#I can't remember ever actually writing a romantic ship for him I can't lie

[francesderwent]

speaking as someone who hated Steve in season one, shipped Jonathan and Nancy in season one and two, and now full-heartedly ships Steve and Nancy, I always hated how Nancy and Jonathan get together in season two. I (obviously) hate the Murray of it all, because no story which viewers have been led to care about deserves to have its decisive climactic moment hijacked by a balding conspiracy theorist who (wrongly) considers himself an expert in human behavior. but even setting aside Murray (as much as it's possible to do so when he's inextricable to how everything plays out), I thought the scene did such a disservice to the Jonathan/Nancy relationship as it was set up. even once I didn't ship them anymore, that scene just seemed like bad, out-of-character writing. but I think I found a way to fit the scene into the larger story.

Jonathan Byers & Restraint

this isn't groundbreaking (I'm probably subconsciously stealing from a thousand Maria metas), but what made Jonathan and Nancy stand out in season one is romantic restraint. while Steve is climbing in Nancy's bedroom window and trying to unbutton her shirt and sleeping with her all by the end of the second episode, Jonathan and Nancy talk to one another, awkwardly, stiltedly. if I remember right, they don't touch, at all. Nancy is trying to connect with him, and Jonathan isn't opposed, but they're both very cautious, and the connection is difficult and uncomfortable. Jonathan's bizarre choice to take her photo while she's half naked and he's hiding in the woods is symptomatic of how he feels about her at this point: he sees her only at a distance, and sees that she's beautiful at the same time as he sees that she's not for him. in the photograph, he tries to capture what little of her he can have for himself. this stupid, grasping choice ends up hurting both of them.

so as we start episode three and really start to move into the center of the story, both Steve and Jonathan have crossed a boundary. Nancy and Steve aren't able to admit (yet) that what they did poses a problem. they're still close, but their closeness is actually an obstacle to their communication. Steve can't see what's going on with Nancy because he's caught up in his starry-eyed triumph that he doesn't have to pretend not to care anymore because he finally won her and she's finally his! and Nancy can't connect with Steve because in order to be honest with him she would have to admit that he hurt her, and she doesn't want him to know that. their closeness is a lie which prevents any other truth from being told, and as season one moves forward, the lie becomes more and more obviously a lie. Nancy lashes out at Steve for worrying about his father when Barb is missing. she kisses him when he comes to check on her, but lies about the baseball bat and what her plan is. Steve's supposed love for her can't survive seeing her with Jonathan, and he stands by while his friends ruin her reputation. he doesn't trust her enough to believe her when she tells him nothing happened. I'm just hammering the same point here, but they are literally too close to see clearly.

against this backdrop, Nancy's relationship with Jonathan appears starkly different. the revelation of Jonathan's transgression pushes him and Nancy further apart, forces them to take a hard look at themselves and a clearer look at each other. they see all the differences between them. they see the way the other person doesn't perfectly understand them. and they see all that because they can see clearly that Jonathan's crossing of that boundary was wrong. but because they share similar goals and want to work together, they have to stay conscious of all those boundaries, they have to be even more careful and respectful of them moving forward. if the defining moment of Steve and Nancy's relationship is falling into bed together without ever discussing what it means (and I think, for better or worse, it is), the defining moment of Jonathan and Nancy's relationship is him lying on the other side of the bed from her without crossing the line. and he is able to be a comfort to her because he doesn't cross that line! after the photograph almost ruins everything, the restraint is present in every interaction between them: the way Nancy holds ice on his face at the police station, the way she bandages his hand, the way he accepts her Christmas gift. I was really struck, this rewatch, by the image of them setting the bear trap together: they're moving in sync with each other, backing away slowly, carefully, because they know to move quickly or carelessly could be disastrous. that's their relationship in a nutshell. and that's what made their relationship so compelling.

now, both of these dynamics are still visible in the beginning of season two: Steve and Nancy are officially a couple, but they’re understanding one another less than ever: he doesn't understand why she feels they have to continue having dinner with Barb's parents, she doesn't understand how he could want to go to a Halloween party; she tells him everything about their carefully reconstructed lives is bullshit, he is absolutely shell-shocked because he thought it was real. Jonathan and Nancy are walking a thin tightrope: Jonathan takes her home from the party, puts her to bed and takes off her shoes, he tries to assure her that Steve still cares about her, they both quickly request separate beds at the hotel. but once Murray interferes, they fall off the tightrope and they fall off hard.

when the restraint breaks, all their careful intentional distance overwhelmed by exploding desire and tension, it's not just a kiss. it's a kiss that immediately becomes sex. they haven't said a word to each other about what this means or what they feel for each other. they've both been drinking. Nancy hasn't broken up with Steve. it's a betrayal of everything their relationship has been up until this point, and it's a letdown, because it doesn't feel like the Jonathan and Nancy we've been watching and rooting for for two seasons. it feels like the end to a different story, not this one.

and unlike the photograph which crossed a boundary and then had to be dealt with, for the rest of season two at least, there are no consequences. Nancy and Jonathan are just...together, after this. Steve gracefully bows out; he doesn't accuse Nancy, he doesn't even make her tell him what she did, he takes all the blame on himself. this makes Steve look really good, really mature and unselfish, but it's dishonest in a way that season one wasn't dishonest. season one was brutally honest about the fallout of Steve and Nancy having sex, and it was beautifully honest about what Jonathan and Nancy had to do to build a relationship on a different foundation. now Jonathan and Nancy kick off their romantic relationship on that exact same foundation as she and Steve did in season one episode two - we've had some sexual tension, we had sex, now we're a couple - and this time, for no reason, everything's fine.

if you assume that Jonathan and Nancy are endgame, it's a ridiculous squandering of one of the best-drawn relationships in the story. all their narrative potential is lost, wasted. in season three, Jonathan and Nancy bicker annoyingly and to little purpose; the majority of their arc is already behind them and the writers appear to be at loose ends, creating thin conflict for no reason.

where it starts to get really interesting is when you stop assuming that Jonathan and Nancy are endgame.

Nancy Wheeler & Illusions

so far I've been prioritizing Jonathan’s perspective: his making amends for the photograph and learning how to care about Nancy respectfully. it's through this lens that the sex scene in season two is out of place. but if you focus in on Nancy, the defining factor in the love triangle for the first two seasons isn't restraint. it's reality.

I've written about this before, but Nancy's arc in season one is about the shattering of all her illusions. she already had her doubts about her parents' marriage, but she was still playing the game, still trying to get good grades, still trying to seem like a good girl in front of her parents, still trying to seem cool in front of Steve and his popular friends. and one of the illusions that shatters most painfully for Nancy is her romantic illusions around sex. she bought into the lie that if she would just sleep with the cute guy she has a crush on, she would feel close to him and he'd love her. after episode two, she learns intimately that this isn't true. Steve tells her she’s beautiful, he doesn’t tell her he loves her. he falls asleep and she has to get dressed and walk home on her own, with no words of reassurance. she stands on the stair in Steve's sweatshirt and tells her mother coldly that Steve isn't her boyfriend and nothing happened, because at that point Steve isn't her boyfriend and she has to go to school the next day and act like nothing happened. he walks up to her locker and kisses her, but tells her only, “I had a good time.” we can see this tearing her apart before she ever starts to suspect anything has happened to Barb.

and so she starts to see through the falseness and thinness of what she used to think was important - because of Barb's death, because she discovers the upside down, and because of Jonathan. she tells him the story of her parents and their loveless decision to buy a house and start their nuclear family, and Jonathan answers, “screw that.” Jonathan is the one who gives her permission to reject everything she put her faith in. at last, someone is admitting out loud that trying to fit herself into these boxes is hurting her! at last, someone isn’t afraid to exist outside of the norms that are destroying her. it’s a relief, not having to pretend anymore.  

fast-forward to season two: Murray (ugh) says that Nancy doesn’t love Steve, that she’s afraid of who she really is, that she has chemistry, history, and shared trauma with Jonathan, and that therefore they should cut the bullshit and share the bed. notice: he doesn’t say Nancy loves Jonathan and should be with him. they’re just young and attractive and they have chemistry, so they should sleep together. there’s no pretty façade over it. and this is what Nancy has in common with Jonathan, that they don’t buy into the bullshit. and so here’s my hypothesis: Nancy walks out of her bedroom to find Jonathan because she can sleep with him without any illusions. maybe this time sex can mean whatever she wants it to. maybe this time she won’t have to twist herself into knots pretending like it brought the closeness she thought it would.

