#But it's something I do to see if I'm just hating het ships | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

verycharismaticdragon · 2 years ago

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Currently reading a Korean webnovel instead of Chinese ones and this is making me conceptualize something, let’s see if I can put it in words…

My musings started with realizing that I’ve become very used to this cnovels thing where the main pairing is literally stated in the summary. Not the case for the k-novel I’m reading, and therefore I’m experiencing Pain and Suffering, — torn between my every instinct screaming that the author is setting up the OT3 endgame, and trying to lower my expectations to avoid disappointment. (And the novel is ongoing so I can’t even get spoilers for the ending :) girl help.)

As you may’ve guessed, I found myself strongly preferring the Chinese variant; but as to why exactly it was so important for my enjoyment to know the main couple… it took me a bit to figure out.

I mean, it’s not like I’m reading exclusively for romance, okay? Fannish activity-wise, sure, I tend to get fixated on ships (though even then, not all the time), but when it comes to reading (or any media intake, really), it’s not necessarily what I’m most interested in. Among my beloved titles, there are many where there’s no canon or fanon couple I'm attached to — and more than a few where there’s a canon couple that I neither love nor hate, just accept. So why did I get so attached to the concept of being, essentially, spoiled the endgame couple beforehand?

The key word that made it click was: promise. After all, it’s not like knowing the names of the characters that get together tells me anything about if they will be interesting or boring together, if they will be good for each other or make me scream “break up!” a million times. But it is a solid promise that these two people ARE gonna be a couple.

And thinking about the word promise reminded me of discussions on plot twists that I’ve seen on here, about what makes a good plot twist and what makes a bad one — specifically, the phrase “narrative promise” that someone came up with. Basically, narrative promise is in the set up and the build up. If the plot twist betrays the narrative promise, it will not work, and it will be hated by the audience, who’ll feel like their emotional investment into the story was mocked.

The thing about the narrative promise, and why this term stuck with me, is that it’s actually applicable more broadly than just for shock-factor plot twists. For example: what is queerbaiting, if not betraying the narrative promise that the two characters are gonna be together? The fans see the narrative promise — the set up and the build up that would be unequivocally romantic for a het couple — and expect it to be fulfilled; only to be called delusional by the very creators that gave them this expectation.

And this brings me to the next point: the catch of the “narrative promise” is that it’s never a guarantee. You can be completely sure the author is setting up X, only for them to turn around and do something completely different. (Possibly while calling you a little bitch for having the stupidity to invest your feelings into their creation, too.) After a while, a fan learns to manage their expectations. To not bet too much on anything, even if it feels like there’s no other way it can go. To wait until the end of the season or the last chapter before allowing themselves to get attached; to hold back on deciding whether something is good or not, lest they hype up something they will want to bury and forget later.

And this is where we circle back to c-novels, and to spoiling the main couple in the summary. Except I hesitate to call it “spoiling” because, as discussed, it actually heightens my enjoyment. For a simple reason: this practice takes the narrative promise from its nebulous, uncertain status to something concrete and real. Only for this one aspect and with the minimal-est amount of information possible, but still. That’s one thing I don’t have to guess about or doubt myself on (am I seeing things? is there a heterosexual explanation another way to read this? will the author simply kill off one of the characters before the end so that they don’t have to decide whether to make them explicitly queer?), and one thing I can count on (whatever else happens in the plot, I’ll still have this). It’s easy to invest emotionally into those characters and their relationship, when you have an assurance of their happy ending.

Ofc, I’m not saying that I don’t invest emotionally into relationships or characters other than the main CP — just that it is easier. And I would even say having this one(1) hard promise makes it easier to invest into other elements of the work, too, as it makes for a sort of safety net even if something else is disappointing or painful.

Like, say you are invested in one couple with great chemistry and one side character. In case of a pre-stated ship, even if the side character dies, at least you still have the canon couple. So it’s not like all of your emotional connection to the book is lost, and you can probably bear with the loss of that character by writing everybody lives AU or something. But if the side character dies AND the couple you were invested in gets broken up or killed off or straight-married with other ppl… then doesn’t that make the entire thing into one massive disappointment? to the point that you might even regret picking up the book that made you care only to slap you in the face?..

So yeah, having even just one ship guaranteed is very comforting. And then I thought, well, doesn’t this apply to another type of fiction that I’m very familiar with?

Fanfiction?

Which, since very early on, has adopted the practice of putting the endgame ship in the header of the fic. And which, probably not coincidentally, is often a response to a broken (or at the very least not brought to its logical conclusion) narrative promise. And which always felt uniquely easy to read for me…

See, prior to getting on this little thought train, I always assumed the ease was due to pre-existing familiarity with canon. You know, not having to learn the entire new setting, already having attachment to the characters… But now that I’ve connected these dots, I thought about times I read fics for fandoms I wasn’t familiar with, and originals formatted as fics — and really, wasn’t it always about the narrative promise made solid?

Esp with how fics make it even broader than cnovels, by having extensive tags and ratings and such. Getting into a fic, you have a pretty clear idea of what may or may not happen in the story, even if you don’t know what exactly will happen or how. And a fic can fail to live up to the premise set up by ship/rating/tags — but not completely turn its back on it.

(Well, normally. But in those exceptional cases where tags are misleading, at least you have something to point to when saying, “this is not what I was promised”. The ficwriter can hardly claim they don't understand why you expected [ship] to happen when they personally tagged their work as containing that ship — unlike the traditional media creators, who can always play the "you were totally misunderstanding my intentions the entire time" card.)

And having a solid promise like this, it turns out, takes lotsa pressure off starting a New Unfamiliar thing. I do, in fact, trust like that! So it’s no wonder that there were periods in my life when I would only consume fanfiction, because it was so much easier than extending trust to new titles. And it’s no wonder that what brought me back to being an avid reader were Chinese webnovels that use a practice very similar to what we have in fandoms.

I guess I understand myself better now! Still wish I knew if that k-novel's author is /j or /srs about the ot3 though.

#fandom #fanfiction #cnovels #danmei novels #idk just a lot of musings that i wanted to organize a bit. and since i already typed it all might as well set it free here

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olderthannetfic · 2 months ago

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https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/765221485179731968/writing-about-my-favorite-characters-as?source=share

I'm really sorry to hear you're going through this, anon. I'm even sadder that it's not an uncommon story.

As another trans writer (trans woman, in my case) that's stumbled into other people eviscerating her works for "fetishizing" and being "het in f/f's clothing" I really sympathize with you, dude. The way I look at it is that you cannot try alter who you are for these people. They will always find a way to dislike you because you are their ideological enemy. They dislike seeing trans men in what they see as their ship tags, not yours, so they will always find something they view as a flaw and flog you for it until you either conform or leave.

I've had a similar experience to yours, though not a literal thread dedicated to me. Ouch. I write f/f and sometimes that features non-op/pre-op trans characters because I am personally non-op after many years on E, and I'm always astounded by how it obviously upsets people that otherwise claim to be progressive. I also tag things extensively and I even include some terminology clarifications at the beginning of smut fics so that everyone knows what they're getting into. It doesn't matter to them. It'll never matter to them what you or I do, so why bother trying to coddle them?

There are readers that like my works, but after walking into a fandom Discord's NSFW fic channel, I saw how many people assume that my fics are written by a cis person or the fabled Dirty Fetishizer. It's one thing to intellectually know this happens and another to see your own work - something that you as a trans person created to talk about some part of yourself - ripped apart as this nasty tripe that no "real" trans person would write or read.

To make matters worse, I saw all that after I went through a rather nasty spate of transphobic anons when the fandom was very young. It was so tiring. I was exhausted. Seeing virulent hate in the real world and then having it thrown in my face for writing characters in a way that people disagreed with was just too much for me.

My way of dealing with this was disengaging from my own fandom, turning off anons on tumblr, and blocking anyone I even felt slightly annoyed by just in case it boiled over into something else. It sucks, but it's how I continue to have fun with writing for my ships. I basically never go into my ship tags on Tumblr now, I curate whose fics I read carefully, and I only hang out in one Discord server that's very small. I still read and comment on others' works when I have the mental bandwidth for it, but I avoid most other writers, especially those I don't know just in case they're part of that -phobe segment, and keep the most vocally unpleasant authors permanently muted for my own sake.

Frankly, it is what it is, as thought terminating as that phrase can be, and I gave up trying with these people/this fandom. You could keep trying to interact with the greater fandom, but you should block the assholes that disregarded your lived experience for your own mental health.

It's an isolating process for sure, but that's why I supplemented it with seeking out other fandom friends, most of whom are trans. Maybe we disagree with headcanons, and in a lot of cases we're polar opposites, but we all stick together because otherwise we're all thrown into isolation. That, and I always try to focus on the folks that do like what I write.

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kuwanxs · 18 days ago

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Hellooo there was something abt your post that kinda got me thinking. The mha fandom has always been populated by mostly fem and general queer people, which is probably the reason why these toxic brodudes were SO pissed whenever anything queer looking would happen in the story, and why their reaction to 430 was so bitter and vindictive. They hate when they see the queers feeling like they have been catered to, and they hate having to be creative by themselves.

I watched a video by a yt named Shaun, abt a fake outrage that the same kind of brodudes instigated, but with the difference being that it was abt video games. He said something that seriously makes sense even in the context of mha and various other mangas.

"They don't want to be a part of diversity, they want to be superior to it. They don't want a game with the option to cater to them, they want to be the ones who the game solely caters to".

And to me, that is exactly what 431 is.

Now i'm gonna be honest, my opinion of Hori wasn't the greatest before, and after that it just became really sour. But i recognized his capabilities and his passion. So being as chariable as possible coming from me; i think he just got angry that he had to see people criticizing the previous ending in such a humiliating way. It wouldn't be surprising, since the the fuss they made wasn't just in one place, it was everywhere. Everyone was spreading misinformation to hell and back and even attacking him personally.

He tried his best to counter all of what they were saying, by making everything they wanted a possibility at the very last minute. But, as you know, the things they wanted were absolutely nothing but the bland, underdeveloped het ship becoming canon. And for that, everything had to be dumbed down, forgotten, or forced in a shoddy way. Now all the same ppl who were pissed are praising him for "fixing" his ending.

He'll probably try to do damage control if the backlash of now gets to him, by like, idk making family/romantic illustrations for Iz/och? Which to me personally will just mean that he really is that lazy or weak willed. But maybe he will just show cool illustrations and stay quiet.

