#also note the same polarizing effect on fandom

[blood-orange-juice]

I've been thinking for the past two days that G'raha Tia is just Childe with better mentors and a scholarly background. The base structure is very much the same

[allseeinganalyst]

Frozen II Novels - Review

It's been a while since I reviewed or analyzed anything here. This blog was made for that exact purpose, but I've posted one half-hearted review-ish thing about Mob Psycho and the Nanoha look-back is taking a while.

Part of that is due to being that I find myself in weird mental spaces more often than I'd like. The internet is a hell-hole, but it's also one that's borderline impossible (and certainly very impractical) to actually just sever ties to. I've ditched Twitter and I don't use TikTok (except to look at videos my partner sends me), but I still get, somehow, hit with a lot of LOUD, SHOUTY voices that seem to make it impossible to enjoy anything.

After about three-to-four midlife crises about things (i'm 30 this November), and a chat to my partner, I've managed to get the mental TARDIS that is my mind up and running again, ready to tour the fictional universe and enjoy what is has to offer, getting back into the things I love, without getting bogged down in the screeching of fandoms and social media.

Gods, that was a very long way of trying to say "I read a cool Frozen book."

Frozen 2 - Forest of Shadows and Frozen: Polar Nights - Cast into Darkness are two original novels set in the world of Frozen (Duh.) Forest of Shadows was released in 2019 and I actually read it back then, while Polar Nights was released in 2022, and I picked it up from Target and read it in march of 2023.

To get this out of the way, while it does sometimes throw people off, I am actually a big fan of Frozen. I've loved it since the first movie. It's not my favourite Disney film (that would be Tangled, and whoo-BOY, will we get to Tangled related media at some point on this blog!), it's probably a close second. I love the animation, I love the songs, I love the characters and I love the world. I was even sad when the hype for Frozen died down, and no, I don't think Enchanto is better - That's another LOUD SCREECHY OPINION that I'm not sad to hear less of.

These are obviously not the only Frozen novels out there. I do own "A Frozen Heart", which I've really got to get around to, because apparently it contains some Hans backstory, and Hans is a character I'm really interested in learning more about, and obviously there is a slew of additional Frozen media. Frozen-Mania gripped the world in a chokehold not seen since the god-damn Shrek movies, and it had an effect on our media and culture so great that no doubt, someday there will be an essay on youtube by Super Eyepatch Wolf explaining and analyzing the overwhelming impact of a Disney movie from 2013 and the INSANE fandom that sprung out of it - which I was a part of from very early on, and quite honestly you can use it as a self-contained example of how fandom has changed since then... BUT I'M DIGRESSING.

The point I was trying to make here is that, most of the media released post the original Frozen movie is fairly generic. Baring one or two things, and of course, the animated shorts, a lot of it is standard kids stuff - Storybooks, Quick Reads, Junior novels, picture books, etc. Some of it is really fun, and the art was almost always either a wonderful, bright cartoonish 2D style, or a painterly, soft style that's really pretty to look out - But not a lot of is espeically unique. It's got a "Frozen Flavour" to it, but it's all very standard. If you changed one or two things, you could swap out Elsa and Anna for Rapunzel, or Ariel, or any other number of Disney Princess characters and the stories would be more-or-less the same. Stuff that mum and dad can give to their kids to let them have their Frozen fix without having to endure "Let it Go" one more time. (Side note: If you do happen to be one of those people who're bitching about how over saturated that song is - Fuck you, I'm going to play it again on purpose.)

The point I'm getting around to is that these books, cheep target paperbacks they may be, are not that. There's a distinct world and continuity here, and it's even possible to place a timeline.

These books (I believe there may be a third between them for a reason I'll get too shortly) have recurring characters, direct continuity and callbacks. All of them expand on the world of Frozen, moving away from the generic Disney-Princess storytelling of kingdom mishaps and "oh-no! character X is lost/upset/lost a precious item/wants to do something special/has a special occasion/etc" and into a deliberately constructed world, with a soft but distinct influence from Nordic and Sandenavian folklore.

They are not perfect, but they are worth talking about. Spoilers abound below, for those of you who are interested!

I'm not going to summarize the plots. I want to talk what I find interesting, annoying, curious, fun or frustrating about these books. These reviews are intended as a form of looking after my own mental health anyway. If you're interested, I've given names and pictures of the covers. Go look them up. Or better yet, read the books yourselves and tell me what you think!

The coolest (pun 400% intended) part about these books is they are clearly on a timeline. They're designed to slot very nicely into Frozen canon, and do so very tightly I might add. The timeline that we can establish is:

Frozen > 3 YEARS > Forest of Shadows > Frozen 2 > Polar Nights.

Forest of Shadows leads directly into the events of Frozen 2, even referencing the scene where Elsa wakes up the spirits at the end, while Polar Nights is explicitly stated to be a matter of 2-3 months since Anna took the throne.

During that 3 YEARS period there, you can obviously slot in Frozen Fever, Olaf's christmas special and probably one or two of the storybook stuff released post Frozen. If the (hilarious) "Olaf Reenacts Disney Movies" shorts are in ANY way canon (and... They MIGHT be to some degree, I'll get to this later...) they almost definitely slot in between Frozen 2 and Polar Nights. Again, I'll get to why later.

I believe I am missing a novel or story somewhere that fits into the same timeline as Polar Nights references an event that's a bit too specific to not have been depicted in some form of media, but I can only work with what I find locally. Although I am in no uncertain terms a fan, I only have so many resources and time to put toward things, and Frozen isn't at the top of that list. If a novel appears on a store shelf, I'll buy it. If it doesn't, I go without.

While my thoughts are mostly focused on Polar Nights, because I read Forest of Shadows over 3 years ago. I'm talking about both novels for the most part.

They are decent in size. Small enough for kids to read with no trouble, but more than a short story. Both tell full length, original stories.

These books paint a slightly wider view of Arendelle and it's surroundings than what we see from the movies. Neighboring kingdoms are mentioned by name (including Corona - Rapunzel's kingdom from Tangled. - Again, I'm going to get back to this later), and there are several named, recurring characters like Tuva and Ada, lesbian blacksmith wives (explicitly mentioned as being married) or Sorensson, the Astronomer who lives far outside of Arendelle and is introduced in Forest of Shadows, then plays a small but significant role in Polar Nights. There's recurring references to Aren of Arendelle, the founder of Elsa and Anna's kingdom, and a secret room or passage discovered in one book is referenced and used again in the next. It's really consistent and it makes it feel rewarding to read these novels. I very much doubt that any future Frozen visual media will reference their events, but if the stories themselves can keep a continuity across writers, then that's good enough for me to feel like I'm really in a bona-fide expanded universe.

There's some stuff in these books that I have personally wanted to see since the first movie. Things like finding out how Anna never recovered the original memories the trolls took from her, or finding out what Elsa spends a lot of her time doing in Ahtohallan...

(conjuring ice memories, apparently. Yeah, seems like while she's not going to "drowning depth" again, she is using her magical ice powers to pull up home-movies of her parents... Gotta wonder if she didn't accidentally pull up one of their date nights and then shattered the whole thing into ice shards in a panic once her dad put on the Barry White music.)

The books ALSO give me something that I have held in my head since the very first movie - Anna cracking jokes about her past and her mistakes.

I've always loved the idea that Anna doesn't seem the type to get all "Shell-Shocked PTSD Veteran" over her traumatic memories. That's Elsa's job, so I've always imagined she makes a lot of jokes and lighthearted fun out of it. Like, she seems the type to go: "OH HEY! That's a great statue of me! And I'd know! I've been a statue! Made of ice! Wanna see me do the pose?"

And while we don't get that exactly, we do get her ribbing Elsa about having Marshmallow throw her out of her ice castle, grumbling about how "Hans isn't actually THAT good looking", and generally having a sense of "oh no, I remember what happened LAST TIME..." about her. It's not as explicit as I'd like, but it's there and it helps with that feeling of the world being alive and moving. These characters do remember what happened yesterday. They are actively learning their lessons and trying to avoid the mistakes of their past.

The stories are compelling enough. While not groundbreaking, edge-of-your seat page turners, they both offer an adventure that's very much on brand for Frozen, effectively utilizing the characters and the world. This isn't a story where you could change a few names and slap Aurora or Belle or Ariel in instead. These stories feel tailored to Elsa and Anna. Unfortunately, there's a bit of an issue that I assume arises from being an author hired to write your own original entry into a carefully curated, multi-million dollar franchise, owned by the real world's full on Mega-Corp.

See, while I love the connected, constructed world these novels build around the movies - They do in-fact, happen to be being built around the Frozen media franchise, and Disney have been notoriously strict with this before.

If you were a part of the early Frozen fandom (again, I was), you might remember the sheer excitement around when it was announced that Elsa and Anna, as well as Arendelle and a number of other movie characters would be coming to Once Upon a Time, flinging the universe of Frozen into unexpected live action.

I'm not going to get into my thoughts around OUAT, because... YEAH I'm trying to be focused and that is worth a WHOLE other blog post - which I don't have any REAL desire to write out unless someone BEGGED me to do it, but long story short, given that the show explicitly is alternate continuity for ALL Disney's franchises, it had a lot of leeway in what it could do with it's regular cast... But not the Frozen characters. Although the writers did get to play around creating new backstory and lore, and chopping and changing a bit, there was a strictness to what they could and couldn't do with the characters. They couldn't give Elsa a love interest. They couldn't dramatically change anything from the movie. Characters had firmly fixed personalities that were absolutely not allowed the usual "flex" of OUAT - No extra edginess snuck in, nothing out of character.

(They did have incredible costumes though. Way better than any other live action projects that I've seen).

My point in all of this is, that was explicitly in an alternate universe. OUAT had NEVER had any bearing on any of the franchises it pulled it's roster from, and was marketed to a whole different audience.

These books are NOT. They are marketed toward the same audience as the movies, and are intended to fit alongside it. And it is painfully obvious that Disney holds a tight leash when it comes to ways for writers to interpret their billion-dollar characters. Obviously this is pure speculation, but I would imagine the writers for these novels were given dedicated character bios of characters like Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Olaf and not allowed to deviate or even go into much depth beyond what was listed in those bios.

I say this for a couple of reasons - The most notable of which is the dialogue, and to a lesser extent the character actions. Characters have an unfortunate tendency to sprout stiff, unnatural dialogue, based on certain things that were mentioned in the moves.

Nowhere is this more egregious than with Anna and chocolate. The movies mention her having it as her favorite treat, and she has like two memorable moments involving it in the first movie, but the books treat it like it is NEVER off her mind. If the books mention Anna wanting to do ANYTHING, most of the time, it involves chocolate in some way. She brings it with her on expeditions. She can't wait to get back to the castle and eat some. She has a "choco-versary" with Kristoff, the anniversary of the first time they ate chocolate together. It comes off as a weird obsession, instead of the favorite food it was in the movies. Similarly, she's mentioned as having "Sandwiches" as her favorite meal a few times. Not only is this FRUSTRATINGLY non-specific, it also seems PURELY based on her one line in "Love is an Open Door" and it's callback during her conversation with Kristoff in the first movie... Although to be fair, this did also get a call back in Frozen Fever where we see her be enthusiastic about one, so... whatever.

It gets stiff with dialogue between characters too. Almost every conversation with Elsa and Anna seems to drift towards "we were seperated, but now we are together again, and I love you and am so proud of you!". They'll discuss the plot, and they do have some genuinely great moments (like Elsa talking about the trolls and Anna pointing out, somewhat sadly, that "no, sis, I can't remember, they took my memories as a child...") but a lot of it is re-hashing their end-of-movie "sisterly bond" stuff. It's a real shame especially in Polar Nights, because that is set AFTER Frozen 2. We could have had scenes of Anna asking Elsa for help ruling as Queen, or Elsa observing how Anna does things differently from her, but we learn nothing more about how these two interact than what we already knew.

The other problem that I assume crops up from Disney's strict oversight is that it's obvious the writers are not allowed to affect the world too much. They can play with the figures in it, but can't change the landscape dramatically. This is understandable, as it's unlikely the Mega-Mouse wants some kids novel throwing out a detail that might force them to change how they write the next movie. They're not going to kill off Kristoff, or suddenly give us a Hans redemption arc - As interesting as that would be, the writers need the all clear from Disney, and Disney won't want some hired novelist to make a major change to their giant money making machine which is no doubt shaped like Elsa's head.

This means that, although the stakes do feel real for the books themselves, there's a sense that nothing that happens within really affects the world that much. Characters don't learn a vital lesson or change in any significant way, and those that do are new characters, constructed for the book, who can easily be ignored by the wider narrative - Polar Nights has a whole segment with a pair of sisters, obviously designed to parallel Elsa and Anna, who's past and backstory, and the mysteries and mistruths thereof, form more-or-less the basis for the entire plot, but our ACTUAL sisters can't have a chat more complex that "boy I'm glad we're not separated anymore, also we're proud of each other!"

The result is - and this is kind of what I've been driving toward this entire time - these books give me a VERY distinct feeling, and it took me a while to identify what it was. I didn't catch it when I read "Forest of Shadows", but it WAS there, and Polar Nights has it there in full force.

These novels feel like FILLER.

Traditional, ACTUAL, filler.

SIGH - Quick sidetrack.

The term "Filler" is thrown around a lot these days, often by people that I don't think realized the term originally had a more specific meaning - At least from what my experience is.

"Filler" was primarily a term used by the anime community, referring to episodes of a show that were not adapted from the original manga. This practice was done as most anime, especially Shounen anime like those pictured above, ran almost continuously, and when your airing an episode a week which is sometimes able to adapt multiple chapters from the manga, you're going to close the gap pretty quickly.

This meant that things would be done in the episodes to stretch them out. Anything from lengthening fight scenes, to additional dialogue, all the way up to - perhaps most famously - whole new arcs created purely for the anime. These arcs had to tell their own stories that were entertaining, but obviously couldn't massively shake up the status quo, as they had no idea what would be coming next for these characters and this story. They relied on events distanced, often entirely unrelated to the plot at large (in-fact, rather infamously, Bleach once went to a year long filler arc in MID-SWORD-FIGHT BETWEEN CHARACTERS). Often they would invent new characters, new powers, and often draw on events of the past, or spotlight background characters to create an unobtrusive narrative.

These arcs can, and have, been good. There's nothing inherently wrong with filler, but as TV Tropes says: "These arcs can, and have, been good. There's nothing inherently wrong with filler, but as TV Tropes says: "At their most extreme, absolutely nothing that happens in a filler episode will affect things going forward, even if it seems like a character developed or grew in some manner."

Filler's definition has expanded a lot, and was never really as fixed as I tended to take it, though I still see it used incorrectly. If an episode of a show had the characters sitting around talking, with the plot not advancing at all, but we still learn things about the characters that matter, and have an impact or call back later, or their relationships change in SOME way, then it's NOT filler. In the words of my Media Teacher: "Just because it didn't feature a car chase and a shoot out, doesn't mean it doesn't matter." - Filler doesn't matter. Slow paced slice of life episodes can matter a LOT.

As a side note, to this side note, Filler in it's most traditional sense is dying out, and has been largely, though not entirely, gone from anime by the mid 2010's. Anime have switched over to the "cour" style of episode production, with a season consisting of usually around 12-or-24 episodes (a little leeway in either direction is common, like having 26 or 10 episodes), which focus on tightly adapting one arc or novel or portion of the story. They then take a break, and return with the next season whenever, picking up where they left off. This is why you don't really see stuff running for 200+ episodes in a row anymore, and why something like, say, Attack on Titan has five seasons. This has allowed for MUCH reduction of filler, and virtually eliminated the need for the filler arc. They do still pop up, but notice how today's "big shots" like My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer have multiple seasons instead of just running for a billion episodes like shows such as One Piece, or Naruto.

Though speaking of that, apparently some new shows are determined to carry on the traditions laid by their parents... *side-eyes Boruto*

AHEM. I really need to drop this topic and get back on track. QUICK, what's an appropriate Frozen-related GIF to use to move on?

I fuckin' told you I was gonna play it again.

ANYWAY, so my point is that - despite feeling like we've really entered a living, breathing world, with its own history and people, it feels like we're never allowed to see that world DO anything.

This wasn't too bad in Forest of Shadows, because even though it couldn't do anything massive, it could create the illusion of movement, by transitioning characters from their Frozen selves to their Frozen 2 selves, laying down hints of what would be fully realized in that move, but it is REALLY on display in Polar Nights - The set up involves exploring Anna's first major kingdom event as Queen, and yet, we really don't get any meaningful detail about that. We don't get a sense of how it feels for her to suddenly wield all this power and responsibility when, not just a few months ago, she was more or less the spare princess that could spend her days having picnics with snowmen. I mean sure, there's mention that she's nervous, but it really doesn't go into much detail. She's just "Queen Anna", the same way we saw her at the end of Frozen 2.

(Elsa's also still referred to as Queen - sometimes she gets directly called "The Snow Queen" - but this is a detail I like. It's not like the people forgot or disavowed her as their monarch. The two are called "The Queens of Arendelle" at one point. It's an interesting touch.)

The events of Polar Nights involve a lot of things happening (including major characters losing their memories of each other), but it all amounts to a problem that's easily resolved with Sisterly Love, and by the end of the book, everything's normal. I know these books are not going to affect the movies, but one of the cool things, as I mentioned, was that they did have continuity between each other. Sorensson was introduced as a man of science in Forest of Shadows, and then in Polar Nights, Anna and Elsa go to him for help with something they want a scientific explanation for. While some of these characters might pop up again to be mentioned in the next novel, it's hard to believe it'll focus on Anna dealing with the fact that... Say Dragurs are real, and exist out there, and that things like grudges and nasty legends and rumors can bring unwelcome power.

