#I can’t live in a fandom without ships tbh. but that my problem

[artist-heart83]

I have seen like… 3 different ships with Shroomy

I have Karen x Shroomy; Hal Monitor x Shroomy; and Rob x Shroomy

For some fucking reason the scarecrow is winning and I have seen only ONE person shipping them, which is the same person who made me discover that the ship exist

The other ones I’m totally okay with them, I see the potential 👍

But this one, the more I think it about them, my brain just fucking goes:

[charmac]

the scene of dennis saying he can’t live without mac in that soft ass sad voice from the gang saves the day is going VIRAL on tiktok and i am not too mad abt it tbh usually tiktok annoys me but this…this is niiiice

Straight up I have my problems with viral Sunny stuff on TikTok that’s not the normal memes and insane clips that pass around out of context everywhere else, especially when scenes like that that are dreams/fantasies that are pretty misleading as to what the show is.

And I get edits and clips are how people get into tv shows nowadays, but I’ve found, especially recently, that it brings a weird flock of people to the fandom that clearly aren’t watching this show for what it is and are just here for a ship (more so Twitter than here)

It’s a little frustrating when people get into Sunny for the ‘soft’ Macdennis they see on Tiktok and then show up in fandom spaces demanding the fandom act the same way, complaining when the characters aren’t overly woobified, ignore when we actually talk about other aspects of the show, and get upset that we acknowledge these are bad people who do bad things to each other and that’s part of the appeal (and a fundamental part of Macdennis)

I mean, there’s nothing to be done when an edit/clip breaks containment, but hopefully there’s enough context to ground people from flocking here/twitter just for Macdennis (and hopefully these things aren’t being passed around purposefully as fandom/ship bait).

Every time there’s a viral soft Macdennis clip/edit on Tiktok I feel like their algorithm should require a ‘Mac and Dennis Abuse Compilation’ to come next. And there’s my hot take of the morning!

[lifeneedsrot]

🌲already outdated.

filthyrottenworm ——> lifeneedsrot

🔭no minors allowed! We dont post much NSFW we just are extremely uncomfortable around minors and want our boundaries respected

🔭hi! We’re the Starship System! There’s 26 of us, one for each letter of the alphabet. We are traumagenic and DIAGNOSED with DiD, and a pro-endogenic former sysmed! We have no real “host” but Maverick fronts the most. We use emojis to represent who’s speaking online. We are anti-harassment and anti-censorship, aka “proship” (even though we barely participate in fandom and don’t actually “ship” anything)! If you’ve got a problem, block us forever, because we will accidentally refollow you.

🥀we tag all posts with the alter’s name and starshipsys

🐰this account is for finding Real friends. We are more open about ourselves on this account and more guarded on our Starshipsys account. If we follow you then we’re open to being Friends.

⚓️no DNI except minors (under 18). We block liberally. Introductions below the cut. Ageless bios are usually blocked, minors always blocked.

Emoji - name - pronouns - headspace age

🧤 - Agate - they/them - 8

Agate exists to promote healthy expression of emotions.

🧤hi. I’m usually sad. Oh apparently that wasn’t enough of an intro I was gonna leave it at that. Um. I like talking to people. I’m kind of stuck in memories of really bad times so I’ll probably talk about bad things that happened a long time ago. I want our system to express our feelings now when we can because we used to never be allowed to. So sometimes I front to tell people what we’re really feeling and be vulnerable and stuff.

🪩 - Boppie - they/them - 21

Boppie exists to have fun and hold our party-loving feelings and maintain our in-person social status.

🪩Hey!!!!!!! I’m TONS of fun, I like dancing, I like being loud, and I like not giving a shit. I’m totally chill. I’m better at in person interactions than online, tbh. I wanna go to a rave and to a bunch of conventions and festivals and parades and honestly if it’s a loud party, I wanna be there. Unforchy maverick says No Never to all my wants and needs, waaaaaahhh. Can’t even drink alcohol. Can’t EVEN have COFFEE. No substances allowed. I’ll prolly talk about wanting to try shit and whine about how nobody lets me have any fun. I like music and singing and sometimes I play around on beepbox to make songs. I’m awful at it lawl but it’s fun!! I can’t survive without constant stimulation, so like, stimulate me. LMAO

♠️ - Cole - he/it - 21

Cole exists as a living manifestation of blades, and guards us from using sharp objects for self-harm or for harming others except to protect.

♠️Hey. I’m not great at talking to people. But I do enjoy conversations. Sometimes. Im a living knife. I used to date Quasi in headspace but I broke up with them after they tried to claw my eye out. To be fair I treated them horribly throughout that relationship. I consider myself a recovered persecutor because of how I used to treat them versus how I am now. I like blades and I’m aroused by blood. But I’m trying to avoid hurting people. I talk about death and mourning because I perceive my Quasi (Quasarinova) to be dead and replaced by the current Quasi (Quasiren). Which is part of the reason why I broke up with them.

🐰 - Daisy - she/any - 7

Daisy represents one half of unconditional love: “be yourself and you’ll be loved as yourself.” She also holds parts of our hypersexuality.

🐰hi!!! I get mad when people try to make us bend to be someone we’re not. And what we are is WEIRD and if you got a problem with that then block us or we’ll block you. I am ICKY and we are ICKY and if you don’t like that then BLOCK US FOREVER!!!!! But if you’re niceys we’re super nice c: !!! I love Tazzy and my little pony and sometimes I say everypony instead of everybody. WE SHOULD PLAY PONY TOWN TOGETHER. I can show you aaaall our ponies!!! We got one for every one of us. So 26 ponies. They’re the best representation of our headspace appearance for now. I like Disney movies I think but I haven’t seen many

🔭 - Estella - they/she - 21

Estella holds our love for technology and indie videogames, but their purpose is mainly to promote in-sys relationships and take care of the emotional needs of other alters by matchmaking.

🔭Hi!!! I hope we can be friends :3 I like Slay the Princess right now!! I’m a forever fan of minecraft and spore. In-sys relationships are extremely important to us, so I’ll probably talk a lot about that. Haven and I are girlfriends! Tazelein and Daisy are something… Starbound is starting to forgive Kakxyl, so they might get back together! Present and Cole might be together someday but neither of them are ready yet and I don’t want to pressure them. Maverick and Quasi are taking it slow, too. The XYZ primordials are forever married soulmates in a poly triangle or whatever. Whenever my headmates start to get along really well, I get ecstatic and front to happy ramble about it! I’m hoping I can take care of all of our emotional needs by setting alters up with each other. It’s to avoid codependency. Also, I made our headspace in minecraft! We should play minecraft together! If I can figure out how to make it work… also the proportions in our minecraft world are a little off.

🐁 - Fobi - it/she - adolescent

Fobi holds the “flee” stress response and its purpose is to run away when we are in danger.

🐁if I front its a bad sign. I only front when we’re in danger or if someone forces me to front. I exist only to run and I am in a constant state of fear. Estella wants me to not be in a constant state of fear but I don’t know what that would be like. I don’t want to be hurt anymore. I want to survive. I want to survive at all costs and I will do whatever we need to do to survive. We’re nothing more than a frightened animal. But I can be strategic, too. I recognize what is needed. I will put the most necessary alter in front, and sometimes that’s me, to run. Sometimes it’s someone else, like Starbound, to fight.

🦇 - Grim - it/its - adolescent

Grim holds the “fawn” stress response and its purpose is to adore and dote on people to prevent us from being hurt by them or to prevent them from leaving us.

🦇hi… I don’t know what to say… I’m also not very good at talking… I want more friends though. Do I have to write more? Okay… I want to be hurt. My description up there is a little weird. I’m not sure I like it. I don’t prevent people from hurting me. I… make myself very available to be hurt… because we need it. We need people to be around us more than we need anything else… and people hurt the people they’re around… so we have to be okay with being hurt. More than okay. I learned to love it. So please, if it’s the only thing that’ll keep you from leaving, hurt me. I’m more afraid of being alone than anything else…

🌺 - Haven - she/he - 21

Haven exists to express genuine love and care for our friends, family, and partners.

🌺Send us asks!!! Talk to me!!! Say hello!!!! Be our friend!!!! I promise we’re way nicer than you think. We don’t bite! Except some of us do bite. And I’ll bite if you ASK me to bite. But mostly we don’t bite. I usually talk about the people we love! Our friends! I hope you can become one of our friends, too. Because we have a severe friendship deficit.

✏️ - Indigo - they/them - 12

Indigo holds our hopes, dreams, and interests from Middle School.

✏️I LOVE STARSET AND WINGS OF FIRE. Those are my two favoritest things ever, especially wings of fire. I could talk about wings of fire forever. I write wings of fire fanfics. I also LOVE undertale and deltarune!!! I want to make a really cool indie game but I don’t think I have the skills to, so I stick to writing stories where I KNOW I can do it. I am good at writing but I almost never get past the prewriting stages. I also like reading fantasy stories. Sometimes. We haven’t read a good series in forever. We like Tamora Pierce’s books though! We’re not caught up on everything though. We also draw and are trying to draw a portrait of every one of us!

🎊 - Jynx - she/any - ageless

Jynx holds narcissism and a God complex. Her purpose is to hold insecurity that is expressed as superiority.

🎊fuck that description, I’m literally awesome. Anyway. I’m actually a god, for realsies. I’m the best thing ever. You should bow down and worship me. I’m not insecure. I’m genuinely awesome. Okay, that sounds insecure. I’m serious. Kakxyl is my dad, Lynx is my brother, Present is sort of my sister because it was raised alongside me. My dad is literally beyond godhood. He ascended so many times it’s like unbelievable. And im going to rule the world one day, so you should get on my good side.

🍠 - Kakxyl - he/any - eternal

Kakxyl’s role is to help other alters change their roles.

🍠Greetings. I like breaking people out of patterns of thought. There is not much for me to say. I am an ancient being, technically older than the primordials, and I may never truly die. However, death is merely a transformation into something else, and I shall always be an entity of transformation. The end of one thing is the beginning of another. I change, and I end, and I transform, as all things do, though my consciousness may remain uninterrupted, I experience slow and continuous death through change. All entities must die throughout their lives, many times. All creatures must transform through time. You are not the same you as you were yesterday. You will be someone else tomorrow. As stable as you view your identity to be, you transform as much as any other entity. You die. You have died. You will die. You are always dying. And you are always reborn.

🫐 - Lynx - he/any - ageless

Lynx holds the “freeze” stress response and will front when there are too many emotions vying to be expressed at once.

🫐I once had no voice, but now I can speak. Or type, I guess. Hm. What to say about myself. I want to learn fencing. I know how to wield a sword in headspace, but front body doesn’t. We also need to learn more ASL. I usually front because I’m emotionally numb in comparison to the others. So I front when the others are too emotional to make rational decisions.

⚓️ - Maverick - they/he - 21

Maverick is the captain of the system and makes the final call on all decisions, as well as the “host” who fronts the most.

⚓️damn this is a weird intro post. Why did we do it like this. Anyway I’m as close to host as we have. I’m the captain. I make the final call on all important decisions. I like boats. Front body never learned to swim, so we need to do that before we can go out on the water. I want to travel. I want to visit all fifty states and a few other countries. We’re from USA if you couldn’t tell.

🍥 - Nyan - he/she - 6

Nyan holds innocent childlike interests and emotions that we were unable to express when we were physically a child.

🍥Hi! I love making friends and talking to people and candy and legos. Hehe I am friends with daisy and agate. I like kitties and I named myself after Nyan cat. Meow :3!!!!!! I want to play minecraft and get super good at it and also I like the sims 3 and 4 but only with the pets pack added for kitties and spore and I like ummm lots of things! I used to collect littlest pet shops but I donno where they went. I like running in circles but front body is too tired all the time for that. I like stuffies and I like cuddles. I like ice cream also.

🚀 - Oscar - he/him - adult

Oscar’s role is to push people away to protect the system from being hurt by others.

🚀I don’t trust easily. If you do earn my trust, don’t break it. I do hold a grudge. I personally think our system would be safest alone, without dealing with outsiders. But everyone else is pretty convinced we can’t be happy alone.

🩵 - Present - she/it - adult

Present’s role is to mourn our lost relationships, but hold hope that we can heal.

🩵I hope you’re not off-put by all the strange introductions. We’re trying to reach outside our comfort zone to make more friends. So, hello. Don’t be shy, please. I think an important part of healing is opening ourselves up to form new friendships. We’ve been hurt a lot. We’ve hurt people, too. Our ex partner system accused us of grooming them because we were 19 and they were 17. It was a horribly toxic and abusive relationship for both systems, but we’re not a groomer, and we didn’t deserve thousands of people persecuting us online. A lot of our system feels like we’ll never be able to move past that relationship. It was such a defining part of our identity, and then our entire community was ripped away from us in one motion when we were cancelled off of that website. But we’re ready to rebuild.

🥀 - Quasiren - they/them - 18

Quasiren intends to create intimacy, friendships, and bonds. They hold the hope that we can still form meaningful relationships.

🥀Come be our friend!!! It’s necessary. Important. We’re genuinely very kind and nice and really like making friends. Okay, we’re a little desperate and a lot lonely. But I promise we’re waaaaaay friendshaped. So, what are you waiting for? You know you want to say hi. You know you want to become our best friend forever! We’re total sweethearts.

🥩 - Raptorse - it/its - adult

Raptorse is just there to make sure we don’t starve to death or develop an eating disorder.

🥩I’m just here to eat. We’re an animal. Animals need to eat. We get too hungry, I front. I eat. I chomp. I bite. I’ll even eat you. Not always good at talking. Sometimes words get mangled and grammar too. Especially when I need to do my job. Just a primal urge when that happens. All animals need is food, water, shelter. All animals need do is shit, piss, eat, sleep, fuck. Some animals don’t even need fuck. We need to get rid of urges but not really need another animal to deal with that. Maverick is saying I overshare. Don’t care. Survival is priority. Not nobody’s feelings about shit we do. Gnaw my way out if needed.

🎆 - Starbound - she/any - ageless

Starbound is the “fight” stress response and represents a need for justice.

🎆don’t piss me off and we’ll get along fine. But if you do piss me off, well. I’m not afraid to burn bridges the way the rest of these soft bitches are. I get mad real easy. And I get real fucking mad. Basically, if you’re talking and I front, you done something to piss us off big time. I hate injustice.

🪱 - Tazelein - he/any - ageless

Tazelein holds hypersexuality and the other half of unconditional love: “in order to love someone, you must love them as they are, not as how you want them to be.”

🪱hiiiiiii cutie~!!!! I like tearing people apart. Yes, I do mean tearing. Ripping them to sinewy shreds. Red ribbons and white fragments, squishy bits of organs strewn about. And then I like putting them back together. And I want you to be aware for all of it. Unfortunately, I can’t do that in front, humans die too easily, and front body isn’t strong enough to keep them alive. I can still get creative with what I do and keep you alive. Humans are also fairly resilient. If you’d like to be torn to shreds, or whatever adjacent thing I come up with, come say hiiiii~~ don’t be shy!!! Or do, it might be cute. Oh, is this not a normal way to introduce myself? Oops, ahehehe.

🕊️ - Utopia - they/any - ageless

Utopia holds our fascination with spirituality, religion, and the occult. Their role is to ponder the mechanisms of spirituality.

🕊️we are a somewhat spiritual system. We believe that when we were younger, we were connected to spirits that would grant our wishes so long as we were good to them. We also believe these same spirits granted us visions, but that we have lost connection with our spirits. We seek to regain our connection. We also believe all souls are interconnected in a massive web, and that travel between them is possible. Yes, I am referring to syshopping. We experienced syshopping firsthand with our aforementioned ex partner system that accused us of grooming them. I would like to regain a similar spiritual link with someone, not necessarily syshopping as I’m not certain we may ever achieve that again, but we also had friends who we shared dreams with, and I believe with enough closeness and common spirituality this may be achieved again.

🦠 - Vitriol - it/its - adult

Vitriol’s role is to prevent other people from being hurt by us by any means necessary.

🦠we’re not worth befriending. Reread Tazelein’s intro. Do you think someone who would say that is safe to befriend? Stay away from us. We have been abusive in the past. I don’t know if we still are, but it’s not worth the risk.

🕸️ - Webber - they/any - ageless

Webber holds our abandonment issues, and has the role of building and maintaining trust of others.

🕸️hello there :}. You’ve been reading for an awfully long time, haven’t you? I appreciate it. If you bothered reading this far, please say hello. We likely won’t message first. Most of us are too shy for that; we assume that you don’t want a message out of the blue. Ah, I should introduce myself. I’m Webber, a deity of trust. There’s nothing I value more than the trust of others.

🔥 - Xray - he/xe - primordial

Xray represents the current time and destruction. Xis role is to end or finish things, or get things over with. He does things nobody wants to do.

🔥once we are close enough with someone, we will have a boundaries conversation. We currently have 7 major boundaries, but may add more if necessary. After the boundaries conversation, we may decide to share our simplyplural with you. Any attempt to rush these two events before we’re ready will be perceived as a yellow flag and cause us to be wary of you.

🌲 - Yarrow - they/it/yey - primordial

Yarrow represents the past time and transformation. Its role is to help people see parts of themselves they hadn’t yet seen.

🌲hello. I don’t have much to add. I like writing about the alters of our system. Most of our simplyplural entries are authored by me, including the sentence description that’s written below each of our names in this introduction, which was taken from part of our simplyplural. We will share it when we are ready to share it.

🌊 - Zenith - ze/zer - primordial

Zenith represents the future time and creation. Zer role is to start new things and promote seeking out new pleasurable experiences.

