#I’m being very deliberate about not including actual ship names for the one ship I’m arguing against here

[seagreenstardust]

I’m gonna say something that’s probably not going to be well received in certain circles so let me start by saying this: I believe, with only a few rare exceptions, that you should be able to ship whatever speaks to you the most. And just because I don’t ship something doesn’t mean it’s wrong for anyone else to ship it, and the same for things I do ship, no one else has to ship it too. Who you do or don’t ship will never be a reason I pass judgment on you, ever. Live your best life.

That being said, I want to talk about Horikoshi and straight ships.

(And bakudeku.)

Here’s the thing: Hori has written straight ships into MHA and he’s done it so masterfully that it’s made me ship them without even realizing it. I don’t know if we can call them canon because as far as I know no ship is actually canon yet, but what is canon is the care Hori put into building these relationships.

Kirimina. Hori wrote in a backstory that parallels bkdk that I just adore. There is something about Kiri looking up to Mina and being so inspired by her bravery that it shapes the hero he becomes that is such good content. They’ve had multiple mid-battle moments of protecting and helping each other. I ship Kirimina so hard because of the canon Hori gave us.

I am a low key Denki/Hitoshi shipper but season six kinda hit me in the face with whatever we’re calling Kyouka/Denki these days and now I guess I’m a multi-shipper???? That is how hard Hori hit me with the Kyouka/Denki feels. And he did it the same way as Kirimina, because we have years of content of Kyouka teasing Denki mercilessly, plus the cultural festival band, so when they’re separated in Season 6 and Denki has this intense moment of realization that she’s who he needs to be brave for and it actually works??? I’m a goner.

Heck, I ship todomomo too you guys though I can’t blame Hori for that one, that’s just me being me. The point is that I ship it because the characters Hori gave me struck a chord inside.

But there is one straight ship Hori never once made me ship.

Every time izu*cha showed up I just kinda endured it? It just wasn’t for me. I didn’t see two kids with chemistry, I saw two kids who didn’t know who they were or what they wanted fumbling their way through a will they/won’t they without either of them seeming all that invested in it.

In six seasons and nearly 400 chapters and multiple times revisiting the story I have never once felt any inclination to ship izu*cha

Hori can write straight ships. Hori made me ship his secondary straight ships nearly effortlessly. So if izu*cha was meant to be canon why have I never once felt the chemistry?

You know who has the chemistry? Bakudeku. But here’s the thing: I wasn’t thinking about Katsuki as a possible love interest for Izuku the first time I watched the entire story. I honestly wasn’t paying much attention to him at all, he was everything I didn’t like on the surface so I more or less ignored him despite Izuku holding onto him for dear life. Katsuki never once colored my opinion of izu*cha, they did that all on their own.

It wasn’t until after my first watch through, when I was hungry for more and trolling around tumblr, that I realized people shipped Katsuki and Izuku and it was literally like something out of alignment popped into place in my head.

Oh. Duh. That’s the ship.

I went from zero to a million in a handful of seconds because the chemistry was there, the backstory was there, and boy are Izuku and Katsuki loud about how obsessed they are with each other. Just like Kirimina, just like Denki and Kyouka, Hori planted the seeds throughout the entire series so that when it was brought to my attention everything about the narrative and character development supported it.

And I have to take a moment to explain my dislike of Katsuki at first: I honestly fell for the surface-level interpretation of his character and then kinda wrote him off without much more thought. Which is insane to think about because you can’t really understand MHA without Katsuki, he is so integral to the story as a whole that any version of it without him is skewed so far out of alignment that it’s not even the same story anymore. But I just saw angry boy who yells for no reason and put Katsuki in a box and left it at that.

It wasn’t until I was willing to give his character a second look that I started understanding him, and more importantly, his relationship with Izuku. And it helped that when bkdk was presented to me as a ship that my brain understood immediately why it worked. The canon source material supports bkdk at every possible moment.

I really don’t think it does the same for izu*cha.

[nostalgia-tblr]

20 Questions For Writers

I got tagged by @thot-son-of-odin for this!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

412 (plus some Anonymous works that aren’t counted in that number)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

777,634

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Doctor Who (old and new), various Star Treks, the MCU, and a few others including Elementary and M*A*S*H.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. Trust the Devil

2. Four Times the Doctor and Clara Shared a Bed and One Time They Didn't

3. Locks And Revelations

4. Responsibility

5. How To Walk On Eggshells

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

I didn’t used to but I try to now. It took me a while to get past “if I thank them for the kind words that means I agree and they can call me big-headed!” but now I think perhaps the commenter and I will become friends, as though this was still the LJ days or whatever.

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

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I am answering these together to say that with 412 works it’s rly hard to come up with an answer because I’m bound to forget something that’s either angstier or happier than the one I pick D:

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

No, despite writing occasionally Problematic stuff. Maybe I’m just lucky with that? I think on AO3 the worst I’ve ever got is a comment or two on Ten/Reinette fic about how it is a TERRIBLE pairing and how dare anyone write it. I think I deleted those, or if I haven’t then I meant to, because fuck it they’re properly tagged so the enraged anons must have deliberately chosen something that would offend them.

This sort of thing is why I still have an automatic flinch reaction when people tell me they like Rose Tyler.

9. Do you write smut?

Of course not! I write very thoughtful and insightful character studies in which the characters being studied fuck, that’s COMPLETELY different!

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not often, I’m more into the idea of crossovers than actually writing (or reading) them.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t think so.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah, a few times.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes but not for years.

14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

I’m going to say Doctor/TARDIS because that’s a safe answer to such questions.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Never say never – I’ve had ideas that did finally get written a decade later.

16. What’s your writing strengths?

I think it’s dialogue, which is also usually the easiest part to write. (I am a bit of a Fic Snob about how characters should sound like themselves in fic, including in AU fics where is even more important and also if they go OOC in those then that should be the point that’s being made.)

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

The bits that aren’t dialogue. Urgh, why must things need to be described! Why must I tell the reader who is speaking!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Well I usually see it in the context of “a phrase or word in the language we assume the characters are actually speaking” (mostly pet-names, for some reason) and that just makes me go “So what language are they speaking in the rest of this story? In the rest of this sentence, even?” Not a fan of this, nah.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Star Wars! :O

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

I dunno, there’s too many of them (same problem as before).

I tag anyone what wants to do this meme!

[babycharmander]

If you think you have never stolen artwork, read this post.

So, art theft. If you've been a follower of mine, you've heard my barely-coherent rants about this before, but I thought it might be more productive to make a more coherent post on the subject.

If you're wondering about the title of the post here, it's because I feel like a lot of people aren't really grasping what exactly art theft is, and a LOT of people, even well-meaning ones, do it without even realizing it.

"But wait," you say. "I would never STEAL from an artist!! I never claim it as my own!" And that's all fine and good, but you're missing something here.

To start things off, what IS art theft? (It's not what deviantART said it was several years back, I'll tell you that much. *cough*)

We all know what art is, so let's talk about theft. Dictionary.com defines "theft" as "the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny." Okay, makes sense, but what about that other word there, stealing? Dictionary.com defines "steal" as "to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force."

From those definitions, we can go on to define art theft as, specifically, "taking art without permission or right." In the context of art, that typically involves reposting it (not reblogging--reblogging is different) or using it for other things.

And there, my friends, is the issue.

If something is taken or used without permission, it is stolen. Permission is the important thing here--if an artist says "oh yeah, you can go ahead and use this!" then it's not stolen. You have their permission. But if you DON'T have that, then it IS stolen. It IS theft.

"But I'm not claiming it as my own!" you say. But you don't have to claim it as your own--the act of taking it in and of itself is an act of theft.

"But I said 'credit to the artist!'" The "credit" thing is a whole other conversation, but here's the short of it: The entire point of credit is to direct people to the source of something. If you are not directly linking to where you got the art from, you are not giving credit. "Credit to the artist" is not actually credit of any kind whatsoever. (Also, Google and Pinterest are not sources.)

"But I DID link back to the artist!" Okay, now this is where it may get confusing, because you may think you're covered because you actually did give credit. Here's the problem: if you reposted it or used it without permission, regardless of whether you gave credit or not, it's still stealing.

I'm bolding this because it's a point that a lot of people get tripped up on. Let me explain it this way: If you went into your neighbor's house and took something of theirs without their permission, but you told people "oh yeah, I got this from [neighbor]'s house!" that that would still, of course, be stealing, and it's no different for art.

Another thing is that even when you credit, people don't always check the source. Very recently I found a case where someone had reposted a piece of artwork of mine to Pinterest that was deliberately made to look like it came from the source material (it wasn't meant to confuse anyone, though--the description of my original post made it very clear that it was fanart). The person who reposted had linked back to my original post. The problem? The comments had people asking if this was official, where it happened in the source material, etc. Despite the fact that the source was right there, no one thought to look at it.

Even if you link back to the source, if you did it without the artist's permission, it's still stealing, and still causes problems for us artists.

"But I just posted it to my Pinterest--" DO NOT DO THIS. DO NOT POST AN ARTIST'S WORK TO PINTEREST IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THEIR EXPLICIT PERMISSION TO DO SO.

"But this artist friend of mine says they're okay if I post their work to my Pinterest so long as I link back to them!" Good for your friend! But the fact that your friend is okay with it doesn't mean that all artists are okay with it. For me, personally, I am very not okay with my work being posted to Pinterest, and say as much on my art blog description and posts (which people tend to ignore).

The problem with Pinterest--and reposting art in general--is that we artists don't know when it happens unless we're told, or unless we find it ourselves. It causes us to lose control of our art. And because of this, our art can spiral further out of our control, because when our works get posted to Pinterest or other similar websites, people who have no grasp whatsoever on how art works will just take it as "free art" and then use it for whatever they want.

That's how a piece I spent 20+ hours on was used as a poster for a paid event, without my permission, and without any payment or credit to me.

If an artist has said nothing about Pinterest (or other similar image sharing sites), your default should be to assume that they don't want their artwork posted there.

"Well I didn't repost someone's art, but I did use it for my avatar/RPing icon/video/fic cover/photo edit--" That's still stealing. If you're using it without their permission for any reason, that is stealing. Not to mention, the artist may not be cool with what you're using their art for anyway. (Looking at you, people who use platonic art in your shipping videos.)

“I MEANT to ask them for permission, but I forgot!” This can ONLY happen if you used the artwork BEFORE you asked for permission. You can resolve this by asking for permission BEFORE you use it, rather than assuming the answer will be “yes” and using it before asking.

"But it took me a really long time to make that icon/video/cover/edit!!" How long do you think it took the original artist to draw their piece? It doesn't matter how much work you put into modifying someone else's art--if you're doing it without their permission, you're still stealing.

"But I couldn't find the original artist! I tried to find them, I really did, but I couldn't. Is it okay to use their art then?" No, because you still don't have permission, and by reposting it anyway, you’re continuing to make the artwork spiral out of their control.

"What if I found the artist, but they speak a different language from mine? I can't ask them for permission, so is it okay if I repost their art anyway?" NO!! DO NOT DO THIS!! If there is a language barrier, use Google translate or find someone to translate for you and get a hold of the artist that way to ask them for their permission. The language barrier is NEVER an excuse to steal artwork. There are plenty of non-English-speaking artists who have taken ALL OF THEIR ARTWORK OFFLINE because the art theft was completely out of control. (And this isn't just exclusive to English-speakers stealing art from people who don't speak their language. It happens artists who don't speak English stealing art from English-speakers, too, but as this post is written in English it doesn't do much good for me to rant about this here.) If you can’t ask their permission, do not use it!!

"But what about reblogging?! Isn't that the same as reposting?? Should we not reblog art at all then?" No, reblogging (or retweeting) is not the same as reposting. If you reblog art, you keep all the information that we attached to the art, including our blog name and the description attached to the art. Reblogging/retweeting actually helps us artists A LOT, so as long as you're reblogging from the original artist (and not someone who's reposting their art), by all means, reblog our art!

"What if I just want to share someone else's artwork on Discord or show it to a friend?" This one's a bit different and is not actually as problematic. If you want to share our work on Discord or whatever, just link directly to where we posted it. Please don't post the art itself, unless you're doing it alongside a link because Discord won't show a preview or something.

"What about a forum or a site like Reddit?" This one's a bit different, since due to the way Reddit functions, if you LINK to the art, you have to go directly to the artist's original page to view it. (At least, that’s what it’s like the last time I was active there.) In a way it's roughly the same as with Discord--be sure you're linking directly to the actual post rather than just uploading the art on its own--but I would also ask the artist if they're okay with it, because they may be a member of the subreddit or forum and want to post it themselves, or they might not want their work shared to specific communities. (Some communities have a function where a bot will repost the artwork to Imgur, and some artists don't want that done with their art.)

"What if I'm saving it to my computer/phone to look at later, or making it into my desktop/phone wallpaper?" IMO this is fine, since your computer/phone files aren't public, and neither is your wallpaper. It's only a problem when you post it to public places without our permission.

"What if it's art I commissioned?" Well... like... in that case, it's art you paid for, so unless the artist you commissioned laid out very specific terms for you, you should be good to use that art. Like, at most, the artist may ask you to credit them somewhere in your blog description if they drew your icon or something, or credit them in a fic description if you commissioned a fic illustration from them, or something to that effect. It's really something you should have already worked out with the artist beforehand, but for the most part you should probably be fine to use art you paid for however you like.

"What about art I requested?" This is a bit different from commissioned work. Just because the art was drawn at your request doesn't mean it's explicitly yours (unless it's like, a drawing of your original character or something). Some artists take requests more as suggestions, so the art they draw in response to a suggestion or request is still theirs. Treat this as you would any other artwork and ask the artist for permission first before you do anything with the artwork you requested from them.

“What about NFTs?” ... Okay this one I can’t really go over too much because I barely understand it in the first place, but NFTs are BAD for artists and are a form of art theft. Do not turn people’s art into NFTs. This is a crappy thing to do. (If you want more information on this one, you’ll have to look it up yourself. It’s a form of cryptocurrency and it’s confusing.)

“If you don’t want your art stolen you shouldn’t post it in the first place.” This is fascinating logic. Try applying it to something else and see how it holds up. “If you don’t want your merchandise stolen, you shouldn’t open a booth.” “If you don’t want to get poisoned you shouldn’t eat food.” “If you don’t want to get punched in the face, don’t walk outside.” Yes. Flawless logic. Truly.

"Why do you care so much, anyway?! I'm sharing your art because I like it! That's a compliment! Shouldn't you be happy?" Well, we're certainly glad you like our art, but the problem is... as I've said before, reposting our art causes us to lose our control over it. When we lose control of our art, that damages our livelihood. As I said before, other people have made money off of my artwork. As well, some artists lose jobs because when their potential employers check out their portfolio, they may find artwork that's been reposted everywhere online, so they cannot hire the artist because they believe they may have stolen the artwork in their own portfolio.

Your reposting an image you thought was cute to Facebook or Pinterest could cost an artist their job. Think about that.

So, tl;dr, keep this in mind: you need the artist's permission to repost or use their artwork. If you do not have it, it is stealing, even if you credit the artist.

I know this post is really harsh in places, but this is such an important thing for all artists, and there's so many misconceptions about art theft online. And I feel like one of the biggest problems is that when some people see posts on art theft, they ignore them, because they think they've never done it or would never do it, so that's why I worded this post the way I did. I'm not trying to hurt anyone--I just want people to understand what art theft is, how it affects us artists, and how you can avoid it. Thank you for reading.

[inawickedlittletown]

Queerbaiting and Buddie

(word count: 1,900)

I keep saying that I don’t want to spend any more time on 9-1-1 meta or fic, but the events of this weekend made me open up a document where I had some unfinished meta and in light of the S4 finale airing tonight, I thought I might at least write this: 

“Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation. They do so to attract a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion of relationships or characters that appeal to them, while at the same time attempting to avoid alienating other consumers.” 

