#the funny part is that they more often treat real people as fictional characters than fictional characters themselves

[utilitycaster]

I love your thoughts on Astrid and I think a lot about whether her initial ambition to become powerful for the sake of power turned into the ambition for power so no one else has power over her. I truly do not think she begrudges Wulf his faith any more than she begrudges Caleb his new life though I would not be surprised if both are sources of some pain for her. (in a way the three of them remind me of trees. Caleb lost a part of himself but that allowed new sprouts to come forth. Wulf found faith that allowed the damage to be lessened by giving support to the damaged part of the tree. And Astrid is the one with neither who grows around the damage in the only direction she ever knew though it costs her much more in the long term than the other solutions)

Hi anon,

So I think I say this whenever I get similar asks - completely valid to have your own headcanons, but (and this is foreshadowing for the rest of this ask) I am not much of a people pleaser and I will openly disagree, as I'm about to, and this might be a conversation better had in DMs or replies or something because doing so via anon gets to be a lot of back and forth.

I really respect people who relate to Astrid as a survivor of abuse who finds some measure of peace and who simply acknowledges she, Eadwulf, and Caleb all found separate ways to move forward. I completely understand that can be very meaningful and would never take that interpretation from them.

With that said, I happen to personally prefer a view of Astrid who is capable of that bitterness. I like the possibility that she is not just ambitious (which, that on its own is often considered sufficient to lambast female characters; see the Suvi Kedberiket discourses surrounding Worlds Beyond Number) but also very angry, and at times bitter, and at times resentful.

I think a lot of fans struggle with the gray area between unambigously heroic women and unambiguously villainous ones, both because in that gray area is a complexity women in fiction are frequently denied, and also because it requires a look at specific emotions women aren't supposed to have. Women can be sad; they can be traumatized; and they've been granted such qualities as "determined" or "can use a sword" or "leaders" but I think people really still struggle with anger, and especially anger that is not specifically directed towards abusers (like Beau or Yasha or Vex) nor righteous (like Keyleth) but petty or even simply irrational.

I like Astrid as a woman who might hold a grudge she knows intellectually is unfair but who feels it anyway. I think about how she wanted to kill Trent in the moment, and that Fjord (someone whose story is very much about both forgiveness and the legitimacy of grudges and a desire for power) validates her for it even though it's true that Caleb's method of exposing Trent's crimes is probably more effective. I like her as someone who is incredibly intelligent and who probably has an idea of what the "good" thing to do is and still feels a lot of ugly feelings and possibly always will, even though she has found a much healthier way forward. I don't know quite how this interrogation will go, but it is interesting that she's in hiding in Zadash and has apparently not openly broken with the Assembly.

It's funny, because this is on some level what many people want for much of Bells Hells - they want them to be angry at the gods for neglecting them. It's just...they also want that anger to be righteous. And sometimes anger isn't. Anger is often petty and detrimental and yet still very real. What appeals to me about Astrid is that she is very much a complicated person who does straddle a line between ally and antagonist and is permitted a depth and messiness and moral ambiguity that many fans deliberately try to excise from women (and, for that matter, characters of color/in-world racialized characters and many queer characters). So I do like an Astrid who clearly cares for Caleb and for Eadwulf and does not treat them poorly, but does perhaps nurse some privately-held grudges.

#answered #Anonymous #cr spoilers #cr tag #i don't quite want to main tag this. but i kind of do #i haven't but i may rethink if it takes off

[ranpoesgirl]

people who complain about mischaracterizing a fictional character are the weakest links of society

it is hilarious but so so sad at the same time

I’ve seen a post of someone appreciating Dazai and claiming that he would change his entire point of view if you told him something and a comment under it was— “urm! no! you are delusional! in canon he would manipulate you to get what he wanted— 🤓”

(the part that gets me is that the commenter has a post where they said “chuuya cries himself to sleep everyday because Dazai left” like bffr)

and this is just an example, because I see people get genuinely upset when people give a character a headcanon as if there isn’t a reason it’s called a HEADcanon

it’s in your head

as long as it’s not drastic bs that invalidates trauma— like atsushi, kunikida or midoriya— then a headcanon can be seen as reasonable because guess what! Not everyone has the same head and thinks the same! Who would’ve thought?

if you’re that upset at someone enjoying a character the way you don’t then get yourself together, that’s a fictional character.

not real.

fictional.

#the funny part is that they more often treat real people as fictional characters than fictional characters themselves #bsd #bungo stray dogs #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #mha #bnha #my hero academia #boku no academia #haikyuu

[carboardserpent]

Next gen headcanons? 🤔

Like, Jackson, Cruz, Tim, Danny, Chase, and Ryan?

Oh boy, that's a few characters. Alright, strap in then. Probably also gonna throw in Bubba because he's my favourite non-main next gen <3

(Humanised, as always)

(Quick disclaimer for this one, none of these are supposed to reflect on the irl racers that gave their names and voices to them - I'm treating these characters as though they're entirely fictional and not based on/inspired by real people. I make my HCs literally just based on Vibes (and RPs))

Jackson Storm:

6'1 and fit AF. Clearly spends a lot of time in the gym toning his body and muscles. He is male model levels of gorgeous. Physically flawless black man <3

Short black dreadlocks dyed blue at the ends.

Aromantic (female-leaning)bisexual.

Autistic.

Ray knew he was autistic before Jackson even knew himself, and is the reason he even got diagnosed in the first place.

One of his most common complaints is still about the reflections of the sun glinting in his eyes. The loud noise of the track still gets to him occasionally, but he has special earplugs to help him deal with it.

Can usually be seen drinking a can of IGNTR's flagship energy drink before a race. It helps him calm down and focus in. His sponsors love it, for obvious reasons.

Any time he's on camera, he acts calm and cool but internally he's freaking out. If they ask something he doesn't expect, he visibly tenses up and flounders for a second as he tries to figure out what to say, even if it was a simple question.

Doesn't do fan meets or signings unless he absolutely has to. Even then he tries everything he can to get out of them.

His physical attractiveness makes his already poor attitude even worse. Doesn't know how to talk to people, but gets all the praise and attention he could ever want online.

Yes, he posts photos of himself on various social media. He wasn't sure at first, but Ray convinced him to start shortly after his debut race, hoping that it would help reassure him and give him a bit of a confidence boost. Naturally, it went a little TOO well...

He's a gamer through and through. In any downtime he gets, he's still topping the leaderboards on just about every popular racing game you can play online. He also enjoys the occasional game of CoD and will verbally rip anyone to shreds if they try to come at him.

DUBSTEP. He loves it. If his skull isn't rattling from absolutely filthy, grimy bass, he's not interested.

So, of course, he has to have an incredible sound system that's probably worth more than the average person's car.

He doesn't watch anime. (Stop asking him if he does) Most of his entertainment comes from Twitch streams.

He streams himself playing Super Corsa 4 any chance he gets. Which isn't often with the packed NASCAR schedule, but he tries his best. His user is UrStormChasing

Still doesn't get along with Tim after their rivalry in training and isn't very good at pretending he does either. Their crew chiefs have to make deliberate efforts to stop them from running into each other before they get into their cars.

Cruz Ramirez:

5'5 with an athletic build. She is a Latina woman with visible abs and she deserves them gdi.

Side-parted brown hair a little shorter than jaw length, perpetually kinda wild looking.

Chaotic lesbian hours!

ADHD

Literally cannot sleep at night without a big, milky mug of coffee.

It's not normal to wake up and go for a run before even having breakfast?

She's teaching Lightning to use social media more regularly (for better or for worse). His homework is to send her a funny meme or video that he found that week.

The result of this can sometimes be catastrophic. She'll never be able to unhear him uncertainly attempting to use outdated slang.

Almost every race, there's someone complaining about how she doesn't weigh enough and it's unfair to the rest of them. So she forces them to watch as race officials put extra weights in her car.

Has cussed Danny out in Spanish across Pit Road and will do it again if he carries on-

Is probably the only person on Team Dinoco that is actually nice to Cal and doesn't try to tease him. They get along well.

Tim Treadless:

6'0 with a broad frame and light muscle tone.

Tanned skin and tousled brown hair.

Straight ally.

Just call him Mr. Charismatic, everyone loves him.

Everyone except Jackson, that is. Jackson is the only person who brings out his anger to the point of wanting to throw hands.

Has a wife and a baby, bc of course he does.

One of those guys some people hate for being irritatingly perfect. Usually people that don't actually know him.

Has type 1 diabetes and a bad nut allergy.

Was pulled out of a race at the last minute when he went into anaphylactic shock - the entire race was almost stopped when people started to whisper that it was foul play. The race went on, but the only reason for Treadless' absence was that he had to be pulled for "unforseen medical issues".

Some of the other racers still blame Jackson, who actually had nothing to do with it.

Danny Swervez:

5'10 and fairly slender. Not a lot of bulk to him.

Tanned skin (he's Latino) and short black hair.

Cishet male.

This man is FULL of himself. What an attitude.

Genuinely a good racer, but not many people like him.

He's not a good guy. He's given Cruz some trouble for being a woman, though after she embarrassed him by publicly cussing him out in Spanish, he's learned to keep his unpopular opinions on her to himself.

Isn't exactly what we would call "faithful".

But hey, at least he doesn't cheat on the track (smh)

Has just as little respect for the older racers as Jackson, but is less vocal about it.

Is very bitter about Jackson and Tim being more popular than him, yet still does nothing to change himself for the better.

Has at least attempted to physically fight with other drivers that messed with him on the track several times.

Chase Racelott:

5'9 with a build somewhere between Danny and Tim.

Pale skin and dirty-blonde hair.

Straight ally.

Generally a pretty likeable guy. Not as well-loved as Tim, but he has a good amount of pretty dedicated fans.

Makes jokes about being single/available.

Has pretty average performance on the track, not great, but not poor.

Fairly high energy, he gets along well with Cruz.

Probably one of the best with kids. Has a lot of younger fans because of how he interacts with them during meets and signings.