🌊haiiiiiii!!!!! I’m kind of the mom of the system. But like, in a really fun and hot way. I like building people up! I also like making things. Which sometimes includes alters. We currently are maxed out at 26, but we might expand in the future, it’s getting a little tight in here.

[army-of-mai-lovers]

in which I get progressively angrier at the various tropes of atla fandom misogyny

tbh I think it would serve all of us to have a larger conversation about the specific ways misogyny manifests in this fandom, because I’ve seen a lot of people who characterize themselves as feminists, many of whom are women themselves, discuss the female characters of atla/lok in misogynistic ways, and people don’t talk about it enough. 

disclaimer before I start: I’m not a woman, I’m an afab nonbinary person who is semi-closeted and thus often read as a woman. I’m speaking to things that I’ve seen that have made me uncomfy, but if any women (esp women existing along other axes of oppression, e.g. trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc) want to add onto this post, please do!

“This female character is a total badass but I’m not even a little bit interested in exploring her as a human being.” 

I’ve seen a lot of people say of various female characters in atla/lok, “I love her! She’s such a badass!” now, this statement on its own isn’t misogynistic, but it represents a pretty pervasive form of misogyny that I’ve seen leveled in large part toward the canon female love interests of one or both of the members of a popular gay ship (*cough* zukka *cough*) I’m going to use Suki as an example of this because I see it with her most often, but it can honestly be applied to nearly every female character in atla/lok. Basically, people will say that they stan Suki, but when it comes time to engage with her as an actual character, they refuse to do it. I’ve seen meta after meta about Zuko’s redemption arc, but I so rarely see people engage with Suki on any level beyond “look at this cool fight scene!” and yeah, I love a cool Suki fight scene as much as anybody else, but I’m also interested in meta and headcanons and fics about who she is as a person, when she isn’t an accessory to Sokka’s development or doing something cool. of course, the material for this kind of engagement with Suki is scant considering she doesn’t have a canon backstory (yet) (don’t let me down Faith Erin Hicks counting on you girl) but with the way I’ve seen people in this fandom expand upon canon to flesh out male characters, I know y’all have it in you to do more with Suki, and with all the female characters, than you currently do. frankly, the most engagement I’ve seen with Suki in mainstream fandom is justifying either zukki (which again, is characterizing her in relation to male characters, one of whom she barely interacts with in canon) or one of the Suki wlw pairings. which brings me to--

“I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!” 

now, I will admit, two of my favorite atla ships are yueki and mailee, and so I totally understand being interested in these characters’ dynamics, even if, as is the case with yueki, they’ve never interacted canonically. however, it becomes a problem for me when these ships are always in the background of a zukka fic. at some point, it becomes obvious that you like this ship because it gets either Zuko or Sokka’s female love interests out of the way, not because you actually think the characters would mesh well together. It’s bad form to dislike a female character because she gets in the way of your gay ship, so instead, you find another girl to pair her off with and call it a day. to be clear, I’m not saying that everybody who ships either mailee or yueki (or tysuki or maisuki or yumai or whatever other wlw rarepair involving Zuko or Sokka’s canon love interests) is nefariously trying to sideline a female character while acting publicly as if she’s is one of their faves--far from it--but it is noteworthy to me how difficult it is to find content that centers wlw ships, while it’s incredibly easy to find content that centers zukka in which mailee and/or yueki plays a background role. 

also, notice how little traction wlw Katara ships gain in this fandom. when’s the last time you saw yuetara on your dash? there’s no reason for wlw Katara ships to gain traction in a fandom that is so focused on Zuko and Sokka getting together, bc she doesn’t present an immediate obstacle to that goal (at least, not an obstacle that can be overcome by pairing her up with a woman). if you are primarily interested in Zuko and Sokka’s relationship, and your queer readings of other female characters are motivated by a desire to get them out of the way for zukka, then Katara’s canon m/f relationship isn’t a threat to you, and thus, there’s no reason to read her as potentially queer. Or even, really, to think about her at all. 

“Katara’s here but she’s not actually going to do anything, because deep down, I’m not interested in her as a person.” 

the show has an enormous amount of textual evidence to support the claim that Sokka and Katara are integral parts of each other’s lives. so, she typically makes some kind of appearance in zukka content. sometimes, her presence in the story is as an actual character with layers and nuance, someone whom Sokka cares about and who cares about Sokka in return, but also has her own life and goals outside of her brother (or other male characters, for that matter.) sometimes, however, she’s just there because halfway through writing the author remembered that Sokka actually has a sister who’s a huge part of the show they’re writing fanfiction for, and then they proceed to show her having a meetcute with Aang or helping Sokka through an emotional problem, without expressing wants or desires outside of those characters. I’m honestly really surprised that I haven’t seen more people calling out the fact that so much of Katara’s personality in fanon revolves around her connections to men? she’s Aang’s girlfriend, she’s Sokka’s sister, she’s Zuko’s bestie. never mind that in canon she spends an enormous amount of time fighting against (anachronistic, Westernized) sexism to establish herself as a person in her own right, outside of these connections. and that in canon she has such interesting complex relationships with other female characters (e.g. Toph, Kanna, Hama, Korra if you want to write lok content) or that there are a plethora of characters with whom she could have interesting relationships with in fanon (Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Yue, Smellerbee, and if you want to write lok content, Kya II, Lin, Asami, Senna, etc). to me, the lack of fandom material exploring Katara’s relationships with other women or with herself speak to a profound indifference to Katara as a character. I’m not saying you have to like Katara or include her in everything you write, but I am asking you to consider why you don’t find her interesting outside of her relationships with men.

“I hate Katara because she talks about her mother dying too often.” 

this is something I’ve seen addressed by people far more qualified than I to address it, but I want to mention it here in part because when I asked people which fandom tropes they wanted me to talk about, this came up often, but also because I find it really disgusting that this is a thing that needs to be addressed at all. Y’all see a little girl who watched her mother be killed by the forces of an imperialist nation and say that she talks about it too much??? That is a formational, foundational event in a child’s life. Of course she’s going to talk about it. I’ve seen people say that she doesn’t talk about it that often, or that she only talks about it to connect with other victims of fn imperialism e.g. Jet and Haru, but frankly, she could speak about it every episode for no plot-significant reason whatsoever and I would still be angry to see people say she talks about it too much. And before you even bring up the Sokka comparison, people deal with grief in different ways. Sokka  repressed a lot of his grief/channeled it into being the “man” of his village because he knew that they would come for Katara next if he gave them the opportunity. he probably would talk about his mother more if a) he didn’t feel massive guilt at not being able to remember what she looked like, and b) he was allowed to be a child processing the loss of his mother instead of having to become a tiny adult when Hakoda had to leave to help fight the fn. And this gets into an intersection with fandom racism, in that white fans (esp white American fans) are incapable of relating to the structural trauma that both Sokka and Katara experience and thus can’t see the ways in which structural trauma colors every single aspect of both of their characters, leading them to flatten nuance and to have some really bad takes. And you know what, speaking of bad fandom takes--   

“Shitting on Mai because she gets in the way of my favorite Zuko ship is actually totally okay because she’s ~abusive~” 

y’all WHAT. 

ok listen, I get not liking maiko. I didn’t like it when I first got into fandom, and later I realized that while bryke cannot write romance to save their lives, fans who like maiko sure can, so I changed my tune. but if you still don’t like it, that’s fine. no skin off my back. 

what IS skin off my back is taking instances in which Mai had justified anger toward Zuko, and turning it into “Mai abused Zuko.” do you not realize how ridiculous you sound? this is another thing where I get so angry about it that I don’t know how useful my analysis is actually going to be, but I’ll do my best. numerous people have noted how analysis of Mai and Zuko’s breakup in “The Beach” or Mai being justifiably angry with him at Boiling Rock or her asking for FUCKING FRUIT in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that says that all of these events were her trying to gain control over him is....ahhh...lacking in reading comprehension, but I’d like to go a step further and talk about why y’all are so intent on taking down a girl who doesn’t show emotion in normative ways. obviously, there’s a “Zuko can do no wrong” aspect to Mai criticism (which is super weird considering how his whole arc is about how he can do lots of wrong and he has to atone for the wrong that he’s done--but that’s a separate post.) But I also see slandering Mai for not expressing her emotions normatively and not putting up with Zuko’s shit and slandering Katara for “talking about her mother too often” as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, a female character expresses emotions that make you, the viewer, uncomfortable, and so instead of attempting to understand where those emotions may have come from and why they might be manifesting the way they are, y’all just throw the whole character away. this is another instance of people in the fandom being fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the female characters of atla in a real way, except instead of shallowly “stanning” Mai, y’all hate her. so we get to this point where female characters are flattened into one of two things: perfect queens who can do no wrong, or bitches. and that’s not who they are. that’s not who anyone is. but while we as a fandom are pretty good at understanding b1 Zuko’s actions as layered and multifaceted even though he’s essentially an asshole then, few are willing to lend the same grace to any female character, least of all Mai. 

and what’s funny is sometimes this trope will intersect with “I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”, so you’ll have someone actively calling Mai toxic/problematic/abusive, and at the same time ship her with Ty Lee? make it make sense! but then again, maybe that’s happening because y’all are fundamentally disinterested in Ty Lee as a character too. 

“I love Ty Lee so much that I’m going to treat her like an infantilized hypersexual airhead!” 

there are so many things happening in y’alls characterization of Ty Lee that I struggled to synthesize it into one quippy section header. on one hand, you have the hypersexualization, and on the other hand, you have the infantilization, which just makes the hypersexualization that much worse. 

(of course, sexualizing or hypersexualizing ANY atla character is really not the move, considering that these are child characters in a children’s show, but then again, that’s a separate post.) 

now, I understand how, from a very, very surface reading of the text, you could come to the conclusion that Ty Lee is an uncomplicated bimbo. if you grew up on Western media the way I did, you’ll know that Ty Lee has a lot of the character traits we associate with bimbos: the form-fitting pink crop top, the general conventional attractiveness, the ditzy dialogue. but if you think about it for more than three seconds, you’ll understand that Ty Lee has spent her whole life walking a tightrope, trying to please Azula and the rest of the royal family while also staying true to herself. Ty Lee and Azula’s relationship is a really complex and interesting topic that I don’t really have time to explore at the moment given how long this post is, but I’d argue that Ty Lee’s constant, vocal  adulation is at least partially a product of learning to survive at court at an early age. Like Mai, she has been forced to regulate her emotions as a member of fn nobility, but unlike Mai, she also has six sisters who look exactly like her, so she has a motivation to be more peppy and more affectionate to stand out. 

fandom does not do the work to understand Ty Lee. as is a theme with this post, fandom is actively disinterested in investigating female characters beyond a very surface level reading of them. Thus, fandom takes Ty Lee’s surface level qualities--her love of the color pink, her revealing standard outfit, and the fact that once she found a boy attractive and also once a lot of boys found her attractive--and they stretch this into “Ty Lee is basically Karen Smith from Mean Girls.” thus, Ty Lee is painted as a bimbo, or more specifically, as not smart, uncritically adoring of Azula (did y’all forget all the non-zukka bits of Boiling Rock?), and attractive to the point of hypersexualization. I saw somebody make a post that was like “I wish mailee was more popular but I’m also glad it isn’t because otherwise people would write it as Mai having to put up with her dumb gf” and honestly I have to agree!! this is one instance in which I’m glad that fandom doesn’t discuss one of my favorite characters that often because I hate the fanon interpretation of Ty Lee, I think it’s rooted in misogyny (particularly misogyny against East Asian women, which often takes the form of fetishizing them and viewing them only through a Western white male gaze)  

(side note: here at army-of-mai-lovers, we stan bimbos. bimbos are fucking awesome. I personally don’t read Ty Lee as a bimbo, but if that’s you, that’s fucking awesome. keep doing what you’re doing, queen <3 or king or monarch, it’s 2021, anyone can be a bimbo, bitches <3)

“Toph can and will destroy everyone here with her bare hands because she’s a meathead who likes to murder people and that’s it!”  

Toph is, and always has been, one of my favorite ATLA characters. My very first fic in fandom was about her, and she appears prominently in a lot of my other work as well. One thing that I am always struck by with Toph is how big a heart she has. She’s independent, yes, snarky, yes, but she cares about people--even the family that forced her to make herself smaller because they didn’t believe that their blind daughter could be powerful and strong. Her storyline is powerful and emotionally resonant, her bending is cool precisely because it’s based in a “wait and listen” approach instead of just smashing things indiscriminately, she’s great disabled rep, and overall one of the best characters in the show. 

And in fandom, she gets flattened into “snarky murder child.” 

So where does this come from? Well, as we all know, Toph was originally conceived of as a male character, and retained a lot of androgyny (or as the kids call it, Gender) when she was rewritten as a female character. There are a lot of cultural ideas about androgynous/butch women being violent, and people in fandom seem to connect that larger cultural narrative with some of Toph’s more violent moments in the show to create the meathead murder child trope, erasing her canon emotionality, softness, heart, and femininity in the process. 

This is not to say that you shouldn’t write or characterize Toph as being violent or snarky at all ever, because yeah, Toph definitely did do Earth Rumbles a lot before joining the gaang, and yeah, Toph is definitely a sarcastic person who makes fun of her friends a lot. What I am saying is that people take these traits, sans the emotional logic, marry them to their conception of androgynous/butch women as violent/unemotional/uncaring, and thus create a caricature of Toph that is not at all up to snuff. When I see Toph as a side character in a fic (because yeah, Toph never gets to be a main character, because why would a fandom obsessed with one male character in particular ever make Toph a protagonist in her own right?) she’s making fun of people, killing people, pranking people, etc, etc. She’s never talking to people about her emotions, or palling around with her found family, or showing that she cares about her friends. Everything about her relationship with her parents, her disability, her relationship to Gender, and her love of her friends is shoved aside to focus on a version of Toph that is mean and uncaring because people have gotten it into their heads that androgynous/butch women are mean and uncaring. 

again, we see a female character who does not emote normatively or in a way that makes you, the viewer, comfortable, and so you warp her character until she’s completely unrecognizable and flat. and for what? 

Azula

no, I didn’t come up with a snappy name for this section, mainly because fanon interpretations of Azula and my own feelings toward the character are...complicated. I know there were some people who wanted me to write about Azula and the intersection of misogyny and ableism in fanon interpretations of her character, but I don’t think I can deliver on that because I personally am in a period of transition with how I see Azula. that is to say, while I still like her and believe that she can be redeemed, there is a lot of merit to disliking her. the whole point of this post is that the female characters of ATLA are complex people whom the fandom flattens into stereotypes that don’t hold up to scrutiny, or dislike for reasons that don’t make sense. Azula, however, is a different case. the rise of Azula defenders and Azula stans has led to this sentiment that Azula is a 14 y/o abuse victim who shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions. it seems to me that people are reacting to a long, horrible legacy of male ATLA fans armchair diagnosing Azula with various personality disorders (and suggesting that people with those personality disorders are inherently monstrous and unlovable which ahhhh....yikes) and then saying that those personality disorders make her unlovable, which is quite obviously bad. and hey, I get loving a character that everyone else hates and maybe getting so swept up in that love that you forget that your fave is complicated and has made some unsavory choices. it sucks that fanon takes these well-written, complex villains/antiheroes and turns them into monsters with no critical thought whatsoever. but the attitude among Azula stans that her redemption shouldn’t be hard, that her being a child excuses all of the bad things that she’s done, that she is owed redemption....all of that rubs me the wrong way. I might make another post about this in the future that discusses this in more depth, but as it stands now: while I understand that there is a legacy of misogynistic, ableist, unnuanced takes on Azula, the backlash to that does not take into account the people she hurt or the fact that in ATLA she does not make the choice to pursue redemption. and yes, Zuko had help in making that choice that Azula didn’t, and yes, Azula is a victim of abuse, but in a show about children who have gone through untold horrors and still work to better the lives of the people around them, that is not enough for me to uncritically stan her. 

Conclusion    

misogyny in this fandom runs rampant. while there are some tropes of fandom misogyny that are well-documented and have been debunked numerous times, there are other, subtler forms of misogyny that as far as I know have gone completely unchecked. 

what I find so interesting about misogyny in atla fandom is that it’s clear that it’s perpetrated by people who are aware of fandom misogyny who are actively trying not to be misogynistic. when I first joined atla fandom last summer, memes about how zukka fandom was better than every other fandom because they didn’t hate the female characters who got in the way of their gay ship were extremely prevalent, and there was this sense that *this* fandom was going to model respectful, fun, feminist online fandom. not all of the topes I’ve outlined are exclusive to or even largely utilized in zukka fandom, but a lot of them are. I’ve been in and out of fandom since I was eleven years old, and most of the fandom spaces I’ve been in have been majority-female, and all of them have been incredibly misogynistic. and I always want to know why. why, in these communities created in large part by women, in large part for women, does misogyny run wild? what I realize now is that there’s never going to be a one-size fits all answer to that question. what’s true for 1D fandom on Wattpad in 2012 is absolutely not true for atla fandom on tumblr in 2021. the answers that I’ve cobbled together for previous fandoms don’t work here. 

so, why is atla fandom like this? why did the dream of a feminist fandom almost entirely focused on the romantic relationship between two male characters fall apart? honestly, I think the notion that zukka fandom ever was this way was horrifically ignorant to begin with. from my very first moment in the fandom, I was seeing racism, widespread sexualization of minors, and yes, misogyny. these aspects of the fandom weren’t talked about as much as the crocverse or other, much more fun aspects. further, atla (specifically zukka) fandom misogyny often doesn’t look like the fandom misogyny we’ve become familiar with from like, Sherlock fandom or what have you. for the most part, people don’t actively hate Suki, they just “stan” without actually caring about her. they hate Mai because they believe in treating male victims of abuse equally. they’re not characterizing Toph poorly, they’re writing her as a “strong woman.” in short, people are misogynistic, and then invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of feminist theory to shield themselves from accusations of misogyny. it’s not unlike the way some people will invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of critical race theory to shield themselves from accusations of racism, or how they’ll talk about “freedom of speech” and “the suppression of women’s sexuality” to justify sexualizing minors. the performance of feminism and antiracism is what’s important, not the actual practice. 

if you’ve made it this far, first off, hi, thanks so much for reading, I know this was a lot. second, I would seriously encourage you to be aware of these fandom tropes and to call them out when you see them. elevate the voices of fans who do the work of bringing the female characters of atla to life. invest in the wlw ships in this fandom. drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic (please, drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic). read some yuetara. let’s all be honest about where we are now, and try to do better in the future. I believe in us. 

