#//I have this thing where I fixate on certain fandoms for a long time so-

[lethaldefect]

Okay, I wasn't supposed to answer because it's Christmas and I'm lazy, but I'm enjoying this discussion too much XD

First of all - my first post was a mental shortcut, written under the influence of emotions and everyone who was supposed to understand did.

From the important issues - I consider all the things that were shown or said in the series directly to be obvious. Personally, I don’t agree with the practice of "selling" and explaining certain plotlines and information only through books, short stories, or creators’ Twitter posts. If something wasn’t clearly stated in the show or was presented dogmatically, it’s either undeveloped or nonexistent to me. I’m not talking about subliminally conveyed information, but TDP writers don’t excel at conveying things indirectly anyway.

The whole point of my post is that we don’t have clear and detailed answers to the issues I’m discussing. I’m not interested in vague generalities. As long as I have questions (and they’re not about unnecessary details), the plotline isn’t resolved for me. Certainly not in a satisfying way. Maybe, as an adult viewer who’s been part of the fandom since the beginning and works in a similar industry, my expectations are too high. But personally, I believe I have every right to have expectations. Especially since there are plenty of sister series with far fewer plot holes and missteps.

But getting to the point:

If this is enough of an answer for you, great! I’m glad you’re satisfied and find it sufficient. But I know that for many people, this information feels like "this doesn’t actually explain anything." Especially since Zubeia presented the information about Aaravos’ imprisonment with the sentence "we all loved him, but suddenly it turned out that for thousands of years he was making some revolutions, so we locked him up". Honey, what revolutions? What exactly did he do to warrant such a severe punishment? Did he even have a chance to defend himself? What’s his version of the story? Why, despite dragons’ hatred for humans, did everyone believe some human girl without batting an eye, and even let humans work on his prison? Xadia loved him for centuries after Leola’s death. What happened to suddenly make him the most hated being in the world?

Here’s a serious plot hole – Zubeia herself admitted that Aaravos is so powerful and dangerous that even all the Archdragons couldn’t defeat him. That’s why they conspired against him and used a moment of weakness to imprison him. But to do that, they needed the help of Akiyu, a human mage, and the Orphan Queen. They themselves admit that they wouldn't have defeated him without a trick. So, what was the trick? Either Aaravos was so arrogant that he let his guard down around them, or they played on his emotions. A fight is, of course, possible too, but surrounding him and expecting he wouldn’t defend himself or kill them would’ve been a risky move.

Again – Sol Regem’s involvement in Leola’s death is just a trigger point. He wasn’t even king at the time. Aaravos, with his power and likely immense political influence, could’ve done anything to him. He didn’t; he chose to play a game with him for centuries. Leola’s death is, of course, one of the reasons – probably the most significant – but that doesn’t mean the story between Aaravos, Sol Regem, and Aithne Solaire is resolved. At least, not for me. As I said, the whole point of these posts is that FOR ME, these are unresolved plotlines. Regarding the Archdragons, we also don’t know what exactly happened to Luna Tenebris, although it seems strongly implied that Aaravos was involved, considering his connection to Aditi’s death, which happened around the same time (btw, does anyone besides Janai even know that Aaravos killed Aditi?). Regarding Zubeia – I mainly fixated on this because she’s probably the only Archdragon in context where Aaravos said, "like the day you betrayed me." Not "they". SHE betrayed him. This isn’t about objectivity; it’s irrelevant here. It’s about impact and context. If Aaravos considers her a traitor, he likely had expectations of her. He viewed the other dragons as arrogant but not Zubeia. He probably didn’t expect her to take part in his imprisonment or allow it and not side with him. Aaravos blames her for betrayal but said Avizandum was the one who caused his imprisonment. Even knowing the Orphan Queen turned him in – for him, it’s Avizandum who’s responsible for his imprisonment, and Zubeia is the traitor. Given Zubeia’s character, I don’t expect she actively participated in imprisoning him. That’s why I said she allowed Avizandum to do it because she didn’t dissuade him from that decision. Of course, I could be wrong, but I have the right to speculate, since we don't know anything about it :D

The Starscraper issue is even more shallow and almost random to me because we know nothing about the Celestial Elves and their actual role. And I don't mean the information that they can't integrate into the affairs of the world, they guard star artifacts blah blah blah.. But the impact of this sect's existence on the world and history. They seem strangely connected to the Stars despite being Skywing Elves. What’s their connection to the Stars, why do they exist, and do they actually do anything important besides guarding artifacts, issuing prophecies (which they tell no one about), and "not meddling in worldly affairs" (which they actually do)? So – Did Aaravos, as the only known Startouch Elf walking the world, have access to the Starscraper? Did he have access to the artifacts stored there before his imprisonment? Was he connected to the Starscraper at all? We’re told he took or stole the staff and crown stones, but maybe he had the right to them.

I know. Aaravos’ connection with Ziard was clear from the beginning. The idea that he might’ve gotten the staff from someone else was just a wild speculation. Although we have no absolute certainty that Aaravos is the only Startouch Elf walking the world.

I love this theory about Elarion! Long before arc 2 I had a theory that he might even have been one of the founders or had a very high position in the city. In any case, it’s the plotline I’m most disappointed didn’t appear. Elarion was the biggest and most important mystery related to Aaravos for me. The series ended, and not a word was said about Elarion.

Again – if the series’ ending is satisfying for you, that’s great. For me, it’s not (which doesn’t mean I didn’t like this season – I liked it a lot; it’s one of my favorites). And the problem is probably mostly with me. I had very high expectations for every season and the series as a whole. I saw so much potential in some plotlines. A lot of potential that wasn't used. So I’m disappointed because I would’ve done it differently if I had the chance.

Why do I think everything about Aaravos is still a mystery? Because what the series explained was never a mystery to me. It just raised more questions than answers. Aaravos’ nature, character, and motives were clear to me even before Season 3. I even predicted he had a daughter who tragically died. After Season 2, I looked at him and said to my friend, "He totally gives girl dad energy. Let’s give him a daughter and kill her to make him sad." So yeah… I didn’t learn anything about him that truly surprised or shocked me. Once again, FOR ME, there are more mysteries than there were before. And I know many people feel the same.

Anyway, thank you for the discussion! I haven’t had this much fun in ages; I feel like that guy with the red strings XD If you want, you can keep it going; I’ll gladly counter.

I hope you didn’t take my responses as an attack, and if you did, I’m very sorry! I hope we get lots of content in Arc 3 (and that we actually get it) because there are so many things worth expanding on more than the main plot.

By the way, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

wait a fucking minute...

We still don't know why and how Aaravos was imprisoned.

And what exactly his beef with Sol Reg and the other archdragons was about.

And what his relationship was with the Orphan Queen.

Oh yeah! And also his relationship with Ziard... and city of Elarion...

DID THEY JUST KILL HIM WITH ABSOLUTELY NO EXPLANATION?

I'M SO PISSED OFF

[knights-of-the-sky]

✰ //I know it's been forever but hi again-

Hello hello! I would love to have Soldan slither into my ask box anytime! This blog has kinda been... deadish for awhile. Or at least, nonrp for a long time. Sorry about that. I started to rp a lot on discord, but I'm giving tumblr a try again lol. Though I'm mostly active on @twinuchiha, I try to post stuff every now and then to let people know I'm alive and down to interact XD Please feel free to drop an ask anytime!

[scoobydoodean]

what is your opinion on people calling dean a heavy misogynist? i don’t agree personally but i feel like you could put my thoughts into better words

First, I have to chuckle a little at "heavy misogynist". Apparently, some people have begun to realize their fave is also guilty of misogyny crimes therefore they focus on making sure all of us know Sam is a light misogynist and Dean is a heavy misogynist. I just find that amusing.

This is a broad topic in a long show, so I won't endeavor to address every conceivable incidence of misogyny in the show I can think of. Instead, I'm going to create a few headings, at least one of which I think most criticism falls under.

Misogyny through the writing team

How Sam's misogyny gets a pass

Purity culture wank and Dean performing for Sam

How Dean actually treats women

Misogyny Through The Writing Team

First, Supernatural in of itself has issues with misogyny—as in, the writers of the show (including female writers) have issues with misogyny which they are happy to put on display semi-frequently. The show started in 2005, during a period of time where casual sexism was absolutely rampant on TV and no one thought anything about it. Female celebrities were regularly mocked and dragged on cable television in a way men simply weren't. They were called bitches and skanks and whores, and even "progressive" voices were inundated with casual misogyny and a fixation on purity culture (that largely applied to women only). Quite simply, I think fandom tends to be far too generous toward the writers, assuming certain things were "flaws" the writers intentionally wrote for the characters.

Put another way, there are some criticisms I prefer to level at the writing team rather than the characters, because what is written plainly reflects their ignorance in the real world rather than any intent to give Sam or Dean or any other character meaningful flaws—much less outright terrible ones that greatly harm their image. I'll give a few examples:

2.17 "Heart" makes me very uncomfortable as I sit here in 2024 and observe how Sam and Madison's romance develops. Me feeling that way does not mean the authorial intent of 2007 Sera Gamble was that I think to myself, "Man Sam comes off as uncomfortably rapey here." Hopelessly bad with women, perhaps—but not creepy.

In season 2, the writers begin to develop a running “joke” that Sam is afraid of not just clowns but also little people. The latter “joke” is (wisely) dropped fairly quickly. I have never criticized Sam for being afraid of little people, and I never will. It is readily apparent to me that this running "joke" reflects the ignorance of the writing team rather than an intent to give Sam meaningful or interesting flaws. Their intent was to use little people as the butt of a joke. I personally find this "joke" distasteful, and the idea of trying to take that and somehow "dunk" on Sam for the bigotry of the writers is more distasteful to me.

This is also how I feel about the running "joke" of a porn magazine and website (BAB) that solely features Asian women, that is put on display on multiple occasions during the show—first in 2.15 "Tall Tales", where the context is Gabriel infecting Sam's laptop with a virus from the website and making him believe Dean is responsible. BAB continues to make "Easter Egg" appearances in the show afterward. While often associated with Dean by fandom, the writers clearly think of BAB as a general, "funny" (it isn't), running gag with no more depth than "haha men like porn funny". An issue is stolen by a sentient teddy bear in 4.08 "Wishful Thinking". An issue is owned by the teenager who swapped bodies with Sam in 5.12 "Swap Meat". The Men of Letters also collected a considerable number of issues (8.17). I simply do not believe the writers thought for a single moment about BAB being a grossly racist gag. They most certainly did not write it as an intentional criticism of Dean from that perspective. It reflects nothing but their ignorance and racism here in the real world, and absolutely SHOULD be criticized from that REAL WORLD impact.

How Sam's misogyny largely gets a pass

One of the things I have not been able to stop noticing on this rewatch is Sam's issues with misogyny, and how often Sam's misogyny comes out in conflicts with Dean... starting from the very first episode of the show. Pretty much any time you get anything that feels like it might be a misogynist Dean or horn dog Dean moment... Sam either just has or is about to follow that up with some misogyny of his own.