One of the few who will try not to leave until he's spoken to every fan who wanted to meet him, no matter how long it takes.

Often seen hanging around with Ryan - the two of them cause some pretty good natured trouble together, often involving pranks on the other racers.

Ryan "Inside" Laney:

5'11 with a broad build similar to Tim.

Mixed race (¾ Caucasian, ¼ African American), with short black hair.

Closeted bisexual.

Friendly, but not really a standout character as far as the fans are concerned.

Kind of cocky, but in a cool way.

Has a girlfriend who travels with him.

Agent of chaos when he spends too much time with Chase. Don't turn your back on him.

Bubba Wheelhouse

Absolutely massive 6'2 gentle giant

Another gorgeous black man (fight me), his skin tone isn't quite as dark as Jackson's

Closeted homosexual

Has a fake relationship with a lesbian woman who's actually just his best friend (the racing world is scary and the US South probably wouldn't love an openly gay driver)

Kids ADORE him. Him and Chase are the drivers with the most kid fans.

Throws a football around with fans over the catch fence during rain delays (this one is based on the real Bubba Wallace bc its wholesome af)

Gets asked all the weird gay questions by everyone in the friend group. (Ex. "Is it gay if...?" "What is X actually like?")

Legit just trying to mind his own business, he doesn't want any part of drama or rivalries.

Occasionally finds himself roped into girl talk if the guys have their S/Os around. They're very excited to include him. He's too polite to decline.

#i totally didnt forget i had this sitting in my drafts for EVER #im so sorry it took so long to post #i just needed to post this after so long ong i can only apologise #cars headcanons #pixar cars headcanons #jackson storm #cruz ramirez #tim treadless #danny swervez #chase racelott #ryan inside laney #bubba wheelhouse #pixar cars #cars fandom #cars pixar #disney cars #cars 3

[greyfacade]

Ask game questions! 5, 7, 8, and 23 for spamton bc I'm legally obligated to ask about him. You don't have to do all of them tho if you don't want!

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

I'm Gonna Win - Rob Cantor

First song I thought of, though I'm sure there are other more suitable songs I could come up with. But honestly, due to my illness I don't get to listen to music often. I'm sensitive to sound.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

There's been some really nice fanart, and I love the fake ad ones people make, and the pinups. I love buying merch from people.

Its also nice when people treat their plushes nicely, or actually see him as more than just the "funny salesman." Don't get me wrong, Spamton's is an awesome a salesman and all, but that's not all he is.

Oh, my fave part though, is how everyone celebrates his fan birthday. Thats super sweet. I love seeing people make fanart for that.

23. Favorite picture of this character?

Hm.. there's lot of great fanart of him, and you can see what I post already.

But I guess his shop sprite. It's fun to talk to him.

I do wonder what he would be like in person though.

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Haha... heh.... well, this will get long... (Sorry.)

Mostly just the fact that the fandom is made up of a LOT of hateful people, who hatepost about Spamton because he's "popular," or because their fans of Swatch/Queen/Addisons and are in denial about what those guys did to him so they try to pin it on Spamton by saying "he deserved it" or saying it never happened.

Which is REALLY ironic in a way. But wait, we got more!

(_WARNING: RANT INCOMING!_ You dont have to read this.)

Many people can't get past the "funny salesman" trope. They think the salesman pitch Spamton puts on is literally all he is, that he really is this guy who is silly, obsessed with money, and batshit crazy. Does no one know how entertainment works!? Has no one ever followed a YouTuber or Twitch streamer, or gone to the circus or seen a live show? That how people act in front of a camera, isnt how they act all the time!? Spamton doesn't actually care about money, he said it himself; he does all he does because he's an entertainer trying to survive! The Spamton Sweepstakes, the Fangamer ads, the Twitter replies... while they contain truths and genuine things about him, for much of it, he's playing everyone like fiddles! He's saying whatever the hell he can to make you buy his shit, because funny thing, its his job! And the things is, it WORKS. Everyone totally buys in to it! But while I'm sure he does find joy in what he does, it can also be kind of painful that everyone actually thinks that's all he is in a way... they infantilize him, they treat him like he's crazy/stupid, they stereotype him, they make fun of him, they talk about wanting to hurt him... and they think its okay, because "he's in on the joke." Yeah? You really think anyone would find joy in seeing you make art of them getting abused/hurt/killed? REALLY? Ever thought that maybe... its not actually okay....

I guess I feel bothered by it. Sure Spamton chooses to play up all the stereotypes about him so that people will buy his stuff, and its cool that he can still joke about things like that. But... I wish people saw more of the real him sometimes, and realized he deserves kindness and respect like anyone else.

But I think Spamton is a good example of how people go too far, how they'll greedily take everything from someone, even their dignity, if it means feeding their own happiness. How they can't separate entertainment from reality (... yeah yeah, some irony there as I'm talking about a fictional character...)

In a way, the Spamton fandom, often represents to me, much of the things I hate about the entertainment industry, hell even fandom. I'm glad people love him and buy his stuff, but I also wish they liked him for kinder reasons. I hope that if he continues to be in entertainment, he gets to make something he loves, that allows him to be who he wants to be. Because like many of us, he sometimes gets trapped in a role, determined by other people. And while some of it is true, like he is funny and has a dark sense of humor, and I'm sure he does enjoy many of the things he does... but some of it, I think is sort of forced on him. It's like if you don't act the way everyone wants, they'll get angry or abandon you. And that, thats awful.

(And Im not saying don't enjoy his salesman persona, just that, I wish people saw the rest of him too. Because he's a kind, caring and brave guy, and I really wish him the best ya know?)

.... of course, I admit this might be some of my own self-projection too, but lets not unpack THAT.

...

......

You made it this far, wow... uh... *gives you a gold star saying "I just wasted several minutes of my life to an insane fan rant." except all the words don't fit on the star, so it just says "I just wasted."*

... *runs away while you ponder the star*

#you dont have to agree with me on this btw!!!

[stardust-falling]

This is probably swinging a bit of a bat at a hornet’s nest on this website, but I wonder if the rise of purity culture in fandom, aside from other influencing factors, could have something to do with the fact that so many young fans tend to consume primarily media intended for children.

After all, children’s media is usually at least in part focused on teaching life lessons and providing kids with role-models. That’s why you’ll rarely find an anti-hero protagonist in children’s media. In fact, “protagonist” seems to have sort of been conflated with “good guy.”

Of course, not all media follows these standards. First and foremost, you have to remember that characters aren’t people, they’re literary devices, and they serve a variety of purposes. Some might be role models. Some might be anti-role-models. But honestly, sometimes they literally serve to show “what happens if you put a funny little guy in situations.”

More under the cut.

See, the fiction vs reality debate is interesting in this at. We’re humans, and humans are curious things. Sometimes, humans get morbidly curious and speculate about what might happen in some fucked up situation to some fucked up people. They don’t want any of it to happen in real life, but they still want to have an idea. Literally just because we’re curious.

So what do you do? You make a fucked up little man and put him in situations. He’s not meant to be a good person— honestly good and bad don’t matter here because the story’s not about morals but about cause and effect. Characters can show bad things, they can’t do bad things.

Because humans are curious and like thinking about “what ifs,” sometimes people get really attached to these funny little horrible guys. They like seeing them go through situations and imagining how they’d react. Purely because it’s a fun sequence of cause and effect and way easier than trying to enact it in real life. Now, obviously, stories are influenced by creators’ personal biases, but then that just becomes another dimension to the puzzle. That’s how you get character archetypes who end up telling completely different stories. Sometimes, people really like the way one particular creator has figured out a cause and effect sequence for their archetype. So, people end up with blorbos. Funny little imaginary guys, good and bad, who they just take an incredible, scientific joy in watching. Humans have always been doing science.

And that’s where purity culture comes in. Because, with purity culture, these characters are treated like they’re humans with accountability for their actions. Even though they haven’t hurt any real people. It is, in fact, impossible for a fictional character to hurt people. Even if they are treated as a role model— it’s still the fault of the person who decided to view them that way.

Because characters aren’t intrinsically role models. Even protagonists.

Children’s show creators often make their protagonists to be role models for kids. And in that case, when that’s the stated intent, it’s perfectly reasonable to judge that character’s morals. But you’re not judging a person, any more than evaluating a school textbook for accuracy and correct information would be evaluating a person. You’re evaluating the literary device that is a character. Of course, if you primarily consume children’s media, where many characters are role models and teaching moral lessons is often an intent, what happens when you read something with a different premise? What happens when you read, for example, speculative fiction about what goes on in the mind of a horrific dictator?

If you’re used to judging the worth of characters on a moral rubric, then of course you’ll apply that rubric to protagonists of the new media you read. So naturally, you’ll start thinking that, of course the protagonist of this story is a terrible guy and a horrible role model. What about the people who like him? Well, they must look up to him and agree with him in some way, especially if they’re rooting for him. So of course their morals are in question.

Except, they’re not rooting for him because they agree with him. They’re just rooting for him because they’re invested in seeing where his fucked up actions take him and how it ends up.

Same with relationships. Someone who ships a “problematic” pairing might have absolutely no desire to see any relationship like that in real life, ever. But regardless, it’s a very scientifically, morbidly interesting thing that they can’t take their eyes away from.

Anyway, genre awareness is a great thing to have when consuming media. A romance story isn’t about “what makes a good relationship,” it’s about “what makes an interesting and complex relationship to think about.” A horror story isn’t “what should you do in a fucked up situation,” it’s more of “what might people with these kinds of personalities do instinctively in fucked up situations.”

Genre awareness is cool. You don’t need to think about how good of a role model or representation a character is, so much as you need to think about “what is the purpose of this character in this genre and narrative, and how well are they fulfilling that purpose?”

