#I kinda don’t want to tag the show bc I don’t want antis in my ear

[sydneys-adamu]

I’ve seen some say that carmen was trying to use the thought of claire to calm down which obviously didn’t work so he thought of sydney, but I’ve also seen the scene read in the color of claire causing his stress in the first place, again ending in sydney quieting everything down. when you consider how disconnected he was during his night with claire, I’m more with the second choice, but both ultimately lead to syd being the answer all along.

[thelovelybitten]

HII so TY SO SO much for rebloggin my stendy (kinda??) FIC!! :DDD im super glad u enjoyed it and i loved readin all the lil hashtag thingies ??!!! i would've responded to the reblog but im still not too sure how tumblr works,, or how to dm folks. BUT JUST TY SO MUCH! it means the world to me <33

of course !!! I loved it so so much :’) (dw abt Tumblr, at first it’s a doozy but you’ll get the hang of it !!) (I also write everything and anything in my tags, so thank u haha)

I know ur fic was more Wendy-centric for her development and character, (which, thank you—we love girlboss Wendy, I love her so) but the stendy got me really hooked just because of the way you wrote them ! I like being able to see their flaws as a couple—without wendy being perceived as a total bitch (like some anti’s in the fandom paint her out to be) and Stan being honest with his feelings instead of completely neglecting/ghosting her like he does. In the fic, Wendy does prioritize her life so she can build a life with Stan, but she doesn’t realize she’s hurting him in the process. It’s how the two of them should be written. They do have toxic traits in the show that are very questionable ( their jealousy, for starters… stan’s dependency on her, wendy’s insecurity with everything stan does that’s not controllable…) but it’s times like in this writing where they do grow a bit and finally accept they don’t work out. It’s extremely hard on them because they’ve been so co-dependent that they can’t see life without the other.

on that same coin however, people need to understand that they can work together but they have such big contrasts and complications that they have to work on for the relationship they want.

sometimes they just. need to be on their own to figure that out. and that’s why this story ended up being so good because Wendy found her worth and now knows what and who she is without him.

they need to take care—find themselves before they can have someone else.

Wendy needed this. She’s such an activist in the show and in this story…Stan at the time just wasn’t helping like she thought he was. And he knew. He needed to let go.

Wendy is her own self at the end. It’s so nice to see. We love character development and to see her find confidence in who Wendy Testaburger is and will continue to be.

it was really refreshing, really. thank u <3 thank u for giving wendy depth bc that’s my baby girl and I love her forever

FOR MY FOLLOWERS READ THIS FIC IMMEDIATELY >:(

(P.S. I’m also just a stendy lovebot, I’ll take my crumbs even if not intentional, lol) (they get back together in my mind but that what stories are for—different interpretations).

:)

[housewarningparty]

Uh, genuine question, but what should non vegans and/or non vegetarians do to be respectful of vegans and/or vegetarians?

And also, a second more specific question, i get that unless the person has actually said something, irl wise it’s generally kinda dumb weird and probably a bit rude to go out of your way to avoid any mention of meat as food in front of a vegan/vegetarian, but online, where the rules are obviously different,

would it be good practice to tag posts that are about or mention meat or other animal products being used as food? Because i imagine even if you don’t care it just might get a bit grating? Like when you keep having to hear a bout a fandom you’re apathetic about

Again, promise this isn’t mocking or anything, these are genuine questions, 🙏 i just believe that similar to religious beliefs, veganism/vegetarianism shouldn’t be mocked and instead respected

None of this is dumb or weird! I think it's nice that you're trying to be mindful.

Personally, I don't think tagging for meat or animal products or stuff like that is necessary. I feel like 99% of the fast food ads I see on billboards or commercials is more obnoxious than like someone posting a pic of their dinner and talking about how good it was.

Tbh the only content I actually see on Tumblr that bothers me In A Vegan Way falls into one of two categories.

Exploitative Animal Images: idk to me this ranges from like mildly annoying to hellish. I feel like a lot of images of animals clearly in distress or in unsafe circumstances get passed around as memes a lot here and it's genuinely kinda disturbing. I mean obviously pictures of living animals captioned with something obnoxious about the kind of food you want to turn them into is one example.

Other stuff would be like videos of wild animals in domestic settings where they don't belong (I hope I never see another pet sugar glider video in my entire fucking life tbh) or like otherwise in captivity under CLEARLY shady circumstances (those tiger farms for example). Otherwise stuff like videos of people scaring their pets bc they make funny faces or silly noises about it. A lot of this stuff is pervasive in Internet humor or like cute animal pages and it can be easy to overlook but I think it's worth being critical of thinking about the circumstances animal content is produced under. Tbh I think this is a good internet rule in general - esp when it comes to meme images of violence and stuff like that.

The other category is probably more obvious and the thing I most frequently block/unfollow people over - please don't reblog weird anti-vegan propaganda. I feel like I don't really have to worry about this from you, anon, since you're clearly approaching from a respectful place but there's been what feels like a significant uptick in anti-vegan content couched in progressive language on this site recently.

From blatant misrepresentations of what veganism means to holding vegans solely accountable for stuff everyone does and/or corporate marketing, to weirdly hateful and defensive screeds - there's a LOT of really popular bad takes going around. And some of it is truly wild and really shows how little people read a post before reblogging it - a couple years ago I saw several majorly popular blogs on Tumblr reblogging an anti-vegan post that had lines about the "occult implications" of veganism buried somewhere in the text and it nearly drove me insane. More mundane examples would be the recent rise of 'vegans love to pollute with fake leather bc they're ignorant babies' type posts. A lot of these don't even have to be outright hostile to be annoying, but they all fundamentally fail to understand what veganism is about. It's not a health movement or an environmental movement or a 'lifestyle' movement - the #1 concern of veganism is animal rights.

Not saying there aren't overlapping concerns like environmentalism that can be used in the messaging, but at the end of the day whether something is good for your health or for the planet is a secondary consideration to 'does this system harm a living being unnecessarily.'

Anyway I hope that was a helpful answer!

Thanks for reaching out! Have a good one!

[self-spaghettification]

rb as this is my pinned post, (despite rebrand) here’s a

preface to my blog

hellooo i’m riley :) they/he, young adult, adhd, pan+nb, & my side / general stuff blog is @freefloatingtemporally , dm for nsfw tdp acct

i moved over to twitter in early july !!

@viiravos : art, writing

other stuff:

top posts, aaravos masterlist & my meta list

fic recs

april fools rayllum shipper bit

go here to view the site with the theme as intended :)

this blog is primarily sfw besides cussing i believe!

My page WILL have TDP spoilers and they WILL NOT always be tagged (bc I don’t catch everything/don’t have the time for that tbh) additionally i will be posting tdp criticism sometimes, post s6, but it also will usually be tagged

about me

eensy teensy op lore rant: i am a programmer but i also have a variety of hobbies and bounce between them like a ping pong ball. im adhd, nonbinary, pansexual, and ace-spectrum. my username came from this, i’m not too shy about sharing info about myself. and i’ve been in fandom & drawing since 2016 :)

you can learn more about me here

i also took ap lang and lit in hs so like? analysis credentials ish hwejrwehrwejr lmfao

i’ve been in the fandom since may 2023, although i’ve been casually watching the show since season 1 came out.

i’ve only watched the show like 3 times total except for, mainly, the aaravos scenes (look don’t @ me HFJSKJFDSK) or for screencap reasons aaand i haven’t read through much of the bonus content </3 [puzzle house, tox, etc…. though i believe i do know most of the important bits :) ]

i'm kinda lazy and am a slow reader buuut i do like making fic, meta, code, art, uhh probably whatever you can think of i'm down to make it. actually, i'm not super familiar with 3d art. so. not that. rip

my fav characters are aaravos, viren, terry, claudia, and callum, and crow master (tho every character has their merits) —tier list

i generally do not take interest in ships outside of viravos & kimditi, except in specific contexts: ie, the relationship dynamic affecting how characters will be manipulated

i also made a guide on what i've learned about tumblr so far if you're interested!

boundaries:

be an interesting person worth talking to I guess

I don’t like Leola and try my best to forget much of season 6 happened so—discussion and new perspectives are great, but please don’t come into my askbox only saying how good it was or feeling sad about Leola or Aaravos. Expect a short response if you do 😭

not a pro or an anti but a secret third thing i don’t like incest, underage, aged up, or noncon, so you won't see any of that on this page, but —everyone deserves a safe space to do what they want if it’s not harming anyone 👍 also depending on how u look at it like viravos is a weird ship for age differences, dubcon depending and all that too so yeahhh :) —>

i try to operate on a don’t like, keep scrolling, basis: outside of people with the same stance, the occasional salt and sometimes being a hater in a lighthearted way (or i hope that’s how it comes across), i kinda keep my opinions to myself. but if someone is bothering me for what i post, i'll hear you out but i'll defend myself. + if we’re mutuals / interact a lot and something i did made u uncomfortable or upset, please let me know! Feedback is important-it’s the only way people can grow and change. At least, if it’s considered.

i'm picky with blocking ppl. generally, it's fine to disagree with me about things. even if certain things bother me abt someone in fandom as long as we can still connect over something else it's usually not a deal breaker by any means. i favor blacklisting content and tags.

i will take writing/art/analysis requests

feel free to tag me in things, tag games, send posts/asks, or dm me! i take a sec to get back sometimes but i always try to anyway!

i’m fine with tdp crit, and i sometimes have my own (but it will always be tagged dw) ! + i kinda yap alot

co-creator of the aaravos cult discord B)

It’s tiny and while I’d say u gotta like aaravos generally please don’t ask to join if I/someone there doesn’t even know you, yk, is mutuals/friends with you!! that’s about it

find me here!!

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/self_spaghettification Twitter: https://twitter.com/viiravos Tiktok: https://tiktok.com/@viiravos Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/viiravos C.AI: Aaravos Bot (39k chats) ->my thoughts on AI usage Discord: freefloatingtemporally

tagging system

all of my original posts are under the tag #self-spaghettification if you’d like to see what i think without scrolling thru rbs! (not all my thoughts are bangers. but hey, they’re there!)

i also very much enjoy organization so i tag everything i rb, so anything related to aaravos will be under #aaravos, any tdp theory will be under #tdp theory, and so on :)

analysis tags: tdp meta, tdp analysis, tdp theory, tdp speculation, tdp parallels, tdp s5 speculation, tdp s6 speculation

Foil/ non-shipping-relationship tags:

Claudia & Aaravos: starlight

Callum & Aaravos: caallum, keys

Misc: parallels

other big tags: #my art, #my writing, #my edit (s) my #aaravos playlist! #tdp poll ,,

stuff not always under my main tag: #q&a , #tag game & then general shit that is like #riley rambles and #spaghetti salt

i do have tdp s6 spoilers / leaks but they’re all tagged. if something’s not initially tagged it will be eventually

have a nice scroll! ❤️

new banner because these fuckers wont leave my brain and they don’t pay rent >:(

[henryhas2moms]

sometimes it does feel like ouat is trying to be a bad show. there’s no better explanation for why they fridged marian not once, not twice but THREE distinct times, each more morally dubious than the last.

[uwuwriting]

Having a girl with an aesthetic w/ Shinsou, Aizawa and Bakugou

Request: Shinsou with an e-girl gf, Aizawa with a dark academia wife and Bakugou with an angelcore or cottagecore girl, please and thank you. - anonymous.

