#and THIS is the behavior that actually keeps people away from this fandom. the blatant racism imperialism and colonialism

[zanguntsu]

attractiveness and morality - or how people think with their metaphorical dicks instead of their brains

people are fucking horny over the villain characters in bleach, i mean specifically the male ones because as we know the female villains are nonexistent lol. but it’s not hard to see how attractive the male characters are even though i just refuse to acknowledge men unless i have too.

however, there is an issue with how we perceive the characters based on how attractive they actually are, more along the lines of how people will excuse any offensive behavior based on physical attractiveness

the convicts oops i mean examples

there are a few examples i can name like popular male villains that people lose their shit over.

aizen is the big one, where despite the crimes he has committed, such as emotional manipulation, attempting to wipe out a whole town, murders, and hollowfying his colleagues and getting away with it. yet, he is sympathized, especially over Tousen who tends to be more villainized by the fandom or at least held in a less favorable regard.

Gin is in the same boat, with the emotional manipulation and general emotional harm inflicted on multiple people but is sympathizes because uwu he loves rangiku even though he did cause her harm, simply because he betrayed her and hurt her friends and colleagues.

Ulquiorra is another very notable one, since he also has that whole manipulation thing although not as blatant as aizen. he did kidnap a minor and abuse her (isolating her, threatens her and her friends, and it is used to control her/keep her in captivity).

Grimmjow is another example, and its especially notable because he’s just very very violent. And he never apologizes or feels remorse for it, despite generally terrorizing Ichigo and co.

Nn*itra is especially reprehensible, he is overtly sexist, as most of his violent acts are targeted at women and uh. actively saying he hates women. creepy (implied sexual) behavior towards a minor as well.

Szayel as well, he has no regard for his minions, and then theres whatever he did to nemu what the fuck that was so fucked what the fuck.

notably, these men are also wildly popular among the fandom. they will have the most fanart, most discussion, most fics i guess. 

why do horny fucks sympathize with them

people empathize with people they see as attractive, and i mean conventional attractiveness. note how none of this empathy extends to people who do not fall in the category as attractive (often pale side eyes) hunk/twink. does zommari get that attention? yammy? why are they not held to the same standard as say szayel/gin or grimmjow. yammy is also angry and prone to violence, much like grimmjow.

what sets them apart is that they are not deemed sexually attractive so therefore, their flaws become easier to ignore and they arent sympathized as much. of course, kubo probably did inadvertently create this problem, seeing as theres a discrepancy in creating a complex character. another example of this is the comparison between byakuya and omaeda. of course, they are obviously different characters, byakuya has more development and screentime. however they are similar in that they are wealthy, in high positions of power, and look down on people they deem inferior for a variety of reasons. byakuya, however, is conventionally attractive and also has screentime. that being said there is an underlying issue of fatphobia as well in reducing omaeda to a comic relief character.

people empathize with attractive people or at least favor them. “People more strongly desire to form or maintain bonds with physically attractive partners relative to unattractive partners—an attractiveness-based affiliation effect (Path B). In turn, through projection, attractive partners are perceived to possess attributes that are compatible with these goals, which largely center on their reciprocation of interest in establishing or maintaining close relationships (Path C).”  this is indicated by the halo effect, “the tendency for positive impressions of a person, company, brand or product in one area to positively influence one's opinion or feelings in other areas“ which also applies to beauty and how attractiveness impacts how one recognizes a person. for example, an attractive person will often be associated with positive traits such as compassion, intelligence, and other desirable traits. it could be things like how appearing well groomed heightens others perception of you, how you will appear responsible and capable.

and this does extend to the villains. aizen is viewed as a tragic villain who fights for injustice or something like that. gin is a tragic antihero i think that did everything for his true love tm. ulquiorra is a tragic villain who does not understand love. grimmjow is grimmjow. nn*itra is somehow tragic with an inferiority complex lmao take that fucking L bug boyyy loser. and szayel... exists. see how fanon interprets these characters despite none of them having any remorse for what they have done. the fandom leaps to provide a justification or rational for their actions no matter how abhorrent they are. yammy and zommari are still held as villains, yet they are not sympathized with in the slightest nor are beloved to that extent. compare the sexualization of these men and the amount of sympathy garnered from the fandom. 