the reason this scene doesn’t feel like a satisfactory end to a romance arc is it isn’t the end to a romance arc. it’s the natural continuation of Nancy’s arc in season one, admitting, once and for all, that the pretty illusion doesn’t satisfy, that she doesn’t fit into that picture and she’s never going to. what she mutters to herself alone in her room, right before she goes to find Jonathan, is “I’m not afraid.” she doesn’t choose Jonathan because they love each other and they’re going to be together forever—because they don’t say they love each other, and they don’t talk about their future. she chooses Jonathan because he’s on the outside, just like she is, and she’s not afraid anymore to admit that she’s just like him.

through this lens, their fighting in season three isn’t the contrived conflict of a couple who got together too early and have to find something to do in the sequel. their fighting is exactly the same as Nancy and Steve’s fighting in season two. they’re too close to see each other clearly, and they can’t admit it. she wakes up in his bed, how can he not understand her? he lets her see him for who he is, how can she not recognize his pain? their lack of restraint does hurt them, just like it hurt Nancy and Steve, and knowing that the romantic magic of sex is an illusion doesn’t exempt them from that hurt. it doesn’t bring them into perfect closeness and unity, but it does bring them close enough to feel all their inequalities and disagreements without the objectivity of distance. their priorities are different; their plans don’t align. how could it be any other way, when they never talk about those things? at the end of the season, Jonathan moves to California, and when Nancy tells him she wants him to stay, he says only that everything will be okay because they have shared trauma—he doesn’t say that he’ll come back, he doesn’t say that she should join him, he doesn’t even make plans for Thanksgiving like Mike and El do. they have a bond that makes him moving away painful—but they can’t figure out what to do about it.

so Nancy and Jonathan sleeping together isn’t the end of their romantic storyline. it’s just a stepping stone in Nancy’s journey with disillusionment. Nancy tried using sex to get her happy ending with Steve, and it didn’t work. then she stopped believing in happy endings and clung to Jonathan who also didn’t believe in them, and that didn’t preserve her from disappointment either. what is all of this leading us toward?

Steve Harrington & the Love Confession

ahem.

Steve starts out as the epitome of everything that Jonathan and Nancy are growing beyond: popular, shallow, charming Steve Harrington who takes sweet Nancy Wheeler to bed. but in every season Steve proves himself again and again to be someone to rely upon—he comes back to fight the demogorgon after Nancy tells him to leave, he protects the kids from demodogs and evil brothers, he swoops in for the big rescue when Nancy’s about to die. and again and again, he receives no reward at all. he doesn’t get the girl (Nancy). he doesn’t get a different girl (Robin). he doesn’t even get an apology Christmas gift or to be Nancy’s friend, like Jonathan did. the only thing he walks away with, every time, is growth. he is a bigger person than when he set out, he’s more of a man.

in season two, he lets Nancy go with his insanely generous “it’s okay, Nance,” and submits to loving her without possessing her, watching her from his car outside the dance and then driving away. in other words, he learns restraint. in season three, he stops caring so much about his image: “Tommy H. would’ve made fun of me, or I wouldn’t be prom king. that’s stupid, Dustin’s right, it’s all bullshit.” he sees through the illusion and rejects what isn’t important. (and we know he’s learned restraint, how to love without grasping, because of the way he handles Robin’s rejection.) he’s a little slow—learning the lessons that Jonathan and Nancy do a season late and usually when no one is watching. but when he and Nancy are finally thrown together again, he’s different. he’s grown, and his love for her has grown, too. we know that, because when he jumps into the upside down and Nancy follows, and Eddie steps into Murray’s shoes and helpfully points out that something is afoot, Steve doesn’t react like Nancy and Jonathan did.

remember what Murray told Nancy and Jonathan: you have chemistry, history, and shared trauma, you should stop pretending and share the bed. what does Eddie tell Steve? that Nancy reacted to him being in danger by immediately, without a second thought, placing herself in danger next to him, to save him, and that it was “as unambiguous a sign of true love” as his cynical eyes had ever seen. already, there’s a huge difference. Eddie isn’t commenting on their sexual tension (of which there is plenty, Eddie had to stand and watch as Nancy ripped up her clothes to make bandages to tie around Steve’s midriff while they make eye contact). Eddie says he doesn’t know anything about their history. what he does know is what he just saw Nancy do. it’s not a connection, chemical or emotional. it’s love, love understood as an action, a choice. and he tells Steve: “if I were you, I would get her back.”

and Steve doesn’t wait until the first opportune moment to pull Nancy into his arms and give into his desires that he’s been so carefully holding in check for years. no, Steve does something very different. Steve tells Nancy exactly what he pictures his future as, and tells her that he wants her to be in it, that actually she is the most important part of his life. Steve makes a confession of love. and it stands out because when you think about it, there are actually very few love confessions in the show! no other couple says so clearly: “this is what you mean to me, this is what I feel for you, and this is what I want our life together to be.” Steve and Nancy and Jonathan and Nancy both sleep together and then slide into a relationship via the path of least resistance. Joyce and Hopper talk about a date, but don’t say “love” or talk about what this would mean for their families. Mike blurts to Max that he loves Eleven and Eleven happens to overhear it. Steve gives a wonderful confession to Robin about what he likes about her, but really doesn’t know her well enough to propose any kind of future. actually, the only character who comes close to Steve’s season four speech is Bob Newby, who tells Joyce that he loves her, loves her whole family that comes with her, and that he wants them to move to Maine together and be a normal family. but even Bob’s love confession is qualified by his not really knowing what’s going on with Joyce and her family, being kept slightly in the dark.

Steve is not in the dark when he confesses his love to Nancy—or rather, he’s in the midst of the darkest dark, standing in the depths of everything that terrifies Nancy and everything that made her stop believing in love, and he tells her anyway, because he knows all of that and he loves her anyway. they’re not too close to see each other clearly; he’s offering his love and his hopes to her so that she can look at them objectively and make her choice. and what he offers breaks open all the illusions that hurt her so badly. unlike the first time they got together, he’s all-in, telling her how he feels without asking anything of her physical first. unlike with her and Jonathan, he knows what he wants his future to be and is telling it to her clearly. unlike her parents, he’s offering her not security and normalcy, but a relationship motivated first and foremost by love.

the story isn’t just circling back to Steve because the will-they won’t-they with Jonathan has been played out. the story is circling back to Steve because he’s the only one who has all the pieces of the puzzle. he has the romantic restraint that Jonathan abandoned when Murray repackaged it as trust issues. he has the clear sight to see through the false images Nancy rejected. and when you put those things together—and put them together in a man who has been in love with the same woman for years—you get a love which wants to prioritize the good of the other, and is in touch with reality enough to protect the other effectively. and that’s where you get the love confession: it’s a way of stripping away all of the assumptions and illusions so all that’s left is the truth, but without using the truth to impose. Steve can offer Nancy absolutely everything, without crossing a line, without making it impossible for her to see what she wants. he can offer her everything—and if she says yes, he can give it to her.

[thousand-winters]

I hope YOU'RE doing well pal! 💖💖💖 I'd love to hear your Laios and Hooty thoughts

Actually now I'm thinking about them interacting and how cursed it'd be haha

I am today!!! It has been a good day for once haha. I hope you're having a good day today, and that your cats are doing good!!!

Oh, my gods, I can't decide if they would get along like a house on fire or if somebody would end up dead ahahaha. Or if Laios would consider Hooty looks stupid considering his reaction to Marcille's sky fish lmao 😭 I'm sorry, Hooty, you technically ARE a worm.

Okay, getting into it now, starting with Laios:

How I feel about this character

I love him!!! He ended up not being my favorite because I adore Marcille with my whole heart but he's such a good main character, honestly. I wasn't thinking too much about it when I started watching, I was just having fun and I think it showed already that he wasn't just a silly character or anything, but man... the moments he got the most serious, he had me in shambles haha.

I enjoy him very much, it's really cool to see the ripples in his relationship with both monsters and humans. There's so much to him that I'm yet to see too and I'm looking forward to it, he's definitely not the kind of main character you're kinda sick of and want to leave already haha.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

I have been swayed to the Labru side, finally, haha. I think they have a fascinating dynamic and while I certainly haven't seen everything they have to offer, the push and pull there makes it very compelling. Plus I'm not immune to cool fanart and funny posts, not gonna lie, but the main reason is that they seem to have a very compelling dynamic, not exactly direct or straightforward in its development and that really has me dying to see more.