Some of the dialogue and phrasing is just plain awkward too. A lot of the time, when Anna spoke to Kristoff, it felt very bland, and forced-romantic, rather than their natural, more banter and warm interactions in the movies. We don't even get a call-back to "I prefer you in leather ;)" - Although that may have been pushing the biscuit. If they went any further with how Anna feels about that, the LOUD SCREACHERS might lose the ability to pretend she was being 100% wholesome and child-friendly with that line...

There's another line where Elsa's narration indicates she wants Anna and Kristoff to have kids so she can be "the cool aunt, literally" - A line that exists purely for that one lazy joke, since no other mention of them having children exists that I can remember.

(Though I am borderline certain that Frozen 3 will focus on their child, but again, that's getting distracted)

Polar Nights also avoids any direct appearances of Northuldra. No Honeymaron or Rider or anything - The only other significant characters that appear from Frozen 2 are Mattias (who fills a bit of a generic "general/captain of the guard" role, but that's his job so it's fine), as well as Gale and Burnie and the Water Nokk, who do have roles to play, but relatively minor ones. They are mentioned, but even when we see the Enchanted Forest, it's purely featuring the cast from Frozen, plus the wind and the new plush mascot lizard. Again, it's a shame because beyond: "Elsa loves the fact that she is living free" and "Elsa spends time pulling up home movies made of snow", we get nothing about how the former Queen is living as a spirit. Okay, I don't expect the book to explain about how Elsa hates needing to pee in a bush now or something absurd like that, but when you go from living in a castle to living in tents and caves, you've got to feel more than just "free" right? We don't even see how she interacts with the Northuldra. How do these people, who revered the spirits, interact with one who can speak to them in their language? Who can sit and chill out with them? Who can pop round for dinner? We get none of that, and it's sad, because it would have been nice.

Polar Nights features a mystery story between two sisters, one of whom is said to have outright murdered the other, several fights between Elsa and a Nordic zombie wraith that mimics her powers at one point, a Pirate Queen and her fleet sitting menacingly at Arendelle's borders, at one point escalating to firing on royal ships during a massive storm in an eternal night, Anna and Elsa traveling to a whole different neighboring kingdom, and Anna's fiance explicitly losing his memory of her, and anything they ever did together...

... and somehow it comes off as less compelling and impactful than Frozen 2, where - and I don't want to downplay or insult Frozen 2 because I think it's amazing and obviously it's themes run far deeper BUT - the main antagonist force boils down to "Dam that a bastard-man built one time".

(On that, Polar Nights is intent on reminding everyone that King Runeard was a Bad Man™ and every single character essentially goes "BOO! HISS!" whenever his name comes up. And yeah, the dude was an absolute bastard, and he only gets revealed to be worse in Polar Nights but you would think Anna and Elsa would have more complex feelings than "hate that guy" to their granddad who they believed was a bit of a legend up until the events of the second movie. Still, maybe they genuinely don't and at any rate, unpacking those feelings might be a bit more complicated than a novel intended mostly for kids is willing to get into.)

There's more that could be said, but I worry I've been sticking to the negative for too long. Yes, these novels do feel like anime filler. Lots of stuff happens, but it doesn't really impact anyone. There's new characters introduced and side characters discussed and all sorts of things that really don't mean that much to the world in the long run, and no doubt will be forgotten by the time Frozen 3 rolls around BUT...

BUT

The books are an enjoyable read. They let me return to the world of Frozen and explore a bit more of the land these characters live in. Yes, I wish the book featured a conversation between Anna and Elsa that didn't just feature them rehashing what they've learned in the movies, but it is STILL good to see them together again. It's heartwarming to know that Elsa still stays in the castle, that Anna let her keep their parents bedroom, that the people of her former kingdom still call her "Queen".

It's great to see side characters mentioned, and not just appear once. It's great that these books are allowed to look outside of the generic fairy-tale fare and bring up things like Dragurs and Huldrefólk and, while I do think the Sisterly Love being the solution to Polar Night's problem isn't the best ending, it does FIT with the themes for the franchise and it isn't a re-hash of Anna and Elsa, instead holding up a mirror to them and showing them what they could have been had their lives been but a tiny bit different.

They're good books, and I would rate them:

A solid B

Was originally a B-, but upon writing this out, I re-evaluated and I wanted to stress that I actually really do like them, and I hope they make more. I really want Frozen to be that thing that winds up having 20 different novel series, six comic books, two original TV series and a line of successful movies. It'd make me happy.

That is just about all I have to say on this topic except for:

OKAY SO YOU KNOW HOW I HAVE BROUGHT UP TANGLED A COUPLE OF TIMES AND I'VE BEEN SAYING I'LL GET BACK TO HOW I THINK IT INTERACTS:

Well - We all know Frozen featured Rapunzel and Eugene visting Arendelle and, ignoring some of the crazy and common fan theories (they're cousins I swear it still works if you squint), that suggests that there is a shared universe and I believe these books CONFIRM that when taken in conjunction with other evidence...

Consider that, Corona is directly mentioned in Forest of Shadows, and that would seem to confirm it, but I've still seen that, and the Tangled character's cameos waved off as cheeky Easter Eggs, BUT... REMEMBER THOSE FUCKIN' OLAF SHORTS? The ones where he re-enacts disney movies?

YEAH WELL, in the Tangled one, he has a bit of extra dialogue where he goes something like "this one is for one of my favorite people in the world, Rapunzel" or SOMETHING LIKE THAT THAT SUGGESTS HE'S MET RAPUNZEL PERSONALLY, and...

AAAAAND...

Polar Nights reveals that he and the others HAVE stayed in the Enchanted Forrest before, which gives him a timeframe where he could plausibly tell these stories in universe, AND AND AND AAAAANNNNND:

He also has a short where he re-enacts "The Little Mermaid" which IS CHEEKILY IMPLIED TO BE A BOOK THAT ANNA LOVES in Polar Nights, so Olaf has a REASON to know that story, AS A STORY--

AND BASICALLY THIS CONFIRMS THAT FROZEN AND TANGLED ARE SET IN THE SAME UNIVERSE AND THE FRANCHISE IS GOING TO CONCLUDE WITH AN ULTIMATE CROSSOVER THAT puts Avengers to shame and I SWEAR THAT IT'LL BE SO AWESOME AND--

The Analyst has been dragged off into the night by sensible people. Please ignore his ramblings.

[choices-binglebonkus]

Choices Years Ranked

1. 2017. Most people in the fandom agree that 2017 was Peak Choices™️. It’s when a lot of the best books were initially released or were still airing, like Endless Summer, The Crown & The Flame book 3, and later on in the year, It Lives in the Woods. Endless Summer in particular got a lot of people’s attention because of how it used the friendship system, the clue system, and how it took risks in its storytelling. The staff were also regularly interacting with the playerbase (particularly on Tumblr) in 2017, and since it was still in the early days of the app, the writers weren’t burned out and the staff actually took into account what players wanted. At least, more than they do nowadays. 2017 was truly a different era.

2. 2018. Unfortunately, 2018 got a pretty rotten start because some of the series released at the tail end of 2017 (namely RCD and HFTH) were received very poorly. Things picked back up in February, though, because Perfect Match and Bloodbound came to the rescue, and at the start of the summer, Veil of Secrets came along, too. Admittedly, there were a lot of flops and really mediocre series that came from 2018, but when The Elementalists came out in October followed by The Heist: Monaco in December, the year ended on a very satisfying note, effectively setting 2019 up for a good start.

3. 2016. Offering Most Wanted, The Freshman, and The Crown & The Flame as its starting books that came with the app’s initial release in August, Choices had a solid start. By this time, most of the playerbase had migrated over from High School Story or Hollywood U, giving Choices a try because Pixelberry advertised it in those two games. It was also the only time in Choices history that romance books were outnumbered by other genres (1:2). The writing was solid and the stories were interesting without being overly cheesy or cliched, which made Choices stand out in comparison to other story apps like Episode. There was actually one point where a community creator on episode plagiarized The Freshman and posted the whole thing to Episode. Choices had a modest start, but it was certainly enjoyable, even though its first weekly releasing book Rules of Engagement ended up being a flop.

4. 2019. Even though 2018 ended well, 2019 did not have a good start. Ride or Die was released in January, the first book of the year, and caused a HUGE stir in the fandom. To this day, it’s still the most polarizing book in Choices. Unfortunately, aside from the first book of Open Heart, most of the series released in 2019 were extremely mediocre. It was apparent the writers were overworked and burned out at this point. To summarize 2019, the good books were great, and the bad books were BAD.

5. 2020. 2020 was unfortunately one or two amazing books (looking at you, Blades) with a slew of mediocre books and one or two AWFUL books. That is all.

6. 2021. And I’m sure this surprises literally no one, but 2021 Choices is the worst year yet. Non-VIPs are fed scraps and given VIP leftovers (which, with the exception of WEH and maaaaaybe AVSP, haven’t been any good) and left to muscle through bland books that spout the same recycled plot formulas or tired smutty cliches at us. Will 2022 be any better? I fucking doubt it.

[auburnflight]

Jeanne, Vanitas and Agency

From the little I’ve dipped my toes into it, the VnC fandom seems pretty heated regarding Jeanne as a character. In drastic situations, I’ve seen accusations of misogyny based solely on someone’s comments on their feelings about Jeanne... a single character. And while yes, critiques can certainly be rooted in misogyny (must women be strong all the time? must they be submissive?), I think it’s important to consider not just the character herself, but how the story treats her and why we’re making the critiques we are.

Given that points of view in the fandom are so polarized, I’m going back to canon--to the text itself--to orient this essay. In particular, I’m going to focus on the point of agency--the freedom to make one’s own decisions about one’s self and one’s course of action. This goes beyond just Jeanne’s background as a borreau, trained to fight and follow orders. Agency is also consequential in her relationships with other characters and with the story as a whole.

(Content warning for discussion of abuse dynamics, and brief mentions of sexual assault.) 

--

It’s natural to start off with Jeanne’s first appearance in the story: alongside Luca, she’s introduced as a new agent of conflict with Noe and Vanitas’s budding alliance. In fact, she is the one who initiates the physical altercation with Noe and Vanitas, while Luca is still trying to talk them into giving him the Book of Vanitas:

Aesthetically and conceptually, she’s introduced as an active element of the story. At this point, the “forced kiss” scene during the initial fight seems more like a fluke, a comment on Vanitas’s personality (and willingness to do despicable things to get what he wants) rather than Jeanne’s.

That brings me to why I found it so jarring when colored art of her that was subsequently revealed: that agency fell away to portray a visually more passive air.

In the existing full-color art we have of Jeanne, she’s more static in her environment, looking towards the viewer but with a face that looks rather blank, even meek. Specifically I want to point out this wallpaper, which I obtained from the official site fairly early on in Vanitas’s serialization (December 2016), in contrast to another piece of official art that was released of Noe and Vanitas with Memoire 11, around the same time:

In both cases, the characters are posed intentionally, rather than actively doing something. And, they’re aware of the viewer’s gaze to some extent. However, Jeanne has her back turned to the viewer, and her expression is more idealized and ambiguous. Meanwhile, Noe and Vanitas are rather assertive: their expressions are more intentionally focused, and they seem to know their situation in the artwork. Jeanne is simply passive, very nearly objectified.

...Yeah, maybe this is just my art background speaking. But I also notice something similar happening in other official colored pieces of Jeanne, such as the cover of volume 4.

By this point in the story, lack of agency has become an even more significant element in Jeanne’s character arc: we learn that she’s been cursed. Not only is she unable to speak of the curse, it’s also in direct opposition to one of her primary character motivations, to protect Luca and those she cares about. Due to her uncontrollable urge to kill and drink blood, Jeanne fears that she’ll unintentionally hurt the very people she’s trying to protect. 

Jeanne’s involvement with Vanitas also unfortunately comes with a sacrifice of her own agency. Seeing that she’s been cursed, Vanitas demands that she drinks blood from no one but him in exchange for keeping her secret. He further establishes her sense of reliance on him by promising that if he ever does see her lose control, he’ll kill her (so that she doesn’t harm Luca). Whether he’s simply a smitten 18-year-old who doesn’t yet know how to conduct healthy relationships, or whether he’s crafty and intentionally drawing Jeanne in further--or even whether it’s a mix of both--this idea of Vanitas’s control over her is reflected in the cover art for volume 4.

At this point, considering the literal events of the story, Jeanne’s passiveness is not only visual, but symbolic. In this illustration, Vanitas’s hand is grabbing Jeanne by her bow, and functionally by her neck: she’s being dragged along against her will, with little means of escape. And she looks at the viewer with a surprisingly similar expression to the previous illustration: one that communicates little say in the situation.

This matches up with their literal relationship in the story itself. Knowing she’s cursed, Vanitas is establishing her exclusive reliance on him, in exchange for keeping important secrets from others with whom she’s close (i.e. threatening to drive a wedge into their relationship). He’s already pushed himself upon her physically with clearly no warning or enjoyment from her. Yes, he’s been kind. And when Dominique trails Vanitas and Jeanne on their date, she notes that Jeanne is “terribly weak against any sort of kindness.” But in spite of some more “cute” and candid moments, the overall dynamic between Jeanne and Vanitas is far from genuine kindness. Returning to how Vanitas garnered an edge over her in their initial fight--with taunting, carefully chosen words--I would phrase it more as that Jeanne, a borreau trained to kill and inexperienced with matters of feelings, is particularly susceptible to emotional manipulation. (There’s more than a little irony in this internal comment from Jeanne, at the beginning of her date with Vanitas:)

Jeanne’s relationship with Vanitas becoming important isn’t, in isolation, inherently an issue. In most cases, it’s fun to see how a character who usually appears unshakeable is rounded out when we see them at their more vulnerable times. What makes me feel squicked out and worried on Jeanne’s behalf is how it’s executed, considering how it works in opposition to how she was introduced as a character, and how Jeanne and Vanitas’s relationship harkens back to known dynamics of abuse. 

In other words, my discomfort is not at Jeanne herself for falling for Vanitas and his tactics. It’s at how she’s introduced with a promise of agency in her own story, and that agency is subsequently taken away in how she’s portrayed in official art, and in plot points as the story progresses. It’s at how their relationship begins to fall into a harmful template perpetuated by rape culture, where a man forces himself upon a woman at first, but she is shown to eventually enjoy those advances even when unwanted. I had high hopes for Jeanne as a character developed with her own agency, motives (and yes, for cool fight scenes that WLW like me can admire), and so far, Vanitas’s effect on her has threatened to overshadow these. This is where I think sections of the fandom throwing accusations back and forth of each other being misogynistic, on the grounds of criticizing Jeanne and her relationship with Vanitas, fail to see the wider issue.

Of course, eliciting this sort of discomfort may even be the whole point. Jun Mochizuki is known for putting her characters through tragic and painful situations, and her previous work Pandora Hearts is rife with unstable, imbalanced, and otherwise less-than-perfect relationships. But even without this background knowledge, a decisive scene that convinces me of the intentionality of this purpose is one I’ve written about before: Jeanne’s internal fantasy as she’s left unattended by Luca and loses herself in a storybook.

Here, Jeanne fantasizes about being the agent in her own story, a position that, the art reminds us, is often occupied by a male character such as a prince. Ultimately, this progression looks innocent and could serve to remind us of Jeanne’s more vulnerable, innocuous side. But including it here in the story could also serve as foreshadowing, a contrast to what Jeanne’s situation is like for her in reality. (If you want to read more on this panel specifically, my analysis is in the source link of this post!)

Essentially, critiquing Jeanne as a character requires more nuance than simply judging her individual characteristics. It’s necessary to also take into account the way that the story treats her and her relationships with others and other forces in the story. Not just is she allowed to be soft and emotional, but what consequences does this have for her, and how do the story elements lead the reader to feel about her being soft?

Personally, I think she’s very likeable as a character--her situation just seems unfair, and I feel like she deserves so much better than Vanitas and his schemes. I mean, she could easily destroy him with her gauntlet, and he knows it! But, then, it’s Jun Mochizuki. We should probably expect to be feeling pain and pity for her characters. Still, the relationship between Jeanne and Vanitas has always kinda rubbed me the wrong way, and I think this pretty much sums up why.

[13eyond13]

your fav fictional character and why you love em!

omg thx @morphinejunkie, and sorry for the slow reply! I totally fell asleep right after reblogging that meme hahaha

OK so my fave fictional character is definitely L! It's a bit tricky to articulate exactly why I enjoy him so much, and I think it's complicated by the fact that I feel he's sometimes overrated in the fandom and/or reduced to a lesser caricature of himself in basically every DN adaptation/spinoff out there. But manga!L is very entertaining to analyze for me because there’s always this intriguing duality and ambiguity about his personality and behaviour. Hmmm, let me try to explain... 