why this matters

its no secret that in online spaces especially, offenders are romanticized or at least sympathized. take the true crime community for example, in which case male serial killers were romanticized despite the atrocities they have committed. and this is linked to the “bad boy” trope that is prevalent in romance novels, where a troubled or dangerous man seems like a desirable partner despite stalking their love interest among other crimes. of course, this also gets a bad rep from wattpad ya books and just ya books in general.

there are examples of this trope. i have vaguely alluded to edward from twilight. there is also the cause of that white guy from 50 shades of gray, which is most known for romanticizing abuse but the audience cannot help but be allured by his white guyness or something/ there is the netflix film “you” where a man stalks a women but it is seen as romantic and people find themselves attracted to joe despite his violence. literally this type of behavior:

there’s ted bundy film and how people raved about how hot he was despite him being an absolute monster and having real victims whos family have to live with the fact that people find their family member’s killer hot. it is this in its absolute extreme, where people are fully aware of their crimes but still find sympathy or attraction towards a criminal. in this case it is the gradual romanticization of violence that may creep up. i cannot assuredly claim that there is a strong correlation between finding villains attractive and romanticizing violence but there can be some indication of this.

and this view of how attractiveness can bleed into criminal court. of course, there are other factors such as gender, sexuality, age of judges and the inherent corruption within the legal system. here is a list of studies about this topic because christ i am not copy and pasting all of that go read it yourself.  but the main takeway is that in mock jurors and other public opinion, the more attractive defendants accused of crimes have less severe sentences or even less sentences (however this is not seen as frequently in judges). it shows that there is a level of sympathy, leniency, or more compassion towards attractive people. 

Conclusion

the point being made here is that attractiveness affects how one sees a person. yes, it is possible to find villains attractive, however the bias of physical attractiveness and actual character can potentially be dangerous if left unchecked. this is not exactly a call to action or a psa because a) i am fully aware that this fandom is horny to the point of brainrot and that it is incurable and b) this is just an analysis on behavior in the fandom. and i am aware that the studies are cishet in nature and are not indicative of the fandom as a whole seeing as there are a fair amount of lgbt people in this fandom. that being said, my point still stands.

[nightswithkookmin]

IS JIKOOK REAL?

In light of everything that's happened over the course of the month: Taekook in the Soop, the missing birthday post on Jimin's birthday and the following silence that's ensued in its aftermath- we are all still waiting for Jimin's birthday VLive; every Jikook fan past and present, deep and shallow, I feel, is left wondering whether Jikook was ever as real as bigfoot and the Easter bunny, a figment of our imagination. Is Jikook real, we all wonder.

Now, I can't answer the later with Vim and Vigor without opening myself up to all kinds of law suits under the sun- I don't care much for the skepticism and ridicule that usually follows. Nor can I in good conscience come out here and outrightly out these two that I feel are in fact a couple and dating. That would be very hypocritical of me.

The best I can do in this instance is to stream my consciousness and share with you why I believe them to be a couple? Let the records show, I am full on delusional. *smiling.

I think when it comes to Jikook the universal consensus within the fandom is that they have a really special bond. We can all agree on that much. Their bond is unique and just plain beautiful; the days of disclarity and obscurity over whether they even like each other long gone.

Thus I refrain from indulging in any conversation that calls to question the intentions of either party towards the other when either act in a certain way that most find displeasing. Such as, questions about why JK didn't promote Promise or Friends, why he didn't wish JM a happy birthday. Is Jk envious of Jimin or vice versa, etc.

Such questions as simple and as innocuous as they may seem are always hard for me to answer. JK promoted Promise, had the funniest reaction video to it. He promoted Lie, every chance he got with teasing Jimin's dance moves in Lie, literally had a gun to Jimin to perform Lie in run and that hand on his heart said it all. Is that not promotion enough?

We heard serendipity, you are me, I am you and the many tireless times JK has talked about it- he won't shut up about it. What more does he need to do to show he loves and supports Jimin's career?

I find when people ask these kinds of questions that they are operating on the mentality that JK doesn't love Jimin *enough* or worse that Jikook ought to love each other in a certain kind of way, their own arbitrary ways and to their own satisfaction.

