#I was thinking about fandom interpretations of canonical text (yeah it was because of that tattoo post okay)

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

Question for the artist, whats the parameters for drawing fusion fanart? Because a lot of people see it as a romanic thing, but it isnt always that. For example, are you okay with fans drawing steven fused the crystal gems? Are you okay with fans drawing any fusions including CG, or is that an ick?

Okay, SO. I apologize for answering this late - I was trying to find the correct way to reply to this ask without coming off as someone extremely senile and jaded.

First things first - I really appreciate you taking my feelings into consideration on this! I can tell it comes from a place of genuine kindness and caring, and I think that's awesome.

I'm not unfamiliar with the fact that some artists feel very protective of their characters, and sometimes try to lay down rules about how they are to be viewed, how they are to be drawn by others, etc. So I don't blame you at all for assuming this is something that needs to be done, given the current fandom environment in certain spaces.

That all being said.

This idea that drawing characters in Situations Which May Be Uncomfortable To Someone With A Specific Interpretation Of The Media (which is not at all supported by canon text) is transgressive is..... boy...... that's not a good one.

It is..... Extremely Evangelical in its conception.

Guys. GUYS. Thought crime isn't a crime. ART isn't a crime.

But to answer your question -

Yes, you can absolutely draw Steven - WD!AU Steven - fusing with the gems or CG.

Yes, you can absolutely draw CG fusing with Steven or the Crystal Gems, etc.

Because

Even if someone DID assume fusion was romantic primarily, that doesn't mean it should be the default, and in fact it ISN'T. Many, MANY fusions in the show are not representative of romantic relationships.

Canon Steven, in the Canon show, fused with TONS of people he didn't have romantic feelings for. Most of the people, outside of Connie, for a start.

Even if imagining CG in a romantic relationship with the Crystal Gems DOES give me the 'ick' (which, actually, yeah, it kinda does I guess, given that I can't really see that thing happening given that she's effectively (not LITERALLY) a child) that doesn't mean YOUR art has to be limited by my presumptions of what fusion means in this context, if we disagree on it

And not to put too fine a point on it but

Fusion ISN'T inherently about romance.

Fusion ISN'T inherently sexual!

No part of the show supports either of these ideas. Fusion is and always has been explicitly about various types of RELATIONSHIPS - including things like sibling bonds (Smokey Quartz), parent-child relationships (Steg, Steven and ANY of the CGs), friendships, Unhealthy Control-Seeking (Malachite) and just straight up collaborative murder (a la Aquamarine and Ruby).

Yes, some fusions ARE inherently romantic in nature, but that does not mean ALL fusions adhere to these rules. In fact, MOST fusions aren't even about that.

And even if they were.............we're all allowed to express our OWN interpretation of things using art. That's not an Ungood Thought that you should be shamed for.

thank you for coming to my ted talk

[triptychgardener]

I swear to actual Gog no nom-transfem outside of Tumblr actually understands June as a character and it will be the death of me. If I see another cavalcade of people turn up at the slightest mention of her name saying "ohhh I don't see it, I don't think it makes sense, tbh it'd just be better if they didn't at this point" I'm going to turn into the Joker. I read further down on that "June would be better as a trans guy imo I'm not transmisogynistic I mean femtransphobic" reddit thread and it made me want to become a nomad wandering the Appalachian peaks

Yeah like I'm gonna be real. I think entering fandom and using characters as nothing more than a source for projection really screws up your actual reading of the text (said as someone who has done that before!) And if you're unwilling to let go of that interpretation, you're going to be operating in a fundamentally different reality than everyone else who bothers to read the text.

June at this point is on the edge of becoming canon. She's been "canon" for years now, the evidence and reading of June as transfem has been thoroughly documented and discussed. She is a thing. That is happening. And while Homestuck often draws in fandom ideas and discussion, it's rarely going off of things that weren't at least partially in the text themselves.

I don't hold all of Homestuck's text as scripture. My distaste for, say, transmasc Roxy, has been growing as I actually began to read and understand more. And if people want good transmasc readings, there are plenty of great options! Jane, Dirk, Aradia and Nepeta are all wonderful examples of strong transmasc readings. I'd say there are, on the whole, maybe fewer than transfem readings, just because Homestuck is a very transfeminine story. It's about trying to escape and defeat the ultimate force of masculinity that pervades and lords over the story, contrasted by the Space aspect, which has some of the most transfeminine goddamn characters in the whole comic (even a basically canonical one in Calliope). It's a story with Vriska Goddamn Serket in it for the love of god!!!!

Also not to get too deep into the weeds but arguments like "well she actually admired her dad a lot and wanted to be like him" seem to forget the Literal Familial Strife he had with his dad every day, or the fact that his dad always seems to be a bit of a sore subject, or maybe, perhaps, John is not always being one hundred percent honest about his feelings about his father who died when he was thirteen. Honestly, even outside of a transfeminine interpretation, it's just a deeply surface-level reading of John.

[epiphainie]

I completely agree with you in that there are many bad faith interpretations of tommy and buck and tommy’s relationship. I don’t know if this one I’m about to share would necessarily be a bad faith interpretation but I’d like your take on it. In the scene where buck comes out to eddie, eddie says to buck “this changes nothing between us” and buck responds with something along the lines of “uh good, that’s a relief”. I’ve seen a lot of people interpret buck’s facial expressions as not showing just relief but relief mixed disappointment because a part of buck wanted things to change between them, in the romantic sense, he just doesn’t realize it. I do agree that buck’s expression as he says the words is interesting but I don’t personally think it has anything to do with him harbouring romantic feelings for eddie. for me it felt like one of those moments where you dread the reaction for so long, that when you finally face the thing and open up, even if the other person’s reaction is positive, it takes a minute for you to really internalise it and let yourself believe it.

Another moment that people often talk about from this scene is reaction to buck saying he can’t stop thinking about tommy. People often say eddie’s facial expression shows some sort of disappointment but again, I don’t know if that’s it? again, it is an interesting expression so I get why people would pause and focus for a minute but to me, it reads as eddie searching for a moment to give his honest advice to buck in the scenario.

Anyway, I’d love your thoughts on those particular moments and how you see them. Again, I’m not saying that the interpretations people are making of that scene in relation to buddie are necessarily in bad faith. I know it’s fun to analyze and interpret scenes in ways that you enjoy and I’d never want people to stop doing that. I just feel like Oliver and Tim have been very clear in that they do not want to tell a story where a guy comes out and is in love with his best friend and if buck was truly disappointed in hearing eddie say nothing’s going to change between them post buck’s coming out, that would be a quite bold contradiction.