I have been seeing Lashuro recently too and ngl, I've been going 👀 at that too. I remember I had talked with my friend Isis about how it was sort of funny that the Toudens do have very similar traits when it comes to how they view the world sometimes and yet Toshiro finds one annoying and the other charming. Probably in part a mix of attitude and gender, I'm not sure. Although in all fairness they seemed to be pretty at peace at the end so... I think it can be fun.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Marcille!!! Oh, they have so many good scenes with one another, they have such a fun dynamic, I love how much Laios trusts Marcille despite also knowing she can do shit like pour boiling water on an Undyne lmao.

In general they're very fun, the mix of them bickering but very obviously valuing each other's opinions and caring about one another is really good. Also I think it was you who said once they had siblings in lae energy and I can't unsee it ever since, they really do haha.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I haven't seen this much around tumblr or such, and I know the Dunmeshi Spanish fandom has the worst takes known to mankind but man, he's not dumb, come on now.

I doubt this is really unpopular and I especially need to actually read the full manga to understand his character more, probably, so I don't have too many complex opinions about him but... I feel like it's somewhat common to see him depicted as stupid but he's such a smart character, actually? He doesn't have to be the tropey nerd character to be smart, he has been shown to be very perceptive, even if he might be lacking on that department when it comes to social matters.

I just think writing him off as just being clueless and dumb is doing a big disservice to his character. He does have his struggles when it comes to general awareness and specific types of it but he's far from dumb.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I truly cannot speak on this one since I'm not done with the manga, haha. I have been spoiled a bit by some really cool fanart and animatics, I'm not gonna lie, so I have the gist of some big things that are coming but since I have the idea and not the actual development of it, I don't feel like I can speak on any of it, nor do I have any concrete ideas there anyway.

So far I'm pretty content with everything I have seen, both anime and manga wise.

And now onto Hooty:

How I feel about this character

I love him. I get why he annoys a lot of people in and out of universe, he's one of those silly cartoon characters that's not supposed to be super deep (although what's up with Papa Titan having a Hooty in his eye? I still need answers about that), but I like that he's always sweet and loves his people even if they're mean to him. I'm so happy Lilith came along and started appreciating him, it's what he deserves!

I think he's fun in general. I definitely would love to think more about the deeper implications about his existence, how did he even meet Eda and all about that, but I have to admit I don't think enough about him most of the time to even have ideas in that department. He's just silly and I appreciate that.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

None, this is how you get the cursed image of Hootlets. Does anybody wants Hootlets? This is how we get them.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

LILITH!!! Their friendship makes me SO happy, they're adorable. I definitely didn't see that one coming but I like how they ended lowkey balancing each other with Hooty reminding Lilith to care for herself and that she should depend on others and Lilith remarking upon Hooty's own worth to the point he's not seeking attention desperately anymore after they become friends because he's far more content with his friendship. It might have been more about how the writing around him changed too, but I liked to think the fact they became friends also helped the rest of the Owl Fam to soften around him and appreciate him more.

I love that in the end Hooty is living his best life just going around with Lilith.

My unpopular opinion about this character

He's not THAT annoying except in the Spanish dub. And I'm saying this as a chronic "obnoxious cartoon mascot hater" haha. Hooty is obviously supposed to be a little much but I don't think it ever goes to the point in which you actually want to strangle him or wish he wasn't even in the show in the first place.

At least that's what the experience was for me, I'm aware opinions differ but I think Hooty is pretty fine as he is, honestly.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Going back to that thing with Papa Titan and the Hooty eye... hey, what was that? Can we go back to that real quick? I really wish we had found out what was the connection between titans and... whatever Hooty is. I know Dana said at some point a specific youtuber had made the right theory but I could never figure out who was it and what did they say haha.

Anyway, yeah, I wish they had gotten into that. It would be Hooty AND titan lore all in one.

Thank you for the ask!!! From this ask game

[kathgon]

Just wanted to write some headcanons I have about Zoro since they'll just stew in my head otherwise.

Firstly, sexuality:

- When I don't ship him with someone, he's aroace (he doesn't give a shit in Canon so it wouldn't surprise me)

- If I do ship him with someone, then I headcanon him as either demisexual/demiromantic or boreasexual/borearomantic.

(borea- means that the person has a set orientation but there is an exception centered around one person. With Zoro, I'd see him as aroace but then he meets someone who he does actually love.)

(Demisexual/demiromantic means that someone only feels sexual/romantic attraction after forming an emotional bond. This would make sense in Canon if Oda ever decides to give him a relationship, and I think it is the best option for most Zoro/person fanfiction.)

Either work well in my fanfictions, though it generally leans towards borearomantic/boreasexual.

Next, actual sexual life, since it's related:

I imagine that he would have had sex before but not cared for it much. Sexual attraction is separate from enjoying sex, mind you, but this is just how I imagine how he felt.

I like the idea that he tried it with a woman and didn't care, so tried it with a man and still felt nothing, so just didn't do it again.

I think that he wouldn't care for the person and so didn't feel anything (because of the aroace/demi/borea identity). That would probably take place in his bounty hunting days.

I think it would be funny to have the crew talk to each other about if they were virgins, and him bragging to Sanji (who is definitely a virgin, don't lie) about having sex with two more genders than him. That's basically the only reason I headcanon it.

Next, disabilities:

It makes sense if Zoro is dyslexic (getting lost all the time, and have you ever seen him actually read?).

I also love these types of fanfic, so I love seeing it show up more often.

I don't think he's autistic or anything else, just introverted with a struggle to trust.

Lastly, a bit about his childhood:

We know nothing about his childhood before 8, so whatever happens depends on the fanfiction and how I want people to react.

In my mind, I think that Zoro had parents die at a very young age and so lived in an orphanage that was pretty negligent because of lack of money. As a result, he was kinda free to do what he wanted.

I don't think he actually remembers his parents, and so doesn't really care. It would explain why he never mentions them.

I don't think that he saw Koushirou (his master) as a father, just as a mentor, but I do think that he and Kuina thought of each other as siblings. The Dojo was the first place that treated him like family, so he thinks of it as his first real home.

Also, since Koushirou told Kuina that a girl can't become the greatest swordsman in the world, I think that he would have a slight grudge and dislike for his more 'traditional' views.

And that's it. Just some random stuff I've finally scribbled onto an online platform.

[homocidal-invader]

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Well dang :V

1: What was the first episode you’ve seen? Episode 1 because I intentionally looked for the show to watch it after seeing clips of it online.

2: What’s your favorite episode? Episode 1. It's one of my favorite first episodes of a show ever and I really like how well it introduces everything. I love other episodes of the show of course I just think the first episode did a great job and should get more praise for that!

3: Favorite Irken? I like the main character a lot but if I had to choose a second favorite uhhh the Tallests as 1 entity I can't choose one over the other

4: Favorite Human? I like the other main character a lot also but as a second Professor Membrane bc he's funny and I had a mental image of him before watching the show

5: Favorite Other Race? There aren't really a lot of those to pick from :V

6: Any fan characters? Yesssss a few but this particular one I made several comics about

7: Favorite fanfiction? It's NSFW and I haven't actually finished the full series because it's long and I suck at reading! I might consider linking it at another point :V Favorite bc I took some inspiration from it for Est and I enjoy NSFW fics lol.

8: Favorite fanart?

I've got a few really inspirational ones on my computer! I recently made a long comment on the Irken propoganda poster fanart (and made my own fanart based off of it), I like the Corrupted Data 99% one (and made my own fanart based off of it), I like this sketch dump of Tallest Zims bc it's cool and bc of the comment "all I do is lie to myself" which I quote all the time now, this FnF song video that I keep trying to do a full version of because the OP said I could but haven't gotten around to it yet, and a bunch more I don't feel like tracking down lol.

9: Do you write for the fandom? Well I make comics but for fanfiction I've made one, short ZaDr fic but in character somehow

10: Do you draw for the fandom? Yes, here's my art tag for this blog and here's my askblog

11: Would you be scared if Jhonen found your art/fanfics/blog? I've watched his Twitch streams (he might still be doing that every Monday?) and sometimes when he searches stuff up he ends up scrolling past fanart and doesn't acknowledge it lol. So not really, he's not as mean a guy as the fandom seems to demonize him wrongly as. I actually think meeting him would be pretty cool!

12: Do you like pairings? If so, which? I mean aside from ZaDr I like RaPr and basically am open to any if ppl write it in a way I like. Those two I just enjoy in particular.

13: Do you believe there are any canon pairings? Like, intended by the writers? I don't remember any prominent characters dating canonically no lol.