I keep reiterating that this is their love and their relationship. Ours is just to observe how they are choosing to express that love for eachother and uWu while we are at it. Lol

That's not to say that we shouldn't have certain expectations of them if we believe them to be a couple. Expectations are important and necessary to sustaining our belief in them as a couple. But that expectation should be reasonable and should be determined by the patterns of behavior we see in them towards eachother, towards the group and with consideration to their values, culture and beliefs- stay with me.

If our expectations of them is that they are not loving eachother enough or in a way that satisfies and appeases our spirits then that's no longer expectations. That's projecting.

Thus, I'm often discombobulated by the questions i recieve on the quality of love they express towards each other because quality is relative and highly subjective.

Jikook only have so much room to express their love and affection for eachother since they are not out yet and so we may not fully be privy to the extent of the love they express for each other much less to ascertain its quality.

The space they inhabit is a working space and when the cameras turn on it is work and business...

That being said, what they are not doing within this constricted space they have is equally as important as what they are doing within this space. Whereas questions of the quality of their love is irrelevant, to me as an Alt shipper at least, I find questions of the degree of love between them highly important.

Jikook's special bond is indisputable. The conflict then has always been about labels, whether or not that bond they share is purely platonic, romantic or something in between- the degree of love between them.

And I see there are different schools of thought on this matter. There are those who operate on the assumption that Jikook are just special friends and reserve the possibility that they could be something more to them.

Then there are those who believe they are real or could be real but reserve the possibility that they could also not be real.

These are the conventional shippers. They play it safe. Good for them. But then there are the full on delulu folks such as myself who are risk takers and go all in or nothing- alternative shipping.

To me Jikook is real or I am not shipping them in the way that I ship them at all. Lol. Chileee, I prefer Yoonmin, Minimoni, Jihope, Vmin, Jinminkook, Vminkook as conventional ships for fun and what not. Jikook has always been that alternative ship for me.

And as an alternative ship, what Jikook do for eachother is equally as important to me as what they do not do for eachother. If Jikook are real then I think it's imperative that we have reasonable expectations of them in the way that they behave with eachother, enough to distinctify them as a couple within the group.

Couples are expected to behave in a certain way marked and defined by the couples themselves but that also set them apart nonetheless. Some people choose to be in an open relationship, may be friends with benefit etc but will still exude certain patterns of behavior definitive in itself that it distinguishes them from mere friends.

If Jikook are a couple they will define their relationship in a way that sets a standard for them such that this standard sets them apart from the rest of the group. And I think I have mentioned some of those standards as intimacy, speaking eachothers love language, exclusivity and the right to claim amongst others.

Yes JK loves JM and vice versa but are they loving eachother as friends or lovers? What are the patterns of behavior they put up or not put up to distinctify themselves as a couple within the group if they are one?

Yes Taekook are friends, but are they putting up distinctive characteristics that set them apart from Jikook? The answer is a resounding no- atatattatatatat, no buts. I'll bitch slap you. Lol

Tae cuddles Jimin and shares a bed with him but that is ok because they are besties soulmates. Vmin cute. Tae cuddles JK and suddenly the fandom is in uproar? Chilee, what's y'all on?

This is why I shy away from conventional shippers- well, some. The tendency they have to dismiss certain certain moments when they happen or import standards into Jikook's dynamics based on their own understanding of intimacy and romance without taking into consideration what Jikooks understanding of romance and intimacy is baffles me.

These are the people who would scream why is Jimin blowing kisses at Suga here, why is Jk cuddling Tae there without considering whether skinship with others is a deal breaker for Jikook. JK does skinship with Jin, Tae and suddenly they are questioning whether Jikook is real- I really can't relate.

If skinship is not a deal breaker for Jikook then such reactions to moments like these are nothing but censorship of JK and Jimin's behaviors and goes to question the quality of their love which as I said is irrelevant to the determining of the realness of Jikook.

If you think these skinship they do with others are disrespectful towards eachother then indirectly you are saying Jikook's relationship is toxic- but toxic relationships are still relationships and so that doesn't invalidate Jikook's relationship or disprove it.