[shinidamachu]

Tbh as someone who's both s*ssr*n and inukag im not sure if id consider you an anti tbh. You don't go and attack random se*sr*ners. Atleast i hope your not doing that. You disagree with the ship but ppl disliking the ship is to be expected because its to be expected with EVERY ship.I know you dislike y*shah*me. I dislike it cause of how it portrayed my ship. And tbh im dissapointed in the fandom because its become a new rule that you have to LOVE y*shahime. You hate it ,you become an outcast among your fellow sr shippers. Tbh i feel many s*ssr*ners don't know the definition of anti and i hate it. It made all the nice ones leave with toxic one remaining. And i fuckin hate it. I think my fear now is the inukag fandom changing and becoming extremely toxic like the s*ssr*n fandom.

First of all, thank you for being so civil. I appreciate that you disliked the way your ship was portrayed, especially because I'm quite aware of the pressure from your fellow shippers to turn a blind eye to the abomination that is ʏᴀsʜᴀʜɪᴍᴇ. It shows you have personality and critical thinking.

I understand it might be dissapointing to become an outcast in your own community, but come to think about it, it’s probably for the best, considering what they're defending. If all the nice people are leaving and only the toxic ones remained, you don’t want to be a part of it.

I suggest you surround yourself with people who think like you and create your own space, without the rest of them. You can and should unfollow or block users that post content you don't wanna see. These features exist for a reason.

Now, I hate ʏᴀsʜᴀʜɪᴍᴇ for a multitude of reasons, but I'd be lying if I said sᴇssʀɪɴ isn't the main one. And it's not just that I disagree with the ship or am just disliking it for the sake of disliking it, because it is not like the others.

sᴇssʀɪɴ grosses me out because it taints the wholesome, platonic relationship Takahashi intended to portray, ruining one of the two things I actually enjoyed about sᴇssʜᴏᴍᴀʀᴜ by making him develop romantic feelings for the character that was once his child ward.

And I couldn't care less if this makes me an anti or whatever other label people want to put on it, because I know my reasons to hate this ship are completely valid and the only reason people is trying to reduce this to a question of preference is to avoid the issue at hand by turning it into a ship war so they can hide behind the "ship and let ship" mentality, which only works for pairings that can actually consent to a relationship.

The instance I took on this whole matter is one I’m secure and proud of, so I don't feel the need to go and attack anyone over it. I'm a grown woman, perfectly capable of filtering the content I don't want to see and I have no desire to interact with this part of the fandom.

It’s also important to notice that attacking people is not a defining trait from a certain group of internet people. Anyone can be an asshole. Not only that but  attacking people and speaking up against the normalization of grooming, hebephilia and pedophilia are two very different and separate things. The same way I can’t stop people from shipping it, no one can stop me from being repulsed by it and expressing my discomfort in my own blog.

May I remind you that sᴇssʀɪɴ shippers have always existed and we all lived in peace. I've always hated the pairing, but for Inukag I could stomach sᴇssʀɪɴ as a side ship, especially in AU’s or when the authors had the decency to retcon their first meeting, his visits and her age. ʏᴀsʜᴀʜɪᴍᴇ, being an official sequel, could not do such thing, therefore sᴇssʜᴏᴍᴀʀᴜ and ʀɪɴ’s original interactions were completely recontextualized.

And this is what we have been pointing out since ʏᴀsʜᴀʜɪᴍᴇ’s announcement: the romantization of this kind of dynamic in children’s media. You could see the problem with how they portrayed your ship, but most shippers pretended it wasn’t there and defended it just so they can still say they won. It’s not about shipping it or not, it’s about advocating for something they know it’s problematic.

So, no. I will never support any personal attacks to anyone because of what they ship. But if their ship has grooming, hebephilia or pedophilia undertones, they can’t complain about the backlash their ship is inevitably going to get. That’s not purity police,gatekeeping or preventing people from enjoying things. That’s just common sense.

[bookofmirth]

Hello! I’ve recently seen the argument that e/riel will happen because the acotar spinoff books are in the adult romance genre (compared to the acotar books being put in ya), and adult romance books don‘t pull a “bait and switch” with love interests the way ya/na books do. Instead, adult romance books supposedly only put effort into developing one couple and will pull through with that couple until the end.

Tbh I don’t read much adult romance - usually just ya or adult fantasy - so I’m not sure how true this is, but I thought this argument was interesting because it literally would disprove e/riel lol.

Like if you look at the entire acotar series, then Elain and Lucien were mates before there was any indication of anything between Azriel and Elain. So then it would make sense for them to be the couple that will be endgame. And Az/Elain will be resolved without a huge romantic subplot because they really don’t have serious feelings for each other, it’s just following a pattern with the way Azriel attaches to unattainable women to avoid rejection and Elain trying to avoid the problems and feelings she needs to face by latching onto the ‘safe’ option.

And even if you are only looking at acosf since it’s the only book classified as adult romance from the beginning, then Az/Gwyn have more interactions throughout the entire story than Elain/Az. Like I guarantee if someone read acosf without reading the previous books, they would think Gwynriel would happen - especially with reading how the bonus chapter ends with Az thinking of Gwyn, not Elain.

I also think it’s interesting that e/riels claim it will happen because of their development, when in fact, the reason they probably won’t is because of their complete lack of development.

Sure, Az/Elain may be a bit farther along in the sexual attraction phase, but that’s it. They’ve been stuck in this limbo for 2 or 3 books? Nothing in their dynamic has changed. At all. That’s not development. They went from being polite acquaintances to polite acquaintances with sexual attraction. There is no indication that any deeper connection between the two has formed. Maybe some romances start off that way, but that’s just not how SJM writes. Even with Nesta and Cassian, there was actual development through acomaf and acowar and acofas before they got together in acosf. Nesta and Cassian go from hating each other, to Nesta revealing one of the most traumatic events of her life to him (the attempted SA), to saving his life because she realized she didn’t want to live without him, to becoming emotionally distant again over winter solstice, etc. You can actually chart the progress of their relationship - if you did with Elain and Az, it would just be a straight horizontal line.

Elain and Lucien have actual relationship development, even if they aren’t quite as far along yet. Their dynamic has shifted - from Elain avoiding him, to seeking him out, both of them going from being wary of the other to inquiring about the other’s wellbeing, etc (I don’t remember all of the elucien moments since it’s been a while since i last read the series, but I distinctly remember noticing changes in their relationship).

Sorry this got so long! But what do you think?

Hello! Sorry this took me a few days to get to! I think I know what discussion sparked this, and I gotta say that people need to understand that genres are a suggestion, not a rule book!

First off, the adult/YA distinction is about audience, not content. There is no "YA genre" or "adult genre". There are books intended for adult readers that could be of multiple genres, and there are books intended for younger readers that could also consist of multiple genres. I read a widely across both audiences and multiple genres.

Anyone who tries to say "but in adult romance this one specific thing always happens!" Well, no. Romance is probably one of the most rule-bound genres out there right now because readers want 1) consent, and 2) a happily ever after or the implication that it is to come. However, there are people currently writing romance, and they call it romance, where even those basic conventions are played with or ignored. Sometimes reader get mad, but that doesn't mean the writer is banned from using the phrase "romance" or else they will be thrown in RWA (Romance Writers of America) jail. There are multiple tropes, character types, story lines, there could be fantasy, it could be contemporary, it could be historical. And back in the day, consent was very dubious in romance, a lot of the time. I remember sneaking my mom's books. My point is that genres change, constantly, because of the stories that writers want to tell, and the stories that readers want to read.

Now granted, I don't read much YA romance because... I'm a grown ass woman. I've outgrown it, tbh. However, I wonder if people are referring to "bait and switch" in the way that sjm changes love interests? Because I haven't seen that as a "feature" of YA romance in particular. In acotar and ToG, the love interests changed not to trick the reader or make us off balance, but to reflect how the characters were growing.

There is literally nothing about romance as a genre that says that a love interest cannot change, and even if that were one of the major tenants of the genre that people expect, writers could still say "fuck this imma do it" because... genre is a guide, not a rule.

And Az/Elain will be resolved without a huge romantic subplot because they really don’t have serious feelings for each other, it’s just following a pattern with the way Azriel attaches to unattainable women to avoid rejection and Elain trying to avoid the problems and feelings she needs to face by latching onto the ‘safe’ option.

THIS.

They went from being polite acquaintances to polite acquaintances with sexual attraction.

AND THIS OMG

You can actually chart the progress of their relationship - if you did with Elain and Az, it would just be a straight horizontal line.

lmaooooo omg I love you

I agree with all of this. I also agree that it would work against the people who originated this argument to say "this ship has existed longer and so that's why people expect it or it should happen, because X genre says so".

1) This is not strictly romance, it's fantasy romance

2) Elucien were mates and a ship in the fandom months before e*riel were so this argument does seem self-defeating

3) There are zero rules that prevent sjm from fucking around with e*riel and then finding out they are poorly suited

4) Even if this were a regular ol' romance, there is no reason why a character can't have multiple partners so long as the HEA is still there or implied, if we're all gonna get up our butts about following romance conventions

5) Adult romance standalones do typically focus on one couple. However, that is not a guarantee. See: genre as a guide. I can think of multiple off the top of my head where an MC is in a relationship with someone else at the beginning of the book, or where the ex is a very recent, not quite dealt-with factor. acotar - I can't believe I have to write this - is not a standalone. Even if this spin-off series is described as following separate couples, it is a series, and the plot and character development don't just sprout out of nowhere in book five or six.

6) Genre theory is a thing, people can look it up! I am tired of typing haha

[jonroxton]

can you talk about chlark beyond chloe? personally i think it's weird that the writers kept adding kisses and weird romantic moments without any pay off. i don't know much about the fandom back then but i think the writers were baiting fans since clark/chloe seems to be the second most popular ship after clex. second i personally think chloe would never be happy with clark or anyone tbh and she doesn't seem like the type of person who would have kids so the finale was weird to me.

this got looooong :)

0. it WAS weird, and the choice to never not once go for it with them was to the story's detriment. I'll get into it a little later on in this post.

Re: shipping in sv fandom. there was definitely drama (clana was HUGE when the show was airing and every ship was basically derailed by it lol) but I stayed in my clois lane with a small circle of fandom friends much like I do now. a good measure of clois fans were fans of lois and clark from other mediums, come to sv just for lois and clark, myself included. we were pretty insulated as a fandom even back then. I do remember seeing more Chlark after the S5 finale (when Chloe kisses him goodbye), but those dropped off after Jimmy was introduced right away in S6. The most drama I encountered was with Chloisers: Chloe fans who believed wholeheartedly that Chloe was Lois. They hated SV!Lois and were convinced she would die so Chloe could take her name and job and place by Clark's side, thus a Chlark endgame. this was a popular theory amongst that fandom even into s9, when the clois ball started to roll for true.

bait and switch

a lot of Chlark is rooted in this notion that chloe WOULD be the best thing for Clark, the ideal Lois, the true best friend, the human hand guiding him through Earth's troubles. she would be could be the BEST possible lois archetype for Clark. it's not a wrong interpretation. she was specifically written as a lois-and-lana-proxy (teenage lana is a reporter in some AUs and even some as an adult as a tv correspondent) and she's given many lois-ish traits (tenacious, secretly crushing on clark and in denial), but this interpretation is deeply flawed. first, because lois does eventually enter into the picture and she has her own defining traits that, when compared to chloe, make chloe seem much shallower than realized. secondly, within the complete context of the story, her position in the greater narrative is not as ~the one who got away, the way it did very early on in S1-S4, but one who clark tolerates.

they're friends because clark is forgiving and chloe has staying power. their friendship is riddled with insecurities and unknowns the characters create for themselves. their dynamic is defined by conflict, not resolutions. this is not made easy by the fact that chloe is such a strangely written character, but ultimately she is positioned as a counter to clark achieving his happiness. not a thematic narrative foil but an obstacle clark eventually relents to.

2. and it has been so from the get-go

S1 is the best season for them and the single season which actually considers Clark's side in this dynamic. everything about them later on can be explained with how they are in this season. and that's the problem. when they're 14 it's nice teen angst drama and works perfectly to establish the dynamic. when they're 24 it's at best a pattern, at worst regression. we expect certain behaviors, dismiss them too, when it's children, at least I do. clark and chloe never move beyond the dynamic they establish in s1 and early s2. in essence, clark and chloe remain children around each other. they have many discussions in the later seasons that make at least one appear petulant.

so S1 clark has just been told the greatest secret of his existence and he imprints on lana hard that same night (right AFTER jonathan tells him, he meets lana at the graveyard and talks to her for the first time EVER, a lot of childhood imprinting going on in SV). all of s1 follows clark's heartache over lana, watching her from afar and figuring out a way to be near her. this pain is exacerbated by the fact that he believes he caused her her greatest grief: the death of her parents via the meteor shower which he arrived in.

here the first beat of the chlark dynamic is established: chloe's job and passion – the wall of weird and her pursuing the meteor infected oddities of SV - directly affects clark in a negative way (he's suicidal for much of s1-s3). so her crush on him is countered with her unknowingly causing him great grief. om top of that: clark becomes part of this passion of hers and she eventually begins to pursue him as a story to be uncovered, very superman yes. here tho, it causes nothing but strife for them and paints chloe in an awful light (and clark too, highlighting his refusal to open up). I personally enjoy this aspect of them in s1. bc they're so young I give em a free pass and it's a good conflict playing around with old superman tropes, but it makes for a fraught friendship.

3. the second beat

is that neither chloe's crush on clark, nor his asking her to stop pursuing his truth, do anything to stay her. her tenaciousness becomes intrusiveness and inconsideration (many of her accomplishments irt the daily planet are directly bc she betrays clark). she simply will not listen to her friend and does not believe his livelihood and autonomy is worth losing a story over. this is literally the opposite of comics/live action lois lane, who in various versions drops the clark reveal story to protect him. this passion turns vindictive pretty early for chloe, who eventually pursues stories about clark out of jealousy and entitlement (against lana also).

4. the third beat

is that clark doesn't ever see chloe as romantic prospect except this time in s1. the tornado trapping lana pulls him away from any solidifying of the clark/chloe dynamic, and that's that. but we know clark was willing to go for it in early s2 when he apologizes to chloe about running off on her. it's chloe who decides not to go on with the relationship. clark is visibly confused, but also 15 so he can't see that chloe is putting on a brave front to protect herself from clark running off again. I liked this too as it's another play on superman tropes, but my sympathy for them stops here.

5. and stays here

these beats are the entirety of this dynamic. everything about chlark can be distilled down to their childhood. it's why I don't hate them completely, bc I have a lot of love for kids who hurt in such a way and that time is never easy. in s8 (I think its s8) when we get a flashback to when they meet as kids (more imprinting!). little tenacious cute chloe kisses insecure clark bc of the funny awkward tension, acknowledging it, and then immediately takes it back because they're better as friends. (also they’re like 11 lol)

every single romantic moment with them is undercut either by chloe herself, or by the presence of other storylines/romances the writers wanted to pursue. the lack of integrity in chloe and the lack of interest in clark, regardless of how sincere their connection or how messed up, is a central part of their dynamic that needs to be reconciled with their friendship. and its exhausting bc there is never a point they are ever truly comfortable around each other.

6. to a fault

knowing the secret doesn't change chloe's methods. it doesn't make chloe clark's great confidante. if anything, it complicates matters for both because their relationship then becomes about the greater good and clark's great destiny. everything chloe does becomes about that, which in theory sounds awesome, but is executed much the same way as s1!chlark: by reiterating behaviors that highlight the negative aspects of that loyalty and the negative aspects of their characters.

the single time they do actively examine what this loyalty means and how chloe's hero complex complicates things for chlark is with s8 and davis. she protects davis with the skills of subterfuge and secrecy she developed as clark's friend. and it costs her jimmy and a lot of her personal integrity as a character. tho ironically it makes chloe the strongest she's been as a character. this is the first time clark is forced to view chloe as an enemy and he never quite recovers from discovering the dark depths she’s willing to go to. 

it's an arc dealing with the established beats: how far chloe is willing to go for a kryptonian (very far), how much she's willing to do for him (A LOT and all of it illegal), and what it costs her (jimmy). it deals with her jealousy (always second choice) and her motivations (uncovering the truth). this great want that she struggled with for years is turned on its head and examined, revealing just how weird and dark her hero complex is because obviously davis is not clark. davis/chloe served to highlight more than any other arc how it's really too bad that clark never saw her that way, because she has so much love to give and when channeled, it's a great force. only it's a great force for evil. clark has to confront that it’s not just lex but his other closest friend who is willing to go so far. they backtrack hard in s9 and s10 but they keep this underlying wariness in clark towards Chloe throughout. it’s not anything new, but it’s no longer subtext that clark doesn’t fully trust chloe.