14: OTP? ZaDr. I watched episode 1 and shipped it immedietely after their first interaction XD If that's not a "One True Pairing" I'm not sure what is.

15: Favorite enemies? (Tak and Zim or Zim and Dib… etc) Does enemies to lovers count? Idk I am more of a HELPLESS ROMANTIC type I am only into enemies if it's charged in some way XD Otherwise it sticks out to me less so nothing really comes to mind that easily.

16: Favorite Tallest of the four? I can't choose Red or Purple it changes every day! I like Miyuki and Spork but come on they don't have that much screentime and Red and Purple have far more changes to be funny lol

17: Favorite thing about Invader Zim? ADHD and artstyle

18: Least favorite thing about Invader Zim? that's hard. Even when the show disturbs me I take it as a positive. Uhhh. when ppl in the fandom are judgemental about other people's headcanons in a mean way lol

19: Do you have any blocked tags, relating to the fandom? probably but finding out would mean I'd have to look through my blocked tags! I frequently block people though.

20: Do you ever do crossovers? I had some Gravity Falls crossover sketches back in 2021, and I've done a few crossovers between characters in my own discord servers sometimes, but nothing large/prominent.

...Unless crossovers between zim askblogs count.

21: Any parts of show that actually scare you? Probably not scare but definitely disturb me. I'd need to rewatch it to remember.

22: Any parts of the fandom that actually scare you? I'm very sensitive as a person and have anxiety so people scare me easily!

23: Part that made you laugh the hardest… I'd need to go clip hunting for that! Good news though I recorded myself watching IZ with a friend in 2021 and am slowly editing the clips so I'll find out eventually.

24: Part that you could relate to… Zim very ADHD

25: Least favorite episode? I like all the episodes and I see grossing me out as a bonus bc rarely do things disturb me and it means that it succeeded but uhhhhhh I mean least likely to rewatch probably rise of the zitboy lol

26: Least favorite scene? Sometimes there's fatphobia in the show and that sucks :V

27: Do you like G.I.R.? YES I don't draw him as often as other characters but if you look around my askblog he makes it into tons of the posts lol

28: If you could be anyone from the show, you would choose….. Trying to send me to hell??? Rude.

29: Are the Tallest intelligent or not? Yeah they just don't care lol

30: What do you think an Irkens blood color is? I like it when it's either pink or matches their eye color. I want a rainbow blood smear of irkens after war. imagine it.

31: If you could write an episode, what would happen? I've thought of several fake episode scripts, like where Dib gets suspended for pushing Zim at school and goes to a better nicer school, then ends up back at normal school at the end of the episode because the world is built to hurt Dib, or an episode where Zim gets stuck in his elevator and can't get out bc his PAK legs are too long and his rockets are useless and GIR is useless.

If I could write an episode though it'd probably end up being gay shit tho ngl

32: If all the voice actors and artists were different, would you still want Invader Zim to come back? Well if the writers are the same... hmm, though a lot of what was good about IZ was the synnergy between all the writers, artists, and VAs, like Rikki who voiced GIR also being a background artist, and somehow a bunch of these ppl are still friends 20 years later.

I think it'd be fun to see it even if they totally and completely fuck it up though because then the fandom would tear it apart and it'd be funny

33: Do you consider any of the characters your ‘babies’? Depends on the day but I do love random navigator drone from Florpus. Baby bc Evv is totally based off of them XD Adopted!

34: Do you have any fancharacters that are the result of two canon characters getting together? Fankids? I'd say Wur, even though it's not Dib's biological kid he's still its dad XD

35: If you could meet any of the characters, who would it be and what would you say? Dib's insufferable but I think he just wants someone to listen to him lol

36: If you could meet any of the voice actors, who would it be and what would you say? Probably Richard bc I've seen lots of interviews with him and he just seems really friendly and nice to talk to!

37: Other than Zim, who is your favorite Irken Invader? Damn :V Well we don't really get to meet the other invaders much, do we? Like it's either Skoodge or you just REALLY like a background character lol

38: Professor Membrane: a good daddy or a neglectful cold father? I'd like him to be good but yk all the times he's good it could just be argued it's because his kids are science experiments XD When I write him he's neglectful and cold but more on accident than intentional abuse. He wants the best for his kids but he's just not equipped to deal with their emotions.

39: Favorite quote? I'd need to rewatch the show there's too many good ones lol

40: Zim’s taken over the planet… Now what? Calls the Tallests to tell them about it and they're like..... We're not flying over there!!! Uh... we told you to watch it not take it over!!! uhhhh whatever, good job [disconnects].

Zim would have his fun being king for a day then things get back to normal by the end of the episode lol

[ohwell-itsme]

I see a lot of problems that are caused by or grow because of the language used, and I just feel like this time the fault doesn't lie in twinks. Because the word itself belongs in an alignment that was classifying all kinds of body types. And then it ended up being popularized in online fandom places. And something happened.

The pieces of media fandoms center themselves already held biases, in order to be marketable. The fandoms, however unaware of it, already held their biases. And suddenly everybody's favorite guy was a twink. Most of them don't even remember the other qualifications, because they'd have to first learn of otters or think about body hair other than maybe happy trail at all to bother with those to begin with.

The thing is, it wouldn't be any different under any other word. They want "a man with paper skin and bones made out of glass", a wet cat, babyboy, prettyboy, babygirl even, a little bottom bitch, and bottoms have no rights, a submissive and breedable catboy, a malewife, a bitchboy, a fragile little scrungly and it'd be so easy to snap his spine, a wind could knock him over, pathetic, slutty little waist, a dumb whore, crybaby tboy with visible ribs, he can't drive a car, it's a gay thing, a little housewife with a flat tummy and woman's underwear that only thinks about his boyfriend

You said you won't get into the gender roles 2.0, but this IS a facet of that, everyone knows not to say "the woman in the relationship" so they found all those slightly more subtle ways to apply misogyny 1:1 to all possible other receivers in sex, starting with the scrutiny over weight, make up, clothes, then moving onto perceived sluttiness, or purity, ability to be an independent adult, the role in a romantic relationship, eventually a role in the house with said partner, taking on most of the chores while the other has a job, they can have a part-time job or a hobby, but their main purpose is cooking, cleaning, looking pretty and taking the d.

This is all connected, and I don't think we can fight one of the aspects of body-shaming without fighting the root as well. And the root is the ever prevalent idea that everybody in the world should aim to please the allo gaze [wait what? Okay, so. I don't want to call it the male gaze. both because a lot of what's described here is done by women, like honestly a lot of queer people perpetuates that, and because at the end of the day it's aphobic, the notion is that you have to make your body attractive or be socially rejected if you don't meet the norm]

Sometimes I feel like being fat, disabled, trans or aspec themselves is the only way people wake up from this at all and none of us are immune to continuing to engage regardless because it's so ingrained into online culture, but that's the doomer mindset.

I think the start, the point where we can begin to challenge all that is reminding people to enjoy media through other lenses than shipping, appreciate characters that you don't immediately want to read smutty fics of, and once we're past that and people stop tuning out the characters that don't meet their beauty standards we can get to lowering those standards, because paying attention to something long enough makes one notice beauty in it, but people need to start paying attention first!

So here's another rot: the acceleration of fandom and death of proper analysis. How are people supposed to appreciate characters they're not immediately attracted to if they don't look into the nitty-gritty of the characterization? And how can we expect media that only want to be marketable to deliver on better and actually diverse rep when they see the little background scraps they give remain majorly unappreciated by the fandom?

Telling people to just not treat fat characters different from skinny ones won't help, because they're not being normal about those. There is another essay somebody could write, and most likely have before, about fetishization of youthfulness, "healthy & natural" appearances, the beauty industry, the predatory nature of it, sexualization of teenagers, and it goes on. Because we, as a society, treat our bodies like some sort of advertisement & the product we're advertising, selling something to people's eyes, something consumable. A character from a big IP meant to make money has to be as widely digestible as possible. Deviance from the established norm is often seen as repulsive, even grotesque. We haven't taken a step away from treating disabled bodies as a horror/tragedy, but here we are with the hopes that an average person with a m/m OTP won't hurl at the image of a gay bear.

Darlings, I am not gonna lie, I am a little worried about the future.

Well it's come up multiple times today so I'll make a post about it.

I think the popularization of the word "twink" has ultimately been really bad for people in general.

