interesting to read with the context of it being a contemporary example of the sort of thing SaB is riffing off of and presenting critically, where those same things here are presented to be desirable.

There is an instance in FSOG where the protagonist’s friend is warning her to be careful about the love interest— while still laughing about how hot he is. And it is simply meant to make him seem thrilling and desirable!

But it feels almost like a 1:1 with Genya warning Alina in SaB where the warning is very literal. And compare that to the direct line drawn between Genya being preyed on by the Tsar and Alina being preyed on by the Darkling. They’re very different circumstances, but when there’s the overt and explicitly stated theme of “Be careful of powerful men” I can’t see how these two plot threads existing in the same book and presented in the same breath aren’t meant to be read as in conversation with each other.

There are also similar beats during Ana and Christian’s (stilted! very clumsy!) conversations where she strongly has the vibe of a kid at the principal’s office, unsure if she’s going to be scolded, and getting very flustered every time he makes her feel special in whatever small way.

Which is very similar to early Darklina interactions. Like I said before, the grooming was definitely the weakest part of SaB even though it’s simultaneously (imo) the most interesting/important aspect. But both books being varying degrees of bad just make them even more comparable to me?

It’s just intriguing to see vaguely similar things play out with clearly different awarenesses and intent in terms of what the main takeaway from these beats is meant to be.

Also! Again as yikes as Fifty Shades replacing vampirism with BDSM is, [insert joke about Christian Grey being a shitty dom vs the Darkling’s sexually charged desire to put Alina in a magic collar and fetters, and to get her to submit to him]

Sorry this was kind of all over the place but I hope that answers your question?

#very likely I’ll think of more stuff later but let’s keep it at this for now #grishaverse #darklina #alarkling #shadow and bone #twilight #i ramble sometimes #all the bendy punctuations #meta #*writer’s cap*