7. And that's the rub

in the end. chloe and clark have many storylines they're in together and chloe's important.... to develop clark and as a counter to clark. clark never instigates anything, not once, for 9 years! when the show did give us Moments TM, clark is reacting, not actively making choices to connect to her. if anything, clark is incredibly awkward about chloe when they become intimate. he doesn't seem to know what to do with her crushing on him (the elevator scene is a great one to show just how awkward chloe makes him feel). more than that. clark never tells her his secret. and later on, chloe doesn't tell him half the crazy wild shit she does to protect him bc she knows he would disapprove. I still hold that the only reason they work is bc clark is a forgiving character and would give her chance after chance after chance. that's the watsonian explanation, but the doylist explanation is that the writers just never cared to explore them beyond this point.

8. and what was beyond that point?

they would've been a great counter to lexana in S6 and early clana (clark finally having a gf who knows). it’s playing the clark/Chloe as a straight lois/clark proxy before actually pursuing lois and clark. it could’ve been the precursor to davis and caused an even more personal conflict! the kiss at the end of s5 was their chance. they could've written chlark devolving much the same way lexana did in s6 (or not). but again. the writers never went that far and clearly never wanted to. it kept chlark forever in this stage of childhood friendship always on the brink of collapsing, tittering either way. it's also tough to speculate bc clark's just not into her. in fact he becomes more and more wary of her, to the point where he believes she can do horrible things, and he's right. the stories continually make their methods complete opposite.

they go out of their way to show chloe realizing how happy clark is with lois. and even play a joke on the fandom by literally turning her into lois and seeing the sparks between her friends. it's almost... cruel but it does serve to show how clark is when he's smitten and he's never looked at chloe that way except during the dance when they were kids. other unrequited dynamics have at least some spark from the desired, but nil from clark. clark is into chloe in late s1, but she shuts him down, and when he seems to be into her again (damn that s5 kiss was a good one lol), she shuts him down again. it's just a weird writing choice all around, and that they kept nuggets of it throughout the show is the thing I cringe at most whenever I rewatch.

9. bait and switch 2

with hindsight it is definitely ship baiting and that sucks for that dynamic bc without it their friendship would’ve been the stronger, or at least not full of so much negativity. all it did was remind everyone that chloe’s been duped since she was a kid and that clark is both stupid and strange for never noticing and letting her get away with shit just bc she’s the most loyal. I don’t ship them and even I get frustrated lol

[travoltacustom]

HYPNOSIS MICROPHONE 4TH INTERNATIONAL POLL (DECEMBER 2020) Part 6: Fandom and the Future of HypMic

Thank you for your participation! These are the final results for the 4th Hypnosis Microphone International Poll. After months of work on this, we have estimates for general fandom opinions. Do you agree or disagree with the general opinions? Please let us know!

The results were held back from original posting as we were waiting to post for a month before the 2nd DRB finals (which is on Doppo’s Birthday this year.) My deepest apologies for how long this took to get out. We will be releasing these results with a section per day, with the end of these results showing the Japanese side.

Click the READ MORE to view the results.

PREFACE

The data collection for this poll received 902 votes to give us an indication of the demographic of those who consume Hypnosis Mic. This poll was open to English speakers, and thus, results may be considerably Euro/American-centric. The word ‘international’ has been used to refer to how fans are from many places around the world, but the poll may also refer to this group as ‘English-speaking’ etc. The Japanese poll had a smaller respondent pool with 400.

This poll received the most activity through Twitter, given that the series is most active on that platform. The poll was also posted on Tumblr, Facebook and the HypMic wiki. Commentary has been given on sections of the poll. These results will be available in full on from this account. The Japanese poll results shall follow about a week with comparison to this poll.

The poll was conducted from December 2020 to January 2021. This poll is UNOFFICIAL and none of the composers of this poll have any relation to King Records whatsoever.

This has been split into MULTIPLE posts due to the amount of data and limitations of tumblr.

PART 6: Miscellaneous Questions

Respondents were allowed to select up to 3 characters.

As we were processing these results, all characters have received some part of character development.

Did MTR deserve the 1st DRB win?

YES, Matenro did deserve the 1st DRB win: 73.1%

NO, Matenro did not deserve the 1st DRB win: 26.9%

Did FP deserve the Rule the Stage DRB win?

YES, Fling Posse did deserve the Rule the Stage DRB win: 83.9%

NO, Fling Posse did not deserve the Rule the Stage DRB win: 16.1%

Who do you believe will win the 2nd DRB? This was not a ‘who do you WANT to win’ question.

CANNOT DECIDE: 23.9%

Fling Posse: 21.7%

MAD TRIGGER CREW: 17%

Dotsuitare Honpo: 14.6%

Matenro: 9.6%

Bad Ass Temple: 8.4%

Buster Bros!!!: 4.7%

Who do you think will win BB vs DH, MTC vs FP, MTR vs BAT?

Dotsuitare Honpo VS Buster Bros!!!

Dotsuitare Honpo: 56.3%

Buster Bros!!!: 31.1%

Can’t Decide: 12.6%

Bad Ass Temple VS Matenro

Bad Ass Temple: 33.4%

Matenro: 50.8%

Can’t Decide: 15.9%

Fling Posse VS MAD TRIGGER CREW

Fling Posse: 44.8%

MAD TRIGGER CREW: 41.5%

Can’t Decide: 13.7%

WHAT ARE YOU HOPING TO SEE IN THE MAIN PLOT OF HYPMIC?

With 902 responses, we decided not to do a table of these as we’ve already showed which characters respondents wanted to be explored more. However, we will show ‘interesting’ points that we’ve found.

INTERESTING RESPONSES

Exploration of the pre H-era Japan, what caused the war and what the war was like.

Exploration of post WW3 / H-era Japan with politics, society etc.

More female characters as either part of Chuohku, rebellion etc. Possible mixed gender crews

Revolution/rebellion against Chuohku. Referred to as “a SUMMIT OF DIVISIONS moment in canon” and later governmental reform.

Why was the Hypnosis Mic created and more on its development.

In depth explanation as to what happens after being mindhacked.

General insight into more than backstories but their daily lives and possibly romantic lives.

Introduction of more divisions / return of old characters to form new divisions

Another anime season; a proper adaptation of the manga

Why were the Yamadas ‘orphaned/abandoned/separated’ from Rei? Why did Ichiro hide what happened?

BB’s Mother/Rei’s partner - did something bad happen to her?

Jyuto’s past - how he used to be when his parents and partner were still alive.

Why did Jyuto interrogate Doppo?

Does Samatoki feel guilty for blaming Ichiro? Does he feel resentment towards Ramuda even though he figures that he was ordered to do this?

Jakurai’s history as an assassin

More on Yotsutsuji and Jakurai’s relationship

Jakurai and Hitoya’s friendship and how it ‘fell apart’

Who is the original Ramuda and why were the clones created?

Others finding out about the Ramuda clones.

Hifumi and Doppo’s childhood/highschool years.

How did Doppo’s depression get so bad?

The Dirty Dawg’s reconciliation

MAD COMIC DIALOGUE / Ichiro & Kuko / Samatoki & Sasara talking things out and addressing what happened

OTHER RESPONSES

Many responses of just “yes”, “):” “I’m” and “...”, but most importantly “I’m just kind of here for the ride”

There are many that are begging for angst, character death and “chaos”. Some have wished suffering upon certain characters but these will not be disclosed.

“For all of them to get therapy tbh”

“LGBTQ”

“A more complex plot”

“fun and crazy things”

Mentions of ships becoming canon: Hifumi x Doppo, Sasara x Rosho

There were accusations of HPMI being “sexist/misogynistic/not feminist enough” that went on to describe things that have already been addressed.

“I just wanna see Ichiro yelling “fuck you” to his dad”

Otome being Buster Bros!!! mom as well, or that she had some relationship with Rei.

“more test tube babies”

“More Doppo screams”

“(...) Whether or not Rei is worth saving or if I should just rip his tits off (...)”

“An explanation for (why) Rei is Like That”

“Rei vs the rest of the cast just because Mastermind boss battle”

“rei boobs”

“man I just hope they have a nice day. I would like to know about Kuko more :) hes funky and i think that's neat hope hes having a nice day :)))“

“More Kuko feet”

ADDRESSED REPONSES: Responses that have been answered/addressed during the 2nd DRB dramatracks to some degree.

Buster Bros!!! fighting with Rei

Jiro and Saburo no longer being dependent on Ichiro

Jiro and Saburo’s relationship being repaired / seeing eye to eye.

Jyuto’s backstory with the drug problem

How is Ramuda able to participate in the DRB if he’s being hunted down

Gentaro’s identity and brother/family.

Dice confronting Otome

Jakurai coming to Chuohku’s side

Hifumi’s trauma and who Honobono is. (Note: I hope you guys are okay after this one)

Sasara’s time as a gangster with Samatoki

Sasara/Rosho dependency

Nemu being freed from her mindhack/will she be freed.

Is Yotsutsuji still alive/comatose?

WHY DID YOU GET INTO HYPMIC?

Of 902 responses, 166 responses mentioned a character by name or song. Not all characters were mentioned but of the ones mentioned, each was mentioned:

Of 902 responses, 47 mentioned a division by name or song. Each were mentioned:

Fling Posse: 11 times

Bad Ass Temple: 9 times

Buster Bros!!! 7 times

Chuohku: 6 times

Dotsuitare Honpo: 4 times

Matenro: 3 times

Of 902 responses, 43 mentioned a seiyuu. Each were mentioned:

Here are some ‘notable’ reasons people got into HypMic:

“That's a loaded question buddy, assuming I went into this willingly. (...)”

“(...) I love how hypmic combined Male Idols, (Jojo) Stands, and a whole lot of angst in a project (with some fluff here and there).”

“Riou’s tits”

“Because I hated seeing it everywhere so I decided to learn about it before I hate it more. I've fallen deep into this hell.”

“ensemble stars made me v upset”

“I saw bald Ramuda plushie and wanted to know more about him”

“I saw Jakurai and went OOGA BOOGA.

“honestly i saw some fanart of doppo with the fattest and most juiciest ass ever and i was immediately interested, but unfortunately doppo cannonically has a concave ass and jakurai doing a brazillian butt lift on doppo’s ass cannot save it </3 i still love him though”

“Haha pretty rapper bois go brr”

“I'm gay”

“someone was hating on it on twitter and i decided to download arb”

“friend of mine told me to install enstars game, so i installed hypmic”

“I downloaded one of the songs without knowing what it was from for a two week trip into the buttfuck middle of nowhere Wyoming for a school trip in 11th grade and it’s one of the only things that kept me sane”

“Because Jakurai was a hot milf “

“Ice cream spoons”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

To see the next part with comparison to the JP fandom, please follow us to the next post. To view ideas on the series’ production, go back to the previous post.

PREVIOUS | NEXT - NOTE: WILL BE POSTED TOMORROW THEN LINKED HERE

[1833outboy]

thanks @padawanryan for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

9

2. What’s your total AO3 wordcount?

169,181

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

well, ao3 says one, but i have friends and doctor who fanfics i wrote years ago on other sites

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Said I'll Be Fine Sunshine Riptide Spiral of Shame Sat Next To You, Watched You Smile Photo-Proofed Kisses

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i try to! i'm not always the best at doing so in a timely manner, i need to get better at that, but i appreciate the hell out of each and every one

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

'Til Your Heart Goes Numb, for sure. i like it, i think it's haunting in the way i wanted and it's certainly spooky and sad if that's what you want in a halloween fic, but well, 3/4 of fob end up dead lol. i don't think it's something i'd write nowadays, i've gotten soft in the 3 years since i wrote it.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

no. said i'll be fine came closest in that it's loosely based on the movie 50/50, but no outright crossovers.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

not exactly, but back in the late 2000s the fic commenting scene was... quite different, and critiques about grammar and stuff were much more common. occasionally i'd post a fic and get a little paragraph of notes about my bad grammar or how my interpretation of a character wasn't as good as theirs lol. constructive criticism was encouraged, and sometimes the line between being constructive and just being kind of a petty dick was very thin. i'm glad things are different nowadays.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

it features in my fics, yeah, but it's usually second to the characters and the plot tbh. i don't think i'm great at smut and sometimes it's not as fun as writing the build up lol. i can't imagine i'd write a fic that's entirely smut or kink.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of *touches wood*

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

no, but that'd be awesome!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no, but that'd also be awesome! i did rp on dreamwidth from 2011 to like 2017, and the way we used to rp in games on that site was basically an unorganised way of co writing a fic tbh. a fic that changed povs every few paragraphs, but still.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

...peterick. tbh it is difficult, because as long as the hyperfixation is on a ship, that's gonna be my all time favourite lol. but right now it's peterick.

14. What’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

ugh, don't make me look at all these gdocs.

okay, there is a fic that lives permanently in my head and has done since 2019. it's a childhood friends to lovers thing where patrick lives on a farm as a child, but finds a stray wolf/large dog in the woods nearby. he brings it home and oh, what do ya know, it turns into a boy named pete, who can turn into a wolf at will. pete and patrick are close friends as kids, but grow apart and pete disappears - then there's a timeskip and they reunite as adults, and they fall in love. it's a slow burn coming of age friends to lovers thing, as well as all manner of other stuff.

it probably sounds stupid and convoluted and stuff, but it's very vivid in my head. the problem comes when trying to write any of this down. it's all perfect in my head, but nothing sounds right when put to paper. my perfectionism i guess, will ensure it doesn't get written, sigh.

15. What are your writing strengths?

i think i'm pretty good at getting emotions across. i also like writing dialogue and like to hope i'm alright at that.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

the above mentioned perfectionism: i cannot for the life of me write without editing as i go. i procrastinate... a lot. i also don't think i'm great at descriptive scenes or like, working out where characters are or exactly what they're doing at any given moment lol

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i'm for it! context probably matters, and i think if the pov character understands then it should probably be translated in some way, but yeah. i don't see any problem with it!

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

it was friends fandom, back in 2008 lol. my first fic was called 'friends season 11' and written in script format...

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

it's probably a tie between said i'll be fine and sunshine riptide.

uhhh. i tag... @toorational @hum-my-name @glitterandrocketfuel @gothfob @laudanumcafe and anyone else who wants to! sorry if you've been tagged already lol

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

Writing Tag Game

Tagged by: @skyerie

How many works do you have on AO3?

234

What’s your total word count on AO3?

3,536,984

Do you reply to comments? Why or why not?

I only reply if someone is actively seeking an answer to a question they have, or if they've convinced themselves that something is going to happen and I have to nip it in the bud so they don't get pissy at me when what they've dreamed up doesn't happen.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Hm... Regret. It's a Hannigram fic of mine and it's basically Hannibal jumping the gun and being wrong and having to make up for it but there's no real way to do that.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I think it's On ICE!!!, my Victuuri fic. It's just all fluff and feels.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the strangest one you’ve written?

Tons. I think it would have to be my Inuyasha/The Hobbit crossover fic.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Often.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yeah, but only when the mood strikes or it won't be good. I can write some kinks but not others.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

All the damn time. By Wattpad users.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I think like 2 willingly and many without my permission that I can't do anything about because I don't speak Russian.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Hard to choose. Harrymort/Tomarry, Victuuri, Hannigram, Johnlock, Wangxian. so many good ones tbh.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Can Your Friends Do This? I simply lost inspiration for it which sucks because my goal was for it to be over 1 Million words long.

What are your writing strengths?

Quick typing, active imagination, depth & detail, and negative emotions.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Terrible grammar, rambling, and poor math skills.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I'd do it and have no problem reading it so long as a translation is provided for understanding.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Sailor Moon. It was never posted though since I didn't have internet access at the time.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I don't think I can pick just one.

For HP - Strive

For Hannibal- Not Interested

For MDZS- Too Beautiful for Words, Will my Thoughts Suffice?

For YOI- Melodies Unheard but Felt All the Same

For Naruto- Yuuki: Living Rich

Tagging: Anyone who wants to do it.

[musette22]

hey, it's the anon that sent in the thing abt rpf being iffy. i understand your points, and i don't have a huge problem with it if it stays in fandom spaces. i think my issue just comes from my own stance that celebrities deserve to not have their private lives speculated or written abt, even if it is just a fantasy. but i don't think you're necessarily being immoral or wrong, and i know that the speculating and writing abt celebrities is so widespread now that it probably won't stop. i sometimes just feel bad for the people that might feel violated by it. and, for the record, i also rlly don't like the "self-shipping" with celebrities either, as it seems pretty invasive. also, someone replied to my ask that you answered saying that i probably just don't like that you ship two men rather than a man and a woman, and that is absolutely not true, i'm a lesbian lmao. anyways, i just thought it was worth it to clear a couple things up. i hope you have a good day!! <3

Hi, thanks for sending another messages and clarifying a few things, I appreciate it! I also appreciate your stance about the private lives of celebrities and I do understand where you're coming from. Just for the record; you explained your issue well in your first ask and there was nothing that made me think you had a problem with same sex shipping!