#fandom #fandom culture #purity culture #writing #ramblings #I just wanna study fictional people like bugs tbh #and I think more people should have that outlook about fiction #it’s way more fun #no I don’t like this character because I’m ignoring that they’re a messed up person #I like this character BECAUSE they’re a messed up person #anyway feel free to discuss on this post. I probably won’t reply to anything but I’d be interested to see people’s thoughts #but if discussion devolves into discourse and accusing anyone of things then reblogs are getting turned off

[autismtana]

santana lopez has adhd (part 1)

^the adhd/lesbian flags^

(*disclaimer: i have adhd myself and work in education/educational psychology, which is the basis of this post in which i get wayyyyy too analytical about a fictional character; however, i'm not a psychiatrist or doctor and am not qualified to diagnose real people with adhd or anything else ... seriously, our only representation is cis white boys whose adhd is an explanation for them being the class clown and treated as a joke so please don't get salty at me for claiming a fictional character that isn't a cis white boy as part of the adhd gang)

(credit to @dojasrivera on twitter for making the og adhd!santana thread; i unfortunately wasn't able to see it as i only found out about it after their original twitter account got suspended but there may be some overlap between their thread and this post)

this ended up being really long and tumblr cut me off so there is going to be a part 2

impulsiveness - let's get this one out of the way first since this is obviously really central to santana's character; she has a tendency to just kind of say whatever she thinks in the moment without thinking about the consequence and it often gets her into trouble.  she also just does random shit like try to get into a physical altercation with lauren zizes who is in the wrestling team, and later move into kurt and rachel's apartment completely out of the blue and go through their stuff for some bizarre reason (which is funny in a tv context but also like ... santana wtf don't go through their stuff).

difficulty initiating and maintaining friendships - santana has maybe 2 secure close friendships throughout the series (brittany and mercedes) and even then there are some complications; brittany because they're in love with each other, and even mercedes competed with santana over puck (ew) but that was resolved by the end of the episode.  all of santana's other female friendships (except tina but they're not really all that close and even they have a one-sided feud in season 4 where surprisingly santana is the unbothered one) appear to be sources of stress and anxiety for her because they revolve around competing (see her storyline with rachel from 5x09-5x13).  it's also established that santana is close friends with quinn throughout the series (even if they have a tendency to compete with each other) but santana says in 5x10 that quinn doesn't live too far away from her and yet she never makes the effort to see her, even though they ended their senior year relatively amicably.  she's way more forgiving of other people than she's given credit for, but she just craves acceptance and friendship from this bunch of misfits so much and is really insecure about whether or not she has it.

rejection sensitive dysphoria - this could literally describe like 90% of her interactions with people (mostly people that aren't brittany).  the entire pezberry feud is essentially santana experiencing rsd around her friendship (or lack thereof) with rachel and then doubling down on rachel's expectations of her to save face.  another example is in 2x20 when kurt wins prom queen and santana's immediate first thought is "everyone hates me".  this post from themostrandomfandom suggests that santana has an anxious attachment type.  even in some of her interactions with brittany, she's anxious about their relationship and needs reassurance ("you didn't say you love me back" in 2x18, "are we dating or what" in 3x04).

disorganisation - santana's bedroom (see 2x15 and 4x04) and locker (see the scene in 3x22 with her mom) are both literal disaster zones, and according to brittany, her car would qualify her to be on "whoreders" (honestly same)

difficulty with time management (chronic lateness) - "i like to make an entrance" aka she lost track of time and knew she was going to be late so she planned it (credit: @smolbrittana on instagram)

emotional reactivity and difficulty with emotional regulation - santana has very visceral reactions to all emotions, positive and negative (see this post by themostrandomfandom) (see this post by drshebloggo); she's very easily affected by external stimuli (e.g. the scene in 1x03 when she gets her tanning privileges revoked).  she feels her emotions really intensely and it takes her a long time to calm down.  she has rage (and of course i'm obligated to include this awesome compilation by literallylebanese).  in the hurt locker scene (2x15), santana articulates really well that she has so many big feelings that she doesn't know what to do with so the only thing she can do about them is lash out at other people. it's also worth noting that santana is extremely defensive and reactive in her social interactions with others; she's very rarely the one to "shoot first" (for lack of a better term) and a lot of her lashing out against her peers (i.e. getting revenge on finn/quinn in 2x12, her interactions with rory in 3x04/3x06, most of her interactions with rachel in 5x09-5x12, her monologue to kurt in 6x03) are in response to perceived wrongdoing/criticism/rejection (i'm not justifying these but context and motivation matters). she also has really visceral reactions to positive emotions; her whole face just instantly lights up when brittany smiles at her or touches her or someone compliments her.

poor financial management skills - homegirl literally blew half of her college fund on post-breakup retail therapy (maribel lopez seriously i love you but why would you just hand this child a cheque if you knew she was getting a scholarship)

impulsiveness around romantic relationships - u-haul lesbian jokes aside, santana moves very fast with dani, calling dani her girlfriend within like 5 seconds of meeting her, it's unclear when she and dani officially break up (my headcanon is that things went somewhat sour after dani voted to kick santana and rachel out of pamela lansbury, especially based on what we know about santana and her feelings of anxiety around real and/or perceived rejection, but i guess we'll never know). it's possible that dani may have been a hyperfixation.

poor adult interactions/distrust in authority - homegirl has this in spades; her abuela literally threatens to beat her up with a chair and tried to sell her once, and sue mistreats all the cheerleaders on a regular basis. even will schuester who she says she likes kicks her out of glee club, refuses to defend her and pushes for her to get suspended after the finn incident (as does shelby corcoran), and shames her for reporting his subpar teaching, so that's educational trauma on top of that and she has a tendency to challenge them, mr schuester especially.

compulsive fidgeting - often has a nail file or one of brittany's funky pens, also often fidgets with her hands when she's nervous - mostly around her britt-britt (see also)

extroverted introvert - santana is simultaneously brash and outspoken while also being bashful and socially awkward (see her interactions in 5x02 with dani)

(part 2)

#santana lopez #glee headcanons #glee #brittana #adhd #glee meta #neurodiversity #adhd santana

[whilereadingandwalking]

Manhunt is beautiful, raw, and cruel, finally a speculative fiction novel that treats chromosome-based biological catastrophe in a way that's actually compelling. Gretchen Felker-Martin's writing is excellent and awful in its excellence, because this book is terrifying, visceral, and violent. In it, a disease (dubbed "t.rex") transforms people with the right amount of testosterone (primarily cis men) into rabid, murderous, sex-crazed zombies. Gangs of TERFs, cis women tattooed with XX, police gender and seek out and murder any person who they decide is 'secretly a man' or a gender traitor. Meanwhile, a few queer people try to survive in an apocalyptic world, hunted by everyone. It's been a minute since a book made me cry, but this one did, more than once. Felker-Martin's characters are compelling: crossbow-welding Beth, always-longing Fern, fat doctor Indi who refines their estrogen, and Robbie, a trans man who joins their squad to try and find safety. It's an excellent book about zombies and the power dynamics in apocalyptic worlds in general—but more than that, it's a horror story about the arguments that TERFs and other transphobes use to insist that there are "real women," on the violence of that point of view, of the endless damage of turning on our most vulnerable while there is a (in this case, extremely literal) seething crowd of patriarchy that we'd be better off fighting together. It goes hard, poking at the kind of women or queer people who still think there's a way to blend, to survive within the TERFs' world, instead of resisting against it. Manhunt is bold, and it is at turns grotesque, funny, extremely sexy, graphic, horrifying, and devastating. Warning: I think anyone who does not want to encounter scenes of graphic rape or violence should stay far away from this book, and it is questionable whether the rape scene was gratuitous. I don't think it needed to have not happened, but I question how graphic that scene needed to be. It's possible that within the zombie-apocalypse genre of blood and gore and guts, Felker-Martin felt that scene should also be 'honest' to the violence of what's happening. But I thought it was excessive. Other complaints: the timeline of the narrative got pretty intensely mixed up several times, which was confusing. The logistics were often suspect. (I'm not mad at "coincidences"—one character shows up in the nick of time, etc—for me those are a classic part of the zombie apocalypse genre so they didn't bother me. I'm referring to like, timelines, distances, that kind of thing.) One of the main characters is a TERF. Some people think she has a redemption arc. I personally don't think it is one. She is not exactly forgiven at the end. I think she's there more to reveal the rot at the very core of the TERFs' own ideologies. This idea that none of them truly believe what they spew, most of them just want the power the divisions would give them, want others not to have what they've been told is theirs to have. I think it was effective, but I'm willing to debate it. All around, I really enjoyed this book, but the parts I didn't like really stick in the seams. I wouldn't recommend this one to everybody, but I do hope we get more fiction that does as good of a job talking about TERFs and why their rhetoric is so dangerous for people of all genders. Content warnings: Extreme: body horror & violence, transphobia, rape (graphic) Also: suicide, gender dysphoria, deadnaming, fatphobia, anti-Semitism, self-harm.

#manhunt #gretchen felker-martin #bookish love #book blog #book review #sff #book photography #my book reviews

[fancy--that]

Rules for thee and not for me, classic hypocrite anti response. You have no idea what you're talking about or what any of the words you're using mean. You get to write what you want because you're only doing it in the good Christian God-fearing Way but no one else can. You're a joke and very uneducated. Proshippers who created Ao3 and fight for anti-censorship regulations paved the way so you can write and share your stories, and you're shitting all over their hard work.