Hi anon!

I'm not sure if you actually meant to send this to me because I'm kind of the exact opposite of a person who engages in the practice of reverse-engineering actors' faces to find deep secret meanings that doesn't actually exist in the script. I think it's a slippery slop of a fan practice where if you go "haha he looks jealous here" and want to make it gay in your fantasy world and are capable of compartmentalizing that from the actual text, it's great! If you look at it like it's subtext that is meant to one day come to surface, as some sort of proof that this is not the actual story, you're either too deep in your world that you treat these characters like they have agencies and thoughts and feelings and are not, yknow, fictional - or that actors are making the conscious choice to layer their performances with breadcrumbs for a plot that doesn't exist at the time.

I've seen all these arguments with almost every scene this season. Eddie's face when Tommy enters the bachelor party. Buck's face when Bobby says Tommy is good for him. Bobby's face when he says Tommy is good for Buck. Eddie's smile when they enter the hospital room. Most of these are insignificant and the others have in-text explanation (Yeah, Bobby smiles weirdly in that scene. Guess what, he's kind of planning to kill himself). And like I said, if people want to read these in a pro-Buddie sense and go do fandom stuff with it, that's great. But we all know this fandom is taken over by the question of "will Buck and Eddie happen?" so everyone who's not even doing this in bad faith (I don't think all do) are looking at it in "does this support canon romantic Buddie?" lenses. So much of shipping Buddie is about speculating for the next episode, next season, next whatever that I think it's so easy to find yourself on that slippery slop where you fit every shot, face, editing choice to your interpretation. There's also the sunk cost fallacy at play here - once you do it for so long, it's hard to give up on the belief that it'll happen.

I think both Oliver and Ryan great actors - and that scene is one of my favorites in the season - but no, I don't think there's more to their faces than what they're given to play. Which is as all of them mentioned a billion times, a scene of a guy nervously coming out as queer to his best friend and receiving support. If I'm wrong and the rest of this fandom is right and the production/writers/showrunners are actually fully married to the idea of canon romantic Buddie but The Powers That Be are keeping gay Eddie in the closet as if he's a real person and they're the evil step-mother, and come S10 Buck realizes he's been in love with his bff all along, then yeah in-text, that would recontextualize all their performances. It still wouldn't change what the writers' intention has been with the text as it exists today or be proof that Oliver and Ryan are making acting choices for a hypothetical future SL.

[lovemyromance]

The "we don't know what Elain wants because we don't have her POV" is just an excuse to not have to think about the obvious fact that Elain wants Az and Az wants Elain

Because they got Az's POV and did they listen to what he wants?? He wanted to beg on his knees for a taste of Elain, he admitted to being unable to sleep for a year because he wants her so bad, staring at her tylenol for that whole year like a lovesick teenager, exercising until his body gave out to not lie awake thinking about her, touching himself to the thought of her, QUESTIONING HIS RELIGION over her in front of HL Rhys. And they still didn't simply listen to Az's POV and accept that he wants Elain. Instead they twisted the most blatant and tension-filled confirmation of love interests in the history of sjm into some nonsense that fit THEIR pov, regardless of the authors intent.

They should ask themselves, what is it they want from a POV that would make them accept a character is romantically into another character? And if their answer is there is nothing from Az's POV that could have them accept that he wants elain (which is true, given their reaction to his very straight forward pov), then we know that they are just lying and making up excuses when they say a POV is what they need. We all also know that if that same POV of Az was about Gwyn, they would turn it into their bible. Same if it was Lucien about Elain. They simply don't want Az and Elain together. its so obvious its embarrassing.

They don't need anyone's POV. They have already made up their mind. And what they have made up in their mind doesn't fit with any of the povs we've already read. I'm so tired of their bullshit. And i'm tired of BB and sjm not making an announcement and putting this fandom out of its misery.

Sorry for this rant. Thank you for being a voice of reason.

Yeah we all need to rant about sometimes anon, issok. I've never dealt with this level of stupidity and unwillingness to accept fact - and I literally work in finance, where everyone is crazy basically 😅😅

I think I'm just going to resort to a "We shall see" attitude. Because I'm so tired of reading these people's "analysis" and "interpretations" on non-complex, straightforward text.

Idk why they're focused on discrediting every single Elriel moment. Why they need to write an entire paragraph to explain why Azriel giving Elain truthteller was actually bc he loved Mor. Why Azriel saving Elain from Hybern was because he needed to prove Nesta wrong. Why SJM is actually secretly planning a rejected mating bond trope for LoA & Helion.

They're so obsessed with trying to prove Elriel wrong because they don't have anything for EL/GA. Collectively they have one stale mating bond, a ribbon that's supposed to symbolize an enemy, a vague mention of sunshine, and a spark.

There's only so much you can obsesses over those vague points. Their ships haven't even touched or been alone together more than once. They quite literally don't have anything else in canon to keep them occupied - so then they invent headcanons.

Borderline disturbing ones sometimes, like when they said Elain & Gwyn cherish the cloaks of their "mates" from literally the most traumatic day of their lives.

Then they think their headcanons are actually canon, and they read the books trying to fit their square headcanons into a round canon hole.

It doesn't work, but who cares if it doesn't fit to them? They can distract from that fact by then writing full blown essays on why Elriel DOESN't Work.

Inventing all sorts of "interpretations" to prove their point.

They seem to have forgotten this is fairy smut. It's not complex. It does not require interpretation to understand. They purposefully assign a different meaning to the text because they don't like what it spells out, and decided to call that their own interpretation.

And god forbid you say their interpretation of canon doesn't necessary mean it IS canon. Then they'll send anonymous asks to your inbox telling you you're a slut and a whore and wish for a sinkhole to open up and swallow you, your family, your car, your dog, and your 5th grade teacher.

Then they go on tumblr and post some obvious troll anon they received and blame Elriels saying "how come no Elriel is coming to our aid! see look at this hate we get - these Elriels are behind it and they won't speak up!!"

Never mind the fact that they have all of us blocked when we even bring up the c-word: Canon.

Like sorry, I don't really feel sympathy anymore. It sucks - but y'all made this fandom toxic and we all have to deal with it. They don't even have the common sense to know it's an obvious troll account - they take any opportunity to point fingers at Elriels and say we're acting morally superior and also we're the devil incarnate.