Yall, dark academia is my best friends’ and mine aesthetic and its so pleazing. Like god damn. Angelcore is amazing so soft and uwu. Do I even have to say anything fir e-girls? No, I would just do them an injustice. Love ya and sorry for the inactivity. 

masterlist 

rules

warnings: none I think. 

Shinsou Hitoshi 

-Yall match. 

-Like he wears dark brooding colors, mainly shades of purple to match his hair and maybe some greens while you on the other hand always have a black and red combo or some sort of stripped item of clothing. 

-You share beanies. 

-It has become an unspoken rule that you two will always go for beanie shopping every october. 

-Your style kinda changes according to the month. 

-Like during september you wearing mainly greys to match your sour mood bc school, during october since its spooky season you wear oranges and purples matching your boyfriend perfectly while January and December are red months. 

-Those are his favorite. 

-Red brings out the color of your lips making you look even more fearsome and badass, turning him on in the process. 

-Yes I said it, Shinsou will beg for red lipstick. 

-He’s semi worried for your hair. 

-You keep changing it and he doesn’t mind when you cut it, oh no he finds your bangs or pixie cut adorable. 

-He is worried when you change colors like you chnage clothes. 

-He liked all your phases. 

-The skank stripe and half-half ones  being his favorites but he will ask you to tone it down a bit give your hair some time to rest and regain their strength. 

-Yall paint your nails. 

-You will spend endless hours in his room just painting each others nails and doing face masks. 

-It brings out his edgy lord side, the nail polish. 

-As if the dark circles and that constant ominous look on his face doesn’t do it. 

-But you love it. 

-He looks so content when you two are just sitting there listening to trash rap songs and taking care of each other. 

-He loves it when you wear skirts with thigh highs. 

-Actually you can’t wear those anymore bc once he sees you you can’t really walk anywhere afterwards....

-He is all about your chains and chokers. 

-Like give him some he is jealous. 

-Baby really be thriving while dawning those fake silver chains. 

-If you are interested in more intracate make up he loves being your test subject and just lets you transform his face into whatever deity you want. 

-Tends to scroll through your tik tok because its full of witch toks and very very interesting cosplays and makeup stuff. 

-Somehow he found himself into anti trump tik tok and he cant get out..... then his fyp shifted to draco tok and he just gave up. 

- “Are you cheating on me with Draco Malfoy?”

- “Baby-”

- “Because I don’t blame you.” 

-Deadass has a whole folder on his laptop with couples outfits he wants to recreate at some point. 

-He’s just so wholesome. 

Aizawa Shouta 

-He really can’t understand how he managed to get such a fashion icon of a wife. 

-I mean have you seen the way this man dresses? 

-Head empty just Aizawa with pink sweatpants.

-Yeah so he really doesn’t get it how he managed that but he isn’t complaining. 

-I mean have you seen the dark academia aesthitic. 

-It gives Maraurders vibes and we stan. 

-He loves it when you wear long coats and those scarfs.

-They make you look like such a lady and so sophisticated and he lives for it. 

-He really likes the plaid skirts and pants, makes him think that he is living with an English lady or maybe a philosophy teacher. 

-Have I mentioned how much he adores your vintage book obsession?

-Going to old bookstores together and just browsing through the poetry books or the fantsy novels has become one of his favorite past times. 

-He tries to somewhat keep up with you but he struggles. 

-He really has no fashion sense but he wants to try for you. 

- “Honey you don’t have to dress up for me! I love you just the way you are.” 

-He loves you so much like omggggg!!!!

-Anyways. 

-Rainy days have become book dates where you just snuggle up together on the couch in a large fluffy brown blanket and you both have a book in your hands reading away. 

-He loves the little expressions you make when you are reading something interesting or staright up crazy. 

-He bought you your very own round -Harry-Potter-style glasses for your birthday. 

-You had been going on and on for some months now about how you wanted to go and buy a pair but you never got around to it. 

-Being a teacher at UA and a hero is kinda hard and a busy job so we get you. 

-You were so excited when he gave them to you. 

-Um for Halloween you two went as James Potter and Sirius Black. 

-He has the hair, okay maybe he is lacking that care free and cocky attitude but visually he does a good job.

-Seeing him in that suit oh boy. 

-Really your realationship is just full of Harry Potter references since you are kinda obsessed with that Era, especially the Marauders. 

-Hizashi is lowkey jealous because he could never get AIzawa to dress nicely. 

-You are special though!!

-You are the wife

-He does what you tell him to in reality. 

-He’s kinda wrapped around your finger. 

Bakugou Katsuki

-He gets flustered so easily.

-Like your aesthetic is so soft and angelic and compared to him people think you have a corruption kink. 

-He kinda feels bad bc when you dress like something god sent it because painfully clear how opposites you are. 

-He sees his rough edges and rude behavior more than usual and he may become self concious. 

-You will have to reassure him and remind him that this is a facade and that he knows your true evil nature. 

-You are a true menace.

-ANyone trying to fuck with your friends or your boyfriend? 

-They are getting round house kicked and yeeted out a window. 

-Back to your aesthetic. 

-Whenever he seas something pastel or colorful he wants to immediately buy it. 

-Especially pastel stuff.

-Pastel is your whole thing. 

-Pastel pinks, blues, purples, and greens. 

-He will buy anything, from a headband to a purse to a very very cute plaid skirt. 

-Kirishima and Denki are always so confused when he comes back to the common room with a few bags from womens’ clothing stores. 

-He never answers their questions of course. 

-He likes watching you make mood boards and create matching outfits. 

-Trying clothes in fornt of him is a must, a small fashion show taking place in your room every Friday night. 

-He likes to believe that you truly are an angel. 

-Your aesthetic is a combination of angelcore and cottage core so your room is split into two sides.

-One side full of plants while the other had pastel mood boards. 

-So pleasing. 

-You tried to shift him into your aesthetic once. 

-AND IT WAS ATRAUMATIZING EXPERIENCE.

-He looked so good in white and soft yellow but his mood was so so foul.

 -He had made you agree to never a) bring this up and b) try this again. 

-You have taken some photos though so not eveyrthing was lost. 

-You will never tell him that you have evidence of his cottage core moment. 

TAG TEAM AY:

@iwaqchan​ @the-arcana-fan-fic​ @angelwritings​ @axerrri​ @reinyrei​ @dnarez-mangetsu​ @bemorefiction​

[nineteensixtieschikadee]

Arya Stark & Femininity

This might turn into a mini rant, so bear with me here. A lot of times whenever I watch old GOT clips, (bc I hate myself) and read stuff about Arya on fansites, I realize that there’s been a lot of misconception about her and her character. Particularly about her being a woman. And a lot of times i see this sort of “justification” from her fans that the reason why she’s such a fan-favorite character in the show (and to some extent, the books?) is because Arya is esentially this “bad-ass ninja asassin tomboy who’s out for revenge against those who’ve killed her family.” And some of her fans and especially her anti’s will call her out expressing that “Arya’s only a child who doesn’t like girly things like dresses and boys and doing her hair. She “identifies” herself as a tomboy because she likes “boyish things” like sword play, and playing in the mud, and gore, wrestling, etc. I was scrolling through the Jonrya tag here on Tumblr, this is a comment I found regarding Arya:

The moment I read that I straight up just wanted to rant! Lol! Also, I’m sorry for the formatting, I’m writing this on mobile. :( Anyways, these people who make those claims about Arya, esentially only see her as this small girl who likes fighting and getting dirty. They completely disregard everything else that makes Arya, Arya. Pretty much just limiting her to her sex, understanding that because Arya likes boyish things, she’s NOT ALLOWED to inherit things, like the North, fall in love and get married, have a high position in the hierarchy and in politics. It’s because that these people see her as someone who hates needlework or everything that isn’t Sansa, everyone believes that she hates everything that makes her FEMALE. Everybody here knows that Arya’s my favorite female character in the books, so I just wanna talk about how the general public views her, and how their views tend to go against Arya’s entire character.

People have this view that she is the “exact opposite” of Sansa. And while that’s true in terms of their different characteristics, it doesn’t mean that Arya is against everything that makes Sansa, feminine. Now lemme elaborate here. Sansa is everything that represents “femininity.” Especially in terms of the inspired time period that ASOIAF takes place in. She’s very girly & lady-like, is mannerful, “soft-spoken.” She daydreams about boys and being a princess. She’s graceful and elegant. She knows her place in terms of society, and as a woman. AND YEAH, Arya is the exact opposite of that. Yes, she has this boyish nature. She’s wild and free spirited. Loud also adventerous. But that’s the thing: Arya has a lot of femininity in her. It’s just not the femininity that we’re used to. What society percieves as “normally feminine.”

Arya is not Sansa. And it’s because she doesn’t act like a “lady” that the audience sees her as this girl who “doesn’t want” or most importantly, should not want/get the same treatment as the typical noblewoman in Westeros should recieve. This idea was engraved into people’s heads because of the show, and that’s how we’re supposed to see her. As this cold hearted ninja assasin warrior who happens to be a girl, but doesn’t act like a typical girl. The audience pretty much places her in the “I’m not like other girls” trope. Which is honestly, so wrong to me. Because yeah okay, Arya isn’t like the typical lady. But god, she is far deeper than that, and is a much more complex character.

Here’s the thing, Arya does not reject being a female, and most importantly, she does not reject the typical ideals of what makes a lady feminine. Of course not. In fact, she actively encourages that women be included in all things, especially in things only made for men. She believes that women should not be held back or ignored because of their sex and femininity.

“The Lannister’s are proud,” Jon observed. “You’d think the royal sigil would be sufficient, but no. He makes his mother’s House equal in honor to the king’s.”

“The woman is important too!” Arya protested.

This excerpt is from Arya’s very first chapter in AGOT. It is also my favorite Jonrya moment, lol. And asides from the scene foreshadowing potential plot points for not only Jon & Arya, the scene introduces to us and examines Arya’s perception of society and more specifically, the women in society. In this scene Arya joins Jon in observing Prince Joffrey, talking about the Lannister/Baratheon coat of arms. Jon makes a point that while the Baratheon sigil should be enough to prove that Joffrey is of royalty, the Lannisters (Cersei) are a proud house, married into the royal family. So therefore Joffrey is of house Baratheon AND Lannister. That is why the Lannister sigil stands besides the Baratheons. Because they, specifically Cersei, should be seen as equal to the king.

And while Jon makes this seem like it’s wrong or not needed, Arya disagrees with him. She tells him that the women should not be forgotten, as they should be seen as equal to the men. That the women are just as important as the men, and that it would be of good conduct to not forget that. And with that being said, she never acknowledges that Joffrey’s mother is too lady-like or too feminine to be seen as an equal to the king. Nope. Although she does question later as to why if women cannot fight, why should they have a coat of arms. Though that is hardly the point of her argument.

Another point that makes people believe that Arya is not feminine or does not support femininity, is when she flat out says to Ned that she hates the idea of being a lady.

“Your mother and I have charged her with the impossible task of making you a lady.”

“I don’t want to be a lady,” Arya flared.

Alot of people misinterpret this as Arya not wanting to be a noblewoman, because she only likes to play with swords, and get dirty. Because acting like a lady is stupid and not her. This is simply not true. Arya has no problem with women, or being a lady. She is a lady. A highborn one. What she does have a problem with is that being a lady often means being trapped in the conformities of what society percieves to be the acceptable standard for women in this time period.

All of the acceptable standards is what Sansa is. And she is not like Sansa. She does not believe herself to be a lady like her sister or her mother. When she first reveals her true identity to Gendry in ACOK, he immediately apologizes to her for his behavior and calls her m’lady. :3 Arya unfortunately sees this as a form of mockery and an attack because while Gendry acknowledges that she is a lady, Arya doesn’t act like a typical lady or even look like one. That insecurity of not being a lady like her mother and sister makes her believe that Gendry is using her sex against her. Like a form of irony. But I mean, we all know that’s far from the truth, lol!