THE ODD DUALITY OF L:

HONEST vs DISHONEST- he's clearly often deceptive and elusive about stuff, and yet there's also this sense that he's actually a very simple and bluntly straight-forward person much of the time, too. I have so much fun reading between the lines with his cryptic moods and so many of the unexpected things that he does and says from time to time. And I love that all the other characters around him are constantly doing the same with L, too. Their incredulous double-takes and suspicious side-eyeing of him always makes me lol

EGOTISTICAL vs HUMBLE - there are so many examples in the manga of moments where L is either slyly showing off or possibly being genuinely demure regarding impressive things about himself. It's always so hard to tell the difference and it’s always 10/10

CORRUPT vs THE "GOOD GUY" - he's super morally grey at all times, and I'm always drawn to those more complicated types. I’ve seen the fandom produce so many wildly different takes about his goodness and his evilness over time on both extreme ends of the scale, and I often find it difficult to strike the proper balance when talking about L as well. It’s very easy to characterize him as overly cruel and corrupt or overly noble and kind, and it’s always way more interesting to me when a character is that difficult to define

REFINED vs FERAL - L’s always daintily sipping tea cups in his luxury hotel suite while simultaneously barefoot crouching on the chair and scribbling all over the coffee table with a permanent marker. Everything about him is a bizarre combination of these two polar opposite traits, and yet it always seems to make sense completely whenever you think about it as well

AWKWARD/OBLIVIOUS vs SLY/MANIPULATIVE- always a fun question to ask yourself during L’s more questionable social interactions and shady decisions

KINKY vs TAME- he's so weirdly suggestive and also extremely not at the same time, idk why but it works so well for his character and it's just the funniest thing ever to me lol

OVERBEARING vs ALOOF- he's somehow both incredibly nosy and overly involved and also very detached and distant from everyone simultaneously

LIVING THE DREAM vs TRAGIC, LONELY LIFE- I enjoy the depressing implications that can arise from contemplating his lonely existence and questionable past and the sad way his story ends... but that he's also totally non-edgy and oddly goofy in some ways and seems to be having a great time doing exactly what he wants to be doing, too

I think all this ambiguity and constant tightrope-walking could easily become gimmicky and tiresome in a character, and yet it's so well done and always makes sense and never annoys me in the least. L's somehow both incredibly vague and incredibly precise and consistent as a character at the same time, which is pretty interesting and impressive to me. Light and the other characters in L’s orbit always seem to have the same questions about him as the audience does, and you never get concrete answers about any of it most of the time. There's so much stuff left up to interpretation intentionally by O&O in Death Note, and I appreciate that enduring sense of mystery surrounding some of L’s true feelings and motives even long after he’s gone.

I also can't overstate how much of L's appeal is simply due to what an excellent foil and antagonist he is for Light. L is my favourite, but I think Light is by far the most interesting character and the whole reason the story is such a classic in the first place. The way L constantly thwarts Light and yet also spurs him on to show off and double down on his Kira shit is super entertaining to watch. You gotta respect how effectively L can push Light’s buttons and always keep him sweating, and you really get why Light seemingly both loves and hates their interactions so much. Light's curiously positive emotional reactions to L and his enduring respect for him even after he dies is some of the most interesting stuff about the entire story to me, too. That definitely adds to L’s intrigue, as does the way the successors and the task force continue to muse about him long after he's gone.

Overall I just think L is a highly entertaining and well-written and well-designed character, weirdly simple and complicated and funny and sad all at once, super relatable and a Constant Mood™ despite being so prickly and enigmatic, and a definite scene-stealer for me whenever he's onscreen. I’m not really sure what pushes him to favourite of all time status for me?? But my lizard brain just seems to love him and has loved him for at least the past 12 years. So at this point I must simply shrug and accept my fate

[wildcrisis]

The Detriment of a Pro-Hero Society

Also known as: Kids are kind of being brainwashed into being heroes, let’s look into that.

Dedicated to @deafmic for getting me back into this bullshit and inspiring me to finish something I had started noting out about two years ago. By now, I’m sure much of this has been said over time by various people, and it makes me happy to know that there are others out there who like to look deep into the background culture and settings of their favorite manga!

I apologize in advance if you notice an idea of yours here; I haven’t been active in the fandom in two-ish-years, so I may be restating some things you guys already have. I consider this rambling analysis to be free to use and abuse by anyone, no credit necessary! I only get a little bit of time on the weekends to really be on my PC, so if you send me an ask or reply to this, it may take me some time to reply back!

Anywho, onto this mess I’ve made. It’s not very tidy and is more a collection of thoughts than a properly detailed analysis, but I ain’t got all day. Again, this is messy but I don’t really have the energy to make it nice and neat.

Looking for something in specific? You might wanna ctrl+f around these titles, because this is very long and rambling.

Part I: The Beginning of Quirks and their Effect on Society Part II: What Makes a Villain Part III: M O N E Y and F A M E Part IV: Brainwashed Part V: Ignoring Those Who Need Help Part VI: Cycle/Conclusion

Part I: The Beginning of Quirks and their Effect on Society

So, we know through the manga that, as quirks first began to evolve and more and more people obtained them, the world was thrown into chaos. People had obtained power, and power is as power does, and it corrupts.

As people began using their quirks for evil deeds that broke the law, law enforcement around the world was essentially powerless. After all, during the birth of the quirk age, quirks were the minority. The powerful minority. Against that, men with tasers, batons, and guns hardly stood a chance.

However, just as the rise of quirks gave birth to people who would use that power for misdeeds, so did it bring life to those who had the inherent desire to protect others. The beginning of the age of vigilantes, which would lead to the age of Pro Heroes.

Obviously, All for One was very relevant during this time, but we’re not here to talk about him. For once. We’re here to talk about society as a whole.

The world order was too chaotic. We are aware of this due to the monologues of certain characters, and I assume we’ll be learning more as more of the former carriers of One for All become present in Deku. In this beginning, it wasn’t so much “heroes” versus “villains”, more than it was law abiding citizens versus law breakers. It’s likely that precedent hadn’t yet been established for “no quirk use”, as there were hardly enough people who could actually enforce such a law.

As more of society began to develop quirks, the Police Force made a decision to not use their quirks to take down law breakers. They moved to a more leadership position, and took a backseat to those who did use their quirks for good. At first, it was a hard decision to allow such things as Pro Heroes to take on law breakers who were too dangerous for someone to take down without a quirk.

But why, after all this time, have the Police and the Pro Heroes remained separate entities? Why have they never combined, and why do they remain so polarized in how they approach situations?

The answer is simple, yet multi-layered. Heroes and Villains ... they’re popular. They attract attention.

Part II: What Makes a Villain

If you assign a person the label “Villain”, you de-humanize them. They are no longer a “person”, per se, but a monster. Evil, in the eyes of most people. It’s easier, then, to accept their fate of being beaten by a Hero, and being carted off to prison.

This is an important distinction to make. If you remove the labels of Hero and Villain. If you remove their Quirks. Do people still react the same way? Do they cheer and adore the hero, as the hero beats the opponent senseless? Of course not. In a battle of man vs man, in the moment, humans don’t react in such a way.

We can understand why an adult who lived a hard life may turn to a life of crime. But, hardly to we look as to why or how they got there.

In this world where quirks have become the norm, but are constantly evolving, we must wonder; how are quirks judged? How are they defined? How are people treated, for the quirk they possess?

We have many examples of outcasts, and they possess a wide variety of quirks from “extremely destructive” to simply “strange, odd, not okay in society”.

Shigaraki and Overhaul are both examples of terrifying, destructive quirks. Is it any wonder that their lives turned out the way they did? The power of death was etched into their very DNA. We know Shigaraki’s backstory and how he became who he is today. It’s implied that Chisaki was abandoned or ran away as well.

Then, you have the more odd quirks that, on the surface don’t seem nefarious, but when explained in context, would make people feel uncomfortable. Toga, who’s quirk is to drink blood and transform into another person. Twice, who can make copies of any person and used his quirk for an evil deed. Nemoto, who can force anyone to tell the truth, and lived a life where he realized everyone was lying to him.

Even Shinsou Hitoshi, desperate to become a hero, was put down for what his quirk DOES. Brainwashing. That’s a “villain’s quirk”. Fellow children said that to him so casually, and behaved as if they were terrified of him!

Eri, with her quirk that made her father disappear from existence itself ... Had she not been rescued from Overhaul, what would have become of her? Forced to believe her entire existence was a curse, told that she does nothing but harm people -- as she grew older and gained control of her power, would anyone honestly think she would have led a life of goodness, considering how she was raised?

How many people labeled Villains are currently in prison, because they were treated like outcasts from the moment they developed a terrifying quirk? Was there anyone there to help them figure their way through this world, considering what they’d been born with? Are there services for people who have trouble controlling their quirks, which are truly destructive? Even with laws in place saying that you can’t use your quirk publicly, just LIVING with that knowledge that you were born ... with a scary quirk ... a villain’s quirk ... How people treat you because of that, how you look, what your quirk can do -- do you ever have any friends? Any real friends, that aren’t just people who are scared of you?

Is it any wonder, that people like this turn out to be “villains”? Society is GROOMING THEM to BE VILLAINS, simply for who and what they are and are born with.

Part III: M O N E Y and F A M E

Throwing oneself into harms way sure is a dangerous move, that most people would never bother doing. How, then, do you entice more people to become heroes and take on the villains that are popping up all around for obvious reasons?

You make your Heroes popular. You make sure they look stylish. They have cool attitudes. You make them popular among the children. After all, getting fellow adults in on the Pro-Hero train is good and all, but much like a pro-athlete, one can likely only do Hero work for a certain span of time before their body is unable to take the strain. Maybe say, ages 18-40?

Besides, with more and more people being born every day with quirks, the number of people who turn to villainous activity will grow, right? Especially if you’re not actively helping people manage their quirks, because hey, they’re not allowed to use them publicly so what does it matter?

Kids. Kids will watch heroes on TV, and see it just like any other super-hero show or cartoon. They’ll buy the merchandise. People will begin to hemorrhage money over these heroes, because they’re flashy. They’re kind. They save lives.

Now, not to say that Heroes are just there for the paycheck -- not at all. Many people become heroes simply because they do love to help people. Some become heroes because they want to stop bad guys. Sure, there are some who do it to maybe someday live an easier life, or because it pays really well and they have family to support. But, I do believe that most people go into the Pro Hero business with good intentions.

THIS, is part of the reason that Pro Heroes have remained separate from law enforcement. They are now a business. A very wealthy business. It’s not just hero agencies that make money off of the Pro Hero business. It’s toy manufacturers. Comic book stores. Prisons. Hospitals. Roots of Pro Hero society reach into nearly every type of business that there is, whether directly or indirectly.

Nobody wants that money to disappear by folding Heroes back into the police force. No, they want MORE heroes. More heroes, and more people for the heroes to fight.

tldr: heroes = $$$, so keep ‘em coming

Part IV: Brainwashed

There are a lot of factors that go into making society as a whole okay with something. It takes a lot of time, for one. It takes powerful, well spoken people. It takes lots of media attention. Before you know it, everyone is eating up the same exact thing quite willingly ... and it spreads to the next generation. And the next. After that happens, its something that is well integrated into society, like a freckle that’s always been on your arm -- its just “always been that way”.

I’ve mentioned several times that its odd for people to be so okay with one person beating another person senseless. Again, we know that its considered acceptable, because of the labels we’ve put on these individuals based on their actions: Heroes and Villains.

What I wonder is: How long have people been okay with this? Do they not realize that, in a way, this is history repeating itself?

We know why people don’t dig deeper into this. Pro Heroes are popular and people love them. The media has hand fed the Hero lifestyle to children for some time now. There are schools, MORE THAN ONE SCHOOL, that teach your child how to become a pro hero.

Think about that. It’s not just some extra-curricular activity, like sports. These are schools, designed to take in freshly graduated MIDDLE-SCHOOLERS who have not finished their regularly schooling education, who still have growing bodies and minds, and ... crafts them into perfect pro-heroes. AND PARENTS ARE OKAY WITH THIS -- SOMETIMES EVEN MORE THAN OKAY WITH IT.

These schools send young teenagers onto the streets under a pro-heroes wing to witness and be a part of fighting crime. Not organized crime, like a ring of bad guys or something, but ... random crime. Disasters. From a young age, they may encounter situations with actual dead people. Their training is dangerous. Their powers can be dangerous. One wrong move, and a student, someone you worked alongside, had lunch with everyday, is just ... gone.

There exists a police force in society. There are already pro-heroes. Why, then, is society okay with multiple schools that are practically breeding child soldiers? They are teaching kids everything about how to kick ass, how to take down these terrifying people, how to fight, how to save lives ...

Why is no one looking into why villains exist in the first place? Are these kids ever taught de-escalation tactics? To talk their opponents down? Not everyone out there is using their quirk to be evil for the sake of being evil. There’s always a reason, a purpose.

Part V: Ignoring Those Who Need Help

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Hey, Star Wars had some good points!

I’ve discussed before what makes a villain. People who are afraid of what they’re capable of. People who society has turned their back on. People who desperately need help, but there is no one out there willing to give it.

These people will always find each other in the shadows. They begin, at a young age, being terrified of what they are. What they’ve done. What they can do. Maybe they’ve been kicked out of their families. Maybe they’ve killed before, completely on accident.

The average person turns their back on people like this.

These people begin their lives terrified. Constantly being told that their quirks, their past, their family, what ever it is, will make them end up a bad person. Or, maybe they tell them they’re already a bad person. That fears breeds anger and hate. Hate for this society that would rather see them burn, than offer them any help.

A young boy grows up into a man. He had a potentially devastating quirk that he never really got a good hold on, because he was never allowed to practice with it. Everyone is too scared to let him try. Then, one day, something happens -- completely by accident. He causes a scene. A massacre. He hurts people.

Parents are excited to see which of their quirks their baby displays. Instead of being one or the other, or even a fusion of both, the unthinkable occurs. Its a mutation. The toddler hurts a sibling, a parent, a friend. Terrified, the parents abandon the child, for fear of losing their entire family.

A child is told, over and over, that his quirk will never be good for anything other than being evil. This knowledge rests heavy on his shoulders, its repeated to him yearly as he grows. Then, when he acts on what everyone has TOLD HIM FOR YEARS HE WILL DO, they are surprised. As if they hadn’t imprinted the very notion into his mind.

In a way, Overhaul was right about one thing. Hero society is a disease. People look forward to watching Heroes take down Villains and save the day. They don’t think at all about why these people are villains, how they got there, where they came from. They will never admit to potentially being the reason villains exist in the first place.

Part VI: Cycle/Conclusion

Wow, I have rambled a lot. I don’t think I hit every point that I’ve ever thought of for sure. There’s ... a lot of them. And a lot of comparisons I wanted to make to other superhero anime, specifically Tiger and Bunny, which I believe does an excellent job of showing the ups and downs of hero societies.

What I wanted to make clear in all this rambling mess (which, if you read all of it, I am SO SO SORRY), is that the very existence of Pro Heroes and Villains exist solely because of a few factors that exist in a cycle.

Pro Heroes = $$$ -> Schools for more heroes -> ignoring quirk-related-problems -> more villains -> pro heroes beat up villains -> pro heroes =$$$ etc

There is someone, or some organization, that sits above all of this. There has to be. There has to be some more logical explanation as to why this type of Hero v Villain culture has been allowed to exist all of this time, and things have not drifted more back in the direction of police vs lawbreakers. There has to be a reason that its okay for heroes to be so popular. There has to be a reason that children are allowed to be groomed into becoming heroes. There has to be a reason that there isn’t more help out there for people with these types of potentially destructive quirks.

There has to be reasons.

There has to be reasons for how the Hero Commission moves. There has to be reasons for how the police move. There has to be a reason that society is still allowed to go on like this, and that its become culturally acceptable.

If anyone out there can put all my rambling into clearer words and actively wants to, I would love that. Thank you for taking the time to read my mess!

xoxo Wild

[serendipitous-magic]

a pro-shipper is someone who believes that any ship is okay because “fiction doesn’t affect reality” (including sensitive topics) and that there should be no “fandom police” telling them that it’s wrong. idk your last reblog had me a bit confused

I’ve never heard that phrase used before. No, I wouldn’t sort myself into that particular camp. However, I think the internet gets WAY too polarized about these things. Should people be romanticizing abuse or abusive relationships of any type? No, absolutely not. Ive always believed that fiction has a huge impact on reality (I’ve made posts about it before, but I’m on mobile rn so I’m too lazy to go find and link them), and the more people romanticize abuse in fiction, the more socially accepted it’s gonna become in real life. (See: all the studies about some of the the horrific effects of violent porn.)

However, I think the internet has somewhat lost its ability to differentiate between portraying something in order to explore or reflect upon a dark topic, and romanticizing or condoning that thing. Note how I said up there that people absolutely should not romanticize abuse. But if nobody ever made any kind of art or fiction that portrayed abuse, or any other kind of evil, how would we as individuals and as a society ever process, understand, or make progress? If we Disney-fy and bowdlerize every single thing, we will be an emotionally, morally, and philosophically stunted people.

I was actually just talking about this with a friend, perhaps I put it better there:

“Plus, people have this really weird assumption that portraying something in art in the same thing as.... doing it in actual real life? Which is absolutely ridiculous, not to mention damaging, because art and fiction have always been so much about exploring themes and thoughts and whatnot, and if you say "you must ONLY EVER explore MORALLY PURE things in fiction and never stray into dark or immoral subject matter!!!" ... that limits human thought and philosophy and morality SO MUCH.”

So, to address your ask:

“any ship is okay” nah, not exactly. I don’t support condoning, encouraging, or romanticizing abuse. (And to reference the post that started this, which I might link later when I’m not on mobile, “abuse” here of COURSE includes child abuse.) However, the internet really has to learn that portraying something is not tantamount to supporting or condoning it. If we were only ever allowed to make art about the things we supported or actually partook in, Agatha Christie would be the most accomplished serial killer of all time.