I think you are sooooo right about dudebros wanting a piece of media to only be catered to them. Your quotation is also so on point.

The biggest problem with mha is that it’s debut, and the initial few years of its publication, it mainly garnered a very dudebro like fanbase. Even during the first half of 2020 when it blew up, it catered heavily to dudebros with fan service and power scaling. The issue is that eventually as the manga transcended to become something that was much more inclusive, it stopped catering to these guys.

I have always said this but a man’s biggest enemy is women and queer people. So when a fanbase garners a massive female and queer audience, it becomes a job for these guys to shame said consumers who actually heavily heavily contribute to the popularisation of said media. I’m not sure if you have seen the video of that woman on tiktok who went viral for crying over chapter 431 and how aggressive these “normal” guys were towards her. I believe infiltration of fandom spaces mainly happens when the author tries to cater to EVERY side of the audience, the dudebros, women, queer people. And it simply cannot work that way. This is something i have always critiqued on Hori’s part, that despite that sheer density and strength of his story, he becomes directionless when it comes to appealing to certain sides of the fandom. Which is why we get sm fan service, sm forced izcha crumbs, its Hori’s attempt at keeping both bkdks and izchs happy. And it simply does not work that way.

However, i truly truly thought his choice of ending 430 the way he did was groundbreakingly beautiful. It was the most amazing open ending we could’ve had. But his choice to publish 431, which, he too, seemed unwilling to, really undid 430 chapters of his hard work because not only did it fracture the narrative and corrupt the characters but it also dismantled everything he had built. In a way, it also very much ruined mha in multiple ways.

I hadn’t seen a relationship as beautiful as tgchk and bkdk in shounen before, it was so raw and jarring in so many ways. And as a bisexual woman, Toga’s conclusion felt very dear and personal to me. But sadly, the ending really left a hole in my heart. So when i see these dudebros violently trashing ships and calling them senseless I cannot help but feel super sad because in a way, after chapter 430 the number of these aggressive dudebros had significantly reduced maybe because they were forced to come in terms with the finale. But 431 really resurfaced them in the worst way possible.

#mha #bkdk

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c-e-d-dreamer · 7 months ago

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I'm feeling spicy and hot-take-y on this fine Saturday morning, so I just need to get this off my chest.... I fucking hate Emorie. If Emorie has no haters, then I am dead.

In my opinion at least, it's one of those lazy ships you often see. Because, that's the thing, it's something that exists across multiple fandoms and frankly across media in general. Where two queer characters are shipped together or end up together simply because they're queer.

Like honestly, why do Mor and Emerie make sense as a ship? What is it they have in common? Other than them both being warriors because literally everyone in these books minus Elain is one at this point. Why are they a perfect match? Genuinely asking.

Is it just because Mor is openly queer and Emerie is queer coded? 🙃

Because that's what always happens! It's like oh well these are the two queer characters, so they have to end up together. That is the unfortunate trend. And that's just insulting to any and all queer fans and like I said, it's LAZY! You would never do that to het ships.

I mean look how many essay long, color coded posts for whatever configuration of Az and Elain's ships there are! Do you ever see those for Emorie? Ever see anyone touting out all the contextual evidence of why they're a perfect match?

The only actual contextual evidence we have is Mor saying how much she hates Illyria. In fact, she literally tells Feyre that she wishes someone would burn the whole place to the ground when they visit Windhaven. And you want her to be with Emerie? What in the John Smith and Pocahontas BS? Be so fucking for real. Is Emerie going to teach Mor that not all Illyrians are brutes? 🤮 Spare me!

While I have literally -5 hope in SJM, I would love to see more queer characters introduced! Characters that actually make sense for Mor and for Emerie. Maybe one of the mostly unnamed priestesses? Another Illyrian? Someone new from the Winter Court since we know Mor has spent time there with Vivianne? Like please please please give us more genuine representation! Because both Mor and Emerie deserve happy endings and the type of romance their het-co-characters get! They deserve color coded essays on why this fae is actually The One for them. Ya know?

I just wish that fandoms and media as a whole would stop reducing queer characters to just their queerness. Them being queer is not in fact their entire personality. And that's my soapbox 🫡

#Caty's fandom rants #this is also inspired by me chatting with my bestie #about her own fandom #and how the two gay characters in the friend group end up together #why you may ask?#well because they're both gay and in the friend group #god forbid they be together for other reasons #why is every fandom like this?

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billerak · 5 months ago

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Bumble that Bee or something idk

I recently finished RWBY (catching up after years leaving it aside) and I have thoughts and feelings and, as I am me, a lot of those are about the canonical WLW couple (sans the secondary wives in V6). So I put my thoughts into a rant. It's not as negative as the word 'rant' would have you believe but I don't wanna call it an essay or whatever. It's still pretty negative tho, so be warned. Anyways on with it:

RWBY is a mess.

Sometimes, it's a wonderful mess. Others, it's a terrible one.

I could spend a few paragraphs explaining what I mean, but I think anyone who watches RWBY with a critical eye knows what I'm getting at. Love RWBY, hate RWBY, just don't try to tell me it's good.

So, once that's established, let's get to the meat of this rant: Bumblebee.

Or should I say Fumblebee? Eh? EH?

Alright you can stop reading, have a good day.

Let me start by making a sharing something about myself: I'm Agender and Bi/Pan. I make a living out of writing yuri/gl/wlw or however you wanna call it. I watch entire seasonal fucking anime on the off chance it may be yuri and most of the time I hate myself for it by the end because they never fucking deliver.

All of this is to say, I like the concept of Bumblebee, the problem is it was treated like shit.

In this rant or whatever the fuck I should call it, I'm just going to talk about the things this ship makes me feel. As established I make a living out of writing romances like the one this show tried to depict—and in case you're wondering, I have written slowburns so slow the first romantic interactions between characters didn't happen until 300k words into a fic. I did it twice, fyi—so I believe I have fair grounds to judge this.

So let's tackle this from the beginning. Was it planned from the start?

No, I don't take the writers word for it. It's painfully apparent it's not the case. I'm fairly certain BlackSun was gonna be a thing until they decided to write him out of the story in V6. Or perhaps they decided on Bumblebee and so they wrote him out of the story. Either way, everything prior to V6 I call into question.

Sure, Blake and Yang have their moments. But it's important to point out they're not romantically coded. RWBY isn't subtle about romance, and it starts pulling the same sort of obvious romantic tropes as all the het stuff going on in the show for Bumblebee going into V7. Prior to that? Nothing. Not a single blush or any explicit show of romantic attraction.

And before any disingenuous bastard tries to say something like "oh but blushes aren't always romantic" or "no you don't need blushes to show romantic attraction" allow me to say you are fucking wrong. Blushing is the universal language for embarrassment or love related things. And RWBY uses this shit all the time. INCLUDING Bumblebee past V7.

So yeah, while the writers probably did draw from previous material—and I think the VA's shipped them since the start?—I do not believe this ship was planned from the beginning.

But that's ok! I don't think it's a huge issue, really. Sure I'd have liked to see actual development but I don't need it to work retroactively if it makes sense from the moment they decide to go for it. So, 3 volumes and a half of development. Lots of time to put in the work, add the details, and-

Oh, no. Wait. They spend most of V8 separated. Hmm. K' so, 2 volumes and a half-

Wait. Oh. Oh they… they really have that little screentime together in V6, huh. Wow. Just. Huh.

Ok, the Adam fight is good. It's a strong setup! After fighting and making up for what Blake did after the Fall of Beacon, they finally come together to beat the demon that drew them apart in the first place. They hold each other close after beating him and it's good and I'm gonna say this is when they both actually fall for each other. We can argue about budding feelings or whatever, but I mean this is the moment they become aware of it one way or another.

So Volume 7 has them kinda being together? Honestly, they act like a new couple. Which is weird in retrospect. I think revealing they'd started dating after V6 would have made more sense than, uh... pretending this was a slowburn? Through V7 they stick to each other and fight in perfect synch and blush and all of that romantic stuff. It feels like… well, like they're kind of already an item but the show has other shit to worry about atm.

Then v8 is amazing really. Split the characters over an honestly kind of nonsensical ideological split, keep them apart most of the season, make Yang to be kiiind of an asshole in that one conversation with Kyle (<- my name for the post-v7 Generic McGenericus haircut Jaune. Yes this unironical, the friend I ranted to about this while watching the show can confirm).

To add insult to injury, the split doesn't even accomplish anything for the ship. The only two characters that get development out of being apart are Ren and Nora. These characters were CLEARLY in love last season why are they not having appropriate amounts of angst over this? Like, at this point we're not arguing whether they were planning on making Bumblebee canon or not, the point is asking why it feels like they weren't trying.

And then, Volume 9. For some context, I like V9. I think I'm in a minority, at least in the places I frequent about this stuff. Always comes with the caveat of 'it's still RWBY', of course, but I appreciate it. After the initial whiplash, I think making a fairy-tale season for a show that was born out of the concept of "what if Red Riding Hood had a sick scythe and used it to mow down hundreds of bad wolves" is actually a really fucking good idea.

That being said, the way they do Bumblebee is really strange.

They're basically back to their V7 selves. It feels like they're either already dating or on the verge of dating. I need to stress just how comfortable they seem to be around each other with the sole exception of that one time Blake didn't grab Yang's hand, but it didn't feel particularly awkward.

Then BOOM mind storm thing and while Ruby, Weiss and Jaune talk about like, actual issues, Jaune implies Blake and Yang had 'something more important to deal with'. And that something is RWBY's version of the room you can't leave unless you have sex.

Sans the sex I guess.

In the void, I think the scene(s?) is good. It's nice, the music is evocative, it's well framed and paced. In another story, it would really have been a perfect climax for a budding relationship.

The problem is this is not another story. These two have NOT seemed like two people awkwardly in love too scared to tell it to each other. In fact, it kinda felt like the exact opposite. If they kissed at the end of any episode for any reason, at this point, it would've felt correct. A simple quiet stare while sitting close and them just finally leaning in to take that final step would've been just as good if not better.

The bridge thing? It's the climax to an arc that didn't happen. Relationships don't need to be slowburns for me to like them, but if you're gonna pretend you were making a slowburn, at least do it right. Why did they need the bridge thing to finally get together? Come on! There was plenty of opportunity during V9 prior to this episode to at least make a show of them being awkward. Make it clear they were finally on the verge but were holding back on the final step. Make it actually cause some conflict, preferably between them as their fear grows into uncertainty and doubts.