Ao3 is a proship website. Proship is the default anti-censorship stance. You cannot and will never be able to tell what is going on in someone's mind when they read or write, nor are thought crimes real. Your dead dove fiction is not any more or less moral than anyone else's, you're not special, you're not the messiah. And you definitely don't have the right to pass judgment on anyone else. Your self righteousness is truly disgusting.

wow. First of all thank god i'm not religious in any way shape or form but i'm sorry that someone talking with some sense made you think that theres no way an actual human being with morals and opinions could write this no they must be religious theres just no way a non religious person wouldn't condone rape, pedophilia and incest!!! get real

Also i never said i'm the only one who could write that kind of content, many people have and i've read my fair share of dead dove fics that touch on those dark topics, the point a lot of you seem to be missing is the CONTEXT portion. its part of a broader story, it isn't romanticized, it isn't normalized it isn't treated as something cute or funny or romantic. It's just written with mindfulness and within the right context. It's treated as the traumatic, disgusting, depraved thing that it is.

also like i'm not telling people to not write it in the first place at all? Yes ao3 was made by pro-shippers but also like you have to be mindful of what you're consuming out there on the internet. I would never read a pro-ship fic that deals with these topics but also i'm not going to go bashing it in the comments or anything, i just keep scrolling however i find it very telling of your character that all i did was make a post saying that i don't agree with pro-shipping and therefore won't write these certain requests given to me by pro-shippers and suddenly i'm the bad guy for having an opinion. "What do you mean you won't write my father x son fic? You stupid anti you're such a hypocrite" i mean get real.

Also my original post wasn't particularly mean in any way i just said i didn't like pro-shippers and wouldn't write that content, additionally i also gave personal reasons on why i wouldn't write that type of content. Again am i supposed to ignore my own reasons for why i won't engage in it just cause the pro-shippers might get mad at me? I don't think so.

Proshippers made ao3.....thanks proshippers i owe you my....life ig? idrk what i'm supposed to say? should i bow or something??? "hey so we like problematic ships and problematic and often dark undertones in our fics but we romanticize it and we made this website to share those stories and then we're gonna get mad when people mention that these ships are problematic"

You're right i don't know whats going on in someone's mind when they write. What I do know is I have personally seen a lot of adult pro-shippers writing and drawing content of minors and adults who still interact with minors on their platform. I know that if someone were to tell me "read this fic i wrote" and it was romanticizing incest and abuse i'd be uneasy that they were so proud of it. And i know as someone who again has a partner who age regresses, who has a community of people whose ages i don't know, someone who regularly interacts with children for work and likely pre-teens and teens online because ofc people who aren't 18+ are going to look gor this content, i couldn't write it. Not with all of those factors. My own personal reasons for not liking proshipping and refusing to write proship content is not less important than your need to justify why shipping things with rape, incest and pedophilia is okay.

also i would never want anyone to treat me like some savior here to bless the internet. I used my own story as an example of writing these heavy topics in the right context, i never said i was the only one whos ever done it right or whatever, im explaining how i know someone will say "well you've written it before look at this story!" that isn't proshipping so your argument is invalid.

also i can judge as i please its called being a human and if you romanticize rape, incest and pedophilia i will not consume your content, i will not make new content for you and yes i will judge you.

best regards

[cherrymoonvol6]

Hey your analysis are nice. Do you want to share your opinion on common/popular TOH proships? As an also proship-but-not-really-THAT-proship, I'm interested in hearing what you have to say.:)

:D thank you for your nice words!

truthfully the reason why i call myself a proship is that, as a label, it aligns way more with my outlook in media and the way that i consume it. i'm just interested in well-told stories and interesting dynamics, and often that means that i gravitate towards those pairings that deal more with obstacles and conflict. but fandom hates that sort of stuff, mainly because discourse in that wavelength brings the worst out of people every single time. and like, i think it's important to address how certain tropes or execution of characters/narrative beats could correlate to the thing in real life, kinda like the works of youtube channels like pop culture detective or lindsay ellis. i believe there's a lot of value in that and it's interesting to explore and it's been a very helpful tool to understand other perspectives. but also, the moment that people in fandom begin to have discussions about something in media as if it's Real and happening in our world, i just fall asleep immediately lmfao. mostly because like, why would you analyze a piece of media through the only lens that DOESN'T acknowledge this media as a work of fiction? what's the point of media existing then, to begin with?

this is why i've never liked certain huntlow criticism, like willow using her magic to physically push hunter around. IMO willow could stab hunter through the heart and laugh it off and it wouldn't change anything, because hunter is not real. it's pointless to me to be all up in arms about it when he can't be harmed, not like a real person could. the most offensive thing about huntlow is that it's boring as shit and takes up space where luz's story could've been expanded and developed better. and thinking about it like that allows me to meet the story where it's at, instead of getting stuck on little nitpicks that, if they were to be taken out of the story, wouldn't make huntlow a better couple because their problem in the show is different and far bigger. now, you could argue that in certain places, willow's forceful attitudes towards hunter diminish his agency as a character, like how she makes the decision for hunter to come back to the team by yanking him to the courtyard. you could argue that it's dumb that willow is shown to be more powerful and resourceful than hunter when we know hunter is essentially a child soldier and willow just goes to highschool. and then i'd agree with you and i'd be willing to keep talking about it, because we're back to understanding the show in its own terms, and talking about it as it is: a connected thread of narrative beats and characters written by a team of people with the objective of telling a story. also, you could question the ethics of making willow treat hunter that way in a kids show, kinda saying that women being forceful with guys is okay and funny, and i would also be willing to considerate it through that perspective. but it's just the conceptualizing of the least impactful aspects of hunter and willow's dynamic (like, 10 total seconds in the entirety of the show of willow manhandling him for an in-show joke) as a huge problem that feels pointless to me.

all this preamble is to say that a lot of TOH ships in general fail to really catch my attention. this comes in part to my personal preference in ships. i think it's important that all the people involved in a dynamic have agency in order for their interactions to be really interesting. this is why i've never been into empgold, for example, given how their relationship works in canon: belos grooms hunter into a distorted understanding of the outside world, which leads hunter to close himself off and trust belos and belos only. and then that changes in hollow mind, and their dynamic essentially shatters from there. the resolution of hunter rejecting him and choosing his own path, as it happens in TTT, is therefore a sound conclusion. like, there's not really a lot a fucked psycho-sexual stuff or romantic interest can add to their dynamic, IMO. mainly because the moment hunter finds agency in their dynamic, the whole premise of it falls apart. only deviating their characters from their canon identities could make it more interesting, but at that point we're no longer talking about the characters from the show, are we.

at first glance a ship like beluz could be better in that regard, because luz has agency in the dynamic. she rejects belos over and over, and even manages to get the upper hand in a few occasions (see: king's tide). but looking at their interactions in canon, every time they talk to each other is like they're both interacting with a brick wall: luz is dead set in protecting the witches, and belos is dead set in going through with his philosophy. in that sense, that part in hollow mind where belos goes "can't reason with crazy" is a perfect embodiment of how their dynamic goes lol. even the whole angle of luz fearing she's becoming like philip is window dressing, because she's just being paranoid out of the guilt of the selfish decisions she's taken during the show: not at any point does this parallel make any real sense in canon, and then it's swiftly shut down by the end. it makes sense why this works like that in canon, because belos is supposed to be the irredeemable villain, as the ending shows. maybe there's more window for this to be changed though, because of the wittebane story. and obviously as a lunter enthusiast i'm no strange to using these hints and integrating them in the story to make it a better one. but personally, i just don't see the appeal -- and i'm not a belos enthusiast either, like i see other lunterinas tend to be.

from what i know those two are the more popular proships in the show. there's probably other stuff with the collector and king, or the actual incest pairings, but tbf i'm just pretty uninterested in any other ship in the show besides lunter. it's funny though, because i don't even think lunter has the most potential in the show -- i think lumity could be the best one under the right circumstances, if you could even believe me lol. but this involves a fundamental change in the premise of the show along, kinda converting amity into the deuteragonist by making her become the golden guard by the end of S1. it solves the issue of amity having zero connection to the plot, it adds stakes to luz and amity's relationship, also gives amity a lot more agency... i think that would be the best version of a love interest for luz in the show. but also i fear that that would make it so amity overshadows luz in the narrative. like, idk, a lot of stuff would need to be changed there. and that's what makes it hard to truly envision what the best (aka, the most interesting) version of lumity could look like. in lunter's case, we already have a case in canon of luz being the evelyn to hunter's caleb, and if you watched episodes like "hunting palismen" or "hollow mind" with no knowledge of lumity, i'm sure a lot of people could see the potential of their bond becoming romantic in the future. stuff like luz sadly looking back at hunter at the end of HP or hunter taking luz's hand in HM is pure ship fodder tbh and i'm tired of pretending it's not.

i've also toyed with the idea of terra and raine becoming an interesting dynamic in an universe where lilith and raine got condensed into a unique character. i've mentioned this before in my ideas of making eda and raine a better couple (cause good lord they're just as bad as every other couple in the show and i don't understand how people can deem them as "the good one" ?????), and to realize that it's raine's dynamic with terra that would be more appealing to me if those changes were real is very funny to me. there's also a lot that would need to be changed but so, so much untapped potential. however, it's another case where whatever is in canon barely resembles the best version of their dynamic, and it's hard to picture it with how raine and terra actually behave in the show. in that sense, they're very similar to beluz: raine's mind is completely made up at all times, which means that they would never accept terra's vision of the future.

of course, this is all my opinion. like i said, this also comes down to my personal taste in dynamics. like for example i'm personally not into poly ships in media, only for narrative reasons (economic storytelling: the optimal number is always 2). it's hard to find something that strikes that perfect balance between fucked-up and salvageable, and some of my beloveds like jackparse (from the check please comic) or asgoriel (from undertale) are some examples of that. but in true proship fashion, i think any pairing that you could come up in the show is fine. and of course i'm happy to share my opinions (and bless you anon for giving me a reason to yap about my thoughts <3), but they're just my opinions and the way that i personally approach media. you can like any dynamic in the show, platonic or romantic or sexual or whatever, and it's fine. they're not real people. that's the fun of media, that's the point of it: it's a playground to test ideas and make them interact. as long as you're doing that, all is fine by me.

#answered #long post #proship #uhhh i'm unsure how to tag this #guess i'll go with the easiest one #anti huntlow #the whole point of being proship is that you're ok w everything. not necessarily that you're going to ship the most problematique stuff #like i dislike most non-consensual stuff in fics because it icks me. but people can write whatever the f they want about anything and anyon

[incomingalbatross]

Types/uses of humor in fiction which are good and valuable and which also actually enhance drama (incomplete list)

Irrepressible humor. This is what I would call it when characters are consciously being funny for their own and/or their friends' benefit, and it's treated accordingly by the story. Friends making each other crack up. Someone getting distracted from the current plot by an opening for a joke, and distracting other characters in turn. Multiple characters doing a spontaneous bit. Humor that feels like it wasn't written for the audiences' benefit, the characters are just being funny in-universe.