In 1.01, right after entering Sam's apartment and meeting Jess, Dean mentions the Smurfs on Jess's shirt. We think to ourselves "Okay. A little misogynist... a little horn-dog Dean." Sam is happy to 1-Up that in two ways. First, Jess voices her intentions to go get dressed. Dean dismisses this, but while doing so, makes it clear he intends to leave the room with Sam, as he'd like to have a private conversation with Sam anyway. Sam objects, walking over to Jess and putting an arm around her, demanding Dean say whatever he needs to say right then and there. Maybe this would feel supportive if Jess wasn't in her underwear and hadn't just made it clear that now that the panic over a possible break-in is over, she'd really like to not be in her underwear in front of a stranger. But nope. By god she needs to stand there so Sam can prove a point about misogynist Dean! Second, Sam immediately (and I think quite erroneously) jumps to imply Dean is trying to cut Jess out of the conversation because she's... a woman? Or... something? He makes a big show of moving over Jess and standing beside her, saying anything Dean has to say, he can say in front of Jess. However, the moment Sam actually understands that Dean is here because John is missing on a hunting trip, he dismisses Jess to speak to Dean alone... because he's lying to her. By painting Dean erroneously with this "The men are talking" bullshit that had nothing to do with anything, Sam sets himself up to be viewed as a misogynist by his own framing of the situation and what it means to leave Jess out of a discussion. He also reveals his own alleged principles as a performative illusion. Despite being his intended life partner, Sam never intends to tell the woman he loves about his past as a hunter (he makes this clear later on the bridge). However, I think because Sam's actions usually co-occur with what gets called out more directly or more immediately recognized as misogyny from Dean (should have gotten him for the Smurf's comment, Sam!) Sam's misogyny often flies under the radar... and he's really... pretty bad.

I spoke here at length about how Sam tends to look down on women who interact with Dean (often before meeting them). There is absolutely an intersection with purity culture here and there's discussion in that thread about that as well, and whether this is a "2000s writers" issue or intentionally written flaws.

In 1.06, Sam cuts Dean off before Dean can accept an offered beer from Rebecca, but then as soon as Sam needs Rebecca out of the room, Sam asks her to not just bring them those beers... but also fix them sandwiches. Rebecca says, "What do you think this is, Hooters?" and Dean mumbles, "I wish" and we somehow lose sight of the fact that Sam literally just asked a woman to make him sandwiches which is possibly the number one misogynist man trope. Sam vaguely suggests Dean is a misogynist in 1.19 for nudging Sam to go on a date with Sarah Blake and possibly get information on the case, because that would be "using" her, but Sam wants to "use" Meg Masters in 1.22 and he wants to "use" Ruby to get what he wants, and when he said getting information from women was "Dean's job", he was also showing he was perfectly willing to use Dean and Sarah—he just doesn't want to get his hands dirty. It also comes to light in 1.19 that this is more about Sam's belief that he has to protect women from him, and Sarah herself ends up calling Sam antiquated for it.

I mentioned before that Sam doesn't plan to ever tell Jess who he is, and he makes the same plans with Amelia. Dean, meanwhile, confides in Cassie (it's what leads to their breakup) as well as Lisa.

I also have to mention... one of the funniest things I see deancrit samgirls in particular dig at time after time after time is Dean calling women "bitches". Never mind that Sam also calls women like Ruby and Bela bitches and calls a woman a bitch in front of Madison. Apparently none of these occurrences count because... *looks at notes* reasons. "Bitch" only counts as misogyny when it's Dean saying it. Also, let's not mention that Sam exclusively uses the word "bitch" to refer to women, while Dean also calls men and creatures bitches at different points so it isn't a gender specific insult for him.

Dean is definitely the "heavy" misogynist here... right? (I guess Sam is a "tall" misogynist instead).

Purity culture wank and Dean performing for Sam

Dean is commonly treated in fandom as if he's some kind of sex pest, and quite blatantly... he isn't one. Women almost always proposition Dean first (thejabberwock has sets on this here and here), but him asking people out also isn't inherently creepy in any way? Co-occurring with Sam's purity culture inundated judgements, we often see fandom's own as well, where Dean is some kind of sex pest because he... likes women? Or... because he has sex with consenting women who also want to have sex with him? Sometimes it's giving purity culture wank, sometimes it's given big radfem energy... but regardless, I sometimes see people talk about Dean like him so much as making eye contact with a woman is a violent sexual threat, and that's just laughable—as is denying the agency and autonomy of consenting women in general.

Even though it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, I'll also add that Dean... doesn't even actually have sex with the frequency that people talk about it? Dean has sex with Cassie—who was a long term partner of his in 1.13. He has sex with an actress in 2.18, and with Doublemint twins in 3.01. He has sex with a waitress 4.05. He plans to have sex with someone in 3.04, but turns her down when he realizes she's a prostitute who's working. This happens again in 10.07. I'm on season 4 of my rewatch and haven't been formally keeping up... but Dean is not actually having a lot of sex? We get implications he's been out partying a few times, and can maybe infer he scored, but we don't actually know.

I'm not a huge fan of performing Dean, in the sense that I think over the years I have seen it wildly overstated far too many times. But I do think Dean sometimes plays a character for Sam especially. Dean tells us this himself in 2.03 "Bloodlust" when confiding in Gordon. He never says so directly when it comes to the sexy sex guy doing sex persona, but his actions reveal him. One can think of plenty of examples of Dean saying horny stuff about women to Sam... but what about his actions?

How Dean actually treats women

Finally, there's how Dean actually treats women... and one would be very hard pressed to prove to me that Dean is sexist toward the women in his life. He's been close friends with multiple women and worked with women on hunts on multiple occasions and never once batted an eye. Jo in 2.06 is sometimes floated as an example, but it's actually discussed within the episode. Dean makes it very clear that he thinks women can do the job just fine. What he has a problem with is Jo's lack of experience and her romanticization of the job (especially during a period where Dean has fallen deeply out of love with the job himself). Everything we see as the series progresses supports Dean's assertion as truth. He's very good friends with Charlie, Jody, and Donna and doesn't go around excluding them on hunts while favoring men. That is not a thing that happens. While he initially tries to talk Claire out of the life (as he does everybody—this is not unique to women—see Adam for example) when she decides to hunt, he supports her regardless. There is nothing uniquely overprotective about how Dean treats women who hunt. End of. Dean has no illusions about traditional gender roles or any of that nonsense, jumping to clean dishes after dinner at Jody's and cooking breakfast for Lisa and Ben. (Our knowledge of Dean and the chores he does for his family already tell us this—but regardless). Even Demon Dean, an entity with no love for anyone and close to zero principles, targeted men who abuse and threaten women, and when Crowley ordered him to kill Lester's wife to fulfill the terms of Lester's demon deal, Demon Dean instead became so deeply annoyed with Lester's hypocrisy (he cheated on his wife first) and his assertion that it's different when men cheat, that he killed him and smiled while doing it.

So anyway, nope—I don't think Dean is a "heavy" misogynist.

[stovetoast]

pillow tpot headcanons (long ramble expanding on the ocd part under the cut)

ok so first warning: i am not a psychiatrist. this isnt a super educated essay on ocd, just me projecting my lived experience onto an object show character. this is just an observation. if i get something wrong feel free to correct me, ill add it here. (its also worth noting i am self diagnosed. not "quick google search" self dx though, ive gone over it with a therapist and everything)

and that leads into the second warning: this ramble will get a tad bit personal sorryyyy

and finally the third warning: i put she/it on the ref but im just using she/her for simplicity (+ i forgot LOL(

anyway so yeah i think that pillow has ocd and is basically the embodiment of "letting intrusive thoughts win" except like. actually. this headcanon didnt stem from the killing or the strange impulses though, i think she has it because of her fixation on good and bad luck in tpot 10.

for me it manifests in a few different ways. my main one is counting—i have good luck numbers and bad luck numbers. i need to take a specific number of snacks every time i have a bowl of them. i have to shake medicine bottles a certain amount of times before taking them. i am always counting the "syllables" of whatever im doing, and it always has to land on a multiple/factor of my lucky number. and if i break any of this, i (generally, if i cant convince myself its fine or if i dont notice) have to count to my lucky number otherwise something bad will happen. hell, i added more flags to this ref because the number of them was my unlucky number.

i have a few other things that affect it that are completely unrelated to counting, though. like a particularly bad one is that i straight up cant wear certain articles or clothing anymore because theyre bad luck. or my ungodly long night routine (which is probably more of an autism thing tbh. but certain parts of it are absolutely influenced by the ocd, like having to say goodnight to my dog).

that ^^ is what i saw in pillow. she was distraught that her team lost in 9, because not only did she think she was doing the challenge right, but killing people (bringing death) was good luck for her.

i think her killing people was a compulsion, and her whole thing in 10 was her scrambling to find a new one after that stopped working.

and before anyone tries to be all like "oh thats fucked up why would they portray ocd like that," one: i dont think this was on purpose this was just an observation, two: i mean..... fuck dude if i lived in a world where revival was incredibly accessible and one of my compulsions were to kill people, id do the same thing. death is fairly normal in bfdi, to the point everyone literally has a kill count on the fandom wiki (hers is 13 as of tpot 11 btw, a commonly unlucky number ironically enough. if she gets eliminated in 12 with an unlucky kill count thatd be so funny). once they get past the pain, its. really just an inconvenience to them.

when it comes to ocd, you. HAVE to do these things. its not a choice until you can get some outside help with it, and oftentimes its an inconvenience to those around you. i dont think its right for her to be going around killing her team, but when i get past the fact that is literally what made her my favorite, i get where shes coming from. shes trying to help in a way she "knows" will work.

or maybe shes just silly idk

[honeyhotteoks]

Okay I'm 5'7 too so thank you for your detailed description of the members and I'm not surprised but kinda am at the same time about their appearance??

Low-key love seeing all the live content but also feel left out as an Aussie atiny BUT I'm seeing skz in October so I'm excited for that!!

Speaking of their appearance, the members of skz are a lot more muscular in person than how they look.

I was expecting them to be skinny and boney but they all look incredibly strong and fit-even Han and Felix-

Han actually looks slightly more buff and muscly then Felix which surprised me and Lee Know is just as defined and muscular as Changbin which no one talks about.

Anyway- yunho brain rot.

I was listening to the audiobook of haunting Adeline because I finally caved in from the TikTok influence and my friend telling me how sexy the novel is.

Idk if it's because I'm going to therapy or I'm too old but I thought it was over-hyped-

I did love how the author described the themes of fear and stalking because when I did get tense when she'd leave the room, come back and there would be a 🌹 on the counter.

BUT I did get delulu and I was reading some scenes where zade is just consumed with Adeline and I was gasping 'like omg yunho could be like this' because his natal chart indicates if he was psychotic and unhealed enough- could delve into stalking territory.

And yes okay- this shit is toxic and scary and awful in real life BUT LET ME FANTASISE FOR A SECOND!

What if yunho was that borderline toxic boyfriend that just CANT leave you alone??

Watches you from afar, sends you messages all day-

Somnophilia thought here-

You don't live with yunho but have given him a key and go to bed with no panties on b/c it's a common occurrence he'll drive over in the middle of the night b/c it's been too long since he's felt you under him and he has to ravish you.