If you expect JM to behave in a certain way because you think he is in a relationship with JK or vice versa that is no longer reasonable expectations of them but blatant censorship.

Put censorship aside, the question of the quality of their relationship aside, our own personal idiosyncrasies aside and hopes- what do you see?

REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS

I mentioned above how it's imperative to have reasonable expectations of Jikook if you believe them to be a real couple because without these expectations Jikook is no different from any other ship in BTS.

I talked about what constitutes reasonable expectations though and attempted to outline what doesn't count as reasonable expectations but allow me to shed more light on it for the sake of dissolving any ambiguity around the term.

Unreasonable expectations are those expectations we have that result in us questioning the validity of Jikooks relationship without cause. They often result in us assuming something is wrong between Jikook because we feel there is something we ought to see in their interactions because we are used to seeing them in Jikook dynamics.

Unreasonable expectations is drilled in us by false conditionings. Some of these false conditionings are external to Jikook, such as our exposure to analysis videos or edited videos. They often condition us to think Jikook are in BTS to screw eachother seven ways through the roof all year round. We tend to forget quickly that when the cameras turn on it's all work for them.

The worst part is, we get used to the slowed down gazes, the two seconds lingering stares and touches that go on for minutes in these edited videos and so whenever we are exposed to actual content from BigHit in real time we feel JK didn't stare too long, JM didn't laugh at JK's Jokes therefore something is wrong.

Some false conditionings are induced in us by Jikook themselves.

Take for instance, Jimlous and Jeonlous. Are these something to be considered reasonable expectations for us to have of Jikook because we see them do this all the time? Absolutely not.

While jealousy is an integral part of the Korean dating culture- allegedly, it is subject to the mental state, personal values and growth of Jikook.

As they mature, they may outgrow certain behaviors not limited to Jimlous/Jeonlous. It is thus unreasonable to expect these of Jikook all the time.

Coupled with long exposures to edited videos, we soon become conditioned to expect Jk or Jimin to react strongly to when the other seemingly crosses boundaries with others- aka skinship.

If you expect JK to pout each time Jimin smiles at another member and they don't, it simply means you are stuck in the past and aren't growing with them on their love journey. It doesn't mean something is wrong with Jikook or that Jikook is not real.

That doesn't mean Jeonlous is not important. It is a distinctifier. In my opinion.

Jikook are able to enforce boundaries with each other because they have the right to. I keep saying they are the only pair in BTS that has and exercise this right of claim over eachother. Jimlous/ Jeonlous is how we know they feel a boundary has been crossed and depending on the situation or environment they would often exercise that right of claim.

I have said, the only times I feel they don't and can't exercise this right of claim is if they are not a couple and just friends- when they are broken up. I saw this because even in official settings they seem to have this right of claim even if they are not exercising it.

What I'm trying to say is certain behaviors and patterns of behavior in Jikook are distinctifiers in that they set them apart from the other pairs and those distinctifiers can be reasonably expected of Jikook and so if we don't see those in them- over a period of time mind you, then questions and brows ought to be raised as high up as possible. If Jikook is not real then frankly I want to know. I'm not about to believe in bigfoot.

What I'm saying basically is, whereas Jeonlous and Jimlous are not a distinctifier perse as such shouldn't be reasonably expected of them, right of claim is a distinctifier and should be reasonably expected.

Skinship is not a distinctifier- if I have to repeat this one more time I swear to god imma wield JK's pan on y'all. Lol but deadass.

Now, is JK wishing JM a happy birthday openly on social media reasonable expectation? Come now, Y'all don know I had a complete meltdown over this on my TL. Of course I'm gone bring it up. Lol

Jikook wishing eachother a happy birthday on social media is reasonable expectations to have if it is a distinctifier or something that sets Jikook apart from the rest of the members. Is it? The answer is a flat ass no.

I mentioned that one of the reasons I believe Jikook is real is because I feel out of all the pairs in BTS they are the ones that speak eachother's love language.

Jimin loves to be made to feel special. Jk makes Jimin feel special. I mean he did gift JM a present without doing same for the others so it's safe to assume he gives Jimin special treatment on his birthdays- as should he. Mr Park set the standards high for his man.