I love this type of humor because it's human. It adds life and depth and realism to the story because humans do have a deeply ingrained instinct for humor! People who get along well are going to make each other laugh! Furthermore, it generally leads to characters saying/doing little things that are entertaining but don't further the plot, which makes their world feel less scripted and more expansive. I think it connects to what Miyazaki said somewhere about the value of empty space in storytelling--it grounds everything and gives it more room to breath.

Examples: The Dick Van Dyke show my beloved (helped by the fact that several characters are played by actors with stage comedy experience--they're used to engaging with live reactions). The Lord of the Rings, which is in fact full of characters being gently, naturally humorous. Also, I suspect this is a big part of why D&D streams and such are popular now--you're watching a group of funny people trying to amuse each other first and foremost, so you're not just laughing but also watching them laugh.

Punching-up humor. The closest to quip-style humor, but with a specific kind of substance--this is weaponized humor. This is characters looking up at something that seems bigger and stronger and scarier than themselves, and making a joke out of it for specific reasons: to remind their enemy it's not actually above them, to remind themselves of that, to rob it of some or all of its power over them. Sometimes it works completely, and the other is revealed to actually have no power over them. Sometimes it works partway. Sometimes it doesn't work at all, and that's terrifying, if done right.

I think failed imitations of this type of humor are where a lot of quip-overload writing comes from, but in itself it's valuable and impactful and, again, human. It's a human trying to hold on to their own identity and dignity in the face of something terrible, refusing to cede any superiority to the enemy they're facing. The key is that whatever they're punching up at has to actually be stronger than them, or at the very least seem so until that verbal attack goes home.

Examples: Buffy (again, the progenitor of a lot of empty quippiness, but in this it was very often a case of beleaguered teenagers trying to stand their ground under the weight of history and myth and overwhelming evil), Stargate SG-1 (also good at the first type, while we're discussing them).

Humor as a ray of light. This differs in the two above in that it often originates from the reality of the narrative instead of the characters. This is for moments when everything seems bleak and grim and serious, maybe even tragic, when you're in the middle of a dark scenario with no way out... and then something just absurd happens. And the revelatory comedy of the moment shatters the darkness and shows the characters and/or audience that no! the world wasn't as dark as it looked just now! This is real, that incredibly silly thing that just happened, and it reminds them of the good underlying the world.

I love this one. It's humor as eucatastrophe. It can be used to break tension, it can be used to end confrontations, it can kill a tragic hero's despair as he suddenly stops taking himself so seriously, it can give the audience a sense of renewed safety and deliverance. Like the first type reminds us that humor is part of being human, this type affirms that humor is part of reality itself. It's affirming joy is a part of reality, in its own way.

Examples: Mob Psycho 100 (ONE's really good at this), Gravity Falls (less in climactic moments, more as a continuing element of light that keeps viewers able to invest themselves in the dark parts).

#writing stuff #thinking about bad humor (excessive quips and mean-spirited humor and stuff that's clearly fitting into scripted beats) #but also thinking about how good humor is! and how important! and how much it does! #and came out with this

[donnerpartyofone]

This probably isn't true, but a long time ago I heard that penguin cognition is so simplistic that they think that non-penguin animals are just ugly penguins. Like, they probably recognize the otherness of critters that are relevant to themselves, like fish and polar bears, but a human, for example, is just a really shitty penguin to them. This morning I'm thinking about this because of how fandom mentality seems to work. Many years ago on this here ancient blog, I made an extremely rude comment about furries. Well, it was actually about the then-nascent trend of listing every single fact of you entire being in your blog description, where your deeply personal medical and psychiatric diagnoses that are nobody's business rub elbows with, say, being a furry. My bad, insensitive joke involved a made-up indexing string like this, but for whatever reason, the only people who got upset were just furries. One of them rage-reblogged it, and then like a thousand furries spent the rest of the night complaining to each other about it. Even though I wouldn't make that type of joke today (I mean I still think that overexposing and hyperindexing yourself like that is bad, but I find it more worrisome than risible), I still laugh when I think about this one response from someone who had a name like dolphinlemur69: "Maybe she's just jealous because her fandom isn't popular." Like...someone whose thing is being a hybrid of a dolphin and a lemur that blows you while you blow them thought I was just bitter because whatever thing I'm a stan of was too niche.

This is still funny to me, but it's also kind of fucked up when you think about how the person was so deep in the fandom state that they couldn't even imagine someone just not being involved in fandom at all. It was totally beyond their imagination. To them, I had to be just a really shitty fan. It's not hard to see how all-consuming the fandom mentality is; we've all seen cliche, sappy, horny fan content for movies and shows that haven't even come out yet, and we're all seeing what's happening with Breaking Bad on the part of people who've never seen the show and, just as often, don't even know what it's about. I admit that some of that Breaking Bad stuff is kind of funny, but the fact that people's brains will automatically start running the fandom script on anything they've ever heard of with more than one male character, and just start mindlessly converting it into like yaoi for babies, is really disturbing.

I'm currently trying to decide if this style of needy, overheated attachment to real people is more or less disturbing than it is with fictional characters. On the one hand it's like, well, at least we're edging slightly closer to organic relationships with other humans when there's an alive, non-fictional person involved. But on the other hand, while it is possible to know everything about a fictional character and therefore develop informed opinions about them, this is not possible with celebrities you've never met, so that form of fandom necessarily involves a lot of psychological projection.

It's weird to assume a lot of things about a complete stranger just because you want to fuck them when you see them on your TV screen, and it's probably not good to let your horniness tell you that there can't possibly be anything wrong with that person in spite of, say, a growing mountain of evidence that they don't treat other people well. What's grosser still is that when someone comes forward to clarify that Celebrity X sucks, at personal risk to themselves, where personal risk = everything from public embarrassment to doxxing, gang stalking, and death threats, fans will just accuse that person of being a shitty fan. The fandom mentality says: "Everyone is the same as me. Everyone is a fan, the same kind of fan that I am. Everyone equally craves the same level of contact with Celebrity X that I do, and if anyone has anything bad to say about their own direct experience with Celebrity X, they must be doing it because they were left unsatisfied as a fan. It must be that they didn't get exactly what they wanted, and they must be feeling the same burning jealousy I feel when I hear that they got to interact with or even fuck Celebrity X, whether or not the fucking was desirable or consensual. Anyone who has the nerve to criticize Celebrity X is just looking for attention from Celebrity X, because that's what I would do if I were them." I submit that that is usually what they're doing in the moment that they are promoting the innocence of someone they absolutely do not know anything substantial about, when all they know is that public criticism flies in the face of their own purely personal projections about an attractive stranger.

You can tell something is wrong when a fan's pseudo-political outrage, say about the idea of the MeToo movement protecting psychopaths who just want attention and financial reward for victimhood, is only attached to Celebrity X. The fan is not interested in furthering public education about the nature of consent, or about personal sexual responsibility in general. The fan is not interested in encouraging parents to raise boys who are respectful of boundaries, or empowering girls with a sense of their own autonomy. The fan is not concerned about clarifying legislation around harassment, stalking, or sexual assault. The only thing the fan cares about is that they are not prevented from continuing to masturbate to Celebrity X; that they don't have to learn anything so unpleasant that it ruins their good time, and they have to find out that life is more complicated than they thought it was a minute ago when they believed that anyone who gives them a boner must be a good guy.

Of course I'm not saying that there are no attention-starved, money-grubbing, malicious slanderers in the world. Of course there are those people. I don't happen to think that it's extremely common to happily risk a radical loss of privacy and personal safety just in order to get attention; I don't happen to think that's as common as the desire for justice and protection from further harm, and I do happen to think that when you have a huge aggregation of people who feel an obligation to speak up despite the risk to themselves...you know, I think that when something that is not fun to do gains critical mass like that, then smoke probably indicates fire. But my opinion on this matter is actually beside the point I'm trying to make. I'm just saying that if you only express how deeply you care about mature, responsible sexual etiquette on occasions when someone points the finger at your personal favorite complete stranger, then the real problem is out of control fandom pathology. It's like people who suddenly care about human trafficking when Pizzagate comes around, but they can't muster the slightest interest in the safety of women and children when it doesn't give them ammo against specific celebrity politicians.

My unsolicited advice is this: The next time you find yourself obsessively defending the honor of a total stranger who is getting kind of famous for being a dick, ask yourself if you're only doing it because you've jerked off to them so many times that you've hypnotized yourself into thinking you know that person. The next time you find yourself obsessively denouncing rape victims in some specific case where it excites you to do so, ask yourself when was the last time you felt like defending someone who was raped, or if you ever felt motivated to find out what that experience does to your life. And the next time you find yourself up in arms about how other people should manage their relationships and handle their own unwanted sexual experiences, ask yourself if you ever think about any of this stuff when it doesn't involve Celebrity X. If you don't, you probably have fandom brain damage, and you might want to see a doctor about that.

[foggysirens]

What are your favourite blorbos/ships and how did you get into them?