You wake up to his tongue on you clit as he moans and breathes your scent in which eventually leads to you making love with him as he virtually suffocates you with his body and words?

You're mine, you're not leaving me, I'm destined to be with you, on top of you, inside you, I can't breathe w/o you.

EMOTIONAL DAMAGE!!

MY FRIEND THE WAY YOU ALWAYS SERVE UP THE GREATEST IMAGERY OF ALL TIME TO RUIN ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

first of all........ love that you're seeing skz!!! i'm hoping if and when they announce tour dates for north america next year there's a chance for me to see them

as far as your yunho brainrot goes................. IM DIZZY. i love your natal chart content, and i've been so obsessed with the idea of yunho being like perfect boyfriend great guy................but................there's that part of him that just can't help being possessive and having this sense of ownership over his partner.

i was just actually reading a fic for another fandom along the lines of what you're describing and i was like YUNHO YUNHO YUNHO the whole time. i might write my own version but......... brainrot under the cut

so i think there's two yunho possibilities that i love within this like possessive/stalker/dubcon realm, and one is straight up like suuuuuper healthy relationship but they play with CNC in intense ways and do full on like roleplay OR my current favorite brainrot which aligns with your idea and the fic i was just reading which is like...... desperately obsessed desperately in love fully fixated on reader not leaving him because he just has to consume her fully at all times.

he and reader have been dating for a while and he's honestly the 10/10 perfect boyfriend (she thinks) only.... she knows he gets a little funny about certain things. when other guys talk to her he just has to have his hands on her, and when he worries about her he really worries, almost too much. he gets jealous about the funniest little things, and he's always nervous about change, he just doesn't want anything to burst their little bubble so much so that he's controlling the situation a little too much. but.... she also loves him, and he hasn't really stepped over the line of toxic.......... until she catches him stealing a pair of her panties and realizes his phone is full of pictures of her.

and it starts off like an argument, until he starts to confess his real fantasies. and he knows it might be too much, but she makes him so insane it's like he can't help himself. and the longer he talks about all of those fantasies, confessing how fucked he knows it is and how she really could do better, she just keeps getting more and more turned on. and it's shocking to her too, but she really fucking likes it. she's never had someone take care of her, really and truly take care of everything and just let her exist without having to make all the decisions or take control, and he's just offering it all to her on a platter she just has to let him take it.

and so while he thinks revealing his desires is about to break them up, and he's losing his fucking mind about it, she's ready to double down hard on the relationship and on what they do behind closed doors. so she shocks him when she not only agrees for more but asks for more.

and so that's when she gives him the key, that's when she tells him that he's allowed to come in whenever he wants. to touch her whenever he wants. she wants it all, but all she asks in exchange is that he stops hiding his desires from her, because that's what was driving the wedge between them. he's patient about using the new found control though, because he doesn't know what that will do for their relationship and she doesn't necessarily know what she's allowing him to do..... he can't smother her ALL at once.

but that changes when she falls asleep one night before texting him goodnight, she's been stressed and worn thin and he's not had the opportunity to see her let alone take care of her..... and he's feeling a little neglected too. and he waits a couple of hours for a response, but finally he decides it's time to use the key. so he drives over, slips in quietly, and finds her sound asleep, phone still clutched in her fingers and a video looping on repeat.

he's hard in a second, desperate in a second, and he has to do something about it. so he starts off slow, peeing off her clothes and gently teasing her nipples, getting a blush in her cheeks and making her perfectly hot and receptive to his tongue teasing her sweet clit.

she’s been so tired lately that she’s well and truly out, and she doesn’t really wake up until he’s teasing her wet cunt with his cock, not quite fucking her yet but everything in between. and when she wakes it’s mid-orgasm and desperate for more, and she's aware that something feels different but she just woke up and she's caught between realizing yunho is actually here and pushing himself inside her and thinking it might be a dream.

but he's whispering to her, clutching her close and begging her to just let him have this.... and of course she will, she agreed, but as she comes more and more into consciousness the feeling of him and his words start to make sense. he’s not wearing a condom for the first time ever, and that's not something they've ever agreed on going without before. she's just trying to figure out what is going on but he's fucking into her harder and deeper than before, with a whimpering need on his lips that makes her body curl up in pleasure and she knows she should stop him but truthfully she doesn't want to.

and while she clings to him, yunho's delirious. the feeling of having her completely, of knowing he's the only person who's ever been inside her fully with nothing between them, of knowing that the risk might be worth it. his mind starts to spin until he's a babbling mess, telling her he's going to leave a piece of himself behind for her, make them whole, make sure she can never ever leave.

and even though she knows it's a terrible idea, a decision only made in the middle of sex because it feels good, she finds herself clutching him closer, goading him on. no one has ever wanted her quite like he does and it makes her want to throw everything she's ever cared about right out the window if it means he'll look at her like this forever.

ANYWAYS now i have to write full lowkey toxic possessive yunho with a reader who is down to be fully consumed by him like AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[exhausted-archivist]

Common Fanons That Are Confused As Canon

Through my time of collecting lore and learning things about Thedas I've come across a couple things of fanon that leaked into lists of canon elements. Which was an interesting little thing to follow the rabbit hole of where they even originated. While making this list I did ask others for any that I might have missed or not seen because I wanted to be thorough as I could when even making this list. I haven't been in the fandom long enough to see all the things that have come up.

To be clear, I thought it was neat to see what became so pervasive in the fandom to become easily mistaken as canon or misunderstood. I'm also not discussing whether canon as it stands is "good" or judging the fanon or anything like that.

I just wanted to put it all together in a list, especially as I have had friends who were getting into the series and ask about certain things; as well as Dragon Age Summer hitting us soon and new interest in the series abound.

General

Mages can sense other mages The closest source I can find to this is the fact that Anders states that he can "feel the power in you". No other mage states anything similar and could likely be attributed to the fact that he is possessed. Much like how Cole can sense your magical connection as an Inquisitor. An outlier is how Keiran can sense your magic regardless of if he has the Old God soul; but he is also not confirmed to be a mage as of yet.

All Saarebas always have their lips sewn shut/horns cut off This seems to originate from da2 specifically, with the model of Ketojan having the scarring, the other saarebas missing horns, the concept art, and then boils down to BioWare being inconsistent with their lore/depictions. Most of Thedas fixates on the fact that the Qunari have saarebas with their lips sewn shut, the Seer's yarn tale denotes that tamassrans tell the story of a saarebas with their lips sewn shut, the tarot art for Saarath, and the flippant joke between Sera and Iron Bull. But, the lore specifies that it is in extreme cases or in general that it can occurs but it is not the standard. [WOT p. 103 & 128] Much like tranquility, it is used as a form of punishment - one that we know can and is abused by certain factions. We also see saarebas characters in Inquisition who do not carry either of those traits. Specifically Hissera (multiplayer), Saareth (Trespasser), Heroes of Dragon Age models, and some Qunari in da2.

All Saarebas have their tongues cut out This is seperate from the previous point due to the different source of this fanon. It seems to be an exaggeration of one particulare line from Sten. In dao, Sten will state during the Broken Circle quest that "This is why we cut the tongues from mages, in Par Vollen." He is very general with the statement, but contextually it is reasonable people took this to mean all mages. However, since dao it has been made clear that it is not a universal practice throughout the Qun.

Elves are shorter than humans This one does have a clear point of where this started, though it is never stated in lore, back in Origins elven models were universally shorter than humans. But from DA2 onward, male elves were only shorter than their human counterparts of the same sex while female elves are shorter than both human sexes. Fenris is taller than f!Hawke while both forms of Hawke are taller than Merrill. Solas, Abelas, and a m!Lavellan are taller than female human characters but all human characters are taller than female elves (except Sera who has a female human model).

Dalish are illiterate This is a little less clear to me where its origins started. Perhaps based off of medieval period history (which da isn't necessarily medieval in time period) or due to the fact that most common folk in certain regions in Thedas are illiterate and reliant on pictures over written words. But we know from the Witch Hunt dlc that the Dalish keep tomes of their history and of the ancient elven empire. They also actively translate ancient elven script for their own records. Whether this is role restrictive or not is unclear, but we do know that the Dalish are literate in both Common and semi-literate in ancient elven script.

Dalish and City Elves don't have contact This seemingly comes from a misunderstanding stemming in the city elf origins in dao where some npcs will comment on how Dalish might be myths. However, in dao, da2, dai, the comic Knight Errant, and the novel The Masked Empire, that elves from both sides do semi-regularly trade people with each other if not visit certain alienages, as well have other points of contact with each other. Pol, Zevran, Coran (Vaea's uncle), and potentially Feynriel are all city elves that join Dalish clans. Merrill and Arianni are known Dalish who join alienages.

City elves are genetic/physical differences from the Dalish elves This one I have seen around a lot, most stemming from the idea of the previous one that the elves in the city are generations apart from the Dalish, implying they have no contact with each other. Which could be true for certain alienages. But as far as lore is concerned there isn't any example of this, not even as being a point of reference for the Dalish to consider any of the aspects as to what makes them "less of an elf" in comparison to Dalish.

Elves pass on their elven traits Most seem to know this isn't canon, albeit one of the less popular canon elements; but new fans don't always know this. It is popular fanon to give half-elven children the reflective eyes, smaller stature, more angular features, straighter nose bridge, and/or pointed ears from their elven parent.

Only elves can have mixed kids with other races This seems to come from the fact that elven traits aren't passed on to their kids when mixed parentage is involved. However humans, dwarves, and vashoth can all have mixed kids from the other races. According to Patrick Weekes, this decision was made consciously to avoid very racist and harmful rhetoric. We know of many elf/human mixed kids: Alistair, Eiton, Feynriel, Gestan and Thale (residents of elven area of Halamshiral), Kieran (conditions), Michel de Chevin, Rinnala, "Sabina's Brat" (son of the elven prostitute Sabina at the Blooming Rose), Slim Couldry, Tainsley (Potentially. Is described as a 7'(2.13m) human, though he references a Dalish uncle.) While mixed dwarf children are rare simply due to dwarven fertility issues we do know of two dwarf/human kids: Keiran (conditional) and the child of Tyrdaa Bright-Axe(Avvar) and Hendir (dwarf).

Elfroot leaves get you high/is Thedosian marijuana This is another Origins era thing, due to an easter egg that made a play on the American "This is your brain on drugs" anti-drug campaign using elfroot. This was then repeated in 2015 when Patrick Weekes said that its medicinal properties were rediscovered in 4:20. [Source] Elfroot hasn't been shown to get anyone high in canon, it is the roots that are primarily used as medicinal. In World of Thedas (WoT) vol. 2 the recipe for Dalish Deep Forest Comfort says you can substitute elfroot for spinach making the leaves more vegetable in quality. That said, marijuana leaves are edible and rather nutritious. They just don't have the chemical make up to induce a high. Those lie strictly in the buds. According to Origins, elfroot does flower though.