Like I'm sorry but how dumb can you fucking be to not see what is happening here? Instead of ignoring the trolls like Elriels do, they decide to spread more hate in the fandom, accusing Elriels, and then turn around and cry that Elriels aren't rushing to their defense in these "trying times"???

Maybe I don't want to be at your defense. Maybe I'm not acting like I'm morally superior, maybe I just am morally superior. Maybe I don't give a shit about this anymore and maybe I just want to sit here and post about Elriel and wait for the next book.

At this point idc. I've never gone out looking for a fight and they can shit talk me all they want but their toddler interpretations do not interest me and I don't care. Im at the point in time where I'm the disgruntled kindergartner teacher just letting the kids say anything while I pound back a shot of whiskey like Elain (in my Stanley mug) 😂😂

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

I HATE it when people say 'I'm the only one who's right about blah" or "I'm the only one who understands blah" or "no obviously the whole entire fandom is wrong for interpreting this as blah" "I'm the only one who can defend blah"

Like you go girl, enjoy your private takes, but don't be a jerk on the internet to strangers who are as well informed as you. Don't be all high and mighty "I've read the Japanese text" ok but if you read the Lord of the Rings in Polish or English or whatever you still understand the Lord of the Rings.

I'm allowed to interpret something if it is in the game, ok? If I think a character is funny because the ally notebook calls them funny and another character calls them funny and they agree and are like: 'yeah I'm funny lol' don't turn round to me and say "um achtually that's just a mistranslation and that character was lying when they described their friend and you don't understand Japanese so shut up they're super serious and edgy and-"

ok have your head canons but get your head out your butt and let us all enjoy fire emblem.

We all love the same stuff, stop trying to make everything a war or conflict or game of who's canon or correct or whatever. If you're nice, you might find your fandom experience feels less like a battle ground

-🐾 irritated paw print anon

.

[gabrielsbubblegumbitch]

Adding to the “Velvette is the glue of the Vees” convo (and possible slightly out of character interpretation)

I feel like Vox and Valentino definitely need somebody to confide in other than a fuck-buddy y’know?

Like just a (somewhat) stable friend or business partner no sex involved

…Who they’ll sometimes cuddle on the couch with and bitch about their day to each other

I hc Velvette in all her independent girlboss glory can grow clingy towards those she’s attached herself to - that being Vox and Valentino

Say Vox and Val have an argument Velvette wasn’t around for, so they’re both pissed at each other - Velvette comes to their little shared common space, completely drained from work and drapes herself over whoever is there

Valentino; will immediately start bitching to her but also scoop her up and plop on the couch, maybe get some snacks and drinks as they both recharge

Vox; stays quiet - doesn’t like talking after an argument but will do something similar, maybe go into his office instead to stalk someone while having Velvette in his lap. Velvette is just there doom scrolling on her phone or taking a nap while Vox rubs her back

Whoever Velvette runs into first - she can sense the argument happened. So once she’s recharged and taken care of herself - she’ll text them something stupid like “Can’t sleep. Come here. Now.” without telling Vox or Valentino that the other one will be there - both of them go in her room and are - pissed lol

(Think of that Spongebob episode where Squidward tries to make Patrick and SpongeBob be friends again 💀)

But yeah uhmmm Velvette’s gonna 1. Address the issue directly 2. Force both Vox and Valentino to sleep with her bc she’s too tired to deal with them but will force them into the awkward situation cause she wants the entertainment

If scenario 2 happens Velvette is obviously sandwiched in between Vox and Valentino while they stare at each other angrily. Whoever speaks way too loud first gets punched by Velvette (happens multiple times) so they’re forced to quietly “discuss their issues” while Velvette is playing dumb and pretending to sleep - eventually things do work out and they all fall asleep

I don’t even know where I was going with this it’s incredibly disorganized I just like ranting about the Vees help - love silly Velvette headcanons where she’s the one who’s in control I guess lol

I totally agree with like half of what you've written - with the part taht Vox and Valentino both need someone to confide with. None of them has a lot of opportunities to be just comfortable with another person. Sure they have each other but romantic relatisohips are often more "loaded" than frienships and while they can grant deeper connection, they also generate greater tension. That's why lifelong frienships are way more common than lifelong romances.

But I don't find the idea of Velvette's infantilization appealing, sorry. She strikes me as a person who craves to be feared and respected, to the level that it feels almost like overcompesating for her young age (compared to other Overlords) and non-threatening form. I don't see why would she allow anyone, even her friends to treat her like a plushie. Especially when those friends are power hungry maniacs who nutoriously prey on people they see as weaker.

That doesn't mean I think your headcanon is wrong or bad. It just doesn't allign with my own interpretation. Which is perfectly fine, they can't even be compared in their accuracy in relation to canon because we barely have any canon. So please, don't take it personally - I love you have fun with your ideas, that's the most important part of fandom <3

[rawliverandgoronspice]

If Ganondorf was lying to anyone during that Wind Waker speech, he’d be lying to himself. The gerudo desert was indeed harsh, and Hyrule sucked during his time, but legit everything he did in Ocarina of Time is completely unjustifiable, except for the murder of the King of Hyrule. The man sat in luxury for 7 years with monsters surrounding the land, while his people remained in the desert. Yet at the end of the day, he believed that he had every right to do all of that.

Self-justification isn’t a trait that’s outright noticeable with Ganondorf, but Wind Waker puts it out in the open and shows that yes, the self proclaimed “King of Evil” truly believes he’s deserving of the world, and that his circumstances justify his crimes.

I feel like the fandom misses that while Ganondorf may not be this complex 5d villain, he still carries an interesting amount of traits like this

Hey, thanks for the ask!! I'm sorry, I haven't slept in over 24h and felt particularly rhapsodic today so uhhhh sorrryyyyy for being cringe about my little guyyyyyy (and the approximate use of English language that might ensue)

So yeah, I think there's absolutely a huge part of that, trying to make sense of the violently absurd situation he found himself in, a monster and one of the last people who remembers Hyrule and how it was destroyed, and rationalizing to himself why it is not meaningless.

I have to say, not to be uhhh a parody of myself, but I think it could be a little bit more complicated than that (all of it being interpretations of the text that I don't think canon entirely backs always, but my point is that it could be read out of it).