The way I see it, most celebrities more or less willingly renounce some of their privacy just by becoming a celebrity - I'd even say that's inherent in the concept of celebrity/fame. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone, at least not in the entertainment industry, who is famed merely for their art or profession, and has never talked about their personal life or thoughts publicly (whether in interviews, at fan meetings, in their songs, etc.). If you're famous, people will know certain things about you, unless you try really hard to keep your private life completely private, but even then idk if that could ever be achieved. Of course, no one is entitled to know anything about celebrities - it all depends on what and how much they want to share with the public. And if they want to share some things and keep other things private, that's their prerogative and we should respect their boundaries in that regard. I would never demand (or even ask) information about a celebrity's family, relationship status or sexual preferences, for instance, if they didn't volunteer that information themselves.

But I can't imagine celebrity culture without a certain amount of fascination with and/or lusting after said celebrities, whether by their fans or the general public. I don't think it's possible to separate the two completely. So I don't think it's wrong or weird to privately think/speculate about their private lives, as long as you observe certain hard boundaries, which I've explained in reply to your previous ask.

If I'm not mistaken, the self-shipping you mention sounds like reader insert fic? If so, I wasn't even necessarily talking about that tbh, I just meant like, when you're on a train and you start daydreaming about meeting your favourite celebrity and what they'd say to you and how they'd fall in love with you and how they might kiss you etc. etc. That's something I think a lot of people (not everyone, but a lot, especially people who are 'fans', with more than a casual interest in a celebrity) have done at some point in their lives. And I don't really see how that's different from putting it down on paper, as long as you make sure the celebs never get to see it, just as they'll never see the thoughts in your head.

Basically, what happens in both cases is we put words in their mouths and make them do things in our imagination - in a way, they're almost just as much characters as fictional characters are, because at the end of the day, we don't truly know these people, and we certainly can't control them. I don't know if you saw what someone else in the notes of the other ask said as well, about Sir Ian McKellan? @misspluckyplum said that "Ian McKellen was asked on his website what he thought about 'real person slash'. He remarked, and I'm paraphrasing here, that those who were writing RPS didn't know the real him, therefore weren't depicting the real him, so how could he begrudge creative expression that had nothing to do with him anyways?"

That's how I personally see it as well. I met Sebastian once, and it was acutely clear to me that he was a stranger. Sure, I know a lot about him, but that's not the same as knowing him personally. The things I know about him are what I use to write my stories, but what I inevitably end up with is a character of my own making with lots of personal projection, sprinkled with some real life facts and mannerisms of actual people bearing the same name as my characters. I do see how that could entail a risk of objectification/sexualization, but I personally fantasize just as much if not more about these guys shyly confessing their feelings, holding hands, and raising babies together as I do about them having sex. For me, it's really much more about creative expression, and an outlet for personal romantic feelings, thoughts and desires, than it is about me wanting to completely know or - god forbid - control Chris or Sebastian or have a say in their lives.

I know you also mentioned that you would be weirded out if you knew people were shipping you with a friend of yours, and I understand what you mean. Some people will think it's extremely strange and invasive and it would be especially strange and invasive if you're a non-famous person. But like I said, by far the majority of celebrities will be aware that they've signed off some of their privacy in becoming famous. A few of them clearly hate that (which I think should be respected as much as possible) and some may be more protective over their personal lives than others, but generally speaking, I think if you habitually agree to do photoshoots, interviews and public performances or events, you're used to, and to certain extent even okay with, people being fascinated by you and wanting you/wanting you do do things.

Moreover, I've also heard about quite a few celebs who have endorsed or encouraged RPF shipping because they think it's fun or flattering, so in the end I think it depends on the person whether they'd consider RPF shipping invasive or not. I personally would not mind at all if I were famous and people would write stories about me and my best friend falling in love if that brought them comfort or happiness for some reason, as long as I didn't have to read the stories and people would not harass either of us about it. But again, that's a personal stance, and of course we can't know who is or isn't okay with it, unless they tell us. If they do know and they hate it, and they tell their fans to stop, I would of course respect their wishes in a heartbeat. But until then, I think it's okay to operate on the assumption that "what they don't know can't hurt them", especially if it's coming from a place of love and respect.

Sorry this got so long, it's just something I have a lot of thoughts and feeling about! I hope you have a lovely day as well! <3

[transsexualhamlet]

tg anime vs manga *sighs*

i have the power of hyperfixation and anime on my side! AAAAAAAA

Ok now that we’ve gotten the sins of re post out of the way we need to discuss this. And I just feel that this needs to be covered because I can’t ever get away from constant discourse on this, mostly fueled by manga readers who feel entitled to always think they’re superior for reading the manga, that the manga is the only real canon, that it’s more complex or better, I’m so fucking tired of it. I am also a manga reader, and I tend to get like that sometimes too with many series (for example no. 6 and the promised neverland.) I get it. It can be really annoying to see something butchered on screen to what the original is, changed or represented differently or given a different message or simplified. But just. Some people like the anime and it’s not a goddamn holy war for y’all to fight. It only makes anime fans not want to read the thing even more yknow cause manga readers are pretentious assholes, and I am aware of this as one of them.

(again ok i’d like to mention i know this fandom is basically dead but a certain p*nterest is always like 4 years behind on fandoms so i keep fucking running into Discourse that’s like, still current, whenever i want old random ass content) (and youtube, why do i look at youtube comments, because I personally enjoy being offended? yeah probably)

And that brings me to the point of this anime vs manga. 

This is a lot harder to compare than a lot of other series, because there are just... so many more differences not just in the style and vibe but the story itself.

Disclaimer, I’ve never watched the anime for :re and i don’t intend to, because I honestly have no earthly clue how tf you can get from the highly diverged tokyo ghoul root A to re and make it make sense, and I don’t really want A ruined for me. So you can call me biased towards the manga in the case of re, i guess (which makes my eventual conclusion even more strong I’d say) Honestly I just see them as two completely different stories, the manga’s version connecting with re and A just like... ending there. So how we’re drawing the lines is basically tokyo ghoul A versus the manga and :re. God, I know this isn’t a fair fight because I already hate re so much, but I feel like the manga’s story is much more intertwined with :re than the anime’s is, so that’s what we’re going with.

oh god also another disclaimer this opinion is coming from the biggest fucking kanehide whore, you can disregard anything i say if you ship The Straights and/or do not care for my boi hide

To be honest, if I can take my own conclusions and liberties to the story, I like both versions, each have their pros and cons and kind of a conflicting message. They can’t really coexist. Usually I’d consume all versions and then create one consistent canon in my head for what I accept as the true events (for example my main owari no seraph, first season of the anime is canon but after that we only follow the manga since those can come together and make sense.) but it’s very hard to do that in tokyo ghoul, since I must confess... I really like root A. Like of course, it’s a lot different from the manga, but tbh I think it’s super valid. (unlike most Fans TM like this Fan TM who i’m sending this post to just to spite their singular Youtube Comment Section Discourse, yes I did write this post for you and many others like you) But the ideas that make up root A conflict a lot with the ones of the manga, so I just have to accept that they’re separate things and treat them as such.

Now to break it down so people can understand where I’m coming from I guess? God this is already so long here’s a read more

The Case for The Manga (including :re manga)

More Lore + Plot Shit: One of the main reasons that manga readers are pretentious little bitches is a valid reason, namely that, as is the case with most manga, there’s simply more to it than people can fit into an anime. (Although people need to understand that’s because,,, it’s simply a different medium, so it will have different pluses and minuses, such as for example a soundtrack, color, moving pictures,,, you know, all that. Anime onlys don’t say that the anime is better by stating these things that a manga won’t have... because they’re fucking obvious. So manga readers should stop acting like an anime is inherently sub-par for being less in depth, but we digress.) I can understand that reading the manga is kind of important for wanting to understand the lore (though there are like so many other reasons ppl might want to watch it other than to get the lore) and without the explanation of how all this came to be and how it works, everything tends to be really mysterious, confusing, and seemingly random. It’s really nice to know what’s all going on, of course, and stuff like the washuus, rize’s backstory, the explanation for like, kaneki in general, all that- if you’re looking for like, plot shit, manga is definitely your go to. But like, sometimes, you like, don’t actually care about those things.

Haise: Of course one of the most important things about well, including re is that I fucking love Haise. Like he is my favorite Kaneki. He’s just so wonderful, look at him in he glasses and he floofy hair and he striped pants and he energy boxers and he s p i c e and he MOM. And I really like how they took Kaneki’s character and developed it more with Haise, you can see his turnaround from innocent--> Emo--> Trying To Be Innocent Again But Failing and I think that’s really sweet tbh. I rejected that at first because I didn’t understand it but once I actually read re I thought it made a lot of sense and was a logical thing to do with his character. (though, uh, moving forward, after his hair changes again i disagree with it, haise 1.0 is a good take and i love him and i want the best for him) I could go on I’ve already written a post of what I think is wrong with :re so if you want to hear my take on kaneki’s 37 pokemon evolutions that’s in there

Good New Characters: And of course there are my favorite bitches such as quinx squad, oh my god, there was a terminal lack of dumbass squad vibes in the original and ishida fucking gave it to us, I love them, I love them with all my heart and I think that if I wasn’t attached to them I’d probably just cancel all of :re but like this is just my personal problem. God I love them. Ishida always pulls through with characters I’m now too attached to.

Vore Lmao:Ok like hear me out. I just get a laugh out of it every time the manga has to remind me of this little fucking fact. Like ok I just. Cannot get over it. It’s so serious about it too and like I realize it’s a serious deal but o h  m y  g o d

Ok and now that we’ve got that little rant over I do want to say that it is like actually really important past the “lmao that’s pretty gay” bit, like??? In some ways it’s more fitting than the anime because well, ishida’s point always seems to be “what would mentally and physically hurt kaneki the most right now” and does it because that’s who this bitch is. But it just?? Kind of makes a bit more sense for the storyline if we’re being picky here, it’s so,,, painfully on point? Like the entire reason he gave in to Being A Ghoul and all was so he could save his friends and shit (i actually do not remember if this was a thing in the manga but like? when he was being tortured and he like imagined hide being really mad at him and getting killed by jason and shit?) LIKE AND THEN HE GOES AND HAS TO BASICALLY BE THE PERPETRATOR OF THAT HIMSELF, FUCK, it’s a lose/lose situation of “don’t do the bad thing and watch your friends suffer” or “do the bad thing and watch your friends suffer but like, later” ishida please

The meaning of Hide being alive: Ok this is just me crying over chapter 75 still but like. Instead of in the anime, where hide’s point seems to be that instead of letting kaneki sacrifice anything more he’d be the one to give his life up and such, and save kaneki, in the anime tbh he just really wanted to be with kaneki right then?? and like ouch but understanding that in the manga he wasn’t just planning on dying and leaving kaneki to deal with it afterward he wanted to go on and continue to try to help the guy no matter the shit he had to go through, no matter if the dude just like forgot that he existed for two years and all- LIKE UH CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW HIDE DOESN’T EVEN EXPECT ANY APOLOGY? like kaneki’s like “OH MY GOD I’M SUCH A TERRIBLE PERSON” and hide’s like lmao nah it’s cool i’m thriving- that his big motto was “live” rather than “peace out motherfuckers it’s been fun”. Cause. Fucking. Ishida. Can’t kill off characters well but like at least he made keeping this one alive justified. 

The D e t a i l s: Ok well I feel like this is something everyone knows but the anime is missing a lot of really,,, crunchy details that the manga throws in there, like, well, kaneki’s fucking,,, bones thing, and other assorted details, g o d like those are missable if you want to never understand half the memes but also like,,, sometimes you just gotta read that shit. It also like, makes more sense when you do but sometimes it’s just stupid things that aren’t important but are fucking hilarious.

The Flavor: In general I’d say the greatest difference between the anime and the manga is the general flavor of the thing, the vibe in the manga is a lot, to be frank, darker and grosser and bloodier than the anime, which is a lot more focused on being pretty and Tragic than “HOLY SHIT WTF” but like. That’s valid. With that comes it being a lot more, real, and although the art may not be as polished as the anime’s, sometimes that’s exactly what you need, and the really gritty sketchy shit that’s in the manga sometimes is exactly what it’s supposed to be for the manga. (in the anime, i’d say that the colored and polished style fits it better, so we’re good there.) It’s a lot more real, in the manga, when the anime hesitates to “go there” a lot (and well, sometimes that’s welcome, but sometimes it’s like y o u  g u y s  c o m e  o n  r e a l l y maybe i DID want to see that did you ever think of that)

So like, to sum it up i’d just like to say it’s more detailed, sharper and darker and is simply So Much. There is just More Content

The Case for Root A

ON THE OTHER HAND, (buckle up fuckers)

Depth of Emotion (that Ishida was too much of a pissbaby for): God like you know what I mean if you read the last post, we spent a whole episode on these gay fucks in root A, with backstory and dreams and drawn out suspense and emotion and GUYS LOOK AT THEM NO REALLY OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS whereas hide’s limelight in the manga is a whole... two pages, oh whoopee, and that’s mostly due to the fact of ishida putting himself in a spot of “oh fuck goddamn if i drew that in i’d get flagged for gay porn” but that’s his own fault, so he downplays the whole scene and really keeps it in the dark, whereas in this anime it’s understandably a lot less,,, like that, but how it plays out here is simply... really nice and makes you cry and shit, whereas in the manga I’d go “oh god oh damn oh fuck” *laughs my ass off because i really can’t take this seriously*. You get just... more here.

To elaborate on this, in the anime, as a gay fucking bastard, I can get practically an endless amount of content from episode twelve, and endlessly stew over all Those Things about it, every hard hitting line, the expressions, the music making it even sadder, the ways the VAs say the words, the cinematic beauty of the blood dripping on the floor and like how it’s supposed to make you think it’s kaneki’s, GOD I COULD FUCKING GO ON, but if we want to get that in the manga... 

we get three incredibly basic lines, a blackout, and then a “QUICK LET’S MOVE ON TO SOMETHING ELSE BEFORE ANYONE NOTICES THE IMPLICATIONS OF THAT HAHA”

So if we want to have more, we need to write it. (sadly) None of it is ever played out canonically so like,,, all we can do is infer and make shit up. It’s like, I am a writer so like that’s my whole job but I really would rather have more content, and have the content that’s there get to be emotional instead of *blank face* “this is plot that is happening, sadly” but like maybe it’s just bc i’m gay

Really Fucking Beautiful (aesthetically as well as story-wise): This kind of just goes hand in hand with the depth of emotion bit, and I think it can’t really compared to the manga here because I’m gay so I see pretty colors and cry so the anime is understandably appealing for me, but I’m also talking emotionally, yeah. There’s a lot of plotlines and implications of the story that are really well played out, I always love to watch the original because it does a very good job handling a lot of the harder topics and stuff that makes the whole thing worthwhile- like the whole point you’re supposed to see that the ghouls and humans are both just as monstrous when you break it down, that there are good and bad people on both sides, everyone just wants to live and feel good in their own life and perspective, everyone has reasons that justify their behaviour in their mind, sometimes you just can’t win no matter what, all that... they’re all really important messages and make the whole story, and they were handled much more delicately and with more expertise in the anime. 

It’s hard to pin down, but I feel like the manga was just based more on Fight Scenes Characters OoH Fake Science and kind of just gave kaneki infinite power ups after Trying Harder no offense, obviously those things were there and they were still very good in the manga it’s just sometimes they were cheapened a lot by ishida really not keeping track of what he’s trying to say with his story and sacrificing it a lot for “BUT WHAT IF KANEKI’S HAIR AND IDEALS CHANGED AGAIN” instead of making it a whole cohesive work. (and yes, I am VERY aware of your “well aCtuAlLy the hair represents his sanity” thing i know i know and i’m about to rip it to fucking shreds so)

Understandable Character Development And Staying True To It: Which brings me to this point, character development. This was another thing that was just... handled with more expertise in the anime, whoever was in charge of it. Mostly this has to do with Kaneki, since like, no offense but he’s the only one who ever gets much character development other than like, juuzou (asmr you only get character development if your hair color changes) oh and i guess there’s tsukiyama but he’s someone who shouldn’t have gotten character development. Touka gets character development only before re for some reason, and like tbh that’s kind of it. I do think Juuzou’s character development was valid, because well... it made sense? I complained about it before because I was like “well he just turns into spicy L” but i’ve since changed my opinion, he’s best boy. But Kaneki? They went way overboard with him in the manga, and generally? Calm tf down ishida.

Breaking it down, one of the main things that most of the tried and true manga stans seem to hate about the anime the most is Kaneki going over to Aogiri in root A. Since they’re much more acclimated to the manga, they don’t understand why he would do that (quoting a particular ‘probably made sense in the manga!’ yes i know that whole thing was poking fun at the show and i felt it lmao) and they just pin it to “ahaha he has now become Edgy for the fans ehehe time to make fun of him” and TO BE FAIR YOU’D BE COMPLETELY RIGHT. I love to make fun of Kaneki when he does his edgy bitch thing because that’s what he is. A basic edgy bitch who is just,,, such a main character. But like. He does actually have his reasons despite popular opinion and to be honest I think they’re a bit more valid than in the manga, where he’s just like “well I’ve been tortured, that was not pleasant and i kinda did a bad thing, let’s go back to anteiku but i’m just gonna Try Harder To Fight this time”. I can understand that, but like, it seems like in the manga every Character Development of kaneki is some form of “i will now be stronger” except for the singular “I will now be a different person” which, well, we’ll get to that. 