“There should be no fandom police” Actually yeah, I agree. Discussion board moderators and the like, for self contained fandom communities where there are built in guidelines? Yeah, sure. But fandom is a Wild West of art, fiction, and self expression. It’s a sandbox, as people have often described it. I’ll reference that earlier post again and say that if a fan feels that they need their hand held online, and they can’t blacklist tags, block content they don’t want to see, and manage their own fandom experience, then they’re probably too young to be unsupervised online. Again: this is not saying that “oh nazis are allowed to exist, just block them! :)” no. Obviously that’s different. But I think “fandom police” are entirely unnecessary. In my experience, such “police” operate very much like police in the real world: they don’t really make anything safer, they just harass people who are minding their own business.

Also, I don’t think people need “fandom police” to tell them what’s right or wrong. That’s just... I don’t want to be mean here, but that’s ridiculous. For one thing, if a fan genuinely needs a random internet stranger to come in and tell them “that’s morally wrong” in order to navigate morality, that fan is WAY too young to be unsupervised on the internet. For another thing, the idea that somebody (or multiple somebodies) should be tasked with going around decreeing moral value on various fandom trends and topics is just plain impractical. Who’s to say that person or those people are pure bastions of morality? It just doesn’t work that way.

Now, should people have constructive conversations about morality and ethics and philosophy, in and out of a fandom setting? Yes. Duh. That’s the only way human beings made it past the Paleolithic era as a species. And (again, because I feel like people are going to willfully misinterpret this), I’m not saying “oh absolutely any kind of behavior and any message and anything is fine because we all have different opinions uwu.” See the first paragraph. Punch Nazis, eat the rich, and spit in the face of racists, homophobes, and misogynists.

I’ll quote my conversation with a friend again because I feel like it really wraps up my thoughts here:

“Yeah the internet has really ruined the term "problematic." Nazis are problematic. Writing about nazis to explore themes of morality isn't problematic, it's a reflection on and exploration of morality and history. And people don't seem to be able to see the difference between those two things”

And finally, I really don’t see how “it’s your own responsibility to curate your fandom experience and filter out the things that make you uncomfortable; it’s everyone’s responsibility to properly tag and label content so it can be filtered and curated. It is not everyone else’s responsibility to restrict their art to your personal tastes.” ... is somehow equal to “everything is allowed and there are no moral restrictions or ethical code on the internet.” That’s a bit of a leap there.

[ficmylife4]

First Reading, Bakugou. 1-11

I’m not sure what to think of Bakugou so far. I know he’s polarizing in the fandom so I’m trying to see what’s there. For good points, I like that Izuku’s win in the battle trial had a big effect on him. He didn’t make excuses or deny Izuku’s win because he got so hurt doing it and try to make himself feel better with lies. Bakugou also recognized the strength and skill of Todoroki and his other classmates, and after having his worldview shaken, Bakugou rallies and decides he’ll work to overcome them. He didn’t rage at the world not being like he wanted, he’s already the best--Bakugou is going to put the effort in to become the best and stand at the top.

I kind of see where the flashbacks were trying to show Bakugou was a product of his environment, but where did all the anger come from? I saw a note Horikoshi was at first going to have Bakugou be a genius who didn’t realize he was being insulting (of course I can read kanji already, you can’t?), but he decided Bakugou needed a more interesting personality. He still kept Bakugou’s natural gifts like his quirk and intelligence that led Bakugou to think that he was superior was a fact. I can see all the praise that led to the overinflated pride. I can see where the lack of consideration or empathy for others came from if he was the most important, and he was never punished and told to think of himself in his victim’s place when he demanded why. Bakugou is smiling in the flashback where he recognizes Deku is even more inferior than everyone else compared to him, like he’s mentally dropping Izuku down on his list of things that matter. Short-term, a six-year-old boy getting a scare from a fall and pretending he didn’t, and being embarrassed and lashing out at somebody trying to help him up when he’s trying to look tough, makes sense too. But where did the constant, persisting resentment and anger come from? 

It can’t feel good to have that irritation and anger bubbling constantly in your head. If Bakugou was praised and so obviously better than his classmates for years, shouldn’t he dismiss anything they think as not mattering or that they’re just jealous? Why is he so thin-skinned he has to blow up at any remark that isn’t praise? He protests just being included in the teacher saying everyone in class would want to be heroes-it is true he wants to be a hero, but you can’t talk about the great Bakugou and the average student in the same sentence, like that’s an attack on him? It isn’t enough for Bakugou that he’s the best and got into UA, he wanted Izuku to not even apply as if that makes Bakugou look less impressive. 

Bakugou’s reliance on Izuku being nothing, staying after class just to burn his things and tell him he’s nothing, running after him after the villain attack to shout that he did nothing, is...odd. If he was nothing but a pebble, Bakugou could stride forward without looking back at him. Even if Bakugou becomes number one hero, he knows there will be a number two and three and four, right? What is it about Izuku that it isn’t enough for Bakugou to be ahead, he’s deeply offended Izuku would even try? The only possibility I’m seeing so far is that Izuku told Bakugou no. In the earliest flashback, Izuku tells Bakugou to stop because his victim is already crying, and Bakugou and his followers beat Izuku instead. Did that Izuku tried to stop him imply that Bakugou was doing something wrong and he couldn’t take that but wasn’t willing to face why?

What I’d like about Bakugou so far is his relentless drive to the top and being so hard on himself, not expecting it to be handed to him. But him just grinding Izuku into the mud under his feet with the approval of their teacher and middle school isn’t climbing to the top, it’s shoving people under him, which doesn’t match a character who wants to prove himself against the other’s best instead of sabotaging his competition or cheating, and not feeling like he earned a real win at the Sports Festival is an issue later I know.

[tsarisfanfiction]

Remember (Tales From The Heart)

Fandom: One Piece Rating: Gen Warnings: Referenced minor character death Characters: Penguin, Shachi

Penguin was torn between being irritated at the constant chaperoning and pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get information out of these pirates. They told him that he was being accompanied everywhere for his own safety, as the Polar Tang – the name of the ship, apparently, and Penguin was trying hard not to dwell too much on the fact that it was a submarine currently hundreds of feet underwater – was full of hazards. The interesting thing was that most of them seemed to genuinely believe that was the case, horrified when he suggested maybe it was because they didn't trust him.

The captain and the talking bear – what was this, a circus? – were the only two to demonstrate any indication of guilt (even if the captain was subtle about it) if the topic was brought up in their earshot. And then there was the ginger who, after finally reappearing from wherever he'd fled to, firmly attached himself to his side with a blinding grin Penguin knew for a fact had to be fake considering his earlier display, and didn't even bother pretending otherwise.

"I'm just hoping you get your memories back before you start trying to kill us," he said far too cheerfully when asked, and honestly Penguin had no response to that. If he knew he was gathering information in order to successfully destroy the crew then why wasn't he doing something about it, rather than answering every question Penguin threw his way?

Night time came, or so he was told – with darkness constantly outside the windows, there was no way to tell what time it was except to rely on the clocks – and his ginger shadow informed him bluntly that he'd be sleeping with him and forcibly led the way to a bunkroom.

"Bottom bunk's yours," he was told, and he sat on it, wondering who normally slept there. It was warm, as if only recently vacated, so maybe it was the one on night watch?

"Who's bed is this?" he asked, because the ginger had never refused to answer a question. The shorter man's shoulders sagged ever so slightly.

"Yours," he said. That would have made some sense, if there was any way that Penguin could ever have been a pirate. He looked around the room, because if nothing else he could at least find out more information about the ginger.

The desk – if that was what that poor thing was supposed to be – was full of clutter, random pieces of paper and paraphernalia covering it until almost none of the wood was visible. Only a single corner, closest to the bed, was visible. There was just enough room for something to settle there, and considering the contrast to the rest of the desk Penguin was certain something did often sit there. A collection of boots – not all the same size, so this really was a shared room – were arranged in some semblance of order by the door, and some of the weird uniforms he'd seen many of the crew wearing hung from hooks above them. The far wall housed a pair of chests with clothes hanging out of them – the left was far more organised than the right, another indication of two people living in the room – and above them, tacked to the wall, were pictures.

The bounty posters drew his attention first, "Surgeon of Death" Trafalgar Law worth a not inconsiderate amount of beris, while the bear boasted a far more pitiful bounty. Penguin couldn't even buy a decent pair of boots with that little money. The poster for the giant of a man, Jean Bart, looked old and crumpled, as if it had been pulled out a bin. No poster for the ginger now shrugging off his clothes without a care in the world to pull on something to sleep in – Penguin noted the copious bandaging around his abdomen; that was an obvious weakness he could definitely take advantage of.

"You can turn the lights out whenever you're ready," the ginger said, shimmying up the ladder into the top bunk with the ease born of years of practice. Penguin turned away from the wall and headed to the lower bunk, flicking the light switch as he slid into the bed. He didn't bother getting changed, not wanting to wear any clothes belonging to a pirate. It was bad enough that he was spending the night in a pirate's bed.

Sleep came for him faster than he expected, dragging him under almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. It felt… right, but he didn't stay awake long enough to register what that implied.

He didn't know what he dreamed about, but when he started awake, heart pounding and feeling decidedly guilty, he knew there must have been a dream. It was probably his memories pushing at his subconsciousness, and Penguin rolled out of the bed and padded towards the door silently, needing to get out. Knowing that his memories were so close, yet out of reach, was frustrating. He was trying not to think of the obvious gaps in his memory, the things that didn't quite fit, or were just plain missing, and in the daytime, gathering information and formulating plans made for an effective distraction. At night, his mind refused to be so easily distracted.

"You want to talk?" the ginger asked suddenly, startling Penguin. He'd figured the man would be fast asleep as it was clearly the dead of night.

"No," he said shortly, yanking the door open and striding out of the room, mentally counting the seconds until he was caught up, and jumping when it was less than two before the ginger was walking by his side. "Go back to sleep!" he growled, not in the mood for puzzles while he was dwelling on his missing memories. The ginger said nothing, remaining a silent shadow as Penguin stalked his way around the entire ship for the rest of the night.

It was when the rest of the crew stirred, hours later, that Penguin recalled something. Not one of his missing memories, annoyingly, but one of the things tacked to the bunkroom wall. With the call for lights out, he hadn't looked at anything other than the bounty posters in any detail, but there had been a sketch that now stood out in Penguin's mind, registering as important.

His parents. Even without colour, it had been unmistakably them, but they hadn't been alone, and Penguin didn't recognise the man and woman also in the picture, but the boy in front of them strongly resembled the ginger still shadowing him. Did that mean that he'd been telling the truth about them growing up together? If so, why had he forgotten his family but not the others on the island? Why couldn't he have forgotten his parents' deaths?

The memory washed over him, uninvited and unwelcome as he screamed from underneath his mother's corpse until he was pulled out, Noona bundling him in shaking arms as a quiet, scared voice called for his mother.

Wait, that wasn't right. He hadn't screamed, hadn't called for his parents. He'd been struck dumb by the shock, going through the motions but unable to react. It had been the little ginger boy who was crying, begging his mother to wake up even as he'd been drawn into Noona's hold, too. He'd been bleeding – they'd both been bleeding. Penguin saw the gouge by the ginger's left eye, bleeding profusely but ignored in grief. That would scar.

"-uin?" a voice called, jerking him out of his recollections. "Penguin?" He forced his eyes open to see the ginger in front of him, a concerned look on his face.

Ginger. Like the boy.

Penguin lurched forwards, snatching the shades off the man's face to a startled cry. There, by his left eye – twitching and weeping in the light and that guilt washed over him again – was a neat scar, perfectly matching the memory. Penguin touched it, feeling the change in skin underneath his fingertips.

"Hey!" voices shouted, and there were hands on his shoulders, pulling him back from the ginger, who hadn't moved, not even to flinch back. He could have killed him then, it would have been so easy when the man didn't even have the instinct to retreat from him, but the bloodlust had drained away all at once. Staring into snowblind eyes as he was bundled back, his mind supplied a colour for them despite the fact there was no colour visible due to the damage.

Penguin knew this man. It was only one memory, but it had revealed something important, and potentially changed everything. He'd lost his parents to pirates, too. The same pirates, the same attack. Yet, he was a pirate. Penguin still couldn't think what would make him choose that path, but if the ginger had, then maybe… maybe it wasn't so impossible that he had too.

"What's going on?" a voice demanded, but Penguin ignored it, surging forwards and catching the pirates out, many of them losing their grip.

"Shachi," he said, reaching him again and tracing that scar once more. "You got this the day your parents died." The hands that had been restraining him slackened, but Penguin continued to ignore them, waiting for a response. He expected a nod, or maybe a spoken 'yes'.

He didn't expect to be body tackled, the ginger's arms wrapping tightly around him and his face burying itself in Penguin's shoulder as he staggered backwards.

"Hey!" he complained, instinctively catching Shachi. "What are you doing?"

"You remembered me!" the ginger sniffled – was he crying?

"Just one memory," Penguin corrected. "I still don't believe this pirate nonsense."

"Let's take things one step at a time," the captain said. Penguin realised he had been the one demanding what was happening. "You're not going to remember everything straight away. See if you can focus on Shachi for now."

Penguin was dubious – it was only one memory, it didn't prove anything beyond knowing of Shachi's existence as a child – but looking at the ginger sobbing into his shoulder the same guilt he'd woken up with surfaced again. His arms wound themselves around the shorter male of their own volition, and it felt right.

[lyricwritesprose]

My New Who Fic Masterpost For Those Stuck At Home

More fic to take peoples minds off things.  After all, the only things I can do at this point are (a) wash my hands, and (b) entertain.  Please consider reblogging rather than just liking, so that more people will see the post.  And please feel free to comment on AO3 no matter how old the fic is.  Comments feed my ego let me know how a fic works, and they’re also tremendously encouraging.  If you want to know which ones I think are best, I’d pick “Dragons of the Mind,” “Practical Mythology,” and the duology of “They Say” and “Invisible Road.”  But I’m not great at judging my own stuff, so.

Doctorless Doctor Who Stories I think these fit into New Who because they feature some New Who species.  However, they don’t feature the Doctor, and the companion they include is a classic companion.

“They Say” A slave tells a disobedient prince about a planet that eats armies.  Somewhat experimental narration. “Invisible Road” The prince makes his way to the Dark World to save his sibling.  Somewhat experimental narration.

Ninth Doctor Stories

“Homefall” After the Doctor burns Gallifrey, the TARDIS looks for someone who can persuade him to stay alive.  Jossed by later events.  Angsty. “Sense Memory” Rose should try to sleep off the drug.  She doesn’t want to.  Emotional hurt-comfort, mental violence warning for attempted brainwashing. “And Anon Stands For Memory” Outsider POV fic that I wrote when I was still somewhat finding my feet in fic writing.  Basically, the Doctor meets an OC from a world he saved way back in the classic series. “Practical Mythology” Jack’s first night on the TARDIS, and the next morning.  Action/adventure fic with some angst and one of the huge reveal moments that I really love.  Borders on Outsider POV because Jack is new to the team.  Easily one of my most popular Who-fics. “Things of Great Worth” Lighter and fluffier sequel to “Practical Mythology.”  Team TARDIS attends a festival. “Of Strangers and Second Chances” After "Boom Town," Team TARDIS needs to find a place that will welcome an egg with no Family.  Outsider POV.

Tenth Doctor Stories

“Inspiration” Martha and the Doctor try to help with a plague, and Martha discovers something about the Doctor’s past.  Crossover with classic Who. “To Catch Us When We Fall” When traveling with Alonso, Jack gets into an unsurvivable predicament—which is a problem, because Jack will survive it anyway.  It’s a virtually impossible rescue, but Alonso isn’t as alone as he thinks.

Eleventh Doctor stories, Twelfth Doctor stories and others under the cut (there are a lot of them).

Eleventh Doctor Stories

“Dragons of the Mind” Crossover between new Who and classic Who.  In a dark, menacing landscape, Ace McShane tries to work out how she’s being played, and by whom.  Adventure, mental manipulation warning.  One of my more popular Eleventh Doctor stories, and also probably the longest. “Little Details” Rory’s first morning on the TARDIS.  Fluff. “Boxing Day” Wilfred Mott meets Eleven.  He isn’t happy about it.  Angst with a happy ending, containing many thoughts about regeneration. “Just Because” Rory doesn’t feel like he measures up.  The Doctor decides to do something nice for him.  Fluff. “Interleaving” A look at exactly what was up with Amy’s Aunt Sharon, somewhat more sympathetic than most fandom interpretations.  Effectively Outsider POV. “Faces” A look at regeneration, set soon after the ending of “The Big Bang.”  Jossed by later events. “Night Terrors” After the events of “The Doctor’s Wife,” Rory is having nightmares.  He talks to the Doctor about it.  Angst with a happy/hopeful ending. “Edge of Human” After the events of “Let’s Kill Hitler,” the Doctor visits River.  Doctor/River. “Sweet Sixteenth or Close Enough” Mels has a good time.  Rory experiences the joys of time-scrambled fatherhood.  Fluff.  Short-term Mels/Jeff. “First Time Flying” There’s a first time for everything, including leaping off very tall structures.  River-centric. “Goodbye” The Doctor visits a dying friend.  (Canonical) major character death, tissue warning. “Definitions of Victory” River has issues with losing.  The Doctor has his own doubts about winning.  But he also has a lot of experience in changing the game.  Doctor/River. “Cheek” River is one of the few people to learn Gallifreyan without being born there.  Linguistic musing disguised as a fic, with a joke at the end.  Offscreen Doctor/River. “In the Winter Woods” Team TARDIS plays around in the snow.  Christmas-y fluff. “Christmas Punch” After the events of “The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe,” Rory has something important to say to the Doctor. “Freedom and Lies” The Doctor says incredibly disturbing things when he feels like he has to.  An attempt to make an out-of-character idea in character.  Warning for lots of sexual violence in the background of an original character. “Torpor” Vastra and Jenny and huddling for warmth, which isn’t quite as sexy when you have to do it to revive a reptile. “Disaster, Pizza (Comma Optional)” A cracky little crossover with the original Teen Titans show, centered around the fact that both feature aliens with weird taste buds. “A Problem of Background” The eleventh Doctor needs Martha Jones’s advice about a new companion.  Warning: the OC’s background is messed up.  Please mind the warnings.  This is one of the more serious pieces I’ve ever done for Doctor Who. “Always a Bit Left Over” The popcorn button on the TARDIS microwave causes all corn within a two mile radius to violently explode.  Inspired by a tumblr post.