And Jon recognizes this too! It’s the reason why they are so close and tightly knit together. Because Jon understands Arya, and sees her insecurity like how she sees his. They are one and the same. Jon sees and understands Arya’s frustrations of sexism viewed in Westeros. He acknowledges that Arya is to become a lady. But he also sees that Arya is not the conventional type of lady wanting to stick to the norms. She is a different type of lady, and to him, that is okay. He may tease her for it once in a while, pointing out all the unfair limitations that women have to go through. But he accepts her for being this unconventional noblewoman, and often encourages her to pursue being different.

“Girls get the arms but not the swords. Bastards get the swords but not the arms. I did not make the rules, little sister.”

Later when Jon and Arya say their goodbyes, Jon gifts Arya with the swords. Needle. This is his way of saying, fuck all them haters, be who you wanna be. Solidifying the idea that he supports her and accepts her for who she is. Kinda like how Tyrion told him to use his identity as armour, Arya should do the same to herself. It’s okay to be different than the rest. Fuck the rules.

It’s not that Arya hates the idea of being a lady. It’s a far cry from that. It’s the sexism that goes along with being the typical lady that infruiates her. Arya loves running around, riding horses, playing with swords, being loud and adventurous. She has a firery temper to her. And just because she likes doing all of that, and is all of that, it doesn’t mean, shouldn’t mean that she isn’t a lady. That she can’t be a lady. All of those things shouldn’t limit her to being viewed as a girl, a highborn lady. She is a woman, and she identifies as one.

“Listen to him, boy.”

“It was the third time he had called her “boy.” “I’m a girl,” Arya objected.

That is why, even though she sees herself as a woman, she often tells herself and other people that she is not a lady. Despite others telling her that she is one. Her insecurity and her frustrations do not allow her to see herself as a lady because she isn’t a “conventional woman.”

But the thing is, even though Arya doesn’t enjoy most of the typical lady-like things, she still has a ton of femininity to her. And people often ignore her more feminine traits in favor of her more “badassery” side, which unfortunately are most often occupied by men. People forget and downright ignore that Arya is really intelligent. She particularly excels in math. It’s one of the few things that she’s better at than Sansa. She loves flowers—like her aunt Lyanna. The very person who she’s said to look and act like the most. And a really important one is that she has motherly instincts. It’s what helps her protect other kids throughout her journey. Her ability to empathize enables her to be more social with outcasts and befriend others without judgement. She is well-mannered and kind to strangers. (An example of this would be when she apologizes to a common woman who lent her a dress to wear, and she accidentally destroys it because she and Gendry were playing by the acorn tree.) She can also cook and clean just like any other woman—or any other person. All of those are feminine traits, and are traits that make her more human. And the show opted to get rid of all that and gave us some cold-hearted, angry, ninja.

The audience perceives that because Arya is this ninja warrior who rejects the common standards of being a lady, it means that she can’t have these other more female traits. Nope. She’s not allowed to have or want more rights and power because that’s not her. She’s a warrior and nothing more. She can’t find love because she has to be this bad-ass independent woman who don’t need no man. That’s not her, that’s her sister. We can’t have Arya be any more female than she already is because she rejects the idea of being female. Leave all that crap to her sister! Sansa’s the princess—and we can’t have Arya being a princess or queen. Arya’s only allowed to carry a sword.

And it’s the audience’s perception of her that goes against everything that Arya is, and everything that she believes in. Because remember, Arya hates the idea that being a lady means being trapped in the societal norms. And it can be said vice versa too. Arya still respects those who want to be more of the conventional type. Arya may not have the more typical feminine traits that make her a lady, but to hell with it! It doesn’t mean that she’s not allowed to have the other things that the more conventional woman would/should have. That goes against all of her views and beliefs. The audience puts Arya at an unfair standard because she doesn’t act like a conventional woman.

It’s the same thing as the audience saying that Jon Snow doesn’t want a title or power, because he’s devoted his life to the Nights Watch and is unselfish. False. Very false. Just like Arya. Arya’s young. She still has time to grow, and no doubt she doesn’t think of all those things now because of other priorities. But she’s slowly getting there. And there is so much foreshadowing of her finding love, becoming a woman gaining power, etc, etc. She’s not there yet, but that’s a part of her growth. Just because she defies the typical female standards, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t want or wont want all those things later.

Like com’on. Everyone knows that Arya is the only legitimate candidate right now to inherit the North. Everyone knows. The Northmen know, the Nights Watch knows, the people in Kings Landing knows. Hell, even the damn wildings know this. And it’s because of this knowledge that formed the majority of the northern plotline in ADWD. People are going to war for her. She is the true key to the North, and that’s why the Boltons lied and said that they have her. It’s why Jon went to war and died for her. I don’t think Arya will truly believe it if/when she finds out that people are fighting for her because she holds the power to the North. Unless Jon’s gonna be the one to tell her himself. The fact that she is being set up to inherit all this power, and yet people deny it and believe that she doesn’t want it because it��s “not her” in regards that she’s not feminine enough, is seriously infuriating.

I mean look at the type of women Arya respects and idolizes. Where do you think she got the name Nymeria from? Nymeria’s name originates from the Princess of Dorne herself, Princess Nymeria of Ny Sar. Princess Nymeria was said be very beautiful, strong-willed, cunning, and full of wisdom. She was a “warrior-queen.” From that alone, her femininity clearly did not matter. She was a woman whose goals were not held back because of her femininity and sex.

Arya does not hate femininity or things that makes women more feminine. She doesn’t truly hate wearing dresses or being a lady. It’s being conformed to the general standards that she hates. It’s her sex being used against her that makes her angry. It’s not being able to be herself that she despises. And thanks to Sansa and her mother’s judgement of her, Arya’s insecurity only heightened. Despite looking exactly like Lyanna, Arya herself believes that she’s not beautiful enough to even be considered a lady. Only Jon and Ned allowed Arya to be Arya. Only they called her beautiful, and only they encouraged her to be who she wanted to be. Arya loves her fellow women. And yeah, she also loves Sansa despite her being such a pain in the ass bitch, lol.

Arya’s character encourages women to just be women. She encourages us the audience to just be ourselves despite all the conformities forced upon us. Her character explores the limitations of sex, gender, and especially the loss of identity. Arya not wanting to be a lady doesn’t actually mean she doesn’t want to be a lady. She doesn’t want to be held back by the standards of being a lady. Her question, her argument is that why should women be limited only to being this or that. Women are far more than meets the typical standard, and if society can’t accept it, then fuck that! Women can be knights and still be a lady. They can be fierce and passionate and emotional and still be a lady. Women can be warriors and still be a lady. Just because there are some women out there who don’t fit the ideal standards of what it means to be lady, it shouldn’t make them feel like less than one.

[pynkhues]

Hi! I was reading your tags on your black phone ask and it actually reminded me of something similar I’ve experienced recently with ST. I found out that both my mom and aunt didn’t realize Billy is racist.

My mom is still convinced that he didn’t like any of the boys for being “nerds.” My aunt had wondered if Billy might be racist but said that she decided he wasn’t bc that would be a mean thing to think of someone. Which is like a lot to unpack from both of them.

I know you mentioned in your post that you feel like there’s a lack of media literacy but do you also feel like this is connected to the anti-intellectualism culture shift that we’re going through as a society and how do you feel like it’s affecting things you see as somebody so steeped in fandom?

I know that’s like a really big question that somebody could probably do a dissertation on (which is actually why I stayed on anon so you don’t like hate me lol) but I always enjoy your thoughts and figured if it was something you didn’t want to delve into you could just ignore.

Love your blog. 🤍

Hey! Thank you for your kind words, anon, and I don’t hate you sending a complicated ask at all! I love complicated asks!

It’s actually kinda good timing too, because I’ve been reading a bit about race and Stranger Things at the moment and especially recommend Kaiya Shunyata’s article on Roger Ebert The Antagonism of Blackness in Stranger Things and Khalisa Rae’s article on Jezebel The Black Kids in ‘Stranger Things Never Get the Story They Deserve, both of which are brilliant, incisive reads. I know racism in the show / Billy being racist isn’t actually what your ask is about, but still! I love to spruik great criticism, haha.

That’s so interesting about your mum and your aunt, especially your aunt realising and then feeling the need to correct herself, and I think does speak to the inherent bias we bring to the stories we consume, and that even when that’s challenged, as it seems it was with your aunt, the ways we’re socialised can still have our heads trying to flip the switch back, so to speak.

I love that you asked me about anti-intellectualism, because y’know - - I’m Australian! Which as a country is one that I think is very anti-intellectual, and I hope you don’t mind me speaking to that for a second, just because I think it’s kinda relevant here.

The Land of Luck

I’ve actually had a lot of long conversations with @foxmagpie over the last few years about the difference in cultural identity between America and Australia, and in the process of that we’ve talked quite a bit about these sorts of ‘national slogans’ as almost like, this type of cultural endorsement.

America is ‘The Land of Opportunity’ and Australia is ‘The Lucky Country’ and how that filters down into a public consciousness is pretty different.

Being The Land of Opportunity creates a sense that everything in America is yours for the taking, which means that any failure is an individual’s alone. An American has every chance to succeed, so anything less than that is not America’s problem. Being The Lucky Country though means ultimately you’re lucky to live in Australia, and if you don’t like it, you can fuck off.

As cultural messages, weirdly, they’re not actually that different on paper, and certainly have similarities in the sense of how they shut down criticisms of country and culture, but they also have very different outcomes, with America putting a lot of onerous on individuals to eschew community and government responsibility, whereas in Australia, I think it does sort of the reverse. There’s this contempt for individualism and the country has a severe case of Tall Poppy Syndrome, anyone who rises above the field, particularly to challenge the status quo, is swiftly cut down to size.

What’s interesting to me right now is the different political trajectories of the countries.

We had an election recently where a very anti-intellectual, incompetent, religious zealot prime minister was ousted in favour of a softer-spoken, more empathetic, intelligent and progressive prime minister who's an atheist (and one, importantly, from a very working class background who grew up with a single mother in government housing – he was of the people, for the people, and the fact that he reflected the background of many Australians was important – he’s a part of the field, not seeking to outgrow it, and for once that feels like a positive), and he’s built a government that will hopefully reflect that over the next few years.

It's kind of this fascinating thing, because I do think that the election was in part a result of people seeing the rise of anti-intellectualism in other countries, and this conservative regression in both the UK (after all, Australia’s still a part of the Commonwealth) and the US which as you said, seems to be experiencing a very significant culture shift at the moment. There’s a lot to be said about Australia having a ‘little sibling’ mentality with a lot of countries, particularly UK and the US, and I think the culture shift that’s happening in Australia right now – in my most hopeful moments at least – is indicative of a sort of national coming of age in response to her ‘big brothers’.

Again, that’s very optimistic though, I know, because I also do think something we’re seeing now more than ever, is that national identity is kind of irrelevant and that these sorts of things are cyclical – times of progress are met with backlash, and that backlash is usually felt in the rise of conservatism, which in turn results in loss, both literal and metaphorical, and eventually enough pain and anger and purpose is built again to claw forwards in a way that feels like progress, and then the cycle repeats.

Time isn’t a flat circle, it’s a human centipede, and I do think Australia’s at the nicer end of the chain right now, but at the end of the day, we’re all still eating shit.