Then the bridge would've felt cathartic. Force them to resolve said conflict, and the only way to do it is through admitting their feelings. Sure, it would've still been few episodes, but fuck man I'm sure they could've scraped a few minutes here and there to make it somewhat competent.

I like Bumblebee as a concept. I think the avid fans of this ship look at the concept, not at what the show did, and say "this is canon" and run with it. I don't blame anyone who is a big fan of this ship but… I just can't like it in its current state. I'm sure there's fanfics that fix it, I may give some a read.

Hell, just compare Bumblebee's development to Renora. Those guys have been kind of obviously in love from second one and Nora's entire character being focused on Ren was made into an actual plot point by the end.

Anyways that's about it for bumblebee. Here's some extra thoughts on shipping in RWBY in general.

If we look at the earlier seasons, I honestly think you'd have a stronger argument to make for White Rose being a couple. If we look at the later seasons, Nuts n' Dolts has a stronger impact. I already mentioned it but Blake/Sun had obviously a thing going on that didn't pan out. I hope chameleon girl whose name I don't remember gets a gf at some point tho.

I pray to fucking god they're not building up fucking Oscar and Ruby cuz they had a few awkward scenes here and there and they make me feel wrong in all sorts of ways.

Given how little interaction Ruby and Weiss have had despite how much time they've supposedly spent together, I think the writers are making an active effort to discourage White Rose. I'm not gonna get into the author's self insert being a love interest for Weiss at one point but let's just say the writers seem invested in making extra-sure Weiss stays het. I've made my peace with that. And Penny is fucking dead again so Nuts n' Dolts is a no go (canonically I mean I may read a fanfic or two about them they're very cute).

If they're gonna give Ruby a relationship by the end (which I kinda hope they don't at this point), I think it should be Kyle. They've had nice moments together and seriously shipping Oscar with Ruby just feels fucking weird. Like I assume Ozma's gonna be fucking gone from Oscar's body by the end of this story but even then idk that guy had a centuries old man is his head, it's fucked up.

Anyways that's enough. Why did you read to the end? Thanks for reading anyways.

#RWBY #bumblebee #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #yang x blake #the bees #I... I think this ship is also called the bees idk I haven't stayed in contact with the fandom sorry #shipping #rwby ships

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mylittleredgirl · 1 year ago

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Hello friend! A friend of mine is doing a Stargate SG-1 rewatch and lamenting the slim pickings of fic on AO3. Do you know where she can find fic that perhaps is still on some old archive of yore? Or have any recs? She's mostly interested in Jack/Daniel and Jack/Sam. Ty!!

oh my. with all the love in the world to your friend visiting us from a very different fandom tax bracket than i have ever had the fortune to participate in (those two pairings have well over 6k fics each on ao3), i'll see what i can do!

[several hours of looking around later] bad news!! not much!

most of vintage sg-1 fandom was wiped out by expired domains, struck-through livejournals, ff.net's porn ban, yahoo lists, etc. some pages are still preserved in the wayback machine for heliopolis, the massive het-and-gen archive, and area52, the slash counterpart, but with the search and directory functions pretty much toast, they're almost impossible to navigate.

fanlore has an old list of archives (including plenty of jack/daniel ones). some smaller archives might yield wayback paydirt, especially if they were hand-coded. samandjack.net is still alive!

and, hate to say it, this was peak era for ff.net and they have like 30k fics over there... but all the explicit fic is gone.

i recently learned some people are still doing het-reccers (user-submitted fanfic recommendations, LJ archive is here). i don't know if any slash equivalents are still around (and i haven't looked at this site for genuinely fifteen years, so i can't speak to the quality of recs).

some sam/jack recs of mine; some of these authors multi-ship:

nanda: her resolution series especially should not be missed and i can't stress that enough. smut and action. fics great fics across the board.

it's kind of difficult to express how popular Salr323's fics were (under a different name) back in the day. i'm told that archive servers would crash when she posted something new. low on smut, high on PINING. rec: it was admittedly 1 am but as i recall this one made me feel like i'd just seen the fanfiction mona lisa

there are quite a few multifandom wonders who cut their teeth in this fandom, including missparker (rec: a small crime)

this cassandra fraiser fic dealt me some damage: nobody dies tonight by isawet

someone who's still in touch with her please harass splash_the_cat for writing 99 sg-1 fics and then walking away without cracking 100. lots of fun little snacks in there including this one

everything anr touches is gold <3

starting to get stressed out about who i'm missing!!!!

if your friend likes D/s this one is fun by tremontaine

lol read my stuff (i never wrote smut for sg-1 though)

hey everyone, please add recs in the notes/reblogs, especially jack/daniel recs because that's out of my wheelhouse but we aim to serve

#chatter post #marmolita #uhhhhh tell your friend there really is gold on ao3 but i do understand #any pairing over a certain level of popularity seems to churn out some weirdly skewed top pages in the sort-by results #especially when the fandom heydey predates ao3 #sad again!! about all the vanished archives!!#where are jojo and elly i hope they are having good lives :(#sgwun #fic rec

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stillness-in-green · 4 months ago

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What do you think about Horikoshi ending the manga without a canon couple? Do you ship or used to ship MHA characters? Did you see romantic potential? Do you think Horikoshi might confirm a couple later?

No canon couple? Au contraire, my dear anon! The manga ended with the most important canonization of all!

(Everybody give a huge hand to The Only Hets Who Matter, Gentle and La Brava; they deserve it.)

As to the ships people actually care about or were expecting some word on (e.g. the stuff with the students), my reaction there is overwhelmingly “lol gj hori”. I’m glad he ended it with no canon student couple to speak of! While I do sympathize with the position of certain people on Twitter who contend that Ochaco’s arc about repression really needed her to actually confess to Deku, I hated what her crush on Deku did to her arc anyway, so I don’t have it in me to be too annoyed. Anyway, I don’t think it’s possible to do the Iron Might 2.0 part of the epilogue if Deku and Ochaco[1] have been dating the entire time, so I’m perfectly happy to run with the headcanon that she did confess at one point and it didn’t work out for whatever reason, so by the time the last chapter rolls around, they’ve just been friends for years.

1: Or Bakugou, for that matter, but with all due respect to the BakuDekus who haven’t been seeing Shonen Jump battle manga come and go for twenty years with nary a confirmed gay MC amongst them, that was never in the cards.

I remember posting once ages ago about a Japanese fan’s hope that Horikoshi, who the fan perceived as being at least somewhat progressive about women, could manage to end the series without a bunch of timeskip romances showing up at the last minute. While I have some deep reservations about Hori’s progressive cred at this point in time, and am not tremendously impressed with his writing of women, either, credit where credit is due: he did end the series without any timeskip romances.

As to there being any confirmation of couples in the material we have remaining, I imagine the last train station[2] for that is going to be the final volume release in December, as, on top of the usual volume extras, Horikoshi should be considerably more free to include expansions that his schedule and exhaustion kept him from in the weekly publication. I could even see a bonus chapter of some sort, maybe something post-epilogue so we can see the power suit in action or something silly and fourth wall-breaking to celebrate the series conclusion. There’s also going to be one last fanbook released in January, which I have been assuming will be a data book like Ultra Archive.

2: Or harbor, I suppose, since we’re talking about ships.

Now, do I think any of that stuff will confirm ships? Eh, that’s not really in my analytical wheelhouse. The farthest I’d venture to guess is that I would a) not be surprised to get some clarification on Deku and Ochaco, and b) definitely peg the volume release to have material like that over squirreling it away in the fanbook.

For myself, my shipping habits are somewhat erratic—it’s not really where my primary engagement in media lies, and certainly not for this series! But that’s not to say I don’t have ships, or that I’m not happy to talk about them, so if you’re curious about that, do feel free to hit the jump. I’ll order them by general sphere first, then by how passionate I am about them compared to ones I just think are kinda cute or funny for whatever reason.

DISCLAIMER: While I have not explicitly stated as much here before, I am a 40-year-old asexual proshipper, proshipper here meaning I'm in favor of curating your own fandom space and not harassing people about their fictional ships under any circumstances. When I say I ship something, that does not mean I’m idealizing the relationship, want it to be canon, think it would be cool in real life, or am mentally putting myself in the place of one the characters. It’s solely because there’s something in the dynamic I think is fun or interesting, and “interesting” can very much include the same kind of interest one might have in watching a building get demolished.