Y'all know I was on my personal agenda with this whole JM birthday thingy. I was hoping Jk was going to post but only for Jimin and make a statement with it- a girl can dream.

The fact that he didn't post doesn't mean he didn't make JM feel special on his birthday. Had JM and BTS not talked openly about JK buying JM a present when he didn't do that for the others, frankly we wouldn't have known he ever did that for JM.

It sort of leaves you wondering what goes on behind the cameras. I mean if memories 2019 is anything to go by, Jikook is closer than we think.

Jikook show us a lot but there are a lot more we don't see.

In their early dynamics he used to do alot for JM that he seemed uncomfortable showing openly. We only knew of those moments through Jimin who seemed giddy and excited about them and would often overshare those information.

Personally, I feel whatever they did for Jimin on his Birthday is going to show up in a Bangtan Bomb or something in the future.

Due to BTS' inability to hold physical concerts due to the virus, I feel BigHit are on an agenda to increase demand and patronage for BTS content online by creating scarcity and making BTS less available and accessible- demand and supply, economics 101. They ain't slick. Bless them.

Social media is an outlet for Jikook. In my opinion. It is one of the means through which they express themselves individually and as a couple. But it's my understanding that Jikook use these outlets in different ways.

While JK uses it as an outlet to express his feelings because of his introvertedness, Jimin uses it as a means to connect with his fans and build their platform.

What I mean is, if JK is feeling happy he is going to come on here and tweet, cup of milk let's rock and roll. When Jimin doesn't pick up his calls, he's gonna come here and tweet it's hard to love. And when JinMin leave him out of a VLive he's gone drag his man's ass to film an impromptu live with him- bless him.

Jimin I find doesn't show up on social media on impulse as JK does- we all know what happens when he does. Thats when the multiple tweets and misspelled names roll in.

Jimin's presence online is often curated, in my opinion. He will often make time to talk and share his thoughts and feelings with Army to connect with them. It's the quality time love language bit in him.

Together, they use social media as an outlet to tease their relationship as a means to relieve the stress that comes with hiding their relationship. Their relationship. They do this through the flirty banter thingy they do on line- posting after eachother, responding to each other's messages etc.

An example is the recent Weverse thingy JK did which I posted about. And more recently, the D5/D4 posts they shared on Twitter where JK posted a picture of his mic on stage, an Army Logo and a purple heart. Which together read, JK purple's Army.

Jimin responded with a complimentary post of himself performing in a black and white photo with the hashtag Jimin, I miss Army. Now you don't need me to tell you what that means and if you think it's a coincidence- sorry to you.

When JK does these things, he is often connecting with Jimin, reaching out. Not every post he sends is about Jimin or intended for Jimin. I find usually the ones that are about Jimin, Jimin responds to them through his own posts or that they will have something in them that indirectly points to Jimin.

Like the 123 song recommendations or even recently the pinky ring, sky and cup of milk photo he posted after his birthday VLive.

A lot of people kept saying perhaps the chrome heart ring he wore on his pinky was a gift from Jimin. It could be. But I think the pinky was reference to the pinky ring Joke he shared on stage when he took Jimin's ring and put it on his pinky.

The blue sky reference, well... you know. But I was more concerned about the blurred out yet visible tags on the buildings in the background- this is weird for me to say out loud but I felt the message of that post was we are not hiding. Don't mind me.

Jimin loves to flaunt their bond and flex it on social media. He gets giddy and excited when Jk shows his affections, interest and attraction to him.

I have said JK and JM have two different personalities and while often Jimin is loud, open and overwhelmingly affectionate, JK is equally intense with his affections but at his choosing. They both have intense feelings and passions for eachother but they express it in different ways due to their different personalities.

Jikook are together but they are on their own unique personal journeys of growth as well. And as much as they start certain traditions, they also end certain traditions. This is especially true for JK.

He is the one who started their 123 coded flirty banter and he is the same person who ended that tradition with the ending scene post he shared on Twitter.

Because JK likes to retract and conceal aspects of himself, often I value and pay more attention to the things he does share than the things he don't.

And because Jimin is very loud and forward with his expressions, I value and lay attention to the things he does not share more so than the things he shares.