If Ganondorf wanted any meaningful chance to reshape his own reality, then there's no doing that without access to the Triforce. If he had wanted to go for the King's head and nothing else, he would have been stopped immediately by everybody who do have access to shards of the keys to the Sacred Realm (not to mention how trigger happy Zelda was about wishing ????? something to the Triforce about erasing him in some form). I don't think it would have been reasonable to aim for anything but the Triforce as a military goal --not to mention that his beef is half with Hyrule, and half with the Goddesses themselves for considering the gerudos beneath them in some form and for some reason (which becomes even more apparent and deranged in Wind Waker, as part of why he can't let go of Hyrule in my opinion is because their intervention was so violent he simply cannot wrap his head around it and, as usual, Will Not Be Defeated >:((( because he's that kind of bitter little shithead, which I uhhhh relate to a little too much maybe). And then, well. You can't exactly ask for the Triforce and be nice about it, right?

I'm not saying he wasn't gleefully horrible about it the entire time, but I can absolutely see a case of him being self-centered enough to see each of his actions as the necessary (or righteous/vengeful) next step to get closer to his goals, and one thing leads to the other, and after seven years of strife, well, the kingdom you wanted to rule is a pile of rubble, ash and misery you enforced at every step, and oops! You have alienated absolutely everyone who aren't your weird moms!

There's a ton of things to say about the many interpretations that could be made of his relationship to the gerudos so I won't over-expand on that, but, uhhhh yeah he probably used them, or at the very least ruled them with an iron fist to enforce his own power he believed unquestionnable (even if the goal was genuinely to do things for their sake, which in my opinion could still be argued --Hyrule is a big nightmare place during his reign, but the Valley is the only location basically untouched with arguably Kakariko after all).

To be honest, I think TP Ganondorf is more accursed with a sense of self-justification than WW Ganon, who has a surprising amount of clarity on his own motives (to restate my tags on a post I just reblogged: I don't think "I coveted this wind, I suppose" is particularly self-pitying, it's soberingly self-aware if anything). TP Ganon is the one who's obsessed with divine purpose and considering himself a weird take on the Chosen One.

But yeah, I think... To be completely honest, I sometimes feel like Ganondorf's potential (!!! not actual execution, very important to draw this distinction) is just kind of too large for the IP that birthed him? The full breadth of his complexity cannot be explored in a setting that demands he merely generates a simple conflict that doesn't seriously question the status quo while everything about him inherently begs for it (and I love Zelda and its simplicity and what it does, to be very clear!). Like, I know this is just me justifying my own investment to a degree, but... his relationship to the gerudo culture, his relationship to gender, to divinity, to fate, to self-definition, to absolute resistance grinded down to the point of absurdity (but at the same time, what else is there to do)... like all of this absolutely has potential to be large and epic and breathtaking, but. Nintendo needs to preserve the statut quo. And Ganondorf just cannot express all of these themes without having this simple world literally collapse around him.

This is what I find incredibly compelling about this dramatic disaster of a guy. And the very media that suggested all of these contradictions and inner conflicts (without necessarily understanding them at first I think) is now fighting tooth and nail against what it introduced, what he can embody and once questioned (in WW most potently) for the sake of Hyrule's moral balance, backpedalling into a state of simplicity that just never truly existed to that degree before --partially, in my opinion, because this conflict is scary to face heads on without taking significant artistic risks I am not confident we will ever see again, to be uhh less than optimistic.

So yeah! He isn't that complicated as the villain of the children video games for sure!! But. As a character, there's so much there, just sitting right under the surface.

[icyrambles]

i typically have two forms of analysis when i talk about certain characters. i call them meta analysis and canon analysis.

meta analysis is when i take into account author, fan, and personal interpretation and intention when writing a character. this can be things like biases on the author's part (intentional or not), fandom headcanons and general opinions that are widespread, and finally my own personal opinions and beliefs on the character or media

canon analysis is when i ignore everything above. it's when i take things that are said exclusively through the text and conveyed to me as a reader. these are analysis formed exclusively (or at least as much as i try) through what is told to me via the text

like take pharma as an example. i personally hate how his character is treated both in canon and in fandom. within canon he's reduced to the crazy doctor who harvested his patients organs and in fandom i've noticed he either gets babied to all hell (typically by shifting the blame of his actions onto tarn) or just demonising him. i dislike this from all angles because pharma for me is a multifaceted character who, while causing a lot of harm, was forced into a situation where he really did not have a choice if he wanted to keep his staff and himself alive.

like yeah, i think pharma should punished in some way for the deaths he caused, but i also think that he should be viewed through the lens of someone who was essentially being blackmailed into killing his patients less himself and his staff (one of whom was a defected decepticon) be serious harmed or just outright killed. and that these actions caused massive damage to his mental wellbeing which caused him to spiral into madness.

or like take ratchet. he's got this thing in fandom where he'll throw wrenches at people and he's a fucking rebel who hates the government. but he doesn't do either of those things ever, in any of the continuities i've read/watched. like he's not even remotely violent unless he's actively being threatened? and even then he's more liable to go for verbal assaults rather than physical ones. where are you people getting these interpretations from?

he's a snarky ass who enjoys arguing with people sure, but ratchet would not fucking destroy the government. he fucking threatens to dismantle megatron on several occasions throughout the comics. there was a tweet from alex milne a while back that basically called ratchet an abusive partner and like, listen, fandom interpretations are always going to be a little off, but i'm sorry mr. milne, but ratchet is not an abuser in any sense of the word. there is nowhere, and i mean nowhere in the comics that proves that he would do that.

idw starscream is also a character who i have complex feelings about when i try to write about him.

because on the one hand i despise the way that idw starscream is treated by the fanbase. he's not a good person, that is the whole point of him. he's a terrible person, who has done terrible things, and i think he should be treated as just as bad as megatron. and i think the fandom constantly babying him because of what megatron did to him is stupid.

he's a genuinely cunning, manipulative, and overall shitty asshole who is more than willing to doublecross and backstab to get what he wants.

but he's also a victim. megatron's treatment of him throughout the war is inexcusable. under no circumstances do i think that starscream deserved to be kept around as a punching bag to keep the other decepticons in line and i also am of the belief that megatron should've gotten more flack for what he did to starscream.

like pharma, starscream is a character who has a lot of different layers. he fucks up and relapses into more toxic behaviour because it's quite literally the only thing he can rely on. he's expected by the people around him to be a backstabber and a liar, so why on earth would he act any differently?

it's not until bumblebee appears that he actually starts to change. and i think it's very important when discussing bee and starscream's relationship that people remember that starscream does not think of bumblebee as a ghost. he views bee as a literal manifestation of his guilt and consciousness. he did genuinely seem to view bumblebee as a good leader and a good person before his death in dark cybertron, so when bee shows up as a ghost and starts encouraging starscream to do better for his people and his planet, starscream listens because he did trust bee.