That is how Wikipedia defines queerbaiting. And I really feel like everyone needs to read that and then read it again and realize that what is happening on 9-1-1 with Buddie is NOT queerbaiting. 

I don’t want to go into the long history of queerbaiting because we would be here all day and anyone that wants to do some research should go and do so. There are a lot of resources out there. Use them. 

But the short of it is this: queerbaiting has a lot more to do with the way a show is promoted, with the way that anyone involved in the show talks about a queer ship, and with the show deliberately scripting scenes that hint at a relationship without any intention of following through. Expectations and wanting a queer ship to go canon and those expectations not being met do not alone equate to it being queerbaiting. 

For any of us that have been around a long time there are a lot of perfect examples and if you compare Buddie to any of them, they are very different. I’ll name a few:

Merlin/Arthur

John Watson/Sherlock

Emma Swan/Regina

Derek/Stiles

Castiel/Dean Winchester (though they did go canon...barely)

Lena/Kara

Buck and Eddie do not fit into that list. Which isn’t to say that someday they could belong there, but I just do not believe that they will even if Buddie never becomes canon. And this all lies in how Buddie as a ship has been treated both on screen and off. I’ll break it down by season. 

S2: 

Eddie is very clearly introduced as a new character, a straight Army veteran with a disabled kid and family drama. He and Buck have immediate chemistry. We can’t deny that, or deny that from that first episode there are immediate sparks. Unintended sparks, but sparks nevertheless. And it is easy to tell that no one on the production team expected that and the story reflects that. 

Yes a foundation for their friendship is formed and yet the season long story focuses on Eddie’s relationship with his estranged wife and Buck is dealing with his own growth after being left by Abby. Their friendship shines and their scenes are great but none of them suggest romance and there are actually a lot of episodes where Buck and Eddie barely interact in S2 aside from in the background or for small work related moments (this mostly happens after Shannon returns). 

S2 does give us the first acknowledgement from the powers that be aka Tim Minear that they know what the fans have seen. This is why the elf scene exists, but it exists in a space where it’s a nod to the fans and not meant to do much more than that. The other moment is during the call with the livestreamer. But S2, places them completely and without question on a strong friendship. 

S3: 

We see a lot more conflict for Buck and Eddie in this season and we see how close and important they are to each other. Those are the two main things. That can be read as friendship easily and it’s a season where both Buck and Eddie deal with their pasts and in one way or another start to get closure while their friendship remains intact. 

Yes there are some scenes that make us squint and go huh, wtf? (I’m looking at you kitchen scene), but narratively we also know that neither of these boys is ready for a real relationship with anyone, let alone each other. But we can bask in how close they are as well as how Christopher fits in into all of it. 

But in S3 we are also introduced to Ana and we see the return of Abby. We also get to see that Buck and Eddie have become closer than ever and that the lawsuit only serves to highlight the importance that they both feel about having the other available to them. I’ll also quickly mention that Eddie Begins worked hard to highlight Buck’s devotion to Eddie. 

S4: 

Without considering the events of the finale (I am avoiding spoilers and know nothing about it or the speculation), we’ve seen Buck and Eddie both grow and get further closure on their past. This season has paralleled them well and their friendship has not faltered, they’re as close as ever. 

The beginning of the season was heavily focused on Buck and we saw him grow as a person and begin to work on himself in a healthy way and we’ve seen Eddie be supportive of that. 

We also have Ana to consider and her relationship with Eddie as well as the return of Taylor and yet the appearance of these women has not changed the Buck and Eddie dynamic. And I find it fascinating that Eddie beginning to date Ana, is the thing that prompted Buck to start dating. The parallels are all over the place but it is the strength of the friendship and the way they care so deeply about each other that remains whether that becomes romantic is still to be seen, but it could still go either way.  

Off-screen by the end of S2, Tim Minear had already addressed Buddie by throwing in that elf scene in a wink/nudge fashion that said “I see you” and in the scene with the girl with the livestream with the comments. During S3 he tweeted about being frustrated by the fans demanding and being hostile and thinking that that would make him more likely to do what they want (I’m paraphrasing what I remember seeing). Tim has never once said that Buddie will happen or shut the door on the ship entirely, but he did say he did not want to engage in conversation about it because he doesn’t want to get into arguments with fans. 

Oliver has always been enthusiastic about Buddie and has even said that he would be perfectly fine with it happening both a while ago and more recently in promo for S4. Conscious of queerbaiting and not wanting to give fans false hope, he has specifically said that he does not know if it will or won’t happen and that he wouldn’t speak on that as he’s not the one making that decision. His support for it happening does not mean he has any sway one way or the other. He’s said this a few times and even wrote a letter to the effect to make it clear to fans that the last thing he wants is to disappoint someone due to something he’s said. 

All in all, it just isn’t a constructive environment for anyone working on the show to interact with fans on this topic because any time that they do, they get attacked by overly enthusiastic buddie shippers that in many ways are making everything worse. 

In all of the interviews from Tim that I’ve seen, he has always been very quick to hint at what was coming up on the show in a way that at times has been misleading on purpose. The number one thing that comes to mind is early in S4 where Buck was said to get a new woman in his life. Tim absolutely made it out to seem like it was a girlfriend while knowing fully well that it was a therapist. This is an excellent example of what promoting and hinting is actually like. No one from this show has done that in regards to Buddie. 

No one has gone out of their way to hint that it may happen in a way that excites the fans. And this is one of my main reasons for knowing that Buddie is not a queerbait. At no point in the life of the show so far has anyone used Buddie in a promotional way to bring in viewers. Because THAT was the whole point of queerbaiting in the past. 

It was a way that some showrunners found to bring in a lot of viewers when they needed to up their numbers in order to show networks they were worth keeping around. Someone figured out that LGBTQ people wanted to see themselves represented so much so that they would tune in to anything that promised an LGBTQ character in some fashion. It was a tactic that worked well in the landscape of tv where there was so little LGBTQ content on mainstream media that anyone wanting it would latch onto anything. And then they just wouldn’t deliver on those relationships or characters. In 2021, that is not the world we live in any longer. 

In today’s tv landscape there is so much to watch and so much to pick from and diversity has grown, it is celebrated. Queer characters are well represented as are queer relationships and queer stories. The times are different. A while back I was listening to a podcast (Bait: a queerbaiting podcast) and something I found interesting was how the hosts both agreed that in today’s tv landscape there is no more real queerbait and that we won’t easily find anything like the ships I mentioned above. I think I agree more with this than I expected to, because I do think that it exists in some spaces, but it definitely isn’t what it used to be. This is a good thing. 

Specific to 9-1-1, this is a show that has that diversity and that isn’t afraid of tackling that diversity and giving us interesting and nuanced perspectives and stories embracing that. We have characters of color, women in positions of power, a F/F relationship, two multi-racial relationships, a disabled character, other queer characters including a M/M relationship. There is so much in this show that embraces diversity and that embraces the reality of what the world looks like. To call it queerbait is to disrespect everything else that this show is and has done and the hard storylines that have been tackled that we would not have seen on tv ten years ago. 

And I get that Buddie would be another breakthrough. It would be a novel way to tell a queer story, and it would be amazing if it were to happen. The set up is there, but it isn’t fully realized, and Buck and Eddie can still be read as just friends if we take off the shipping goggles. But it also isn’t queerbait or likely to become queerbait and people have to stop calling it that. 

What Buddie resembles is one of the many unintended slow burn ships that have frustrated viewers in many forms across fandoms and we just have to go along for the ride and maybe it will happen. Or maybe it won’t. But if we know anything about relationships on tv, it is that a lot of the fun comes from the journey, even if the destination is good too. 

[fa-by]

Hi Faby I have a question L said that she knew she was queer when she fell in love with her best friend when she was 15 and that her and L started to have a physical connection when she was 15 and I know everyone says that she was talking about C because L met C for the first time when she was still 15 but to me that doesn't make sense because L and C only started to get closer after L turned 16 and her and C basically just met so how could she be talking about C?

Hi to you, dear Anon 👋🏼😄 I know it doesn’t seem to make sense because the narrative’s goal is to confuse you and get you on their side by making you abandon the ship. You have to pay attention to the details and what they say because there are always flaws in the stories that our Camren are forced to tell. But don’t worry, I’m here. I’ve already talked about it many times, but I’ll explain it again to make you understand better and answer your ask at the same time.

So. During Becky G’s ‘En La Sala’ podcast (October 28, 2020), Lauren said she realized she was queer because she fell in love with her best friend when she was 15 and they started having a physical relationship. She forced herself to think that kissing and sleeping with her friend every once in a while was just a funny thing and nothing important; something that she has ‘normalized’ in her head by justifying it as something that ‘straight girls do’, and therefore fueling her internalized homophobia. Personally speaking, I believe in this. Not in the ‘she fell in love’ part because Laur’s still forced to say that the only girl she has ever loved is Lucy, but I believe Lauren and Lucy really did everything L said. Lucy was the first real unlock thanks to which Laur experienced the attraction and the feelings towards the girls she’d always felt and hidden deep inside herself. I firmly believe that Lucy was the first girl among her crushes on girls Laur acted on, and with whom she experimented in secret given the environment in which they both grew up and which still surrounded them at the time.

Now, the time frame in which this experimentation happened. Paul Martinez, the one she believed was her first love and whom she believed she would marry, broke up with her in late July 2011, and she only managed to move on when she wrote a song about how she felt on September 17th of that same year. Lucy moved back to Puerto Rico in February 2012, returning to visit Miami occasionally (that’s why the fetus pictures with Lucy and Camren at Laur’s house). Therefore, the time frame in which that experimentation happened, is from the end of September 2011 to February 2012. It could’ve happened in all those four months, or only in two, or only in one. Who knows. But that’s the time frame. Time frame during which Laur was 15 years old.

Having explained this, let’s move on. Camren first met during the first phase of the audition, the ‘cattle call’, on May 1, 2012, in Greensboro, North Carolina. You know? Where that short and really cute conversation started by Mila happened: “Hi, I like your shirt”, “Thanks. I like your jacket”. But it ended up there because they didn’t become friends from that day. They didn’t exchange phone numbers and they therefore didn’t even spend time together at home in Miami. They were still just two strangers who had auditioned for a TV show to pursue their dreams like so many other people. Oh and, on May 1, 2012, Laur was still 15, and Mila had turned since almost two months; therefore they were both 15 years old. The moment they became friends by no longer detaching one from the hip of the other, was two months later, on July 25 in Miami, when they met for the first time for the first day of boot camp (L went to C: “You’re the Cuban girl!”). On July 25, 2012, Lauren had by then turned 16 for nearly a month, and Camila was still 15.

Now let’s move on to the biggest miscalculated mistake that, either they made her say, or Laur herself said; perhaps even deliberately and not by mistake. On June 26, 2020, and therefore before the podcast with Becky, the PAPER Magazine article was released. In that article, Lauren explained, along with other things, that she’d been in love with her best friend for seven years. But the calculations don’t add up, for two things to be exact.

First thing: The Laucy narrative includes that A) Laur fell in love with her sure, Jan at 15 when they kissed and hooked up during parties.

P.S. Is it just me, or does this smell like what actually started happening to Camren the following year? I mean, the Like Friends Do situation whereby Laur got out of her internalized homophobia and realized she loved her and then got her head out of her ass by finally going to get her girl? No? Just me?

B) The wanting but not being able to be with her and giving her what she wanted made them grew apart not by her choice and not because Lucy returned to live in Puerto Rico and they simply grew apart for the distance and Lauren’s busy schedule with 5H, no, no.

P.S. I don’t know about you, but this still smells like Camren’s story to me.

C) Lucy returned to her life after she had a car accident on May 17, 2015:

“She came back into my life when I was 18. I was on tour and I was in my room in a hotel somewhere and she called me”. From that moment on, Lauren decided they would’ve been together “all in” and “now we’re gonna be in this relationship”. Yeah, sure. No contract that was supposed to help both of them involved here. No, no.

D) They broke up because Laur confirmed that theirs was a very toxic relationship, and the specific reason she gave was because they both weren’t fully healed from the past yet, but that they still loved each other very much. Mmmh-hmm, okay 🥱😴 Yeah, no, yeah, sorry. I fell asleep as a result of hearing bullshit.

Second thing: Ty.

Shall we reveal the miscalculation (again)? In love with her at 15, got together with her at 18 and broke up at 20 (1 year and 8 months, from mid-May 2015 to mid-January 2017), and after less than a month, start of another PR dating Ty. Now, 20 minus 15 (Laur’s two ages from the beginning to the end of the ‘story’), how much is it? 5. Shall we calculate from the moment of Laucy experiment to when they ‘broke up’? From late September 2011 to mid January 2017, how many years are? 5! 5 years and four months to be exact. According to the logic of the narrative, if she was oh so in love with Ty as they made her proclaim every two seconds, it means that she’d stopped loving Lucy that same year, and it’s not 7 years anyway! It’s still 5! Do we want to try with two last calculations? Okay. Also because you may have wondered: “Faby, what if we instead calculated from when ‘they got together’ to the release of that PAPER Magazine article?”. I’d answer that it’s still 5 years. From mid-May 2015 to June 25, 2020, it’s 5 years and 1 month to be exact. “Faby, what if we tried to calculate from the beginning to the publication of the article?” From the end of September 2011 (beginning of the time frame of the Laucy experimentation) to the publication of the article on 25 June 2020, it’s 8 years and 9 months to be precise. Not even in this case it’s 7! So, as you can see… And at this point I wonder: is there an alternate world where math calculations lead to 7 and not 5 here? What was that? Why say 7? Well.. I actually know why.

Shall we play another little math game? Can I reveal the truth in the lie? Let’s try to make sense of this 7 together now.

Lauren explained that she’d been in love with her best friend for 7 years in that interview, right? The interview with PAPER Magazine came out on June 26, 2020, but was done before the date it was released. We all know Laur was born on the 27th, and therefore in both cases, Laur was 23. And tell me, dear, how much is 23 minus 7? Sorry, I can’t hear your answer. A little louder please? Got it, got it. Can I also write it for everyone else who’s reading? Okay, thanks: 16. Wait, 16??? So who was Lauren actually talking about? Ohhh. How foolish of me. That’s why it ‘smelled like what actually started happening to Camren the following year’ to me. Because Laur was talking about Camila all along 🤦🏻‍♀️

🤣😏😎

Sarcasm and jokes aside, do you see how easy it is to manipulate and confuse people's ideas? It's still 7 years if we calculate from mid-January 2013 (after the first real New Year's kiss and the signing of the contracts with Syco/Epic) to the release of that PAPER Magazine article on June 25, 2020. And it's still 7 years even if we calculate from July 25, 2012 (first day of boot camp) to June 25, 2020. Camila is the answer to the 7 years because even if they try to make Laur modify the narrative by making her change the names with the PRs' ones, she's always talking about Mila anyway in reality.

Does it make more sense now, dear? I hope I’ve taken away all your doubts 🥰 Stay safe and have a good day 🤗 You guys too ❤

[thevalleyisjolly]

Ok, I’ve rewritten this post several times because I really want this to be a productive and respectful discussion, but this is a conversation that does need to be started.  I’ve been thinking about the whole cultural appropriation story line in this season of The Unsleeping City so far, and of course I think it’s great that Cody is starting to realize why that’s wrong and that Murph is making it explicitly clear that it is wrong, but I want to reorient the conversation away from Cody now and talk about Ricky as a Japanese-American character.