I know it's hard to track the positive and negative effects of language but I don't think it's hard to see how creating a word for a group of people wherein the most consistent qualifying trait is "being skinny" is healthy for people's self image. Obviously people have lots of ideas about what it means to be a twink- gay, lacking body hair, feminine, beautiful, young, white- but the most consistent descriptor I've seen is "skinny." Hell, it's even a body type on Grindr; the size below "average."

So it kind of functions as a code word in the gay community: anyone can say that they're only interested in twinks and they don't have to look shallow by saying they only like skinny guys. It's such an accepted attitude that no one really bats an eye when they hear it.

I'm not even going to get into how it's become part of the larger issue of people turning "top" and "bottom" into gender roles 2.0, but that is closely related, because people with any internalized homophobia can look at a skinny, feminine man and turn off their fag alarms by viewing him as a woman or not a "real" man, and it makes twinks more acceptable to society at large.

No, ignoring all of that, one of the biggest issues is that gay men are taught by society that they are only attractive while they are skinny. Just having the label "twink" reminds a boy that people are looking at his body and judging it. There were countless times when I was growing up that people would tell me, "You're such a twink," or argue about whether or not I qualified as a twink because I had body hair. People around you, unpromted, judge your body and give you a label based on it, and that label has a large influence on whether or not you're seen as objectively attractive. I know many other gay people who say they wish they were a twink so they could be more attractive to guys.

So think, you have all these kids growing up being told whether or not they qualify as a twink, and then we have the gay community as a whole where it's completely acceptable to say you're only attracted to twinks. I think its because of all of this pressure to be a twink (in other words, to have a below average weight) that many of the gay people that I interact with struggle with a negative body image or eating disorders.

I mean, people talk about "twink death" like it's an actual event that makes a gay man much less attractive, and no one thinks that, maybe, it's harmful to tell a guy that the very day he stops being young and thin and pretty, he will stop being attractive and celebrated?

I'm not qualified to speak on fatphobia in physical queer spaces because I don't have the ability to frequent them where I live, but I can't imagine that these aren't issues at social gatherings as well. I also can't speak on my own experiences with weight discrimination because so far in my life I have had a naturally thin body, but I have experienced a lot of outside pressure to be thin that have caused me to pick up unhealthy eating habits to reduce my weight in fear that I could become fat later on. Thankfully that is something that I've mostly been able to work past. I'm not an expert, but idk, I just wanted to rant on my silly tumblr blog.

Obviously it's impossible for a word to be inherently bad. I'm not trying to imply that saying "twink" is a magic word with evil powers. Obviously the real issues at play here are fatphobia and harmful beauty standards and body shaming. But in my opinion, the popular use of the word twink has made it much easier and acceptable to express fatphobia, etc, in the gay community by turning "skinny person" into a "type of guy that you should try to be so you can be attractive."

[dxctxrii]

Do I make Space Dad a shipping call is the real Q on my mind tonight.

[thatpinkbetch]

I'm going to answer it this way, because I'm actually not a fan of some of those, and I've heard this is the way to do it if you don't want it ending up in the tag or the search I think? If i censor any of the ship names it's not out of malice! I simply don't want any of this to end up in front of eyes that just want to enjoy their ships 💖💖💖 if there is anyone who doesn't want to see opinions against t*d*d*ku, k*r*b*ku, or even iz**ch*ka, please don't read any further! Oh my goodness i hope this is all legible...

Anyways, hello!! Thank you so much for the ask!! I love talking about my opinion avkvmsocnaocjsoxks it also makes me really happy you like my blog 🥺🥺🥺 (I hope this answer doesn't ruin that avskvneognsocjs)

I'll start out by confirming that I'm not a multishipper. It makes me excited to see how the act of shipping itself can make others happy, but it's just not that way for me. I actually never read fanfic until I got into bnha (bkdk is just that powerful 😁😁) I'm actually...a little serious when i ship, or when i enjoy media, i analyze pretty heavily, so also, if that doesn't sound like anyone's cup of tea, i would once again recommend to stop reading and enjoy your day please!

I love analyzing characters and storylines and dynamics, but i will admit, I'm not a fan of most of the ships - not romantically. I think all the characters have interesting relationships to each other, all of the kids are great friends, and I love bonds and friendships so much 🥺🥺🥺

Those first two are perhaps the biggest, at least they definitely were the biggest when I first entered. Once i caught up, I didn't really understand the enthusiasm, but people have fun shipping, so that's nice! I think of those two as easy ships, if that makes sense? They're pretty simple, and easy to digest.

I personally am not a fan of romantic t*d*d*ku for a very specific reason; it feels weird to me for Todo to immediately fall in love with the first person who's ever shown him kindness (since his mother of course). Todo had never had any friends, nor any want for friends, obviously because of the abuse he faced as a child. Mido was his first exploration at a life outside of his father, a life he got to make for himself, it just doesn't feel right to me that he should immediately think "oh, is this romantic love? Is this the one and only for me?" Well, perhaps a teenager might think that way, but i don't think that's actually how he feels deep down, and I'm sure that's something a lot of us have to learn as we grow (I've definitely struggled with my own understanding of romance for the past 8 years). I think he still is trying to learn how to socialize and to make friends and to be a friend (and he's doing SUCH a good job!) But to immediately plunge into romance, which can be complicated, i don't think that would be right for him. I hope that makes sense! I know they're a very cute ship, which makes for fun! But again, I can be a little serious when i ship...

K*r*b*ku kind of falls into similar territory for me? Baku definitely had friends growing up, but he's seemed to always have trouble understanding his feelings and where he stands with others, causing trust issues. Kiri is really the first person he knew where he stood with, a person for him to be comfortable with and feel on equal ground, which i think is such a huge and positive role in his life, and i don't necessarily think that it needs to be romantic - for both of these, i think these relationships are incredibly important, to everyone involved, and making them romantic doesn't make them any more important!! In fact, i feel like them as friends actually can offer a more complex, interesting, and human dynamic between these characters, as sometimes people simply default to romance and then end up pushing for the same old tropes and ignore all the intricacies Horikoshi includes in his writing.

Again, I love Mido's friendship with Todo, and I love Baku's friendship with Kiri. I think these relationships are incredibly important, and friends are incredibly important. People who ship them are having fun, which is so lovely, and i hope they continue to have fun! I hope you personally find more fics about them that make you smile and brighten your day 💖💖💖

Iz**ch*ka is a little difficult, because they certainly are cute, separately and together. I thought they were cutest before Ura was told about her potential crush on Mido, when she was simply a source of bubbly energy and positivity that helped Mido open up and feel comfortable around other people. I feel though that, romantically, it's extraordinarily one-sided, and at this point, i have to wonder if they really are "end goal." End goal for shounen, of course, is hardly ever explicit ahzovndlfjsoxo but i feel like a better storyline for Horikoshi to take would be for Ura to realize that she's been confused, and these feelings haven't really been a positive experience for her. I've definitely gone through things like that as a teenager. Now, the ship can be very cute! They're basically the same person, and they're cute and bubbly! But again, it simply isn't for me.

I think Momjirou is very cute!! Of course, as a lesbian, i sense strong lesbian vibes from Momo, and strong bi vibes from Jirou, and I also saw the ship potential ever since the USJ attack - which i think, so did everyone else ahaovndofjsojfsk they're best friends without a doubt, though i have to say, i really like Kamijirou. She just makes him so soft, and he's so in awe of her, and she thinks he's so funny, I love how supportive he is of her, especially since she can be really insecure 🥺🥺🥺

I also think Ura and Tsu are very cute but another easy ship, and i kind of really like Ochamina 🥺 they're both pink and space themed, they're bubbly and energetic and kick ass, and i think they'd be super cute...

I saved todobaku for last, because, you know what they say, best for last! 😇😇😇

I've said it before, but if there was no Mido (impossible obviously, and i would never want that) then todobaku is where my heart would lie. Baku has never really been shown chasing after anyone except for Mido...and Todo, which really gets at my heart. There's a grudging respect there - very, very grudging ahakckdkfjskdk which i find very appealing! Todo is very important to Baku and he has also been able to show Baku some things about himself that he needed to question and reevaluate. Meanwhile, Todo puts up with exactly 0% of Baku's shit, which i find absolutely hilarious. It's funny to me how Baku wishes to intimidate Todo as he does everyone else, and Todo simply does not care. And Baku wants to be mad, and ends up mad that he can't be mad since Todo is a strong and worthy opponent. They just have such an interesting chemistry, there's so much friction, so much tension, and I enjoy it, particularly since they clearly should be friends, would be great friends, want to be friends, but Baku simply won't get over it 😂😂 I do prefer them as friends, but friends that are incredibly close, two people that understand each other on almost a telepathic level, two people that give each other shit while also refusing to take the other's shit.