the point of starscream's character, is that people can only change if they truly want to. bumblebee wants starscream to change for the better but starscream only starts to change when he actually believes he can. and even then he often relapses into more negative behaviours because he's not perfect. the fact that he does this honestly makes him even more believable to me.

if you were treated as nothing more than a liar, coward, and manipulative asshole for 4 million years you'd probably fuck up on the road to recovery too.

it's why megatron's redemption at least works for me within a canon lens. he only starts to change his behaviour when he actually begins to understand that his actions and ideology were wrong. that's why it works. the lost light as a ship is about new beginnings and fresh starts for everyone, so having megatron, literally the most hated guy every join the crew works to further that theme of rebirth.

out of canon analysis though, starscream and megatron in my opinion were done very poorly in terms of writing. they were very clearly meant to be cartoonishly evil characters with no redeemable qualities during phase 1 of the comics. so when phases 2 + 3 roll around and try to develop these characters as more than just evil assholes, it falls flat because you have to sweep all of the terrible shit they've done under the rug.

and it doesn't work well from a narrative perspective to have murder mcgee megatron and his former second in command be the leaders of not only the planet they fucking destroyed and the ship that legally doesn't belong to them. and this is coming from someone who loves idw's portrayals of megatron and starscream. i think they're some of the best versions out there beyond maybe the originals.

i also think that fandom falls into a weird zone when it comes to these characters. i call it fandom flanderization; where fandom will take a certain character trait (like starscream being a liar) and conflate that trait to be their whole character. like is starscream a liar? yeah he absolutely is. but he's also a genuinely caring individual when he actually trusts someone.

it's a shame because i think that idw, despite having relatively weak writing in terms of overall storytelling, actually has some really interesting interpretations of the characters.

[ if you liked my work, please feel free to give it a reblog and leave your thoughts in the tags, reblog box itself, or replies. i adore seeing what other people have to say about my thoughts ]

[scoobydoodean]

you upset the samgirls so bad that I just saw a post about how fandom is not about college essay analysis and that it's okay to have emotionally irrational interpretations of the text (no one ever said otherwise) due to everyone bringing their own history and personal context to watching the show, and like yeah sure that's fine, but why is there a problem when someone challenges those interpretations with facts and logic? why must deangirls allow our fave to be slandered and mischaracterized based on events that never actually occurred?

every single fandom has those people who turn their make blorbo into a wet sopping female coded omega (dean fen included) but it's only samgirls and casgirls that insist those readings are canon and that dean is some mean evil abusive patriarch then proceed to get mad when deangirls argue against that 😭

EDIT for Anon: In the comments, a Tumblr user who believes you may be referring to a post they made makes it clear that they were not talking about me at all. This is also why I typically prefer not to receive mail that starts with "I saw a post about you". I've already said I will not respond to mail containing the usernames of other people whose takes people want me to talk about, but I think from now on I'm just not going to answer mail that starts with, "I saw a post" tbh.

Original response below

I mean I don't know if whatever post you're referring to was prompted by me, Anon, because I only posted a few minutes before I got this. Just one single thing. I've just been making rewatch posts for like three weeks (and enjoying myself a lot while doing so). If whatever post you saw was prompted by me, maybe people who don't like me should stop stalking my blog that ig upsets them so much that they sit around refreshing my tumblr page waiting for me to say anything they can possibly misconstrue to be a vague about them.

I have been enjoying diving deeply into the show lately. The idea that someone out there is mad and thinks I am doing fandom wrong and somehow invalidating their emotions by blogging on my own blog and analyzing the show in the way I prefer instead of the way they prefer is pretty weird. (While at the same time saying I am trying to control how they analyze it, I'm gathering? Not hypocritical at all.)

But yeah god forbid I do the same thing deancrits do all of the time i.e., talk about takes I don't agree with on my blog. That's so mean of me. Bullying behavior really.

[zarchomp]

saw a post on tiktok joking about riley from inside out discovering Wattpad in the first movie and AO3 in the second movie which like,,,,, relatable middle school experience.

a bunch of the comments were saying stuff like "and just WAIT until she discovers chai". i didn't know what chai was, but i DO know that ao3 isn't as popular in a lot of fandom spaces these days so i checked it out, wondering if it was something new, but turns out it's character ai?

which is SO interesting to me because like,,,, the whole thing that i've always LOVED about fandom spaces is the act of mutual creation.

i feel like the thing that is so amazing about fandom isn't just that it's a continuation of the canon stories, but that it's an entirely different way to create relationships with stories. exploring your relationship to a character, as a consumer, and using that to become a creator. taking what resonates to you from the canon and further exploring that tiny facet of it.

i remember that post on here from about ten years ago that argued that canon which tends to be dark has a lot of fanwork that's more lighthearted (college aus, post-war slice of life stuff) whereas lighter canon material gives way to darker fanwork. that sort of relationship with the text, a willingness to explore it on all fronts, is what makes fandom kinda amazing.

the way that popular fanfictions completely recontexualize fanon as a whole. how popular pieces of fanart can affect the way the fandom interprets characters and their relationships to each other. fandom has ALWAYS been interesting because it's constantly building on itself. it's like one giant mass that's influenced by thousands of people and each of the individual ways that they resonate with the text.

to me, fandom was never a passive experience. growing up with a lot of mental illness, relating to people in real life wasn't easy. but in an online space where the only thing i needed to enter a thriving community was opinions on different characters and relationships, i could find a space for myself. i know a lot of fanartists and fic writers and general fandom people feel the same way.

and i was kinda shocked at the amount of people who go to ai for fandom. i know back when chatGPT first got big, a lot of people were using it to write fanfiction. and i just think is totally misses the fundamental joy of fandom. because like, i want to read something written by someone who cried while learning about sasuke's backstory.

i want to see art by someone who's stayed up all night scrolling ship tags on tumblr. the whole point of fandom, to me, isn't just that my brain latches onto *thing* and so i want more *thing* (which it does). but i want that more *thing* to be created by someone who has thoughts on the text. someone who watched voltron and said "yeah this is kinda cool but i have ideas about keith's characterization in season three that i think was underexplored in the show and i want to try my hand at it".

anyways, i am so appreciative towards anyone who's ever drawn characters in their styles, had them wearing silly costumes, put them in an pokemon au, started conversation about which college major u think the dungeon meshi characters would choose.

everyone who writes and creates original stories about ur faves suffering, bleeding, owning a pet store, celebrating their birthdays, having sex for the first time.

the act of mutual creation which defines fandom is incredible. the fact that there's a whole community of people who have different takes on characters, who hotly debate whether it makes more sense if the character with the canonically horrific backstory would still have that backstory in the modern day. it's what makes these communities alive, active places that you can explore. it's incredible.

the ability to see a text, and to create such a personal relationship with it that it sparks more creation. that's what it's about.