Red lyrium is completely different and more dangerous from blue lyrium This one is all on BioWare in regards to this misconception. Because while yes, it is more dangerous than the blue lyrium, they aren't two seperate substances. More that red lyrium is a branch off. To cover the generals of the written lore of lyrium it breaks down like this: Blue lyrium in it's raw form innately toxic to just be around to all but dwarves, however it will kill a mage who gets too close in proximity. That proximity being within the same room while non-mages would have to touch the stuff. It also has a pension of self-combustion without warning or a clear cause. When it is refined down for templar use it is "safe" for non-mages to come in contact with and consume. Whether this level of refinement is the same level as what is used to make various cocktails and liqueur is unclear. But we do know that getting too close, being in same room as lyrium refined to this level, is enough to make a mage sick. Finally, we have the most refined and diluted stage of lyrium, this is used by mages to make potions, certain alchemical work, and other things. This isn't enough to kill a mage, make them sick (without extreme over use), and infact can result in positive outcomes for a mage. Red lyrium overlaps with most of that, with a couple key differences. First off is that red lyrium doesn't seem to self-combust. There is some contradiction on whether or not non-dwarves can mine it as due to game mechanics you can destroy it, but the only ones we see mining wild nodes are dwarves. But if the red lyrium is grown from a living creature it seems accessible to all races? In codices about the various types of red templars, we learn that a small vial around a templar's neck is enough to make all the mages in the area around him sick.

Character Specific

Alistair

Alistair is a dog person I couldn't track any clear origins for this, it seems to be a case of overlap with the stereotype that "all Fereldan's love dogs" and a mix of building off of a line of dialogue about him being raised by the hounds and them being his family. However, he doesn't seem overly one way or the other. He mocks dog at times, talks down in not such a playful way, and at times seems to treat dog with the same attitude he does Morrigan though not as blatantly. This could be chalked up to his joking nature though.

Alistair's obsession with cheese While he does admit to an obsession to cheese, it is often cited that Alistair makes a ton of cheese jokes in dao. When in truth he only makes four through out the entire game. Given his joking nature it is up to personal interpretation of how much he actually loves cheese.

Alistair and Cullen knew each other before Origins This is more specifically that the two went to the same monastery for their templar training. There is no canon evidence for this though. That said, there is a possibility due to not knowing much of anything about how the Templar Order trains its recruits nor the amount of monasteries they have in Ferelden for training.

Alistair collects toy soldiers This seems to come from the gifts he can be given during the Feastday dlc. Canonically he is given runestones and carved statuettes of various types stone. These statuettes are described in a manner closer to effigies than toy soldiers.

Alistair's mother is not Fiona This one is a bit funny as it has multiple origins and is dependent on the player's experience with the series. From what I have gathered there seems to be one of three sources: - People who never read the Dragon Age novel The Calling - People who read The Calling after playing dao and feels like it is a retcon (though The Calling was released prior to the release of dao, same with the novel The Stolen Throne) - People who take a "chuck the baby with the bathwater" approach to the lore The funny thing about this is that the cover story in dao for Alistair's mom is based off a combo of things; the hypothetical scenario Fiona told Maric and answers she gave Maric when he asked what to tell Alistair if he asked about his mother. The hypothetical was that Fiona would not return to the Circle and would hide from the templars and pretend to be a washer woman. When Maric asked what to tell Alistair of his mother, Fiona said to tell him his mother was human as she did not want him to deal with being half elven and all the stigma that comes with that as well as to tell Alistair that she was dead.

Avaline

Aveline is straight She will kiss Hawke regardless of gender and ask them if they ever considered her and them. Though it is clear she never had romantic interest in Hawke in particular. An easily missed aspect I think given the general opinion of Aveline as well as most people seeming to not choose the flirtatious option with her.

Blackwall

Blackwall doesn't have a sense of humor This one genuinely surprised me considering he jokes with Sera, The Iron Bull, and Solas. His banter shows as much that he does have a sense of humor and tells jokes. But it does seem pretty common of a fanon characterization for him.

Dorian

Dorian paints his nails His model doesn't have painted nails in game, but it is a popular fanon. There is nail polish in Thedas though. It's mentioned in the novel Masked Empire as well as the novel Last Flight. It seems to be of Anderfles origins, but given the Last Flight is post Orlesian occupation, it could originate in Orlais.

Lady Mantillon said, tapping an elegantly lacquered fingernail on the polished wooden arm of her chair, “we will fail, or we will be killed. Neither is acceptable.” - Masked Empire, Chapter 17 p. 362 Every one of her fingers glimmered with a jeweled ring, and her nails had been freshly lacquered. - Last Flight, Chapter 13 p. 144

Fenris

Lyrium can be drawn from Fenris' tattoos There is no mention of this being possible in da2 or any of the subsequent media. There isn't even mention of others being able to sense the lyrium in his tattoos or even mages getting sick around him as they sometimes will dependent on the concentrations and/or purity of lyrium.

Fiona

How Fiona was cured of the taint This comes from The Calling novel, where it isn't ever clarified what actually removed the taint from Fiona. The common fanon is that it was either the mentioned brooch, or that by having Alistair. That it was by having Maric's son who has Great Dragon blood due to being of the Theirin bloodline that cured her. However, in the novel she is very clear that the mages at Weisshaupt aren't sure what cured her. She only offers one explanation that the Grey Wardens theorized and trails off before saying what the second one was.

“It’s gone,” she said flatly. “The mages at Weisshaupt weren’t sure if it was because the First Enchanter’s brooch sped things up artificially, or... at any rate, all the corruption vanished. They don’t think it’s going to come back, either. There was test after test, but they think I may be the first Grey Warden that never has to endure the Calling again.”

Hawke

Hawke is stabbed by the Arishok This fanon likely came into being due to one of the moves the Arishok has where it will leave you almost dead. So a bit of canon as it is in his move set, but fanon in the idea it is something that always happens in canon.

Unable to confirm if Fanon, Canon, or a mix of both

Teagan marries Bella, the barmaid from Redcliffe This one goes back really far and is hard to tell if it is a case of mistaken identity and association, or a really buggy option for the epilogue, or isn't actually a possibility. What I can confirm is that Teagan does have a woman he can marry given certain conditions are met in dao, but it is actually Kaitlyn, the sister who's brother goes missing in Redcliffe. If you properly compensate her for her grandfather's sword she'll open up a foundry in Denerim and will marry Teagan after having known him for a few months. According to this thread, you have to get Kaitlyn to move to Denerim with her brother, make Bella the maid to Teagan and in the ending slide Teagan and Bella will get married. Though I haven't been able to confirm that this is possible. (If you have a screenshot/video of this slide and know how to trigger this please let me know) This is also not an option mentioned in the Keep, however neither is Kaitlyn's. Which isn't surprising given some of the ending slides that were not direct player choice (ex) choosing Orzammar's king) are mostly cut from canon.

[vamphorica]

mattmello week i: vacation

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category: M/M

Fandom: Death Note (Anime & Manga)

Relationship: Matt | Mail Jeevas/Mello | Mihael Keehl

Characters: Matt | Mail Jeevas, Mello | Mihael Keehl

Additional Tags: Vacation, Beach Holidays, Childhood Sweethearts, Wammy's House Era (Death Note), Wammy's House (Death Note), Fluff, Public Display of Affection, Gentle Kissing, Gift Giving, Canon Compliant

Word Count: 2,777

Series: Part 1 of MattMello Week 2024 | @mattmelloweek

Summary: Matt and Mello decide to take a spontaneous trip to the seaside.

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“I’m bored, let’s run away.”

October had brought about with it the mundanity of the forthcoming academic year, no longer enticing in its promise of long hours studying in the library to fixate on specialist subjects. Once again, there were exams to sit that required revision on topics that were frankly boring, and Mello was becoming more and more agitated with each paper, the fear of bad results paralysing him at the bedroom desk for hours on end. The week of respite that was afforded for Christmas was some distant fantasy, and as Matt rested his chin on the other boy’s shoulder, he knew it was time they escaped from this place, even if for a brief moment.

“And where exactly do you propose we go?” Mello mumbled, distracted by the encyclopaedia propped up against the wall that he was using to copy his reference notes. He wrote fast, Matt noticed, but his script was beautiful and easy to read. Bastard.

Matt moved his face so he buried his nose in Mello’s blond curtain of hair, breathing deeply, “We can go to the coast and back in a day.” He pulled back suddenly, cupping his hands across his face as he sneezed loudly. Mello rolled his eyes, flicking a page.

“Hardly beach season, is it?”

Matt shrugged, “Do you want to go away or not?”

“My History exam is in three days.”

“Great, tomorrow it is then.” Matt grinned, “I’ll set the alarm nice and early.”

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Mello had always been the early riser of the two, and was growing frustrated at how incessantly Matt moaned about his self-inflicted exhaustion. They had scaled the gates at the crack of dawn, taking nothing but a small backpack that contained the accumulation of coins that they had both hoarded over several months from various circumstances since forgotten about. The train station proved to be a nightmare, with Mello notably irritable at how persistent the ticket seller was in interrogating them about their ages and why they intended to travel to the seaside on this rather cold Tuesday morning. Yes, they may have been bunking, but Mello hardly thought it was any of her business to be so intrusive.

“I got no sleep at all last night…”

“Shut up. Take a nap on the train or something, you shouldn’t have stayed up.” Sharing a dormitory with Matt had long since taught Mello to tolerate the repeated beeping that emanated from Matt’s various consoles that he played into the night. The rhythmic pattern they tended to possess often helped him drift to sleep himself anyway, “Need I remind you that this was your idea?”

Matt made a noise akin to an injured puppy, his hand slipping into Mello’s as the train heaved into the station. The blast of air confronted them with the reality of this little adventure that they were about to pursue. Mello squeezed Matt’s hand, and they stepped into the carriage, accompanied by a certain nervous excitement in anticipation of the day ahead.

While Matt did fall asleep the moment that the two sat down, Mello was intrigued by the journey, fixated on watching the rush of blurred landscapes from the window for the entirety of the two hours. His memories of arriving at the House were hazy things that arose only occasionally, but aside from that car journey, he had never travelled this far before. With Matt by his side, any anxieties of arriving somewhere completely new dissipated, replaced instead by a lingering curiosity of the world outside the confines of Winchester.

“Wake up.” Mello nudged Matt as they arrived, prompting the redhead to open his eyes slowly, frowning, “We’re here.”

“Already?”

Mello nodded, standing up, “You coming, or what?”

The two stumbled off the train to the quiet unfamiliarity of a strange place. The platform was empty and the grey clouds above promised nothing pleasant regarding the day’s weather prospects. The two looked at one another as they often did in these moments of uncertainty, but they had come all this way in search of something different from the claustrophobia of the House, which Mello insisted he knew well enough to give a decent estimate of how many bricks it was made up of.

“Let’s go.”

It was obvious this was a town that woke up for the summer, then proceeded to hibernate for the rest of the year. Storefronts selling buckets and spades, postcards, and other tat stood neglected along the narrow high street leading up to the coastline, and the few pensioners that roamed around peered suspiciously at the two small twelve year old boys that passed them by, as if they were breaching their territory. Mello stared back at them in defiance, hardly in the mood to be intimidated by these strangers, but Matt quietly averted his gaze to the cobbled ground, his hands nestled deep in his pockets.

