#also not hating On people who ship

[burning-chaos-goat]

I wish people would really put in more thought behind Hobie instead of who to ship him with or not. I just feel like he deserves better than that

[weirdglassthing]

LOA Shiptober Day 4: How They Met

October content month was ambitious..

This one took me. Shockingly long. Whoops! I’ll probably end up jumping around the prompt list and it might extend into November 😋

I’ll try to do day 31 on the actual date of Halloween though 🫡

[annyankers]

for all the amicability in the whirlwind later on i think it's really important to never lose sight of why dru was turned and then why she in turn sired spike. she was tortured and turned for angelus' enjoyment, her continued suffering brings him pleasure. he owns her, she is a Thing to him and she has no way to escape this. she makes spike to be "her brave knight" a position that, especially in fairytales, means a very romantic man physically protects and serves a woman who is usually gonna end up being some kind of damsel in distress.

while yes dru is evil and a vampire she's still obviously very upset about what happened to her and those moments seem to be her times of lucidity, not delusion. not to mention that she's already been beaten out of the notion that she can escape angelus, she tried to as a human and it didn't work, it likely won't work now either, especially if darla sides with him. but with spike around there's someone who basically always takes her side and fights to keep angelus away from her. who is, at least, a buffer between her and her tormentor. he also takes care of her and validates her, something neither darla or angelus seem to be interested in doing at all.

i feel like people tend to intellectually remember what happened to her but forget that it you know, has long lasting consequences when say, they evaluate her behavior in late s2 when angelus comes back. like... yeah ofc she goes back to appeasing him and shit. spike's a wheelchair and she was beaten into shape to be "daddy's little girl" (gag) YEARS before she even MET spike. her abuser is back and her defender is out of commission not to mention her whole view of reality has been actively warped by the most narcissistic sleezoid around.

and all the reasons why people love spike or point to as why he's better with buffy or whatever.... dru was the one who saw those first and picked him because of those. like... it's wild to see people act like they spent a loveless century together and spike was just used the whole time when we SEE them literally in love, he states MULTIPLE times she means so much to him and we get an OUTSIDE SOURCE CONFIRM THEY HAVE "AFFECTION AND JEALOUSY FOR EACH OTHER". we have the spike we know of today because drusilla saw the hero in him and wanted him to rescue her. and ya know, he kinda did. multiple times. over a century of deep, mutual horrifying love. you only even GET spike and buffy in the same ROOM because he loved dru so much he saved her from a mob, traveled with her across a continent (maybe 2 depending on direction) and over an ocean for even a SHOT at a cure. like... cMON.

this got a little off topic into some of my pet peeves but also kinda not because just-- i don't think people always remember that dru is still a victim and a victim who was intentionally frozen the moment of maximum despair and internal destruction. then spent about 20 years being groomed by her tormentor before she ever had anyone care about her as a priority. i think people tend to forget that it was angelus who wanted to turn spike into a monster and drusilla who wanted him to be a hero. it's dru who gives him his swagger, his confidence, his love for life, who encouraged his romanticism and adored his poetics. it's not that she groomed or built him, but just that she saw all that potential already in there and facilitated it and nurtured it. sure in a fucked up vampire way but still.

[dewwshi]

The people demand more Minlach. ( please more we are desperate and your art of them is so good 🥺🥺🥺)

🫡

my beautiful yuri... sooo critical to me that minthara 1. fell first 2. fell harder. something abt the idea of this self-avowed villain being utterly and inexplicably smitten with the sweetest nicest golden retriever girl in the world

[chandralia]

sorry that I shipped bkdk from scene one, can’t help that my taste is immaculate and I’m always correct about everything ever 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

why are people out here shipping my boy tintin, hes aroace and does not understand love and i will take no criticism

[deswhomst]

Can someone please just rant with me about the people who hate on Jegulus LMAO? And I don’t mean people who don’t ship them (it’s fine that’s your choice), I mean the ones who make posts about their hatred of the ship. And on top of that, why are they tagging their posts Jegulus? I literally don’t want to see it. Keep it to yourself.

Like—first of all, why do they act like it’s such a hot take or an unpopular opinion? I see one person daily say that Jegulus “doesn’t make sense” and they pretend like it’s such a new thing to say?? And why do they act like they’re victims when they’re the toxic ones?

I swear I see so many toxic Jily stans openly hating on Jegulus like it’s their birth right but I have literally never seen it the other way around. Like no I’ll be brave and ask the real question—what is so interesting about Jily? Why does liking that ship make you superior? And I’ll just say—even Harry wondered how Lily ended up with James so your arguments that “they probably hated each other” / “doesn’t make sense” literally applies to Jily as well. And this is not hate to Jily in any way, but rather to toxic stans who spread hate for no reason. You are not better than someone else based on your shipping preference, but you are worse when you act a certain way.