Pop Cultural Powers

In no small part, a lot of that is because America does have a stranglehold on pop culture and media. I’m not saying that in any sort of accusatory sense, it’s just a reality, and I think it does shape global issues, both for the better (shows like Pose and When They See Us for instance creating international dialogue around trans history and the wrongful convictions of Black men, issues topical in every country) and for the worse (Joe Rogan springs immediately to mind).

There are other powers of course – Kdrama and anime and what feels like a once-in-a-generation British property juggernaut that swoops in to flatten any and all competition (James Bond and One Direction leap to mind) – but at least in the West (and lbr, outside of the West too), American pop culture tends to dominate.

I could talk a lot here about the reasons for that, but I don’t really think it’s relevant. What I think is relevant is that the rise of conservatism in America has trickle down effects that impact media consumption the world over. American platforms like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and even Netflix go global, and they snuff out local competition while bringing with them an American centro-ism, and with that, ultimately, their politics.

And when the politics are fucked, everything is, and we saw that with the way separatism under Trump compounded through social media, as did the rise of Christian evangelicalism, the alt-right, and QAnon; and in these new global platforms, other countries throw their own grenades into the mix with fake news and bot armies and deepfakes and their own conservative governments, and we’re left with a pop culture that’s become synonymous with actual culture and politics and social issues and international discourse, and oh my god, how does anyone keep up?

And then we hit the natural breaking point –

Maybe people don’t want to.

A quick note on the technological revolution

I feel like this is really important to include here.

Do you remember in highschool or college when people talked about the Printing Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution?

Well, there’s a huge argument to be made that we’re in the Technological Revolution (also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution) right now.

When I was studying history in my undergrad back in 2009, one of my lecturers said it to the class, and it was the first time I’d ever heard it, but it pops up a lot these days. Revolutions are a time of sudden, radical or complete change, and they usually involve the overthrow or renunciation of a government or ruler, so - -

Take that as you will.

Another quick note on social progress (and another on revolutions)

Another sign of revolution?

A fundamental change to society.

What we’re seeing at the moment is a lot of radical change. To bring it back to your ask a little – think of Friends. Think of the jokes they could get away with, the cast they could get away with twenty years ago. I know in so many ways progress feels non-existent because change has been met so bitterly by some, but the way we consume media and what we expect of that media, has changed so radically in the last thirty years that it shouldn’t be surprising people aren’t willing or able to keep up.

Technology itself is an instrument of social change, and revolutions are a time of invention and political upheaval usually as a result of said social change and invention, and those things together create - - well - -

A Time!

For everyone!!

An Era in History!

It’s always progress and regression and depression and anger, and they’re often tied up with things like plagues (does this sound familiar?) and there are people who can’t keep up, people who don’t want to keep up and, genuinely infuriatingly and despicably, people who weaponise both.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

It’s also I think a time where the reality of social issues comes to the fore again.

I could talk a lot here about how feminism in particular has been watered down to give women permission to do whatever they want, instead of being a political movement that yes, seeks to protect all women, but also is fundamentally about challenging the patriarchy and the political structures that imprison women, and as a result, the women who are complicit in that, but feminism is just one movement reconnecting to itself.

We’ve seen this in the last few years with a wide range of civil rights movements, from Black Lives Matter and the backlash to copaganda and military-backed blockbusters, to Anti-Asian racism and quite specifically Asian women feminism in response to MRAsians, to the urgency in protecting trans rights, gay marriage and more.

The backlash to progress is always an attack on the human rights that have been fought for already, because Western society is a white patriarchy, and without systemic change, all progress is temporary.

As the saying goes, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and we are repeating it. I used this expression in a post a while ago, but I'm gonna use it again – just because we’re no longer handcuffed to the bed doesn’t mean we're out of the house.

Between the witch trial of Amber Heard and the repeal of Roe v Wade and the resurgence in modern day lynchings, that’s becoming increasingly apparent.

Okay, so let me put my benefit of the doubt hat on

I’m a pretty hopeful person, and I like to think the best of people, and in saying that, I want to say that this resurgence of conservative ideas and anti-intellectualism are a symptom, not a cause. I think this is a time of huge social revolution and a pandemic that is devastating people’s lives and livelihoods, and I think broadly people are afraid of change and the internet is bombarding people with information and misinformation all the time, and they’re being asked to take that on and dissect that without being given the tools to actually do it.

I think some people create often-but-not-always faceless campaigns under the cover of platforms like Facebook and TikTok to prey on and reinforce people’s ignorance, anxieties and insecurities, as well as deep running social bigotries and minorities’ internalised hatred as a result of said social bigotries, and use those to further a conservative agenda.

But what does this mean for fandom?

Well, I mean, fandom doesn’t exist in a vacuum, y’know?

Just like your mum and your aunt struggled to put aside their inherent bias when watching Stranger Things, I think a lot of fandom feels their interpretation of a show is inherently the right one and one that – particularly if they like the show – shouldn’t be challenged.

Fandom’s been around forever, but the current wave really is inherently entwined with the Technological Revolution a few times over – with the invention of the internet and social media and even the pandemic – and it makes sense that it would be tied up in current social issues too. The reality is that the internet has broken down a lot of walls in terms of location, accessibility, class, context, race and background which has some amazing positives, particularly when it comes to diversity of opinions, but it can also be a bit of a melting pot for negatives too.

In particular, I think it’s easy to find an echo chamber, which can reinforce someone's opinion as a fact, which I’ve seen a lot of, oh my gosh, haha. It also creates space for bad faith arguments and for cults of personality (which the latter I try very actively and very hard not to be – I really do just try to be myself on here – but know at points in time I likely have been).

In many ways too I think it both entwines with and weaponises a lot of the social issues and civil rights moments that are currently so prevalent globally as a result of the times that we’re all living in. We saw that especially disgracefully with the Deppford Wives and the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp defamation trial which was treated concurrently as entertainment, a showcase of internalised misogyny catfishing as moral grandstanding for male victims (would love to see some of these ladies defending actual male victims like Anthony Rapp), and lack of media literacy.

Anti-intellectualism definitely feeds into that.

It's a culture of individualism that tells people they know better than others, and the perceived amount of work I think it takes these days to actually explore a topic. It's an encouragement of personal interest, comfort, want and even desire, over reality. Because the new world is complicated, and the one they know is safe.

On my most hopeful days, I think it’s not deliberate. I think that we have a generation of people who are overwhelmed by the current state of flux and the information they’re bombarded with and an education system that hasn’t caught up to teach them how to truly engage with it. On these hopeful days, I think these are people who are socialised in a certain way, and as a result rely of that socialisation form their opinions, and don’t necessarily realise that critical engagement is more than a feeling, a keyboard and a platform.

On my least hopeful days - - well.

I don’t think that, haha.

Regardless though, we all bring our shit to what we watch – we’re all a part of the human centipede!! – and I think that’s always going to open up doors to interesting conversation, especially during times of real social upheaval, like we see now. I think stories though always offer the space to open doors to conversation and real change, regardless of media literacy, and the fact that you sent me this ask, it seems like maybe you’ve had the conversation with your mum and your aunt, and personally I think that’s where the real dialogue happens.

Change, education and literacy (media and otherwise) starts at home, and I think it’s awesome that you’ve started that at yours. 😊

[seyenna]

Philza and/or Techno and/or Ranboo fic recs

just some of my fav dsmp fics, mainly phil, techno or ranboo bc i’m biased but also a bunch of sbi and others

this one goes out mainly to zablr discord my beloved

pls tell me if the links don’t work

all of these are on ao3

rating\status(complete/ongoing)\warnings\word count\misc tags

ichor flows free amongst the iron by summer_rising

T\o\violence\13k\series\gods AU

Summary:

A gods and goddesses AU of the Dream SMP, dramatized for all our benefits.

First work:

  "Two gods meeting on a mountaintop overlooking the stormy sea? Very classy, Dream, I appreciate your taste."

  Dream didn't turn to look at him, but the faint shake of his shoulders let Techno know he had heard.

  "Scar's healing up nicely, I see," Techno mumbled with a light nod of his head.

  "Mhm. Cut nice and clean. Not that I expected any less from you, of course."

   ~~

   The god of power and the god of luck meet on a mountaintop to discuss Luck's standing in the ongoing political disaster.

We're Only Young by ImperialKatwala

G\o\-\66k\series\Dream & Technoblade

It's easy to forget amid the chaos and bloodshed how similar - and how young - Dream and Technoblade really are.

And when the sun comes up, you'll find a brand new god. by SkyboxZoo

M\o\violence\19k\gods AU

Summary:

The wounds from the fight had healed nigh instantly, but the golden blood still soaked Techno’s shirt. His cloak had gotten torn off and his hair had fallen out of its pony-tail. Ichor pooled in his boots. The man left a trail of golden, bloody footprints in his wake.

old gods (new gods) by WriterWinged

T\o\-\9k\series\gods AU

Summary of first work:

Survival, Blood, Madness. Philza, Technoblade, Wilbur Soot. Three gods who have never cared for mortal life, who play with them when they want to, who kill their toys just as easily. How, then, did a mortal end up in their hands?

This House Is A Fucking Nightmare by SilverWing15

T\c\-\17k\series\sbi

Summary:

AU Where Phil isn't quite as willing to stand by while his sons drop like flies

Summary of third part (my fav):

Does lingering too long in the shadow of a god make you a god? The voices in his head seem to think so.

His brothers know he's older than them but they don't know how much

OR: Technoblade doesn't think his brothers realize how different they are from ordinary men. After all, ordinary men may fight the gods, but they don't win.

It's been a long day. by BecausePlot

G\c\-\3k\Philza & Ranboo

Summary:

Sides are bad: he knows that much. He’s seen it tear people apart time and time again, so when he decided to separate himself from Tubbo and keep his distance, he knew he was in the right.

Well. He thought he was in the right, at the time. Sitting all by himself on the steps to the Prime Path, he’s not so sure anymore.

Yes, the sides might have torn the others apart, might have made them so weak that they have no choice but to fold under Dream’s hand, but at least they aren’t lonely.

So are sides bad?

‘I don’t know.’

~*~

Or, Ranboo looks out at the ruins of L'Manburg, feeling more lost and lonely than he ever has.

But, as he soon finds, he's not as alone as he thinks.

the voices in my head, they say a lot of things by rosyasteria

-\c\violence\1k\Technoblade-centric

Summary:

Some days the voices didn’t listen. They didn’t let up. They screamed instead of whispered, relentless, assaulting his ears until they bled.

tell them i was the warmest place you knew and you turned me cold by rosyasteria

-\c\-\2k\Techonblade-centric

Summary:        

Technoblade cared. But in the end it just fucked him over.

For the majority of his life, Techno felt like less of a companion, less of a family member, and more like a weapon to be wielded. 'The Blade' they called him; never 'friend'.

It Leaves Little Time for Anything Else by mirandible

M\c\-\1k\part of series\Dream & Technoblade

Summary:

   A young man aims for the top, but fate has other plans for him. So does Technoblade, apparently.

   (Or: answering the question of “Why does Techno hide his scars if they’re supposed to be some sort of trophy? Why keep your point of pride a secret?”)

the best requiem is a bar of silence (and I'll sing it, even if I must hold back my tears) by jello12451

T\o\-\10k\Philza & Technoblade

Summary:

   He can’t help the noise of celebration that escapes him. Techno- this means that Techno’s free, and he got his horse back, and everything is alright-

  Tubbo, filled with rage at Phil’s cheers, turns and impulsively shoots an arrow.