Because when Zac went “Just to paint a picture for you...” during the museum fight episode, there was quite a bit of surprise from non-Asian people in the fandom that this was really a serious issue, and one that Ricky would be bothered by or speak up about.  But why wouldn’t he?  I mean, the character is Japanese-American, and so is the player.  Doesn’t it make perfect sense that he would at least be a little bothered by a white person appropriating Japanese culture?  Asian fans certainly noticed and pointed it out before that episode aired.  Ricky/Zac certainly noticed - go back through the episodes and observe how every time Cody pulled out a kunai or threw a shuriken, Ricky was cringing or facepalming with an uncomfortable laugh.  Even with seven different camera perspectives to watch at the same time, it should have been pretty clear in the fandom that this was an ongoing issue that would bother and was bothering Ricky.

And I think there are several different facets to this, but the one I want to address is how there’s a tendency in fandom to ignore or erase Ricky’s Japanese heritage.  Not literally (although there is a particular sting every time I see another Ricky fancast where the actor is of another Asian heritage than Japanese - Asian people are not interchangeable).  But especially prior to Season 2, there was a general trend in the fandom that liked to simplify Ricky’s character and overlook him as a complex player character because of traits that are very common in East Asian immigrant cultures.

Perhaps it’s because my heritage is East Asian and I’ve had more exposure to general cultural customs and behaviours among East Asian immigrants, but Zac’s portrayal of Ricky has always read as a very obvious Asian-American child of immigrants to me (and, y’know, Zac and Ricky are actually Asian-American children of immigrants).  Not expressing negative emotions out loud, not verbally articulating thoughts and feelings but expressing them through actions, deferring to other peoples’ needs first instead of expressing his own wants because it’s not about him.  With the caveat that I’m Chinese and not Japanese, these are common practices that I’ve observed in my own family, among friends and acquaintances (of various Asian heritages including but not limited to Chinese), in broader experiences with other East Asian immigrants.

(Asia is not a monolith and I’m not familiar with the immigrant cultures and experiences of people from other Asian heritages.  I specify East Asian here because that is broadly what I can speak on and because Ricky is Japanese, but other Asian people please feel free to discuss your experiences as well)

And obviously, these are not monolith traits observed at all times, I’ve definitely met plenty of East Asian immigrants who did express their emotions loudly, who used their words, who were assertive about their own needs and wants (this is not the post to be getting into different generations of immigration and the culture differences between those generations).  And it also depends on the context - from my own experience, in private within families, both emotions and words can get extremely loud (if you dare to risk the wrath of your elders by arguing with them!)  But my point is that the habits I pointed out above are still relatively common in East Asian immigrant cultures, even if not all individuals follow them at all times.

Particularly prior to Season 2, there was a common perspective in the fandom, usually couched in “uwu, I love that Zac is playing a hot dummy!!” that would go along the lines of “Ricky doesn’t have a character arc, he doesn’t get into conflicts with other people, he doesn’t say anything and is just happy to be there, he’s a shallow character who’s just a himbo.”  All of which I’d dispute, (*insert post here about Ricky as a character reclaiming Asian masculinity*), but I want to focus on how the main traits -refraining from overt emotions, remaining reserved in speech, not bringing up his own needs and wants- that were brought up and used to simplify and dismiss Ricky’s character were traits which are commonly found in East Asian immigrant communities.  The whole “remaining reserved/trying to avoid conflict” is something a lot of East Asian-American kids pick up at home because what you say or don’t say isn’t as important as what you do or don’t do.

And I mean, so much of Ricky is about doing things for people, showing his feelings through his actions, not his words.  Just because he wasn’t getting into PC conflict in Season 1, or expressing his emotions in the same ways as other PCs, doesn’t mean he was just a silent, cheerful himbo.  Which there’s nothing wrong with being a himbo, and it can be particularly empowering in Ricky’s case as an Asian man (see above linked post about Asian masculinity), but that’s not all there is to Ricky’s character!  And don’t get me wrong, I personally love that part of his ongoing character arc in Season 2 is speaking up about his feelings and expressing to other people what he wants (because there’s the “American” part of the Asian-American experience that’s not just about having Asian heritage but is also about negotiating that relationship in a place with different norms and customs).  But it doesn’t negate the “Asian” part of “Asian-American” either, which does impact and shape the way Ricky interacts with people and the world.

In hindsight, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that interest and meta in Ricky skyrocketed once he did start being more vocal and assertive in Season 2, which are common traits in many Western cultures.  And it’s not the only reason that there’s a deeper interest in Ricky now (shout out to all the Asian fans and allies who’ve been really diving into Ricky’s character this season!) and I choose to believe in good faith that it isn’t intentional or malicious (audiences do tend to gravitate more towards tangible moments of conversation and conflict rather than background acting).  But I think we as fans need to start questioning why as a whole, we really didn’t start giving deeper thought to Ricky until he began displaying more typically Western traits, because I think it’s emblematic of how, very subtly and unconsciously, we are used to privileging white “American” behaviour and ignoring or glossing over Asian (immigrant) traits.

In many ways, Ricky prior to Season 2 (and very arguably up until the museum fight), has been perceived in the general fandom as a sort of post-racial American-melting-pot character.  Fans don’t wholly ignore that he’s Japanese-American, you can’t really do that when his family name is “Matsui” and when the Season 1 finale showed that his interactions with the American Dream pretty strongly involved his parents’ immigrant experience.  But knowing intellectually that Ricky is Asian doesn’t always translate to actually perceiving him as an Asian person with all the implications and racial dynamics that entails.

An example of how this manifests: Ricky and Esther become a canon couple.  Numerous posts begin to appear (and periodically still do) that express opinions along the lines of Ricky/Esther being the only tolerable “het” couple.  Ignoring the fact that we don’t know Esther’s sexuality and we only have an offhand Ztream comment for Ricky, Ricky/Esther is a canonical interracial relationship between two non-white people, a Japanese man and a black woman.  Interracial relationships are already extremely poorly represented in media, to say nothing of interracial relationships between non-white people.   Yet we overlook the racial dynamics and only focus on the perceived queerness (or not) of the ship.

Or, for another example, taking the discussion on cultural appropriation and making it all about Cody’s flaws and character development, rather than considering how it affects Ricky as a Japanese man to see a white man disrespecting a part of his cultural heritage.

Anyways, I really urge D20 fans, especially if you’re not Asian, to start questioning and challenging how you really perceive characters, what kind of characteristics you tend to privilege and be drawn to and why, and what kind of fandom environment you shape in your interactions with the show and with other fans.  This is not to say that Ricky should be everyone’s favourite character or that you can’t dislike him, but it is important to think about why we have the preferences that we do.  I especially urge you to remember that Ricky Matsui is a Japanese-American character, that this was a deliberate choice which has been repeatedly brought up by Zac (who is a Japanese-American actor), and that you cannot and should not ignore Ricky’s heritage when you think and talk about him. 

(And if you think Ricky is being an “asshole” to Cody just for being, frankly, mildly perturbed in his direction because Cody spent most of the season so far being very offensive to Ricky’s cultural heritage, I really encourage you to think critically about your opinions and why you hold them.  And if, after thinking critically, you still don’t see why they’re wrong, please don’t let the door hit you on the way out.  Your conscious racism is not something that is welcome in this fandom, and Asian fans are not here to teach you better)

((White and non-Asian people can and should reblog this, but don’t clown around.  Productive, respectful discussion is welcome.  Asian fans are more than welcome to add their perspectives/agree/disagree, especially people with Japanese heritage))

[charcubed]

Celebrities’ sexualities/relationships, and what not to post where

I’m going to make an all-purpose, general post about this topic, because it seems like there’s value in making one. Anyone who’s been following me here or on Twitter long enough has seen me address this before but often in specific scenarios, but y’know what... let me just make a general all-purpose post too just to lay this out for the sake of my own sanity.

We all know this is a thing: people like to speculate on celebrities’ sexualities and/or participate in “real person fiction” (RPF), and that’s been happening since the dawn of fandom. On some level, I understand why; it's exciting to think a celebrity might be queer especially if YOU are. We all want role models & we all want that to be normalized, etc... and sometimes it’s a case of “like recognizes like”; queer people can spot other queer people. But whether or not one is “correct” doesn’t matter, and either way, celebrities' lives are not for our consumption. They do not exist for our entertainment or speculation. This kind of talk can get out of hand very quickly in a way that ruins the lives of real people. 

So I am here to remind people to be mindful of what you say about celebrities, where you say it, and HOW you say it too.

For example: under no circumstances should you openly post things about celebrities’ sexuality or relationships on Twitter.

If you know this already, cool! Great! Good! Keep scrolling! But not everyone does know this, and either way, it’s always a good reminder–especially because people can get excited in the heat of a moment and these principles can easily accidentally fly out of the window.

Not all social media is “equal” or carries the same weight of potential real world consequence. Tumblr, for example, tends to influence little outside of here as long as the topic in question stays on Tumblr; AO3 fic stays on AO3, or at least it should. But Instagram comments or tweets do not exist in a vacuum or echo chamber the way people often seem to think, and often route back to the celebrities in question in harmful ways. Those platforms are open to the wider world in a way that can translate to very real consequence for the people being discussed.

What do I mean by that? A good example of how things can get unintended attention is what happened recently when memes about Misha Collins and Bill Clinton got out of hand, made their way to Twitter, and resulted in journalists writing articles that Misha felt he needed to address. On a more related note, recently Brie Larson made one offhand gay joke/reference in a personal Youtube video; it then trended worldwide and resulted in many articles too. There is now, unfortunately, high potential that she could be asked about and pressured about her sexuality in interviews in future. Did any of the people tweeting about those topics expect that to happen? Probably not, and yet it did. But these are good examples of how Twitter algorithms have vastly shifted, and keyword use is enough for things to easily and quickly trend outside of fandom’s intentions or control in ways that cause harm.

Putting any celebrities’ personal lives under a microscope, whether unintentionally or otherwise, is never a good idea. But it’s especially not a good idea when it comes to sexualities or personal relationships.

People will say “Shipping is just in the fandom! We know how to behave! What’s the problem? It’s never gone wrong before.” The problem is multilayered, but here are the main issues: the fact that nothing “bad” has happened before does not mean it never will. You can control your behavior, but you cannot control how other people–especially people who are new to your fandom–may or may not behave on the wider internet surrounding the topic of people's personal lives. Posting about it on main on somewhere like Twitter also inherently runs the risk of other outside parties seeing it, being like “what’s all this then?” and then picking it up and running with it further–whether that be ~haters~ or journalists.

People will also say “These celebrities know about this kind of fandom talk and they don’t care!” or “If the celebrities wanted us to stop this, they’d have said something by now!” To that I say: those are a lot of assumptions, when the only “assumption” one should realistically make is that we don’t know celebrities personally, we don’t know if they may or may not be actually closeted/unlabeled (which is their right!), and we don’t know what may make them uncomfortable while other things may not. The absence of "no" or "stop" isn't equivalent to "yes," nor is it citable as defense for questionable or potentially harmful behavior. Silence isn't blanket approval or consent, nor should it be assumed to be in any situation. Just because celebrities haven’t said in so many words “Please stop doing [this specific thing]” doesn’t mean they are automatically cool with whatever a fandom is doing, such as speculating about them or openly pointing out what they think they know about their sexualities or relationships. This includes posts on the wider timeline, or tweets and Instagram comments @ celebrities themselves filled with references or assumptions about their lives that are very not okay.

Even with something like Brie Larson’s situation... A celebrity making a joke or acting a certain way in one environment where they may feel comfortable or more relaxed–like a Youtube video, or a convention with fans, or anything else–does not mean that that celebrity expects or wants worldwide eyes on their behavior. And worldwide attention is what is always at risk on platforms like Twitter or Instagram. 

Ultimately, overanalyzing and calling attention to people’s actions is how people who are allies can be made to feel awkward, or how people who are queer get outed or forced into labels. I literally live in fear of the day when some random journalist starts poking around specific fandoms/celebrities, connects the dots that are out there and are seemingly easy to connect, and then somehow makes their sexuality a topic of interviews. Once it becomes a Topic, it becomes nearly unavoidable for them. That’s what happened to Lee Pace; it’s how many people are forced to come out. At all times, queer celebrities are a stone’s throw away from having to deal with all of that in ways no one should, especially as they get more famous. If you care about any celebrity you like to talk about, or if you care about the privacy of real people at all in the ways you should (especially potentially queer people), this should be a point of concern for you.

So, in conclusion: be mindful. If you must talk about celebrities’ lives on something like Twitter, do it without using their actual names to avoid keywords, because they trend at the drop of a hat out of nowhere and that can ruin lives. Avoid deliberate repetition in your phrases because that’s how accidental trends are made. And, better yet, honestly? Consider just keeping that kind of talk to Tumblr/AO3, and preferably to personal private messages. 

Your ability to fangirl/squee/celebrate a real person’s life is not more important than their right to privacy. Ever. This is not a petty topic and it is not “fandom policing” to say things like this out of concern. Acting from an abundance of caution is always the better way to go, because you lose nothing by being extra vigilant; the alternative of not being cautious enough comes with a high risk of negative consequence.

If we all just operate under the knowledge that talking about real people can translate to real consequences for real lives, and act with an abundance of respect/caution accordingly, then there will be nothing to worry about. And celebrities will get to live their private lives and (if this is applicable) be the authors of their own coming out journeys as they see fit, which is a right everyone should have.

From the bottom of my heart: just use both your empathy and your brain cells, please.

[nevertheless-moving]

Suicidal Misunderstanding IX

Star Wars Time Travel AU #27

Part I - - - - - Part II - - - - - Part III - - - - - Part IV  - - - Part V - - - - - Part VI - - - - - Part VII - - - - - Part VIII

Content Warning: This chapter contains potentially triggering material, particularly aftermath of attempted suicide as well as discussions of bodily injury.

Cody woke up the morning after the...drunken keldabe still feeling uneasy. He spent half an hour attempting to read over reports in preparation for the Umbaran campaign before giving it up as a lost cause. He distracted himself for a little while by pouring over last night’s cantina surveillance, before giving up on that as well and sending a message to General Skywalker.

‘Any updates on General Kenobi’s status?’

He watched the comms as communications from everyone besides the General trickled in. He answered a few requests for requisitions, forwarded some medical reports, and ignored an irritating handful of overly-personal questions. 

Agonizing over it the whole time, he opened a comm-text link to Obi-Wan. It took nearly an hour, but he managed to send two sentences. ‘Hope you’re recovering well. Look forward to upcoming mission discussion.’

He immediately wanted to retroactively delete the message, mortified by every word and deeply concerned at every second that passed without a reply.

He spent the next 30 minutes hunched over, quickly closing every incoming CT and CC communication, justifying the time to himself as ‘technically on leave.’

He lurched forward when he finally received a General’s comm code, but slumped in disappointment when it was Skywalker, not Kenobi.

‘Not as drunk but still seems a little high. He says he wasn’t drugged. He’s taking the rest of the day off. I’m monitoring.’

Taking the rest of the day off. Did that mean he wasn’t carrying around his comm? Kriff. Should he more or less concerned that the general was actually taking a day off?

He decided to be more concerned.

‘Thank you for the update. Respectfully request information on any changes.’

Hopefully that would encourage Skywalker to keep him informed even if he stopped freaking out over his vod’s behavior.

Stowing the remote comm, he stood up and exited the temporary planet-side office, throwing himself into cleaning up the mess that was nearly 20,000 clone troopers simultaneously attempting to get the most out of a very brief R&R. 

Shortly before mid-day, he received another update from Skywalker.

‘Just managed to get him to medical. Healer cleared him of drug interactions but Obi-Wan’s still acting strange (not crying, but a lot of hugging).’

Cody stared at that for a long while.

‘Any other verbal indications of upcoming danger?’ he finally asked. Skywalker didn’t reply. 