The sea greeted the boys soon enough, stretching out into the whiteness of the autumnal sky as it lapped at the pebbled shore. There was a certain stale smell to the air and the soft cawing of gulls echoed in the isolation; all of a sudden Matt and Mello were the only people in the world. There had always been people around them their entire lives, mostly adults monitoring them and forcing them to comply with their strict rules about who they were meant to become. Yet now, in this empty beach town with its long stretch of seclusion and its cool, sharp breeze, Matt and Mello could sense the enticing opportunity of freedom for the first time.

“Let’s go in the sea.” Matt turned to Mello, a grin lighting up his expression.

“It’ll be damn freezing!”

“We can just take our shoes off and roll our trousers up.” Matt had already begun making his way to the shoreline, treading over the rocks carefully, and Mello quickly followed behind, hardly as resistant to the idea as he would have liked Matt to believe. They kicked off their trainers and discarded them without much concern as to whether they would still be there when they returned, before proceeding to fold over their trouser hems quickly, racing against one another to experience the sea for the first time.

“Ready?” Mello asked and Matt nodded. They shuffled close to the lapping waves, before Mello grabbed Matt’s wrist and ran, pulling the redhead alongside him. They both shrieked loudly as the icy water immediately numbed their feet, giggling at the extremity of their joint reaction.

“It’s so cold!”

“Yeah, no shit!”

They waded in as far as they could, until the water rose to their knees, before stopping to glance back at the beach behind them. There really was no one around, and their hands found each other's shirts, instinctively compelled to cling onto one another for a sense of comfort. They knew there was no risk of judgement here, and the warmth of their bodies was a reassurance in contrast to the bitterly chill waves in which they stood.

“Hey, Matt.”

“Yeah?” Before Matt had time to react, Mello slapped a tsunami over him, provoking another loud scream.

“You wanker!” Matt shoved Mello, causing the blonde to lose his footing and crash down into the sea, which snatched him as if reclaiming something sentimental once lost. Matt immediately grabbed a flailing hand that remained outstretched, pulling the completely damp Mello upright again, smacking his back as he hacked loudly, saltwater caught in his throat. He recovered quickly enough, but not without scowling at Matt.

“Sorry…” Matt mumbled, before attempting a small smirk, “Guess you won’t need a shower tonight.” Mello punched his arm softly, before pressing himself close to the other, giving Matt the opportunity to wrap his arms around Mello tightly, burying his face in the soft curve of his neck and shoulder. He forgot Mello could be fragile too, sometimes.

They stood together like this for a quiet moment before Mello complained that he was cold, and they made their way back up to the shore, wincing as their feet suffered against the hard rocks beneath. Their shoes remained where they had left them, and they gratefully sat down to slide them back on. Matt pulled off his hoodie and began patting Mello’s hair dry uselessly.

“I’m fine, I’m fine…” Mello resisted, but he appreciated the gesture, as ridiculous as it was, “Matt, I’m hungry. Do we have money for food?”

“Yeah.” Matt counted out ten quid from what he could find at the bottom of the backpack, “What do you want?”

“Anything. Well, not ice cream.”

Matt smiled, and stood up, “I’ll see what I can do.”

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“What can I get for you, son?” The man at the counter was significantly younger than the other residents they had seen so far, and his accent was wildly different to what Matt had heard before, throwing him off as he stared at the battered fish before him blankly.

“What do you have?”

The man laughed, making Matt feel like an idiot, but as he pointed up the menu behind him, Matt could see that the options were limited to fish and chips. They sometimes had it for lunch at the House, but Mello was a picky eater and Matt did not fancy taking a risk.

“Chips. Please.”

The man nodded and began piling a generous portion onto a sheet of newspaper before wrapping it up. Matt wasn't entirely sure of what he thought about this practice but knew better than to comment on it. He exchanged it for the coins and as the man counted his change, he felt the warmth from his parcel melt away the sting of his frozen fingers. Mello would appreciate having something hot to eat.

He found Mello where he left him, sat up with his legs pulled tight against his chest and Matt’s hoodie draped over his shoulders like a cape. It had become sodden as it caught the droplets of water that fell from the strands of his golden hair. Matt sat down as close to him as he could, crossing his legs and laying the package in the centre of his lap before opening it up.

“Here we go. They're hot, so be careful.”

Mello smiled, picking a chip up and blowing on it gently before putting it in his mouth.

“That's really good.”

Matt tested one himself, and nodded his head in agreement, “Yeah. It is.”

Before they knew it, they had attacked a good half of the portion, their fingers slick with grease and crystals of salt. There was something that felt a little bit mischievous about it, for although Wammy’s didn't discourage unhealthy eating habits, it felt like a confirmation of what they had set out to do by taking this little excursion from the boredom of their everyday lives back at the House. Maybe it was because of this that Matt felt a surge of confidence rise within.

“You've got something on your face.” He commented nonchalantly and, without giving Mello time to respond, gently tilted his face with one hand and pressed his lips onto the blonde’s. They had kissed before, once or twice, in the shadows of the corridors while everyone was asleep, but Matt had always felt compelled to initiate it more brazenly. He felt Mello’s lips move against his and they sat with the saltiness of one another for a few moments before reluctantly disengaging.

“I found something while you were gone.” Mello mumbled, and Matt raised an eyebrow, curiosity peaked. Mello gently took the frames of Matt's goggles and pulled them down so they hung around his neck. Matt blinked. It really was a grey day today, now that the world was no longer bathed in a warm hue.

Turning around, Mello picked up something from the ground and then held it up to Matt. A piece of vivid green seaglass, smooth and bright, “I was surprised to find any here, actually, but it's like I thought. It matches your eyes.”

“Oh.” Matt didn’t really know why he struggled with an appropriate response to this, but his chest felt distinctly heavy with adoration for the boy before him. Mello recognised a piece of Matt in this strange landscape. He smiled softly, “Thanks.”

Mello nodded and handed it to Matt, who turned it over in his palm, comforted by its flawless texture, “Do we have to go back to the House?”

“Hm? Yeah, Matt. We do.”

“What if we just stayed here? Or took a train to London. We could even fly to the States from there.”

“With what money? Besides, they’ll find us eventually, you know.” Mello sighed, resting his chin on his knees. Matt leaned against him, relieved that his clothes had more or less dried now, even if it was inevitable that he would go down with a cold in a matter of days, “We don’t have the luxury to just run away – like it or not, we are successors. Sooner than later, I expect, L will have to make a choice about who he wants to take over when he dies.”

“You’re right. I just wish we didn’t have to deal with the pressure.” Matt replied quietly. It was not really the pressure he faced that concerned him, but rather the effect it had on Mello. He had watched how his studies consumed him, how obsession with his position in the House ate away at him with an unrelenting force. Matt had always known that such a trip as this was never going to deter Mello away from the House’s ambitious expectations, but he had hoped that it at least reminded him that there was more to life than the grades that held him captive.

“We should buy a postcard before we go.” Mello announced suddenly.

“Why? Who would we send it to?”

“We can keep it as a memento. Come on.”

The two boys scuffled up, neglecting the remainder of the chips on the shore as an offering to the gulls that had been circling close by, and drifted back towards the high street. The sun was already setting, casting the shops in a warm glow, and Mello dragged Matt into a small store that still had its ‘open’ sign turned outward. It was a musty little establishment, full of all kinds of oddities and junk that only a seaside town could make appear mildly endearing. Matt stared at a collection of taxidermied rats wearing clown outfits in horror as Mello made his way to the postcard stand.

“This place is so creepy.” Matt muttered in a hushed tone, but Mello ignored him as he sifted through the postcards, disappointed by the selection that was on display. Outdated Jubilee celebrations for various Royal Family members, postcards from Mallorca and Budapest, an assortment of ‘Get Well Soon’ cards. He was close to giving up until something caught his eye.

“Greetings from Los Angeles, California.” He read across the front of the faded postcard, depicting a sprawling skyline of tall buildings and palm trees, the sky blue and clear in a manner that looked almost artificial, especially in comparison to the bleakness of this little town. Mello could not quite place his finger on it, but something drew him to the image, something he wanted to hold onto.

“Yeah, come on, let’s go.” Mello muttered, his eyes darting over to the woman at the counter, who appeared half asleep. He slipped the card in the inner pocket of his jacket, without even Matt noticing, and they left the shop, only the small sound of the bell behind them indicating they had ever been there to begin with.

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Despite the mild panic Matt and Mello felt upon realising that they were two pounds short of covering the fare back, only managing to earn after hanging around unashamedly begging for change to use at the telephone box, the two eventually caught the last train back to the House. Mello could feel himself drifting off, catching his head falling against his chest as he tried to blink some energy into the final stretch of the day.

Matt repositioned himself so that he could encourage Mello to lean his head against his shoulder, his hand rubbing the blonde’s thigh reassuringly, “Do you reckon Roger will be angry?”

“Mhm.” Mello replied, “Why, you scared?”

“No! No, I really enjoyed today. I’ll take whatever punishment.” He smiled, “Promise me we will run away together again soon, please?”

Mello’s eyelids felt too heavy to fight against, and as he breathed in the familiar smell of Matt, his mind wandered to that bright sunny skyline of the postcard buried in his jacket.

“Yes Matt, we will.”

[olderthannetfic]

why do some popular things have such small fandoms, in your opinion? like, John Wick is incredibly popular but has less than 2k fics on ao3 and there doesn't seem to be a big fandom presence on tumblr. there's shows with 10+ seasons that have incredibly small fandoms as well.

i know not every fandom is going to be, say, Harry Potter or Supernatural levels (especially if it's an older show and fics have been lost to time- i've heard ER lost quite a lot) but it's just... odd to me, i guess.

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The majority of things don't get fanfic fandoms.

There are some trends though. Certain genres are more likely to generate them than others. SFF is pretty likely. Crime dramas are reasonably likely, whether that's people slashing buddy cops on AO3 or lead canon het on FFN.

Incomplete-feeling canons are a bit more likely, usually due to plot holes or a crappy ending that people want to fix—but not so crappy that everyone just gives up in disgust.

Relatedly, things where the art part isn't too intimidating are more likely than ones where the big draw is that author's exact way of writing or the fantastically subtle and moving acting in some arty movie about social issues.

Serial media are way, way more likely to generate a fic fandom than one-offs, and having a certain number of hiatuses but not ones that are too long helps. You want some gaps where people have time to make stuff before it's instantly jossed, but you do need new canon to reinvigorate a fandom periodically.

Things just being well known by lots of people does help relative to a similar canon that few people saw, but exact audience size isn't the main factor.

Some tasty character dynamics help a lot. Maybe shippy, maybe more found family. A world that people want to play more with also helps. Even the gen-focused fandoms tend to care a lot about the latter two. They don't just write about any old canon. There have to be certain hooks.

--

John Wick does seem like it fits some of the standard criteria. There's more than one movie. It's fun, dumb genre stuff, not super high art.