Also I love all you non-toxic Jily stans out there! <3 I promise this is not directed at you at all.

And don’t give me the reasoning that they created Harry. Frankly if your argument for a ship is their off-spring, it’s already weak.

[gwandas]

acotar fandom really is just full of normal people because someone in the subreddit today said tamsand would be the most popular ship in literally any other fandom and ykw... they're right. 10000% correct.

[lenodrysalad]

"Eddie said he's straight! Buck said Eddie was straight! Buck said he's not in love with his best friend! They shut down Buddie in the show it isn't happening ya'll are delusional! Queerbait! Queerbait! Blah blah blah"

I feel like I'm going insane. I'm sure we're all tired of people shouting "media literacy" every five seconds, but like... Yeah, develop some media literacy, please.

I'm saying this as someone who doesn't usually like romance, despite being subjected to it in basically every piece of media. As someone who doesn't generally look for love stories. As someone who loved Buddie but didn't consider any serious possibility of it becoming canon before season 7/8, who refused to believe Buddie was truly happening until I couldn't deny it anymore: this episode is loud.

Please understand how narrative arcs work. How character arcs work. How character development works. How serial broadcast television works. Understand how writing works. Consider context; take the whole episode, the whole season, and the whole series into account instead of treating things like they exist in isolation.

I'm too tired to go through the step-by-step details of the episode to prove why these, "they said it on screen, therefore..." takes are shortsighted and ignorant; plenty of people have done that already.

But that episode, even if we do take it in isolation, is textbook. Do people really take everything characters say at face value? Do people not watch other character's reactions? Listen to what else is being said? Watch what is being shown? Consider the implications? Themes? Narrative devices?

Consider that maybe, just maybe, characters can be unreliable narrators, or believe something to be true only for that belief to change later. These things don't happen in one episode. There's such a thing as set-up, foreshadowing, the starting point of a plot. 911 is a serial drama, therefore it is going to have A) long-form story and character arcs, and B) drama.

Characters are not going to move in straight lines, or talk in therapy speak, or solve every problem in an hour. They are not always going to be right, or self-aware, or truthful, or rational. Direct dialogue does not equate to honest dialogue.

Also, saying, "well in real life, people do this, I do that, their feelings would be this, yadda yadda yadda" means nothing. Your experiences are not universal, and more importantly, this is a work of fiction. Realism is whatever the story says it is; it's going to do whatever creates the most dramatic, interesting, developmentally beneficial, or emotionally satisfying story. Whether you like that story or not is irrelevant to the fact that stories are not going to cater to all your expectations or real-world experiences.

To people pointing to Tim or the actor's interviews as "proof" they're shutting down Buddie: again, please understand how broadcast television works. They are not going to tell us everything that's going to happen before it happens. They are going to play the neutral zone, the "wait and see," the "will they/won't they." They are going to lie. That is television production 101. You can compare what they've said in the past with canon and list all the contradictions, misdirection, and twists you didn't see coming because they didn't spoil it for you. Watch the show. That is the canon.

They're also not catering to fandom--people they already know are devoted to the show, familiar with Buddie, and consistently tuning in. They're introducing the idea of Buddie to the general audience, people who likely haven't considered the possibility before. The GA has to see that Buddie is an option, so the show needs to manifest it as if it's a brand new concept. This episode pulled the pin on that grenade in a very obvious way; the idea that Buck could be in love with Eddie and that Eddie could not be straight has been planted. The next seed will be Eddie's feelings. Now the show needs to water it and let it grow.

One last thing. Been seeing a fair amount of hand-wringing and condescension over people interpreting this episode differently. As if this is some sort of "gotcha" for bad writing, baiting, or people being stupid. Listen, genuine complaints about this show's writing aside, different interpretations or inferences are completely normal. This isn't unique. That is how people interact with stories, through personal biases, experiences, emotions, and expectations. That isn't inherently a bad thing. It's totally fine to have your own views; media is all about interpretation.

However, it is also true that just because you have an interpretation, that doesn't make it true. Not all interpretations are equal in their validity, evidence, or warrants. The show has an intention, it has a story in mind. If you don't see it, sure, that could be a failure of the writing, but it could also very well be a failure of your analysis, especially when the show hasn't finished telling the story. Looking at one thing in isolation and forming your whole conclusion based around that makes for poor critique.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see who's right.