I do agree that many people in this fandom seem to think their ship stands on some moral high ground? It could be a disconnect from the previous generations of fandom, or it could also be the growing mentality on this site that everything needs to be a battle of moral superiority, and also that what you like is part of your personality, and if someone doesn't like what you like, then they don't like you or that they think you're factually incorrect. I personally have stopped going into the bn/ha tag simply because I don't enjoy, well, many things i find there, and I'm happy with those that i follow. I've definitely seen hatred and invalidation for both LGBT ships and m|w ships, neither of which I'm comfortable with. I definitely don't go off tumblr for fandom stuff because there's practically no acceptance for any same gender ships, or any queer headcanoning, which, I'll be honest, makes me scared, as i am a very anxious person avdkvndkfje i do think it should be noted that we should be as accepting of cishet ships as we are of queer ships - no debate on this one - but again, you are right when you say that many cishet headcanons have been used to invalidate LGBT voices, and any and all allies must always be aware of this! It is much more often that queer voices are silenced, that queer ships are ridiculed, that queer shippers aren't allowed to enjoy or see themselves. And to anybody that doesn't want to be an ally... Whelp ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ what are you doing here ajxkvmdogjdicjsicjsodj I'm gay

I haven't really read much of anything recently, let alone other ships, platonic or otherwise, because energy has been low for me for a long time. I wish i could participate more and support all my friends and other fans, but it's been a bit of a struggle 😣😣😣 I'm so sorry! Something that I can do is make posts and analyses and metas, as those are quick and make me excited, so I'm always happy to respond to asks like these! (I say as i take two hours to write this response...)

I hope people have been taking care of themselves and remember that tumblr is really good at letting you cater to your own interests! I hope if you've made it to the end of this response that you enjoyed it, and you're not mad at me ahsovjekgjsocjwodkso if you are, that's fine, I'm sorry, I probably am really bad at social/internet etiquette and such that help you filter 😣😣

To any who are curious, you cannot change my mind ahdogmdocjdidk thank you to whoever sent this ask!!! A lot of this is a bunch of rambling I've always wanted to talk about but was frankly too scared to post! I hope I made sense and answered everything you were asking!! Please have a good day/night/life!!! 💖💖💖💖💖

[ofgentleresolve-a]

⚡️ puts this here gently uvu

impressions, impressions, impressions! ( ft. lightning bolt meme ) | still ( selectively ) accepting!

send me a ⚡️and i’ll fill out for you/your muse:

my first impression of your muse:

ferre: “it's a detective muse. he seems like a cool bad boy :D okay but also he seems very fleshed out.”

mana: “...he made my husband boyfriend cry. i should haunt his ass. for the rest of his life.”

suki: “he’s so rude!” *passive-aggressively folds his report into a paper croc.*

my first impression of you:

very enthusiastic about ray and really good at plotting!! like before you i actually never really plotted with partners?? and then you did it with me and i think it just opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for me!

my favorite thing about your muse:

RAY!! what a grump, but he's such a sweetheart- you can't help but feel for him when his darker interactions come up. i think what helps there is that we get to see different sides of him come out depending on who he's interacting with and therefore, we kinda get to see him just...exist. be himself!! overall, he's a very balanced and realistic character- please keep writing him for as long as he makes you happy!!

my favorite thing about you:

cyan, it's always a good day for me when i see you on my dash. doesn't matter if you're answering someone else's threads or even just doing ooc updates. your presence just makes me really super happy and i'm so grateful to have the honor of writing and plotting with you for these last few years.

writing wise though, your writing is just wonderful, how do you do it, plotting is always a joy with u as well and i just...i love that i can give you chaos ( aka all of my muses, but really mainly suki and mana ) and you'll just...give it back to me?? and like this is also vice versa. it's hysterical and it really reminds me of why i love roleplaying in the first place!

would I ever consider shipping our muses:

i mean, if i ever end up making a muse that happens to hit it off with ray in that manner, then yes, for sure! but i do also adore all of our platonic dynamics... generally speaking, i don't go into new interactions actively looking to romantic ship anymore. tried that once, it had disastrous results.

a plot I’d like to see between our muses:

soooooo remember when i told you when i gave raphael the nickname 'ray', i was like 'oh, wait, i already know a ray....might as well give raphael the same birthday :-D' ? well you know, birthday buddies with the same nickname and who might be around the same age so they could be....friends outside of work. bar buddies. ( lamon gets no escape from answering detective about that 'car accident' either )

an AU I think would be interesting for our muses:

so you have a potential plot for all of my muses ( bc it is my goal to make diverse muses who also happen to know the SAME DETECTIVE sjdklfjsdkl ) - yoojin gets shot/stabbed fatally. someone calls the police. yoojin wakes up in a pool of blood while the investigation is happening. now he has to ( lie ) explain to a certain detective how he's not dead :-D

[search-for-light]

ShawMila or ShowMila?

ShawMila - the ship name/friendship name (depends who you ask)

ShowMila - the publicity stunt/PR name (personally I find the name's a bit mean and have only used it to present a distinction)

Before I get started, let me make it clear that this post is not an attempt to diss Camila or Shawn. It's simply presenting a personal view point. PRs are not always under the control of the artists involved. That does NOT mean the artists are lying. It's a part of the industry and contracts that fans may not appreciate but should not blame the artists for.

Okay, here we go...

This is almost an old topic since they've been seen together for quite a while now and there have been a lot of speculations. But earlier today I came across a new video on this that I want to share at the end along with my take on the whole thing thus far. It's going to be a long post so bear with me. Or skip to the end for the video. 🤷‍♀️

Shawn and Camila have been friends forever and ever since I Know What You Did Last Summer, fans have been stanning the two. Needless to say, there are A LOT of ShawMila fans and everyone has been aching for a second collab.

The build-up started in June with us getting the first pics leaked and the promos of Señorita began full on. But when everyone saw the music video, it was a frenzy considering how close and steamy the two got. It was every stans' dream. Stans were analysing if the two actually kissed. From my perspective, that's a negative. The overlapping images seemed to be trying to create an illusion of sensuality nothing more. Though there may have been a few light brushes of the lips here and there. Moreover, Camila admitted both she and Shawn very nervous about the whole shoot and said she drank a lot wine to calm herself.

Presuming they were attracted to each other forever as fans claim, shouldn't they have been more excited than nervous to be shooting such a romantic song? Although it's reasonable for one to be more nervous kissing a friend or someone you've considered your brother the way Camila has. 🙃

That was just the start. A bunch of Shawn and Camila pictures together began making the rounds almost immediately where the two seemed to be awfully close, almost intimate, with each other. This is what made it highly suspicious. Just the timing of it all. Camila had been papped with Matthew as late as May and there was hardly any time after that when the split was announced.

Of the many photos that came out, the infamous cactus pic has to be one of the most bizarre. Shawn looks right at the pap. They know they are going to get snapped so they hang around and give the pap exactly what he could sell.

An interesting anon conversation on the blog @ashotofblues revealed that you need a permit to take pictures at a residential area. So those paps were there because they were invited to take the pictures.

On July 6th videos came out of fans asking Shawn on his tour if he's dating Camila Cabello to which he furiously shakes his head *no*.

July 13, a video of Shawn and Camila kissing in a cafe is leaked. It starts with Shawn awkwardly looking around and adjusting himself and Camila seems to ready herself and face him. And Shawn puts his arm around her and they start brushing against each other's face? To be honest, I *really* wanted to see them share a kiss but this was the most awkward two people have looked kissing each other that I've EVER seen. It felt like they had never kissed anyone in their life. I almost feel bad for them. Another odd thing about this video was that there was literally no reaction from the person capturing this rare moment. And they managed to be set up at the right place at the right time. Strange we didn't see more of that. Why did they stop recording?

A few days after we get yet another leaked picture of the two kissing.

Close up I found on Twitter but sourced to @ashotofblues:

The kiss looks like something you'd see two children attempt. Or what kissing your "brother" might look like. 😭 (Unless you're the Lannisters)

Fans have tried to get Shawn Mendes to admit he's dating Camila in various ways but he simply ignores the question. In a latest video, he simply walked out of the Q&A session.

Maybe I'm different but if I was dating someone and we were caught together and he was avoiding answering questions about us, I would find that HIGHLY FISHY and almost as though he's ashamed to have been caught seen with me. But maybe that's me? Then again if I was trying to keep my relationship on the down low, I wouldn't be making out in public places to begin with. If celebs WANT to be secretive, they have people who make it possible. If they want to be spotted, their people make that possible as well.