TBH, having more than like 5 fics already means it's a success as a fic fandom, so part of it is just your frame of reference. I know you say you don't expect HP, but you should be expecting the norm to be way under 100 fics, not nearly 2k. That's part of it.

But I suspect the big reason is that a lot of people find the films relatively complete as-is.

They're set in the real world (-ish), so the setting isn't that interesting to explore with a bunch of OCs in the way that people write their own HP or Naruto casts. People like the lead, but I don't think they fixate on his relationships to other characters. (Checking AO3, it looks like some people are writing basically John/self, which makes sense.)

For much of the audience, it's all about watching him use a lot of guns. So many guns. All of the guns.

Once the big screen spectacle is done, I don't know that people really want more unless it's more action movies with more visual awesomeness.

IDK, I don't think I've seen any of these beyond some clips, so maybe I'm missing something.

[castlebyersafterdark]

i just rediscovered this gem of a post from years ago about lover's lake and byler... in light of recent discussions on here, you might be interested! its in screen shot form as it's been deleted by the original user. in two parts, long but you like long and this was one of the original lover's lake/byler sexuality posts back when we were all in the trenches! would love your thoughts!

part 1

https://www.tumblr.com/pinksmonkey/762360269808762880/the-truth-about-hosegate-and-lovers-lake?source=share

part 2

https://www.tumblr.com/pinksmonkey/762360644233232384/the-truth-about-hosegate-and-lovers-lake-part-2?source=share

PART ONE 🦞 PART TWO 🦞 PART THREE

Whewwww!! That was a long one. Very insightful deep dives back into the roots of Stranger Things theory. I've been so entrenched into celeb gossip and speculation and horny headcanons and fic writing that it's fun and useful to take a revisit to some show analysis. This was certainly a thorough venture.

Thoughts:

I don't know enough about It's Always Sunny for the references but if you do, enjoy!

It's always refreshing to see everything listed out - all the sexual references in the show. Sometimes I feel like, am I fixating too much on this subject? Is something wrong with me? But, no. It's a response to the lack of willingness to talk about this stuff in the greater fandom. It's just concentrated here as a reactionary decision. And it's interesting. This is only one aspect of the show - but it's important? As a part of life. And television. And the medium. Coming of age. 80s nostalgia. Supernatural mysteries, of which several are metaphors and allegories for growing up and identity and trauma and sexuality. Analytical discussion validates this.

A call back to the juxtaposed horror of Barb getting killed while Nancy loses her virginity would be a perfect full circle moment for Will and Mike having an intimate scene together. Their lovemaking or whatever the scene would entail would not be paired with something terrible, because we've reached a climatic point in the coming of age arc of the whole show. Nancy's was a loss of innocence, a step too quick perhaps into swiftly leaving childhood. Sleeping with Steve while her childhood best friend was dying. All the while, Will was in the Upside Down, thought to be dead, yet for a greater purpose, even younger than Nancy/Barb, and ultimately another representation of the loss of childhood. A lot of imagery with Will, too. Things forcibly taken. He and Mike - that's a choice. A positive. Down with love and culmination of breaking out of repression. Not having to leave childhood, but but forge forward on the natural progression because it's happening with your childhood best friend.

I'm not sure what would be going on simultaneously in the scene, but I like the acknowledgement of the cinematic inclusion of nature shots to represent intimacy and sex and orgasm, etc, when these elements aren't blatantly shown in some sort of sex scene. Could be onto something there. I've seen great theories and ideas involving Lover's Lake and gates and keys lately where this could play in (see Greenfiend's recent ideas! Shoutout!)

Liked the line in the first part "It's not possible to sexual something that's already sexual" which - absolutely. Agree or disagree, I personally agree. Like it or not - that's puberty.

I don't think I've ever addressed it, but I'm a big supporter of the one way sign theory. Some fans I think have grown weary of over-analysis and getting too caught up in the tiniest of mundane set details (every single instance of certain colors don't all hold meaning, counting ceiling tiles to prove time travel, the arbitrary and slightly slightly anachronistic inclusion of a very small background book or cassette a year too early, etc.) but the one way sign?? Hugely meaningful. Just wanted to acknowledge that.

"It is this tension between disgust and curiosity that allows shame to find its way into the coming of age of every human who has ever lived." 👏👏👏

I'm including this gift of a scene screenshot here because it's always worth looking at again. This sums it all up!! Come on!!

AND - I always forget this one. Hmmmm.

Love the symbolism mentioned I never fully correlated myself which is neat - the painting as a symbol of maturity as well. Color pencil drawings on notebook paper -> oil paintings on canvas. Their relationship as an evolution. "This fight felt more adult. Like one you can't come back from." Childhood, growing up. They can't really come back to the way things were post-painting gifting, van speech. Everything has changed about their dynamic now. "There is a huge sensuality in creating artwork for someone."

I feel like Mike taking the painting like that is the first step into the shifting of the tides. His hesitant acceptance of sexuality through symbolism. Coinciding with hosegate, of course.

Everything on this slide really. I never noticed the drill in the Jonathan / Argyle conversation. This show loves and adores a suggestive visual metaphor!!! So we can acknowledge all of those and not the hose? The HOSE is the most OBVIOUS one.

Actually, everything on this slide as well. Validates WHY someone who is also not a 15 year old finds this story so universally resonating. Cosigned.

"Lover's Lake exists in the show for a reason." - YES. I feel like Chekhov's scenic body of water has been underutilized. Sure, it was a gate in season 4, a hideout for Eddie, but otherwise has cropped up again and again. We've yet to utilize the Lover's namesake. I lean more towards Will and Mike having their consummate moment here more than anything else. Poignant. Thematic. Cinematic. All of the above. There's plenty of storyline opportunity for Will and Mike having to run, to hide, to seek refuge together somewhere. They're attached at the hip, they'll find and escape together somewhere. Cabin at Lover's Lake is where I'm placing my bets for any intimate scene together. "Moonlight on the water at the end of the world." Beautiful, truly.

Will and Mike have always been inevitable:

Closing thoughts and cosigned agreements that stand on their own:

❤️❤️❤️❤️

[laventadorn]

This is half about danmei, which isn't the main or even tertiary purpose of this blog, BUT also half about writing in general, so here I stick it.

I've been reading danmei since 2020 but I've really struggled to write anything for it. If i measure success by just getting something going, the fic I'm currently working on is the most "successful" venture I've had. It took me ages to even crank out the opening scenes. Despite longing to write in the New Hyperfixation for a long time, I just couldn't grok it.

Initially I thought it was unfamiliarity with the background of the culture the media was based in. With HP, for example, there is a whole lot of English culture that's easily accessible to me, and I studied British literature in school for years. Obviously this isn't the same thing as being English, but it gave me enough of a background to fake it that once when i applied to a graduate program in England, they thought I was actually English.

But with china, there is so much I don't understand and can't access in the same way, so I thought perhaps that was the problem.

But now I'm thinking it's more about the literary approach.

The tradition I learned to write in is one of realism. I often cite Jane Austen as my favorite author; she was a writer of realism: people, situations, and style are all as close to reality as possible. She was actually one of the most hard-line realist writers of the time, even meticulously accurate in minutiae such as how long it took to travel between cities, or when you could reasonably expect to receive a letter. The way she renders character is also heavily based in the psychology of real people, especially in the latter half of her career. And I love the psychology of character. Nothing interests me more as a reader or a writer. It's what I use as a foundation for writing: how to render people and their emotional responses within a tradition of realism, so that they feel (as much as possible, given that i also love fantasy) like genuine human beings.

But this is not, in my experience of it, what Chinese BL is about.

Now, the first of my caveats is that plenty of western media isn't, either (though fandom tends to be obsessed with it to the point of mania, where a character's psychology is microscopically detailed, in particular their responses to trauma). But western media often maintains a veneer of it -- my favorite marvel movie is Captain America: the Winter Soldier, which features Steve feeling purposeless and empty in a world he no longer fits in. (And then his internal conflict is symbolically made external with the reappearance of his dearest friend, whose mind has been wiped to forget him.) That whole movie revolves around Steve's psychology. And that's a big budget blockbuster movie chock full of punchy, blow-uppy action scenes. It still finds time to make a character feel depressed and lost.

(They then did absolutely nothing interesting with it, but you know. They had a single moment.)

To a certain extent, if western media is character based, it has to explore the characters' mental state, and tries to do so in a way that enlightens both the audience and the character, opening up their dark parts and forcing them to change. We probably have Joseph Campbell to thank for a lot of this; his Hero's Journey was modeled heavily on the works of Carl Jung, the psychologist. In fact, Carl Jung was hugely influential in English-speaking literary criticism of the 1970's. (I say "English speaking" because that's the only field I'm familiar with.) To give you the biggest example I know of, Ursula K. le Guin's phenomenal Earthsea trilogy is steeped in Jungian psychology, no book more so than the opening novel, A Wizard of Earthsea. The climax of that novel blew my mind, by the way.

My second caveat is this: it's not that the patterns of Chinese BL don't have character work, or that they aren't concerned with the character's interiority. With my fixation on character, if those things were entirely absent, I wouldn't be reading these books. It's more that the media tradition of hyper-focus on the characters' mental state, the delicate unfolding of their psychology, is not what drives the media. The characters do suffer, and they have feelings and desires, but they are often preternaturally strong-willed and able to withstand horrific trauma while still maintaining their sense of self.

(Two characters really come to mind. One is Chang Geng from Sha Po Lang, whose "mother" repeatedly puts him through such intense physical and psychological abuse in his childhood that you wonder how anyone could possibly stay sane. But he's also been injected with a magical poison that will drive him insane, and gives him bloody nightmares every night, and requires him to drink blood -- you get the idea. The other is Gu Mang from Yuwu: Remnants of Filth, who goes through things that are just mind-bogglingly Yiiiikes. Each of them feels the pain, but realism isn't where we're trying to arrive at, because it would be impossible for a real person to hold it together under the things they endured. But neither of them is supposed to be like a real person. Chang Geng, Gu Mang, is supposed to be more.)

Nothing is always. To use the novel I'm writing for as an obvious example toward some measure of realism, Xie Lian spends Book 4 being deeply traumatized; it's part of his character journey and essential to the plot. But his character psychology is still not based in realism. It wasn't designed to be. MXTX herself said in her afterword for TGCF that neither Hua Cheng nor Xie Lian were remotely like real people, because they weren't supposed to be. They were supposed to be larger than life, more than mere existence.

So when I am puttering around with my Psychology of the Individual writing tool, I get a bit wrong-footed because the entire way that I approach writing does not seamlessly settle into this brave new frontier. How can I realistically explore the emotions and mind of people who are not written to be like real people at all? That's what's truly been stumping me.

[thecoolerliauditore]

It might be a point of priviledge on my part, but I haven't really noticed the colorism.... situation? Does it qualify as a problem? Before. Like. C!Scar is very much white to me but he's just tan like a surfer dude to me. He's a california dude and spends a lot of time in the sun. Maybe he has a hispanic grandpa, who knows.