[raitobie]

Massively unpopular opinion in the fandom:I can't see Light Yagami as being into guys. There are many factors - the iamgay jokes,the excess of a certain murderer-by-notebook/detective ship,or simply the fact that I never shipped him with any male characters(and low-key shipped him with female ones). So,there are two sexuality options - aro ace or straight. And no,I'd not rule out Light being straight,since he seems to have trouble making any kinds of bonds,not just romantic and sexual ones,even before the DN(except for his family,of course,but no one in their right mind would date a parent or a sibling). His being Kira just made it being near impossible,IMO. In fact,straight Light Yagami feels particularly compelling to me,because he seems like one of those people who would take a very long time to actually fall in love - and they're underrepresented in media. I do like aro ace Light,tho. I'm just not very invested in it.

I've seen you headcanon Light as demisexual,but this is basically a blog about a self-insert girl/woman dating his character. Besides,I've seen online that there're subcategories of demisexual people(demihomossexuals,demibisexuals,demiheterossexuals). To top it all,demihet!Light is compelling in a way none of the others managed to be,IMO.

Yeah, agree. Like, I think Light being gay/into guys is a valid headcanon for the record in that you could totally sell it without contradicting canon directly. No reason at all why he can’t be gay if that’s an angle one wants to explore for him in fanon.

But for me personally, you will lose me entirely if you try to use canon (which in my opinion is only the manga) to support this claim. Nothing in the text suggests this to me and while not impossible to interject of course, I find the notion that he HAS to be into guys because of how he deals with women and L in canon played out even as a joke. And it’s an idea that got so obnoxious and boring for me so quickly from the time I joined the fandom that I’m not interested in it lol.

Asexual, though? That’s more what I adopt! I don’t agree about him being aromantic because like you mentioned, Light is written to have clear hang ups about his relationships in general outside of his family, and that’s different to me than just feeling totally void of romantic attraction and desire. Especially considering his age, his personality and his situation, to me it’s like…yeah. I don’t expect him to be very compatible or happy with girls that are in his dating pool pre-death note even if he WAS just straight.

And yeah. Raitobie Light is demihetero just by default of me being a woman and our dynamic, and outside of me/before me, he’s considers himself ace. I do find this interpretation interesting, have never see it explored before and obviously it resonates with me too, so I’m doing it for myself lmao. It’s very nice to see my sentiments being appreciated and supported, so thanks for sharing!

[katatonicimpression]

Hmm maybe it's not worth this but like... ok so is it biphobic to object to St. John flirting with Cecilia in x-factor?

My Credentials, My Qualibications:

I'm bi (as if that's unusual on this app lol). I have many a bi headcanon, and many a canon bi fave.

I'm aware that, in general, in these types of fandom spaces, it's pretty common to see people insist that hc queer characters must be gay. And it's not unusual to see people claim that canon bi characters are actually gay. There's this weird idea that gay is somehow "more queer" than bi, or even that it's more pure. This is annoying as hell and, more importantly, biphobic.

I'm still mad about a time years ago when I saw someone call Maeve from The Boys a lesbian (and in context they definitely meant not bi) when that show has an entire bit about how PR deliberately pretends she's gay in order to not have to sell her bisexuality to the public. It was, like, 3 years ago and i'm still mad at that comment.

On the flip side, there is also a phenomenon where people take canon gay characters and say "but they should be bi actually". Think Willow from Buffy and Bobby Drake. This is also incredibly fucking irritating. Willow's a bit off topic for this blog (but my bug with it is that her history with boys as a teenager is actually very typical for a lesbian and therefore isn't really a relevant point on its own for why she "should" be bi). When it comes to Bobby, I've ranted about this a million times already, but in short:

Bobby's history of queercoding is specifically gay coding. The subtext (and in some cases practically text) is primarily focused on his attraction to women being a perfomative lie, masking his actual interest in men. It is not about him being into guys too, but rather about him being into guys instead of women.

So, what about Pyro?

I Think It Matters that It's Not Canon:

With St. John, we have a character who is portrayed as camp/flamboyant/however you wanna call it in his earliest appearances. Plain as day queer-coding. Textbook. We also have some extra-textual information that, yes, the original intention was to portray a gay man.

Later on, we get some softer queer-coding with St. John's relationship with Avalanche, and specifically the Legacy Virus and its AIDS metaphor.

We also, bizarrely, have the whole Simon Lasker thing, which could be interpreted as a metatextual nod to the original intention of gay pyro, and/or to the allerdrake dynamic in the 2000s films. On a weird, metatextual level, this was kind of a retroactive queer-coding of St. John.

But then they brought him back and Gerry Duggan (*spits on ground, makes sign of the cross*) wrote St. John as seemingly being attracted to Jean Grey, and now Russell wrote him as hitting on with Cecilia Reyes in X-Factor. The latter panel is easily the most unambiguous portrayal of Pyro as being attracted to women in his entire comics history (there are other moments, but are more open to interpretation).

Thus, the Simon Lasker thing ends up being recast in a totally different light. Since Duggan, Lasker is no longer a nod to Gay Pyro as a concept, but rather he is the Gay Pyro.

Could St. John still plausibly be bi? Yeah, of course. But bear in mind that he hasn't been queer-coded since he died. He has not been portrayed as maybe interested in men since that scene with Avalanche more than 20 years ago.

The flirtation with Reyes isn't simply saying "this guy is into women too", but rather it's establishing him as interested in women, and women only, with no canonical or subtextual nod to any queer identity.

I think that matters. This scene reads as straight-washing adjacent because it's textual, plainly canon and therefore surplants his (now decades old) subtextual queer-coding.

But What If It Was Canon:

Let's be absolutely clear, if St. John is portrayed as canonically bi, i'd be so into it.

I personally hc him as gay currently, but that's entirely vibes based and I'd be so psyched to get bi!pyro... byro... (sorry)

If they were to go down this route in canon, it would render any complaint about the flirting with Reyes biphobic, because the context would have changed entirely.

And, unlike Bobby, I think that making St. John bi would do a service to his earlier queer-coding. The stuff with Avalanche and the Legacy Virus in particular. That storyline feels very suitable to a bi interpretation.