Twelfth Doctor Stories

“Someone Else’s Promised Land” The Doctor promised he would do something amazing in honor of Gretchen Allison Carlyle. “Strange Creatures” Martha and Mickey are looking for an alien hiding at a university.  They find one.  Actually, they find more than one. “Flashpoint” History on the planet Enuan has gone wrong, and it's up to Bill and the Doctor to put it right.  But they're not the only time travelers here.  Crossover with classic Who.

Original Doctor Stories These came about when I was experimenting with the idea of a female Doctor, before Jodie Whittaker was cast. “Polarity Reversal” Unfinished and abandoned vignette that was more a writing experiment than anything else.  Features the same introduction story, once for a male Doctor, once for a female one. “The Lies of Garden” Unfinished and abandoned multi-chapter that began as a sixth Doctor fic and then suffered through me changing all the pronouns to see how it played out.  I think I taught myself some interesting things, and I like the story, but if I ever finish it it’ll probably be by making it into an original dystopia novel.  (Because this thing is about two hundred percent YA dystopia novel.) “Green Menace” Part one of a three-part story arc.  A regeneration story featuring an original male Doctor, a far-future companion, and a classic monster.  Warning: body horror, cliffhanger (continued in the next story, “Maze of Fears”). “Maze of Fears” Part two of a three-part story arc.  Immediately following the events of “Green Menace,” the original companion struggles to fix her mistake and figure out what’s real.  Warning: unreality, disorientation. “Two of Hearts” Part three of a three-part story arc.  A woman named Stella is working at a radio station in a city that seems a little—off.  And then she finds a playing card with a phone number on it, and a note: “The Doctor—call me when it goes odd.”  One classic monster, one New Who monster.

Sarah Jane Adventures

“Du Liebes Kind, Komm, Geh Mit Mir” Crossover with classic Who, slight crossover with new Who.  After she moves to America, Maria Jackson meets young Sarah Jane and gets caught up in an adventure with the Fourth Doctor.  Warning: Mental Manipulation.

[sheikah]

Have you seen Rise of Skywalker yet? Im looking forward to your opinions!

I did! Thanks for your interest haha. I just wanna quickly preface this by saying that I know that SW is very polarizing and that the fandom can be very toxic, people are passionate about their opinions, etc. I don’t want to step on any toes with my opinions. I don’t often post in depth or candidly about SW because I have friends from all parts of the fandom and I’d hate to hurt someone’s feelings. But these are my opinions! (Under a cut :D)

I loved the movie. At first I wasn’t sure, but I saw it a second time with a friend and I loved it. Does it have plot holes, inconsistencies, and issues? Absolutely. It does. It’s far from perfect and I absolutely understand why so many people have such intensely negative reactions to it. 

But if I’m being 100% honest I just wasn’t one of those people. Yes, it was rushed. But that made it interesting from start to finish. I almost always step out to use the restroom during a movie in theaters. I think it’s a mental thing–I’m constantly thinking of how I DON’T want to step out to pee, so I always have to haha. But I didn’t even think about it once during this movie! I just had that much fun watching it. 

I can acknowledge that it had a lot of weaknesses, though, and I’ll talk about that first. I think most of the issues were a result of the film being the end of a trilogy that was helmed by two different people. It felt confused to me at points because I could see where JJ was trying to stick to what he clearly wanted to explore post-TFA while also trying to pick up where Rian Johnson left off post-TLJ. It’s like they had different visions and JJ was trying to include aspects of both in TROS. In a lot of ways, that didn’t work. I don’t want to go into too many nitpicky details but I can sum up my one big gripe by saying I think Finn was done wrong. 

I think this movie had a lot of big character moments for Rey, Ben, and Poe, but I don’t feel like Finn got his due. I also think that from a shipping standpoint he was treated really unfairly. I genuinely felt while watching TFA that JJ was trying to lay the groundwork for canon Finnrey. In TLJ, Johnson went in a different direction with Finnrose and Reylo. So the problem, to me, is that in TROS JJ tried to follow up with Johnson’s Reylo groundwork while still including nuggets of Finnrey. Watching the film, it seems abundantly clear to me that Finn was harboring feelings for Rey that were unrequited. His devotion to her felt one-sided and the almost-love-confession in the sinking sand seemed to confirm that for me. I realize at some fan panel JJ apparently said that what Finn was really going to confess was that he was Force-sensitive, not that he loved Rey. But any viewer watching the movie without that knowledge would not get that from it imo, so the average viewer is left thinking the writing left Finn in unrequited love with Rey. And the writing completely brushed the Finnrose relationship to the side. I’m a Finnrey shipper so I didn’t really love Finnrose to begin with. But since Johnson started it, I honestly don’t know why JJ didn’t just continue it if he was going to continue Reylo. It seems better than spending time establishing Finn’s continued feelings for Rey only to leave him alone, especially since TLJ ended with Finnrose: it should have been easy enough to pick up their relationship and carry it forward. I know unrequited love exists, and exploring it in fiction can be poignant. But in this case it just didn’t track to me, and felt like a slap in the face to Finn’s character and anyone who was shipping Finnrey, Finnrose, or even Finnpoe. There seemed to be no reason to write Finn’s actions toward Rey the way they did if they weren’t going to put them together. Finn wasn’t together with anyone in the end. And in the same vein, shoehorning in a past romance for Poe with Keri Russell’s character just felt like a cheap way to make sure Finnpoe wasn’t going to happen. Idk. But these were the only aspects I really didn’t like. 

I loved the many displays of Rey’s incredible power. I loved seeing Rey use the Force to heal, just like we saw Baby Yoda do in that week’s episode of The Mandalorian. I thought the scene where she accidentally used Force lightning was chilling and interesting foreshadowing for Rey Palpatine, even though I don’t really love that she’s a Palpatine. That being said, as a scorned Dany fan, I really enjoyed the message that who you are by blood should not define you. GoT ultimately ended with the message that your family and your family’s legacy are inescapable, grim realities. TROS had a much more hopeful message. This is also an important message to me personally because I have a lot of baggage with my father and his side of the family. It’s something I’ve struggled with. I never want to be like him. That aspect of Rey’s inner conflict was really beautiful to me and I think Daisy portrayed her struggle with darkness very well. I also thought her vision of dark!Rey was terrifying and really well done. The scene of her looking in the mirror at herself under Ahch-To in TLJ was probably my favorite scene of that movie so I liked seeing JJ utilize similar imagery there.

I loved seeing the trio together on a mission. The chemistry between Daisy, John, and Oscar is excellent and the comedy and wholesomeness between them is what made the movie so fun and memorable imo. I would have been happy with an OT3 for their characters, but c’est la vie haha.I loved the fan service. What can I say? I’m a fan: I like to be serviced lol. I know it was cheesy to some people, but Force Ghost!Luke lifting his X-Wing out of the water for Rey made me tear up. It was a nice callback to the moment with Luke and Yoda on Dagobah. Speaking of callbacks, I also loved the final shot with the binary sunset on Tatooine. I’ll admit I don’t really get why Rey has BB-8, or why she’s alone, or why she would choose to live in a place that even Luke wanted desperately to leave… but the visual and musical parallel to ANH got me right in the feels in the best way.

I loved seeing Ian McDiarmid return as Palpatine, who was as delightfully evil as ever. I don’t really understand how or why Palpatine had to come back, and I am not satisfied with the explanation for Snoke. But the Emperor is a classic and an iconic character I love. Having him as the ultimate baddy was satisfying in its own way. I also thought everything abot Exegol and the Sith fortress was terrifying and visually stunning. Even the sound effects of the lightning, and the way that blended with ominous music, was really interesting to me. I loved almost every sequence that took place on Exegol.

Lastly, (and this is the part I have been nervous to post about haha) I liked Ben Solo. I am not a Reylo shipper. That’s not something I talk about really because I have a ton of Reylo friends and I really treasure those people. The last thing I want to do is hurt their feelings or make them feel unwelcome on my blog. But In TFA and TLJ I didn’t really see that many redeeming qualities in Kylo Ren, and I certainly don’t ship him with Rey. I liked the character as a villain from the first moment I heard Adam Driver’s epic voice and saw Kylo Ren freeze Poe’s blaster bolt in stasis using the Force. I thought he was cool and I loved the crazy sound effects and unstable appearance of his unique lightsaber. But I just didn’t really romanticize him at all. I also thought TLJ ended on a pretty definitively negative note for the character. He told his men in no uncertain terms to blow the Falcon out of the sky with Rey in it. And I didn’t think killing Han and trying to kill Luke was something he was going to come back from. I didn’t really want “Bendemption.” 

I say all this because I think this is one of the reasons why TROS impressed me so much. When it actually happened, I was happy that Kylo was redeemed as Ben. The scene with Han reminded me that above all, this is Han and Leia’s son. No matter how much of a villain I thought Kylo Ren was, I didn’t want Han and Leia both to die and for their son to die in disgrace without ever having made amends for the things he’d done. I couldn’t love Han and Leia the way I do without hoping for some semblance of peace for their family. And when he took off the Kylo Ren getup and dressed more like a regular guy, when he adopted some of Han’s personality, when he stormed into Palpatine’s lair on Exegol blaster blazing, and most of all when he wielded a Jedi’s lightsaber alongside Rey, I loved it. I really, truly loved it. And for someone who went into the movie theater expecting to hate that aspect of the story, I think that speaks volumes. They won me over. They made me like Ben Solo. I don’t really think it’s a great social message for the real world in 2019 to forgive him despite all he’s done. But if I divorce it from real-world implications and just treat it like Star Wars, I’m actually glad it happened the way it did. Leia deserved to have her death mean something. She gave the last of her strength to reach out to her son. Not to Kylo Ren, but to Ben Solo. She and the audience both deserved to see Ben Solo before the end. And for him to make the ultimate sacrifice for Rey was, to me, the best possible way he could go out. I found it to be a very compelling end. His death made me surprisingly sad, but it was a noble death.

Anyway, like I said above, I know the movie has a lot of issues. I haven’t even addressed a fraction of the things I could say about this movie–both good and bad. But ultimately I boil it down to how a movie makes me feel. This one left a strong emotional impact on me and I was happy to watch it a second time. I laughed, I cried, I reflected on why I’ve loved Star Wars for my entire life. So I have to say I liked it. Sorry for the giant answer haha :P

[diarrheaworldstarhiphop]

According to a narrative that’s currently popular in the mainstream media and the more lowbrow end of academia, the recent surge in popularity of the American nationalist right was caused by the radicalization of nerds. Dweeby white manchildren, so the story goes, retreated into video games, the science fiction fandom, and anonymous online forums like 4chan, and formed misogynistic, resentment-fueled subcultures within them. These neckbearded neo-Nazis gradually coalesced into the ‘alt-right,’ an internet hate machine that contributed greatly to Toupee Hitler’s otherwise inexplicable rise.

There are many versions of this narrative. The common feature is the ascription of Trump’s electoral victory — and, in some cases, the surge in right-populism all across the Western world — to the vile machinations of movements of fascistic, internet-based nerds; but the details vary. One version, laid down in a popular Tumblr post (at the time of writing, it has over 22,000 notes), ascribes the rise of the alt-right to a successful campaign by Stormfront to turn 4chan Nazi. Another version blames it on Gamergate, allegedly a hate campaign born out of a misogynist’s attempt to “punish his ex-girlfriend” that served as a breeding ground for far-right extremism, and as the petri dish that they organized in before taking over America. The Z-list Youtube celebrity Zinnia Jones has described Gamergate as “one of the worst things ever to happen” because it “enabled Trump” — apparently, a piece of fandom drama ranks up there with the Spanish flu pandemic, the Mongol conquests, the Black Death, the invention of the nuclear bomb, the post-Columbian plagues that depopulated the Americas, and the unfortunate events of the 1940s.

Deployments of the narrative abound. A popular Medium “32-minute read” bears the headline, “4chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump.” Politico insists that “the Trump campaign … paid rapt attention to meme culture from the start.” CNET helpfully explains that “what began as a backlash to a debate about how video games portray women led to an internet culture that ultimately helped sweep Donald Trump into office.” Chris Grant, editor-in-chief of Polygon, complains that “the overlap between Gamergate and Trump(ism) is astounding. GG was like the trial run for this whole mess.” The Independent, a British paper, speaks out against the “very geeky” Trump supporters of the alt-right, and claims that “The uncomfortable truth, that should worry anyone praying for a Trump defeat, is that the Alt-right following he has tapped into are more numerous and unpredictable than traditional political commentators understand.” And so on. And for every article that explicitly draws a connection between internet-based youth countercultures and Trump, there are a dozen more that simply make a point of mentioning them in the same breath, and let the reader work out the connection for himself. Trump… Gamergate… Trump… neckbeards… Trump… 4chan… Trump!

At this point, it’s worth taking a step back from the phenomenon of heavy internet users failing for the first time to line up in lockstep behind the Democrats, and looking at the bigger picture. Trump’s electoral success was not driven by the alt-right; it was driven by the usual factors. To make a long story short, Trump won because Clinton ran a bad campaign and took unpopular positions on the issues. Insofar as the election was unusual, it wasn’t because Trump posted a picture of a cartoon frog — Clinton made her own bids for pop-cultural relevance, as did her husband when he took out his saxophone on Arsenio Hall’s show in 1992 — but because Clinton, in violation of a long-standing norm, directly insulted large swathes of the voting population with her “basket of deplorables” line.

Trump’s success is also not unusual in a global context. In recent years, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz won a supermajority in Hungary and proceeded to rewrite the Hungarian constitution to declare Hungary a Christian nation and ensure the electoral dominance of Fidesz for the foreseeable future. Britain voted to leave the European Union, and politicians like Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, and Andrzej Duda became household names among the set that pays attention to international politics. Trump is not a uniquely American phenomenon; if anything, he’ll likely prove to be a more moderate parallel to the trends sweeping Europe, just as FDR paralleled the European extremists of the Depression years. Of course, these trends are not just sweeping Europe, as is proven by the victories in Asia of politicians like Narendra Modi and Rodrigo Duterte.

This global trend simply could not have been caused by an obscure piece of American fandom drama. Gamergate and 4chan cannot have contributed to the rise of the right, because the rise of the right happened to approximately the same extent in countries outside the Anglosphere and outside the cultural reach of Anglosphere nerd culture. Even Vox, which once described Trump as “the first Republican nominee whose ethos owes more to 4chan and Gamergate than it does the Bible,” has found that “polarization is accelerating fastest among those using the internet the least.”

Nor could Trump’s rise to power have been substantially helped along by pictures of cartoon frogs. A full analysis of Trump’s victory is beyond the scope of this article, but it borders on delusion to believe that Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania were flipped by 4chan trolls, rather than by such ordinary factors as Trump’s more popular positions on the key issues of immigration and trade and Clinton’s failure to run a functional campaign.

The internet has, however, reshaped American politics; just not in the way pundits say it has. The main effects have been on the left, not the right.

The most obvious effect is that leftists, especially those in the fields that shape and promulgate leftist doctrine, spend a lot of time online. Journalists spend less time cultivating networks of sources and more time ‘building their brand’ and interacting with other journalists; academics network on Twitter; and so on. Connection matters more than ever, and the internet has weakened local scenes and replaced them with placeless ones. Indie game developers from all over the world, for example, can compete for the attention of the largely U.S.-coastal ‘mainstream’ games journalism industry, whose writers are of course all on the same mailing lists, not to mention following each other on Twitter. Journalists, academics, political advisors and the like disappear into their own world — a world where it’s acceptable to wage war on large parts of one’s own audience, or to lead a mainstream presidential candidate to insult a large part of the voting population. And the scenes that are best able to capture the attention of this world will gain power, influence, and the propagation of their norms.

One scene that has been markedly successful in capturing the attention of the journalistic world is the one that developed from the pay-to-post forum Something Awful. Originally a humor site, it became one of the most influential sites on the internet — you probably know that 4chan was created by a Something Awful regular, and that its initial userbase drew heavily from SA. Its influence on politics, however, extends far beyond 4chan. Buckle up, folks: you’re in for a long, confusing, and terrible ride.

In the essay “Exiting the Vampire Castle,” Mark Fisher, who was roundly condemned for writing it and killed himself three years later, attacked not only the identitarianism that has metastasized in academia since the ’60s, an identitarianism in which “the sheer mention of class is now automatically treated as if that means one is trying to downgrade the importance of race and gender,” but also the “paralysing feeling of guilt and suspicion which hangs over left-wing twitter like an acrid, stifling fog” and the “kangaroo courts and character assassinations” that are, as anyone who has observed the state of the left today, overwhelmingly common. This guilt and suspicion, these kangaroo courts and character assassinations, need not have anything to do with politics; in one memorable instance, a once-popular Tumblr communist blogger with the sadly real URL of “fuckyeahmarxismleninism” was dogpiled and laughed into irrelevance for admitting to watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic with his daughters. This was seen as a far worse faux pas than even his support of North Korea. I am, unfortunately, not making this up; I saw it all happen firsthand.