In the anime though, even if it seems like more of a basic edgy bitch move, it’s like?? It makes perfect sense to me, and to be honest more than the manga does? Obviously he doesn’t wanna be best bros with Aogiri, he realizes they’re all bad people who have done really terrible things, but the fact is he now sees himself as the same thing, he now understands their motives because in his mind he is also now Bad TM. His whole character development of being tortured was that peace wasn’t an option no matter how much he wanted it, he couldn’t live being a pacifist and the world was forcing him to give the “i am the only one that understands! we need to stop fighting!” bullshit up because there was no way to achieve it. He realized if he kept himself the way he was more people he loved would be hurt like they already had because he couldn’t, so he doesn’t just Decide To Become Stronger, he gives up his humanity. And that includes basically letting himself defend his own actions and try to do “the right thing”. 

Him then joining aogiri makes sense because well. They’re the people who are the strongest, who have the power, who are the same as he sees himself. He still wants to protect the people he loves, he just also realizes he can’t do it by working with them since he now understands that their more peaceful ways will by definition get them fucking killed. His understanding is flawed, of course. He’s not really right. But this is his understanding and from that it makes perfect sense for him to join up with aogiri and try to still do as much as possible from that standpoint, realizing that most likely the people he’s trying to protect will hate him for it. I think that makes sense to me, what do you not understand about it? (I also understand that may make some people mad because he’d Doing Bad Things but I point to you he’s so soft, remember when he was really nice to naki when he was literally the one who killed the guy naki was crying about? remember when he was doing a raid and he saw that guy hiding and he never mentioned it? remember like the seventy times he Cried TM, yeah he’s problematic obviously but if you want problematic I’ll point you to a certain fucking black reaper. Shironeki has nothing on that asshole.)

I think what Kaneki did in the manga was fine, but in general the anime (again) had more depth of understanding and emotion versus a steady Try Harder Get Stronger shonen deal, which, well, fair, but like, nah. Continuing why I think the anime dealt it better is the ending of A, which was a lot more well rounded then *kaneki gets stabbed and then there’s a lot of random plot shit going on in the background*. Here Kaneki then got to round out the end of his character development by realizing slowly through the second half of this season, him becoming a kakuja and then basically deciding like, not to

((kakuja kaneki was dealt with again different in the anime and manga because he basically stopped trying to use it in the anime bc he realized it was a bad fucking idea but this goes along with the ‘his character development of “i’m gonna do bad things for good reasons” --> “actually no wait that was a bad idea” was actually done in root A instead of being dragged out into :re and it’s appropriate for its own medium and the messages it’s trying to get across so manga loyalists hate it’ but we digress))

So in root A we got to see him actually develop and realize himself through the second half of the season starting with cochlea, his interactions with Amon, and ultimately through Hide, that he’d been doing the wrong thing by becoming more monstrous/fighting harder because what he did was ended up forgetting the most important thing, *smiles in gay* HIDE.(well, his humanity. yeah. i cite the terrible opening for root A with the fun ‘the hands taking off kaneki’s mask are hide’s’ bit.) He then remembered again why he wanted so bad to stop the war between humans and ghouls, he wanted to be able to live in peace and not have to be a monster- something that was not dealt with in the manga (though for understandable reasons of We Need To Fuck With Him In Re More, they then didn’t deliver on creating something like that later so I take this.)

That’s most of the difference between the original manga and anime, but I’d also like to discuss (briefly, I’ve already yelled about them) the ridiculous amount of hurdles ishida went through to fuck with kaneki in the manga, Of course there is the fact that well, the slower transition of his character does make some more sense for the manga because if you take :re into consideration, his eight billion character changes are more tolerable when they haven’t like, already happened before in the manga (just the anime). It makes more sense there for Haise to be tormented by past kaneki telling him He’s Too Weak because in the manga he hasn’t already had that development prior to “dying”, and he lost his memories still believing he had to be strong even if he did bad things, whereas in the anime it doesn’t track because at the end like i just said he kind of gives up his ghoulhood on purpose because he realizes that joining aogiri and fighting and shit was really wrong because, hide. So I can see why those character decisions were not made in the original when planning for :re, but... the fact remains that those previous decisions do not make up for how absolutely weak :re’s game ended up being with kaneki. 

So tldr this entire section, All the manga’s defense of how they handled Kaneki’s development is basically void because all those choices were buildup for development in :re which ishida then COMPLETELY fell down on. So the alternative is better.

And now comes my yelling about how exactly Ishida fucked it up: hair colors and kaneki’s 80 kanekis. If black is supposed to represent sane and white is supposed to represent insane or, whatever, i dunno, who tf thought black reaper kaneki was sane? Who tf would think kaneki in the end isn’t? I haven’t looked into this really, and I’d really love it if someone explained it to me the way ishida was going for bc I do not understand it. Like that tracks with Juuzou, and with Kaneki up to Haise Original, but they don’t really make a cohesive sense seeing as after Haise’s hair color changed again that whole deal kind of goes to shit. Not to mention... I just... they completely failed to make those character changes actually part of the story, I’m mostly complaining about black reaper haise, none of him makes any sense. What’s his deal? He wants to protect who he loves? Tracks with the ghouls but fun fact he abandoned his kids? He actually cared for them? What then, he wants to be the strongest as possible? Sure but then?? Why?? I don’t understand his motives at all.

We also didn’t get to see him get his memories back either, which I was actually very much looking forward to, it just,,, like all of a sudden he’s talking with eto about yoshimura and i’m like bruh when tf did that happen? It’s bad, and although chapter 74-76 is super valid, and his change back into white hair kaneki makes sense, I also have the complaint about how haise basically disappeared just like he was worried he would. I think that was bad and I’ve said that already, it doesn’t make sense, he just literally throws those entire two years away to go back to the way he was before he was with the CCG and just forgets everything he’s wanted for the last few years? Fiction logic test fucking failed, and you’ve also broken my heart. Love Haise. You got rid of him. I love kaneki too but like. Why don’t they just. Like. Merge. He is one whole complex person, not one and an imposter, god. 

This is a big negative for re and the manga, so automatically a positive for root A where I simply Do Not Have To Deal With That Bullshit and the character development actually makes sense. I can understand the decisions in the original manga could have set up for good development in :re, but they completely failed to deliver.

root a didn’t fast forward to re at the end god damn let us process this shit first before you try to connect it to something else: The thing with this point is that it’s really difficult to separate the original manga from the continuing story in :re because the thing intertwines so much and immediately moves us forward with a ton of plot points for the next part of the story before we’re done with this climax and the end of this story. Sometimes that’s ok and I can see doing that from an author’s perspective because you want people to continue reading your story instead of taking that as the end but it’s really annoying on a reader’s end, because I’m picky and I want to be able to just be able to enjoy my original canon without it like, metaphorically touching :re on a plate. It’s something that I don’t even do with my own longer stories, like for example I have like a trilogy of >100k fics that like, well i’m technically not done with them but like. 

People really like the first one because it’s more focused on a more popular ship and basic elements people like about the thing, and then by the second book it moves on to talk more about the plot and lore and brings in more secondary characters. And so I knew that a lot of the readers of the first one wouldn’t want to have to deal with a lot of the “oh well stuff is happening elsewhere that will effect stuff later!!!” random plot shit that none of my readers actually cared about. So I kept it to wrapping up the points of the first book and then leaving the introduction of new characters and plot for the people who actually wanted to read it. Ishida didn’t do that, and of course it’s within his right to like?? Want to promote the next series but I’d have enjoyed it more if we ended it at kaneki’s “death” and wrapping up the deals with the rest of the characters instead of quickly shoving in the beginning of seventy more plotlines before the book ends. Like honey I simply do not have the reading comprehension for that. In the anime we get something that... makes sense.

In the anime, however, it’s quite the opposite, for example the reveals like Eto=owl=takatsuki sen were pushed before that and they saved episode twelve for, well, the end bit. Like what was actually the ending. There were detriments to this I had to say (LIKE GUYS I GET IT HE’S CARRYING HIDE HE’S CARRYING HIM I GET IT YOU’VE BEEN DOING IT FOR HALF THE EPISODE NOW OK I UNDERSTAND CAN WE MOVE ON) But like, I prefer the concept of a simple idea with as much emotion squeezed out of it as possible to a ton of confusing and contradicting ideas that are touched on for a second before moving on. So the *cries for half an hour* ending was much more appealing to me, and I can keep that separate in my head from any of the ideas that :re creates, letting me pretend it doesnt exist and imagine that’s the end and there’s nothing else to worry about. If we want to move forward and hear more, then we can, but it isn’t necessary like it is with the manga.

No Bad Takes that are hard to pry apart from good plot and characters:This is basically the downsides of the new characters, which is well, if I had to make a whole ~keep reading~ post about how problematic everything in re was that does have to count as a downside. I love the new characters, but they also come intertwined with a thousand really bad takes on like, everything, and of course I can ignore it and just act as though they were written in like, to be perfectly honest, a non transphobic way, it’s a real downside when the original anime was pretty pain-free in the way of their takes on their characters. They fucked everyone up in re and I will not elaborate, we’ve talked about this, it’s just the anime, and which i mean season 1 and root A, don’t really have any bad takes I need to try to get rid of, it’s surprisingly something I have little complaint about at all and I ALWAYS have complaints.

Hide!!!!: Obviously, you can tell that a lot of my opinions are going to be hide based because he’s the only thing I ever think about. But we have to take into account just how... hide???? This goes a lot into the depth of emotion bit but it also offers the other side of the argument for Hide’s part in the :re manga, which well. Was mostly chapter 75 if we’re going to be perfectly honest here. He doesn’t get any other limelight. Even in the chapter where Kaneki meets him again he gets a whole what, three pages? In the manga, he has an extremely valid deal about basically, living, keeping going no matter what, and that is a fitting part for the manga, considering the rest of the points there ride more on Keep Fighting instead of Think About Your Emotions And Morals, but honestly chapter 75 was really valid. So why do I still think the anime’s version where he like (ok I don’t know about the re anime we’ve discussed this, i don’t even know how they choose to explain that) he like, dies in kaneki’s arms is better overall? Again, I would have totally accepted that deal if it was made a part of the story because it made me cry, it was super valid, and if they’d continued in that way I would have agreed with it completely over that. But the fact is again that they failed to deliver, and Hide got largely ignored, suffered so much with so little outcome. There was so much buildup and it was incredibly valid, but when the time came for them to meet again and basically show... why it was important that Hide lived in the end? 

They didn’t. They straight up didn’t. Kaneki’s like “oh sorry bro... glad you’re alive and all...” *goes off and fights* and like? Honestly? @everlastingspiral is right, if that’s all they’re gonna do with him what’s the point of keeping him alive? I love every single panel of him and I wouldn’t have read re if he didn’t, but hide gets absolutely NO payoff. For letting kaneki literally vore his entire mouth off, leaving him disfigured and unable to talk, then kind of disappearing for two years and doing seemingly nothing but trying to help kaneki even though he’d forgotten the guy existed, risks his life like a thousand fucking times, eventually gets back to him and the dude’s running a fucking anti-human organization, helps him like Not Be A Volitile Pile Of Flesh Anymore and then what should have been a very important moment of them meeting again gets completely overshadowed by touka and random plot shit and more fights and they barely interact, they don’t even hug or anything, they barely talk, and at the end hide is still there but to be honest he’s gotten absolutely no thanks for all he did and ishida acts at the end as though he’s done very well with hide and gives him a tiny bit at the end throwing in a tragic backstory for fun (which hot take he really didn’t fucking need on top of it all) and... there’s no real hint that Kaneki is better off with Hide there, even though there should be. In 75, in his dream, kaneki is sobbing and crying and all like i’m so lonely without you but when they actually meet each other again? “yo” “hey” “uh sorry about,,, the thing,,, you know” “nah man it’s ok” “let me talk about myself for a bit” “yes you always do do you want to hear what I’ve been up to” “not really” “that’s fine i’m only here to support you”

...So you can understand why I’ve gone a bit sour on that. If that’s all you’re going to give him? Hot take? Let him die. Hide deserves better. (and i will deliver that in writing, but for the purposes of canon.)

In the anime, however (not counting re again... although he still gets the short end of the stick just in the original manga too compared to the anime) he’s properly dealt with! he gets his proper limelight and he gets acknowledged for what he’s done thusfar in the story, which is already so much. Kaneki then realizes that, but it’s already too late (or it isn’t, and they like negotiate with the ccg and then they get to live happily ever after) either way he gets appreciated and he gets hurt, but it’s properly acknowledged. And after all that, after saving kaneki and getting him to the cafe and doing it all while bleeding the fuck out, he gets to spend that time with kaneki and die in kaneki’s arms. And frankly? That’s all I think he’s ever needed. It’s really poetic and pretty and brings kaneki’s character around full circle, and even if it’s overly sappy, cliche, drawn out... he gets the attention he’s due and he gets a fucking break. He wanted to show Kaneki he wanted to do something for him and save him instead of the other way around, but then HE GOT ACKNOWLEDGED FOR THAT, instead of just well, tirelessly working towards it forever and having to be content to be a background character with practically no value to Kaneki anymore.

Keeps The Same Vibe: The big thing about this is that with the manga and with re, shit just goes all over the place, and I feel like I’ve amply showed that already through this essay or whatever this is. Again about the consistency and the professionalism, It’s a concise story that makes more sense than the manga while also being simply neater and more deep, making sure all the points, themes and messages work together and make sense to create a cohesive deal even if it’s not as long. (the manga is like ishida had a TON of good ideas for an essay but then fleshed out the thing ten minutes before deadline and managed to completely lose what his original thesis was even if the thing was 10 pages long.) Basically. yeah. That kind of sums it up, my last point concerns the ending.

Not Cheap Ending: If you want to hear my take about how absolutely terrible re’s ending was, check out my The Many Sins Of Tokyo Ghoul :Re post, and we’ve discussed how the original’s manga ending was bad and well not really an ending, it just leaves you unfulfilled and takes you into “well I guess I have to start a whole nother sequel series ig...” but root A like? Actually ends it? If a reader didn’t know that there was any content after that, they could pretty much infer that hide’s death or almost death whatever you inferred out of that ending (again we’re ignoring re) allowed Kaneki to finish his character development and realize they needed to stop the war, which basically tracks with what’s going on in everyone else’s perspective- eto’s problem with the world because of what happened with everything, is basically like, all of aogiri, juuzou and shinohara, amon and akira and kaneki and they can realize all they have to do is just sit down and fucking stop it because none of them want to be fighting, hide is the catalyst for that because the CCG can see how Kaneki cares for him? And it’s so open ended that you could just like literally believe that and there’d be no way for that canon to tell you otherwise, or you could go onto re and whatever if you wanted to. I think that’s the best thing. 

In conclusion, both have valid points, and in general I’d say that the manga goes better with :re and the anime is better as a stand alone but if I had to choose overall, this particular anime is better (taking into account only seasons 1 and 2), for mostly the reasons of favoring a simpler story taken with much more care and depth versus a more complex story with many, MANY imperfect elements, and I am aware I will get shot on sight for this opinion. So sue me.

[charcubed]

I agree with your opinion on ?no thing and wanted to ask what do you think of jackles saying his number 1 reservation about 10.05 was destiel mention. People also use that as a proof that he is/was homophobic, which I tbh can't agree with, bc there's like a million reasons someone can dislike a ship involving their character and it's not fair to immediately make the worst conclusions possible? Idk, can you share your opinion on that?

Part 2:  Forgot to add: and even saying that those reservations mean he dislikes the ship is already an assumption anyway - 10.05 anon

Hi anon! 

First thing I’m going to say is that I think it’s frankly bonkers for anyone, in any fandom, to call someone homophobic for not loudly supporting or maybe not understanding a gay ship. Of course this is a blanket statement and in some ways it can still depend on the situation, because could someone be outright homophobic about a queer ship? Sure. But that’s not always (and tbh, probably rarely) the case in situations like this. As you said, there are a million reasons someone can dislike a ship or simply not understand fandom culture with that kind of stuff; if one is unfamiliar with it, it does take a certain level of PR coaching to understand it more fully. I’ll go back to that though.

I looked around for ages, and for the life of me I can’t find a source on Jensen saying that the Destiel mention was his number one reservation. If that was something he said, can you (or anyone reading this lol) point me to a source?

All I know of–and found in my search again–is this video / article, where he talked about his initial reaction to the episode.

"I didn't have a positive reaction," Jensen Ackles told E! News. "The first time in I think 200 scripts I went and sat down in the showrunners office and said, ‘What in god's name are you doing?! Why? I need to understand why this is happening.'"

It took some convincing from executive producer Jeremy Carver for Ackles to finally come around to the idea.

"He gave very eloquent answers and did a great job of explaining why we were doing what we were doing," Ackles said. "I guess I had been aware of this 'fan fiction' for a while and I felt like maybe if I ignored it, it would eventually go away. When I read it in the script that is what I do for a living and is my work—I'm very protective of these characters and the story and I think we have a right to be—I wasn't angry. I just wanted to understand why and what was the message we were ultimately sending with this script and story. By the end of it, I felt good and it gave me all the confidence I needed. It was better than I could have ever hoped."

He continued, "I never should have even sat down in that office, so Jeremy, I'm sorry."

So from the perspective of this quote (if that is indeed the quote in question):

No part of this is anti-Destiel lol. I think it’s very clear what he meant by having concerns about this episode. I’d even go as far as to say that if he has said something about worrying about the Destiel name drop (if there’s a source on that I don’t know about), then it was still in this context: he wanted to know what message they were sending with this story. 

I think it’s also key to remember that he’d been aware of fanfic and ignoring it. Why? Because he was also primarily aware of w*ncest fic and J2 tinhatters and the like. There’s a sordid history there, and it’s not unrealistic to say that it caused problems. That was Jensen’s first and primary encounter with fanfic and shipping as concepts, and it makes sense that his method was trying to ignore it and not focus on it. 