Ps. Hope you feel better soon :D

ohohohoh this was such a great question and ill have you know it made me so happy to walk around work just thinking about my blorbos and getting to share them 😭

im gonna put a read more because fair warning i have a lot to say ajshsjdhks

OKAY SO first off (and a surprise to no one) luke skywalker is my ultimate blorbo. my special guy. and it’s funny cause i grew up knowing of star wars, watching the movies with my older siblings, but i never really cared about it- it wasn’t until years later i even thought about watching the movies again and it was only because my sister pressured me into watching the mandalorian and i fell in love. and then i decided to rewatch the original trilogy and that was it. the movies just found me at such a perfect spot in my life to really dig into my brain and not let go- it was year two of the pandemic, i had no friend whatsoever and a day to day that just left me feeling dull, ya know? and then all of the sudden there were these old movies about hope. about being able to become more than the sum of your parts. there was luke. luke really just embodies that feeling of hope that i was so without. and i think it’s those set of circumstances and then me just being a big science fiction/space nerd in general really made luke my perfect star wars blorbo. and then add dinluke into that!!! i could go on and on about dinluke (and i have) but fundamentally i think it’s the dynamic of these two powerful people who carry these two, seemingly opposing ideals coming together and finding that they have more in common and more to offer each other than either ever thought they’d receive is just *chefs kiss*

MOVING ON TO katniss everdeen! my first and forever blorbo. i know i don’t hunger games post here a lot but thg and katniss were both really big parts of my development. the hunger games introduced me to fandom and fanfic and katniss introduced me to the mindset of never giving up. no matter when you feel like you already have, you never give up. that small acts of bravery are just as important as big ones. she inspired me to stick up for myself and feel courageous, to shoot a bow and wear my hair in a braid far too often. to look out for those i love with all i can give. i love her strength and her wit and how she is smart and so dumb and young all at the same time. and her and peeta as a couple i think just really set the standard of love to me. like after everything, all the fighting and death, they choose to live for each other. they help each other live for themselves. that you don’t have to be someone else when your with the right person. that you can be vulnerable and ask real or not real?

NEXT IN LINE is mickey milkovich from shameless. i am rotating him around in my mind CONSTANTLY. its safe to say that he was my favourite character on the show and his penchant for crime, swearing and anger really struck a chord with me. he’s a character that feels so much but is rarely given the chance to express it. he’s constantly going against the odds and trying to do what’s right. it may not be right, or legal for that matter, but it’s still what he believes. he’s a character that’s gone through so much pain and suffering and is still able to flip off the world. he gives me the confidence to say fuck you to people who are treating me poorly and smile because i know that the parts of me they judge and think are weak are the parts that make me swing back harder. he’s violent, he’s gross, he’s pathetic and he’s one tough motherfucker and shit if getting to see him get a happy ending, get to be out and to get someone who loves him as he is for all those reasons didn’t make me hope id get that one day too. (DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED OF GALLAVICH. REALLY DONT. ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW IS THEY ARE A GOD TEIR OTP AND NOBODY DOES IT LIKE THEM ALL THE OTHER SHIPS OUT THERE DONT EVEN COME CLOSE)

NOW WE HAVE nadja from what we do in the shadows! what can i say about nadja apart from the fact that she is simply, and always will be, the vibe. i am holding her in my hand and she will bite my palm and then maybe kiss me a bit. i am obsessed with her. she deserves it. but more than that!! nadja is just so unapologetically herself and her ambition and humour are unmatched, but she also has such a sweet soft side that i can’t help but just scream and cry and throw things around my room. she is also a vampire and that is so fucking cool. she’s a leader, she’s a dumbass, she’s going to rip people throats out and honestly? she’s everything i want to be when i grow up. and her and lazlo are just goals. like the speech he gives about not caring about what anyone thought about her when he married her because none of that mattered to him like she did?? dead. im dead.

AND LASTLY a newer blorbo entering the ring- jamie tartt from ted lasso! now, i will gleefully admit i hated jamie through season one and much through season two but holy shit did ted lasso pull off a redemption like nothing ive ever seen before. really and truly, i did not expect to connect with jamie as much as i did. the last season but the character growth and storylines they gave him that shed some light onto why he was the way he was and how they connected so many things in with the earlier seasons that just made you see things in an entirely different way??? like he’s still a cocky prick, but he’s a cocky prick you can’t help but love and cheer for. and the scene where he tells roy that he’s just anxious and tired all the time really fucking hit home for me, even when they did end up playing it off as a bit of a joke, i just felt that moment so deep in my bones and funny little manchester-man jamie earned himself a spot in my brain.

OKAY IM DONE NOW thank you so so much for the ask and i apologize for the behemoth that this post became but GAH i just love my blorbos!! and thank you for the well-wishes! im finally home from work and am feeling better:)

#fizzie-0 #ask #answered #mj.answer #do not want to spam any of the character tags with this ungodly rant lol #thank you so much again this was the best question of all time #this all being said im slowly getting into a new fandom rn and the potential for a new blorbo is HIGH #blorbo hours

[vespertin-y]

liveblog-o-clock! this time the first part of ch4′s daily life...mostly i just get real sad about gonta and rapidly whiplash between wanting to fistfight maki in a waffle house and wanting to wrap her in a blanket.

-[in a situation like this...i don’t see how we all could possibly stay enthusiastic. ...well, with two exceptions.] “what’s wrong, bro!? you’re not gonna eat!?” “if you don’t eat, then gonta will eat you instead, shuichi!” HPDJSDHSDGHSDHF. why would you pay attention to kaito and kokichi’s tragic parallels when you could pay attention to their funny ones truly.

-himikoooo :’) she’s clearly doing a bit of fake-it-til-you-make-it here, but her determination to be better is really endearing and genuinely inspiring. also the way she gets way too enthusiastic way too fast and almost keels over is hilarious.

-”there’s nothing more depressing than an unnoticed prank.” EATING THIS...do u think he realizes how much this sentence reveals about him.

-”it’s like a titty no one wants to fondle!” characterization moment over miu time now (it’s ok though i laughed)

-”no! you don’t get to tell gonta what to do anymore!” “y-yeah...gonta learn lesson after insect meet and greet...” gonta LITERALLY AGREED to help kokichi w/ the motive video plan, adding the meet-n-greet was completely unnecessary and only fractured their partnership. it’s almost like kokichi’s paranoia is destroying his interpersonal relationships or something...

-”yoink! i’ll take that card key then!” we don’t talk about how funny this is often enough. like yes it’s about to lead to horrible horrible tragedy, but the fact that kokichi’s so done with this shit he fucking STEALS THE MOTIVE AND CLIMBS INTO THE VENTS WITH IT makes me cackle. goblin mode activated.

-”shuichi is so amazing. gonta wanna be useful to everyone too.” “don’t worry. when the time comes, we’ll use your body as a meat shield.” “okay! gonta hope time come soon!” WERE IT NOT FOR THE LAWS OF THIS LAND (me being a 100 pound asthmatic and harukawa maki being fictional) I WOULD HAVE SLAUGHTERED YOU!!!! no one even REACTS to her saying this im so fucking madddd. when kokichi spouts lines literally indistinguishable from this the other characters *rightfully* understand him as a massive asshole and ostracize him from the group!! but GOD FORBID kodaka’s most favoritest waifu be treated as a complex and morally gray person instead of a prop in thigh highs who can’t be held responsible for anything she says!! i need to go pet my dog.

-ok i petted murry’s lil face i can be normal about fake people now. anyway NEW AREAS!! kiibo not liking his lab is obviously more of a gag than ryoma and shuichi not liking theirs but it still makes me sad. give my boy his wind chimes :[

-the cathedral floor is gorgeous, but it feels almost mocking now that angie can’t see it...

-”to become a completely different person and feel like you’re part of a different world...doesn’t that sound interesting? don’t you want to live in a fictional world?” NO!!! BAD TSUMUGI!!!!!!!! TAKE THAT MALADAPTIVE COPING MECHANISM OUT OF YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW-

-”yeah, before i got sponsors for my cosplaying, i worked a bunch of jobs. i used to say to my customers...”i’m in a bit of financial trouble...if only someone could help me out...”” HPDHBSGDHS. i love these little bits we get of tsumugi having a mischievous side, like here and the FTE where she says she can walk into trains and movie theatres without paying for a ticket. i wish it came up more often, both in canon and fic.

-turns out the very concrete memory i had of what shuichi’s lab looked like was...completely wrong. huh.

-”but this place doesn’t match you at all. i think this lab is too good for someone like you.” “ahaha, you might be right...first i need a cloak and a deerstalker.” “what...? the clothes wouldn’t even look good on you. it won’t suit you at all, so don’t even try it.” goes to pet my dog again

-tsumugi’s lab having a drink mixing station and shuichi’s lab having a cabinet of poison is such a good red herring lol, i was SWEATING waiting for someone to keel over my whole first time through this chapter.

-”huh? didn’t i tell you before? i believe in people i wanna believe in. and if they betray me, it just means i made a bad call believing in them.” DEAR GOD NOT THIS AGAIN...not everything is ur responsibility spaceman!!

-”heh...hehehehe...mankind deserves damnation...fuck that! we’re already damned here! being stuck here with you losers is the worst hell there is!” “the “you losers” part...wasn’t necessary.” “sh-shut up! i’m tired of this! let us outta here! let us out! c’mon, don’t leave us in here! pull us out!” “miu, calm down! it’s okay! gonta will protect you!” cool coolcoolcoolcool im not obliterated by that at all ○|￣|_

-kokichi claims he hasn’t found what the card key opens in a way that makes it sound like an obvious lie, but since gonta only says he took the boulder off the manhole much later in the conversation, it seems he’s telling the truth. i doubt if he’d asked gonta to move it so he could go in gonta would’ve/could’ve kept it a secret, plus kokichi’s not acting Completely Fucked quite yet.

-FTE time! they picked another of kokichi’s first. the pre-FTE dialogue being kokichi dragging shuichi around the entire dome looking for places the card key could go is cute, the actual FTE just being them having a tea party moreso. also: “my organization requires everyone to have an afternoon tea break. it increases productivity.” “ah. that sounds like a rather...peaceful organization.” “yup. the supreme leader, *ahem* me, is a pacifist. that’s why i settle fights with games.” i wanna see the DICE tea parties....do you think there’s actual tea or do they just put cheap soda in fancy (stolen) teacups.