I don't believe Shawn is that jerk of a guy to deny someone he's actually in a relationship with. The only way I can explain all of his behaviour is that this is an obvious publicity stunt but he can't exactly admit to it. That would defeat the purpose and would be in violation of his contract. Nor does he want to lie to his fans and claim he is dating Camila. At least I don't believe he would lie. It would be easier to simply ignore the question altogether. Fans will make of it whatever they will. When he said no, I believed him but his management just messed up and didn't prep him for the questions. Even when he was asked about love, he seemed flustered.

Back in January, he tweeted these specific lyrics which I found interesting.

There are other things that fans have tried to prove as signs that they are in a relationship. Him liking her posts on Instagram instantly. Do fans not realise that often the posts are not even posted by the artist themselves but they have social media managers for that sort of thing? I have never been able to like even a friend's post in a matter of seconds let alone Shawn liking them while he was supposed to be on stage.

Another was him following a jewellery account which fans tied to him buying Camila a necklace that she had apparently been wearing for a week already. PRs are MADE for fans like these. It helps both artists increase sales and currently both are the 2nd and 3rd most listened artists on Spotify.

Even though I love both as artists and genuinely ship their friendship, I find it a little hard to believe this is something other than a PR. I don't hold it against them. It's part of their contract and not in their control. However, sometimes these can be intense and affect the health of the artists involved which is why I try not to focus on it as much as their music which is why I'm a fan in the first place. Everything else is secondary.

Finally, coming to the video that motivated me to writing this post.

Do remember that they are human beings. We don't know what they are going through except what they allow us to see. Please do not use my views or views of others as a reason to harass them. If you like them, support them as artists. Because they have value beyond their relationships.

[juicemitio]

Alright I went to Louisville Galaxycon and saw Travis and Clint twice, for their worldbuilding workshop and their Q&A. Here's some interesting stuff I learned (I didn't include stuff they talked about that's pretty common knowledge or they talked about on the last ttazz)

Graduation 

Fitzroy was originally going to be a jock that was weak bc he no longer had a team, Travis told Griffin that that didn't really work for the world so they reframed it as him training to be a hero, was great academically and behaviorally, but had a problem no one had seen before and no one felt like dealing with. It specifically wasn't "barbarian fails bc he can't keep his rage in check," it was that no one was willing to deal with his magic so they shipped him off

Someone asked Travis to explain fitzroy's magic, so from the DM's mouth- he's a barbarian subtype with elemental magic which has a random effect while raging, which we haven't seen yet (path of the wild soul if you want to look it up and see what he can do) and he took a feat which gives him the ability to cast 3 cantrips of his choosing. What I thought was interesting was that Travis described Fitz's magic using the word "elemental" twice, even though that isn't specifically stated in the path of the wild soul entry

Travis knows Argo's secret and is very excited about it 

Clint has a pirate fiction book he reads every night before they record to get into the headspace to play Argo, he told us the name but I forgot it 

There is one small little concept that made the whole of graduation make sense to Travis and is what the arc will be about, and he only figured it out a few days before recording. Obviously he didn't tell us what it was

Originally it was going to start with everyone starting at age 11 and slowly killing the other kids off, but Justin didn't feel comfortable playing a game surrounded by kids dying 

The accounting scene is already one of Travis' all time favorite taz scenes

The pegasus scene informed Travis on exactly how he was going to treat the firbolg

Also Travis referred to Justin's character exclusively as "the firbolg," which means "master firbolg" is solely a thing going on with the npcs in the game which I find hilarious. They just all decided to give him a dope title bc he deserves it, meanwhile no one will call Fitzroy "sir"

To Fitzroy, social threats are an extremely real and serious thing, like the Biggest thing to him (we were talking about what characters found threatening in the workshop, for context)  

There's some big concept/idea that comes up in the next episode that travis almost let spill and had to quickly stop himself from saying it

Someone mentioned eating breakfast in their question in the workshop and Travis goofed on it for a second, then said "cereal world" suddenly, and Clint had to pick up the question bc Travis had to take a second to make a note of it in his phone 

Travis started brainstorming graduation in March and they recorded the first episode in October, and his main job in that time was working on graduation 

Before Buckminster was adapted for graduation he could not fight at all, if he got into a fight he would die, he poured everything into charisma and could talk his way out of any fight (even the big bad of the game he crit 20d his check and the big bad walked away from the fight) 

Travis is really into psychology and how if you assign a label to someone they're going to act more like it (ie you tell a kid they're amazing and smart and talented and they become more like that, you tell a kid they're annoying and dumb and a problem they become more like that), and how that was a major contributor to play into hero/villain/sidekick/henchperson dynamics, you get assigned this arbitrary title of good/evil/subservient and you become like that to fit the role, and then the inevitable pushing against that mold

Travis is fully aware of his story being compared to harry potter and he doesn't care bc it's apt (people in a school arbitrarily divided into four groups and one of them is the Bad One), also he knows people describe it as "sky high meets Harry Potter meets my hero academia" and he actually finds that really flattering bc he thinks that sounds cool and like something he'd want to watch 

On that note, Travis is a self-identified Slytherin and he's always upheld that the reason Slytherin is depicted in a bad light is bc Rowling decided she didn't like them, and he's always sympathized with the idea of a first year Slytherin working their ass off following the rules and doing their work and getting points, and Dumbledore rewards three idiots for breaking like every rule and pulls the trophy away from you. This was a big inspiration for graduation, of one group getting a bad rep and being portrayed as evil for literally no reason 

Amnesty

Clint & Travis's favorite scene they've ever done together was Ned & Aubrey's final scene together 

Aubrey and Dani do move in with each other at the end of amnesty

Balance

Travis' main emotion around taz is pride and he's most proud of the scene in stolen century with the spirits in the robots, bc they had to record it a second time bc it got way too dark and ended in a really grim way and about 20 min after they finished they all decided that they weren't happy with it, that it didn't fit the tone, he's really proud they didn't just leave it be and they took the second pass at it to make it right

I'm pretty sure he's talked about wanting to kill Magnus off at the beginning before but he mentioned that it was only at the end of petals to the metal he actually realized he wanted Magnus to live, bc Hurley had to sacrifice herself to save Magnus bc Magnus had been so reckless, that hit Travis really hard. Travis realized that Magnus' recklessness was getting people hurt and so Magnus did too, so Magnus become a bit more cautious and took up rogue training to try not to get anyone killed again 

Dust

Dust wasn't designed to be anything more than a one off and the workload was completely unsustainable, the document of notes for dust was about 100 pages and only about 10% of it got used

The reason Travis loved it so much was bc it was a mystery and he found it really fun

Commitment

Clint would love to revisit commitment, but probably not in podcast form bc he didn't find himself really being in the moment as much bc of all the different things he had to keep track of, he'd like to see a comic adaptation/continuation if possible

It was based of a comic he wrote that never got published bc the company producing it failed (he still cashed his paycheck) so he reused it bc he still liked it a lot, it was about how America was founded as a monarchy instead of a democracy and what that changed in the usa's (united sovereignty of america's) history, and how people now were fighting to establish a democracy. Also there were cowboys and spaceships and other cool stuff he put in there bc he liked it

General adventure zone

The reason why they're are able to do romantic relationships w/o being weirded out by it (they joke about it but they don't actually care) is bc it's never done in an explicit or sexual way and since it's the decision the characters would make to pursue the relationship then that's the decision they make. He reframed it as it wouldn't be weird if a family were writing a script together and there was a romance and one person wrote lines for one character and the other wrote lines for the other. He did mention that two siblings playing characters in a relationship as actors on screen wouldn't be cool though

They sometimes get comments that some of the stuff they do is "fanservice," but they feel that they owe their success to their fans and they owe some to them 

They are both aware of and proud that Justin is the best at character creation, Clint specifically really was talking about how Justin's strong suit is definitely character creation and characterization

General mcelroy stuff

They walked pretty close to me when they entered the stage room for the q&a and like… they're short, like shorter than you think

Travis referred to his unborn child as "baby dod" (I'm not 100% certain but I'm pretty sure) which I looked up and is a nickname for George, and given with their older kid being named Barbera and nicknamed BeBe and Travis talking before about how he and his wife like classic names with cool nicknames it makes sense

Travis had an earing in his right ear, I didn't get to see his left ear and I couldn't tell if it was an actual piercing or a fake, it looked really good though. Also his tinted glasses look a lot cooler irl than they do in pictures

Clint told the teenage mutant Ninja turtle story with the signatures that griffin told on mbmbam, but Clint remembered it as happening at King's Island, not Disney. This story was prompted by the question of the biggest lie he ever told his kids, and he only came clean about this a few months ago

Travis told a story about how he finished a videogame when he was younger and was so excited that he picked up a plastic knife, yelled "throwing knife!" threw it directly at Griffin who dodged it and it hit and shattered a window

[deepfriedtwinkie]

Why do you think Mike/Paige is so popular? Why do you think Gareth/Laurel isn't so popular? Songs that remind you of Dimitri/Anya? Favorite AU's for Enjoltaire? Rant about Hollstein (or one of your choice if you can't). What's a meme/quote that reminds you of Rogan and/or Java Junkies?