   He doesn’t expect to hit his target.

---

  Alternatively: What if Phil didn't have a bucket of water when Tubbo shot him?

Change fate by being aggressively kind by sircantus

T\o\-\13k\sbi, Philza-centric

Summary:

   “You do understand that you’re caring for the thing meant to bring destruction and chaos to our world, right?” The woman asks, Phil looking behind him fondly as Techno grabs at the ends of his wings.

   “He’s just a child.” Phil answers distractedly, humming as his wings get gently yanked at.

   “He’s the first of three to destroy life as we know it! Shouldn’t we, well, get rid of him?!”

   “Oh, no.” Phil raises his eyes with a sharp glare. “Believe me, I have my own way of preventing the apocalypse.”

   ---

   Or, Techno, Wilbur, and Tommy are basically chaotic forces of nature, destined from birth to end the world and bring destruction. Most who hear of the tale of them are trying their best to track them down, and to end the monsters while they’re still young, still just children.

   Phil has a different plan.

   (In which Phil raises the minecraft equivalents of the anti-christ with love and support, so much so to the point where the world ending is really just a funny thought, and Phil has three kids who casually have powers that are bit more extreme than anything else in the world)

I promised you that everything would be fine by findingkairos

G\c\-\6k\Technoblade-centric

Summary:

   manifestation: (n.)

1.     an event, action, or object that clearly shows or embodies something abstract or theoretical;

2.     a version or incarnation of something or someone;

3.     an appearance of a ghost or spirit;

4.     the Blood God.

When he's young and still alone, still establishing his reputation as the immortal warrior, Technoblade makes up an imaginary friend.

Years later, the blood god is very real and very much a god: one that is prepared to do anything for their first and only friend.

the inner mechanism of a black box by Bee_4

T\c\violence, self-harm\Technoblade-centric

Summary:

   Technoblade lets himself get imprisoned for Philza’s sake. He doesn’t plan on being there long. Unfortunately, he’s underestimated Pandora’s Vault.

   There are things that will make even the Blade fall apart in due time, as it turns out.

carry all my sins by BananasofThorns

T\c\-\4k\Ranboo-centric

Summary:

Ranboo swallows. “All my armor and weapons and stuff are missing. Fundy and I were gonna go looking for them after the festival, I think.”

“I see.” Tubbo smiles again, but this time it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Well, I’m sure it’ll be fine, it’s just a festival. We could probably find someone to lend you a sword or an axe or something.”

He starts towards the stage, waving at people when they call his name, and Ranboo follows. The original panic has dulled to a cold buzz in his chest, but apprehension still wraps itself around his body like chains. He doesn’t like being without his armor and tools; he feels too exposed, and if something happens, he’ll be helpless.

“Ranboo?” Tubbo calls, glancing back.

Ranboo shakes his head and hurries to catch up. “Yeah, it’ll be fine,” he repeats. “Everything’s gonna be fine."

Tubbo grins. “That’s the spirit.”

Rule 5: be loyal. L'manberg doesn't do well with supposed traitors. Ranboo deals with the consequences.

Sojourn by Lacy_Star

T\o\-\13k\Ranboo & Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

“Well…” Ranboo started slowly, “You see, uh… I kinda… don’t have a house anymore, obviously. Um… Phil found me in—“ He paused, cutting himself off and squinting at the floorboards— very discreet, “Phil… found me. And… um… He said I could stay by you guys. Like, um, by the dog house he wants to build?” He paused, then began to ramble, “But, uh, if you don’t want me here, I understand— and I’m sorry for coming in your house when you weren’t here, I swear I didn’t touch anything— it was just cold outside and—“

Techno just stared at him. And how, how was this the second time this had happened to him? How was this the second time he returned home after battle to discover an injured teenage boy waiting for him, seeking assistance with nowhere to go? And how badly had that ended last time, in nothing but betrayal and insults?

---

AKA: Phil drags a half-enderman home after Doomsday, and Techno decides that they can keep it. For now.

can an axe count as rent? by aboutfivebees

T\c\-\4k\Ranboo & Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

Ranboo’s struggling to settle into his new life on the Arctic Anarchist Commune, but at least he’s got bread.

or the struggles of an enderman hybrid to come up with a housewarming gift to give to his friends, who are just trying to adopt him

The Caged Bird Sings of Freedom by StarPrince_Punk

T\o\-\25k\Ranboo & Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

The Blade's stance was still tense, his body prepared to fight at a moment’s notice if need be. “What’s your name?” Phil asked “My… name?” The Blade asked. “Yeah. Your name isn’t actually The Blade, right? That’s like a stage name?” Phil tried to keep his tone light. “What’s your real name?” The Blade hesitated. “No one… No one’s called me by my name in a long time.” ------- When Phil comes across Ranboo in his panic room after L'Manberg's destruction, it reminds him of when he first met Technoblade. And just like when he met Techno, Phil's first instinct is that he has to help this kid. While living together, Techno and Ranboo learn that they're much more similar than they had previously thought, and Phil learns that it's not too late for him to be a better dad.

This already feels like more of a home by H3118ENDER

T\o\violence, death\18k\Ranboo & Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

As the ashes of L'Manberg settle the conflict continues to come to life setting the stage for a new wave of blood shed. Stuck slam in the middle of past and present friends Ranboo is coming to learn that even without nations to their names feelings and feuds don't die but people, people do.

A Shadow of a Shadow by unappetizingegg

T\c\-\4k\ Ranboo & Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

There were a few beats of silence, and then- “What are your plans, now? Do you need a place to stay?”

That caught him off guard. Surely he’d heard incorrectly. Phil was offering him a home, right after he’d orchestrated the destruction of his past one? It didn’t make any sense, none of it did. Why would Phil say that?

Then he remembered, he remembered Techno stopping him in the fight. He remembered being handed his book, the question in Techno’s gaze. He swore, in that moment, Technoblade, the Technoblade, had been worried about him. He remembered that he had been told to leave, to run, to get away and preserve himself. He had spared him, he remembered that Techno had spared him.

Techno had helped him. Phil had tried to protect him, to get him away from the danger.

They were there for him.

 ---

alternatively:

Ranboo is alone. But he really isn't.

Meritocracy by oddsbodkins

G\o\-\18k\Dream & Technoblade, sbi, medieval AU

Summary:

Dream is more successful than he'd ever imagined - but there's one thing that's been bothering him. Technoblade, his biggest rival, the Acolyte of the Blood God and King of the Arena, went missing last spring, just before Dream got the chance to duel him. Without that one achievement to pave his way, all the following victories have felt cheap.

So, Dream hired some goons to dig Technoblade up and pester him into coming back to the Capitol, for one last showdown. Easy enough, right?

Interlude I: "Promises to Keep" by Ozzyyy

T\c\-\1k\part of a series\Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

These woods are lovely, dark, and deep But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep And miles to go before I sleep.

--

Techno has a plan. It's crazy. It's insane, it's actually just batshit bonkers. But if chaos cannot be enjoyed together, then what's it worth, yeah? There's a certain beauty in watching the world burn from the center of the flames. Phil intends to be there.

I Don't Want To Start A Fight (wouldn't you rather start a riot?) by KryOnBlock

T\c\violence, death\15k\Technoblade & Philza & Ranboo

Summary:

An universal ping rang out from behind him, the third and final he knew, and Phil sobbed, clutching the body tighter.

Techno didn’t move.

It always has been Technoblade and Philza, Philza and Technoblade. Take on half, and you shall never go back.

Sheltered by Lulatic

G\c\-\6k\Ranboo & Technoblade

Summary:

It was cold outside. But Techno never heard Ranboo complain.

That was the best excuse he could muster to keep him out.

Antarctic Princes 'verse by BirchWrites

T\o\-\15k\series\sbi

Summary:

Loosely-connected one shots set in an AU where the Antarctic Empire and the Dream SMP are in the same world. Ordered chronologically, but each fic can be read as a standalone thing

Summary of first part:

Oh shit. Forget arrested; Dream’s going to have to tell Wilbur that he watched Tommy get stabbed for being terminally stupid.

May we cross paths again by QueenLunaFreed

G\c\-\1k\Dream & Technoblade

Summary:

“Even if tomorrow it’s just us versus the entire server, Dream, I’m telling you right now - I have confidence.”

---

Dream couldn’t comprehend the pacing contradiction in front of him, the weakness he could clearly see, but would never comment on. Because this man has been defying Dream's expectations since they first met, because despite them not being friends and having no reason to trust each other, Dream knew that Technoblade is the only person who he’d trust to do this right. To destroy L'Manberg alongside him yet again, this time for real.

leave me your starlight by findingkairos

T\o\-\18k\Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

For you the world, Phil.

Once upon a time, Philza Minecraft is the only person who does not shy away from the bloody teen that regularly turns the tide of war.

This cements a friendship that will last wars, empires, worlds, and lifetimes.

 ---

(Featuring: Back to Back Badasses, healthy relationships, accidental deification, intentional world domination, and Phil's past coming back to haunt his best friend.)

[yourfriendlele]

So... someone sent me this:

 “I really hate ship wars involving a same sex ship vs a straight pairing because of the tendency  for the claims of homophobia if you dont ship the same sex pairing or say there wasnt evidence ( the term shipping goggles exist because there are people who found evidence where there was none for their ship and this applies to same sex ships which are just ships in the end they can be badly written / forced just like straight pairing can be badly written and deserve criticism they deserve equal treatment if criticizing or hate on a het pairing is allowed and doesnt make you a bigot ( hating someone based on sexuality makes  you a bigot regardless power is not required its only required in oppression)  neither does doing it to same sex pairings it doesnt matter that there arent as many   canon   . like with blacksun do you know how many times someone claimed forced het I have seen like in v3″ 

First of all… are you the person who randomily accused me of “making a joke out of real homophobia and turning it into ship wars” and said that i somehow affirmed “gay ships are above criticism” under my comic? And tagged some friends so they could reblog all that bs? And then when i called you out, you deleted the reblog (tho it still exists, people rebloged it)? Is that you?

Second of all, okay…. who said I don’t criticise same sex ships the same way i criticise het ships? No seriously, where did you get that from? Did you just say that out of nowhere hoping people would buy it?

Third of all, ok some people told you bs is forced and…? Listen, i don’t think bs is the devil, it’s cute enough, not my thing, but yeah, i get why people ship it. I also think it’s not that good or the “meant to be/ correct ship” in coparisson to bb… bb has problems with pacing, and de dialogue is definetely not the best, but blacksun does have some moments that are in fact kinda forced, like treating sun following blake in v4 as something cute, when in reality thats creepy as fuck, even when the guy has good intentions. Does everybody need to pretend that was well written? I thought it was bad writing in twilight, and i thought it was bad writing in fifty shades of grey, so yeah, it’s just as bad in rwby dude, sorry. Again, not terrible and unforgivable and im not gonna pretend im better than everyone that like Blacksun bc of that, but yes, i’ll call it forced.

And listen, if you’re telling me Yang asking blake to dance is “shipping goggles” bc “clearly that wasn’t meant to be read as romantic” (even though, yeah, asking someone to dance with you can be considered a romantic gesture irl), but Sun stalking blake in v4 is “absolutely a romantic moment bc he’s a good guy” (which he is, i understand the writers didn’t mean to make him abusive, but still, following someone like that isn’t, and has never been, a romantic gesture), then yeah…. i’ll assume you’re homophobic. Can’t you see the obvious double standard???? Do you want me to pretend i don’t see it?