-they only got time for one FTE...? weird. not as weird as the monokubs were being in the nighttime announcement though :[

-”um, angie’s gone, and student council not around anymore...but gonta still think it best to not go out at nighttime. cuz ryoma got killed at nighttime. and angie, too.” “that’s true...but the promise i made to kaito is really important to me. i can’t break it. i promise, i’ll go right back afterwards. and i’ll make sure we stick together.” “...gonta careless just now. gonta not know you make such important promise to kaito. gonta...so useless.” “no, no! not at all, gonta. don’t worry about it. we all know how much you care about us.” “...” “gonta?” “shuichi, gonta come to decision!” “huh? what have you decided...?” “hmm, actually...gonta will tell everyone tomorrow, when everyone together.” SAIGOKU ARMY HOW U FEELING? BAD???????? the closest thing we have to a true saiou confession scene is kokichi trying to convince shuichi to do murder-suicide with him and somehow not even that shattered my heart like this. how do y’all COPE.

-”by the way...this seems like a good time to ask, but...did you...like kaede?” “huh?” “well...i assumed you didn’t, because that would be weird.” “what do you mean, “weird”?” “liking someone you just met...especially in a situation like this...” (appropriately sepia-toned flashback to the hand holding scene.) “then tell me...under what circumstances is liking someone *not* weird?” “...huh? i...don’t know. i don’t...really understand what that is...nevermind. just forget i ever asked.” “forget you asked? why did you bring this up, maki?” “...no reason. i was only curious.“ “no reason? maki, you’re being...cruel. you ask me a personal question, then act like you don’t care-” “hey! were you guys making out while i was gone!?” WHPDJFHBDSF THANKS, KAITO. in all seriousness though i really do love this scene. shuichi’s right, maki *is* cruel here - but not on purpose. she’s poorly socialized and miserable and blunt and doesn’t understand what she’s feeling - of course she’d accidentally hurt her friends’ feelings sometimes. and it DOES clearly hurt shuichi’s feelings!! he doesn’t move on seemingly without even registering what she said (like the awful gonta shit earlier) or try to make an awkward joke (like in the lab). he just tells her flat-out ‘hey that was mean and made me feel bad’, and i think they were really going somewhere communication-wise before they got cut off!! (no real complaints though it was hilarious). i have (1) fic currently up on my ao3 rn and it’s a maki+shuichi fic i primarily based off this scene. the only maki characterization that matters 2 me <3

-that’s the end of day fourteen! we’ve just now reached TWO WEEKS what the hell. i have so much respect for people who actually try and follow the canon timeline in their fics, i could never. see you next time! love you!

#dr #mem liveblogs #DW I WROTE THIS A FEW DAYS AGO

[jillianallen14]

Spirk fanfic rec

Some amazing Spirk fanfic to bless your dash because I’m falling in love with this shit all over again (this is like the 10th time this has happened lol):

Entering Orbit:  Jim escapes to Iowa to avoid the media frenzy following the Narada incident, but a late-night miscommunication results in Spock turning up on his front porch; rated m; 30,957 words

Papers in the Roadside:  Non-Starfleet AU. Jim owns a small bar in Chicago, keeps on picking up strays and taking care of everyone no matter how hard it makes his own life. Spock is a journalist writing feature articles for the Chicago Tribune; he depicts the world with uncanny skill, but hides more than one personal drama and is possibly under surveillance from the Vulcan royal family. They meet by accident just before their lives start to spin out of control; rated e; 49,637 words

Take Refuge in What You Know:  AU - Kirk has moved into a apartment/house and wants to get to know his neighbors. He meets his neighbor Spock, a loner who suffers from extreme agoraphobia. Kirk thinks he's beautiful enigma; rated e; 120,334 words

Listen, this is not only my favorite Star Trek fic of all time, it’s also one of my favorite fanfics in general. It’s right up there with Text Talk and The Shoebox Project from the HP fandom, which if you’ve read, you know are incredible and frankly life-changing. And this fanfic changed my life. The description the author gives doesn’t do the beauty of this fic justice. I suffer from agoraphobia and Spock’s depiction as an agoraphobic man was probably the most well-researched, sympathetic, empathetic, caring, realistic portrayal of what it’s like to be agoraphobic that I’ve ever witnessed in fiction. It made me cry like a child because I had never felt so seen and understood. This writer is incredible, and this fic is incredible. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s an AU, which I’m usually pretty wary about, but it barely even feels like an AU. It just feels like Jim and Spock. The author’s understanding of both of their characters’ is perfect, like just a spot-on portrayal of who they are. This fic genuinely helped me accept who I am and helped me understand that I am capable of & deserving of love. If you don’t read any other Star Trek fics (and you def should read more Star Trek fics because they’re amazing), then let this one be the one you read. I dare you not to read it three times in a row like I did.

Observations:  First Officer Spock comments on life aboard the Enterprise and his service under Captain James T. Kirk; rated m; 500,000+ words.

So the author of this fic actually did a thing where they made this fic into two books (similar to what The Shoebox Project authors did many years ago in the HP fandom). They don’t get any money from people buying the books; the cost is just to go towards producing the books. This fic is the equivalent of two LARGE novels. We’re talking 600 pages & up. It’s a huge fic. Now, that being said, I read it in one day. ONE DAY. It’s that good. This is another one of my all-time favorite fics, though not quite as dear to my heart as the one I listed above. It’s focused on AOS, and tbh, I forget that what happens in this book isn’t actually canon. Like it’s so well-told, it just feels like it’s now part of the timeless story of Kirk & Spock. The “professional” Star Trek writers would never be brave enough to do what this author does with Kirk and Spock, though. This fic will make you angry, will make you laugh, will make you cry. It has such a good grasp on every single character. It also shows the love between the crew of the Enterprise, which is always a treat, and it’s beautifully done in this fic. It has a sorta-enemies-to-lovers arc between Spirk and an enemies-to-close-friends arc between Spock and McCoy that is beautifully done and fleshed out. This fic is definitely a journey to go through, and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s extremely slow burn, and you will want to slap both Kirk and Spock (and McCoy) upside the head at certain points lol. 

Of Coffee Beans and Green Tea Leaves:  The progression of a relationship, through Coffee Beans and Green Tea Leaves. Basically, it’s an AU where Kirk works at a coffee shop to pay his way through school, and Spock visits often. rated t; 16,429 words

Love, love, love, this fic. It’s cute, it’s in character. They have kind of a rocky start together, so it’s got a little bit of that Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy i-hated-you-but-now-i-love-you-marry-me vibes to it. I’m a sucker for that, if you haven’t figured that out by now lol. It’s really good, and a really enjoyable read. And it’s not too long, if you’re in the mood for something on the shorter end of things.

 Please Don’t Touch the Vulcans:  The "yes" is out of Jim's mouth before he can think about it. Jim is chipper about having time off for the holidays. He asks everyone if they want to spend time together but sadly, everyone ditches Jim over the holidays because they have plans. McCoy visits his daughter, Nyota visits her family, and everyone splits. Not knowing Spock has feelings for him, Jim doesn't even bother asking if he wants to spend time together figuring he has something to do. Something cute, romantic with the boys spending time with one another and confessions; rated m; 17,690 words

Super cute and has lots of Sarek, which idk about y’all, but I’m always a fan of. Sarek and Jim kind of get to know each other a bit, and it’s cute. Sarek knows about they’re in love before Spock & Kirk know lol. If I remember correctly, there’s also some appearances from everyone’s favorite: Old!Spock! You also get a little bit of jealous and protective Young!Spock. So you’re in for a real treat with this one. 

The Ren shat’var Trilogy:  A split-second decision changes Jim's life forever, as he enters into a bond with Spock in the face of certain torture. Enemies to the Federation emerge from unlikely places, and the command team must contend with unexpected threats, as well as challenges within their own intense relationship. In this three-part series, the Enterprise races across the galaxy to confront the unknown, and Jim and Spock discover the true significance of their unprecedented connection; rated e; 184,411 words

Textual Attraction:  Valentine’s Day does not bring up pleasant memories for Cadet Kirk. But the serendipitous switch-up of his cell phone with a particular Vulcan professor’s will make his day far more interesting –and romantic. Perhaps some new memories can be made! 15,900 words

SO GOOD. Just SO good

Spaceman:  Academy AU. Five times Spock realizes he's attracted to a barista at the academy spaceport, and one time he decides to do something about it. rated t; 3728 words

Short, sweet, funny. You’ll love it.

Subtext: Texting your Vulcan first officer in the middle of the night is never a good idea. Especially when you have an obsessive crush on said Vulcan.The holidays are approaching and Jim is left entirely Spockless aboard the Enterprise when his First takes shore leave on New Vulcan. After some midnight pining, Jim sends a text he instantly regrets. That is, until Spock responds and willingly continues their textual communications to an inevitable conclusion; rated t; 13,032 words

Cute, sweet, funny. It’s a texting fic. I think you’ve probably figured out I love those. This one makes me laugh so fucking hard. Like actually laugh-out-loud-omg-did-i-just-snort kind of funny. Spock is great in this one

All Spock Wants For Christmas:  While Jim is away on a delegation mission, he panics about what to give Spock for Christmas. With help from Bones and Uhura, and in between some spam texting with Spock, Jim realizes he already has the perfect gift. And all it needs is wrapping paper and a bow; rated t; 11,966 words

And here we have another cute, sweet, funny texting fic. Sue me lol

The Morning After:  Jim convinces Spock to take shore leave with him on Risa, hoping the time together will help re-solidify their bond of friendship after some recent tension. Meanwhile, Spock convinces himself he's on Risa for one reason and one reason only, to prevent his wayward captain from getting into trouble. After a passionately illogical night of Romulan Ale and chocolate infused liquor, everything changes when Jim wakes with something other than a hangover filling his head. Something he's sure neither he nor Spock can handle. Because if Jim knows anything for sure, it's that his messed up thoughts belong nowhere near Spock's clean, ordered mind; rated m; 50,381 words

HAHA. This fic fucking cracks me up. You’ve got drunk boys pining over each other & not realizing it. You’ve got accidental marriage. You’ve got bed sharing. It’s great, it’s cute, it’s funny. 