Then, the flip side: maybe he didn’t want the fans to feel ridiculed either. What kind of message were they sending with this episode? aka is this going to be a nod to fans, or be seen as making fun of them or even getting their hopes up about a ship?

Then clearly things were explained to him, and he understood, and felt good about it. That counts for a lot. After that conversation, he clearly liked 10x05 and often said as much in other interviews too.

Overall, look, ultimately... I don’t know Jensen as a person, obviously. I wouldn’t ever claim to. But I think he seems to be the kind of person who just doesn’t like being back into a corner, especially very publicly such as at conventions. I think he–like all other actors–know they don’t write the stories and can’t promise things on behalf of the writers’ rooms. This applies to any instances people dredge up across the board.

I think he also–especially in the early days–didn’t understand what fandom wanted from him when they asked him leading questions about Destiel... because even at the best of times sometimes fandom doesn’t know what they want, and because without being coached in the best kind of responses no one would know how to answer perfectly especially back then. A mere 5, 6, 7 years ago, social media was still growing, talk of queer rep was still actively evolving and becoming louder, and fans were becoming emboldened (not necessarily in a bad way) to demand more of stories–but that didn’t mean everyone (especially actors) were engaged or educated on what that all meant for the ways they had to respond including on the spot.

SPN season 10 aired in 2014. Same sex marriage wasn’t legalized country-wide in the US until 2015. Lexa died in The 100 in 2016, and I mention this to put in perspective where queer rep conversations were at the time, using a marker many people know about. 

Is it so surprising that an actor in a show from the early 2000s–with the baggage of w*ncest shipping debacles, network pressures, inability to speak for writers, and already many years’ worth of playing a character who felt personal to him–wouldn’t have known that fandom wanted to hear the exact phrasing of “I’m not sure Destiel is where the story is going but all interpretations are valid and if you think Dean is bi then of course he is” anytime he was asked a question practically designed to trip him up?

It’s not homophobia to have a cocktail of concerns surrounding a topic like that, in context like that, and especially in very public spaces like conventions. (Homophobia is shit like “not everything is about the gays, okay gay people?” Lol.) There are many reasons an actor could dislike a ship, but even more so, there are many reasons an actor may not understand fandom culture or not know how to perfectly address a ship / queer question because they didn’t know what the fans wanted to hear.

Basically, in summary: I agree with you and I’ve never personally seen anything from the backlog of history that Jensen’s said that struck me as either homophobic (a big word people should stop slinging around!!) or deliberately anti-Destiel with malice.

[afoolforatook]

On fandom and tragic romance tropes, from someone who's lived it.

Okay, this is kind of…. Idk a very specific vent and tbh one I feel kinda bad about because I genuinely don’t want to make people feel bad for liking reading/writing romantic angst or tragedy and it’s really less of an individual issue than an overall attitude in fandom.

Like, it’s absolutely okay to like not happy endings, and angst doesn’t have to just be for cathartic relief. Angst isn’t only acceptable if it’s to process trauma, you’re allowed to like it just because that’s your taste.

But at the same time…. I can’t help but have very personal feelings about how a lot of fandom spaces treat tragic romance tropes…

(this got really long but... it's something I've wanted to address for a long time)

I'm far from secretive with the fact that when I was 20, my girlfriend Emma (19) was killed in a car crash, along with her younger brother, mother, and aunt, and that a lot of my art and writing is purposefully about processing and accepting that grief. Fandom has been a very important part of how I’ve gotten through the last five years, which I’ll get into a bit more in a minute, but tbh it’s also been a lot harder navigating fandom and especially anything ship-related since Emma died, because of how people tend to romanticize a character tragically losing a partner.

And honestly, it’s not just fandom, it’s media in general. And mainstream media focus on tragic sob stories, shock factor, and BYG tropes is definitely a big part of the problem.

But as much as fandom pushes against mainstream overuse of such tropes, there is a good portion of fandom that falls into the same type of issue. And not just ‘fandom’ in the usual sense, but literary communities, poetry, etc…

The amount of times I see stories or prompts about characters tragically losing their partner, and that being the climax of the story, and then next to nothing about that character actually navigating their grief or being able to eventually start a new relationship or just be happy is just…. It makes me feel physically ill.

Like, people saying how tragic love stories are more interesting than happy endings. Or seeing a post about tragic pairing prompts and people saying things like ‘or they think it's unrequited but then A dies and B finds a letter confessing and they really loved each other but now it's too late’ and more people being like ‘YES YOU GET IT THAT'S THE GOOD STUFF’

Just… really, honestly. It's okay to like angst, even really tragic angst. I’m not trying to guilt anyone out of that.

I just….. Most of the time people just talk about it like ‘oh yeah I love some of that good tragic love story shit’ and the stories focus on the build-up and the shock/trauma of the death as it happens and then the excruciating reaction of the survivor and then maybe a time jump to show them happy again.

But very rarely do people take the time to actually handle the grief. People like the good cry of a character mourning their partner, but the vast majority of creators and fans rush through or skip over everything after the initial drama and aftermath. The ‘tragedy’ is the only part they focus on, and then the story ends and they move on.

And like. Shit. I liked that stuff too, I wrote some of it, years ago. And I’m not saying you can’t ever just leave it there, or that if you want to write tragic romance you always have to explore all the long-term emotional consequences.

But try to have it in mind, to consider what message countless grief narratives that end after the funeral, or maybe a few weeks or months later, teach people about real-life grief. This goes for any kind of grief narrative, but the one I see most, the one I used to ‘enjoy’ most myself, is romantic.

But, after having actually lived it? And knowing I'll have to live the rest of my life as the part of the story that usually isn’t told? It turns my stomach the way it’s often handled.

Like seeing people gush about how angsty a fic/idea is, and ‘OH MY GOD SO SAD CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW TRAGIC HOW DARE YOU. I LOVE SEEING/PUTTING THEM THROUGH SO MUCH PAIN’ gets a bit uncomfortable.

Not because there’s something inherently wrong with ever reacting like that, but because most often I can turn around and have the same people not know how to react when I tell them about Emma, not know how to handle the same grief they were just gushing over in fiction, when it’s real.

Grief is isolating enough on its own, but then it just doesn’t feel great when the worst thing to ever happen to you is a huge trope that people gush over, while very rarely fleshing out the actual reality of what it feels like to go through that or how to respond to someone actually dealing with grief, and eventually having to deal with your own grief.

Tbh it’s why I really just kinda have an aversion to the word ‘angst’ in general, and don’t really like to refer to my own writing as angst, even though I know plenty of people might think of it as such. So much of fandom's handling of ‘angst’ has come to feel like voyeuristic tourism of the grief I deal with every day, and will for the rest of my life.

Just, I know people are always going to like tragic angsty romance, and that’s fine, and honestly, it's not even an issue of individuals, but of how fandom in general treats it.

And again, I really don’t want to make anyone feel bad for liking it, and it has its purposes. And even when it’s not for catharsis, it's okay to just like sad stories just because.

I just… I wish more people would keep in mind that it’s not just a tearjerker story trope. People really go through this. And they then often end up feeling very isolated because people around them don't know how to react to their grief, because their grief makes things awkward and a mood killer.

Like, if you love this kind of angst (and not because you personally relate to it or find it cathartic, but just because, just for fun) but then feel awkward around people talking about their real-life grief, maybe spend some time with that, and think about the topic as a real-world trauma and not just a dramatic story trope. (this doesn’t just go for grief. Any kind of trauma you don’t personally deal with, if you love reading/writing it but avoid actually listening to people talking about their real-life experiences with it, think about why that is.)

I just hate seeing loss and initial dramatic grief responses being this shock factor/tearjerker trope, without ever really seriously addressing long-term grief. Especially when it doesn't even do a time jump or anything, and just ends on the surviving character being forever destroyed; when it focuses on the idea of how sad it is for your favorite character to have to spend the rest of their life alone.

And that’s not even folding in any kind of BYG/queer tragedy tropes in canon or fandom spaces.

And like… on a much more individual, less practical point, I just… there’s nothing wrong with angst but honestly (and especially for characters whose canon is in no way tragic) every time I see it I just want to scream WHY…. Why do that to them!? I’m not saying you have to stop, or that you’re not allowed to write trauma you don’t deal with personally. But I will never not cringe a bit at the ‘painful enjoyment’ of a character going through the traumatic loss of a partner. And it’s a sentiment I don’t really see people being okay with in regards to any other kind of trauma.

I don’t have actual numbers, but it sure feels like fandom treats stories about romantic grief very differently than most other traumas. Other trauma, even other kinds of grief, like a close friend or a sibling or parent, etc. tend to at least try to touch on a theme of recovery, or that the emotional turmoil being covered isn’t just a fun angsty trope to spend a little time in and then move on. And of course, this isn’t universal and plenty of people don’t handle these other traumas respectfully or as anything more than dramatic fuel, but this is the trend I’ve personally seen in over 10 years of tumblr fandom. And to that point, even when traumas aren’t respectfully handled I’ve at least seen people try to bring attention to that, with posts about how to respectfully handle disability or addiction or mental health or abuse. I can’t remember off the top of my head a single post like that about grief, let alone specifically romantic grief. It seems to be commonly accepted that while most kinds of trauma can be explored, but still handled respectfully, the death of a partner can just be done for the Drama. People tend to try to learn about abuse or addiction experiences before attempting big angsty stories addressing that. But doomed romance and a grief-stricken lover (it feels like, in my experience) are much more likely to happen on a whim.

Generally, it feels like other kinds of trauma, while still part of ‘angst’ also keeps a sense of awareness of how that narrative reflects real people’s experiences. It’s not just heavy because it’s big dramatic fictional angst, but because it’s grounded in real-life trauma that everyday people who come across it might relate to. Like... I just feel like a lot of fandom spaces treat ‘major character death’ and tragic romantic trope tags as just filters, like they’re needed because ‘not everyone likes angst, it’s just not their thing’ without really acknowledging that it’s a real trauma that everyday people deal with, where (again, often, but of course far from always, and certainly not in mainstream) other tws and tags like assault or substance abuse, people understand that people they interact with might really deal with those issues and they try to not just use them as dramatic fodder and to portray them respectfully.

But grief, especially romantic grief, seems different. The number of people who will come across a fic or edit or piece of art about a tragic love story, and will have had that personal experience of losing a partner, is much lower than people with real experiences with abuse, or addiction, or mental illness. That’s not a bad thing. I wish none of you ever have to know what that feels like.

But because of that, tragic romance ends up seeming like this distant thing. Like it’s only in dramatic tv shows or movies or literature, or lives solely in angsty fandom spaces as a way to get out a good cry. It seems grand and Tragic, off in its own world of dramatic emotional story tropes.

It’s solely pretty dark edits put to song lyrics, or striking art, or beautifully written prose that rips your heart out. It’s Tragic Romance.

And there’s nothing wrong with that inherently. But for many people, it seems like that is what it becomes: fiction. An angsty trope.

I genuinely hope that’s all it ever is for all of you. I wish I could ensure that that good angsty hurt will only ever be a trope you visit when you need a good cry.

But it’s not just fiction.

It's not just angst for sake of drama or fun or poetic storytelling. It’s not grand or romantic or beautifully tragic.

It’s unbearable. It’s physical pain.

That’s not exaggeration or metaphor. It sneaks up on me out of nowhere and it literally feels like someone is crushing my chest. I’ve nearly broken my hand punching a wall because I needed to make something hurt more than this thing in my chest that isn’t even actually there but it hurts so much.

Tbf I think a lot of my attitude towards this really stems more from fandom trends from when I was younger, and I think a lot more people actually try to flesh out grief more these days. But I just remember so much tragic romantic fic and fandom love from when I was a teenager that didn’t go deeper than ‘look how heartbreaking this is it’s so sad, I wanna make everybody read it and cry and it’s just fun and a story, oh my god I couldn't live with that’

no, of course I don't have a few specific old fics or posts from like superwholock days in mind, that I used to gush over too, and now just the idea of makes me feel actually sick

Idk… like I said. I don't at all want to make anyone feel bad for liking that type of angst, and I feel kind of bad for criticizing it. It just…

It hurts seeing basically your exact situation on angsty prompt lists with people gushing about how good it hurts. Especially when the same people would be (and have been) deer in headlights when they find out you’ve lived the same thing. (Again, this goes for any kind of trauma trope, but most others I’ve seen at least some kind of discussion about before)

Just please, try to be mindful of not just how you write stories about grief, but how you talk about death angst in general. (again, certainly not everyone, but more and more) People know to not just romanticize abuse trauma or addictions or mental illness, and to research, and ask for advice to try to be respectful.

And it’s much more common for someone in fandom spaces, in their teens or 20s or 30s to deal with those sorts of trauma than having experienced losing a partner.

But we exist. And while there is plenty of media out there showing tragic young romance, there is very little (in my experience, after nearly five years of desperately looking) real-world acknowledgment and support, or proof that you’ll be able to survive that kind of loss and still be happy, and even less so if they’re queer.

In a couple of months, it will have been five years since Emma’s death. From day one I have not been private about my loss, whenever possible.

And in five years of saying “When I was 20 my girlfriend died.” to new friends, classmates, potential dates, fandom spaces, therapists, grief support forums, etc… do you know how many other people have told me that they also lost a partner as a young adult, whether queer or straight, by accident or suicide or illness?

Zero.

No one. I’ve had people say how they lost a best friend or a sibling or a parent. And those losses, those kinds of grief are certainly not any less traumatic than the loss of a partner. But even in real life, they’re different. Losing a partner, especially at a very young age when it’s likely your main romantic experience, has different emotional effects, and can be harder to find people who directly relate.

Five years. Zero people dealing with the specific facets of grief as me.

The ONLY times I have ever heard about stories like mine in real life are either the rare article or essay or celebrity story, of which I can probably easily count on two hands.

All the other representation I’ve found is in mainstream fiction and fandom.

And of those stories, those fics, that art, the vast majority have had the partner die in the last half, probably closer to the 75% mark, of the story or arc.

If I’m lucky, that last 25% will focus on the immediate aftermath and grief (especially in fic, while a lot of media might give you a few scenes, and then move on to other character arcs).

If I’m really lucky they’ll show some kind of time jump, to say ‘see, they’re still haunted by their lost love but they’ve tried to move on or can pretend to be happy’.

And so much fandom reception is centered around ‘it’s soooooo SADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD MY POOR HEART IT HURTS SO GOOD. LOVE ME SOME ANGST’, or romanticizing the idea of being unable to live without them, and if they can, it’s often never really putting focus on all the pain it took to process their grief.

Again, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this individually, or that you shouldn’t gush and scream over fic or art or prompts that hook you because of angst. But it adds up really quickly, especially when, even when getting good genuine support from people, you still see no one else actually living with that feeling like you. The only place you find it is stories, and then you see people mostly excited over just how beautifully sad it is.

And that just feels… I can’t explain it honestly.

Just, think about how you react to or talk about fic or prompts or art about a character crying over their partner’s body, or attending their funeral, and think about whether you’d feel appropriate doing the same if instead, they were dealing with abuse, or addiction, or self-harm.

Again, that’s not to say you can’t ever gush or key smash or such, but is it all you do?

You don’t have to stop enjoying angst and tragic romance. But think about how I just said that.

Enjoy.

Do you only ever act like you ‘Enjoy’ it (and yes, this includes the ‘I’m such a masochist I just love to cry over them, it’s emotional release that doesn’t trigger me’ reaction), and romanticize it?

It’s fine to, sometimes. But do you also appreciate it, and try to understand the real-world weight of it? Do you know what you’d say to a friend if they told you they’d lost a partner?

That ‘love me some good angst’, Dramatic grief, being the main fandom attitude doesn’t just hurt me or others who have lost people close to them, partners or not.

A big part of fandom, and of just society, has no idea how to deal with grief, their own or others. It’s not a light conversation topic, it makes people feel awkward, or walk on eggshells around you, or tell you how they can’t possibly imagine having to go through that (btw, y'all don’t say this to people. About grief, or trauma, or disability or anything like that, just don’t. I’m begging you. And a rant about that kind of thing is for another day but... )

And then, when people inevitably face some form of major grief themselves, they feel ashamed for not handling it ‘right’.

It hurts, to try to find some acknowledgment of your grief, and only ever see stories that show just the first few weeks or months; the feeling of it never possibly being anything but constantly excruciating. Stories that end on ‘they were alone and sad and that is what their story, their love, will live on as; Tragic’. Or, that skip all the work and the doubt and the backsliding, and just show years down the road, when they’ve got a whole new life, and that grief, that love, is just a sad memory that they have ‘moved on’ from. Just a tiny trinket call back.

It feels impossible to survive, to ever be happy again, when you never see grief being treated as more than a tragic story point. And then, as you try your hardest to keep going, to process and heal, and connect to new people, while not forgetting the person you love, not letting them just become your tragic backstory, you see people gush over tragic love stories, over how romantic it is, over how characters loved each other so much they couldn’t live without them. (Thankfully a good bit of fandom seems to be pulling away from this, but it’s still common)

And, if that’s what it is to lose a partner, your soulmate… then… then how am I able to keep living? Even as painful as it is? If true love means not being able to live without the other person, does that mean I didn’t, I don’t, actually love them enough? Am I selfish for still actually wanting to live the rest of my life, even with this pain of the person I love being gone?