Gay Stereotyping and the Bisexuals:

Before we wrap up, the lingering question is whether St. John's original dandy persona, and the word-of-god knowledge that the stereotyping was very much intentional, should be taken as implying a gay or a bi character?

And this is stupid. It's hair splitting. It does not matter.

But, it is interesting. Culturally, we talk as if campy flamboyant stereotypes denote gay men, and butch, sexually agressive stereotypes denote lesbians. And, while homophobes don't usually hold a coherent enough picture of what these terms even mean to be worth arguing with them, when we talk about these things within the community, there's something going on here, right?

Bi women can be butch, bi men can be campy. Bi people can come across as obviously, visibly queer on sight (both unintentionally and in public performance of queer-coded traits). And gay people can seem straight af. So, why does it feel that OG pyro was very much originally intented to be gay and not another flavour of queer?

Because he does, right? That's the vibe. Michael Caine's character in Miss Congeniality (the quintissential example of queer-coding) is definitely supposed to be read as a gay man, right?

This is probably an essay question in its own right. Hell, it's probably a thesis question. But it is an interesting area of discussion, the intersection between bi-invisibility and queer-coding.

In Conclusion:

So, this is actually me sowing seeds of my inevitable 3 volume treatise on queer coding and how everyone's wrong but me.

For Pyro? As I said, I've been there. I get it. It's upsetting when people insist that a character can't be bi. They have to be gay because they want them to be. It sucks.

But I hope I managed to explain some of why that panel comes across as a quasi straight-wash, even though it's compatible with a bi interpretation.

Also, this is a bit character who's in barely any comics. And this is niche and doesn't matter. So really I shouldn't have written anywhere near this much lol.

While we're here. TAS Pyro: straight and an arsehole. Evo Pyro: his one true love is the flame.

[bluegekk0]

For that little ask thingamajig about the assumptions I wanted to put down that I always did noticed and a assume that you put a little bit of self-projection in some of your characters ever since I discovered the blog from the start a while back.

It’s no bad thing at all mind you, it adds a deeper connection with ones characters but that’s something I kinda picked up on.

Yea this is something I did mention at certain points in the past. Vyrm especially is a character I project a lot onto. I think it started back when the AU was still just an idea, I loved the Pale King as a character but I thought a lot of fandom mischaracterized him, so even back then I knew I wanted to make my own AU interpretation to hopefully separate it from the fanon. And as I thought of his arc, especially his backstory, I found myself giving him a lot of my own traits. It made him more relatable to me, and as a result I was able to come up with his story and personality without much trouble, as it came natural. As it turned out, many of those traits were those associated with the autism spectrum, so that also made me do a lot of self-reflection and ultimately suspect I might be autistic as well. Over time the distance between my AU version and his canon counterpart increased to the point I view them as two very different characters, and that is largely because of all the self-projection. Do I regret it? Not at all. I'm convinced that if I attempted to make him very different from myself, the AU wouldn't last even a few months. It does have a slight side effect (which applies to Grimm as well) in that I'm particularly sensitive about seeing interpretations I heavily disagree with, so I tend to stay in my own sandbox instead.

Grimm, funnily enough, wasn't actually part of the AU in its first iteration. I did already imagine him and my version of PK being in love back then (albeit it was very different to what I ended up with), but I thought it would be a bit too self-indulgent to include their relationship as, arguably, the main force of the AU. I'm very glad I changed my mind in the end and included that aspect, as writing them as a "slow-burn friends to lovers" couple allowed me to give both him and Vyrm a lot more depth than they would have otherwise. Romance isn't a genre I'm particularly crazy about (and being aromantic, I can't say I have any experience with romance either), but it was a lot of fun to develop them from this angle, while still making them interesting characters by themselves, and I have no regrets about that.

When it comes to self-projection, I think Grimm's love for Vyrm is part of that, I absolutely love Vyrm so naturally I had to write his husband as completely infatuated by him as well. But it doesn't end there, for instance, Grimm's fear of losing his loved ones and the general view of mortality is something I resonate with deeply. And while this does apply to Vyrm as well, the aspect of Grimm hiding behind a mask and pretending to be someone he might not be definitely has some elements of my own struggles, especially in regards to gender identity and dysphoria, though this is in concept only and not an actual element of his character (he's very comfortable with his male identity, which I suppose could be connected to me being a masculine leaning enby)

There are some small aspects of self-projection in other characters. Hornet's explosive personality does mirror some of my own traits I'm not proud of, and I think it allowed me to do a lot of self-reflection in return. And Holly's interest in art is definitely a result of me loving the process and wanting to have a character who does as well, though aside from that we are very different.

The ramble ended up longer than I anticipated, so apologies for the wall of text. But yeah, you were absolutely right in your assumption, this AU was built with self-projection (and old man yaoi) as its foundation. I'm very happy that it did, and I hope it also makes those characters more relatable to others.

[iamnmbr3]

What do you think about Ron/Harry? do you think they would work? I say this because I know there are people that Ron/Harry makes more sense than Draco/Harry. I would love to know your opinion.

First off, let me say that I am very much of a ship and let ship mentality. Even if i don't like a ship that doesn't mean it's bad or that good content doesn't exist for it or that that there's anything wrong with shipping it. Now personally, Ron/Harry does nothing for me. Which is kind've weird because on paper it's something that I would like a lot; I definitely enjoy some good best friend to lovers, as my years in the stucky fandom will attest. But when I really drill down on this one, I just get a very strong platonic friends vibe from them.

There's nothing that reads as attraction between them. Harry never seems to notice Ron's looks in the way he does men he finds attractive. I also personally read Ron as straight. Furthermore, they they strike me as people who are very good as friends, but who are not necessarily compatible in the right ways for a romantic relationship. Their ways of thinking and emotional needs don't seem to match up to me.

I see a lot more canon evidence for darry and I find Harry and Draco to be more compatible. But most importantly, I think drarry is a lot more interesting. I don't see a lot of really interesting or compelling content coming out of Ron/Harry whereas I do see a LOT of really cool potential for drarry to deepen and expand the character journey and plot arc potential.

So yeah, I just don't find Ron/Harry interesting or emotionally compelling, nor do I see any evidence of it in the text. Ultimately shipping comes down to a feeling and an interpretation and I just don't vibe with it. But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with enjoying it.

[lovemyromance]

ACOTAR FANDOM RANT incoming:

Y'all will never see me commenting on a properly tagged anti-Elriel post just to start a fight or even point out something the OP misconstrued or concluded (however incorrectly).