Take This Sinking Boat (And Point It Home):  In which Spock pines, Jim isn’t stupid (except he kind of is), and Christopher Pike has had enough of this bullshit; 6698 words

Pike is great in this one, and it’s super, super funny.

Extracurricular Activities:   Spock returns to the Academy from a tour of duty to find an intriguing cadet captures his attention; rated e; 15,433 words

Veritas: Basically, Kirk and Spock are on trial because the Federation thinks they are emotionally compromised by each other, which is putting the lives of their crew in danger. They have to convince a court they’re not actually in love with each other. They think the claims are bullshit. They think it will be easy to prove that they aren’t in love or emotionally compromised, damn it. It isn’t; rated m; 186,80 words

This one is so, so good. A real gem off of Fanfic.net. I remember it was actually one of the first Spirk fanfics I ever read, and it blew me away. The progression of their relationship is really well-done and interesting. It has star-crossed lovers vibes and has some really emotionally intense moments in it, especially for Spock. 

A Habitual Affection:  Living in 1930s New York with the Vulcan you're secretly in love with is no simple thing. But Jim never liked anything simple. And then, the big snowstorm hit...; rated t; 7998 words

A beautiful TOS fic about one of the gayest episodes of Star Trek. Love this one. 

Atlas:  Between what was and what will be stands James Tiberius Kirk, in all his fractured patchwork glory. Because saving the Federation was only the beginning; rated t; 135,529 words

A beaut. Really great characterization, and the progression of Jim and Spock’s relationship is really well-done.

#spirk #spock #kirk #james t kirk #spock/kirk #kirk/spock #star trek #star trek tos #star trek aos #space husbands #spirk fanfic recs #spirk fanfic

[audreycritter]

I think the reason I dislike the Joker being given backstory is not that I don't want to feel sympathy for the Joker (I mean, that's a small part of it) but rather that I think it undermines the point of the Joker. I don't mean as a character with motivations, I mean narratively. Others have probably said this before, and better than I'm about to, but this is my blog and I'm going to ramble.

The whole point of the Joker that some writers seem to miss (especially films! films are ADDICTED to backstory for some reason) is that there IS no real reason. He's a primary antagonist because his entire schtick is that nothing matters, and that's funny as hell. He can treat people's lives as a joke because they don't mean anything.

Bruce, or Batman, as the protagonist is the exact opposite of this. The motivation to save others from what happened to him as a child is rooted in this concrete, fundamental-to-Batman truth: everything matters. This is why Bruce's parents dying in a random act of violence in a before-then obscure alley has had such staying power: it wasn't a massive event that changed the lives of dozens or hundreds. It was a small thing, a statistic in the grand scheme of violent crime, with no real motive other than desperation or greed. And it changed someone's life completely. For Batman, the hundreds of small acts that fill a patrol all matter because each person does.

Joker's obsession with Batman hinges on him believing the exact opposite, and trying to convince him that he's wrong, and that THE joke is that nothing matters at all-- walking away from a victim and torturing a victim have the same moral weight because there is no moral weight. The point isn't to be the most evil or the most cruel, the point is to prove that it's all pointless.

In a way, this means Joker's greatest ally is the apathy of Gotham. Every person who turns away or keeps walking with their head down and claims "not my problem" supports his claim that nothing matters, because Gotham is proving by inaction that it's pointless unless it impacts them personally. Nobody else matters unless I do, and then it's too late. Do I think Joker's crimes are Gotham's fault, narratively and within their fictional world? Not exactly. But I do think Joker isn't actually an embodiment of chaos but is a representative of what Batman is actually fighting against: a Gotham that doesn't care.

Batman's existence is a defiance of this. His work, masked and unrewarded, is a symbol of the fact that no wealth, no material comfort, no border of security, no past trauma, no law, no excuse justifies not caring. Every life matters, even if it isn't your own, even if it's a stranger. He can't kill Joker in-world because of his moral stance on killing. He can't kill Joker narratively because Gotham won't kill Joker. Batman's driving core is a relentless anti-apathy, and Gotham's current collective social spirit is that they are helpless and not responsible for it.

Joker thinks it's funny that anyone would care, and Batman thinks someone not caring is the opposite of funny. Caring can often hurt, but it isn't pointless. Every single life saved or lost creates a ripple effect that matters and hurts or helps others. Each victim Joker encounters is met with the same presupposition: "I can hurt you and it doesn't mean anything because you're nobody. It doesn't hurt Gotham because Gotham isn't anyone."

Every person Batman saves is saved by the same presupposition: "If I can save you, it's like saving all of Gotham. Everyone matters...because each single life matters."

The more people that build their lives on caring regardless of how they think it impacts them personally, the less sway the Joker has. Every person who shuns apathy is another person who will fight back against the Joker's Chief Joke: It doesn't matter.

And they fight back best by, like Batman, looking at each individual they come in contact with and deciding, "Yes, this one matters."

#joker #batman #rambling #long text post #bruce wayne

[where-theres-smoak-2]

If Aleks was supposed to be this super evil big bad why didn’t he make Alina pretty much his prisoner from the get go? He could have readily lied and isolated her until finding the stag without attempting to seduce her or whatever and once the stag was in his hands he could have just forced her to wear it or better yet find a way to transfer all her power to him leaving her to die without her powers to keep her healthy. That’s what a true villain would have done instead of the parody of one we got,IMO.

(Trigger warning: mentions of abuse)

You're right that would make him more of a villain. But LB had that whole cautionary tale she was trying to tell of beware the hot charismatic men they be evil. Don't fall for the hot older guy they be evil. I also think she wanted that whole plot twist of the darkling actually being the bad guy so needed him to be a decent guy in the first half of the book so that it would be oh so shocking when it reveals that Alina was manipulated by him. There are couple of problems with this though. The first is that it is poorly written I mean I wouldn't call a couple of conversations and two kisses a master manipulation personally but hey that's just me. The second is that the cautionary tale very much like the secondary 'power corrupts' one that exists in the trilogy is outdated and overdone. Everyone knows that sometimes older powerful men manipulate women, particularly younger women, for their own ends. Like I don't feel like anyone needs to be told that manipulators are charismatic and charming, obviously they are, if they were antisocial and mean they would have a real hard time manipulating anyone. Also like how power doesn't always corrupt not every good looking powerful man is going to abuse and manipulate you. Then there is also the fact that if she really wanted to stick with the 'powerful men' cautionary tale then there were other characters in the book that were actually better suited to it then the darkling, like the king or prince vasily. This is just my opinion and I am sure there will be those who disagree with me but I think the problem with using the darkling as this character is that he is very much a fantasy character and the abuse he inflicts on Alina is often fantasy in nature such as a magic collar, or using shadow monsters and a magic shadow fold to threaten the ones she loves. The problem with that is when I think fantasy it takes me further from reality then say a character who is human and inflicts abuse that can and often does happen in reality. Not sure if I am explaining myself properly here but I guess what I mean is that a man is never going to force a magical collar around a woman's neck in real life but a man could beat or force himself on a woman in real life which is why I think the very human non-fantasy/supernatural character of the king or prince would have served better as the villain of that cautionary tale.

I also find it kind of funny when you have antis who in some kind of faux concern for the young readers talk about what if these young girls think this kind of relationship is ok and how they used to find so and so villain hot and sexy when they were a teenager and wish they could meet a guy like that but then they grew out of it and realised that a relationship like that is wrong. Which, exactly, you grew out of it. What on earth makes them think these other young girls won't grow out of it? As a teen we often are drawn to things that as an adult we no longer find attractive, its part of growing up. Also I feel like by the time you are at an age where you are seeking those kinds of relationships you are also at an age where you understand the difference between reality and fiction. Fiction is a way to safely explore forbidden desires or explore darker parts of human nature. Just because someone finds the darkling interesting or attractive does not mean that is something they condone or seek in real life. Your fictional preferences don't reflect your real life morals and I don't understand why there is this sudden morality policing going on in fiction/ fandom where if a character is even slightly problematic then anyone who likes that character is automatically the spawn of satan.

Anyway went on a slight tangent then. But I personally just don't think the cautionary tale was a necessary one and it was not one that I found interesting at all, especially when the backdrop for the tale has an even more important story to tell about the prosecution of minorities. I am much more interested in that story than one where they are warning me about something that I am already painfully aware of. I also, as I mentioned before, don't like the way the story was dealt with. I feel like Alina was very much shamed by the narrative for falling for the darkling and she's painted as being this stupid girl who fell for his manipulations and should have known better. I also feel like some people in the fandom treat darkling fans the same way, like they are just dumb hormonal girls which you know is really sexist and misogynistic. Also sometimes it doesn't matter how forewarned you are about attractive charismatic men you can still fall for them. That doesn't make it your fault or make you weak. You can come out of one abusive relationship and then end up falling into another and again its not your fault. I personally think we need to stop telling women that they should know better, its not as black and white as that. If a man manipulates and abuses a woman then the blame falls entirely on that man, not on his victim.

I understand that the story was personal to LB as she said in an interview that she wrote the trilogy when she had just come out of an abusive relationship and I have alot of sympathy for her, no one should have to go through that. And look I am no psychologist or expert but I do think you can see echoes of this throughout her work. I mean none of the relationships are healthy, they all have problematic elements in them and alot of them include the males trying to control their female partners in some way. Also there's the habit of quite a few of the female characters being made victims of men, Alina, Genya, Nina, you could even argue Baghra. They all are punished or used by men in various ways.

So I am not sure I really answered your question and instead kind of went on a bit of a rant but in my opinion the reason why the darkling wasn't written as a villain from the start who just took Alina captive and forced the collar on her without messing around with seducing her (if you could really call what happened in the books a seduction) is because it didn't fit what LB wanted for her narrative. She wanted this character who was a charming, charismatic manipulator to serve as a cautionary tale of how older men misuse their power to deceive younger women.

#darklina #the darkling #anti leigh bardugo #answered #tw abuse