That is to say, there are a handful of Too Problematic For Tumblr ships in here—one age gap but otherwise wholesome, one age gap and tacitly abusive, and one that really hits the Tumblr Trifecta by being age gap, abusive and incestuous. I've put all three at the very bottom in their own section in descending order of Most BadWrong, but if you’re one of those people deep into The Discourse about how ships need to be Morally Correct otherwise the shippers are terrible people who should kys, this is not the post for you. The block button’s there if you need it—and be advised that it’s there if I need it, too, and I’m not afraid to use it. (I grew up in dark fantasy shoujo fandoms; I am not litigating my ships with anybody.)

~~~Stillness’s Dubious and Delightful BNHA Ship Opinions~~~

Villain-o-rama-rama:

Spinarakiya, ShigaRD, Spinaraki: Alas for my short-lived OT3! I was really, really pumped for this in the stretch between MVA and the early stages of the first war, what with there being such interesting possible angles between all three parties, only for Re-Destro to get arrested and never seen in person again, Spinner to get snatched up by Gigantomachia and never look back, and Shigaraki to get lost to the possession plot for, at least as far as scenes with his allies were concerned, basically the rest of the series.

Not exactly great material for my shipping heart, though I’ll refrain from the rant comparing how long the PLF members were living in close contact with each other compared to the League of Villains and why that should have meant they developed stronger relationships than what we got.

But canon being what it is, I do still ship the hell out of these three in a canon divergence situation, or any number of potential AUs. I love the connective tissue there, with Re-Destro + Shigaraki having some startlingly strong background parallels and lasting injuries courtesy of each other, Shigaraki + Spinner having the gaming and the emptiness themes, and Spinner + Re-Destro having their Big Gay Feelings About Shigaraki as well as an appreciation for patterned fabrics some shared early frustrations about Shigaraki’s seeming lack of plans or direction.

It's a good dynamic, and I think they could all do a lot for each other, though certainly not in ways that are good for the continued survival of Hero Society. But fuck Hero Society anyway.

As to the component parts, I don’t ship Re-Destro and Spinner without Shigaraki being at least an invisible part of the dynamic (though I would read the fic where he wasn’t with considerable interest!), but I’m also very much on board with ShigRD and Spinaraki individually. My constant refrain about Shigaraki and RD is that they have a lot of common ground but very little common language, and I’m fascinated by how much of that they could recognize in each other and how much of it they could then recognize back in themselves, versus how much you’d get one of those cases of, “This guy is a freak and I’m so normal.”

It's so, so, so important to me that Re-Destro is the first ally Shigaraki won entirely on his own merits. He's got no borrowed reputation from Stain, no monsters on loan from Sensei, and no help from people on Sensei’s payroll, yet still, as a result of his efforts (both in his own fights and in making the League his own, even if it didn’t start that way) he wins himself an army and a follower who never saw a light that wasn’t his.

I weep for the Shigaraki/Re-Destro relationship we could have had if Horikoshi didn’t decide that Shigaraki in the endgame was to be nothing but a pawn, and therefore couldn’t be allowed to keep any of his markers of independence and growth.

As to Spinaraki, man, what is there even to say? The relationship so clear and obvious that it had even the mhatwt bros out there saying, “Spinaraki but at what cost?” in the last chapter! I will admit that I liked them better when their romance had that apocalyptic tinge than when it suddenly started getting painted as primarily about them being Gamer Bros, but at least that melancholic “beauty at the end of the world” shading came back when Shigaraki talked about destroying Mount Fuji for Spinner (be still my heart!).

They will meet and be close in every world and I will hear nothing else.

RiKoku: I don’t think I truly understood the appeal of ex-lover ships until these two. They snuck up on me in a big way, pretty much entirely a result of my realization when I was halfway through the (first and only, sadly) MLA Week event that Trumpet was pretty free-roaming and independent from Re-Destro all the way through Deika only to be glued to his side from there on out. Together with the Spinner parallels (the subordinates who fought each other and then came together to the crater to see their worlds remade) and my jokes about wanting to see the MLA heads during their stressed-out, over-achiever college years, all the pieces fell into place for a Rikiya and Koku who had dated for a few years and then broken up when Rikiya realized that his authority as Re-Destro—and Koku’s strong subordination to that authority—meant that he could not responsibly stay in the relationship. (This also presents several good explanations for why a man in Rikiya’s situation isn’t married with at least one child already.)

Anyway, to me, they never really fell out of love with each other; Re-Destro just couldn’t justify overlooking the power dynamic problems once he realized how extreme they were. (This does make for a fun alternate angle on RD’s personal life post-Deika, wherein Trumpet watches RD pass the mantle of leadership to Shigaraki Tomura and then more or less immediately pounces on him because now he doesn’t have the power dynamic excuse anymore. Look up the great Whatever Is Spared by @leftofrevolution on AO3 for more on this.)

Overhonest: I just like Nemoto much more than I like Chrono, and thus my Overhaul ship of choice follows suit. I like the idea that their feelings are wildly unbalanced but not totally one-sided—Overhaul has more baggage than a freshly loaded airport carousel, but he does like the Shie Hassaikai, as proven by them being mentioned in the Likes section of his character page. Nemoto in particular is someone whose presence we know Overhaul finds reassuring and we know it because he told Nemoto so directly when Nemoto asked, which means it can’t be anything other than the plain truth. He relies on Nemoto enough to make demands of him, he expects (and gets!) effectiveness, and he even bothers to take the time to justify out loud why it would be okay for him to merge himself with Nemoto physically (because Nemoto would say yes if asked, right? of course he would) rather than just doing it with no thought to Nemoto’s feelings about it because why should he care about that.

And Nemoto, for his part, is of course an obsessive weirdo who’s totally smitten with the first person he’s ever found who legitimately wants him around, so smitten that he’ll happily overlook the fact that Overhaul primarily wants him around because he’s useful.

Moving away from what’s on-the-page canon, I enjoy (and write) the take that Overhaul is sex-repulsed, not because he’s fully asexual, but as an extension of his mysophobia. This makes his sex life extremely fraught, but not non-existent. When I dabble with writing them (and they’re by far the ship I’ve written the most explicit material for in this fandom), I write him as basically a sex-repulsed demi (not that he would know or use that terminology!) who is attracted to Nemoto but has been largely left aggravated and sexually frustrated by their periodic experiments in non-traditional ways of getting him off. (Nemoto, for his part, is more than willing to keep trying! No kink is too weird for this guy if it means finding something Overhaul would actually like.)

(To get real here for a second, if Spinarakiya is meaningful to me as a person who’s comfortably poly, Overhonest is meaningful to me as an asexual person who's only ever had allosexual partners.)

AFOUji: Truly the Evil Husbands of all time. I wish the shift from Final Boss Shigaraki to Final Boss AFO hadn’t left Ujiko with a few truly inexplicable characterization beats,[3] because I truly do love these two as just the worst pair of mutually enabling monsters making the world worse and more dangerous for everyone while being 100% supportive of each other’s passions the entire time. Here’s to 70 years of Dark Lord/Mad Scientist domestic bliss.

3: For the record, I consider these to be his, “I've only been living for the boy's sake,” line in Chapter 269 and his clear reticence and dissastisfaction with Shigaraki getting the surgery in Chapter 240.

DabiSkep: Skeptic is the only man Dabi has ever thanked for his contributions. Dabi goes out of his way to kidnap him. I’m 90% convinced that they’d been working on the video together prior to the Villa raid. The combination of Skeptic’s deep and abiding neuroticism with Dabi’s swings between lazy malice and manic pushiness is extremely funny. What can I say; it’s just about the only Dabi ship that really clicks for me. I enjoy leftof’s take that Skeptic had a goth phase he never completely exited and so Dabi appeals to his inner Hot Topic teen, which he is 100% aware of and 150% embarrassed by.

School Environs:

Mirio/Tamaki: Tamaki literally regains consciousness at the exact moment Mirio loses his quirk. Other than cases where there’s some actual explanation for that—a magical connection, psychic powers, etc.—I have never seen that kind of beat happen outside of a shoujo manga. The bit where one romantic lead just mysteriously has a Bad Feeling in the same instant that something Bad happens to their love interest is so shoujo-coded. Jesus Christ, Tamaki is so moe. And Mirio so clearly thinks the world of him, too, as evinced by what an over-the-top sobriquet he dubbed Tamaki with. They’re great, end of story.

Monoma/Shinsou: I’ll admit I liked this somewhat better when I thought there was any chance at all Shinsou might end up in Class B—I kind of loathe that he wound up in Class A for the self-evidently terrible reason that it’s The Main Character Class, when it seems so obviously a conflict of interest for Aizawa to be teaching him. But eh, it’s okay; it just means Monoma will have to nobly learn to look past it after a lot of time spent being completely obnoxious about it.

My annoyance with Shinsou’s class placement aside, Monoma is one of my favorite students, and I like that he immediately latches onto Shinsou as a kindred spirit. And, like, if that were 100% one-directional, I would probably shrug it off, but Shinsou, despite trying to play at being aloof, does actually get invested enough that he gets pretty bothered by the idea of Monoma needing help, even in something as inconsequential as a class exercise. It’s just a much, much more interesting dynamic than Shinsou has with Deku or especially Kaminari.

Also, as someone with a bit of a Thing for mind fuckery, the way Copy and Brainwash can play off each other is Good.

MomoJirou: The fanart is cute and I like Momo better than Kaminari. And the culture clash thing is fun.

Shouto/Inasa: The fanart is cute and I like Inasa better than Deku or Bakugou.

Professional Sphere:

Hawksdeavor:The age gap adds flavor. The fact that Endeavor is still married but deeply unhappily so makes it even spicier. The difference in what they represent (or could potentially represent) to each other is the best part, with Hawks, for Endeavor, being someone who represents a totally clean page, while Endeavor, for Hawks, represents a lifelong adoration. Finding each other’s reality in all of that would be an interesting relationship arc and could be extremely fulfilling and strengthening for both of them.

The spoiler is (or at least should have been, if I’d been writing the series) their divided feelings on Dabi. Honestly, I really wanted to see them clash over the matter of Touya and how to deal with him, with Endeavor wanting to save him but not knowing how and Hawks just wanting him gone but not knowing how to get away with it. A certain pair of facts is glaring to me: first, that Hawks was a chief architect of the second war’s battle plans, whereas we never saw Endeavor involved with them at all, and second, that, when the big day came, Endeavor was slated to fight All For One with Hawks at his side despite at least some guilty protests from Enji that he really ought to be facing Dabi.

It smacks strongly of Hawks making some profoundly selfish decisions under the guise of clear-headed strategy and I really wanted it to blow up in his face when Dabi found his way to their battlefield anyway. Pushing Endeavor into a place where he had to choose between them and ultimately chose his son (say, by protecting him from an attack coming from Hawks) would have been validating for Touya, done a lot to lever Endeavor’s arc out of the reactiveness and passivity that drag it down so badly in the canon, and also handed Hawks a real consequence for how dismissively he treats the lives of Villains and how much he’s tried to avoid reckoning with both Endeavor’s abuse and Enji’s own attempts to do said reckoning!