Often I hear people say Jimin acts the same with everyone, he is so openly affectionate so certainly his love for JK doesn't go beyond platonic feelings nor can it be exclusive to JK.

That's just the thing with JM's persona. It is so loud it blurs the line between his true self and his idol self.

The boy in love with Jungkook is a facade. That is the role Jimin took on at debut. If you don't know this you've been played. If you dislike JK's brand of love, his way of expressing his love for Jimin because of this persona Jimin has you owe Jk an apology.

That one person who loves Jungkook unconditionally in BTS is just a performance. All BTS were given roles, a marketing role to sell the bromance and sell the fans. Most of them have since out grown those persona's and those kinds of performances- especially JK.

JM still holds on to his persona compared to the others in my opinion: that hypersexualized, aigyo cute persona, a bit brazen, confident, shameless etc. He projects a lot of himself into this persona but I feel often he injects bits of this persona into his real identity as a way to break himself out his limitations as Park Jimin-That never mind tattoo is there for a reason.

And so when he is being loud and daring and a tease that's not when I find his love for JK. His love resides in the calmness of his storms. In his moments of quiet when he isn't screaming and disappearing while he laughs; when he is staring at JK, taking in his visage as if he is the most beautiful thing on earth- that's when you see all the love he has for him in his face. He never does this with any of the members.

When JK is injured and he switches off his loud persona, that's when you see the real park Jimin.

I don't know which is worse, people who believe this sick persona of his is real or the people who see this persona for what it is but fail to look deeper than that.

Then there are those who believe they are dating but then dismiss certain questionable things when they happen in their dynamics. Isn't that why some people believe Taekook is real? in spite of Jikook? How can you believe a ship to be real when the existence of another ship calls into question the entire ship and not just aspects of it? It beats me.

Are they any ship in BTS that calls Jikook into question? I'll leave you to answer this.

If your answer is wrong, I'm blocking you.

Signed,

GOLDY

[masterthespianduchovny]

Why I Write About David and Gillian’s Friendship

I have this one anon, and I do believe it’s the same person, who asks me, “if you’re so sure David and Gillian are friends, why are you so insecure?”

It’s such a peculiar statement to make because I’m merely expressing a dissenting opinion from a popular sentiment. I’m not attacking anyone or getting defensive, I’m just explaining my case.

I’d actually argue that antis are insecure because 1. They get hostile whenever someone asserts that Gillian and David get along 2. They send hate anon 3. They resort to slander and claim they’re being attacked for not liking David. 4. They’re actively watching my blog. :) I literally don’t tag any of my anon posts, yet they send in other anons responding to them. 

If they’re so secure that David and Gillian aren’t friends, why do they care what I think, especially since it’s not harming or attacking anyone?

That’s called projection.

So, why do I write about David and Gillian?

For starters, they’re magic together and I’m clearly not the only one who thinks this. They’ve captivated fans, interviews, and photographers for almost 3 decades and that says a lot. For two people with such an enigmatic relationship, people cannot turn away.

Consequently, I examined my own fascination with David and Gillian by juxtaposing them with claims that they hated each other even present day.

And you know what?

I found that I didn’t agree with claims these two didn’t get along.

It’s not because I want them to be BFFs, which they aren’t, but because those who swear David and Gillian hate each other have an agenda. 

I’m not asking for any, but I notice whenever I post about David and Gillian being friends, I receive hate anons usually shitting on David, yet none for Gillian. The remaining anons are usually clearing up facts or trying to understand what’s going on. But, like...96% of my anons, which I received around 30 within 24 hours, is about shitting on David.

How does that have anything to do with David and Gillian not being friends?

It doesn’t.

Even one of them reminded me of when Peter and Gillian got together, which has nothing to do with David and Gillian being friends. Funny enough, they went to bat for Peter claiming his was this oh so charming gentleman only to turn out he was a massive asshole--they propped Peter up to shit on David only for that to hit them in the face last year.

This misinformation campaign that David and Gillian aren’t friends is all because a small group of Philes hate David. I’m not here to argue if their opinions are valid or not because it's nothing I care to concern myself with. But, their feelings about David has nothing to do with his actual friendship with Gillian. Yet, they conflate the two to have Gillian mirror how they feel, which is inappropriate and false.