I guess it is a good thing to stay mindful about. Even if it does scare me away a little from drawing poc characters because I as a white cracker don't wanna misrepresent ethnicities

So this ask is interesting to me and I want to make it very clear here that I'm not trying to make fun of anon, as much as point out some things here that I find worth pulling apart:

(it might help to read this reblog)

One is that while this may not be a direct response to my post, I remember making doubly sure when I made it that I made it as clear as possible I didn't want to frame it as a "fandom issue" as much as a consequence of colorism that I've noticed pop up in a fandom context.

I think culturally we're so fixated on making ourselves perfectly inoffensive, that pointing out any implication of any "-ism" in our art comes with an expectation that it's always going to be followed up with a rallying for "fixing" it or a shaming for it existing in the first place, that it may be having the opposite effect where people no longer want to discuss or interact with these things in the long run at all. As you have mentioned with the discouragement of drawing non-white characters.

This is an attitude that I find. A little troubling of recent, one of the few times I blocked someone over a fandom take was when I found a very passive aggressively worded post telling beginner artists to not share their Bigb art if they don't know how to draw black people well enough. That is ludicrous to me, how good is good enough? How will you ever get feedback if your art never sees the light of day? Why are you actively discouraging people from celebrating a black creator? etc.

It's interesting to me that every other hallmark of beginner artists are seen as endearing if not a little "cringe" but struggling with certain ethnic features that have been historically left out of or portrayed offensively in media for years is seen as some sort of moral failing on the artist's part.

So to answer your question of "does it qualify as a problem?" I answer: that's up for you to decide. I'm simply pointing out a trend I've noticed and hinting at its roots in colorism.

Second is the description of Scar, specifically "maybe he has a hispanic grandpa" because I'm not sure if you're aware, anon, but that is more or less Bdubs' genetic makeup if we believe what he says in that one stream clip and his Assyrian roots are the entire reason people take Bdubs whitewashing much more seriously than Joel/Skizz/Scar whitewashing.

It's partially what I hinted at in the original post as well, that Skizz for example is White by modern standards (probably. afaik) but his skintone is visibly more olive irl, hence why I believe the language we use for race is flawed in general.

So the questions I'm proposing are: why is it offensive to whitewash Bdubs, but not Skizz, when the only big difference between the two is 1. a pfp and 2. OUR views on what "counts" as white (not theirs, as demonstrated by Bdubs himself and his mid-stream race crisis)? Does whiteness make one immune to the effects of colorism? What is "whiteness", how do we define it? Does that definition change when it comes to interpreting characters?

These are all questions that I believe are unnecessary, but good to ponder.

For those uninitiated though, I think it might be better for now to simply draw as you see fit and look into the concept of white guilt, as well as its counter-productivity when it comes to working towards racial harmony. And please, for the love of god, keep making imperfect art.

[chirpsythismorning]

What do you think about ST writers staying silent when it comes to homophobia in fandom? I've seen some people talking about this and I have to agree that it is getting toxic, and the creators can say something about it. This issue is not about shipping, it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed in this fandom.

I get this, I really do, but there is a reason they don't bring a bunch of attention to the negative and it's the same reason most of the cast tries to not bring attention to the negatives going on that they experience.

This reminds me of when Noah came out for example. A lot of fans were congratulating him with support and stuff. But that didn't last long bc suddenly everyone in the tag was fixating on the negatives they were seeing, reposting homophobic comments he was getting and just freaking out on a loop over harmful shit going on. Some fans even made like plot twist edits of hateful comments he had under his coming out video and Noah himself commented on one of them, like alluding to the fact that he tries to not let it get to him.

When you're in these peoples positions, you're hearing about god awful stuff happening constantly. And that makes sense, when you have an audience of hundreds of millions of people, shit goes down. ALL the time.

And so it gets to a point where, eventually you have to give up basically. I'm sure there was a time early on like in s1, when they might have felt the need to put the fans in check over certain harmful things. But it probably got so big they couldn't do that any more, simply for mental health reasons I wouldn't ask that of anyone.

Think about Finn who has been through some shitty fandom behavior over the years with fans obsessing over him and like essentially photoshopping a fake story about his gf SAing someone. Did he come forward and talk about that? No bc fans like that don't even deserve the attention. And while yes, it's clear that he feels like grateful about this experience, it's also clear he has an intense sense of bitterness over the fact that having millions of fans means that there are bound to be quite a few who don't understand boundaries. And yet it's gotten to a point where acknowledging them only makes them stronger.

And then there's Caleb, who experienced fucking racism as a child simply for his character getting in the way of milkvan... And he only recently over the last year or so has felt comfortable enough to start talking about it more. And it's probably because he was in large part not wanting to re-hash over stuff that is obviously traumatizing and just not fucking fair for him to have to discuss in the first place. He deserves for this to be an incredible experience. He shouldn't have to give any of his time and attention to people that don't fucking deserve it in the first place. He deserves better than that.

And then there's Millie who has also been through a lot, to the point where it's like near impossible to even pinpoint everything because it's just so much. And she has the biggest following on social media so that makes a lot of sense. Her fandom experience is a large part of why she doesn't really use social media anymore. She used to love interacting with fans, but now it's just not something she can handle. Not only does she have to deal with people that hate her for no apparent reason, she also has to deal with so called fans psychoanalyzing anything and everything she does, to the point where they're convinced they know everything about her and her boyfriend and her family, as if they know what's best for her? Like imagine not having a space anywhere despite having millions of people say they love you, when they just turn around and treat you like a product to be consumed and discarded? It's exhausting.

All of them have a story like that, that just makes you realize that this is so much bigger than ship wars and any nonsense fans obsess over. Sometimes we forget these are real people and they have to see this and it obviously effects them mentally over time to the point where they just can't acknowledge it anymore in order to simply live their lives peacefully.

Now, I'm not saying the Duffers will never address the homophobia, bc they no doubt will. However, I think that in large part the point is to let these homophobes especially feel like they are superior and have the upper-hand, only to rip it out from under them basically.

And that's because we're also talking about a show that is hiding the truth in plain sight. This show is in fact for the so called freaks and geeks (and the gays). And so when that truth is finally revealed, THAT'S when they're going to call the bigots out on their bullshit. Because this show was never for them in the first place! And making them tune in for all of it, convinced it was for them all this time, only to find out it wasn't, I'm sorry but it's fucking badass.

If they're hiding that core message in plain sight, and yet most of the audience STILL doesn't see it, and it's also a big reason why they refuse to even consider byler, then yes it makes sense to hold off this scolding for when the reveal happens, only to throw all of that backlash on the people STILL being homophobic when it's all said and done, despite them saying it was all indeed intentional.

Right now there are genuine homophobes out here, and then there's people that are merely misunderstanding the extent of what's truly happening bc of heteronormativity, which is arguably the way the show was intended to be watched, assuming you're only watching it once through and you don't consume any more content regarding it much outside of that initial viewing (most of the ga). And then there's the fans who are literally queer and love queer stories, but aren't allowing themselves to believe it this time bc of how prevalent queer-baiting is.

By no means am I saying homophobia is okay. Obviously it's not. But people are homophobic, people are bigots. You can decide for yourself which situations you want to call it out and when you want to let it just be because otherwise you're gonna be fighting forever with people that do not fucking care, and that's not helping anyone, least of all queer people who would rather probably just ignore all of the noice and be happy being their authentic self, despite all of the hate that's out there.

We'll have to see how fans react to s5. I have hope that it will go well.. I do think that there could be a time period where people are like in denial and grieving or whatever. But we know the evidence is there. We know that the Duffers are going to be happy to admit that it was intentional to disprove the claims that try to say byler came out of nowhere.

Absolute worst case scenario, I think the critical reception will be something along the lines of this:

[destinyc1020]

Sunday confession:

But sometimes I wished Tom and Z dated from 2016 to 2019, and that had been it. I'm aware this is a dark post, and you don't have to entertain this ask if you don't want to. If I had known them, being together could cause so much discourse, obsession, and vitriol as if they were Romeo and Juliet, the irony lol, I wouldn't have hoped as a Tomdaya from 2017. Like for both fandoms, it's too much. I've never been in a fandom where personal life cause so much noise like this. Like Z being asked about kissing her costars because somehow this kinks to Tom is not normal. Her having a film and memes about her and Tom take over is not normal. These are adults, not kids anymore. It also didn't help that they also have films together, such as SM4, where now I'm scared of that presstour cause how are ppl going to act when or if they get engaged. Will that be the whole presstour and not about the characters and film???

It's hard because who can be blamed for this? Is it their publicists for not omitting certain questions from the previous SM3 press tour? Is it the fans or antis whose tweets in praise or disgust get so many likes because ppl are so parasocial about them? Is it them for interacting with those fans, and now, as they are older, they want to have more boundaries, but the cant because ppl are still fixed on how accessible they were in the past? Is it filmbro critics and their biases who pit Timothee and Tom together that also aid fire to Z being used as a punching bag whenever she does a role with a male costars, ppl accues her of being unfaithful to Tom like it is not her job to kiss her costars?

I feel like no other young actors are dealing with this to this extent. Its too specific to them, which is draining cause they are so popular.

Timothee used to, but he stopped interacting with his fans post 2022 due to obsession with his personal life and the armie hammer situation. Also, it helps that he has done a lot of films, supporting and leads, so his works always speak more for himself than he does. Is it overexposure? Is it the consequences of being very moral in an amoral industry?

It's exhausting as a fan. I think what would kill the obsession is castings for both of them because then ppl have fodder to fixate on.

What do you think? Sorry for the long ask😭😭😭

Thanks for your confession Anon. 🥰

Whew! This was a long ask! 😅

I will try not to add too much to the length of this, but anyway...

First off.... right off the bat...

No, I personally wouldn't wish that Tom and Zendaya only dated each other from 2016-2019, because that's not what THEY would have wanted. The heart wants what it wants, and they are obviously blissfully happy and in love with each other. 🥰

I wouldn't wish them anything that they wouldn't want. I think fans forget that when two people want to be together, nothing and NOBODY can keep them apart from each other lol. 😅

With that said, I do find it weird that some fans become sooo parasocial over them.... whether individually, or as a couple. You're right, the constant speculation, obsession, finger-pointing, shipping Z with other costars, the persistent attention on their personal life, etc can get a bit exhausting at times as a fan. 😩😞

With that said, idk what the culprit is. 🤷🏾‍♀️ It's probably a combo of a lot of things honestly?

I just view it as a phase that they will have to ride out together ❤️. They've already done a very marvelous job of handing a very public rlshp with each other in the public eye very beautifully imo, especially with a famous as they are.

When you're in a rlshp with someone, you two are a TEAM.☺️ So I'm sure they will be able to handle whatever bumps come along the way because they've already done a beautiful job so far, and it's probably only made them stronger tbh. 🥰

[onesunofagun]

You know, I'm going to put a thought down because I'm thinking about this again because of the post earlier.

It might be a vent? I think it's more just me trying to describe a feeling so it's outside me and I can look at it.

I've seen a lotta discourse and a lot of theories and different takes out there. There's always gonna be some stuff that's frustrating because it's something Sus being widely normalised, but generally speaking, I think the varied perspective and ideas are always good thing in a fandom.