These aren’t the kangaroo courts of Stalin. What they are is the schoolyard courts of Helldump, a Something Awful subforum created for the strange purpose of being a schoolyard court. The Something Awful wiki speaks for itself here: “The official birth of Helldump 2000 spawned a new creative outlet for pedophiles, racists, bigots, Ron Paul supporters, gun zealots, defenders of anime and otherwise crap posters to be outed in a thorough, convincing manner by an astute civilian task force. Essentially, it checks and balances the stupidity that seeps its way into the forums as a whole, although (unfortunately) it does not function as a preventive treatment (shit posters still propagate at an alarming rate). Rather, the modus operandi of Helldump is to profile and insult the (assumed) poor goon for his questionable views, and in turn function as a virtual tourniquet in an attempt to stop the bleeding, as well as force said shit poster into online anonymity and/or reclusiveness.” In practice, most of what Helldump did was dogpile furries.

As a side note, internet lore has it that the population of Helldump regulars itself skewed furry. This is not terribly out of the norm for Something Awful, the admin of which employed Shmorky for ten years before firing him on the sensible grounds that he was “secretly into pedophilia incest diaper shitting roleplay” and allegedly “would get way too excited over [SA admin Lowtax’s kids] coming to the office.” (Shmorky has also been reported to at least have once been friends with Rebecca Sugar, the creator of the TV show Steven Universe, which has a remarkably Shmorky-like art style and has as its target demographic the same Tumblr crowd that Shmorky fell in with.)

Zoe Quinn herself was a SA member under the username Eris, and participated in at least one Helldump dogpile. It’s often believed that Gamergate began when her ex-boyfriend posted a ‘callout’ of her abusive behaviors, cheating, and so on — the “Zoe Post” — on 4chan, but he actually joined Something Awful to post it there first. He was quickly banned for it, and the ban message reads: “Thank you for joining the Something Awful Forums in order to post a giant loving psychopathic helldump about your ex-girlfriend in the forum about video games.” (The original phrasing was “giant fucking psychopathic helldump,” but SA has wordfilters.) The belief in a connection between Helldump and ‘callout culture’ is held by the SA moderators themselves.

Helldump was closed after two years, and many of its regulars migrated to a different subforum, Laissez’s Fair, “the original Dirtbag Left.” The SA wiki entry for LF helpfully explains that it was “opened up to put all the Ron Paul shit” and became a “refugee holding bay” for Helldump after the latter was closed. “Over time people started making effort posts about such things the nightmare that is our criminal justice system, social justice in general, as well as the ideas of Karl Marx. The lack of moderation was made up for by basically shouting people out of the forum who were stupid MRAs and concern trolls. Gradually the complexion of the forum shifted from liberal to socialist.” Eventually, LF was closed, because “LF posters went internet detective on mods and posted death threats,” including several to then-President Obama.

At least two regulars on Helldump and LF went on to get careers in journalism. Jeb Lund, who wrote a vague and rambling essay about his posting career for Gawker, went by “Boniface” and “Mobutu Sese Seko” on Something Awful. Under the former pseudonym, he threatened a Helldump victim: “how about you promise never to post here again on pain of being permabanned, otherwise there’s no reason for all the posters here with lexis-nexis to stop at just your email addresses and not go straight for driver’s license photos and info, tax records… the list goes on and on.” Sam Kriss was (or at least was widely believed to be) Dead Ken, as well as Red Ken, Dub Mapocho, Agenbite Inwit, Dead Skeng, and presumably other accounts. After LF was removed from SA, its regulars established and migrated to explicitly Communist forums offsite; he was a regular on one such forum, “tHE rHizzonE”, which was later given some sort of contest by the leftist magazine The Baffler, whose editor was “a fan” of said forum. (Sam Kriss has written for the Baffler.)

Many people from the more leftist parts of SA went on to become “Weird Twitter,” which was puffed by outlets like Buzzfeed. John Herrman and Katie Notopoulos, the authors of the linked piece, gravitated toward LF superstars on Twitter and tried to replicate their style. Some of them, such as Lund, Kriss, David Thorpe (who had a regular column on SA and is now a music journalist), Virgil Texas, Jon Hendren (who was, as docevil, once an admin of the “Fuck You And Die” (FYAD) subforum, but was shamed off the site after a bizarre incident involving a charity event featuring Smash Mouth and Guy Fieri), and Alex Nichols, parlayed those connections into posting careers.

Herrman also profiled a Weird Twitter poster, @CelestialBeard, whose claim to fame was tweeting a lot, and being followed by Herrman on Twitter. @CelestialBeard has since become a transgender brony.

From Weird Twitter, which attracted and assimilated people who weren’t active in SA’s leftist cliques (such as Felix Biederman and Virgil Texas, who just lurked), came Chapo Trap House, darling of every obscure Slate clone from Brooklyn to Queens. Chapo has featured several SA regulars, including Alex Nichols (@Lowenaffchen), who was active on LF as Golden Lion Tamarin (his Twitter username used to be @GLDNLNTMRN), and Dan O’Sullivan (@Bro_Pair), a now-banned former SA moderator whose username is now Fat Curtain Dweller. It’s interesting that a podcast heralded for ‘actually giving a shit’ comes from a subculture that began as pure trolling.

Providing a precise accounting of the impact of Something Awful on the Anglosphere left is difficult, as it would be with any subculture. The history is oral, largely lost, deliberately obfuscated, and shrouded in irony. It is likely that nothing will come of it, and that, in the end, it will be the farce mirroring the tragedy of neoconservatism: an insane political movement that developed out of a bizarre and insular clique in a world where having the right connections matters above all else, writing things that very few people care about but doing a great deal of damage along the way. It seems that the norms of Helldump have become callout culture, SA users’ trolling of the libertarians corralled in LF have become the dirtbag left, and some of those responsible have written for not only Gawker and Buzzfeed, but also The New York Times.

At the very least, the overlap in population is clear and suggestive. Someone can go from being repeatedly banned from a pay-to-post forum for something involving the word “nigger” to writing for the Guardian, the Atlantic and the New York Times, largely on the dubious strength of his Twitter account and forum fame. There are few lessons that can be drawn from this; the obvious one is that perhaps the media rewards expertise less than connectedness.

I’m told that this is what Gamergate was about. But there are many things I’ve been told Gamergate was about. The internet is something awful indeed. And it’s only going to get worse.

[falneou17]

May 2015 - May 2020

No, this is not announcing my retirement or whatever. It’s just that after doing anything for a couple years, there will come a time when you start to look back and see how far you have come in those years. All the highs and lows, all the milestones and all the achievements.

And I kind of wanted to do something like this for a while; this is not the first time that I looked back at the time I have been writing fanfiction (and I am sure it won’t be the last), but I still want to, you know... document this. Share it in case there are people out there who are interested to see my perspective on this.

I am actually going to start to the time before I was writing fanfiction, because fanfiction was actually not my first experience with writing fiction; I actually wrote a collab original story with my good childhood friend Blue-san back in late-2012/early-2013. I can’t quite remember the date and Blue-san has since closed down her website she hosted it on, but it was in that era.

Shortly after that, in early-mid 2013 I wrote my own original story. I think I might still have it saved somewhere. As a matter of fact, actually, Falneou17′s name comes from that story. Well, the Falneou part anyway; seventeen’s just one of my fave numbers, both back then and right now.

Late-2013 and the year 2014 were both really busy and really weird for me, so I kind of pulled away from writing. That was until early 2015 (around February if I remember correctly) when I was feeling nostalgic and I looked up Pokemon fanfiction. Okay, to be fair, at the time I was looking for Pokemon fanworks in general, but it quickly gravitated towards fanfiction in particular. More specifically, Pokemon Special fanfiction, which was also the time when I read the stories of the six fanfiction writers who inspired me to write fanfiction. Of these six, only 1358456 is still writing, and while I will freely admit that I haven’t been reading her fics since I left the Pokemon Special fandom, I can wholeheartedly recommend her fics!

And that was pretty much how it began, I opened a fanfiction.net account in May 2015 and published my very first fanfiction (for Pokemon Special), Specialventure Academy which was my attempt at a high school AU for this franchise in the early days of the following month. Did it age well? No way XD but it did give me a lot of experience that helped me not only grow but also start out as a writer.

Like, most notably I think, it showed me the error in trying to incorporate everybody at the time (as BW2 wasn’t finished when I wrote that fanfiction and wouldn’t be for years to come, it would “only” have up to BW cast... which, as it included Lyra, Wally, Cherren, and Bianca, got the total to nineteen... yeah...). I think I realized this and tried to rectify my mistake in the second third of the story? Speaking of mistakes, another mistake I made with this story that really helped me grow was learning that my readers’ wishes and hopes did not mean I had to change my writing. Writing to make them happy was one thing, but I remember actively changing parts of my stories at the time to try and please everybody. Which, of course, is impossible (if you have readers who love Yellow and those who hate Yellow, for instance, how can you compromise to please everybody?).

This so far has only been about Specialventure, I haven’t even talked about the other fics in this era. For me, the three biggest fics in the 2015-2016 Pokemon Special era were, aside from Specialventure, Night of the Black Sun and Crimson Sunlight.

Black Sun was a really ambitious attempt for me at the time, not only because of what the story was trying to do but also because it would be my third multi-chapter fic I would be writing at the same time (alongside the other two fics I just mentioned). ‘Controversial’ is probably the wrong word, but Black Sun was definitely... polarizing. It’s also the only fanfiction of mine at the time (and only one of two to this day as of writing this) that received rude negative reviews. And because it was the first fic that received this... distinction... it hit quite hard, but I also feel like that made me realize not only the things that I did wrong but also that what I did had a big enough impact that it could affect other people that much. I think it is fair for me to say that the mistakes I made with Black Sun would not reappear in any of my other fanfictions after that... at least not to the same extent.

The third and final most memorable Pokemon Special fanfiction in this era, for me, was Crimson Sunlight. For the BanG Dream readers: no, this has nothing to do with either Scarlet Sunlight or Shining Sunlight, we’ll get to those soon enough. Looking back, from a writer’s perspective, Crimson definitely felt like it had a drop in quality, but at the same time it also felt the most... accomplished... of the three fanfiction. And Crimson basically taught me two things, I feel... it emphasized the importance of having a story’s plot planned out and it showcased how fluid the story could be if I were to focus on as few characters as possible (Crimson, being based on and inspired by konbu’s doujinshi titled How Far Are You?, focused on Red and Yellow and only Red and Yellow). And, out of the Pokemon fics in this first year era, Crimson is definitely the story I feel didn’t necessarily age the best but it is definitely the one I look back at the fondest.

The time around the end of 2015 and the start of 2016 I remember there were a few big things happening to me. Let’s talk chronologically: the first big thing that happened (that has no direct effect on my fanfiction, but I never said this post was to only look back on the fanfiction-specific times in the last half decade) was that I got promoted to moderator on the forums of JB2448′s site (the forums has since been taken down in... mid-2017? Mid-2017 sounds about right...), but the actual site is still live for those who want to use it to read Pokemon manga. I think this is worth noting because it would really hammer the point that what I did and said had an impact and that I had to be mindful of what I said online as a result...

The other notable thing that happened was that I got introduced to RWBY by DaPokemonMadster. There may have been more people involved, but Mads was definitely the one whose efforts to drag me into RWBY is the vividest... most vivid? It’s the one I remember the most, let’s keep it at that. This moment was significant for multiple reasons, I feel; not only did it open the doors to a new fandom, but it also sparked the birth of not only my longest oneshot at the time, White Rose Valentine, but also the fanfiction that would turn writing fanfiction for me upside-down: Field of Tomorrow. More than any other multi-chapter fanfiction I have ever published, even more so than Black Sun and Specialventure, Field of Tomorrow has been the biggest turning point for me in terms of writing and in terms of where I can say my writing got a big jump in quality (as arrogant as it is to say that). Despite the fact that, you know... FoT got officially discontinued earlier this year...

The writing, the story, the characterization... FoT introduced me to the ease of writing of both Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna (who would later become the base for another very notable character for me) as well as Neo (who would later become the base for yet another very notable character for me), but FoT did something else as well: beta readers. Before this point in time I would either publish the chapter right away (which, if you are a new/aspiring writer: don’t do that) or try to edit it myself. But, as I am sure every single writer can attest to: there is only so much editing that a writer can do on their own. And FoT really showed the difference between a chapter that I would edit by myself and a chapter that had a beta reader look at. It was phenomenal and a really big eye opener and I cannot thank Namitaa776 and LightZephyr enough.

The final fanfic that I can remember really fondly in this first year (I can’t believe I have written this much down already and we haven’t passed the first year yet) would be my one-year anniversary oneshot A Silver Lining. The Pokemon fanfiction that I think aged the best and would be partly the base for a fanfiction I am well known for in the BanG Dream! fandom. Before this point, I did not have any fanfiction deal directly with death before. I had danced around it a couple of times, but this oneshot was the first one to actively explore the possibilities... and to truly open the door to the “Angst” genre of the site... as a matter of fact, if it wasn’t for A Silver Lining, I might never have delved as much in the Angst genre as I have. So... thank you, A Silver Lining, for that opportunity. Even if I really hate the ending, but oh well... I think I was afraid that people would hate it if I were to go all in with it which is why I ended the oneshot like I did. I learned my lesson as the BanG Dream! fandom can attest to...

The rest of 2016 (the calendar year anyway) proceeded relatively uneventfully fanfiction-wise. I continued my multi-chapter fanfics that were ongoing, wrapped up Specialventure in August of 2016 and decided to stay mainly in the RWBY fandom because I felt the RWBY fandom gave me better reader interactions and reviews and such than Pokemon did. Specialventure definitely got the advantage in terms of view count, but the number of views a RWBY chapter would get on the day it got uploaded always baffled me. Then and now... especially since I was never a really big RWBY writer to begin with...

The good reader interaction in RWBY was, of course, until I published the fanfiction that I so very often call the fanfiction that did the worst. My fourth-most favorited (41), my third-most followed (35), my fourth-most viewed fanfiction on the site at the time of writing... Frozen Tears got one review. That was really demoralizing--okay, no, let me rephrase that. It was nice to see the counters of viewership and faves and follows rise up, but FT was definitely the fanfiction that made me realize that an effectively high review counter is what I wanted and that I had to find a new fandom to write for. I am sure a lot of writers can agree with me here: we like it when our fanfics get views, we love it when people fave them, but we absolutely adore it when people leave reviews.

As it so happened, the summer of 2016 was huge for me in terms of finding new franchises to like and watch. Most notably out of these, I got into Railgun, Index, Accel World, and my first of a handful of idol franchises: Love Live. Accel World is the only franchise I just mentioned that I have not written anything for, but fans of the franchise should be able to find plenty of references I made to that show. With both Pokemon and RWBY effectively behind me, I now had options for my third fandom...

Then we arrive in the year 2017, which I think... yeah, in terms of calendar year it was definitely my most memorable year. Let’s start with the fanfiction, because 2017 had a bunch of really notable fics for me.

The first thing of 2017 I want to mention is the Saten Ruiko Day Countdown that I did in 2017: a series of oneshots that would lead up to Saten Ruiko Day (10 March). They weren’t just any oneshots; no, they were all oneshots for a different franchise dedicated to LightZephyr and beta read by Namitaa776 (for those wondering why I didn’t do anything like it for Nami: I did something else for her that I didn’t publish for the whole world to see). Looking back, the oneshots themselves would be... they would be okay... decent... ‘good’ at best, probably. But on top of everything, they would be like a trial run of sorts to test out the different fandoms. Giving me a chance to see how writing for each would go and how the fandoms would react to my writing. The one that did the “best”, so to say, is by far the one for Love Live, but (and this is what is interesting to me) the ones for RWBY and Pokemon were actually the ones I think did the worst (both only receiving a single review). You know... the two fandoms I had already written for... low blow, Pokemon and RWBY, low blow...

But the oneshot I wrote for Love Live isn’t the one that’s most memorable for me. This is because I would receive a certain PM a few months later from BigTAnderson. He wanted to do a fanfiction reading of one my fanfiction for this countdown (A Step Back In The Shadows). And I was really happy with this; not only did somebody else wanted to do something with/for something that I did, but this felt more memorable than an average review of “I LOVE IT!” to me. It was confirmation that I was doing something right. And, unless I am badly mistaken, I think this is the first time somebody would do something with one of my fanfics. I know Reiriniverse would go on to regularly make the cover art for my fanfictions, but I am pretty sure that this fanfiction reading would be the first work based on one of my fanfics that anyone has ever done for me. And that is something one won’t easily forget, so if you miraculously are reading this BigTAnderson: thank you :)

The next notable thing of 2017 is probably my most polarizing act since publishing Night of the Black Sun in 2015: officially moving away from Pokemon and officially joining BanG Dream (not in that order, admittedly). The BanG Dream fandom at the time was only a couple weeks old, but it really was a big contrast to my time in Pokemon Special. In Pokemon Special, as you would already know if you’ve read this far, I had role models. I had people I could follow and learn characterization and figure out story ideas and such by reading their stories. BanG Dream had nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, I ended up becoming the writer of both the first English published BanG Dream fanfiction on the site (A Step Back, 2 April 2017) and the first published English multi-chapter BanG Dream fanfiction on the site (The Times We Lost, 10 April 2017) during a time period when we still didn’t know much about... I want to say at least a third of the characters at the time? Maybe even half now that I think about it... As a matter of fact, to put it into perspective: the first chapter of TTWL was published (not written, published) before the end of the second in-game event story on the Japanese server (because... we only had the Japanese server back then).