Shortly after nightfall, his incident reports were interrupted by a call from an unknown temple number. He quickly opened it, and a holo of an unfamiliar Mon Calamari female healer appeared in miniature on the desk.

“Commander Cody. Thank you for answering so quickly. Are you somewhere private?” she asked, voice deliberately neutral.

The Commander tensed up. “Yes, sir. I’m in CC office space, alone. The room and the channel are both secure. Is this regarding General Kenobi?”

“Yes.” She replied. “My name is Master Bant Eerin; I’m a temple healer as well as a personal friend of Obi-Wan’s. He’s...he’s in the healing halls right now. We’re still trying to understand exactly what happened- I’ll tell you what I can but first we need to rule out any possible drugs he may have contact with. I need you to describe in detail anything he may have been exposed to that could have possibly had mind-altering effects.”

The Commander was a professional. He swallowed back his fear, his questions, and his demands to know what was going on.

“Of course. Everything on the Negotiator was GAR Standard, and I was with him when we left the ship. We went directly to the lower levels. The first time he was exposed to anyone outside the 212th was when we left our transport on level 3915. I...actually have footage of him the whole time night after that point. I’m sending it over right now, sir.”

“That would be extremely helpful, thank you.” He watched as she pulled it up on a second comm, sound barely audible. 

He continued with his report: “One of the boys took it without permission. He didn’t mean anything by it, he’s just an idiot; I’ve already issued a severe reprimand. In any case, he brought it to me after I issued surveillance on the cantina, it tracks everything the General did- as far as I can tell, he had a glass of house grub wine, two shots of rancor blood, and an unnamed mixed cocktail ‘on the house.’ You can see everything the bartender added- as far as I can tell nothing was slipped in. He just... blacked out suddenly after the fourth drink, and quickly startled awake, confused by his surroundings.”

“I see.” Her tone was still carefully neutral and Cody didn’t know how to read her expression. He waited, wishing he was wearing his bucket so he didn’t have to keep schooling his face into professional patience.

“You brought him back to the temple...correct?” 

“Yes, sir.”

She let out a deep breath, gills fluttering slightly. “We’ll probably have more questions later, but please understand our inquires are entirely based around determining how we can best help Obi-Wan. This call and any future ones are not intended, and should absolutely not be interpreted, as indications of blame. He’s actually spoken to me about you before, I know he has the deepest respect for you, personally and professionally. Someone will likely be assigned to talk to everyone whose spent time with him recently, including myself.”

The sick feeling in his gut from last night returned full force. “I...believe I understand sir. His condition is serious, then?”

Her gills fluttered again.

“Even now, I think we can safely anticipate a full physical recovery. He...there’s no easy way to say this...it appears he attempted to end his own life. Knight Skywalker got to him just in time, and he received bacta within minutes of the initial burn. I...like I said...we’ll began work to figure out why-”

Her voice broke and she stared up, large tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. She hastily wiped them away.

“Rest assured commander, he’s getting the best treatment possible. Thank you for your assistance. I’ll do my best to answer any questions you might have right now. This is my personal comm link- please feel free to reach out to me at any point for updates.”

“I-” Cody cleared his throat. “Can I come to the temple? To...” he trailed off, not sure how to finish.

“Not tonight, I’m sorry. The healers need to focus; he’s not allowed any visitors until he’s out of Bacta, I’m afraid.”

“Skywalker must be throwing a fit at that” Cody remarked numbly.

The healer winced. “Knight Skywalker is currently sedated. He was...injured in the struggle to keep Obi-Wan from further harm. Master Windu witnessed part of it, but we’ll have to wait until its safe to wake him to get the full story. I’ll be notifying Captain Rex of the situation after we finish speaking.”

“I’ll do it.” Cody offered immediately. “Tell me what happened.”

Eerin hesitated. 

“Please, Sir. It will be better coming from me and...if he’s the only other trooper who’s being informed at the moment...”

“Of course,” she said quietly. “We don’t know the full circumstances, but at some point in performing emergency care for Master Kenobi, Knight Skywalker was stabbed in the lower abdomen with a vibroblade. It pierced his large intestine. The blade was pulled out shortly before healers arrived, causing some further damage and blood loss. He’s already finished surgery, and should only need a few hours of Bacta at most. Considering his extraordinary past recovery rates, he’ll likely be out of bed tomorrow and fully healed by the end of the week.”

“General Kenobi wouldn’t...” Cody trailed off again. He was having a hard time putting coherent sentences together.

Bant looked at the ceiling for a moment, seeming to collect her thoughts.

“Psychosis can have many manifestations. Even with- with conventional injuries, people can mistake help for harm. There’s just too much we don’t understand, and only so much we can learn before they wake up. Are you certain you wish to be the one to inform Captain Rex?”

“Yes.” That was about the only thing the Commander was certain of right now. “Is there anyone else in the GAR I should inform of...anything?”

“The military aspect of this isn’t my area of expertise. If there’s someone you trust who can be a support for you, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to tell them in confidence. Some form of what happened is going to get out eventually.” she replied. “Please use your discretion, I suppose. It’s...not really my speciality but I imagine you’ll receive further orders on how much to release to the GAR once Obi-Wan’s stable.”

Right. Discretion. Because Obi-Wan wasn’t just Obi-Wan- he was a high general in charge of nearly 1/3 of the republic’s forces. If word of this got out to the wrong ears it would cause mass panic, maybe even an emboldened separatist advance. It was an insane amount of responsibility for one person, no wonder - he deliberately didn’t finish the thought.

“I’ll comm the Captain immediately. Thank you for the information, General.” he said out loud.

“Feel free to contact me for further updates, and tell Captain Rex he’s welcome to do the same. I’ll message you when its clear to visit the halls.”

“Yes, Sir.” Cody responded, saluting automatically. 

“Take care of yourself, Commander Cody”

The hologram blinked out. Cody sat motionless for several long moment before sweeping his desk off, sending the assorted flimsies and redundant comm-units of various designations to the ground.

He stared at the empty desk, then tapped a button on his wrist comm, opening a private audio channel. “CT-7567, please come in” he said calmly.

“Cody?” came the alarmed reply. “I’m here, what’s going on?” Why did he sound so panicked? He had deliberately used his calmest voice. Oh well.

“Please report immediately to CC Office 12 in Guard Headquarters”

“I’ll be there in 10″

Cody hung up. He stared at the blank wall. He knew something was wrong with how the General said goodbye.

He opened the single desk drawer and dumped the odd wires and coins inside to the floor. Eerin had said burn. That could mean a lot of things, but lightsaber was the most likely. 

Cody puked profusely into the empty drawer. He stared at the vomit for a moment before carefully closing the drawer. He still felt a little sick. He hadn’t even said anything back to the General, he just stood there, frozen. 

He stared vaguely at the wall across, wondering if he was going to puke again.

Rex burst into the room. “Cody! What’s going on?! You- kark, what is that smell?”

“I puked in the desk drawer” Cody explained.

Rex shut the door behind him and slowly walked over. He knelt down next to the desk, gently taking Cody’s hands in this own. “Cody. Vod. Talk to to me.” 

“Obi-Wan tried to kill himself.”

Rex’s hands tightened over Cody’s compulsively and Cody squeezed back harder. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at Rex’s expression.

“Some of ghost company went out for drinks last night. Obi-Wan started acted oddly. We flew towards the temple. He started crying. We got to the temple. He Keldabe kissed me. He told me goodbye. I didn’t say anything back.”

“Oh, vod” Rex whispered. He gently pulled the slack Cody off the chair and onto his lap on the floor. Cody continued mechanically. “I did reports today. Skywalker said he was with him. I left Obi-Wan a message. I don’t think he saw it. He tried to kill himself. Skywalker must have left him alone. He saved him. Obi-Wan stabbed Skywalker.”

Rex froze, still holding on to Cody. 

“The healer called. Asked about drugs. They don’t think its drugs but they had to ask. She said they’re both going to heal completely fine. I have a link if you want to call the healer directly. That’s...it. I have reports to do now.”

Rex held Cody tighter. “Not right now”

“It’s war. People get hurt. People die. I have work to do”

“Not right now,” Rex repeated. “You have the right to be upset. You have the right to grieve. You’re a person, of course you have feelings.”

“Obi-Wan said that.” Cody whispered. Then he started crying. He continued to quietly sob for some time, hurt and bewildered and scared. They sat on the floor together; Rex barely moved, simply held on to his older brother as he fell apart.

Inevitably, Cody’s tears dried up and he pulled away. 

“I don’t know how to clean this,” he said gesturing at that closed drawer. 

“I’ll take care of it. Let’s just get you to bed. There’s CC bunks here, right? 

“Yes but...”

Cody didn’t really like sleeping so isolated, but he also couldn’t imagine facing the 212th right now. 

“I’ll stay here with you. We’ll go to the temple together in the morning.”

Rex shepherded Cody to the fresher. He stared at the mirror with a vague sense of recognition before automatically moving through a standard sanitation routine. By the time he finished, Rex had joined him in his room.

“What did you do with the vomit?” Cody asked, suddenly exhausted. They slipped into bed together.

“Swapped the whole desk with Pond’s. That bastard knows what he did.”

Cody let out a snort. Then, much to his surprise, he sank heavily into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Part X

[badapricot]

Lovely Writer: Count 26, 27, & 28

These are the chapter summaries for Count 26, 27, & 28 which should be included in episode 10 and/or episode 11 of Lovely Writer. Keep in mind that the show is very different and they often cut, change, and move things around.

Count 26

Gene is sleeping in the car while Nubsib drives them home from their parent’s house. It’s raining outside.

Nubsib wakes up Gene because he said he wanted to buy snacks, and they go to Maxvalu.

They go back to the condo and Gene immediately plants himself in front of the TV with the snacks.

Nubsib pushes him to shower so Gene does very quickly before going back to the TV.

Nubsib showers with the door open and Gene watches TV. He sees a promo for Bad Engineer and remembers that the show is being aired soon, so he gets a clip on his phone and posts it on IG. Nubsib comes out when Gene is filming and asks Gene why he didn’t dry his hair well. Gene says it will dry on its own.

People in the comments on the clip point out that they can hear Nubsib saying Gene’s name.

Nubsib dries Gene’s hair.

They keep watching shows and Gene asks Nubsib if it’s awkward to watch his acting and Nubsib says that he has to make sure he’s performing well for his boyfriend, so it’s fine. He wants it so that Gene isn’t able to take his eyes off of him. Gene is surprised when he remembers that he’s the boyfriend.

The next day Gene goes to meet Hin at the cake shop near Nubsib’s university. He’s started basically living at Nubsib’s condo full time.

Hin tells him that Bua wants him to write a special NC chapter for his book.

Hin asks him if he’s going to a book event with Nubsib and Gene says that if he goes with him everyone will want his autograph. Hin asks him why he’s getting jealous of Nubsib like that.

Gene posts a picture of his cake online and forgets to text Nubsib back while he’s eating with Hin. When he puts his hand up to wave for the cheque, Nubsib grabs it. He was able to recognize where Gene was from his IG post and he walked over from the university.

Gene tells Nubsib to eat with him then and Nubsib says he won’t eat cake unless Gene feeds him. Gene says fine, it doesn’t matter since he paid anyway.

When they get home, Nubsib showers while Gene tries to find inspiration to write his NC chapter. He thinks getting the hardest thing (the sex scenes) out of the way first will make it easier.

Gene watches some anime but decides he wants something different and ends up reading a dark BL novel.

“‘Inside the twitching did not stop.’ Do you like r*pe roleplaying?”

“Shit!” I was so startled, my hands closed the book suddenly when the embarrassing conversation in it was read out.

Nubsib sat beside me, the corner of his mouth smiling. “Do you like this?”

“Like...like this?”

“This.” His fingers gently grabbed my wrist, as if deliberately teasing me. “Is my Gene a masochist?”

“No! I’m just reading and using the information for my writing.”

“A sex scene again?”

I felt a little embarrassed. “Well...you can see.”

Because I always sit and read scenes like this only, Nubsib knows that I have trouble with sex scenes.

“Can I help you?”

Again...we’re in a familiar situation.

I instantly shook my head. “No need, this time I don’t want any realism.”

Gene keeps reading and then retires to bed.

When he does, Nubsib abruptly kisses him and pulls him onto his lap. Gene asks Nubsib what he’s doing and Nubsib says he’s helping him write. 

Nubsib pushes Gene’s shirt up and tells him to hold his shirt up in his mouth. When Gene bites down on his shirt, Nubsib kisses his chest and asks Gene if he likes it, which Gene denies.

Nubsib asks Gene, “Do you like the novel you read earlier? Do you want me to tie you up like that?”

Nubsib holds Gene to him and fingers him before they start having sex. Nubsib eventually asks Gene to start moving himself, if it doesn’t hurt, and Gene starts shyly riding Nubsib.

Nubsib suddenly starts moving and puts Gene on his back. Gene says, “Nubsib...hold me,” and Nubsib holds Gene’s wrists over his head, and holds him. It’s embarrassing and Gene can’t even understand all the hoarse words Nubsib is saying in his ear, but he holds onto him.

While they’re coming down from their orgasm, Nubsib tells Gene, “Let’s take a shower later. One more round.”

Nubsib presses their foreheads together and Gene can’t say no. 

Count 27 (Nubsib POV)

Nubsib thinks back on the sex and how he accidentally made Gene cry. He actually wants Gene to cry more, to feel more, but he has to stop himself from instinctively doing anything violent.

Nubsib sees a red mark on Gene’s neck and touches it. He thinks that if Gene can’t let people know that the mark is his, then he’ll hold it all the time. Or hide it and Gene away, so they’re not seen by anyone.

The phone rings and Gene gently urges Nubsib to pick it up because he’s sleepy.

It’s Tum and he can tell he interrupted them because of Nubsib’s mood, so he quickly tells Nubsib the details about his summer photoshoot. Nubsib tells Tum that he wants to reserve another plane ticket and Tum figures that it’s for Gene and agrees.

When Nubsib hangs up, Gene asks him when he’s going. Nubsib tells Gene that he’s going on the trip too.

Gene says Nubsib has work though, and Nubsib says he isn’t working day and night. They can be together. Gene begrudgingly agrees but says he’s “too lazy to go out” even though Nubsib can see his eyes are shining and he’s very excited.

Gene tries to go swim when they arrive, but Nubsib tells him to wait until there’s more shade. Gene says he has sunscreen but Nubsib tells Gene that he finishes at five, and they can swim then. Gene grumbles but he’s obedient.

Because everyone knows who Nubsib is, Nubsib booked them two rooms and Gene moved his stuff in first. Nubsib will move his in later. They’ll share one room, while Tum takes the others. Nubsib thinks the whole ruse is really annoying.

Tum says he knows he was only invited as a cover for Gene (because they’re friends) but he’s thankful that Nubsib’s letting him stay in a luxury resort room for free. Nubsib tells him that if he’s really thankful he should carry Gene’s luggage.

Nubsib goes to his photoshoot while Tum takes care of Gene. Gene sends Nubsib pictures of a coconut and a crab and other random things he finds, and Nubsib is so happy that a homebody like Gene is so excited to be out.

When Nubsib arrives back, Gene asks if they can swim now and Nubsib says yes. Gene is very excited.

They go to the private beach at the hotel and it’s fine because the place is so luxurious it’s mostly populated by foreigners who don’t know Nubsib.

Nubsib stops Gene from going into the water in exchange for applying sunscreen to Gene’s arms, shoulders, and legs, which makes Gene shy. Nubsib tells Gene not to play in the sun for too long and tells him he’ll wait for him right there.

Gene plays for so long that Nubsib is sure he’ll sleep but he showers and they go out to a market.