In summary, Hawks and Endeavor could be very good for each other, and the incredible amount of baggage they’d have work through first would be key to either making that good ending feel earned or lead to them dramatically and deliciously imploding. Either one works for me, and either one, even without the romantic angle, would have been more interesting than the pablum we got.

NightMight: Speaking of could-have-been-good relationships that dramatically imploded! I love Sir Nighteye as the most visible cost of All Might’s lifestyle, the one he lost because he couldn’t step away from the path his ideals had set out, and how that ideal inevitably took him full circle so that he found himself standing, for Deku, in the same place Nighteye once stood for him. And of course by then it was too late and Deku wouldn’t listen to him anymore than he himself listened to Nighteye back then.

But Nighteye didn’t give up on caring about him, even if he had no avenue left to express it but throwing himself into finding a successor All Might would accept, which led to Nighteye's own (wonderful) relationship with Mirio.

Just great, difficult, adult stuff about irreconcilable differences that never stopped them from caring about each other even as those differences forced them to their parting of ways.

Mount Lady/Kamui Woods: They’re cute and I like the idea that they both have trouble, for opposite reasons, with cameramen. I like that he calls her just Lady when he thinks she’s in trouble. And not to put too fine a point on it, but I like that they’re kinda the most explicit Pro Hero couple and yet she’s the more prominent and important character with the more visible arc, which is a nice contrast to most of the other hetero relationships in this benighted manga.

Other/Cross-faction:

Togachaco: The yuri ship that could. My god, the canon divergence I want to give these two. You know why I want Deku and Ochaco to not be together in the end? Because I want Ochaco to realize that she did everything in her power to save her Villain while Deku—after all that talk on the cliff!—just killed his, and triggered Toga just before he left to do it, meaning Ochaco had a harder time with Toga than she might have otherwise.

But, I’m not here to talk about No. 2 Green; let’s talk instead about the canon divergence where Toga survives (shove that absurd death-via-blood-transfusion right into the incinerator) and then Ochaco has to come face to face with a system that does not want to let her be anywhere near as kind as she wants to be. The canon divergence where Ochaco realizes that her forgiveness is immaterial to justice, where she watches the system she fought to defend gear up to try Toga as an adult because Japan needs a scapegoat for the destruction of the war and all of the people who are actually most responsible are already dead or dying. Where Ochaco realizes that she has to do something drastic if she doesn’t want to live the rest of her life haunted by the knowledge that her compassion got a 17-year-old victim of emotional and psychiatric abuse executed by the state. The one where she decides to take a fucking stand, and it forces the rest of her class to confront that need as well.

“The cutest girl in the whole world,” my god.

Kotarou and Nao: I’m not as big on it by the time we’re seeing them in the Tenko flashback, though I certainly wasn’t pulling for some mean-spirited, allegedly feel-good “Nao slaps Kotarou and the whole family walks out of him” thing like you see in fanfic sometimes. No, what I really like with Kotarou and Nao is thinking about them when they’re both still young, in the stretch of years where they really think they'll be happy together. That her being with him can make all his problems go away, that him being able to bury his past and be better than all the people who hurt him (and there were so many people who hurt him) will be enough, that love is the answer to everything. Sure, the cracks are there, but they’re thin, and they can be hidden beneath all the days when things are good, when the two of them hold each other and feel safe and loved and sure.

The cracks are still there, and love isn’t enough when love becomes a band-aid and a blind eye. But the love is still there too, and it’s so fierce and so desperate, and it still won’t save them.

Sorry, everyone; they make me emotional. They are beautiful in the way of sparks dancing above flames, or early flowers blooming right before a vicious cold snap. Ah, me.

StainMight: GOD, All Might really needed to grapple more with Stain’s side of his legacy. Like, StainMight is really a victim of the way the story looked like it was setting up to criticize All Might’s methodology as well-intended but not sustainable long-term, but then, like every other aspect of the series that was about systemic critique, that criticism just evaporated and Stain became an All Might cheerleader with nothing to say about the system All Might supported for thirty years. Maddening! But for real, All Might should have been badly hurt in that car attack and then rescued by Stain, both to give Deku some stress about how All Might could be in danger after they parted on bad terms, and also to really make All Might have to sit with this opinionated zealot all-too-prepared to talk about how no one else is really living up to his example.

And there should be UST the whole time.

Yoichi and Kudou: I am almost entirely negative towards the OFA Collective these days, especially Kudou’s role in the endgame, but I still have some fondness for what he and Yoichi could have been. My god, the first One For All transfer really should have been because they kissed. More beautiful, more tragic, more profound, and preserves the Yoichi that had some actual fucking agency in the life he lived instead of just constantly being AFO’s or Kudou’s trophy princess there to talk about how respectively terrible and awesome they are.

TogaTsuyu: I just think it would be interesting if Tsuyu were actually allowed to be more present in the Toga plotline, rather than only arriving as a spoiler to avert major shifts every time. Toga says she likes Tsuyu, too, after all, and Tsuyu is so different from both Ochaco and Deku, so much more thoughtful and considered. I dunno, I just wonder how things might have gone if, for example, it had been Tsuyu that Toga managed to draw away in the Jakku fight. Given that side story with her snakey friend Habuko, evidence suggests that Tsuyu is a good deal more observant and intuitive than Ochaco, and I wonder if she might have been able to suss out what Toga was actually asking there better than Ochaco did, and how that might have changed things.

THE TUMBLR PROBLEMATIC ZONE:

Gentle Criminal and La Brava: I was willing to follow the canon’s initial vagary about these two, but I also like them quite a bit together, so if canon wants to put them in wedding rings at the end of the series, that’s fine by me! Yes, I’m aware that there’s a pretty significant age gap there, which would have been at its most apparent when she first sought him out, but I don’t for one single instant believe that he’d be anything less than a total gentleman to her. Indeed, it’d be entirely plausible to mount an argument based on his behavior that they were not at all romantically involved circa the Culture Festival arc,[4] and only become so after Gentle’s imprisonment and subsequent release. But in general, what I’m more concerned with is the dynamic—I regard a power differential in a relationship as a reason for both parties to be cautious and mindful of that differential, but not as an immediate game-ender.

4: Most obvious is that when she says, “I love you,” he only says things like, “Thank you,” in return.

In that sense, Gentle and La Brava are great—they click together perfectly and obviously make each other tremendously happy after a lifetime of rejection. La Brava, in Gentle’s theatrical attention-seeking, finds someone who accepts her overflowing way of showing love; Gentle, in living up to La Brava’s feelings, finds a reason for his skewed heroism beyond satisfying his pride. To whatever extent their life together was heading anywhere bad (and there’s no evidence of this at all save that Heroes were always likely to catch up to them eventually, making La Brava’svery extreme response to Gentle’s defeat likewise inevitable), Deku’s intervention got them off of that path and back onto one that let them be accepted by the world, which they seem to have capitalized on marvelously.

They’re the only Villains I can think of whose turn to Team Hero in the endgame works for me without any significant quibbles. Good for them! I hope they are so, so happy together, because they deserve it.

AFO and Kotarou: MEANWHILE, IN MY OTHER KOTAROU SHIP. I love AFO knowing Everything about what he’s doing here while Kotarou knows absolutely Nothing about what AFO is doing here. I love an AFO who is self-amused in being friendly and reassuring and distractingly attractive to Kotarou, an AFO who knows that his toying with Kotarou would make Shimura Nana sick with terror and rage, and even if she isn’t alive to be so anymore, the fantasy of it is satisfying enough, especially since Kotarou is himself a very handsome young man, one whose hurt and resentment AFO finds beguiling to sometimes prod at, as if unable to leave a bruise alone except the bruise isn’t on his own skin.

I have an AU I’m never likely to write where Kotarou winds up successfully knocking out Tenko on the night of the accident before going on the run with him, only for them to get picked up by AFO a few weeks later, and let me tell you guys, that’s where all my guilty pleasure AFO/Kotarou really lives.

That said, I liked this one much better before we got the opening for it in canon, and not just because AFO’s disguise persona was doofy-looking instead of devastatingly handsome. It was always one of those ships that tickled my inner hedonistic wickedness fancier but that I never wanted to be canon because my affection for the ship's vibe was not more important to me than the integrity of Shigaraki’s arc, and Shigaraki’s arc was far better served by his early childhood being as free from AFO as possible. Alas, the reveal is very AFOtarou but at what cost.

Dabideavor: Sorry not sorry everyone, but all the people screaming about how this is SICK FILTH seem to have missed the point that it is indeed, absolutely and completely, sick filth and that’s part of the appeal. Personally, I like it for two main reasons.

Firstly, I want Endeavor to have as hard a time as possible, and times don't get harder than this. I enjoy it when he's frozen and helpless in the face of the son whose life he destroyed because I have a long history of enjoying stoic male characters being made vulnerable through suffering.

Secondly, and more importantly, I like it because I like the version of Dabi you see in it, particularly compared to the Fanon Dabi who made so much League of Villains fan content un-fucking-readable for years.

I'm going to try to keep the hot fandom tea to a minimum here, limited to the upcoming footnote, but I hated Fanon Dabi.[5] He was an incoherent mash of a character designed to be a vehicle for the unabashed revenge fantasy of bloody murder against Bad Dads while also presenting no danger whatsoever of splash damage, a Woobie Big Brother who was completely harmless except to the father whose organs he was planning to paint the walls with. Every excuse that could be made, would be made, for Dabi's more questionable or even outright nasty moments, even if it meant minimizing or outright erasing the harm we saw Dabi do, right there on the page in literal manga monochrome.

5: There's a particular type of flanderization that goes into Fanon Dabi, the same kind of flanderization I saw attached to Steven Universe's Lapis Lazuli, and which informed the absolute umbrage certain people took with Rebecca Sugar for describing Spinel, the SU movie's villain, as toxic. There is a portion of fandom that loves abuse victims who get angry and lash out, but which will go absolutely ballistic at the slightest suggestion that abuse victims are themselves also capable of harm, that lashing out has the potential to hurt innocent people. In a perfectly executed DARVO, it becomes "victim blaming" to confront an abuse victim about the very real abuse they're inflicting on others. I only specified fictional characters here, but it's a dynamic you see in real life, too. Some people hunger for nothing so much as an acceptable target and abuse victims are not exempt from that statement.

The Dabi I thought was fun was the high-energy maniac who doesn't give a shit about anyone else getting caught in the crossfire of his revenge. Both that version of Dabi and the Endeavor who's paralyzed with guilt and despair are facilitated by Dabi’s father-obsession having a taboo sexual dimension to it that Dabi is all too ready to shove in the face of absolutely everyone who would think worse of Endeavor for it. That means Endeavor himself, of course, but also all the good little civilians who Endeavor keeps telling to watch him. Watch this, says Dabi, as he makes lewd hand gestures on force-streamed national television.