I am not going to be arrogant and say that I hope I can inspire an aspiring BanG Dream fanfiction writer as much as someone like 1358456 has inspired me, but... the realization that I would have to pave my own way in this fandom without having landmarks to aim for was a big deal at the time. Even today, this realization catches me off-guard every once in a while knowing that I am the only BanG Dream writer who published something in 2017 who still publishes on the site for this fandom to this day.

Another big thing that happened in 2017 was that I got admitted to the hospital and would have to spend half a year to recover from it, effectively making me miss out on an entire semester. ...oh yeah, I probably did not mention this before, but the entire period of writing fanfiction for me up to this point was done while I was a full-time university student. This semester off was honestly a blessing in disguise for me as it forced me into a position where I couldn’t do much... so to eat away at the time I needed to rest I would end up writing fanfiction. Which is part of the reason why The Times We Lost and The Times We Lost Collection could be updated and uploaded as fast as they did. And I definitely remember both very fondly, especially since I had to extrapolate a lot of the characters’ characterization as we did not have much to go on. Remember how I mentioned two very notable characters earlier back in FoT? Yeah... my experience with Weiss, Blake, and Neo in my FoT days definitely helped a lot with getting a base going for both Mitake Ran and Aoba Moca in the days before we had their first event story.

As I mentioned earlier, TTWL and, by extension, TTWLC, will always have a big place in my heart. They’re technically an AU where I had to be very careful with how I wrote the characters... at the same time having a ton of freedom to do so as not a lot was confirmed/denied about them. A cute example would be the different hairstyle I had for one of the characters... which ended up becoming confirmed in canon (in a flashback, admittedly) a few months after she appeared with that hairstyle in my fanfiction. TTWL also set the stage, so to say, for my time here in the BanG Dream fandom and it carved my niche as an Afterglow-centric writer who is able to write both fluff and angst for the girls. Not to mention that TTWL was literally the first multi-chapter BanG Dream fanfiction we have on the site.

Collection ended up being written because TTWL had to extrapolate a lot. It had to make this new realm of reality with headcanons and theories and such that went into writing TTWL to try and make the characters feel alive. Some ended up becoming confirmed, some were debunked, but to allow future readers of TTWL to truly understand where I was going and why I wrote the characters the way I did, I knew I had to make a sort-of prequel to TTWL. Which is pretty much what Collection was: a collection of oneshots that were mainly set prior to the events of TTWL to try and explain all the headcanons and theories I ended up using in the TTWL. Most of these, by the way, still live on in other fanfictions of mine to this day.

Next up: 2017 was my first successful attempt at the NaNoWriMo. For people who don’t know, NaNoWriMo involves writing fifty-thousand words in thirty days (equating to an average of 1667 words each day). I wanted to do it for BanG Dream, I really did, but I wasn’t confident I knew enough about the BanG Dream characters at the time to succeed in NaNoWriMo. Instead, I decided to go with something Railgun-based and The Nighttime Terror of Academy City was born. It honestly was so much fun writing that I ended up writing well above the targeted average each day (although I probably will never be able to replicate that effort); writing seventeen hundred, eighteen hundred, at some point even surpassing the twenty-two hundred word count quite regularly, actually. And, while definitely not as bad as Black Sun received a year or two prior, Nighttime Terror also received a bunch of rude reviews. So much, even, that it prompted me to make every guest review have to be moderated first before they get published.

As if all of that wasn’t enough to make 2017 probably the most memorable year for me, the final notable fanfiction for me that got published in 2017... you know it, you were waiting for it to be said... every writer has that one fanfiction that they are more known for than any other fanfiction they have published, and for me... BanG Dream fandom definitely know me as the writer of The Final Glow of Afterglow. A oneshot that aimed to surpass A Silver Lining I published a year and a half ago... and, as the writer of both oneshots, I think it is fair for me to say that it definitely did that. The plot of the two stories are different (they do overlap noticeably), I feel like TFGOA not only left a bigger impact but also has better stats (most notably more reviews) despite being much newer and in a much smaller fandom. I am sure people will associate me most with TFGOA for a long time to come and, honestly... if there is only one of my fanfiction that can survive the tests of time, I sure hope it is TFGOA. TFGOA also stole the title of longest chapter that I published, previously held by RWBY’s White Rose Valentine (jumping from ~7k to ~11k words).

2018 was a lot slower for me mainly because it was my last year in university. I think this was best showcased in the quiet era in the end of 2018 and the fact I had to slow down my third BanG Dream multi-chapter story Scarlet Sunlight. Scarlet, by the way, has a lot of fond memories as well. It was the first time I could really let loose with BanG Dream (aside from TFGOA, of course), while also more or less acting as a FoT 2.0 in a way. It’s also the first multi-chapter fanfiction, since FoT I think, where I had a constant beta reader throughout the entire process. And I feel like that really helped Scarlet shape up into what it is. Am I claiming it is the best BanG Dream fanfiction out there? No, of course not, even Scarlet has its faults. But I think it definitely did well for itself, even compared to my other notable fanfiction I have mentioned already despite being so new. Scarlet managed to break past the coveted 100k word mark (being one of two BanG Dream fanfiction at the time of writing this to achieve this, the other being teawithmugi’s Reign of Silence). It is also my longest fanfiction at the time of writing this, in terms of number of chapters, in terms of word count, and in terms of how long I wrote the story from start to finish. Yeah, Scarlet will always be fondly remembered...

2018 was also the second year in which I did something for Saten Ruiko Day (and so far last year as I missed both 2019 and 2020). Same concept as 2017, effectively, but instead of switching the franchises I tried to do something... interesting (or what I thought was interesting anyway). I knew BanG Dream wasn’t very popular nor had it a lot of fanfiction, and there isn’t much worse than searching for fanworks of your favorite and not running into any. So what I would do was write a oneshot that had two randomly chosen BanG Dream girls, and I would fill up the countdown that way. I literally gave every girl a number and pulled a random number generator to assign each girl with in pairs for the sake of the oneshots. Sure it would still leave out a handful of girls of the franchise but it was the best I could do at the time. It also was a really good experience for me as a writer to try and write so many different characters (especially when, again, we didn’t know too much about them as of yet).

The other notable thing that happened in 2018, I feel, was that it was when I began writing more Shirokane Rinko. I think this is notable for several reasons... first of all, up to that point, I always struggled to write characters who were shy. I always excelled at loner-type characters (Silver of PokeSpe and Blake from RWBY were by far the easiest characters of their respective franchises whom I could write; and before RWBY fans come after me, this is the time before Blake really opened up to the rest of her team. We’re talking V2!Blake here). What I am trying to say is that Rinko was a challenge in and of itself to write, but she’s amongst the characters I am most comfortable writing today.

Secondly, and this is just stroking my own ego to be fair, is that Rinko’s introduction to my fanfics (or, better phrased, the fact that I wrote her more regularly now) came with a very amusing perk. What started as a playful and fun headcanon at the time quickly evolved into a ship that I managed to drag most if not all my regular reviewers into myself. It’s actually kind of amusing looking back on that.

The next year I would describe as “the year I return to the past”... in the sense that I would do things related to things I did in the past, in a way. I published a Pokemon Special oneshot in 2019, something I think a lot of people would have missed as it didn’t do nowhere near as well as l would have expected. I wrote two oneshots specifically to surpass TFGOA (Flying Through The Skies Above and Their First Date in two different “categories”), but neither made as big of an impact as TFGOA did.

Late-ish into 2019, at the end of August, I received a welcome surprise: a five-part ask that basically came down to someone telling me that I did the one thing I always wanted to do: inspire aspiring writers. This was a big moment for me, maybe even bigger than being asked if someone can do a reading of one of my fanfiction, because... it was concrete proof, actual evidence that what I did, that what I produced... it made a positive impact on other people’s lives, it helped make someone’s day brighter just by doing what I do on a daily basis. Flower anon, I have no other way to refer to you or even ask you how you are doing, but if you are reading this: I am honored to be able to inspire you.

The only other thing of note that happened in 2019 was the increase of anon hate I got and that I entered the Akuma no Riddle fandom for a few weeks. A few weeks because my experience with that part of that fandom was... let’s just say it was less than ideal and leave it at that, shall we?

And then, here we are, in 2020. I honestly don’t see myself publishing too many unique stories, but I will try to keep the train going with Shining Sunlight. I am taking a big risk with Shining as it is the first fanfiction since Black Sun where I am writing a multi-chapter story without having a very defined plot... and we all know how Black Sun went, right~? That being said, it’s half a decade later, I have learned so much in these last few years and I am feeling confident in Shining and what it can become.

I know I have focused more on the multi-chapter stories in this post than I have on the oneshots (with some notable exceptions), but the truth is... for me as the writer, there’s just so much that is being put in the multi-chapter stories that the oneshots are simply lacking. Which should speak volumes to oneshots like The Final Glow of Afterglow and A Step Back In The Shadows to remain so memorable and notable for me despite being “only” oneshots.

These last five years have been... amazing, really. The highs and lows, the ability and access to a platform to continue doing this. It’s been a lot of fun, it has really been life changing, and while I know I won’t be doing this forever... I sure as hell will make sure I will enjoy every second of time I am doing this!

[aurorapillar]

Title: one eye and a heartbeat   Fandom: One Piece Characters: Trafalgar D. Water Law, Basil Hawkins (mentioned) Warnings: Implied eye trauma Summary: Law wasn't afraid of torture, he'd been hurt plenty before and it had never broken him, but he couldn't say the same about if his crew were to be tortured.

It wasn't that he was worried about them spilling information, he had confidence in their ability to stay quiet, no what worried him was what he might do

AO3 Link

The concept being tortured had never been something that phased Law, it wasn’t something that he wanted to have happen to him of course, but he didn’t really hold any fear towards being hurt.

It wasn’t pleasant, but he’d had plenty of experience dealing with pain throughout his life; his lungs and muscles had burned while running from bullets in Flevance, in Spider Miles he’d been bruised and knocked around during training, while traveling with Cora-san the White Lead Disease had wracked his body with pain, at Punk Hazard Vergo had put him through the wringer until he got his heart back, and in Dressrosa he'd been beaten and shot and nearly killed. None of that had managed to break him though and he was confident it never would, but he couldn't say the same about if his crew were to be tortured.

It wasn't that he was worried about them spilling information, he had confidence in their ability to stay quiet, no what worried him was what he might do. Back when he'd been a child fresh from the tragedy of Flevance he'd been filled with anger and hadn't thought he'd ever be able to let himself care about anyone again, not that it mattered to him much given the short amount of time he had left to live, but Cora-san had managed to worm his way into his heart against his will and he'd found himself once again with someone he didn’t want to lose. He had lost him though and the cracks that had barely started to smooth themselves out turned jagged again and tore into his heart.  

He'd sworn to himself that he wouldn't care again after that, but he hadn't been born a person who could be happy truly being alone and so somehow two bratty teens and a polar bear mink cub had become important to him. As the years passed more nakama had come along and while they couldn’t replace those who were gone, they were still invaluably important to him and he wanted to protect them. If there came a time when he had to choose between the Alliance or protecting his crew he knew he wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice the many to save the few, it was selfish and certainly someone nobler than him like Strawhat would try to save both groups, but he couldn’t risk losing anyone else. 

The first loss of his family and friends had broken him and it was only Cora-san’s kindness that allowed him to put himself together as much as he had; the loss of Cora-san though had shattered him, all the pieces he’d so carefully glued back into place stabbing at his fingers when he tried to pick them up. It had taken years and the support of others to get back to even a semblance of the person he’d once been and even then there had still been pieces missing; somehow though, he knew that if he were to lose anyone else he wouldn’t be able to survive it.

That was why he’d been so quick to trade himself in for his crew, with them free they couldn’t be used against him and he’d fair far better as a captive then they would. Not to mention if things went well he hoped that he’d be able to learn some new information, of course, he knew that the enemy would also likely be seeking information as well and probably wouldn’t hesitate to use force to try and obtain it. That could work out for him though, it was amazing how much people would tell you when they thought you were at their mercy.

As it turned out he was right, both about them wanting information and being willing to use force to try and get it; he’d been roughed up even before being questioned, his head slammed into a wall until blood ran down his face, which he found rather stupid; giving a prisoner a concussion wasn't very conductive towards getting coherent answers out of them. No one had bothered to ask his opinion on how they should beat him up though.

He was pretty sure his ribs were cracked as well thanks to a particularly vicious kick that had been aimed at his midsection, but since they didn't seem in any danger of piercing a lung at the current moment he ignored it, smirking through the pain as Hawkins finally started the questioning.

'What are the Alliances plans?' 'Where is everyone hiding?' 'Who exactly is part of the Alliance?' Each question was interspersed with more beatings when he refused to answer or gave nothing but a sarcastic comment in reply, but he remained unimpressed and unfazed. For pirates and a member of the Supernovas, Hawkins and his ilk were rather underwhelming when it came to the whole being intimidating thing. Or maybe it was Law's own fault for having spent too much time around much more intimidating people like Doflamingo.

When the question 'What is Straw Hat planning?' Was asked, he found himself unable to hold back a snort, truth be told he honestly wasn’t sure Straw Hat was even capable of planning things; at least not beyond a basic go here, punch that. He certainly wasn't very good at following them, no, his talent in regards to plans seemed to be in throwing them off course.

One of Hawkins companions didn't seem to appreciate Law's amusement at the question, or maybe it was the mocking jab he'd made at the groups intelligence following his snort that he hadn't appreciated; whatever the reason, he'd drawn a knife and lunged forward, the blade slicing across Law's face and straight through his eye. Despite how well he'd been holding up until then, Law couldn't help but let out a hiss of pain at the unexpected attack, with blood clogging his sight and no access to his Devil Fruit it was impossible for him to tell how bad the damage was, but the sting of his eye didn't bode well.

Dimly he noticed Hawkins and his companions dragging the attacker out of the room, but he was too focused on keeping himself calm to do more than idly note it. An eye was not something he knew if he could fix, if it had been carefully removed he probably could put it back in place, but one that had been slashed he didn't know what he could do about. There was no point in panicking though, the damage might not even be that bad and even if it was, the loss of an eye was not some life-threatening injury.

The change in depth perception would take some getting used to, but there were plenty of pirates out there who had lost an eye and still got on just fine, Roronoa Zoro for one. There was a chance that the loss of some of his sight could have a negative effect on his ability to perform some medical procedures, but with his fruit to help him that could easily be dealt with.

Really the biggest worry Law had in regards to the possibility that his eye might be irrevocably damaged was not anything to do with how it would affect him, but rather how his crew would react. For all that he’d heard it said that his crew didn’t really fit him, which wasn’t entirely wrong, after all, they were quite a bit nicer and more openly affectionate than he was; there were still things they had in common, and one of those was their protectiveness towards those they cared about.

His crew had been angry, both at Doflamingo and also a little bit at him for sending them away, when they’d found out about his arm having been cut off; though thankfully they hadn’t learned about his other injuries and quite frankly he hoped they never would. In a situation like the current one, where he had been injured after having traded himself in for them, they wouldn’t just be angry, they'd feel guilty and that was much worse. Anger Law could deal with, his crew usually wasn't so foolhardy as to run off without any thought to get revenge, but guilt was much harder.

He might have been the captain of a crew known as the Heart Pirates, but he really wasn’t any good at heart-to-heart type of things, he didn’t know the right words to say to comfort someone over their perceived failures. Actions had always been his method of choice for helping his crew, he did things like patching up injuries and slicing up anyone who threatened his crew, and left things like physical affection and emotional reassurances to Bepo, Penguin and Shachi.  

That wasn’t going to work for the current situation though, not when it was those three who would likely need their guilt assuaged, so he’d have to do things differently. Of course, given his own precarious mental state, which had improved somewhat thanks to Doflamingo’s defeat and the talk he’d had with Sengoku but was still a mess, he really wasn’t qualified to help someone else deal with their emotional turmoil. That wouldn’t stop him from trying though, he had a duty to his crew both as their captain and their friend.

Of course, there was still the possibility that his eye was fine or that the damage was superficial and something he could fix, but Law hadn’t made it as far as he had in life without learning to assume and prepare for the worst possibility. It was better to make plans now that he might never have to use, then end up in a situation that you were unprepared for.

As important as planning things out was though, it seemed he'd have to wait a little bit longer to do that. If the figure approaching his cell with a ring of keys was any indicator, it seemed things were about to get interesting.

[taki118]

Fenabela the looked over ship (a DA2 meta)

~~slight TW: mentions of abuse~~

Fenabela is one of those things often pushed to the side in the Dragon Age fandom, I find. Despite being a cannon ship there aren’t many fics or art dedicated to the pair. This is especially noted when compared to Adoribull (and the fact that the personalities of Dorian and Bull parallel Fenris and Isabela)

Now part of this is of course taste, most people having dubbed Isabela their wife or Fenris their husband and disliking pairing them with anyone other than Hawke or shipping with other npcs. To each their own I realize not everyone can multiship.

However I have noted a few general misconceptions or certain readings that get passed around and a few critics on the narrative that really need to addressed.

And I will display and counter these things here so strap in. (Obligatory sex joke)

Before that I want to state it is not my intention to tell anyone what they can and can’t ship. However I have found a good deal of unwarranted hate towards this ship and wish to defend it and explain why one might ship it. I do greatly enjoy this pair but I will do my best to remain objective.

I don’t like the characters

Of course if you don’t like characters involved in a ship you won’t like it. But Fenris and Isabela are often misunderstood or misread so I’ll go over some things for each quickly.