Gene sees a tourist attraction for snorkeling and asks Nubsib if he wants to go, if he’s not busy, and Nubsib asks Gene why he’d want to do it alone.

Gene says Nubsib is working, so he thought he’d be too tired, and Nubsib says he’s used to fucking Gene and then waking up and going to university after. Gene tells Nubsib that if he keeps talking like that, he’ll stab him.

They go back to the hotel and lie in bed. Gene asks Nubsib to take a picture for his parents in the LINE group chat.

Gene tells Nubsib not to make a face that’s too handsome. He’s sick of Nubsib being complimented by his mother.

They take silly selfies together.

Count 28

Gene is home and looking through pictures of their trip. It’s been years since he travelled.

He’s thinking about picking up Nubsib from school to get cake to celebrate finishing his recent manuscript, when he gets a call from Tum. He’s concerned because Tum doesn’t video call him but only calls, and sounds really urgent.

He goes to meet Tum at the TV station and Nubsib is already sitting in the boss’s office.

He shows them pictures of Nubsib and Gene on their beach trip—they were seen in the night market. He goes on to show them Facebook posts and tweets with thousands of likes. Because of the SibGene pictures, people are shipping them a lot, and it’s bad for the series because they want them to ship SibAey.

Gene feels bad for causing trouble for the fans and for the network.

Gene sees some negative comments about how people are going to stop following Nubsib and that they now hate him because Nubsib is selfish, and didn’t think of the fan’s feelings, and those comments make him feel the worst.

Nubsib holds Gene’s hand and assures him that it’s not his fault which makes Gene feel worse.

The head of the TV station tells Nubsib that him and Gene need to stop interacting, stop going out, stop liking and commenting on each other’s social media etc. and Nubsib says it’s impossible to be separated from his boyfriend and his contract didn’t specify that.

The head tells him that it was implied because everyone knows that being a BL actor necessitates selling fanservice. Nubsib says that they can go ahead and rip up his contract then, because he never intended to act at all, or in another series after this. He only went to the casting for Gene. 

Nubsib is angry but calm and he shocks everyone. Tum and the boss remind Nubsib that he has ten months left on his contract and if he leaves now he’ll have to pay a penalty. Nubsib says he knows and he’s prepared to pay.

Gene can’t take it. He cuts off Nubsib and tells the boss that he’ll stay away from Nubsib until the end of his contract, and he won’t stop by him if Tum isn’t there.

The boss is pleased and says he’s glad Gene understands. He says the next day that Nubsib needs to come by the studio for a small press conference where he’ll amend the news about him dating Gene.

They leave, leaving Nubsib and Gene to talk alone.

Nubsib tells Gene that they’re forcing them to break up and he won’t have it.

“You’re a star so it has to be like this.”

I didn’t want to cause problems for Nubsib’s work.

I felt extremely bad, thinking about Nubsib agreeing to pay the penalty to cancel his contract.

“We have to be like this?” Nubsib, who had been quiet for so long, repeated my words. “Maybe other actors can secretly date their boyfriends while they let the Internet ship them with someone else, but I can’t do that.”

“...”

“You can say that I’m selfish. But I only accepted the job to act in this series because of you. If it causes us problems like this, then I don’t want to continue this work.”

“I didn’t...” I shook my head.

The words were stuck in my throat, and I was unable to speak.

“So what are you going to do?”

“As I said. After the series ends, I’ll break my contract.”

“No!” I immediately interrupted. His eyebrows furrowed tightly together. “You’ve worked for your own savings, and haven’t asked your parents for work all this time. There’s no need to stop because of me. Another thing...if you rip up the contract you’ll need to pay a penalty. And not a thousand baht, but a couple hundred thousand baht.”

“And you’re fine with our relationship being like that? Not letting anyone know that I’m dating you? Making others think that I’m not in a relationship with you?”

“...”

When I didn’t answer the question, Nubsib shook his head while staring at me. “You’re being like this again. If anyone has a problem and tells you to do something, you follow because you care about them. Why don’t you do that for me? Why don’t you miss me?”

“I just don’t want you to waste your money and lose work!”

“You still don’t understand? Even after the series ends, there’s still nothing in my contract that specifies I can’t have a boyfriend. Pictures can be posted online at anytime. The Internet isn’t that easily quieted.”

“...”

“The only way for them to be satisfied is if we really break up.”

“...”

I froze.

Break up...

Everything I was thinking up until that point became blocked by that work in my mind.

I didn’t know what conclusion we’d come to when we started talking. Nubsib and I disagreed. There were several solutions to the problem. But I didn’t think for a second that breaking up was a solution.

“You want to...break up?” My voice is so low, I can barely hear myself.

“...”

Gene wants to faint at Nubsib’s suggestion.

He goes upstairs and showers and then gets into bed. He hears Nubsib come in and stand over him, but he doesn’t speak. Gene pretends to be asleep.

Gene thinks that he doesn’t want to break up with Nubsib but he’s the older one so he needs to be responsible. He can’t cause trouble for Nubsib like this.

Gene comes out and Nubsib is sitting in the living room. Nubsib tells Gene that he was being selfish and immature earlier and Gene is relieved.

Nubsib tells Gene that if he wants him to listen to the boss, then he’ll do it for Gene. He goes on to tell Gene that since the fans know they live together, it’s probably best for Gene to go back to live in his condo for now.

Gene feels terrible.

[lochnessies]

ok here’s a dissection of a post an anon sent me the link to and bc i have the worst time management possible and i completely forgot i had it lol so sorry anon here you go ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

I am constantly thinking about how Edelgard just doesn’t seem designed to appeal to cishet men.

i hate to be the one to break this news to you op but just because a character doesn’t show skin like charlotte fire emblem doesn’t mean she isn’t designed to pander to men. she’s very much designed to pander to the (majority straight male) player base with her ‘uwu i only trust you professor omg did u see that rat? pls don’t look at my painting of you uwu’.

then there’s the whole edelgard c support in japanese where byleth makes reference to having come to her room for ‘yobi’ which is

there’s also the scene where byleth can make an unsolicited comment about edelgard’s breast size. which is… uhh… gross.

edelgard also has cipher cards that go from slightly fanserviceie to full on suggestive

and also her breast armor that my sister relentlessly mocked lol

and here’s a chart from the 3h subreddit about gender/sexually in regards to edelgard and edeleth. it’s extremely straight male. op might have just overlooked this since they probably don’t go on reddit and stay on tumblr (which unlike reddit is mostly female and has a high lgbt demographic).

Like the joke is that Bleagles is the Gay House, but everything about her feels deliberately non-hetero.

i don’t like where this is going…

She’s dressed in sharp outfits covering her upper body, with proportions that don’t seem exaggerated.

so women who cover up must be lgbt because straight women are naturally more revealing? oh y i k e s

Her poise and the way she effortlessly flourishes her axe exhibits an air of coolness. While titties out =/= character of no substance, Edelgard being dressed more modestly suggests that she wasn’t designed with male-centred fanservice in mind.

“titties don’t equal no substance but here’s my post on how she has more substance because she doesn’t show titties” ok

And she still looks absolutely stunning in her more modest attire (like seriously, I haven’t felt the need to return to cosplay in years but I want to do her academy look so bad). 

yes she does. amazing design 10/10. i have a feeling this is the only part i’m going to agree with

Edelgard is intense. She does not mince her words and she is constantly evaluating you. Though she tries, she has a difficult time understanding her peers initially. Early on, she talks about how she would sacrifice herself and others in the name of some greater good. She is terrible at communicating with her peers. She has to be seen as infallible. Her heart has been hardened for years and she assumes she has to stay that way. She also assumes everyone mourns the same way she does - which is why she (kind of insensitively) insists you move on when Jeralt dies. Because to her, grief has to be channeled towards action, or else you’ll get lost in it. This attitude is demonstrated time and time again as she presses on. It can make her come off as cold and unfeeling - but look closer, and she’s anything but.

don’t really have anything to say at this part. it is pretty on the nose though i would slightly disagree with that last sentence a bit. i wouldn’t say she’s as i feeling as hubert is but all of her talks of the war boil down to how she feels and never her victims.

Her story is ultimately about her realizing that to achieve her goals, she needs to let people in and allow herself to want things like cakes and tea parties and lazy days in peace. 

????? what ????? her goals include imperialism, ethnic and religious targeting. her story is about having a set of beliefs and mowing down anybody who stands in her way. that has nothing to do with tea, friends, and lazy days. also am i supposed to be sad that she has to get up everyday and work? i do that and i didn’t start a war and only throw a pity party for myself

The game leaves the player guessing as to how involved the Flame Emperor was in each Part I event, makes you feel hurt by her betrayal, and leaves you with a choice: do you follow the orders of the woman who tried to make you a god without your consent, or a young girl with questionable morals about to throw the world into upheaval?

this isn’t an ideal situation but i think i’m going to stick with the woman who tried to make me a god since i’m not selfish and i know it’s not only my desires and life at stake here. plus the green hair slaps ngl

Choosing her of your own volition (not for completionist reasons) requires the basic ability to sympathize with a woman’s pain. It also requires the player to read beyond her unwavering will and dubious methods to get a sense of how deep that pain goes and how the theme of humanity relates to her differently in each route.

i’m not going to touch this since @nilsh13 made a post on it that i’ll link here. i agree with everything he said so to repeat it would be redundant.

The player must be able to see a young woman’s desperate resolve to change the world so it stops exploiting people and ruining lives. They must be able to accept the fact that women can make the same morally wrong and ambivalent decisions that complicated male characters get to make all the time and still be the one to root for.

literally the same reason i love rhea lol her goddess experiments are dubious at best but her reasons are the same you mentioned. i would say that i like this quality in edelgard too if her ending, while bloody, actually ended in a good outcome for fodlan.

This is not unique to LGBT+ people, but this population is likely to understand why Edelgard feels so strongly about why she has to change the system. 

i understand wanting to change a system, i really do. like edelgard, i’m an opinionated bisexual woman (who’s also physically disabled) so yeah i get it. and change can be good but it can also be terrible. even if the church was the boogeyman edelgard treats it as she still replaces it with her own shit regime. so it’s the same circus just with a new conductor.

I don’t think “Edelgard gets undue criticism because she’s a woman” captures the full picture. An important aspect of her treatment by certain parts of the fandom is that she’s a radical woman.

or maybe she does some pretty fucked up shit and it goes unacknowledged in her own route. and yeah she’s radical but in all the worst ways.

Her hatred of the Church and the Crest system resonates way harder with people who have been hurt by institutions that are deeply engrained in our society. 

and what about people who have been hurt by systems where their ‘merit’ didn’t measure up and they were left behind? what about people from nations that experienced imperialism?

Siding with her means siding against the Church - which, while different from real world religious institutions, still invokes language about “sin” and “punishment.

yeah the ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ are used in relation to attempted murders which i think everybody can agree is a bad thing that needs to be condemned.

Choosing Edelgard will likely hit different if homophobic and transphobic Christians used that rhetoric against you.

it has literally nothing to do with ‘sins’ and ‘punishments’ in regards to being gay or trans. that’s you projecting. especially since the church has 2 canon gay characters and two coded ones.

like i can understand why having a church condemn you can be uncomfortable but i’m begging you to please look at the context of what’s happening.

I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that the reason F/F Edeleth is the more popular iteration of that ship because most people who would choose to S-support Edelgard are LGBT+ themselves. This is not a revelation. To anyone in the community, it’s fairly obvious. 

i was talking to nilish and he said

so yeah… while there is definitely sapphic femleth shippers out there, there’s still a whole lot of weird fetishizing going on from straight men about edelgard.

Crimson Flower was my first route. I went into the game knowing absolutely nothing. I played it during the last week of 2020 and hoo boy was it cathartic. 

i can tell. this wasn’t supposed to be a dig but it came out that way and i’m not taking it out.

I felt like I was living out a gay revolution power fantasy, where I could truly change systems of oppression while fighting alongside a group of troubled students I’d shaped the lives of.

so a gay revolution power fantasy (cringe) goes hand in hand with imperialism and installing a dictatorship? also the war had nothing to do with sexuality.

Through your unwavering support, Edelgard learns that she needs to be human, that she must listen to her friends, and that she’s allowed to enjoy the world she’s creating.

edelgard gets to learn how to be human all while hunting those who don’t. and she doesn’t listen fo her friends. she doesn’t even trust them. she’s willing to talk to byleth but keep the people who’s been by her side for five years in the dark about everything. and yeah she gets to enjoy her new words since she’s on top. hate to be a commoner under her rule after she burned down my village in her war.

I love this character so much.

clearly. and i honestly don’t care if somebody likes her. i do as well even if my sometimes scathing words can make it seem otherwise.

It has been six months since I first played and I am still analyzing her,

me too. please help me escape i’m losing my mind

because there’s so much depth. Yet so many people fail to see that depth and dismiss her as evil,

i mean, she does some fucked up shit that goes beyond any of the less than desirable actions of the other main characters and does an extremely poor job in trying to make herself seem innocent. i personally don’t think she’s pure evil but i completely understand where the people who say she is are coming from.

because they never had the will to understand complicated women in the first place. 

that’s big talk from somebody who implies that a gay pope is comparable to homophobic and transphobic irl religions and that leads an oppressive regime all because she uses the vague terms of sin and punishments that you have to gay power fantasy your way out of

[shihalyfie]

Takeru’s character song “Focus”

I alluded to this in a prior post (and, to be a bit honest about it, was a little concerned about how it would be received), but I had some friends ask about what I meant about this, so I decided to go more into detail with it! This is also partially in light of the occasion of the Best Partner albums also becoming a topic of interest again, so it feels like a good time as ever!

02 was a pretty prolific time for merchandising and side material as far as the franchise goes, and one of the many things that came out of it was the “Best Partner” series of character song albums (a whole 36 songs for all 12 Adventure and 02 kids plus their partners!). Of these, Takeru’s song “Focus” has been a particular topic of interest for many in the fanbase to its suspiciously loaded language and the fact that, well...it comes off as a romantic song, which is very unusual in a series that infamously didn’t touch on the topic of romance very much in terms of the actual series. Speculation has constantly abounded on what it’s supposed to imply, why it’s written this way, and what it could possibly mean...

But if you look at it closely? It’s probably not meant to be romantic, and it most likely refers to Patamon.

One thing that I do need to point out is context. Many who have been cynical about the song’s alleged romantic implications have generally put forth the idea that the music department was technically separate from the anime staff, so it’s possible that the music staff wanted to bait or provoke fanservice without much connection from the anime production. It is, undoubtedly, true that the music department isn’t necessarily fully tied in with the anime department, and has been fully willing to indulge in questionably-canon silliness (while 02′s Christmas Fantasy is certainly in-character, its placement in actual canon timeline has to be finagled with because of what we know about 02′s actual Christmas, and Tamers’s Christmas Illusion is far more comedic than the series itself actually permits), and, exacerbating this further is the fact that Hikari has her own extremely romantically loaded song, Reflection, which is often submitted as evidence that Focus must be made in the same vein, but tends to omit the fact that the album it comes from (Girls Festival) needs to be taken with a very heavy grain of salt given that it’s a notorious fanservice album that deliberately plays up the “maiden-like” characteristics of all of the girls involved for the sake of, ah, a certain subsection of the audience. (It was also made in 2002, long after 02′s production had ended.)

The notable thing about the Best Partner albums is that all of the material on it is extremely in-character, and this is especially notable because the song lyrics are significantly more obviously relevant to each character in 02 and their relationship with their partner than even the original Adventure character songs were (with said Adventure character songs often toeing into rather vague glosses that are only tangentially relevant to each character, and Mimi’s song on there pretty blatantly being an AiM single shoved onto the album for the sake of being called a Mimi song). Moreover, Focus isn’t just written by some random lyricist they grabbed for it, but regular Digimon lyricist Yamada Hiroshi himself, who was very involved in the anime production in terms of writing 02′s inserts Break up! and Beat Hit!, and, considering everything this series is about, you’d imagine he’d probably have been given some kind of details about what to do with Takeru’s representative song. It would be quite strange if, for some reason, Takeru’s song were the only one to go really off the rails about shipping bait instead of being, well, actually about his character arc. 