It's not about Dabi healing as an abuse victim, and it’s not about Dabi having a fulfilling arc—covering that stuff was canon's job! It's about the fact that I, for reasons both personal and related to fandom spite, am personally entertained by Dabi being pedal-to-the-metal deranged about doing whatever it takes to seize Daddy’s attention and never let him look away again, which also means acting to ensure that no one is capable of or willing to save Endeavor from that fate. Like, if you want someone who would spend ten years plotting the most agonizing possible way to torment his abuser, then it’s sophistry to suddenly declare some agonizing torments off-limits. Dabideavor is just committing to the bit.

#bnha #stillness answers #stillness ships #tw: incest #just discussion no depiction #it's the last one on the post

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moliathh · 4 months ago

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people accusing alutegra shipper of homophobia and lesbian/aroace erasure are so funny because ONE, as a fan, i cannot make or remove a queer representation of a media, that act can only be done by the creator/producer/corporation/ institution themselves, the fanworks you make for a ship does not held the same weight as official materials. It's a bit insulting that you are comparing fanworks made out of love (that could very much be made by queer people) to a phenomenom driven by hate and bigotry and was a contributing factor to the oppression of queer people. Throwing around big words, accusations, that were meant for something very serious and harmful to refer to something unharmful just because you dislike a ship is not a very LGBTQIA+ friendly thing of you to do. Do you think of homophobia so lightly? Accusing REAL queer people who are being subjected to homophobia on a daily basis because of something they love?

SECOND OF ALL, let's assume that your headcanon is true (i haven't speak of the fact that its basic fandom etiquette to treat headcanon as something personal and not universal and don't harass other people over unharmful difference in opinion). Let's say, Integra is a lesbian, which is a headcanon. Did we collectively forget Alucard is canonically genderfluid? Yet you're referring to Alucard/Integra as a "cishet" ship? Does a queer person get stripped of their queer identity when they participate in a relationship that is male/female presenting? I thought we are about "queer rep"??? How convenient it is to deem him a cis het man and headcanon Integra as a lesbian to make the shippers look bad. Oh, and on the way of watering down queer identity into a caricature, you are also claiming ace people cannot have sex and it's disrespectful to depict ace people having romantic/sexual relationship. As if asexuality isn't a spectrum ranging from "little to no attraction" and the definition of sexual interaction is very loose, especially for queer people. Do you even care about queer people at this point?

And before any of yall jump me, i am queer myself how can i be homophobic my bitches are gay I AM GAY. I'm so sick and tired of yall justifying hate by pretending to care about the alphabet mafia. DO YOU REALLY? It was never that serious, just say you hate the ship and get tf going. I think its perfectly fine and cool to hate a ship just because you hate it, i do! I have headaches and want to vomit when i see ships that i hate but i dont feel the need to moralize it nor do i have to bring it to the face of the shippers or bad talking them. What really piss me off is how you drag real QUEER people through the mud for some fucking little pixels. Go outside, have some empathy. When fascism and censorship comes to wipe us out none of us gonna be spared because you are "one of the good ones" so stop fucking eating at your own community omg if you dont like something and its unharmful then BLOCK

#hellsing #the way yall desensitizing serious words by throwing them randomly around without knowing how heavy those accusations are #im fucking sick and tired #dont fucking talk to me about queer issues wtf do YOU know about queer issues #accusing US of “heteronormativity” ???? WHEN I HAD BEEN SUBJECTED TO IT MY ENTIRE LIFE ????#WHAT DO YOU FUCKING KNOW ABOUT HETERONORMATIVITY?#im living in a fucking PATRIARCHIAL society MY COUNTRY HAVE NOT LEGALIZE SAME SEX MARRIAGE #AND YOU WANT TO TALK TO ME ABOUT QUEER OPPRESSION?#DONT FUCKING PLAY WITH ME

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soraya-snape · 4 months ago

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Harry Potter characters/ships and the Taylor Swift song that reminds me of them:

Tedoire

She said, I was seven and you were nine

2 years age gap just like Teddy and Vicky

I dared you to kiss me and ran when you tried Just two kids, you and I

Vicky and Teddy growing up together because through Harry, Teddy is part of the Weasley family and Vicky developing a crush on Teddy but him only seeing het as a little sister

Well, I was sixtWell, I was sixteen when suddenly I wasn't that little girl you used to see But your eyes still shined like pretty lights

And then Teddy suddenly not seing her as a little sister but falling in love and them getting together when Vicky is 16 or 17

And our daddies used to joke about the two of us They never believed we'd really fall in love And our mamas smiled and rolled their eyes And said oh my my my

This is so Bill + Harry and Fleur + Andromeda/Ginny

Take me back to the time when we walked down the aisle Our whole town came and our mamas cried You said I do and I did too

Just imagine Fleur and Andromeda as well as Molly and Ginny crying at Teddy's and Vicky's wedding and the whole weasley family being there for the first Weasley grandkids wedding

Newtina

But something happened, I heard him laughing I saw the dimples first and then I heard the accent They say home is where the heart is But that's not where mine lives

Their first meeting was so chaotic but also cute

He likes my American smile Like a child when our eyes meet, darling, I fancy you

The way they acted in the second movie when newt talks about her eyes being like the ones of salamanders, they were so akward and I love it

So I guess all the rumors are true You know I love a London boy Boy, I fancy you (ooh)

I mean everyone else saw that they like each other before they did

They say home is where the heart is But God, I love the English You know I love a London boy

My American girl and her London boy

Just wanna be with you Wanna be with you Stick with me, I'm your queen

This is so them, they literally can't be without the other

Snily

Please picture me

Please picture me In the trees I hit my peak at seven feet In the swing Over the creek I was too scared to jump in But I, I was high in the sky

This reminds me so much of the first memory Harry sees in the prince's tale. Lily actually did jump

Cross your heart, won't tell no other And though I can't recall your face I still got love for you Your braids like a pattern Love you to the moon and to Saturn

Sev loving Lily even years after she died...

And I've been meaning to tell you I think your house is haunted Your dad is always mad and that must be why And I think you should come live with Me and we can be pirates Then you won't have to cry Or hide in the closet

Sev's father being abusive towards him and his mum and him hoping it will all be better in Hogwarts together with Lily (it wouldn't be)

Passed down like folk songs Our love lasts so long

Sev "passing" down his love for Lily and protecting Harry for her

Tedromeda

I just learned these people only raise you to cage you Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best Clutching their pearls, sighing "What a mess" I just learned these people try and save you ... cause they hate you

This is so Andromeda being raised in the Black houshold and Bellatrix and Narzissa as well as the rest disapproving of her love for Ted

They slammed the door on my whole world The one thing I wanted

She loved Ted so much

Now I'm running with my dress unbuttoned Screaming "But Daddy I love him!" I'm having his baby No, I'm not, but you should see your faces

Just imagine Andy telling her father she loved Ted for the first time, Ariel style. And she was actually having his baby.

Dutiful daughter, all my plans were laid Tendrils tucked into a woven braid Growing up precocious sometimes means not growing up at all He was chaos, he was revelry Bedroom eyes like a remedy Soon enough the elders had convened Down at the city hall "Stay away from her"

Again so much Andy being raised as a Black and Ted just coming into her life with his "bedroom eyes" and everyone in her family disapproving but her going against the whole Black family becuase he is the one for her.

Thinking it can change the beat Of my heart when he touches me And counteract the chemistry And undo the destiny

Nothing could change her love for him

Now I'm dancing in my dress in the sun and Even my daddy just loves him I'm his lady, and oh my God You should see your faces Time, doesn't it give some perspective No, you can't come to the wedding I know he's crazy but he's the one I want

Her dad did in fact not love him so I actually don't know who came to their wedding but I still think it was a perfect

Romione

And in a blink of a crinkling eye I'm sinking, our fingers entwined Cheeks pink in the twinkling lights Tell me 'bout the first time you saw me I'll drink what you think, and I'm high From smoking your jokes all damn night The brink of a wrinkle in time Bittersweet sixteen suddenly

This is so Romione and you can't tell me otherwise. Just remember the first time he saw her...

Are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me? (Kill me) It's just a game, but really (really) I'm bettin' on all three for us two (all three)

Ron did all 3. I mean he obviously did not actually kill Hermione but I think in 6th year he got close.

Truth, dare, spin bottles You know how to ball, I know Aristotle

No explanation needed

I feel like laughing in the middle of practice Do that impression you did of your dad again I'm hearing voices like a madman

Reminds me of the moments in the movies where Ron made her laugh

I'm going to add more...

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edenprime · 3 months ago

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if u haven't read it a lot of liara's more action-oriented shift was told in the comics. the shadow broker DLC didn't quite capture how much effort she went thru to secure shep's body and how big feron's role. i personally welcome the change and while i like archeologist liara i think her ME1 characterization is so superficial. she's mostly just a fan girl. the shift is abrupt but it's nice that in ME2 she has her own thing going on outside shepard cos i believe the writers wrote her as the canon love interest in mind so her character often suffers from the fangirl disease. i think a lot of people in the fandom dislike how the game shove her to us so much. which is funny since another famous shepard ship is garrus, who's equally as pushed as liara and is just as much of a shep fan. it's just that he's a guy so he doesn't suffer sexist hate.

I haven't read/seen anything outside the games, no! I've been thinking of getting into that, but first I'd like to sort out all of my feelings wrt the main event - the games. I feel like if I got into the "peripheric" media, it could maybe influence how I view the games and i want to analyze those by themselves (i'm thinking i'll finish this playthrough + another one in which i might or might not play as mshep) and then see about everything else. Thank you for the rec, though! I knew there was extra stuff about tali and garrus but this is the first i'm hearing about liara <3

And well... let's be real, most of the squad is part of the Shepard fan club, even those that can't be romanced, like Grunt and Wrex. The fact that Shepard gets a breeding request in Tuchanka after completing grunt's loyalty mission is like the most Mary Sue thing ever (and I don't necessarily mean this in a bad way). The asari, sex symbols of the galaxy, are throwing themselves at them left and right (Liara, Shiala, arguably Sha'ira, Morinth...). Shepard is the main character, everyone wants a piece of them. It's one of the entertaining parts of the games (or at least I have a lot of fun with it, if maybe a little bit ironically).

I suppose people might single out Liara because she's the one whose actions are the most extreme, and thus it crosses the line from "cute" to "creepy", but she's not the only one. Legion literally wears the armor off their dead body. As I said in my post, maybe her actions and/or attitude aren't 100% justifiable, but they are understandable.