I've seen all sorts of ideas be explored-- in fics, in doujins and art, in roleplay, in lore essays-- over the years. I like to think I have a pretty good map on the fandoms I've been online and present in since the early 00s. I can usually remember context about how certain stuff came about, like what tropes or ideas got popular when and how, whether through shipping or fanon or mangas or general knowledge about the development process.

When you've been in a fandom a long time-- especially if you have made a lot of contributions to it, at any point-- sometimes you even have a part in shaping certain idea flows within it, yourself.

So I have had the chance to see and contribute to a lot of conversations that have happened over and over and over again, in a kind of generational way. I have seen certain discussions from old forums, translate to fics. I've seen them pop up on tumblr, then tumble to Reddit, then YouTube. I have watched the spread through the general sphere of things, get added to and turned over and re-examined.

For the record: I love watching that process, and I like being part of that process! Mentally tracking the grandfathered in fandom history has also become its own kinda hobby for me.

I've always found it interesting mapping where new fans come in, seeing how they orient themselves and what they pick up-- how and why and what they do with it, whether I appreciate it or not (I highlight biases that are related to harmful ideas when I see them to illuminate them).

Seeing certain concepts be repeatedly rediscovered and watching how certain waves of fans digest them is fascinating. Sometimes with surprising results, sometimes with disappointing results, but it's fascinating either way. That's kind of part of the appeal having been here so long and why I came back into (mild) activity-- I get to study and dissect the fandom behaviours as well.

But despite all of that, I've found I don't really appreciate a good number of the popular YouTubers who focus on Zelda as their channel topic.

I think I've developed a bit of a distaste for a few of them in particular, actually--the big number Zeldatuber channels. Mostly the ones that seem to be the theorycrafters that kinda followed on from a MatPat style format. All of my love to well researched videos analysing the themes and meta, and all the silly boundary breaks and speedruns, mind. But I found I got really disillusioned with the handful of channels that rose to prominence and how their content shifted with that growth.

With the potential to monetise their discussions and discords worth of people and patrons driving this kinda content, I do think a lot about things that have been discussed in the fandom in the past that get taken up and regurgitated as part of that grind. I have lost track of how many videos that have come out of a few big Zeldatubers of this vein gave me a really weird slimy feeling and I am trying to work out what it is.

I'm not super invested in watching much of Zeldatube at large, mostly because I've seen most popular subjects covered in many variations. I'm a lot more personally interested in analysis, rather than theorycraft, so take it with a grain of salt that I may have a bias too (The popular Zonai fixation really doesn't interest me at all, and Zeldatube burnt out on that hard).

A lot of the channels like this seem to present their stuff like it is brand new and never been seen before, and like it's a great achievement in sleuthing or that they've cracked a code-- but not in a fun feeling way. Not in an exciting personal discovery way, but in a way that feels like it's propping up an exclusivity around that channel, and its validity as a leading authority on Zeldadom. There's something vaguely newsfeed-like, or sensationalist about it to me, with tight knit associations to other big channels making the same type of content (and about the same types of subjects as far as I ever noticed, and widely overlapping perspectives).

I wonder if that's a cynical feeling that I have where I'm just being an old man yelling at clouds, but there's really something that rubs me wrong about the handful of top channels like this. Something about the way they generate and present, and potentially profit from, often long running fandom concepts and otherwise freely shared ideas that have had many contributions feels off.

Maybe it's also me struggling to understand the closed off nature of how a lot of people just absorb the series secondhand now, and how normal it is to have the most popular Zeldatube channels setting the tones and assumptions around lore for large swatches of the newer fans. And not because old guard gatekeeping, but because there's an obvious chasm there between new and old fans of the same media that now exists that's seemingly getting wider.

I do sometimes worry about the trend of recycled old fanon staples presented as brand new takes, because of that-- or worse, sold as the definitive take, especially when a lot of people do just accept them and then go off and start arguments because 'big Zeldatube said so' and they must know best.

Sometimes I wonder if the trend is actually adding to issues with consumption vs engagement, in terms of media literacy and fandom interaction. There's certainly some theories, because of these channels, widely taken as a kind of gospel from the 'zelda experts' like the discussion is already closed; mystery solved. I've legit seen smaller youtubers be accused of stealing or copying theories from the larger channels, when making detailed and well researched videos about canon lore. I have had multiple interactions with fans who just link to a popular video and be like 'here watch this, it'll explain it' like they can't even be bothered to have their own take, but they're also not interested in yours.

The way big Zeldatube presents itself and gets consumed at large, though, I guess I just don't recognise that as the same as seeing a new fan have a joyful discovery of something from their own interactions with the franchise and fandom. I realise that the channel runners are fans themselves, but I suppose I mean that the platform feels more like a degree of professional separation that's very closed. It's become 'Zelda is my job now' thing that's focused on interest trends and news.

Something something, decades of fandom interaction and discussion and archiving getting scraped and haphazardly slapped together again for the content grind because clout and profit??

That feels mean to say but--

"Like and subscribe and join my patreon for more content, often mined from various thoughts around the fandom to make up a new video to schedule" is how it often tastes to me and that's not a flavour I enjoy.

Again, by all means, not applicable to the whole of Zeldatube or many fans who do watch the big channels. But this kinda thing does feel like a pervasive and popular part of the theorycrafter channels. Commodification of theory, and exploitative platforms built off a community's back, leave a lot of the big Zeldatubers without my support or endearment. I feel incredibly conflicted about them.

Is that anything?

[legrandepapillon]

wyllstarion | bloodpact nation, listen up! 📣

hello all, salut à tous!

it’s been awhile since i’ve been active on this blog, but i have a fun announcement for everyone. if you’re coming from twitter, this might be especially interesting to you! 🫶🏾

as you guys know, one of my new favorite ships is bloodblade/wyllstarion (Wyll Ravengard x Astarion Ancunín) from Baldur’s Gate III. i’ve been hyperfixating on them for awhile now, and i’m really letdown by how little slice of life fic we have for them. 

i would also really love to expand my writing skills perfect my craft as writer. i’ve neglected my writing muscles in recent years and i’m disappointed in a lot of the works i write now. 

because of this, i’ll be doing something that i haven’t done in literal years! i am opening my inbox for you to submit prompts for me to write. i will post the longer ones first on AO3, then here on tumblr, and finally link them on Twitter for all of my mutuals to find. 

the shorter drabbles i’ll post here on tumblr straight from the ask & link to them on twitter. if you’re reading this, my inbox is open & i’m currently taking requests. 

for the purposes of organization, i’ll only be accepting drabble prompts & requests here on tumblr though my inbox. my tumblr is linked on both my AO3 & Twitter accounts though, so it won’t be hard to find me. 

if you have a scenario that you you’ve been dying to put our boys in, you’ve come to the write place ( 😉 ). a few rules before popping over to the inbox, though!

as of right now, i’ll only be taking requests for the Baldur’s Gate fandom specifically for wyllstarion. however, if you like my writing style & want to see me try something for your ship, send the prompt over!! you might get a welcome surprised: i’m willing to try my hand at writing anything once. my one caveat is that i won’t be attempting to write anyone’s Tav/Durge outside of the canonical durge.

this is practice for me mainly!! prompts likely won’t be perfect or very long but they’ll give me something to do to hone my craft. don’t expect a soliloquy, and if you’re dissatisfied with the outcome of a prompt you’ve submitted, you can change it up a little & submit it again—i’ll be more than happy to try it again for you.

angst & nsfw request are accepted but i don’t write tortureporn figurative or literal. i will not write anything involving any character with their canonical abuser, and i will make judgement calls about certain kinks or mature themes on a case by case basis. some stuff is just not my cup of tea, hopefully you’ll find someone else who will write that!

keep it cute! literally! fluff/romance/domestic/slice of life prompts have a higher chance of getting written because that’s where i feel i excel at.

i’m not doing this on commission! this is 100% free thing that i’m doing mainly out of boredom and hyper fixation with this game/ship. please don’t be overly demanding or don’t expect the speediest response in filling your prompt. i work full time, look after my grandmother who is going blind, and i also just sometimes don’t feel like writing! i promise to do my best to fill every prompt as quickly & concisely as i can.

other than that, inbox is open & google docs is up and running. feel free to send me a prompt at any time; i look forward to making wyllstarion nations headcanons a reality! 🖤

[devine-fem]

Not an ask. Just wanted to say u always put the best stuff on my dashboard. ❤️❤️ and u have the best takes on my fav DC characters & ships 😅

AFAAFOUASHF (I'm fixated on Birdflash so I used this as a way to rant about them. I'm sorry this got a bit long ...) I appreciate this so much. I guess this is somewhat coming from my sudden fixation on Birdflash? No, I so get it. Thank you so much, @dinkgrayson. I so get it like I feel like I ship birdflash a little differently than the average person. Like I love Wallylinda like I do Clois and I also ship Dickkory really hard, so Birdflash are exes to me, it especially helps because fandom always depicts them as Robin and Kid Flash before they both met their soulmates, but I just ship them as exes, they are my favorite exes and I wish there were more fics where they were portrayed as exes and not endgame. Same thing with Supermanhunter. I ship Clark and J'onn as exes because if they were exes, it'd be so interesting. Same with Dickwally, I think the way they talk about each other just seems a little off... I don't know how to describe it but the way they grew from each other kind of felt like a breakup but one on good terms.

To me, Birdflash dated as Kid Flash and Robin [I also am so partial to them because I love Kid Flash!Wally and Robin!Dick... he's my favorite Robin... I just grew so attached to the fab five that I love Dick and Wally in those eras so much] because I feel like while they were Kid Flash and Robin they were much more unsure of themselves and would've jumped into a relationship a little bit more easily because they both desired some comfort from constant stress that no one else shared but each other because Robin and Wally at the time didn't have other robins or kid flashes to relate to. (I also use them as kind of the queer experience a little bit because in my head, I feel like they never really LABELED themselves as a couple, but they just kept seeking and finding in each other it stopped being platonic at a point. It's an envelope of the queer experience where your repressed and internalizing your emotions, especially in an era where Dick and Wally were created to be more relatable, I feel like it makes their characters a bit stronger...) Around the time Dick became Nightwing is when they broke up and on good terms, they stayed friends and purely platonic, but I also feel like they treat each other with a certain cadence of care/love that it feels very much like how you'd treat your ex. Just thinking about them being in a somewhat incognito relationship where Bats knows but doesn't say anything and they quietly break up which like helps with their development in my head is so chewy. I guess Birdflash a bit more looks down upon as of recently within the fandom because of how Birdflash shippers have treated Linda (I was surprised finding this out because it seemed so dead) but I also feel like it's not that serious because I understand that Wally is very family orientated but so is Clark. Clark NEEDS Lois and Superbat exists as to which SOME people treat Lois a bit harshly, but no one complains about that erasing Clark's character even though I really don't think Clark and Bruce are that much important to each other as everyone thinks they are (I don't like Superbat much either) Some people may treat Wally as an item to Dick but not me, I actually have read and know more about the Flashfam. I know more about Wally than Dick because I never really cared for the batfam that much... but that's just me. I'm a bit different and I wonder if like I'll post them more. Not sure. Sorry, ranting...