I should emphasize that the fact that this song is so commonly read as romantic persists in Japan as well, so whether it was via mishap or not, undeniably, the way the lyrics are phrased definitely make the romantic reading a very reasonable one to pull. The language in the song is extremely “loaded”, and, if it weren’t for the unique circumstances I’m about to describe, most reasonable people can’t really be blamed for taking it this way. However, I will say that all of the most common English translations of various parts of the songs have tended to assume the romantic interpretation as well, and have thus followed up with it by definitively translating it in ways that make it near impossible to read otherwise. So what I’m saying here is that I don’t think it was unreasonable for people to have taken the romantic interpretation, and I don’t particularly intend to blame or criticize the translators who handled this song for also taking it this way, but I also want to make clear that this is not the only way to read the song, and that there’s a very high possibility that this wasn’t the case to begin with.

(Also, since I mentioned Yamada Hiroshi earlier: it’s actually not all that uncommon for him to use heavily-loaded language like this in songs he’s written for the series -- refer to Beat Hit! -- it’s just that people haven’t traditionally taken them as shipping because the context and identity of the songs’ topic matters were so obvious that there wasn’t much need to do speculation about it.)

Let’s take a look into all of the parts of the song that have been traditionally taken as romantic:

"We were together since we were little”

One thing that’s interesting about how this line is phrased in Japanese is that it doesn’t actually specify who was little. And, obviously, if you’re talking about a relationship between humans, you’d think that childhood friends would grow up together, so you’d default to “we”...but, actually, the Japanese text doesn’t rule out the possibility of reading this as “since I was little”. Which means that, yes, Patamon isn’t out of the ruling here -- because, indeed, they met when Takeru was young.

In fact, this actually is a line that arguably should rule out anyone else, especially including the most common speculated topic for this song, Hikari -- because he and Hikari weren’t actually that close during Adventure, and their time “together” was relatively short compared to the rest of the adventure. Remember that the Adventure kids weren’t very close to each other after the events of the series, and Hikari and Takeru didn’t keep close contact between Adventure and 02 -- contrast Patamon being close to Takeru during the entirety of the series, and, bar their periods of disconnect between Adventure and 02, you could say that he’s been the closest to Takeru since this time, especially since Yamato hadn’t been able to be as present for him as he’d wanted.

"Running, rolling around, and always laughing"

Again, this is a line that practically excludes nearly anyone else from consideration. Nobody ever did this with Takeru in Adventure but Patamon, especially since Takeru was trying to present himself as a well-behaved kid in the presence of his elders, and it’s entirely possible he wouldn’t have been willing to do this with anyone else but the outwardly childish Patamon. It definitely would not have been Hikari, who was arguably even more reserved than him during this time.

“It would have been better if I hadn’t realized”/“I have a lot of things I want to tell you, but I can’t really say it”/“I can’t ask that”

Sentiments like “I can’t admit it”, or difficulty with accepting one’s own feelings, is usually associated with developing romantic feelings for another person and being touchy about admitting them, but the thing is that this is intended to be a representative character song, and Takeru is actually abysmally bad at admitting anything in general. And yes, that includes not being able to be straightforward with Patamon himself about parsing his trauma over his death.

Takeru was never able to have a straightforward conversation with even Patamon about the whole issue, because of his nasty habit of never opening up about his problems and never being honest about them. That’s why Iori had to be the one to take matters into his own hands and go out of his way to understand Takeru, because Takeru sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to work through this on his own, or even with Patamon.

“I can’t get you off my mind”

This one’s actually a stock phrase in Japanese that can refer to “being interested” in someone (romantically), but can also refer to something just not really being able to leave your head in general (from being bothered by it, or being very worried). So yes, this could mean anything from a romantic fixation...to simply being constantly worried and concerned about one’s welfare.

“You were always crying”

As far as people around Takeru’s periphery who apparently cried a lot goes, there aren’t a lot! The description doesn’t seem to fit Hikari much, either (she had her moments, but it’s not the kind of thing you’d imagine this kind of extreme descriptor for). Hm, but there is someone who might fit that description...

Certainly, enough that Takeru would remember.

(By the way, Patamon gets sent on the verge of tears in the middle of his own solo song...)

"The door that I couldn't reach that day, no matter how far I stretched out"

Very important part here: that day. There was a very important “day” that seems to be on Takeru’s mind here. What’s repeatedly referred to in 02 as one of the most traumatic and impactful days of Takeru’s life?

Incidentally, Takeru and Patamon’s duet song for this album also just so happens to use “opening door” imagery...

“You’re now standing in the light”

That use of “light” is usually submitted as evidence that it’s referring to Hikari via a pun on her name, but, well, “light” does happen to just mean “light”, after all (and it’s used in many contexts that don’t necessarily have to refer to Hikari in 02 itself). And, well...

Pretty apt description there, no?

"We were always being protected"

It could refer to Hikari, or anyone else Takeru was with during Adventure, but remember that Patamon was always the slowest to evolve (especially given the many circumstances that happened with him in Adventure that kept him unable to actively join the fight effectively for a very, very long time), and Takeru himself also had a pretty nasty complex about holding everyone back.

So, in conclusion...

Despite how loaded the language is, in the end, it’s probably meant to be a song about Takeru handling his trauma regarding Patamon very poorly at the time of 02. Which is, well, what his character arc in 02 was about, so it tracks, doesn’t it?

Bear in mind that, again, this is basically “one readable interpretation of it”, which I also personally happen to back very strongly because I think the evidence simply tracks too much given context -- the details described in the song rule out almost every other candidate that would be relevant to Takeru’s character arc, also happen to describe the events of Adventure too well, and certainly would track much better with everything else in this particular album series mostly being relevant to everyone’s character as reflected in 02. Song lyrics are song lyrics, and interpretation might be in the eyes of the beholder...but, you know, food for thought.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 05 (first part)

(Masterpost) (previous episode) (this episode, second part)

Warning: Spoilers for all 50 episodes of the Untamed

The Pride of Yunmeng 

Waterfall Date

Lan Wangji gets to experience the two extremes of Wei Wuxian’s interpersonal skills within the span of a few seconds. This is even better than his rooftop date with this horrible annoying terribly, terribly attractive boy.

Lan Wangji has come here on a mission to make Wei Wuxian do his homework, which is why he immediately tells him “let’s go to the library” gazes at him silently for several seconds...

...and then lets him adjust his sleeve for him and step allll the way into his personal space. 

Unfortunately Wei Wuxian is about to guess a Lan Clan secret, so Lan Wangji ends the conversation by saying “let’s go to the library” grabbing him by his sexy arm muscle and dragging him off. Did he hold his arm all the way to the library? Even if he didn’t, his “I don’t touch other people” later at the lake is clearly horseshit. I don’t touch other people unless they are named Wei Wuxian and our brothers aren’t watching. 

(more after the cut!)

Apology in the Library

Wei Wuxian splits his library time between actually doing his homework and trying to make friends with Lan Wangji. And he tries really, really hard, starting by sincerely complimenting LWJ’s calligraphy and offering a pretty okay apology for his prior rooftop antics. Lan Wangji tells him to put his leg down but doesn’t tell him to go sit at his own desk. 

Lan Wangji exhibits steely self-control as he resists this look, which would cause anyone else’s robes to spontaneously un-weave themselves into a pile of threads.

When Lan Wangji won’t look at him because he feels his apology was not sincere, Wei Wuxian becomes much more formally apologetic. First he says “sorry” two more times, and he starts prepping Lan Wangji’s ink.  This involves grinding an ink stick against an ink stone with water, to make a pool of ink for the calligrapher to dip their brush into.

This is not Wei Wuxian being annoying and messing with stuff on Lan Wangji’s desk, a la Zhou Yunlan (Guardian). This is an act of service; a genuinely helpful thing to do if you know how to do it properly --which all of these young scholars definitely do--and an action that casts Wei Wuxian in the role of a servant or junior. 

Then Wei Wuxian offers to kneel down (to offer a major formal apology), while giggling like an adorable dumbass. It's unclear if this is sexual innuendo, just being ridiculously unconcerned about dignity, being slightly into abasing himself for this beautiful person, or all of the above. 

After taking a long moment to consider all this, Lan Wangji slowly and deliberately gives Wei Wuxian three seconds of the eye contact he’s been begging for.

Then Lan Wangji spoils the moment by dropping a silence spell on him. 

Wen Can I Have Some Fun?

The Wen siblings hang out and talk about their secret villainy and then fret about how much it sucks to have a chronic health condition, which is pretty relatable TBH.

I know life seems boring now but just wait until you’re an itinerant zombie with nails in your head.

Wen Qing is a devoted older sister just like Jiang Yanli, although with less fainting and more scheming. 

Good kitty.

Porno in the Library

Now, since this next scene ends with Wei Wuxian being a boundary-crossing jerk, let's start by remembering that Lan Wangji has magically gagged Wei Wuxian against his will three times now, as well as hiding his vulnerable family member behind a ward while lying in wait in order to attack him. So, you know. Teenagers in lust. They are both learning what is and isn't okay.  

Lan Wangji steals a long glance at Wei Wuxian while Wei Wuxian is drawing. 

Wei Wuxian is putting the finishing touches on a gift for Lan Wangji. The gift is a portrait of Lan Wangji with flowers in his hair. This boy is SMITTEN. I think he knows it, too; he just doesn’t think it’s a big deal yet. 

Wei Wuxian, who is good at everything, is really fucking good at drawing. 

When Wei Wuxian presents the drawing to Lan Wangji he says “this is my gift for you.”  This is very good-mannered of Wei Wuxian; Lan Wangji had to supervise him for three days, so he is presenting him with a gift to thank him and say farewell.

Lan Wangji completely ignores him, which is really breathtaking, next-level rudeness.

Wei Wuxian isn’t bothered by this, however, and just embellishes the picture with an extra flower or something before offering it again. This time Lan Wangji takes in and is very very very pleased with it, as evidenced by his slightly widening his eyes and how carefully he places the drawing on the far side of his desk.  

Also he gives Wei Wuxian some prolonged eye contact, and engages in what, for him, is playful banter, calling the gift “extremely boring” when Wei Wuxian prompts him to use more words than usual. 

Then Wei Wuxian spoils the moment by pranking him.

Now - let’s look at this erotic-book situation. This is a boundary-crossing prank, yes, but it’s also an invitation to engage in some form of intimacy. For teens who have access to erotic images, looking at them together can be simple naughty fun. Or it can be a way of discovering and bonding over shared sexual identities and interest. Or it can prompt more direct engagement, up to and including having sex with each other.

Lan Wangji’s horrified reaction means that Wei Wuxian has to characterize this as a prank after the fact, but he might very well have intended it as an invitation to get horny together. 

Either way, his response to Lan Wangji’s “shameless” comment is bound to make an impression.

Wei Wuxian is from the clan of "be free" and he just doesn't see why this is a big deal. And now he’s told Lan Wangji it doesn’t have to be a big deal. And through him, the producers are breaking the fourth wall and telling every viewer that this doesn’t have to be a big deal and that they shouldn’t feel ashamed. 

Threats and rudeness and book destruction ensue, and Lan Wangji is left alone in all kinds of emotional disarray, with a bunch of torn up erotica to tape back together throw away.

Boys on the Rocks

Wei Wuxian brags about his prank to Jiang Cheng and bestie Nie Huaisang, telling them that he got Lan Wangji to cuss at him. He’s going to put a notch on his sword handle for this achievement.  

Jiang Cheng is pissed at Wei Wuxian about this, like he’s pissed at him about everything all the time. Possibly he has already started the seedlings of his lifelong jealousy of Lan Wangji.  

Jiang Cheng doesn’t realize that he’s essentially prepared Wei Wuxian to court Lan Wangji by constantly criticizing, hitting, and threatening him. After a decade of Jiang Cheng’s rough style of brotherhood, Lan Wangji’s elegant and refined hostility rolls off of Wei Wuxian like water off a duck’s back. 

Nie Huaisang wants to make sure Wei Wuxian didn't rat him out, but isn't worried about the destroyed book because he has a whole external drive full of porn. 

Several Brain Cells Trio

These guys do make some questionable choices together, but actually they are all really bright and effective in complimentary ways.

Jiang Cheng is growing into a strong future leader - authoritarian and dickish, yes, but also decisive and unflinching. Wei Wuxian is observant of things around him, always ready for combat, and thinks deeply and strategically about events.  Nie Huaisang is a bottomless font of knowledge, sourced from books and from his own observations. 

So when the Wen spy bird shows up, they spot it, drive it away, identify what it is, and understand that it’s a threat and that its presence has political implications.  

They are all goofballs at times, but highly gifted ones.

Doo Doo Doo Lookin Out My Back Ward

Lan Xichen asks Lan Wangji if he’s found out who was sneaking around his the back ward and Lan Wangji hesitates before reluctantly saying “Wei Ying.” 

Ok seriously - nobody calls him Wei Ying. Nobody refers to him in the third person as as Wei Ying. Calling him Wei Gongzi or Wei Wuxian would be totally normal. His own brother calls him Wei Wuxian. And Lan Wangji has only called him Wei Ying to his face when he was angry. 

But now--immediately after the erotica debacle in the library--he is Wei Ying when Lan Wangji is speaking of him privately with his brother. 

By the way, Lan Wangji's shoulders seem super wide in these robes, don't they? I'm not complaining.

Forgettable Disciple #1

Now we meet apparent nobody Su She, who sucks. He wants to take care of the water ghosts himself. 

He is a no-headband disciple which is like - none of the juniors in the later timeframe go without a headband. The guys who got set on fire at the gate had headbands. One of the Lan Rules is “wear a headband.” Is there anyone else who doesn't rate a headband? This is a plot point later when it comes to the ice cave but for now it just seems that he's that one perpetual intern who never gets promoted and never learned embroidery.

Doctor Qing, Medicine Woman

[OP laughed way too hard at her own joke just now.] Wen Qing is helping Jiang Yanli, and Jiang Cheng is super happy to see her. When did he develop this crush? Because it's already in full swing. 

Did Wei Wuxian just sneer when he noticed Jiang Cheng’s crush? Like macking on Lan Wangji is more appropriate than this? 

I love you and I’m going to advocate killing everyone who matters to you

I’m a nosy jerk and I’m going to be your best friend for life, quite literally

Wei Wuxian complains about Wen Qing ignoring him and she gives him the prettiest, loveliest *sigh* death glare ever.

However when she sees that he's a little brother whose sister utterly dotes on him, she starts thinking maybe he's all right. 

For the Yanli-Qing shippers, there is a tiny breadcrumb here, where Yanli says they met by the river bank.  I don't personally ship my personal girlfriend Wen Qing with Jiang Yanli, but I support your ships wherever they may sail.

Continued in Part 2, right here

[mrslackles]

what do you think are gg's biggest flaws?

Ooh, Anon! It’s like you’re in my head. 

I’m busy making a video (that will probably never see the light of day) about this --  my distance from the show has really helped with some super objective clarity -- so I’ll use my notes from that to help me answer. 

I’ll preface this by saying what I was most shocked by after putting down all the points was that Rio isn’t even mentioned until really far down??

Anyway, let's get into it.