I'm not sure about the game pushing Garrus as a love interest (I think the game itself is skeptical of the player making this choice, like when Shepard says she "can't believe she finds comfort in the arms of a turian" or something like that), but I do think he's definitely meant to be one of the characters that's most influenced by Shepard, regardless of gender.

Personally, I think him being so popular a choice (at least on Tumblr, which has a mostly female userbase compared to other social media) is due to him being a man, yes, but not necessarily because of sexism (or not always), but because het ships are farrrr more popular than femslash. Also, it's very clear how much he respects Shepard in basically every aspect, and it's incredibly fucking rare to see a het relationship in such equal ground, especially with a """bad guy""" lmao. (though ME in general does quite good in that regard I think, the romances in general are not toxic™️ or unequal) (mostly... ignoring that Shepard is basically everyone's boss... lol).

I completely agree that there's a double standard in how female characters are expected to behave vs male ones, and from what i've seen Liara is 100% a victim of this (I had the very bad idea of reading some threads on reddit...yikes). I don't know the fandom enough to know how it compares in relation to Garrus in particular, though, or if there's a correlation between Shakarian fans and Liara haters.

#i've noticed though that there's/there's been beef between garrus and kaidan fans apparently?#idek ✋🏼#answered #anonymous #txt #mass effect #liara t'soni #garrus vakarian #commander shepard #i feel like this reply is not very coherent but i agree with most of what you say anon!#and the rest i dont have enough info to say one way or the other :)

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friend-shaped-but · 2 months ago

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I like to think Hidimbi was jacked af

YES SHE WAS AND I LOVE THOSE TWO SO MUCH. FAVE HET SHIP APART FROM IG SHALAKA X SHIKHANDI(which imo is more homemade)

Yk a cool thing I do? In his head, Bheem refers to hidimba as his lover. And Draupadi as his beloved.

Listen I have 2 hidimbaa wips no scratch that I have 3 and I'm gonna take this ask as an excuse to talk about them.

Beginning era, where it's just them falling in love. Age gap trope. Bheem is younger. Dogri Hidimbaa. Eldritch Hidimbaa. Hidimbaa so jacked bheem is smol and pookie by her standards. Starts crackily, Ends angstily. She wolf whistled. He looked back only once, only to see her tired smile as she held ghatotkach in one arm. She waved at him. "Don't shed tears for me, pretty boy!" she shouted. She was not following her own advice, bheem thought from her tone of voice. He swallowed the lump in his throat and waved at her only once before disappearing into the valley.

Hidimba and Draupadi meet. No cannibalism arc bcos we hate that shit. Gharjawai ghatotkach who stays with mauravi. Mauravi is suspiciously like bheem. "You'd like your brother, I think," Bheem said. "How old is he?" "He was fifteen when I had to leave," "And now?" "Must be about twenty two or so," "Baby!!!" Ghatotkach squealed.

Bheem visits hidimba in the forest after the war. Slowly, the crowd dissipated, only Hidimba left before the dying fire. She didn’t scream or cry or weep. He thought she would curse him, but even that would have been preferable compared to her icy calm. He thought she would wail, and he deserved it. He deserved everything she threw at him, and it still wouldn’t be enough to absolve him. He finally felt brave enough to approach her. Sitting down beside her, he picked up a stick, trying to poke and rekindle the fire with it. But before he could, a hand on his arm stopped him. “Let it be,” She sighed. “There’s no use trying to rekindle something that has already been extinguished.” “Forgive me, Hidimba, I-” “I have, Bheem,” She said softly, her brown eyes boring into his soul. “It is the only reason you are alive,”

#mahabharata #mahabharat #bheema #my fave pandav tbh #my writing of bheem and hidimba #hidimbaa

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ravensvirginity · 3 months ago

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Hello, I really really want to know what kind of relationship you prefer for Raven, why am I asking because Marv Wolfman has a bad relationship for Raven, but I’m interested, I’m defending that Gar is a good guy for Raven, he’s the first person in Raven’s life who influenced Raven well, look at Eric Forrester for Raven had a bad life and I'm glad that now she has a good man

Lmao Gar is not the first person in Raven's life who influenced her well. You could literally say that about every Titan. Gar probably less than some of the others, actually. When you look at Raven's earliest stories, it's more so Vic, Kory, Joey, and Donna who she was especially close with. If you read the Eric Forrester arc specifically, you'll see that it's Joey who helps Raven and comforts her after it happens, not Gar.

Also, why does Raven need a man? I hate that attitude that she has to end up with someone. She can be perfectly happy on her own, and I'd argue she needs more time to find herself before she can think about having an actual relationship. That was the 'moral' of the Eric Forrester arc, honestly. That he was a bad guy and Raven needs family more than she needs a man.

I'm just not a huge shipper. If I do ship Raven, it's usually with another female character. I like her with angsty enemies to lovers (or sometimes just enemies) with Tara, and for something tamer but still tumultuous I like her with Kory or Donna. I think Joey/Raven is okay as far as het ships go but it's not my favorite ever.

Really, at the end of the day, I want stories that let Raven shine on her own.

#raven #raven ask #anti bbrae

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kill-vonkarma-again · 9 days ago

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hmm i make one too. don't have any crackships sorry. i'd write on the picture too but i have WAY too many specific thoughts on these shits to be able to cram it in with my shitty built in photo editor. more under the cut

nrmts and klapollo: self explanatory greatest of all time. maybe they're boring choices but idc they mean da worl to me

lanamia is definitely up there for me i just don't have the rfta galaxy brain like exaltedfuzz so i tend not to think about them much...... but they definitely had something going on. (if i'm being honest most of my brain power for both lana and ema go to their familial relationship because those always make me way more emotional and insane than romantic ones. same for mia and maya)

franmaya is a huge one but i think i kind of agree with the assertation that there's not a lot of canon backing for it... they don't interact much at all which is really really sad 😔 they're absolutely perfect foils for each other

gumworth VERY cute. i love edgeworth and his giant gay lap dog who wants him to take better care of himself

krisnix is something that 100% happened and they went insane over each other in only the way you can when you need to kill that other man /x but i don't give it as much brain space as i think i should. i'm sadly not the biggest on toxic yaoi lol

LARRYNIX WOULD BE FUNNY... i don't think i have much more to add here tho

dickbutz is conceptually really fucking funny and i think they would get along if given the space. come on gummy dick butz down

gumdot.... my eyes have been opened i think gumshoe could fix him. he has a good shoulder to cry on

blackquill/sahdmadhi + fullbright: i dunno these guys very well but apparently they're doing some crazy (sometimes evil) gay shit to blackquill. good for them. get that emo hunk

phoenix/mia: ehhhhhh. i'm not gonna say that you're wrong but i very much think that the boss/employee thing would make it awkward. and it'd be kinda one sided on phoenix's side imo. maybe in another life

trucy/pearl: there's nothing especially wrong with this one per se but 1. kinda feels like a pair the spares ship 2. i personally see their relationship as being closer to sorta-maybe-cousins than i do girlfriends. but that's just me you do you

ema/klavier: i see where you're coming from but ema is a dyke and her dislike of him is genuine and not tsundereisms in my eyes. i think they could be friends if you locked them in a room together and forced them to open up to each other but not much more than that

klavier/blackquill: you're probably right i bet klavier annoyed his way into blackquill's space like an especially persistent small dog with a half feral cat. and blackquill can dish out three times as much sass as klavier can take. i don't think enough about blackquill to think more on it though

godot/mia: don't hate me for this one i just think their writing was really crap. like the one time they try to write a canon loving het relationship and it's just this

youtube

narumayo: i've said it before and i'll say it again but this one is less deplorable to me and more just a sign that we are interacting with this story as a whole in extremely different ways. i think it's a really obvious and boring conclusion to come to. yayyy the boy gets the girl. barf

apollo/athena: i think apollo is slightly too old for her. it would be a little weird to me. some people seem to disagree with me on that though so i guess whatever. similar complaints to narumayo too though

phoenix/apollo: don't be fucking weird

athena/blackquill: don't be fucking weird... 2!!!

bonus from my beautiful beautiful mind:

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hopeymchope · 1 year ago

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The Legend of Zelda and shipping

I can't understand people who are like "I only ship Link in every game with one single character ever." What the hell... HOW?!

This seems to be most most common with people who ship Zelda/Link or "Zelink" — always wanting every Zelda to be with Link, because they're the main characters, though the phenomenon does exist with Malink and some other ships as well. And that’s not to hate on Zelink and Malink, because I love them! SPECIFIC INCARNATIONS of them, I mean.

Because there are a bare minimum of EIGHT different incarnations of Link, and you can’t tell me you think every single dude named Link has chemistry with/should have romance with every single girl named Zelda. Like EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.? I just can't with that. It's unfathomable, IMO.

I mean, OKAY, let me back that up: I get that people find it romantic to think that these are like... some kind of soulmates who always find each other through every reincarnation ala Hawkman and Hawkgirl or something, but it's not like they even display the same personality traits or share memories or something in each version of themselves. They just... act like totally different people quite regularly. Because by all accounts, they are.

Furthermore... shit - if we assume the incarnations are all descendants of one another and the same descendancy lines keep hooking up with the same partner lines, at what point do we wind up becoming dangerously incestuous with this repeated pairing? Because that shit seems INEVITABLE in such a case…?

NAH, my fam — I believe each Link and each Zelda are their own person, with their own traits. Their only unifying truth is that every person Link will ALWAYS look best in a green tunic and matching green, pointy flop-hat. (Sorry; I don't make the rules. Facts is facts.)

With that in mind, these are my sundry ships for various Links. And I apologize in advance for the fact that they're all boringly het. :P

Skyward Sword — Zelink, absolutely. Childhood Friend Romance always gets me right in the heart. I love these two together. The casual playfulness and fondness they display. The lengths they'll go to in order to see each other/protect each other. And although Zelda loses some of her distinct personality when she learns she's a reincarnation of Hylia, she gets her groove back near the end, so it's all good.

Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask/SC2 — Malink with a bullet. The singing farmgirl and the boy without a fairy, two people who felt alone in the world and find each other. The nicknames! "Don't be long, fairy boy." The fact that you can declare your romantic intentions for Malon while you're still a fucking KID! The Gossip Stone that tells you how much Malon pines to be saved from her daily life by a hero on a horse! It's SO GOOD.

Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass — I'm only mentioning this era because this Link is an ACTUAL CHILD. He's like, what? EIGHT? Maybe ten, if we're feeling generous? So I just want to say: Yeah... I just can't bring myself to ship this literal child with anybody. It ain't RIGHT.