Would people read my, our, story and ‘enjoy’ it? Would they find this romantic? Would they scream over a prompt based on the worst event in my life, and have a good cry, and then move on, thinking how sad and beautifully tragically romantic that story would be? Would this person I love and miss more than anything, become just a Tragedy? Just an angsty sob story to gush about how wonderfully painful it was? Would it become about only my pain and heartbreak, and not about the cruelty of this other complete, unique, independent person who was robbed of their entire future?

Maybe that seems melodramatic or putting too much weight on tropes, or fandom. But remember.

Five years.

Zero real people saying ‘I’ve been there too’.

The only places I have seen my grief reflected (beyond a rare celebrity interview, or article) is in fiction, and mostly in fandom.

For over a decade I’ve seen people key smash and gush over angsty ships in fic and art, and I was one of them for a long time.

And then, when it became real life for me, all too often (not always, of course) people wouldn’t know how to handle my real grief. Even when I didn’t want to grieve, but wanted to remember all the reasons I love Emma. My real-life moments of ‘fluff’ that I cling to, become uncomfortable when they know the ‘angst’ to come.

And I don’t blame them. I’m not angry at them for not knowing what to say, for walking on eggshells. They’re not cruel for that, they’re not unsympathetic, it’s not that they just don’t try.

Because, if I’ve found so few real-world stories about this kind of grief, after looking so hard for so long, how can I expect them to have had much more luck?

If the only places I find stories about grief never focus on the reality of life after the funeral, and the process of not moving past, but learning to handle grief, then how can I expect broader fandom to know how to be comfortable around the ugly, boring, repetitive, not at all romantic parts of that grief?

Just, yes. Write, read, love your angst. But please just remember that ‘tragic love story’ happens to people, and while plenty of people might not want to read it because it’s just not their thing, or too depressing, there are those who see those dramatic prompt scenarios, and personally relate to them (I quite often say the events around Emma’s death read like a heavy-handed soap opera, or Queer Tragedy movie, and had had plenty of people agree, even before hearing all the details. And I have literally seen multiple prompts of ‘best friends secretly have feelings for each other, and then finally confess, only to get a short bit of happiness before one dies tragically’)

Write, read, love your angst, your tragic love stories, just please, be as respectful of grief (in any form, but this is mostly a shipping issue in my experience) as you would be (or should be) of other major trigger warnings. Gush and scream about the big dramatic ‘romantic’ tragedies, but don’t then ignore the raw, uncomfortable, vulnerable, cathartic explorations, or the real people dealing with real loss.

Because damn y’all, I’ve seen ‘I just love a good romantic tragedy trope, yes please rip my heart out’ said so many times, with the same tone as saying ‘That fake dating trope, that’s the good stuff’.

I’ve seen people gush over how much more interesting and beautifully cruel it is for young love to end tragically.

And I promise you. It’s not. It just fucking sucks. It’s not romantic or tragically beautiful or poignant. It’s devastating. And it goes on for so much longer than that last quarter of the story.

My grief is more than an angsty prompt. Our relationship, my love for her, is more than a dramatic sob story, more than just awkward sadness that kills the mood. Emma’s life, her memory, is more than my tragic backstory.

I want to be able to find my story in more than just fiction, I want to be able to get support from people who live with similar grief.

But I also want to see grief in fiction, in fandom, become more than a final character arc or Tragic love story; used for dramatic effect; grand and huge for a moment and then never fully processed, or mentioned again; just tragically romantic and heartbreaking and soooo good and angsty.

Grief is one of the only things we will all have to face throughout our lives.

I’m not just asking you to respect my grief or the grief of those around you. But your own future grief. I don’t want you to get there and feel like your grief is wrong, or means that you didn’t love someone ‘enough’ because it doesn’t manifest in a certain way.

Learning to accept grief; to be comfortable around raw, unpoetic, grief; to not hold up certain expressions of grief as Romantic or Poetic, but just honest, will eventually be personally useful for all of us, as much as I wish it wouldn’t.

I want my grief, everyone’s grief, to be seen, and understood, not just romanticized and dramatized.

My love story, Emma’s love story, isn’t beautifully tragic. It isn’t more interesting or poetic than a happy ending. The pain that I will carry with me for the rest of my life is not romantic.

But it is important.

[lotusthekat]

Equivalent Exchange

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Rating: T

Relationships: Alphonse & Edward

Characters: Alphonse Elric, original minor characters, Edward Elric

Summary: Alphonse realizes he's no longer immortal in the most painful way.

*Slightly canon divergent as in that Ed keeps his automail

Word count: 1.649

AO3 / Fanfiction

A/N: I had this idea at literally 5 AM last night lmao. Basically I love Alphonse with my whole heart, and tbh I’m pretty sure he’d develop a huge guilt/hero complex after everything he went through.

I’m still new to this fandom, though, so I apologize if anyone is OOC. Hope you enjoy it!

(There might be some medical inaccuracies here though.)

TRIGGER WARNINGS - minor violence, major character injury, blood, near death experience, swearing and implied child abuse

Please do NOT ship the Elric brothers.

--

Alphonse can barely register anything at this point.

He’s running after the man pulling a little girl with him. Al’s legs move in spite of the unbearable, bleeding pain in his abdomen. The boy pushes past people who are barely interested in what’s happening.

Al screams after the man. The little girl is crying and trying to escape, but the man refuses to let her go. Al runs, but his body won’t resist for too long; he knows it, but he doesn’t stop.

His head is dizzy and heavy, and everything around him darkens. Al yells again, only it’s weakened. His legs don’t cooperate with him any longer and he almost trips, if not for the wall beside him. Al is panting, as sweat drops roll down his head. The man and the little girl are almost disappearing from his vision.

No, don’t stop! Go after them, you idiot!

His willpower isn’t enough to force his body to move. Al is soon on the ground, blood dripping on the pale sidewalk. People are whispering around him. They don’t approach.

All the boy hears, though, is the weight of his failure.

It’s what eventually makes him collapse.

--

The headache from the blazing light forces his eyes to open.

Then Al is, once again, in a hospital room. Except it’s a lot smaller, considering he’s not in the Central anymore. It might be the closest first aid post in his hometown, if he’s not mistaken.

The doctor speaks to him, explaining Al was stabbed, but that it’s not a huge cause of concern. He hasn’t lost too much blood, though it might hurt every now and then, so Al only needs to rest and not move a lot – specifically not run while with a stab wound, he lightly scolds.

Since Al is quite well-known from his time as an alchemist with Ed, the doctor doesn’t ask him who he is and tells him that they called his brother just now. Ed should be arriving soon.

Al nods again. He doesn’t say anything at all.

The doctor leaves him be, the room as quiet as the patient inside. Al’s hand reaches his bandaged stomach, lightly touching the cloth. Al doesn’t mind the pain from the wound. Not as much as the little girl’s horrified look is ingrained in his brain.

Al recalls what happened. He was doing groceries on his own – aside from wanting to take a walk in town, to breathe the air and feel the soft breeze. He would then go back home and have lunch with his brother and Granny Pinako, while Winry is back in Rush Valley. Al has been walking well as of late, so Ed wasn’t too insistent to come along.

It wasn’t supposed to go this wrong.

On the way, Al heard a little girl crying in an alley. She was so scared, and he tried to talk to her. Like that, the punch right to his face was really far from expected.

As it turned out, it was a middle-aged man that had assaulted him, and he grabbed the little girl’s arm with force. She was crying louder. He’s not sure now if he was her father, but it was still definitely infuriating.

Despite the pain, Al demanded he left her alone – and it only enraged the man more when he saw his face. Apparently, he’d once been under the military, and King Bradley’s fall disbanded many soldiers and officers. He also knew who Al was, so he despised him for “meddling in things that were none of his business”.

Al is no stranger to a fight, obviously. The problem is, he’s not a suit of armor anymore. That shouldn’t be a problem, of course, because he’s glad to be human again.

But being a human doesn’t absolve him of the hard and heartless punches he got, nor did it defend him from a stab right through his stomach. And worse, it was far from helpful to save the little girl.

And then Al was running after them, screaming, struggling to reach out to the small girl. He knew she was in danger, and he couldn’t let the man get away with her.

But Al is no longer immortal. He has no infinite stamina, and his body cannot take the same blows he did in the past. So, the stab wound was enough to knock him down. He couldn’t do anything to save her.

All he could do now, is to be stuck here hearing her cry from afar.

Al’s hands clutch the hospital clothes, inhaling and shutting his eyes fiercely.

…

Though, not going to lie, the loud running steps and a door opening wide do alarm him. But he’s quick to realize that his brother has arrived.

“Al!” Ed yells, rushing to his bed. “Al, are you okay?!”

“I’m fine, brother,” Al replies numbly. “It’s nothing to be concerned about. The doctor said I just need to rest for a while before I can go home.”

Ed exhales. “Holy shit, Al,” he curses under his breath, clutching one of his blond bangs with his hand. “Care to tell me what the hell happened?”

Al doesn’t face him. He doesn’t think he can.

“Al,” Ed insists, clearly impatient, “they told me you ran after the guy while you were losing blood. Do you have any idea how reckless that was?!”

“As if you can tell me off for being reckless,” Al mumbles.

Obviously, it annoys Ed even more. “This is different, Alphonse! You’re not immortal anymore! You’re not invincible and you could actually die with no going back!”

“You think I don’t know that?” Al raises his voice.

“Then WHY did you do it?!”

Al has had it. “Because I needed to save the little girl, Ed!”

Ed is thrown off by the sincere, frustrated statement. “Little girl?” He asks, not sounding as angry as before.

“The man, he”— Al swallows a lump —“he had this little girl with him… I found her in an alley, and she was terrified. I wanted to help her but then he hit me. And when he realized who I was, he punched me and stabbed me; and then he ran away with her.”

The girl’s face is in his memory, her eyes wide, hurt, scared. His arms shake.

“All I could think, was that I had to save her,” Al explains. “I-I had to, Ed. B-But I couldn’t protect her. I collapsed and he got away.”

His brother’s presence is no longer loud. Ed’s expression is sympathetic and sorrowful. Al lowers his head, shame weighing onto him.

Ed approaches him and puts both hands on Al’s shoulders. “Oh, Al… I’m so sorry.”

Al can’t help but flinch at the metal touching his skin. Ed’s automail is cold and hard against his fragile human body. Ed couldn’t quite get his body parts back, but it’s something he doesn’t mind.

Al refuses to look up still.

“Brother,” Al opens his mouth before realizing. “Please don’t take this the wrong way. I am more than grateful for getting my body back, and I would never reverse it. But…” The sniff that comes from him sounds child-like. “I know people are still out there to hurt others. To hurt us. But how can I protect them? H-How…” he hiccups, “h-how will I protect you, when I’m this useless?”

Ed’s hands still. “Alphonse…”

Al hides his face, unable to deal with this shame. He’s really useless to others. He can’t do anything, because he’ll definitely die, and people will get hurt because of him.

He knows everything is an exchange. Al might not be an alchemist anymore, but life is still based around it. In order to get his body back, Al gave up his immortality to grow up with his brother and his friends. He gave it up so he could be able to hug Ed again. So he could sleep and eat, and breathe. But when Al needs that strength again, he does not have it. He cannot save others. Like he couldn’t save a girl right in front of him.

What if people go after his family? What if they get to his brother? What will Al do?

Al’s endless guilt is quieted a little, however, once he’s pulled in a hug, his head lying against Ed’s chest. His older brother holds him tight around his shoulders, whilst he smooths Al’s short, blond hair.

“Al,” Ed speaks to him softly but firmly, “you’re the strongest person I know – with or without the armor. But you don’t need to risk your life to save us like you did before.”

“But she needed help, Ed,” Al sobs, “s-she needed…”

Ed sighs and hugs him closer. “I know. I’m sorry.”

They don’t let go for maybe an eternity. It takes a few more hours before Al is free to go. He can walk just fine, but he can’t run for his life again. In the meanwhile, Ed has his arm around the younger’s shoulders, watching everyone passing by like a hawk.

Al is far from feeling better. He doesn’t think he’ll recover from it, even if his brother might be right. At least Ed welcomes his grief, as they still think of past lives they lost in their journey.

The younger Elric remains silent. Ed doesn’t try to make him talk. He does get to reassure him with his presence and soft words.

“I’m going to take care of you now, okay?” Ed tells him. “You don’t need to fight anymore.”

Although Al is around the same height as Ed, he feels small as he hides his face in his older brother’s shoulder, like a child seeking for protection. His lip quivers and the tears fall silently. It might seem a little pathetic, but Al doesn’t pull his face away; and Ed squeezes him as well, kissing the top of his head.

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

Gotta say, Tumblr giving me nightmares is NOT a good turn of events.

It started out nice enough. I was hanging around with a bunch of friends I met on Tumblr. Obviously this is absurd, as if I’d meet anyone from here in the real world. Heck, when I told real world folks I don’t really use Facebook, but sent a link to my Tumblr not one of them were interested. Tumblr and the real world don’t connect.

Oh, and there was also a guy that was romantically interested in me with us. So clearly this dream wasn’t bothering with reality at all. Guys never even flirt with me, hell, I’ve never even been cat called! ** But dreams are dreams.

Anyway, everyone in the group started talking about something, a tv show, movie, or something. Whatever it was kept shifting. Dreams don’t you know.

The conversation turned to characters and everyone started assigning labels to characters. This character is a “insert label” or this character has “insert label”. 

 Now I was enjoying it at first. I loved that everyone was seeing themselves, ot at least what they needed to see, in these characters. These were characters where things weren’t ever said in the text, or the terminology or society at the time of creation wouldn’t have permitted it, and It was wonderful seeing people adopt them anyway.

Then it started to turn sour. Things like “only way to see it”, “everyone can tell”, “obvious”, “no other way to look at it”, and so forth were being said every other sentence. As far as they were concerned there was a label for each character and no other labels were allowed. 

I got uncomfortable. They saw themselves as being inclusive because they saw the characters as part of an under representative group, but they were excluding anyone else, even of  another under representitive group, that identified with the characters. 

They got to a character very dear to my heart, a character I’d identified with since I was a tiny child. They declared the character was absolutely something or other, I can’t remember what. The label didn’t fit me, but the character always had felt totally me.

So, I did something stupid. Since I was with good friends amd they were happily seeing themselves in the characters, I chimed in too. I said “That’s cool! You know, it’s interesting how we all see things differently. I’ve always seen them as..” and I described the way I’d always seen the character. The list involved a lot of personal characteristics that had made me indentify with the character.

I got shouted at. “NO!!! They are not like that!!!!” “If you can’t see that the character is only (insert label) then you hate people that are (insert label)!!!!!!” “You are trying to steal our character!” “You are obviously just prejudiced!!” “You are wrong! No one can honestly think that!!” “Why do you hate us?” 

I tried to argue quietly. I pointed out I liked them seeing themselves in these characters. It was completely valid, but I saw myself in this character and that should be valid too. I rarely saw someone like me in fiction, so this character had meant a lot. This character had been like a friend to me when I was a kid. 

“People like you don’t deserve friends!” 

And they left me in disgust. The guy said he was disappointed in me and walked away too.

Alone.

I didn’t hate anyone. I figured we all had our own versions of the characters, and mine was the one I needed, like the ones they had were theirs. Mine shouldn’t effect theirs. 

I was sharing because I thought we were friends. 

I thought I counted too.

I don’t belong anywhere.

I woke up crying, which is deeply embarrassing.

But you know, I get why I had the dream. I saw a post on here last night that reminded me of a few years ago when an online friend turned on me for not shipping their fave ship. Then I poked around a few minutes on a message board for a favorite fandom and ran into a lot of “one opinion allowed” kind of thinking. And running into the farmer yesterday reminded me how apart I am from the local community despite living my whole life here. Of course I had that dream.

TBH, it’s the crux of most my problems: I never feel I belong anywhere. 

Once upon a time I thought fandoms would be a way to belong. If only I could just meet someone that liked what I liked I’d have a place. At a child in the pre-internet days I had no real chance. A rumor that someone read comics or finding out someone had actually heard of Doctor Who could briefly stir a bit of hope. Inevitably the comic reader would move away three days after I found out or the person that knew of Doctor Who would have just seen two episodes and thought it was stupid, but it still would feel like a reminder of twinge of possibility. Somewhere out there someone liked the same things I liked, and I’d fit in. 

Funny thing, it never occured to me that if we liked the same thing that liking that thing differently might be a problem. I just figured that the important thing was our shared interest, not the small details of favorite episodes or whether a character made you swoon or cringe. 

The internet seemed a miracle at first. You could live in the middle of nowhere without anyone for miles with a thing in common, but suddenly you could talk to people all over the world. There were fandoms for anything and everything, enthusastist and hobbiests with every passion under the sun. There must be so many places I belong.

Or not.

Turns out that fandoms, hobbies, and the like all have their norms, their general consensus, their proper ways, and so forth. Even the most niche ones, subsets of subsets, tend to have a bit of gatekeeping that ends up making me feel excluded. I can’t even fangirl right because I’ll inevitably interpret something in an atypical way or I’ll latch onto a character “everyone” hates. 

So honestly, I think I need to accept at this point I belong nowhere really. I’m an oddball among oddballs.

 I just have to content myself with being a feral creature wandering a wilderness and watching from the trees as others gather around the campfires. I’d like to think if I approached I’d be adopted as their pet weird monster, but that’s unrealistic. I’ve been chased away and had spears chucked at me too many times. It hurts too much. Alone may not be as fun, but I’ll live. I have so far.

**TBH, I wish I were asexual or something so it wouldn’t be so disappointing to always be ignored. But it’s just the way it is for me...so maybe I’ll get used it. I expect it will only take another 50 years or so! LOL