These are Good Girls' greatest flaws in my opinion (and relative to season 1 -- while I think it had its flaws too, the list is far smaller and I think that's a separate post)

1. It didn't stick to its guns

What set this show apart from others in the 'Everyday person does crime (poorly)' genre was its comedic lightness, strong friendship element, relatability and emphasis on girl power.

a) By season 2, the lightness was already slowly disappearing to make way for season 3's darkness. (Quite literally; this show said sunlight scenes for WHO.) It also stopped being as fun. Remember how it genuinely used to be fun? I mean let's not forget The Best Scene Ever where Ruby shoots Big Mike by accident and we all laughed our asses off. (Compare and contrast to a similar-in-tone-and-context scene -- or even the whole episode -- like Boomer popping up behind them as Rio's package in season 3.) I think season 3 had some great lines and laughs, but in general, the fun element was completely missing for me.

b) As was the friendship. We already know Annie and Ruby basically became Beth's backup dancers in season 2, but at least then they still seemed to have some type of agency. In season 3, they rarely question Beth's (truly questionable) decisions, don't talk to her about shit like why she's still with her horrible husband and have very few true friendship moments as they did in season 1.

c) Which made it less relatable, but what also contributed was the major plot holes (it's less easy to relate when you're constantly having to remind yourself to suspend your disbelief). And, to be honest, their stupid actions. Just the most common-sense things weren't followed, like not taking your children to a crack den or not putting a hit out on a gang leader. It's frustrating watching a TV show -- where characters are supposed to learn things, have arcs and improve over time -- and feeling like you have more logical sense than all the main characters in every scene. (WHO would think a hitman was going to use a sniper rifle on people in broad daylight on the side of the road???)

d) You don't have to look any further than the title or the stans who shout "THE SHOW IS ABOUT THE GIRLS" -- or, hell, the first 10 seconds of the show where Sara is literally talking about the glass ceiling -- to know that the main characters being women is very important to the show. If not formally feminist, it was at least supposed to be empowering or feel like "girl power" (a term I hate, but we won't get into that now).

And I think it did it pretty well in season 1 -- it actually played on my favourite theme of the show, which is the world's perception of these women being what ultimately allows them to get away with so much. (Rife with opportunities for commentary about white privilege, but also a genius way to upend patriarchal beliefs.) But more and more it seemed like the show was asking you to accept empowerment as simply "these things are being done by women, yay".

And, well.

2. Its marketing

I'll keep this one short because I think we all know how messed up this situation is. Basically they're selling a show (every week!) that they're not making while ignoring all feedback on every social media platform. Which brings us to...

3. The marriage of Death

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times -- Beth's character development starts with getting rid of Dean. Her growth is stunted by him on multiple fronts and it's frustrating to viewers since she's constantly put forth as the main character. Not to mention how the audience, separately from Beth, was originally conditioned to see Dean as the scum of the earth (think of scenes like him crashing his car because he was perving on a woman jogging) so keeping them together is really... a choice. To actively root for this marriage (which seems like what the show wants, at least for the protracted moment) means either thinking Dean is a great person (which, as I said, we've only seen the opposite of) or believing he's all Beth deserves. Which leads me to...

4. Beth's (socio)path(y)

Is sociopath a 'good' word? Probably not. Have I seen dozens upon dozens of posts talking about whether Beth is one? Yes. And I see it from a huge variety of people -- from viewers who just binged the show last weekend to those who've been watching for years, the question keeps coming up. And I entirely blame the writing of the show that, by the way, I don't believe is deliberately creating Beth to get this reaction. I think she's written (and, to an extent, acted) in a way that is much too aloof and I'm not convinced it's meant to come off as cold and unfeeling as it does. Everything else leads me to believe that the audience is supposed to root for Beth, but it's just so difficult.

Beth does a lot of messed up shit that requires dialogue to sympathise with her and the inner workings of her mind, but in the later seasons Beth rarely gets to express herself verbally. And every time she does get to speak about her emotions, the dialogue is a pick-your-own-adventure between "She's in so much denial", "This person feels no emotions" and "I'll go find an analysis/fic later to explain this" (scenes like "Nothing" or "I was just bored"). Compare and contrast with some of the great scenes in season 1 where she emotes, like her paralysing shock after they first rob the store or admitting she enjoys crime, or (one of my favourites!) the one in the park where she's mimicking the other mothers beside her.

5. Brio

I said in the beginning that I was shocked Rio doesn't get mentioned until this point and that's because I've always felt like he was an integral part of the show. When people say the show is about the girls, they're truncating -- the show is about the girls getting into crime. That crime is represented by Rio over and over again -- they never bring in another criminal at his level (which is another one of its flaws, but that's also a different post); Rio is it.

And though I stand by Rio's importance, the truth is that Brio isn't as essential to the show, by which I mean that if all of the above were done well, it wouldn't be as sorely missed. In lieu of riveting plot, a fun friendship, character development and empowerment, most viewers have glommed onto Brio like a lifeboat (or ship, heh).

Unfortunately it's also what the show has most stubbornly refused to develop significantly.

It's honestly a toss-up for why I feel Brio is a flaw: is the flaw that they got together? That they never got together well enough? That the writing keeps bringing in these 'chemistry-filled' scenes that are ultimately filled with air?

I don't know. Maybe all of them; maybe just one, depending on the day.

6. Its criticism falls flat without intersectionality

This is a big one because Good Girls is *trying* to do something very clever. As mentioned previously, my favourite theme of the show is how the women's apparent innocence/vulnerability in the eyes of society is their biggest strength. The show plays with this and other interesting themes with varying levels of success, but ultimately they all fall a little flat when they don't feel intersectional.

When Ruby gets sidelined. When Turner, who sees and all but calls out by name Beth's privilege, is portrayed as the villain. When Rio is told he's gonna "pop a cap" in his young child's "ass". When the racist grandma becomes a sympathetic character whom we must later grieve. (And she really didn't have to be racist, now that I think about it? It was just that one line for laughs and that was it.) When, despite the real-world implications, Dean can loudly announce in a store that he's buying a gun to kill someone with and the show just glides past it. When Ruby has to grovel for forgiveness from Beth for trying to protect her husband and family from the system, with no acknowledgement from Beth about how their realities are different. When Rhea gets booted off the show as soon as she's done serving Beth's plot. When Rio gets treated like a prostitute for absolutely no reason. (Oh, and is accused of raping Beth and is literally spoken of as an animal and starts only existing in zero dim lighting as a one-dimensional stereotype... the list goes on.)

7. PR/The actors

I'll risk my life here to sprinkle this in because I do think it's a massive problem. The Manny/Christina of it all is just the tip of the iceberg (although wtf Good Girls? There's nothing you could do to get these two into an interview together??). The main actors do the bare minimum to promote the show and it's weird. I also think it's the height of unprofessionalism to keep characters on the show against the wishes of the majority of the audience just because you enjoy their actors (Boomer confirmed; Dean highly suspected). While, on the flip side of the coin, limiting a character's screentime because you aren't best buddies with them. Having less and less Rio when he's such a fan favourite is dumb; as is not including him in any series marketing material. It feels personal and that isn't how a TV show should be run.

8. The entire hair and wardrobe department needs a stern talking-to

[where-theres-smoak-2]

This Needs To Stop.

Trigger warning: Sensitive topics, p*dopilia, grooming, mental health and r*cism. 

Ok so this is a bit of a rant so apologies for that, I usually try to stay away from sensitive or controversial topics but this is something that I am passionate about and that I think is important. Also I just want to say that I am in no way directing this to the entirety of the M*lina fandom, I know most are just enjoying their ship, but there are those few who are deliberately seeking out darklina posts or are cross tagging and coming into darklina’s asks and just generally harassing the fandom which sadly I am seeing happen more and more often. Also I do feel like this can apply to all fandoms not just exclusively shadow and bone/ grishaverse, its just this is the one I am experiencing it in right now.   

I’ve seen antis call darkling/darklina fans many problematic things, delusional, mentally ill, ab*se apologists. They also like throwing around words like grooming and p*dophile. The thing that makes me angry about this is that they are taking sensitive topics, topics that many users have been effected by and they are using them to attack shippers merely for liking a character or ship that they don’t. What is even more frustrating is they seem to be throwing these words around without evening fully understanding what they even mean. For example the claim that the Darkling is a p*dophile because Alina is only 17 in the books. Well p*dophilia is a psychiatric disorder where adults are attracted to children and in order for it to be classed as p*dophilia the child involved has to be 13 or younger. A 16 year old can be diagnosed as a p*dophile if they become attracted to a child that is five years or more younger than them. So the relationship between the Darkling and Alina does not meet the criteria to be categorised this way as Alina is over the age of 13. As for it being a case of Alina is underaged, well, for one that depends on where in the world you are. This is based on imperial russia, in russia the age of consent is 16. This means that a 16 year old can have a sexual relationship with a 30 year old, a 70 year old or a 500 year old immortal and in a court of law it is still legal, whatever your own moral issues around age gaps might be. Even then it can be argued that it is irrelevant because, as with most historical literature where young girls marry older men, you cannot put modern day concepts onto them. Like I said this story is based on Imperial Russia, the life expectancy of a person in that time was around 30 years old. That means a 15 year old girl is already half way through her life, she is literally middle aged. It is at this point usually that girls started to prepare to get married and have children and yes sometimes it was to an older man because men were expected to provide for their wife and family which means having a house and job and means to support a family which an older man was more likely to have. My point is a 15-17 year old in say Imperial Russia is not the same as a 15-17 year old in modern day therefore you can’t take modern day laws and morals and place them onto that situation, it doesn’t work, they lived completely different lives. In Alina’s world, she is at the age where girls might get married and her being courted by a man of the general’s status would have been a normal occurrence, for her to have caught the attention of someone with his standing would have been considered very advantageous for her. I mean she literally gets two marriage proposals in book 2, where I believe she is still 17, and Nikolai is talking about how if she marries him it’ll be in name only and they can make Mal her guard so she can do the horizontal tango with him whenever she feels like it, so clearly the characters themselves feel like Alina is at an age where she can, one get married, and two be engaging in a sexual relationship. 

So why does all of this matter? Well it matters because people reading these posts, asks and comments left on posts, may be victims of p*dophilia and grooming. A lot of these comments don’t have trigger warnings and when you are talking about sensitive and triggering topics like this you need to be careful and when you are talking about them without even really understanding them, and where they can’t apply to the characters you are talking about anyway, then you are potentially triggering someone needlessly because you didn’t need to be talking about it in the first place, I hope I am making sense there. I am not saying don’t talk about these subjects if you do think they are relevant, I am saying make sure you do the research, that you understand the subject you are addressing and when you do talk about it do it in a respectful manner, don’t throw it out there in an angry spew accompanied by alot of other derogatory words because that won’t help anyone.     

Another subject I want to talk about is I am also seeing a lot of posts about how darklinas must be delusional or mentally unwell. This, again, is hurtful and harmful. Mental illness for a very long time has had a stigma around it, one that makes the person suffering from it feel weak and ashamed. There was always the attitude of if you are mentally ill then there is something wrong with you, or the attitude of oh just get over it, cheer up, think a different way. But mental illness isn’t just a state of emotion its often caused by hormonal imbalances and chemicals. Genetics can also play a part. There is nothing wrong with someone who is mentally ill their brain is just wired a different way. I also find it problematic when people throw around the word delusional. Maybe its nothing to you, just a word, but alot of mental illnesses have actual delusions as one of their symptoms. These can be scary and upsetting and are outside the control of the person experiencing them. Making the suggestion that liking a particular ships means you are delusional is potentially very triggering to those who do battle delusions and have fought to overcome them. The stigma around mental illness has prevented alot of people suffering from mental illness from seeking help out of shame or embarrassment or even out of fear of being judged and although I do feel like as a society we’ve become alot more open about mental health and alot more accepting there is still a long way to go. When antis start saying things like ‘I can’t believe people ship this, they must be mentally ill,’ or ‘they must be sick in the head’, or ‘if you like this ship than you must be delusional’ not only are they being incredibly prejudice against people who have mental illnesses but it is also so harmful because if there is someone reading that post who is struggling with their mental health and are considering seeking help then you’ve just made them feel more ashamed, more like there is something wrong with them which will make them even less likely to seek out help and as I said before there isn’t anything wrong with a person who has a mental health condition they are just different from you. That doesn’t give you the right to make them feel like they are less capable of deciding what they do or do not like or even what they should or should not like to be classified as a ‘normal’ person. 

The most latest problematic statements I’ve seen have been those accusing Darklina’s of being r*cist. This one I found a bit funny in a it’s not funny kind of way. I just don’t think there is much logic behind this view point. I’m not sure I understand the antis reasoning here. Mostly because I’m pretty sure the majority of the Darklina fandom comes from the books where Mal is described as being a white, brown haired, blue eyed guy. Funnily enough the Darkling is described as being able to pass for Shu, though to be clear it isn’t confirmed that he is a POC, but out of the two in the books the Darkling is more likely to be a POC than Mal. On top of that whilst many darklina fans have made it clear they are not a fan of Mal in the books many have said they like the show version of Mal who, as we all know, the actor Archie is a POC. So by anti logic darklinas are all r*cist because they don’t like book Mal who is depicted as white but we do like show Mal who is a POC. It just doesn’t make sense to me. I do understand that there were some ‘fans’ who made inappropriate and r*cist comments to some cast members including Archie and I would never ever condone that no matter who I ship. But you also can’t condemn an entire fandom just because of the actions of a select few. I don’t judge all M*linas for that one fan who accused Ben of being a pr*dator and p*dophile because of his friendship with Jessie. Once again my point is r*cism is a serious topic and not something someone should use as a retort or comeback to someone not shipping your ship. When we use these words casually it makes it less likely that they’ll be taking seriously when they really do need to be taken seriously, when they really are relevant to what is happening. If we keep using them so casually then when we really do need to talk about them, when it really matters, people will just shrug and go ‘its just antis being antis.’ 

I think it is possible for people to like different things, to debate and analyse different relationships and characters and talk about what flaws they may have in a respectful manner. I wouldn’t say I am anti m*lina but at the same time there are things about them that I find problematic but when I talk about those things I hope I do so in a way that doesn’t demean those who do like the ship. I understand that people will have a different interpretation than me and whilst I might not understand where their thinking comes from or why they have a particular opinion I would never make the assumption that they are mentally unwell or make judgements on their character or morals. I try to think about the words I am writing. I know how easy it can be to just throw a word out there without thinking about it. I used to use the word delusional to describe fans of certain ships, but when I recognised how damaging and problematic that was I stopped and I changed my behaviour because it was never my intention to hurt others. I guess the main message I am trying to convey here is we need to be careful with our words they’re not as insignificant as we might think.                

[randomidiocyncrazies]

2.43 ep 5 thoughts: Oda and Aoki edition

sooo as you all know i’m an Oda (and Oda/Aoki) stan, so I just wanna take some time to talk about Oda and Aoki’s dynamics in episode 5 and compare it to the book a little

as a note, I’ll be commenting using my translated copy of the novel, which I’m pretty sure is based on the tankobon edition of the first arc (‘S1′); there may be some revisions in the bunkobon edition that i don’t have access to

[2.43 BOOK SPOILERS AHEAD]

while i think the tension during the club activity suspension had been downgraded from “this is a huge blow to team morale :O” to “hm, i guess people are kind of annoyed?” and we didn’t get to witness Aoki and Oda flying off the handle, I do appreciate that the seniors are presented as a unit in handling the younger team members, especially that Oda was able to stop Aoki with a glance in the anime (as shown above).

this strong partnership also leads us to the scene where they are hanging out together on break at one of their houses and communicating with each other about the incident, even though they have different opinions about it: Oda believes in Yuni’s innocence, while Aoki is holding a grudge (based on his words and expression). (also, what a gorgeous house!) 

there is no similar scene, or even a reference to something like this, in the book—this is because, as alluded earlier, the team suspension is presented as way more devastating to team morale than it was presented in the anime

in the book Aoki’s displeasure towards Yuni had a sharper edge; not only was Aoki the ‘lead interrogator’ during the team’s questioning of Yuni, but he also hauled Yuni up by his shirt collar when he thought Yuni’s refusal to explain what happened was him not taking this seriously. 