Link's Awakening — Marink. If you weren't feeling these two by the time their sunset beach conversation wrapped up, I don't know what to even say to you. This was probably my first serious ship from playing the TLoZ games. Plus this ship is a good reason why the original black-and-white Game Boy version's secret ending is actually the best version of that bonus scene.

Twilight Princess — Ilink. Is there even any other contender worth mentioning? The writing and direction of the cut scenes makes it pretty clear that Link and Ilia are sweet on each other. You barely even meet Zelda in this game, and the only other option would probably be, well... Midna? You know - your partner imp that spends most of the game trash-talking you for her personal lulz and repeatedly slamming her body weight down HARD onto your spine? Mm, I’ll pass.

youtube

Breath of the Wild/Age of Calamity/TotK — Miphlink/Miphalink, no items, FINAL DESTINATION. Their story makes my heart just ACHE. The flashback to Mipha healing him up... Mipha's diary (OMFG that diary)... the Zora armor and its descriptions... holy SHIT, fam. And even if that story DIDN'T melt me into a complete puddle, Zelda put herself out of consideration by stealing my fucking house. I don’t understand why she pulled that, but given her privileged upbringing, I doubt she understands the value/expense of home ownership. So maybe she thought this was like yoinking a french fry. :P

Haven't Played — The only major entry I haven't played yet is "Spirit Tracks" on the DS. So I can't speak to that incarnation at this point. But the two things I can say is A) The Zelda/Link relationship sure appears cute? but B) This is also the same style of Link seen in Wind Waker, so I won't be surprised if she's supposed to be a LITERAL CHILD again (and therefore not a shippable character for me).

#tloz #the legend of zelda #linkshipping #link #zelink #malink #marink #ilink #miphalink #miphlink

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pinkomcranger · 11 months ago

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I saw your post about Saga and I 100% agree. I love her character so much and was so happy they avoided stereotypes AND gave her agency. She wasn't there just to save Alan (the horrid magical black person troupe was avoided) she was there for people who meant something to her and they just so happen to work together by the end. Remedy truly wrote a fascinating character and got a great actress to portray her. I'm glad the hate died out from the reactionaries but the apathy from the fandom is just as bad sometimes. I love her personality and I honestly love AnderCase as a ship and incorporating Saga into ships (AndercasexWake is a thing for me lol). I also like them as friends, their dynamic is so damn good I want to see them in future games. However, I gave up writing Andercase because people just ignore it most of the time. The fandom in general kind of feels isolating if you don't like the standard ships/characters. It's discouraging and sad and makes it hard to want to post. I tried again and of course the fic did poorly so I don't bother, reminds me how little people want anything to do with Saga. Even general fics would be awesome if people are squicked by het or don't like Saga and Casey as a ship. The fan space for her and ships/dynamics with her is so small...Drawing her is scary too given someone was attacked over it, so that worries me too and I kind of backed away. There's barely anything of Saga in any fanworks and when women are involved they gravitate to Rose and in some cases Estevez (the Yakuza mod just broke my heart they did not think to add Saga before Rose who has less time and at a point people shipped Casey with Estevex BEFORE Saga like WHAT). I know that struggle you're feeling. Saga and anything with her is a footnote and I know it's not malicious but it sucks. Fandom favoritism does not help, even in the smallness of Saga fandom content only a handful are seen and the rest ignored. I've been there and seen it, it pushes newcomers away. I hope this gets better in the future but not holding my breath. Love Remedyverse/Remedy but the fandom space depresses me which sucks because everyone seems nice to me, just...sorry for the rambling. Just saw a post that resonated with my frustrations.

Do you know the thing that gets me the most about Saga? She was created by a white man. And he, along with the other writers, made SURE to avoid the stereotypes we usually get in black women protags, especially in video games. She has a power, yes, but she's not using it solely to save one person. She doesn't even know she HAS a power until halfway through the game!

She wants to save her daughter first and foremost and then Casey, she tells Alan this point-blank, save my daughter and Casey, non-negotiable, she's NOT helping him otherwise. And you can see that as selfish, but it's not, if it had JUST been herself thrown into the story? She would've been FINE with it, you see her getting more and more excited about the case. She's intrigued EVERY step of the way. It only becomes personal when Alan has the audacity to use Logan and Casey, that's her line in the sand.

Melanie puts so much into making Saga come alive, because as amazing as the writing is, she could've still fallen into the sassy black woman trope, and Melanie doesn't let that happen. I think the ONLY criticism you can give her is that her accent slips, but I really never noticed it. I agree that I'm glad the hate from the dumbass gamer bros, but like you said, the apathy can be just as bad, it's a choice to not say the quiet part outloud.

I genuinely wish they'd just say, she's a black woman, therefore, I'm not interested in her. I only care about the white men. At least be HONEST about it, instead of raving about how fun it was to play as Saga and she's so badass but not backing it up with actions.

I love Andercase with every fiber of my being. I loved them from their first scene, despite knowing she was married to somebody else. Casey is Saga's support, you see her loving to crack her puns to Casey, she even thinks of one and saves it to memory solely to tell it to Casey. Not Logan, not David, but Casey.

They mirror each other, again from their first scene, drinking coffee at the same time. A trait they keep, even as the horror story creeps closer. Casey wouldn't be even a little bit interesting to me if he wasn't paired with Saga. He's the moon and she's the sun.

I'm so sorry you were discouraged to write and post about Andercase, even just as besties. Because their dynamic IS gold, and it echoes even when they're separated. The second Kiran shows up and kicks Saga off the case, she gets over it, fine, she'll deal, but help her find her partner, damnit! I've enjoyed fics where they are just besties, the ones that ACTUALLY focus on them and, you know, doesn't make Saga the driving force for CaseyWake and nothing else.

I think that's one of the reasons it's hard for me to ship Saga and FBI Casey with anyone else, because they're each other's closest interactions for so much of the game. It's hard for me to ship Alan with them because I see him and Saga as the true platonic soulmates of the AW2 cast and Casey HATES Alan. All the way up the ending of the final draft. You can see it in his expression and body language, if he hadn't just been through the wringer and so happy to see Saga, he definitely would've punched Alan for all he shit he's put them through.

Writing a pairing you love, feeling so proud and happy about the work you've done, just to see it brushed aside is one of the most painful feelings as a creator. Fandom is supposed to be for EVERYONE, it's not supposed to be high school cliques that can't interact with each other. I don't ship Alan with Saga's Casey (it's just the only way I see him, heh), but I've seen some AMAZING fan art for them that's made me smile. But you rarely see Saga involved, which makes no sense in regards to her Casey. If it was fictional Casey, that would make sense, he doesn't exist outside of Alan's head, while Saga's Casey is a living, breathing person who spends most of his time with Saga or talking about her.

Yet she's relegated to the bro when her Casey and Alan only have her in common. I can't buy Casey being soft and domestic with Alan to save my life. I see it with Saga, I can see Saga being soft with Alan because she does show that side to him. That's who she is, if you've earned her trust and respect. You can tell Saga is always the "good cop" while Casey is the "bad cop." The only time you see him sympathetic towards Alan is when he first washes up to shore. He's mocking him but holding his tongue because Saga's not going to take that nonsense from him.

You only see Casey show the full force of his anger towards Alan when Saga isn't there to stop him. To say "Yes, THAT'S the actual love story here" is a...choice, one that actively ignores the on-screen narrative. Again, fictional Casey and Alan are a completely different topic and not something I care enough to write about.

NOBODY should be attacked for liking a pairing because what does that do? What does it accomplish except make yourself feel better and superior? Again, it's been a choice to ignore the two main women in the series, which are Alice and Saga. But I've seen quite a few fics where Alice gets to be paired with CaseyWake, while you'll be hard-pressed to find a fic where Saga gets to interact with them. That tells me something that makes me uncomfortable. And that's covert racism.

You can't even make the excuse that there's nothing left to learn about Saga, because that's simply untrue. We know the bare minimum about her family on the Anderson side, and absolutely nothing concerning her father (who is Warlin Door and I will die on that hill). We don't know much about her created family, certainly nothing about David, outside of the fact he likes Bright Springs, and boardgames and doesn't take his daughter to get checked out after she hits her head in the shower. The fact her entire identity ISN'T just Logan's mother and David's wife means so much to me.

You can't tell me it's because she's married either, because how can you say that in one breath and then ship Alan with anyone but Alice in the same breath? It genuinely leads me to think it's simply that she's a BLACK woman. And as you said, seeing people create ships for Rose and to pair Estevez with CASEY, when she's an out-and-out lesbian that Casey only meets near the end of the game speaks volumes.

I genuinely think if you swapped her race, she would be less ignored, and that's extremely fucked up. Saga was created with so much love, care, and respect. A black woman protag that we could get behind and feel represented by. A smart, strong, caring badass, who still retains her femininity, but who has an identity outside of "mother" even though saving her daughter is her driving force, it's not her only one. She cares about her newly found grandfather and great-uncle. She cares about Rose, despite the woman irritating her in the beginning. She worries for the residents of the nursing home. She has mixed feelings towards the CULT. And of course, her secondary concern is Casey. And once she sees how hard Alan is trying, she comes to care for him as well. Why else tell him he's a hero when she has every right to hate him more than anyone else in the game?

She cares about these people she's met, and she knows they deserve to be saved. And Alan is the first to admit he can't do ANY of it without Saga. If the main character of the series acknowledged Saga, why can't the fandom?

I truly hope that you can find the courage to try again with Andercase, or just Saga in general. Because I'm seeing that there are people that love her, and maybe they're not content creators but consumers, and that's now one of my motivations. To feed their hunger because they're part of the fandom too, and they shouldn't be ignored. I promise you, you'll have a fan in me. And sometimes, just one person knowing they love what you create and how they look forward to it is enough. I'm not interested in a popularity contest. You'll never see me in ship wars. I'm here for FBI Special Agent Saga Anderson. This is her story too, to make her the footnote in fanworks is terribly egregious and goes against the very thing Remedy wanted.

If you ever want to ramble, my inbox is always open. If you ever have ideas you want to see in regards to fanfic for Andercase or Saga, I'm right here. Thank you so much for giving me a chance to read about your feelings for Saga and her partner. It means the world to me.

#alan wake 2 #saga anderson #alex casey #alan wake #saga anderson x alex casey #andercase #sagacasey #alan wake 2 spoilers #my thoughts #meta #strong black woman #covert racism #ignoring an amazing black woman protag is a crime #sam lake and the remedy team worked too hard on Saga for her to be erased #the men in this series wouldn't be able to do a damn thing without the women #and Saga proves that time and again #anti CaseyWake #not actually anti but using the tag just in case

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