You don’t have to like the ship, i don’t particurlaly like bs, or arkos or rosegarden, but i see the moments that can be considered romantic. Bb has moments that can be considered romantic. You don’t have to like it to see it.

Also, the absolute bullshit arguments you anti bb guys come at me with makes it even harder to believe you have any decent intentions… ‘oh you watch a show just for lesbians???? sorry some of us care about actual writing!” Oh sorry, i didn’t know me watching the wilds bc of the wlw ship cancelled me reading 1984 bc it’s a literature classic. Lemme ask you something, does me wanting to watch the gucci movie bc i wanna see lady gaga in it also cancel me wanting to watching “us” bc i find Jorndan Peele a wonderful storyteller? 

[lazy-cat-corner]

i’m sorry cause i feel like i’m dumping this shit on you but i just saw something in the s*lki tag and i’m just……..i don’t even know. Baffled? Horrified? Kinda amused at what some people have the nerve to say online? Some l0ki stans have literally built this moral armor around themselves to the point where they accuse real people of actual serious shit instead of just accepting that people have different opinions. They have this completely all or nothing view in which s*lki shipper=terf. And there is literally no way around it. Try to explain why you ship it? Terf. Block people who accuse you of being a terf? Even bigger terf. Enjoy the show and s*lvie as a character? Terf. The actress that plays s*lvie blocks people who are harassing her? Terf. And there is also this completely reasonable logic that “true” l0ki fans=good people victimized by everyone else. Bc obviously l0ki stans know that every time he ever did something bad was either thanos’ fault or not important bc th0r and od1n did worse so therefor disagreeing with them means you’re ableist and a abuser. There is nothing on canon that corroborates with their claims. Their accusations of transphobia have yet to be supported by the community it concerns. And trans and genderfluid folks who don’t agree are reactionaries who are knowingly or unknowingly endorsing terf rhetoric. Literally no win with them. I’m not in the star wars fandom but I suppose this is what was like with reylo? People are not happy just disagreeing so they have to come for the morality of anyone who enjoys the ship. They don’t even try and find actual bad people to waste their energy on. The thing is I know this stuff happens in many fandoms -the result of the rise of online activism and misappropriation of identity politics- but i’m pretty much only in the l0ki fandom so this is kinda blowing my mind. It’s a fascinating phenomenon tbh. There is this whole set of psychological patterns shared by this group of people that continuously feed off of each other until all self-criticism is lost. They become completely isolated from everyone else and don’t see how that could possibly result in a distorted worldview. Not to "psychoanalyze” them ofc. Bc how dare we say anything that could allude to the mental health of these people calling us every possible bad thing while believing to be mere victims. Maybe this is too harsh but oh well. Anyway, sorry for the rant lmao. Also, i’m censoring things cause i don’t want to attract these people to ur blog lmao

Hello Anon,

You are always welcome to come here and vent out your feelings. I deal with this sort of discourse EVERY DAY! Just yesterday someone told me the ship is a mental illness. They said it in a manner like it's a joke but put an unsettling feeling in my stomach knowing antis abuse serious terms and turn it into the punchline of a joke further enforcing the negative stigma on mental illness *gag*.

Anyway, this absolutely was a big thing that happened in the reylo era. One thing that keeps me motivated is knowing just like with reylo, these losers will find someone else to bother and get bored of the discourse. I also remember that these people are people I wouldn't want in my space in the first place.

I could go on and on about why these arguments are wrong but being that I am cis, I don't want to overstep any boundaries so I won't go into detail. But I will say that a person's opinion on someone's morality holds no weight when the accused in question is surrounded by people that know them for the kind and compassionate person they are. These people who want to label you based on something that holds no weight or value in actual trans issues are not what's important. Furthermore, their hatred and selective ignorance is harming the trans community more than any piece of fiction could. Many antis have been exposed to deliberately misgender and deadname shippers for the sake of their activism.

With all that said, they may think you're the worst person on this planet. They may rationalize in their heads that their abuse and harassment is on the grounds of some moral high ground, but that doesn't mean it's true. How you see yourself and the people around you that matter, that's what you should focus on as a person. Don't let a TV show tell you how good you are and how much you care for trans issues. Look at the people you surround yourself with, the resources and materials you use to educate and further open spaces to discuss real trans issues. Maybe there are local trans organizations that could use donations/volunteer work that you want to support. THAT! Those choices you make are what will matter in the end. Not what naxatshasbewbs6969 on twitter thinks of you.

(if anyone owns that url/handle please know this was chosen at random and not a personal criticism on you as a person. Ive never met them and mean no harm 😅)

[iamanartichoke]

Started to post this rant on the other post but the conversation was involving so many people going back and forth that I didn’t feel my additions were necessary there; everything I’d want to say was said already, and better. 

But, of course, I still have feelings, so I’m just gonna dump them here instead. 

Under the cut. 

Wow. Just wow. 

Fuck whoever took someone’s TAGGED POST and spread it around for the sole purpose of mocking it. @iamnmbr3 I am so sorry that happened to you. 

Fuck whoever responds to people’s apprehension and negativity with anger and mockery. 

Fuck people who think that the Loki fandom clearly has to be a hivemind, bc anyone who is deviating from the “omg bEsT mOsT AcCuRaTe LoKi dEpIctIoN EVAR i am SO EXCITE” reaction is being shunned, made fun of, vague-posted about, and just generally being treated as if they should not speak AMONG THEMSELVES about their disappointment in what we’ve seen so far of the show. 

Fuck people who submit anonymous ask after anonymous ask to popular Tom Hiddleston ask blogs, obsessing over what people are disappointed in. 

Fuck people who make posts like “omg guess what the whiners are complaining about today!!” and spread them around. (How do you even know what’s being whined about today? Stop fucking seeking it out.) 

Here’s the thing: I am/was excited. I am taking the trailers with a grain of salt. I am examining what Tom has to say about it and considering the sheer volume of content we’re about to get and remaining (cautiously) optimistic. I have never hated the idea of this tv show. 

And for the record, I have never hated Ragnarok, either. I’ve seen it more times than I can count bc there was a time when it was my comfort movie. It was funny and fresh. It got me into Loki enough to actively join and engage in fandom. But even when enjoying it as a comfort movie, it felt much more like crack fanfiction than anything that went in tandem - canonically, characteristically, or tonally - with the first two Thor movies. 

As I familiarized myself more and more with the entire franchise, it was more and more clear to me that there were two sets of characters being portrayed, and that I vastly preferred to engage with the Thor 1/TDW set of characters even while enjoying the Ragnarok set. 

And talking about that on tumblr was interesting and engaging to me, bc that’s how my brain works. I like to dissect things. I like to analyze fiction. I like to be critical. And I enjoyed reading meta and engaging with people who had similar thoughts. 

Until it became clear that this is a fandom that makes you feel like you’re not allowed to be critical of anything, lest you be labeled an “anti” and a debbie downer and a misery queen. Ragnarok was kinda ruined for me in general bc I felt like I was no longer allowed to enjoy it the way I wanted to bc I didn’t also consider it even a good movie, let alone the best Thor movie ever. 

And this is happening with the show now, too. Like I said, I was excited and I was optimistic but the closer we get to the premiere, the more deflated I feel. And it’s because this fucking fandom is ruining it for me. Specifically, the majority of this fandom who is so offended by a small number of outliers who do not care for the new way Loki is being portrayed (and yes, it IS new, and does not mesh with what we saw before Ragnarok, and you can protest that but you are wrong) that they can’t ever shut up about it. 

Yes, I can curate my fandom experience and I can block tags and whatnot but even after doing that, I still keep encountering it. And, also, I feel like I shouldn’t have to block/blacklist 75% of the fandom just so that I can feel secure in engaging with it without worrying about being attacked or made fun of. 

I don’t care if you’re excited about the show. I’m happy for you! If you’re excited and engaging with that excitement in positive ways without shitting on anyone else, good for you. Thank you. 

But it seems like a whole fucking bunch of you aren’t content to just be excited. You’ve gotta stir up discourse shit too, bc - I don’t know, you’re bored? It makes you feel good? It feeds your superiority complex? 

Here’s the facts: You are the ones who are making it miserable for everyone  - you who are doing all of the above things and continuing to make tumblr feel very hostile to everyone who isn’t wetting their pants in excitement about this fresh new Loki stuff. 

Just stop it. Maybe do some self-reflection and ask yourself why it bothers you so much that other people don’t feel the way you do, or ask yourself why you need to stir up drama where there otherwise shouldn’t be any, and whether or not you’ll be happy when the outliers have been driven from the fandom completely and all that’s left is your hivemind of toxic positivity. 

^^^ This is not well-written, it is literally a brain dump, so I apologize if it’s nonsensical or disjointed. 

[angelhummel]

i saw your tags on my post, and yes! seeing everyone going crazy over hevans is also so weird to me!!

i'm not really an anti but the ship just confuses the hell out of me and i feel like people only ship it because of the "rumor" that chord was supposed to play kurt's boyfriend and because they don't like blaine. there's not much to go off of for the ship in canon and it just feels like an "alternate" ship option from klaine.

i actually saw a post from a hevans shipper getting mad at blaine for "not waving enthusiastically enough" to kurt in that scene at kurt's play in 5x19 even though he had just seen kurt a couple minutes earlier and rachel and sam were unexpectedly there as a suprise. of course the two were more enthusiastic than him.

blaine could literally breathe wrong and they'd be like "lol blaine look what a terrible bf he is, hevans supremacy uwu" even though their ship makes zero sense and kurt and sam are so, so incompatible.

(this isn't all hevans shippers and i don't want to generalize or anything - bc i've met one really really nice shipper who actually loves the ship and doesn't shit on klaine - but most of the shippers are sort of spiteful and they will do whatever they can to twist canon to shit on blaine and fit their narrative.)

Lmao yeah luckily I think all the ones I’ve seen are chill. But then again I think I’ve unfollowed or blocked everyone that’s insanely, vehemently anti Blaine lol

And once again, bc I have some dumb disclaimer in all my posts like this, not telling people who to ship or saying everyone has to like the same thing yadda yadda yadda. And I mean there are plenty of reasons to ship ships. I don’t think much of the current Hevans fandom cares much about an old rumor tbh lol

But eh yeah it’s just kinda boring to me tbh. I’d like them as good friends but thats as far as i care about it :P 

Although all of a sudden the last couple of days I’ve been bombarded with like “Sam isn’t all that” “Sam is overrated” and even talking about Sam being a jerk and I’m like goddamn i didnt want the pendulum to swing so far the other way xD We have such precious little in the way of good guys on this show, pls dont badmouth Sam lol

And yeah I’ve talked enough about those crazies that do the absolute most to make Blaine seem like the literal devil. It must be exhausting but they seem to be having fun lmao

[xcziel]

get to know me

tagged by @vishcount (thank you!!) and i'll follow her format bc making two posts seems a little much - i'm not that interesting!!

(hilariously, this post shows up as blocked for me bc of the tag 'joker' which? tumblr?????)