Their poor understanding of friendships is why they believe that since David and Gillian don’t see each other every day or talk regularly means that they aren’t friends. They believe since Gillian says she doesn’t know much about David, all while overlooking that Gillian has shitty memory, that this proves they aren’t friends.

In their minds, everything is PR and Hollywood BS.

When the simplest explanation is that they actually do get along.

Even if you argue that they needed to pretend to get along during the original run of the show, which have examples of this not being the case, it doesn’t explain their present behavior. It doesn’t explain them showing up to each other plays and promoting each others work outside of the x files even after season 1 ended. It doesn’t explain them casually bringing up each other when the question had nothing to do with each other. Or allowing the other to speak at the Hollywood star ceremonies. 

Most importantly, claiming that they hate each other is calling Gillian Anderson a liar.

Gillian has stated on record that they do not hate each other. She has explicitly said that the work environment they had back then made shit tense at times. They have said that they’ve grown an appreciation for one another and wished they would’ve handled things differently. She has said she added to their friction back in the 90s.

Yet, her alleged fans call her a liar by dismissing her own words and running away with their own.

In their minds, every instance these two laugh together, smile at one another, have a good time, speak highly of the other, etc is all bullshit. They’re acting.

They say that people like Mark Mann who has personally spent time with them doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but they, internet stalkers know better than him. Their claims even goes against Jimmy Kimmel’s observation who was notably surprised at how well they got along. It was something that stuck out to him on at least three different occasions: behind the scenes, when the interview first started, and later on in the interview when he called them out again.

Again, all acting. :) It’s PR and Hollywood bullshit.

IMO, it’s absurd.

I write about Gillian and David’s friendship because I’m refusing to allow antis to continue to control the narrative and taint every interaction with their lies. To contextualize any blatant misrepresentation they’ve spewed these last few years. And to show that it’s okay to think D and G are friends, like it, and talk about it.

Because the only people who look delusional are those who keep insisting that two people who clearly enjoy each other actually hate each other.

How can two people who had a candid moment photographed into an iconic moment hate each other? Two people who a literal stranger said electrical energy surrounded them when they walked out of a room together? Two people where people (interviewers) remark on their chemistry (on and off screen)?

They give some of the best interviews together. They’re their most animated around each other. They bring out the best in each other (IMO). But, these two hate each other and aren’t friends.

When have we ever seen Gillian smile and laugh as much as she does with David?

My posts aren’t about romance, sex, or secret families (lol), just friendship and I receive hate anon for this shit. LOL.

The true insecure group are the anti David/anti gillovny folk (gillovny means more than romance so don't start).

In conclusion, altogether David and Gillian don’t talk frequently, from what we know, that doesn’t mean they don’t get along and/or aren't friends. There are different types of friendships with different frequencies and different expectations. But, these two clearly get along and enjoy each other’s company.

I’ll like to add something I forgot: Just like most relationships, romantic, platonic, or familial, people have their ups and downs. They don't always get along and sometimes issues are drawn out. That doesn’t mean two people hate each other, it means they need time to handle their own shit. Whatever crap David and Gillian may or may have not been arguing over in the past or present is their business. Neither have had issues saying how they’ve felt about each other before, so why now?

It’s because they don’t have an issue with each other, it’s all fandom bullshit.

[lord-woolsley]

Stumbling Steps

Fandom: Dragon Age Inquisition (Dorian Pavus/Cullen Rutherford) Chapters: 1/1 (3105 words) Rating: Teen And Up Summary: Surrounded by at least 12 nobles Cullen had felt quite uncomfortable since they had arrived at the Winter Palace but with the evening progressing and the alcohol flowing his “suitors“ had become bolder. Cullen is in distress, Dorian saves the day. Rant: If you like it, please leave some love on ao3. ♡ Ao3: Link

Stumbling Steps

“Smile, Commander, you’re so handsome when you smile.“ “He’s just as handsome when he doesn’t.“

Cullen asked himself if the Maker intended to punish him for something. Maybe for leaving the Order, standing against the Chantry‘s will by supporting the Inquisition or more likely for the disaster that had happened in Kirkwall. That must have been it. The Maker probably blamed him for not seeing through Meredith’s grand scheme earlier or maybe he had done something wrong during his time at the Circle Tower in Ferelden and couldn’t remember anymore. Most of it was a blur anyway.