Oda actually had to physically intervene in the book, and although Aoki reluctantly let Yuni go, he specifically says that Yuni had “betrayed [Oda’s] trust.” When Yuni insisted that he didn’t do anything that’d cause trouble to the team and “it’s you [seniors] who refuse to take my word for it”, Aoki basically threatens to kill him if he keeps looking down on them/refusing to take this seriously. 

(Chika is also much more aggressive in the book; he tried to lunge at Yuni, but was held back by Kanno, who advised him to at least hear Yuni out, but also made it clear that they need an actual explanation out of Yuni instead of the wishy-washy stuff he’d been saying)

in the book, they make a note that Oda calming Aoki down is a rare sight that the underclassmen normally never see, which was kind of interesting in terms of how the 3rd year duo presents themselves to the team—Aoki is the cool cucumber while Oda is the excitable ‘heart’ of the team, so that line reinforces how unusual Aoki’s actions during the interrogation were. there’s also the implication that, since Aoki was so aggressive, Oda has to hold back and be the one who diffuses the situation this time.

as the argument over Yuni’s refusal to explain what exactly happened spirals out of control, Oda also reached his limit and snaps at all of them, including Aoki, to just resign if they’re just going to get in his way of playing at the Spring Tournament. this shocks everyone into silence, and Oda is so ashamed at his (”selfish”) conduct that he dismisses everyone, and it was heavily implied that he didn’t really speak to any of the team members during the month that club activities were suspended (horrified at his outburst during the last meeting).

in the epilogue (which timing-wise roughly corresponds to the after-credit scene in ep 5), it’s implied that Aoki was the one who reached out to Itoko’s friends in an attempt to figure out what went down during the incident, and Oda and Aoki have a rather touching reconciliation conversation.

essentially, Aoki walks in to the club’s supply office to see Oda taking care of the equipment. When Aoki pointed out that Oda doesn’t have to do all this as he’s the captain, Oda felt that it’s penance for “being the first one who gave up”:

“Nobody thought you’ve given up, you know.” Aoki sat down at the end of the bench, the worn wood creaking under his weight. Just as he was about to pick up one of the balls by his feet, he noticed—the “Seiin High School” written in marker on all of the balls are facing up in the same direction. 

Oda isn’t the kind of person who’d deliberately make sure the equipment was laid out uniformly, so it was easy to imagine that he got in early to maintain the equipment, as well as the way he stared at the name written across each ball he cleaned with deep emotion before putting it down naturally, with the school name facing in the same direction.

“If you weren’t the captain, the team would probably be finished and unable to make a comeback. It’s because of you that everyone is willing to push through these circumstances. You should be proud of that.”

“That’s because you went around to help me make nice with the underclassmen in the background, right?”

“No, I didn’t do anything to soothe them at all. Besides, I was only doing it for your sake before.”

Honestly, Aoki wanted to smack the hell out of Kuroba [...] While the others were more or less sympathetic after the whole incident was cleared up by Kuroba Itoko, Aoki still couldn’t quite forgive him. If it wasn’t for that brat, things would never have gotten to such a state.

“On this topic... Aoki, are you sure? If you retire now, you’d have plenty of time to get ready for your entrance exams.”

“Shin, stop bringing such an ancient topic up.” Aoki rested his elbows on the back of the bench. “There’s no time for you to feel guilty. Isn’t this the practice you’ve been looking forward to for so long? You have to show them you want this more than anything. Come now, before the others show up, hold your head high.”

Dipping his head down to look at Oda, Aoki thought Ah, so we’ve become old geezers too. Every time he looked at Kuroba and Haijima, he couldn’t help but think that Oda’s skin had a healthier glow back then; is it because he had gotten skinnier... no, no, he had built up some proper muscles since then, so maybe it’s just his face that looks tired?

It had been two and a half years since then. The first time he saw this shorty was when he’d been poked in the back, Oda’s eyes glittering as he chattered away about the “super ace.” He had been unwavering in the pure, naïve belief that he’d grow and become a super ace back then.

“I’m... really blessed.” Oda said quietly with a sniffle. He wiped the corner of his eyes, and when he lifted his head he expression on his face was one of happiness, though it was mixed with faint embarrassment. 

No, I think you’re pretty unfortunate. Aoki’s sure that, if he had been in Oda’s situation, he’d have given up on himself a long time ago. [...] Oda’s the type of person that, even when he’s forced to give up on his dream to become a super ace due to the unsurmountable challenge of his height, he’s still able to say he’s blessed with a straight face.

“Also, there’s one other thing I wanted to apologize for.” Oda hunched his back, clearing his throat sheepishly.

“What is it? Like I said, it’s fine.”

“I heard that you got a girlfriend, and went around on dates. I thought, ‘the team’s in a pinch and that guy had the time to play around with girls?!’ Honestly, I was really mad.”

“Pfft—” Aoki couldn’t help but laugh. When Oda looked at him in confusion, he covered his mouth with a hand and shifted his gaze away. “Don’t worry about it, there’s nothing going on.”

“You contacted the girls from the other school because you’re looking up leads for what happened with Kuroba, right? Still, even if you didn’t get a girlfriend, I think it’s only natural that you’d be popular; you’re really tall and smart after all.”

“Shin... can we just drop this?” Aoki interrupted, feeling his temples throb. He was a little angry, but... oh well, it’s fine if Oda doesn’t understand.

(2.43 S1 Epilogue part 3)

(Aoki is pining SO HARD he can be a frickin’ tree 🌲 he already has the height covered :V) 

in a previous post examining the Oda/Aoki dynamic, I’ve talked about how they seem to be at cross purpose when it comes to understanding the other’s motivation—we’ve seen Oda being confused by why Aoki would devote himself to him back in Chapter 3 (it’s because he is in love with you thinks your pure drive is admirable); and now the “I’m really blessed”/‘no I think you’re unfortunate’ exchange from Aoki’s point of view shows Aoki’s blind spot. it’s not explicitly stated, but to me it’s pretty clear that Oda was talking about having the team, and more specifically about having Aoki’s support, which is what makes him blessed. Aoki, though he’s not wrong about Oda being an optimist, seems to have missed (or dismissed) what Oda was really trying to say here

all in all, both the anime and the book have shipping material for Oda/Aoki, but in slightly different ways; in the anime it’s more of a stable and straightforward dynamic (which makes it easier for the anime staff and the viewers to handle, since there’s no opportunity to devote precious run-time to an in depth exploration of their characters and dynamic), while in the book it’s a bit more complicated, where it feels like they’re on the verge of something but it’s never addressed explicitly

or, in the terms of fanfic tropes, in the anime they give off strong established couple vibes, while in the book they’re more about the pining and miscommunication

EDIT: lmao the staff sure knows their marketing huh. they really said "Dinner at the Aoki Household" huh. (I guess the implication is that Oda slept over that night? or at the very least had dinner at Aoki’s place)

honestly it's rly interesting to sketch out the dynamic i want to explore in Oda/Aoki fics, because i see them as an established couple in the anime (sir they DATIN’), while i maintain that they have not gotten together yet in the books (and won’t until after Aoki had gone off to college)

(also, just to be clear, i don't think Oda/Aoki would ever be 'canon' in the sense that it'll be officially/explicitly confirmed. i just like their dynamic and i’m having fun with it)

[asmywhimseytakesme]

As promised, here is a list of my favorite tropes in fiction. I may continue to refine this over time.

Note, I am not pulling these from a website, I’m writing these up myself. There may be a page on tv tropes for all or most of these, but I’m trying to articulate to myself what I like and why I like it, so I’m naming my own tropes and writing descriptions that are specific to my own taste. I’m also including a short list of examples for each.

Needless to say, if you know of a book or show that includes some of these tropes (the more the better) and it isn’t mentioned here—PLEASE TELL ME. And of course, these are just my preferences and opinions—if you disagree, that’s fine, we just don’t like the same things 😁

These are organized loosely by category—character tropes, relationship tropes, and plot tropes.

Under a cut so people who aren’t that interested in my specific tastes don’t have to scroll forever.

Character Tropes

Mastermind—

An extremely clever and competent character who reads people, pulls strings, and often has a grand scheme the other characters are unaware of. Usually a good guy (at least my favorites tend to be), but doesn’t have to be.

Eugenides (Queens Thief), Miles Vorkosigan (Vorkosigan Saga), Peaceable Sherwood (the Sherwood Ring), Lord Peter Wimsey (the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries) Sir Percy Blakeney (the Scarlet Pimpernel), Sherlock Holmes

Note: all the above examples are male characters, but I don’t consider this a gender specific trope. I would love recommendations of female characters who fit this trope.

Not Just A Soldier / Not Just A Mom

I originally had these listed as two tropes, and then realized that they were just inverses of each other. They each have to do with fulfilling gender stereotypes in some ways, while subverting or transcending them in others.

For a male character in the genres I read, Not Just A Soldier is typically a fighter of some kind, and really good at it. Basically, on the surface he appears to be a very Masculine Male Manly Man. But! It turns out he is also just a really nice guy. And not only that—he’s smart, and he’s good with kids!

On the flip side, Not Just a Mom seems at first glance to be your typical motherly feminine character. But! That isn’t her entire personality! She also has a (not particularly feminine) career and hobbies outside of parenting, and she is confident and competent doing those things—AND (this is important) those non-mothering things she is good at are essential to the plot. (This tends to be less of an issue that needs to be specified with male characters, grumblegrumble.)

So on both sides, we have a character who is fulfilling gender stereotypes on one hand, but subverting them on the other.

Not Just A Soldier examples: Costis (Queen's Thief), Din Djarin (the Mandalorian), Cazaril (the Curse of Chalion), Uncle Iroh (ATLA)

Not Just A Mom examples: Hera Syndulla (Star Wars Rebels), Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan and Ekaterin Vorsoisson Vorkosigan (Vorkosigan Saga), Katara (ATLA)

Adventurous Parent

A parent who continues to be cool and have adventures and stay involved in the plot even after becoming a parent (a GOOD parent, of course).

Din Djarin (The Mandalorian), Dr Mensah (Murderbot Diaries), Hera Syndulla (Star Wars Rebels—-we’ll see if this holds true now that she actually has her own biological child?? Assuming she’ll show up in future Star Wars projects—I’m hoping to see her in the Ahsoka series🤞)

Reluctant Ruler

It seems like many bad guys would kill to be king—and many good guys would really, REALLY rather not be in charge, thanks. But when a good guy is forced by circumstances beyond their control into becoming a ruler, and they decide that they might as well try to do a good job at it, and then THEY ACTUALLY DO—this trip has my whole heart.

Maia Drazar (The Goblin Emperor—this book is basically the perfect example of this trope and I love it SO MUCH), Eugenides (Queen’s Thief), Sophos (Queens Thief), Aral Vorkosigan (Vorkosigan Saga), And hopefully Din Djarin in Mandalorian season 3? OH PLEASE YES I NEED THIS.

Broken, but loved

The name basically says it—these are characters who believed themselves broken, heartless, and unlovable, but others chose to love them anyway. It’s important to note that they are NOT “saved by love”, but they do CHOOSE to try and be better because of love.

This trope just GETS ME EVERY TIME GUYS. It makes my heart hurt in the most joyful way.

Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries), Attolia (Queens Thief), Zuko (ATLA), Medraut (the Winter Prince)

Friend Indeed

This is a simple one—a character who befriends someone who is in the middle of a difficult situation, when it would be much easier to just keep their distance.

Ratthi (Murderbot Diaries), Csevet (The Goblin Emperor), Kuill (the Mandalorian)

Magic Schmagic

The character in a fantastical story who can’t do magic, doesn’t know about magic, and doesn’t WANT to. They just wanna carry on being their own non magical, mundane selves and we love them for it.

Sokka (ATLA), Din Djarin (the Mandalorian), Digger (Digger), Gideon (Gideon the Ninth)

Relationship tropes:

Found Family

Ok, this is a popular one so don’t think I need to explain it. Since these often involve large groups of characters, I’m just going to list a few of my favorite pieces of media where this trope features prominently.

Star Wars Rebels, the Mandalorian, Digger, Murderbot Diaries

Reluctant Friendship

Where two characters are thrown together and one or both doesn’t particularly want to be friends with the other, but as they move through the adventure together they gradually come to like each other and form a friendship.

I also love the romance side of this trope but I’m just as happy to read about a platonic relationship.

Ben and Nathaniel (This Was Our Pact), Kaidu and Rat (The Nameless City), Kamet and Costis (Queen’s Thief), Digger and Shadowchild (Digger),

Magical Animal Sidekick

A character who forms a deep personal bond with a magical creature. It doesn’t have to be an actual creature—in a sci-fi setting this could also be a sentient robot or ship.

Temeraire and Laurence (His Majesty’s Dragon), Ani and Falada (Goose Girl), Murderbot and Art (Murderbot Diaries), Ezra and the Loth Wolves (Star Wars Rebels)

Prose/plot tropes:

It’s Complicated

Related to the Mastermind character trope, the distinction here is that this is a plot that wasn’t manipulated by a single character intentionally, rather it’s a complex series of interactions and misunderstandings that are all revealed to be interconnected in the end.

The Court Jester, Howl’s Moving Castle, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Digger

Sarcastic, Witty, and/or Colloquial narration

The name says it all. I usually prefer this in 1st person, but it can be fun in 3rd person too. In 3rd person it might be the narrator who is witty, or it might just be the main character's thoughts that are witty as related by the narrator.

1st person— The Thief, Murderbot, Digger, Dragonhaven

3rd person—Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Gideon the Ninth

Written For You

First person narratives are interesting and tricky because there is the question of WHY narrator is telling the story, and who they intend it for. I love first person stories where the narrative is specifically addressed to a person or group, which adds a level of meaning to the story. This isn’t the same as a story told in diaries or letters (though that can be fun too).

The Thief and A Conspiracy of Kings, the Winter Prince, All Systems Red, Dragonhaven

The juxtaposition of Magic and Mundane

I deeply love stories that mix magical things with mundane details of life in a deliberate way. I feel this makes real life feel a bit more magical, and helps magic feel a bit more real. This juxtaposition can be a central idea of the plot, or might simply be present in the way a narrator describes things.

This may be my favorite trope of all, come to think of it (though there are a lot of great ones listed above, so maybe I shouldn’t start naming favorites…) most of my own story ideas center on this idea to one degree or another.

Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Howl’s Moving Castle, His Majesty’s Dragon, Digger, Hilda, Queens Thief, Dragonhaven

Tropes I would like to see less of: prophecies, hereditary magic, a Chosen One, Soul Mates, fate/destiny. Yes, many of the stories I love involve these tropes, they’re hard to get away from in the genres I prefer to read. These tropes are Iess exciting to me first off because they’re done so often, but there’s a bigger reason I’d like to see less of them, which has to do with characters agency. I’m much more interested in a story that is about a character who CHOOSES to do the right thing, not because they were Chosen, but because they CHOOSE themselves to do the right thing. In the same vein, characters who CHOOSE to build and maintain a relationship are so much more interesting and, frankly, romantic to me than people who are just meant for each other BECAUSE FATE OK. Just.... no. People making tough choices because it’s the right thing to do makes for a much better story (aim my opinion) than people who do the right thing because DESTINY. So the overall theme here is, more character agency! (And as I said above—if you disagree, that’s fine! This is just me listing my preferences and opinions.)

If you read all that—wow! To all those who made it this far, thanks, and if you have any book/show recommendations that involve these tropes, please tell me about them!!