[bandtrees]

they would get divorced in one universe just to find eachother in another one

alternatively titled: sometimes you're the level-headed token flesh-head impulse-control-and-polycule-member of a stubborn, eccentric, and hearty telephone-headed drug addict, and there's cruelty in the world you deem fit to suicidally fight, and that either goes about as well as you'd expect it to, or you learn about love and the value of your life and junk along the way

[mxtxfanatic]

Why is it that the western fandom doesn't get that Lan Jingyi doesn't like Jiang Cheng? The boy does nothing but antagonize him every chance he has and is clearly a Hanguang-jun fanboy at heart (and Lan Wangji also dislikes Jiang Cheng, so even more reason for Jingyi to dislike him if being a bad person wasn't enough). Worst of all, the ones that ship him with Lan Xichen try to frame Lan Jingyi as their son, like why? If anyone where to adopt him (if something where to happen to his current parental figure, whoever that is) it would be Wangxian (he is also their duckling at heart), if he wasn't a Lan who is always around Lan Wangji whenever Jiang Cheng is also around I am sure he would wip the poor boy 😭.

Idk, I feel like Lan Jingyi’s character got the bad end of the stick from early fandom days when people started to rehabilitate Jiang Cheng’s image and needed a convenient Lan mouthpiece to mirror what Lan Sizhui is to the story. Lan Jingyi is to jc stans what Lan Xichen is to jc stans: a Lan counterpart to challenge the ones that canonically love and are dedicated to Wei Wuxian. There’s also a small corner of yunmeng bro stans who are convinced that Lan Jingyi and Jiang Cheng “must” actually get along because there’s this pervasive idea in greater fandom that Lan Jingyi is just a Lan version of Wei Wuxian (they are literally nothing alike outside of being good people and obsessing over Hanguang-jun), and since Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are on the fritz, Lan Jingyi can be a nice replacement toy for Jiang Cheng while keeping them all trapped in the same orbit since Wei Wuxian marries into the Lan Clan.

But at least now stans have moved on to “ljy is jc’s fan/son” instead of in early fandom where they had 30yo Jiang Cheng creeping on 15yo Lan Jingyi and this was meant to be taken as a serious, non-toxic, not grooming ship.

[saivii]

I’ve heard a lot of people talk about how Nam-gyu hates women (which is fair), but I haven’t heard anyone mention that he basically hates everyone.

Out of everyone this man interacts with, the only characters he doesn’t directly insult are Thanos and Gyeong-su. But as soon as Thanos dies, he grumbles and talks shit about Thanos too (though I think part of him actually misses/cares about Thanos, but that’s a whole different story. He has a love/hate relationship with Thanos) and he mostly ignores Gyeong-su apart from laughing at him when Gyeong-su talks to Thanos for the first time.

He definitely hates Se-mi, but he also hates Myung-gi, Min-su, In-ho, and everyone who voted x. He’s such a hater and I live for it.

If I recall correctly, Se-mi is the only woman he interacts with and he hates her because she stands up to him and makes fun of his shaky hands. And that’s petty of him to hate her for that, but he’s petty! He hates people who challenge him or go against him in any way or people who point out his flaws because he seems to hate coming across as weak or not having any power.

Also maybe I’m taking this too seriously but can we not do the whole “he hates women so that makes him gay” thing? It’s totally fine to headcanon him as gay but the idea of misogyny defining being gay is just not it to me. Maybe it’s because I’ve had misogyny directed at me mostly by straight men and those experiences have been painful, so the implication of “teehee he’s a misogynist so that makes him gay” kinda feels invalidating and it feels kinda homophobic too.

Tldr: my boy is a HATER!!! He’s not just a menace to women he’s a menace to society and I think that’s beautiful 😌

[kara-zor-els]

Most of the people who whine about wanting Babs to be a congresswoman again haven't read her congresswoman era to begin with.

[lesbianwyllravengard]

No but Astarion wanting to be valued for more than sex and seen for something that's not just sex regardless of who romances him and Wyll wanting a chaste and genuine romance with sincere and committed courtship with no sex regardless of who romances him is insaneeeeee. I know everyone's talked about this before but everytime I stop to think about it I lose my mind. They couldn't be more narratively bound I'm clawing at the bars of my cage

[moociaoafterdark]

Reporting live from Twitter and Oh My Gooood, who CARES? Why do people care so much who beats who in powerscalling? Space Marines aren't even the strongest faction in their own universe, ffs. Powerscalling Warhammer (40k especially) in general is a bad idea, considering how fucking inconsistent the lore is.

Also, can we please stop arguing over who is stronger and just, I don't know... Draw Space Marines kissing? Oh, wait, I forgot, we hate queer men and also, conveniently enough, they are aroace, therefore they can't be shipped with other Space Marines (it's okay to ship them with girls tho, apparently, that's an exception to the whole aroace thing).

[rottenroyal]

since we're all going to die, i have one last thing to tell you. i do not care for kevjean.