(see, THIS shit is why you’re my favorite human)

Why do you think Mike/Paige is so popular?

Probably because they look like Apollo and Aphrodite, tbh, b/c we all know that It’s Okay To Ignore Toxic Relationships If Hot—and because of the Fake-Ass Feminist™ idea that abusive women aren’t actually abusive at all, they’re ~EMPOWERED~ and men can never be victims ever. Like nooooooo, Paige was a BADASS for her (tunnelvisioned) commitment to those (ten, not hundreds of) girls, and for calling Mike on his lie about Lina (that her tunnelvision forced him into), and for holding him accountable (by extremely literally ordering a hit on him that was successful because he flatlined). All the times she hit, threatened, or belittled him was just Girl Power!! Like, yeah, what a badass woman, Bitches Get Shit Done, yup, sure. Or mAYBE FLIP THIS AROUND AND IMAGINE PAIGE AS A MAN AND MIKE AS A WOMAN AND THEN GET PROPERLY OUTRAGED BECAUSE OF ALL THE CLEAR AND PRESENT ABUSE, YOU USED NAPKINS—THE POINT IS, Aaron and Serinda are both unfairly pretty humans, and there are lots of “feminists” who actually don’t get the fucking point at all. Hence “Paige is a badass who’s SORRY for murdering him, murder means I love you!! Can they make out for my benefit now??”

Why do you think Gareth/Laurel isn’t so popular?

Political oversaturation. BrainDead had AWFUL timing; I know they were trying to CAPITALIZE on 2016′s hyperpolitical climate, but people were already fucking exhausted by reality. Plus come on, we ALL know how hard it is in REAL life for a liberal and a conservative to ACTUALLY get along. There’s eventually gonna be some shit you can’t agree on and can’t forgive and then the whole illusion of compatibility shatters, ’cause hi, that shit MEANS something for a reason. It’s pretty fundamental in like…everything. So sure, it makes a pretty great fantasy (especially with this I mean holy Jesus fuck), but at the end of the day, you either have to hope that Gareth’s eyes opened to more issues and he switched sides after some time, or expect that you’d eventually want to punch his pretty, pretty face in (and public faith in conservatives is rightfully so low that let’s be real, it probably wasn’t gonna be the former). It’s a lot harder to ship something that relies on headcanoning that half the ship will eventually change in order to make it last. THIS IS WHY I WILL ALWAYS WANT A SPINOFF WHERE THEY BOTH ABANDON POLITICS, TRAVEL THE COUNTRY AND GET A DOG

Songs that remind you of Dimitri/Anya?

OH GOD, first of all, “At The Beginning” and the rest of the soundtrack is just obvious (and I mean the MOVIE soundtrack because I’m sorry, I HATE that they scrapped the kitchen boy thing in the musical, THAT WAS THE ENTIRE SIGNIFICANCE AND FOUNDATION BEHIND THEIR RECONNECTION, THEY COULD HAVE MADE IT WORK EVEN WITH MORE REALISM, AND WHO REMEMBERS A FUCKING GLANCE FROM CHILDHOOD? IT’S SO RANDOM AND CONTRIVED, so for ME the Broadway version is NOT actually the couple I fell in love with and I’m mad at it, HE WAS THE BOY WHO OPENED THE WALL, DAMMIT, HE COULD’VE OPENED THE WALL OF THE IPATIEV HOUSE TOO, BUT ANYWAY, THE POINT IS I MEAN THE MOVIE). “La Vie En Rose” (Edith Piaf) is a Big Vibe one. “Your Mother Should Know” (The Beatles) always makes me think of them post!movie for some reason, especially b/c I used to write a ton of fanfic about them raising kids and whatnot, and I dunno, the past/family vibes….and it’s kinda silly, maybe, but “The Ballad of John and Yoko” (The Beatles) fit them post!movie really well for me b/c I always imagined them traveling all over the world together, and the song’s kinda part fun, part escaping persecution…. Basically anything romantic got my brain back on them for a while there…. Oh, and “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” (The White Stripes), which sounds weird on the surface, but….You fell down of course / And then you got up of course / And started over / Forgot my name of course / Then you started to remember / Pretty tough to think about / The beginning of December….??? COME ON. And I know I’m probably forgetting some.

Favorite AUs for Enjoltaire?

I am a hugantic ginormic sucker for the very popular Modern College Activist Group one. More specifically, where Grantaire first joined Les Amis because he passed by a meeting during his freshman year and heard Enjolras speaking and it set his soul on fucking fire, and he proceeded to sit in the back and sketch and heckle for a year or two until the day came where Enjolras was arrested during a protest and Grantaire tagged the cop’s car with spraypaint so that they’d arrest him too, so Enjolras wouldn’t have to go alone, *loud obvious cough,* and then in their jail cell, before ’Ferre could pay bail, Enjolras asked Grantaire why he did it, and Grantaire confessed and Enjolras kissed him, and they became their friends’ frustratingly adorable OTP. And Enjolras is emancipated from his rich, shitty, homophobic adoptive parents, but has tapes and diaries from his lovely birth mother who died, and SURPRISE, his birth father is Javert, who slowly learns to come around, see the error of his black-and-white ways, and accept, defend, and even love his son, and punches Enj’s shitty adoptive father in the face. And Enj becomes a civil rights attorney, with guidance from Javert, and R becomes a legit commissioned artist, and they eventually adopt a little girl who was born into addiction, name her Emmeline, and Javert is a shockingly good grandpa/babysitter and eVERYONE IS STILL ALIVE. (YOU ofc go here also and didn’t need me to describe all this, but I figured I’d get detailed for all two and a half people playing along at home)

Rant about Hollstein (or one of your choice if you can’t):

OKAY, WE ARE JUST SO LUCKY THAT THEY ARE STILL/EVEN A COUPLE, THOUGH. THERE IS SO MUCH “HOLY SHIT” IN THIS THING. FIRST OF ALL, THE FACT THAT LAURA EVEN WENT “YOU KNOW WHAT, I THINK I LOVE THIS CONFIRMED VAMPIRE” IN THE FIRST PLACE. LET IT NEVER BE SAID THAT LAURA HOLLIS DOES NOT HAVE COJONES. SECOND OF ALL, THE FACT THAT CARMILLA WAS SO JADED AND YET STILL FOUND THE ABILITY TO FORGIVE LAURA FOR GETTING MATTIE, HER SISTER OF LIKE NINE BILLION YEARS, LITERALLY KILLED. I TOTALLY EXPECTED THAT TO NEVER GET FIXED BECAUSE FUCKING HELL. THIRD OF ALL, LAURA LITERALLY DIED, OKAY, LIKE STOPPED LIVING. THAT’S GENERALLY JUST SLIGHTLY HARD TO REBOUND FROM. THE FACT THAT THEY EVER BECAME A THING OR EVEN SURVIVED THAT SERIES AT ALL IS JUST, YEAH, OKAY, YOU NEED TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER, BECAUSE IF NONE OF THAT SHIT STOPPED YOU, CLEARLY SOMEBODY FUCKING LIKES YOU OUT THERE.

What’s a meme/quote that reminds you of Rogan or Java Junkies?

I literally can not think of a meme that has reminded me of a ship ever. There aren’t any literary quotes or anything that spring to mind either, but the first quote from the SHOW that I associate with Rogan is “Jerk, ass, arrogant, inconsiderate, mindless, frat boy, lowlife, butt-faced miscreant!” (which isn’t the most romantic but dammit if I don’t grin like a monkey every time), and the one I associate most with Luke and Lorelai is “I just want you to know, this thing we’re doing here? Me? You? I’m in…. I am all in.” 

(HOLY SHIT THAT WAS AN EMOTIONAL RIDE, I FEEL LIKE I JUST RAN A MILE)