Part I

name: i'm an internet old, so i never use my real name online, mainly because it's spelled in a very unique way (thanks mom & dad) - i mean like, if you googled it you could find my home address in a few seconds kind of unique - but also, though i do enjoy the spelling, i actually don't like it very much when it's said out loud? (is it weird that my name written down is 'me', but my name aloud has never felt like 'me'?) always wanted a nickname but never acquired one :/

at any rate, i've had the username xcziel forever and i go by that 😊 (pronounced ex-SEE-zee-el, similar to etc. or ex-SET-er-ah! thanks @xia-xueyi for pointing out that it can be confusing to guess!)

rest behind a cut because it got long!

pronouns: she/her

star sign: i don't ... really *do* astrology? but technically saggitarius

height: 5'4" (162.5cm for the intl folks)

time: 5:43pm but these thing take me forever to type out so ... ???

birthday: playing the 'internet old' card again .. but it floats around american Thanksgiving depending on the year

nationality: american

fave bands/groups/solo artists: lumping these together because i just .. don't really do music much anymore. if you had asked me this back in my 20s i'm sure i would have had all kinds of opinions and things to share, but these days i actually mostly prefer to listen music from when i was a kid. part of it is also that as an old, i prefer to buy my music, even digitally, and i don't really use spotify - which does so much to enable diverse music exploration i admit! but i mostly have earplugs in all the time and music does not work for me as background noise, so...

so i guess my answer would be 70s disco and classic rock and 80s new wave artists? i've never liked any artist's entire discography and prefer greatest hits-type compilations, but i guess duran duran and def leppard and depeche mode would be considered formative? i love new order but specifically late 80s new order, NOT joy division. the only concert t-shirt i've ever worn was the cult? i loved sonic temple but i can't listen to most of it anymore though i still adore love removal machine. i think maybe if you get old enough, for some of us there's TOO MUCH good music and we can't pare it down anymore

song stuck in your head: jamiroquai's canned heat

last movie you watched: re: the above, i re-watched center stage, the 2000 one with zoe saldana and the mandy moore soundtrack, bc it's a happy comfort movie and i just got a digital version

last show you binged: i can't really "binge" very often bc after a couple of hours i need a break, so i guess i'd say the tgcf donghua on netflix since it was short enough to get through all in one go

when you created your blog: in 2012 i stopped lurking so i could post about the avengers movie

the last thing you googled: 5'4" in cm? lol before that it was chinese wrapped street food

other blogs: everything is here! i discovered i compartmentalize about as well as i tag reliably (😓) but i do have several automated ao3feed-tag style sideblogs. and i did, very briefly, have a *winces* hockey sideblog too

why i chose my url: ooh i know i've done this before, sorry if it's repetitive, basically it was the username i picked back when my family first got aol: short, unique combo of letters - 14-year-old me really thought about it! and then it wouldn't let me use anything other than my name. thirty-some-odd years later, trying to come up with a livejournal username that wasn't already taken and getting fed up, i plugged it in and went: good enough!

how many people are you following: like 760-something last i checked? although many, many, many of them are deactivated

how many followers do you have: idk i don't like looking at that stuff, but way fewer than i am following

average hours of sleep: it varies too much day by day, my sleep schedule is too wonky, i have no idea what the average would be

lucky numbers: 7? cliché i know, and again not really buying into it, but somewhere in my hindbrain i like it that my first, middle, and last names all have seven letters

instruments: none. i like singing

what i'm currently wearing: giant black t-shirt and baggy black drawstring shorts, standard sitting around the house gear

dream job: don't have one. if i did it would give me something to be working towards *sigh* this is how you end up in retail for decades, kids! but also, to quote a random post i saw in true tumblr fashion "i simply do not dream of labor"

dream trip: covered this one before but: back to the uk and some railway daytrips, or a really fancy northern cruise, atlantic/pacific either one

fave food: uhhh, don't really have a favorite but i'm almost always in the mood for pizza

top three fictional universe you'd like to live in: none really, if i had to still be me..maybe some kind of actually utopian future? but the pandemic has confirmed for me that i do NOT like living in interesting times, so most fictional story universes are RIGHT out. my favorites to read about like discworld or diana wynne jones' worlds would be way to chaotic for my comfort. possibly diane duane's young wizards universe would be safe enough to be okay?

Part II

last song: watching center stage made me think of my dance playlist so sunrise by simply red

last movielast stream: i don't watch streams or youtube often, so it was the same as you, vish! liu chang's birthday stream was SO enjoyable i screenrecorded the entire thing just so i could play it back (and maybe gif sometime if i ever get the drive to actually do it)

currently reading: well i just finished the translated quan qiu gao kao or global university entrance exam novel, which was sparked purely from catching a single rec post here on tumblr and basically just *falling* into this 166 chapter epic that is *amazing* and not coming up for air until i got to the end, which is typical novel-reading behavior for me (yes i was the kid who read through lunch period and got hassled by people who kept pestering me with "what're you reading" questions and yes i realize probably a lot of you on tumblr were too) plus, the new murderbot novel is out tomorrow!!!!! so that'll be where i end up next!

currently watching: the entire dmbj verse (that i can get my hands on) but ... sporadically and stopping at random different parts because the thing is ... this type of show is not really the kind i enjoy so much? so since it's more for "research" and learning character arcs (and let's be honest: shots of liu sang), etc. it's easy to get distracted by other stuff. i'm also watching the sleuth of the ming dynasty, mr queen, bromance, the expanse, re-watching farscape and stargate sg-1, just finished the falcon and the winter soldier, and then anytime something new and short gets introduced it jumps the queue. there are just. so. many. things. to. watch! (now i have to look into anti-fraud league too!? you all are cruel ...)

what is antipoetry to you: i ... don't really think much about poetry? i know what i prefer is usually the more basic rhymed kind like lewis carroll, emily dickinson, poe, coleridge, etc. so i suppose i don't have much use for classifying non-rhyming verse? i can appreciate stuff like rupi kaur which i guess would qualify? or that william carlos williams plums poem? but it doesn't really stick with me the way lyric-like verse does

currently craving: i never know what exactly this is meant to be in reference to ... hmmm, i would love a new high-concept, high production-quality movie like say, pacific rim, to be released, just for that massive, excited energy that comes with something new that hasn't already got tons of disappointing or conflicting history behind it - that would be so fun!!

other than that, right now, i mostly kinda want some fried fish? but that will have to wait until i go to get my second vaccine shot on wednesday since it's on the way there. i'd also like my internal body parts to settle down and fly right but it's been more than a month and they don't seem inclined :(((( maybe once i'm fully vaxxed i'll think about consulting somebody about it

tagging @foxofninetales @xia-xueyi @momosandlemonsoda @memorydragon @thewindsofsong @elvencantation @mylastbraincql @hesayshesgotboyfriend @aurawolfgirl2000 @smaragdine-galaxy and anyone who wants to! but never feel obligated and if you don't get around to it for like half a year that's totally fine, i am still interested!!!

[asterekmess]

(I was gonna save this for tomorrow, but FUCK IT) Eyyy, still being salty over here. Pls block the tag ‘rant’ if you don’t wanna see anymore of these. Or maybe ‘anti-scott mccall’ though, tbh, I’m not sure how much fun it would be to follow me if you aren’t anti-scott mccall. I’m pretty vocal abt disliking him.

ANYWAY.

I wanna talk about the concept of Derek being a ‘creeper’ because of all his wandering around the lacrosse field, at lydia’s party, etc. And by talk about, I mean ramble about incoherently. By which I mean, please know that I’m not trying to insult or fight anybody who makes this joke or uses this concept in fic or whatever. I’m just ranting bc I love this boy and his trauma makes me sad.

ANYWAY. (This is insanely long, so I’m adding a “Read More”)

I just have a lot of feelings about people seeing Derek as a stalker/creeper because he keeps showing up at lacrosse practice and in Scott & Stiles’ rooms, etc. It gets mentioned in loads of fics (I see a lot of “Creeperwolf” which I think is supposed to be an endearment?) (And there’s lots of fics that talk about how ‘you used to be/are really creepy, following us around’ Again, not judging) (Dude it’s even a whole tag on AO3 ‘Creeper Derek Hale’) and it’s joked about a lot in fandom (the vine with the ‘every step you take’ song and the swans on the building comes to mind). I see it a lot, and dude, it hurts me.

Let’s look at Derek’s current mental state and what he’s been dealing with, going all the way back to Paige. (Or, tbh, his birth) Derek is a werewolf. He was born a werewolf, to a family of werewolves. He grew up within the supernatural world, in a whole different culture to humans (honestly, my fury at the lack of werewolf culture/history/worldbuilding is worthy of its own post. Let me know if by some ungodly chance, you actually wanna hear my thoughts on it.) and presumably the number one rule in all of werewolfdom is “Keep the Secret.” Now, Derek’s fuckin’ 14/15 (I put his birthday on Christmas, like most of fandom, and if his house burned down when he was 16, in the spring, and he was dating Kate for a while before, he would’ve dated her when he was 15, and we don’t know how long there was between paige and kate, but let’s give him a summer of mourning. So. 14ish with paige) and he starts dating this human. He’s kinda shit at keeping the secret, implying that either he’s only dated werewolves before, or she’s his first girlfriend ever (also implying that maybe some of the people on his basketball team are werewolves, bc they don’t seem to notice his weird way of talking [pack members maybe? fuck, my heart]) and he’s maybe not as careful as he should be. (More implications arise, and we begin to build our own history. If Derek was never taught not to say dumb shit like ‘i caught a scent’ then was he even in public school before freshman year? Were the Hales all homeschooled before high school to help keep the secret? How soon do wolfy abilites arise? Do they hit with puberty? Fuck, I digress.) He says some dumb shit, and Paige gets suspicious. Of course, he doesn’t know that, and he has some kind of meltdown about her eventually finding out his secret. We hear from Peter (who’s villainized, so we’re not supposed to necessarily believe what he says, but what we see in the flashback doesn’t make a huge amount of sense either so *shrug*) that he enlists Ennis to bite Paige, believing that if she is bitten she won’t spill the secret and she’ll be more inclined to accept that Derek is a werewolf. Now, she fucking dies. Paige dies in Derek’s arms because of this, and he finds out at the last second that she already knew the secret. He feels guilty enough abt getting her killed but now he’s got a whole new batch of guilt from finding out that apparently he’s so bad at keeping the secret of his ENTIRE SPECIES that she found out he was a werewolf. She could’ve exposed them all at any time. He had to be terrified. Next, he’s 15/16 and he meets a gorgeous older woman who presumably showers him in affection, and all the horrors that go with that whole situation (I don’t wanna go into detail, because obviously). But again, whether Derek tells her himself or she just knew or she finds out, whatever it is, Kate knows Derek and his family are werewolves. AND SHE KILLS THEM ALL. Derek has no clue what the fuck is going on. All he knows is he is the only link between Kate and his family, which must mean that it’s his fault she knows about them. Once again, he’s revealed the Big Secret and people Died. He and Laura bolt to NY for six years, where presumably they live in hiding thinking the Argents are coming after them to finish off the Hales. Then Laura gets sent a funky letter and goes back to Beacon Hills. Now, we have a lil more confusion (i’ve got a whole buttload of issues with the timeline, but let’s not get into that now) because he says he came looking for Laura, but later he mentions that he knew she was in Beacon Hills and was searching for...whoever burnt down their house...that whole plotline confuses the shit out of me (derek knew kate did it. he blamed All the argents, but he knew kate was involved. So why was Laura looking for the pendant. and if he didn’t tell her then why was he looking for the pendant?? And what did the pendant have to do with the deer and the spiral?? Halp.) but whatever. He shows up and finds his sister dead, the hunters arrive in town the next day, and suddenly there’s an angry alpha Attacking Humans.