Fenris

Generally speaking Fenris is the fan favorite of DA2 (and I think a surprise one to the BioWare crew as I’m fairly certain they thought Anders would be the most popular).

However if you aren’t a fan of the broody archetype you likely won’t like him at least for half the game, towards the end he grows to be more relaxed and open.

Another general issue with him is his hatred of mages and support of the Chantry. While his feelings are understandable it can get grating. But again this softens as the game goes on if you weren’t an ass to him by the end he is willing to put his own issues to the back to protect mages and even stating he respects Mage Hawke or Bethany indicating mages who prove themselves to be humble and strong willed are able to earn his trust.

Isabela

Now Isabela is, at least I’ve found to be, one of the more polarizing and misunderstood characters in Dragon Age, and as such I’ll do a more in-depth meta on her at a later date. But here are some common things noted in regards to this ship.

People often think Isabela is a selfish bitch who doesn’t care about anyone but herself. However this is only if you don’t learn about her. The best quote I can give is from Act 3 between her and Anders.

Anders: I always knew you had a heart of gold

Isabela: shush don’t tell anyone.

Isabela has lived a life where she was shown that no good deed goes unpunished and as such tries to hide this aspect of herself. You gotta remember the whole reason she did the Qunari job is because she couldn’t go through with bringing slaves to Tevinter and was forced to steal the tome as compensation.

It wasn’t built up/rushed

Now I can’t be certain on this as I obviously don’t work for BioWare but it should be noted that:

1- this was the first time BioWare had a Love Interest romance and likely wasn’t sure about how much they should do. The next one was Talibrations in Mass Effect 3 that had around the same level build up followed by Adoribull that was given more time to develop naturally.

2- It seems like they wanted to do more but with the notorious 2 year time crunch by EA couldn’t. You can see this in the purposely added dialogue for them in dlc

Of course I am only guessing here but given this it sort of makes sense why it is the way it is. they were likely trying to find a balance between believable and non intrusive that was later utilized better in DAI but you gotta start somewhere.

Fenris doesn’t like Isabela or her flirting

I just um ok this is just so wrong I’m sorry I’m trying to be objective and shit but like come on.

So I know the line most go to, to prove this it’s

Fenris: From what I gather, you like a lot of things.

Isabela: Nonsense. But when I see something I like, I go after it.

Fenris: I suggest keeping your distance.

BUT that’s only if Fenris is romancing Hawke if he isn’t the banter is instead

Fenris: From what I gather, you like a lot of things.

Isabela: Nonsense. But when I see something I like, I go after it.

Fenris: Do you intend to go after me, then?

Isabela: Will you take off all that spiky armor you're wearing?

Fenris: It's been known to happen.

That’s a big tone difference isn’t it. In the first version he pushes her away as he’s interested in Hawke currently but in the second he’s flirting right back.

While yes in Act 1 he’s unsure and unused to her flirting but by Act 2 he’s willingly playing along. I mean he wouldn’t offer to play “Guess the color of my underclothes” with her if he didn’t enjoy it. It’s a safe way for Fenris to explore his sexuality and the only reason he tells her to back off at that time is because he’s serious about pursuing Hawke.

And no matter what Fenris respects her if only for one thing

Fenris: So you freed a group of slaves?

Isabela: Would-be slaves. They weren't slaves yet.

Fenris: Still, you did the right thing. Many would turn a blind eye.

Isabela: Don't read too much into it, all right? It just seemed a good idea at the time.

Like fundamentally I don’t think Fenris can hate someone who freed slaves.

It’s toxic/just about sex

I feel like this is more a jab at Isabela but again it’s over simplifying her character. Because here’s the thing most people over look when saying this ship is toxic for Fenris cause he’s a sexual abuse survivor ISABELA IS ONE TOO.

Isabela doesn’t really talk of her past much but from the dialogue given in game and tie in material we do know that

- her husband Louis purchased her from her mother young in the 10-13 age range

- he likely intended to groom her to be his perfect bride what with the lessons, gifts and such

- he forced himself on her and when isabela rebelled against him it’s implied he either did or was going to allow his friends to do so as well. To again let me reiterate a girl young enough to be his daughter.

Regardless of what exactly happened this did effect Isabela just in a different way. Isabela took autonomy of her body back once he was dead. Look some survivors of traumatic experiences are terrified of ever encountering it again but others continuously face the action head on to refuse it power, both are valid ways to deal with it. One is just less noticeable/sympathetic.

This line of thinking also ignores that literally the first intimate thing Fenris does when he enters a relationship with Hawke is have sex. They don’t ease into it just bam sex, but I have yet to see a Fenhawke is toxic hot take. which I mean I could make easily. Don’t believe me?

In the act 2 romance scene Fenris is angry, raw and emotional and taking it out on Hawke verbally before psychically pushing Hawke against a wall. when Fenris realizes what he’s done and pulls back Hawke immediately kisses him and they have sex. I could say Hawke took advantage of Fenris in his emotional state for their own sexual gratification. I don’t actually believe that but I could claim it. if you’re thinking that’s insane, you are correct but that’s the point it is very easy to twist things to fit a narrative if you really want to.

Now you might be thinking “Well it’s different Isabela just wants to use Fenris for sex” and if you think sex is just sex with Isabela you haven’t been paying attention.

Again I’ll go more into this with my isabela meta but to her sex is safe, it can’t hurt her but people can so she keeps them at arms length. With sex she can get the pyshical closeness she craves while keeping her feelings locked away in one night stands/flings. So the fact that she WANTS to continue seeing Fenris almost immediately after their first tour below deck is telling. And the fact he wants to continue just as much shows the relationship is as much his choice as it is hers.

And speaking of sex...

the memory plot hole

The main confusion I see people have with this ship is the Fenris gets memories after sex bit. And I get why it’s kinda vague but let me assure you it’s not a plot hole.

When you romance Fenris in Act 2 he leaves after having sex with Hawke due to memories returning and being unable to handle them. The confusion I see is often “so what sex with Hawke was so good it gave Fenris memories but not Isabela?” Or “why is it only Hawke?” The answer, it’s just a matter of timing.

The scene in question with Hawke only takes place in Act 2 but Fenris and Isabela don’t hook up until Act 3 and those three years in between make all the difference.

Act 2 Fenris has been free from Danarious(I will not spell his name right sorry) for at least 6 years but he’s still controlled by the man. He’s pissed at the lack of leads and when he gets one demands you go after it immediately and will straight up leave the party if you take too long. The reason is twofold he wants revenge and he’s afraid.

Fenris has only just started to carve out a life for himself in Kirkwall but he’s terrified that whatever life he has there will be torn away by Darnarious. Cause it’s happened before. So when he engages with Hawke and he’s flooded with these mostly happy memories it’s too much. He can’t handle it, at that time.

In just three years Fenris becomes a much more open and relaxed person. by Act 3 he has weekly card nights with Varric and Donnic, willingly helps Aveline and is even more relaxed about mages. The idea that he once had a life and a family before Danarious and that he can have one now isn’t as daunting or impossible to him as it was in Act 2.

It’s not that he doesn’t get the memories when sleeping with Isabela it’s only that he’s now in a place where he can handle them. Had Hawke the option to tell Fenris to take things slow in Act 2 the pair likely would not have separated. However that’s not what happened Fenris thought that he could handle it but couldn’t as he was in Act 2.

Don’t believe well Fenris himself says so to Hawke in Act 3 when asked why he left.

Fenris: the pain, the memories it brought up... it was too much. I was coward. If I could go back I would stay.

I’m not surprised people either missed or didn’t pick on this bit it happens late in the game and it is entirely possible to miss this branch of dialogue but it’s there and confirms what I stated. It’s not a plot hole only a matter of timing. Hawke had bad timing Isabela didn’t.

By Act 3 he’s in a better place mentally and is able to feel okay with the memories, with intimacy and with the idea of having a life. Whether or not Fenris and Isabela are serious about the relationship is irrelevant (though I head cannon they tell themselves it’s just a fling only to still be together years later) it’s the fact that he feels he can engage in this fashion with someone that’s important.

It should have been Isabela x Merrill

Now I can’t argue with people’s taste that’s ridiculous and I can see the appeal they’re cute. However it’s not something they could simply put in the game like Fenabela.

Let me explain. The reason it works in DA2 is cause it’s a light, flirty and fun type relationship and even if you don’t ship it, the idea is easy to chew off. If you play through their romances the idea that the two characters with huge trusts issues hooking up for fun isn’t that hard to buy.

Merrill however would require more than a couple teasing lines of dialogue. The reason being her romance plot.

The first thing Merrill says after having sex with Hawke is “I love you” if you don’t think Isabela would freak out at that and jump on the first boat she could find I don’t know but I’d like to hear your reasoning.

It takes Isabela a long ass time to be ok with saying and being told that with Hawke. It’s a big part of her romance arc.

Sooooo if one were to play through both their romances then play a game where they got together off screen it would require more dialogue than what Fenabela got otherwise it’d be a far bigger plot hole issue as the pair do not move at the same emotional speed.

Like I can’t see Merrill being into having a casual fling even by Act 3 and I can’t see Isabela being ok with a serious relationship either without a good deal of added dialogue and scenes.

Now this one is the most subjective part of the meta, I’m well aware, but with how BioWare handles their side romances Isabela x Merrill just could not be folded into the narrative as easily as Fenabela and likely would have been too intrusive for those uninterested in side romances.

So we’ve covered the main misconceptions and complaints on the ship. now to get into why Fenabela does work, and why people like this ship.

Their romances parallel each other

Something I noticed about the Kirkwall crew (and I might make a meta on it damn I got so many things to write) is that they each parallel and reflect each other (which is one of the reasons I dislike the Sebastian addition cause he kinda screws it up)

Aveline and Varric:

- Both are non romanceable

- Need Hawkes help to sort out their personal lives

- Both thrive in the friendship Hawke gives them

Merrill and Anders:

- both thirsty AF for Hawke and immediately move in

- both have blinders on in regards to their goals and ideals, Merrill with the mirror and Anders with well you know

- this also causes problems for both in their relationships with Hawke

So then we have Fenris and Isabela

- both wear a mask of indifference in Act 1 that is peeled away by Hawke in Act 3

- both runaway/try to distance themselves from Hawke and their relationship in Act 2 only to renew it in Act 3

- and both NEED to feel they can trust Hawke in order to move forward

Now unlike Merrill and Anders who’s conflict with Hawke is mostly situational (ie were it not for the mirror and being in Kirkwall aka mage torture capital of the free marches, there would be no problem) Fenris and Isabela’s conflicts are purely emotional and an emotion they share

Leading us to

They are damaged in similar ways

The main conflicts in their romances is fear.

A fear of happiness and a fear of love.

They both think that if they were to get that which they desire most they’d lose it or it’d be used against them or most of all they aren’t deserving of it and will never receive it.

And this is entirely because of what happened to them in life prior to arriving in Kirkwall.

They lived lives where love and happiness were things that could be used against them. A weakness to exploit or a reward to be taken away. So it makes sense that for their romance arcs they have to have trust to believe this love and happiness with Hawke is worth the risk.

So it’s safe to say that we’re they not romanced by Hawke it’s only natural they’d be drawn to one another. We often look for similarities in our partners sometimes it’s in appearance, others it’s values but for them it’d be their shared pain and fear.

Hawke: you’re not afraid of being hurt you’re afraid of hurting someone else

Isabela: no I look it isn’t like that it’s just easier this way

Isabela: you were right. I wasn’t afraid of love I was afraid of being loved.

Fenris: I killed them all

Hawke: why would you do such a thing?

Fenris: I felt it inevitable. My master had returned and this...this fantasy life was over.

Fenris: I’m sorry. All I ever wanted was to be happy...just for a little while. Forgive me.

Its why they are implied to have a more casual relationship in Act 3 than they would with Hawke. Hawke doesn’t have the same issues with intimacy as they do thus would take longer. And there is an appeal to the idea of two people finding comfort and support in one another even if it’s only temporary.

Isabela = fog warriors

So this is something I literally just noticed as I was working on this meta but um the Fog Warriors who helped Fenris after he first was free of Danarious whom he speaks of fondly greatly resemble Isabela at least in the traits he describes that he seems to find the most appealing.

Fenris: I had grown fond of the rebels. They bowed to no master and fought for their freedom.

Fenris: I had only been with them a few months but in that time I had felt I truly lived. They were bold, strong, free with their affections. I was in awe of them.

Like let’s take what he says here out of context for a second.

He says he was in awe and felt truly alive with someone who was

- bold - strong - free with affection - rebellious

- defiant - strong sense of freedom

That kinda describes Isabelas base personality perfectly. I can’t state that this was intentional or even if Fenris was aware but it’s not a long shot to say that Fenris would be drawn and attracted to people like this for this reason.

Their banter is cute

I mean I know it’s subjective but they do have some great back and forth and if you enjoy flirty snarky people it opens up some great opportunities in fan fiction and such. Characters who play well off each other are always more desirable and they got a great wise guy/straight man thing going.

They spend more time than we know together

A thing that can be overlooked easily it that each act has about 3 years in between them making the total run in the game about 9 years. We know from banter that the various characters interact with each other regularly regardless of whether or not Hawke is there. (Something I wish they could do more if EA got their heads out of their asses and gave us re release!)

Anyway we know from these brief moments that

- Fenris lets isabela visit the mansion

- isabela helps him out from time to time

- she’s one of the few people who’s opinion on mages he considers

- they play cards and/or make bets with each other

- they interact enough that Varric takes notice in the MOA dlc

it’s again something that’s fun to play with in fiction.

To summarize

- it’s not toxic

- they like interacting with one another

- there is no plot hole

- it’s not just about sex

- they were the easiest to pair up on the side

- they parallel each other

- share similar fears and traumas

- their personalities are fun to play with for fans

Fenabela really does not deserve the hate or lack of care it gets from the fandom. It’s the story of two damaged people finding support in one another if only for a short time and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying that.

Again I’m not saying this ship is better than any other, I’m not trying to get you to jump ship all this meta is here for is to clear up some misconceptions and unwarranted hate, and bring some much needed spot light to this ship that is often overlooked.

Anyway I want to thank anyone who read through this whole thing for their time and if you’d like to discuss any points here with me please reblog with “makers breath” first and I’ll 100% be up for talking (if you didn’t bother to read and just want to rant at me I will ignore it) I plan on making more of these as well as finishing fics but this topic has weighed on me for some time.

[askthedevicer]

So let’s talk about North

@dc-200 did an excellent character study for her, and so now I want to go into the META of it all.

Because, as we all know, North has always been something of a polarizing character, and I don’t actually think it has anything to do with her, but rather with how the narrative uses her.

Again, dc-200′s post goes into North’s personality, so I won’t rehash that. I will add that North has all the makings of a protagonist. She’s got the tragic backstory, the Cause, the drive, the passion, and she goes through character arcs. Also, the way her backstory is handled is impressive. 

After all, her being a Traci model is an entirely controversial and tragic thing, but all of that is implied. The game never goes into graphic detail for shock value, or uses it to suppress North, or uses it as an excuse to have people shun her. When she and Markus share memories, he doesn’t ostentatiously point it out to positive or negative effect, and she never lets it hang her up. It can be inferred that her experiences help shape some of her extreme personality, but it does not form who she is. She is not defined by her past.

Speaking of her extreme personality, North does tend to follow the principle of “The needs of the many outweigh the few” in that she believes in gaining the freedom of her people at all costs. I won’t make a judgement call on whether this is a positive or negative thing. I will say that it’s important to note that she doesn’t believe herself, Markus, Josh, Simon, or any of the “Leaders” of Jericho to be above this belief. It shows in the Stratford tower scene, when she points out that Simon becomes a liability, and also in the Jericho battle, when her first concern is that her “people will be slaughtered” and when she doesn’t asked to be saved after being shot. 

Point is, North has a deep and complex character, so why do so many people see her as just some violent android?

Simply because, while her character is complex, her role as utilized in Detroit is not.

North exists to be Markus’s understudy, and in the event that Markus does not die, she serves only to highlight the his more ruthless decisions. This is paralleled by Josh’s pacifist options. From a game and storytelling standpoint, these two serve to make Markus’s dual paths more dynamic....Except, they don’t. There is a clear difference in how the narrative treats Josh and North, despite the fact that they serve the same purpose. So instead of pointing out two opposing but equally valid arguments, Josh and North just end up being the proverbial angel and devil on Markus’s shoulders.

This is, of course, the first problem. The “devil” is North. At least, it’s really easy to make that connection, and devil has a great many negative connotations. When the pacifist route leads to unmitigated success, the violent route does seem to indicate that it is the "evil”path.

As if to reinforce this, North’s route leads to many unnecessary deaths. This is the second problem. Don’t trust the security android. Don’t bring back the newly deviated androids. Shoot Simon. Kill the Stratford guard that ran away. Start a war with humans. Use the dirty bomb if necessary. Everything North advocates stems from fear and ultimately leads to more death. Maybe there was supposed to be some high-handed allegorical themes somewhere, but it ultimately just made North look cowardly when, if you didn’t pick her option, she just turned out to be wrong every time.

This brings us to the third problem. If hypothetically, the game were to remove Josh and the options he advocated for, we lose the fandom-acclaimed “best ending.” If they removed North, what would they lose, really? This is the crux of the problem. The player is never punished for choosing to side with Josh the way they are if they side with North. Even Markus’s relationship with North doesn’t suffer when following pacifism.

If, even once, siding with North had been mandatory for the best ending where everyone survives, the existence of her character would have been 100% validated. As it is, North exists so that if the player makes a mistake and kills off Markus, the overall plot of the game doesn’t get derailed completely. That is the most tragic thing of all.