Ok I've done it maybe like three times, and it was probably back from when I was brand spankin new to this fandom's insanity and didn't understand the rules (learned Very quickly as a result of a bad encounter with the you know who's), or because someone copy pasted my post to "prove me wrong" (they didn't)

I've only been active in this fandom since like February 2024, and I have yet to block anyone, block any tags, or even follow any tags.

I see just as many anti-Elriel posts as I see Elriel posts.

Let that sink in.

I don't "go looking" through the anti-elriel tags, but when you don't follow anything - you get a whole lot of everything in your "for you" page.

I see so many flat out wrong interpretations of canon text or people posting about how during "Gwyn & Azriel's dagger lesson, he let her use Truthteller" or "Elain is secretly so in love with Lucien that she self harms instead of using his gifts"

and you know what I do? I exercise my self-control, and scroll. None of my business.

Clearly, I am not someone who is interested or even out lurking in anti Elriel posts for a fight. And yet, I have so many antis commenting on my posts - getting mad - then blocking ME.

Does that make sense? They came onto my page, to tell me I was wrong, and then got mad when I very logically pointed out the flaws in their logic, and then blocked me.

Facts:

I don't go out and start fights on anti-Elriel posts.

When someone comes to my posts, and starts a fight, I am very respectful of that person. You'll see me calling their interpretation wrong - but you won't see me saying anything about them personally, or calling them names or slurs or anything of that nature.

I do not belittle others

I do not dismiss anyone's trauma

I do not diminish anyone's accomplishments

I am respectful of real people's boundaries

I have never brought up tasteless and crude arguments just to "win a fight"

And if anyone thinks otherwise, then go ahead, feel free to prove me wrong. Receipts are all up there. To this day, I haven't deleted a comment, post, or reblog. I have like 80 posts a day, surely if I have behaved poorly in any way, I would've slipped up by now and you'd be able to find it.

But I know I haven't.

Even when people didn't read my post or understand anything I was saying before coming into my comments to fight with me. Even when someone said my trauma doesn't matter. Even when someone said I was "anti SA victims" (which is really funny, because that was after I reluctantly pointed out that I was unfortunately ALSO an SA victim)

I have never, ever, said anything like that to anyone in this fandom. That's just not who I am.

So then why - WHY - do people think it's okay to send me anons that threaten to find me and get me to "stfu about elriel you fucking c*nt" and tell me to go off myself and if I ship Elriel I'm an abuser?

Genuinely - why is that necessary? Why does someone feel the need to type that out, read it back, nod to themselves like "oh yeah that's good". And then send it to a real person??

What do they think I'm going to do? What purpose does that serve? It's very clearly a troll or some Elucien/Gwynriel that doesn't like what I have to say - but why is this the reaction?

Having a preference for a fictional ship does not make you a bad person. I have not once engaged with ANY EL/GA and called them "anti - SA" or "pro - r*pe culture" if they were fighting with me on my post. I think they're crazy sometimes - don't get me wrong - but I'm not out here thinking someone who ships Elucien is anti-women.

That is crazy. If you think having any preference for a ship makes some a "BAD PERSON", respectfully please log off. Get out of this fandom because you are part of the reason it's gotten so bad.

Stop attacking real people over fucking fictional characters. It's not okay, in any context. And I'm tired of it.

Turning off my anons for at least a little bit, sorry to the ones I haven't gotten around to.

[lovecolibri]

It’s funny how some shippers think the lack of detail given to Marisol and Natalia mean that they’re not endgame and Buddie will still be canon. When to me it’s the opposite. That WAS the end, the presumed end, and it was so important to the show that Eddie and Buck end up with women that the women themselves didn’t matter at all. They gave more attention to one-off victim characters than they did to the woman halves of Eddie & Buck’s supposed happy endings. The message isn’t “this won’t last.” The message is “the femaleness of this character is all that matters because straight. Straight straight hetero straight. 🙃” I genuinely think Buddie would have more of a chance if they had bothered to tell us why Buck likes Natalia so much, or why Eddie thinks there’s a spark with Marisol. Given us anything about the characters themselves. But they gave us female blank slates because they wanted to message that the female part is the most important thing. So it’s just wild to me to see people interpreting it as a positive sign. Which I guess maybe I’m just a pessimist, but it looks a lot like denial to me.

"it was so important to the show that Eddie and Buck end up with women that the women themselves didn’t matter at all." 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 SAY THAT Nonnie! I've also seen a LOT of comments about how "well they had to wrap everything up nicely because they thought it was the end of the show so I get it, they didn't want to rush if it was Buddie" and like....*Chidi voice* You DO get how that's worse right? Because a) they could have absolutely had an open ending with Buck picking out his own couch and Eddie being content with his life right now and how full it is with family and friends and Chris, b) they COULD have done ambiguous Buddie with the Buckley-Diaz boys on the couch together playing video games which could be seen as platonic OR romantic so everyone is happy because it's a fan favorite dynamic AND they have been shown as a family for years so they don't need the build up, or c) they could have gone full on Buddie and yeah it would suck to not get more but again, the build up is already kinda there AND it would break the internet if people knew THAT was the finale and the buzz might have gotten them picked up if ABC hadn't already made the announcement.

They literally chose the worst, most lazy option that even outside of Buddie very specifically goes against things the show outright stated in the text that both Buck and Eddie needed to do this season wrt their dating lives. Which....to ME is a bit of a headscratcher because it says they KNEW the backlash that would happen about these relationships (we had the hint about Marisol coming back but Natalia? If that live with Aisha hadn't happened we would have been fucking BLINDSIDED they kept it so under wraps). So rather than commit to telling the arcs well and just ignoring the backlash from "a small part of the viewership", they waited until the last second to drop these half-formed love interests into relationships with Buck and Eddie at a time they thought the show was done and they wouldn't have to deal with it anymore. So which is it? Is the Buddie fandom so small it's inconsequential and we should all just be quiet and realize the show doesn't need us and therefore will never give us what we want no matter how much noise we make? Or is the backlash from social media actually something that's taken into consideration and the show had to make sure to get to the end of the season without alienating that part of the fanbase? They can't have it both ways. Either we're not important enough to be taken seriously in which case it's just shitty storytelling, or we're loud enough to cause serious problems so they have to do jussssst enough to keep the backlash down until they don't have to anymore because the show is over. Which sounds a lot like "shipbait" to me.

I'm leaving of with this quote of yours because fuck me, I've yet to see anything more true about this situation.

The message isn’t “this won’t last.” The message is “the femaleness of this character is all that matters"