We’re finally in the present. Derek has lost what little family he had left, except for a catatonic uncle. He already has two instances in his past where the worry of keeping werewolves a secret has caused deaths. And now there’s this teenager. No, actually, two teenagers. One who was bitten, and one who shouts out “You’re a werewolf!” in the middle of the preserve, instantly figuring out a centuries-old supernatural secret. Derek is fucking terrified, and things are only getting worse. This kid who got bitten? Derek follows him to see if he’s really a wolf, to find out if he knows what’s happening to him, if he believes the other teen. He finds the kid JUMPING OVER PEOPLE’S HEADS in broad daylight in front of everyone. Derek might’ve had a couple verbal giveaways but this is just ridiculous. Then, even better, the kid goes on a date on the FULL MOON with THE YOUNGEST ARGENT. There’s about a billion reasons to follow Scott to the party. It’s a FULL MOON, for one. HE’S WITH AN ARGENT for another. And of course he can’t just walk into the party. He’s fucking 22 for fuck’s sake. This is a high school party. He’d get arrested. And of course he doesn’t introduce himself to Scott beforehand. He has no way of knowing if this kid is on the Alpha’s side. He’s the Alpha’s Beta, it would make perfect sense for him to be obeying the Alpha. OR since he’s with the Argent, maybe he’s working with them. Maybe he’s a plant of some kind. a hunter pet. Laura was used as bait to catch Derek, why not Scott too? But he sees quickly that Allison has no clue what’s going on, at least with Scott, and he takes her home and steals her jacket to lure Scott into the Preserve where he can’t hurt anyone. Then, when he sees Scott get chased by the hunters, with no Alpha coming running to protect him, he decides “Alright, guess this kid’s my ally. Gotta protect him.” Yeah. He says some weird shit. But the evidence points to Derek not knowing much about bitten wolves. He tells Scott that he doesn’t know how to train a bitten wolf, but he does know how to help Scott recover memories (the memory loss appears to only happen in the early days of shifting, which lends more credibility to the possibility that born wolves don’t start shifting properly until later in life [puberty being the most likely milestone] and he therefore has experience with that, but not with the kind of control Scott needs, that he’s known his whole life). Born a werewolf, he’s never considered the bite anything other than a gift. He also just lost his entire family, so sue him for trying to find some kind of connection between them. (It honestly makes total sense for him to use the term ‘brothers’ bc he KNOWs Scott won’t understand the concept of ‘pack’ yet) So, now that’s decided to help Scott, to protect him, he goes back to the school. SURELY now that Scott knows what he is and how dangerous he is when stressed, he’ll reign himself in during lacrosse, or even just back out of it altogether. There are lives at stake here, be them human, or if Scott exposes the secret, werewolves. SURELY this kid wouldn’t put everyone in danger over a fucking game. But no. Not only does he keep flaunting his abilities, but he SHIFTS ON THE FIELD. If Stiles hadn’t Dragged Scott out of there, the entire supernatural world would be EXPOSED by this ONE KID. Derek passed Terrified about a hundred miles back. He’s gotta be fucking out of his mind with fear. I don’t blame him even a little for threatening Scott. If Scott’s not gonna do the right thing on his own, then threatening him is worth it if people don’t DIE. Then, bc Scott’s a pissy baby and goes to shout at him and be a fuckwad, and Stiles is nosey and neither of them have boundaries (I love Stiles, but fucking seriously, digging up a grave?) Derek gets ARRESTED. He pleads with this lanky teen who is brave enough to climb into the cruiser with a WEREWOLF. Who’s FRiends with a Werewolf. Who figured it out so quickly. He pleads with him to understand how dangerous this is, to stop his friend. And Stiles looks like he’s gonna, but Scott bolts bc of the wolfsbane (Which...listen if I’m being really salty, a deep bitter part of me genuinely wonders if he was that freaked out, or if he overheard Derek beg Stiles not to let Scott play, and Scott ran away from Stiles so he wouldn’t get told no, bc he wanted to play.) and by the time Stiles finds him he’s already dressed for the game. And DEREK WAS RIGHT. Scott DID lose control. He DID shift on the field. At LEAST one human saw him shift, and the coach for the other team knew something was up too. He DID expose them, and he did it further bc Jackson is suspicious now. Now, I’ve reblogged a gifset of it before, the moment when Derek shows up at the lacrosse field and finds Jackson standing in it after Scott’s run off, staring at a glove with a claw hole in it. He is watching his worst nightmare come true. Scott has exposed them and Jackson is going to figure out werewolves, just like Stiles did. He knows right that instant that people are going to die. I’ll reiterate what I said in the tags on that gifset. It’s extremely likely that Derek bit Jackson out of self-preservation. Jackson had been threatening to tell the hunters and the entire world if he didn’t get what he wanted. The safest thing to do was give Jackson the bite so that at least he would be putting himself in danger too if he exposed werewolves. He forced Jackson to have to keep the secret for himself because he knew Jackson wouldn’t do it for anyone else. (And he knew Jackson had some self-preservation, compared to Scott, and wouldn’t want to expose himself.)

Listen, I just. I just get so sad watching Derek sneaking into people’s rooms and standing on the edge of the field and showing up in the locker rooms. He’s trying to help. He’s trying to protect. He wants to be there in case Scott does something stupid (which he does, again and Again) to protect him, even after Scott REFUSED to help him stop a SERIAL KILLER because there wasn’t anything in it for him. Even after Scott fucking blackmails him by leaving him hanging on a grate with wires plugged into his side and his abuser on their way back to hurt him, he still helps him protect Allison (who watched him be tortured and did nothing. [He still has the capacity to acknowledge that it’s not her fault. That she couldn’t save him. He doesn’t blame her for it and he certainly doesn’t want her to die.]) He wants to keep his Betas safe. He stands in the parking lot waiting for them to test Lydia because he doesn’t want them to have to go through with killing her alone (and he only tries to kill her because she DOESN’T pass the test [although I admit it’s a dumb test] and because the kanima is KILLING people. More people have died and I don’t know how the fuck Derek manages to keep standing, let alone having such capacity for empathy and optimism and sarcasm after everything he’s dealt with. He’s constantly being hunted by hunters or humans, or fuck even Scott himself, since every time Scott gets upset he blames Derek for everything (I’m still fucking disgusted that he turned up at Derek’s place and accused him of murdering his own sister.) And STILL he shows up. No matter how many times he’s shoved away and ignored and yelled at. He shows up and he stands on the fringes and he waits for the chance to help.

And what’s creepy about that?

[skimblyshanks]

Negativity and me rambling about discoursey topics below the cut. feel free to keep scrolling. Actually, I encourage it ilaushdfhasd Have a great day!

I want to talk bluntly here.

I know I probably come off like a jackass nowadays, and I don’t want to, but at the end of the day there’s a group of ppl who are going to continue spreading lies about people based on what they ship, how they read characters, or literally anything that they disagree on, and they don’t listen when you try and explain anything.

so I’m kinda tired and grumpy and I genuinely try not to address it because I know no one who i want to get through to will listen, but also I feel like if I don’t just make a big old post whining about it there will probably be more of those small, whinier posts that I delete after an hour or so. But anyway. People are going to call me and my friemds horrible things, and they’re not going to listen if we try and defend ourselves. Which. Old news. Already found that out last July-August.

Guess what? I was here last year. I missed most of the first drama of the year, that being Kittencourse 1.0, but I was dragged along for the ride every other time. And it was anti-shippers starting those dramas, every time. I probably wouldn’t have lebelled myself as anything if not for the fact that for half a year bullies were throwing around their weight and justifying it by being antis, even when their opponents were doing nothing wrong.

I was here when someone was harassed for months over a fanfiction. this person wasn’t some huge presence in the fandom; the fanfic wasn’t some bastion of the fandom. I don’t think most of us knew either person or fic until antis decided it would be fun to fuck with the account for months on end.

I began identifying as pro ship because at least the pro shippers didn’t seem to be going out of their way to be nasty.

You know the funny thing? For a long while the most problematic thing I shipped was Tugger  shanks. Even now, the most problematic thing I ship is Munku  pounce, which I will not hesitate to tell you is a comfort ship, as pounce is one of my comfort characters. Any other ship is between kittens and those in the nebulous young adult range, which doesn’t seem to match the Anti Council’s definition of problematic, given many of them had no issue following a blog openly labelling itself as pro ship when the spiciest ship was Pounce/Plato.

And that’s the other thing. I’ve been very open on this blog about being pro ship.

Every time I got a wave of followers who seemed v likely to be anti-shippers, I reblogged posts explaining my stance and hopefully making it clear that I was pro ship. Regardless, I ended up having these followers for months; I didn’t block them bc many of them didn’t make it clear either way what they felt, so I dared to assume they were alright following a pro shipper. Then of course a few months later: a pro ship DNI, maybe some soapboxing, and more than once this has been while they are still following me.

And the fact is, it doesn’t matter what I try to explain.

It doesn’t matter how many posts I reblog trying to explain what it means when I use the term pro ship.

It doesn’t matter if I say that incest ships aren’t really it for me.

It doesn’t matter if I say the kittens are not young children to me.

It wouldn’t matter if I compiled every instance of kitten characters being provocative or taking part in sexually charged numbers.

It doesn’t matter that what we’re talking about here are fictional anthro cats played by adults.

It doesn’t matter because antis have already made up their mind and don’t want to hear otherwise.

It wouldn’t help if I changed labels because the label isn’t the issue, it’s the opposition to antis and their mentality. If I changed labels, they’d simply transfer the baggage they’ve given pro ship onto whatever I had chosen instead.

And I don’t think there’s going to be a middle ground reached because both sides are coming at media differently.

Yes, Pro shippers are alright with people having ships between characters who are related, ships with large age gaps, and, yes, even ships between adult characters and child characters. Because this is fiction we’re talking about. No one real is being harmed by this ship existing. The threat of grooming with these ships exists for all ships, all fandoms, all pieces of media, and all things that can be used to gain a victim’s trust.

Also, you don’t know why anyone ships what they do. You don’t know why anyone has the headcanons they do. I think it’s well-documented by now that there are survivors on all sides of this discourse, so that much should be clear. Telling those who do use these more controversial ships or headcanons to cope that they ought to be doing it in private is not only callous but disingenuine, as antis have, multiple times, gone into private spaces and leaked all content thereof so they could call out those within the group.

As it applies to this fandom, I don’t believe I’ve seen any potentially triggering ship in the main tags. Most of us who do ship controversial ships are aware people don’t like them. We provide tags to block, and of course users can be blocked as well.

Speaking of which.

I know who blocks me back. It shows a specific icon when a block is mutual. I assure you very few antis block me, even when they say they do.

Listen.

The truth is, at the end of the day, this is a blog for a musical about cats. I’ve shifted away from interacting with most users, partly so i don’t end up with more followers who end up antis, and partly so other, neutral users don’t end up catching flack for interacting with me.

And yeah, it is true that the current fandom climate is hilariously hostile to several ships that were popular for decades beforehand. It is true that antis have double standards. That their hypocrisy is easy to point out. That’s true of antis and fandoms in general.

But also. No one outside this fandom gives a shit what any of us are shipping, really. We’re all weirdos to them. The block button is right there; the filtering option is right there, Xkit and its blacklisting tool are right there. Yet there are still these dumb as shit outbursts and fearmongering and soapboxing.

And I’m Tired.

I’m tired moreso by general antidom.

There are multiple compilations of anti shippers being horrible people over ships and fiction, and sometimes even just because they think someone is a pro shipper, even if they aren’t. I’ve had many urges to link them, to share them, but often I think about the trigger warnings it would require and I lose steam; I don’t want to share that stuff with my followers.

And I’m Tired.

I’m tired that the same stupid points of drama are probably going to get resurrected again. At least this time I have most of them blocked.

But, yeah.

I’m Tired.