He had been the Templar recruit who had fled from the Hero of Ferelden after all because she – he still blushed thinking about it - had flirted with him. This here is what happens to guys that run away instead of facing their problems, he thought to himself.

He sometimes should have shown more initiative, he was aware of that. Blindly following orders had been his weakness in the past, one he was happy he had overcome.

Cullen didn’t know for which of these shortcomings he was punished here exactly but he had obviously done something very very wrong to deserve this.

Surrounded by at least 12 nobles he had felt quite uncomfortable since they had arrived at the Winter Palace but with the evening progressing and the alcohol flowing his “suitors“ had become bolder. Cullen was pretty sure someone had squeezed his butt just now.

“Did you grab...my bottom?“, he asked, his face flushed red but his voice angry. “I couldn’t help myself.“, the lady exclaimed, she sounded like she thought she was entitled to do to him whatever she desired. Nobles. He wanted to retch.

The woman didn’t seem to notice it or she just didn’t care. Cullen frowned and feared it was the latter because she was already holding out a hand again, trying to touch the scar on his lip. Cullen used his Templar training and dodged. He was being attacked here after all, not with weapons but with something far worse.

“Are you married, Commander?“ “Not yet... but I‘m already taken.“ It was a blatant lie but he had hoped some of them would show at least some respect considering the prospect of him being in a relationship. "Still single, then.“ Or not.

Why would he even think these people cared about someone being taken, had they harassed him the whole evening without any consent from his side, the opposite even. He doubted even a ring on his finger could have stopped or avoided this.

Cullen wanted to escape the Ballroom, run away and leave Halamshiral for good, doing exactly what he had done to the Hero of Ferelden all those years ago. He wanted to be a coward again. Corypheus, the Breach and the assassination attempt on Celene’s life be damned.

“You must dance with me, Commander, you cannot stand about all evening.“ “I‘m afraid not, thank you.“

This was definitely the woman who had grabbed his butt a few second ago. He would rather dance with an archdemon in Haven’s ruins with Solas watching and commenting on his bad posture instead of staying here for one minute longer. But he had to be polite and couldn’t risk to snap, Josephine‘s disappointment would be unbearable if he endangered their plan just because some nobles couldn’t keep it in their pants. Their cause was greater than this and he was the Commander of the Inquisition after all, he wouldn’t bow to some royals behaving abysmal.

The worst disappointment of the evening so far had been that the Inquisitor had witnessed some of the harassing and didn’t do or say anything about it. She had seen mostly the flirting, Cullen supposed. He was pretty sure Herah would have stepped in if she had witnessed someone touching him without his consent. But she hadn’t seen the extent of their actions and probably thought he was the victim of some annoying courting and bickering. No harm in that.

She had given him an apologetic look - pitiful even - and suggested he should talk to Josephine about it or Leliana if he wanted one of them assassinated. Leliana‘s methods were unconventional at least but the thought of an arrow through that horrible woman’s face was lightening his mood. Or maybe Josie could spread a handful of filthy rumors and destroy some reputations.

If he only knew where Lady Montilyet or Leliana were lingering tonight or if these suitors would let him go to search for one of them.

They had zeroed in on him and he couldn’t find the smallest gap to slip through, he was literally glued to the spot. He was being held captive by - it was embarrassing - a flock of noble ladies and their petticoats and even some gentlemen who were at least a bit more discreet, probably because they didn’t want to ruin their reputations.

He was their prey, a piece of meat, and they were hungry wolves that hadn‘t been fed for months, so it seemed.

Cullen was gazing at Herah who would soon leave him here to die - he wished for the sweet release of death at this point - Sera now seemingly glued to her side, chuckling and grinning like an idiot. Nothing unusual about that.

Inquisitor Adaar was red-faced and he was pretty sure Sera had just said something really dirty to her. About an empty broom closet and peaches and breeches. It even rhymed awfully. That must have been Seras attempt at seduction if he wasn’t mistaken completely. Not that he, by any means, was better at creating romantic phrases or paying compliments if they weren’t about the weather. She was definitely more forward than he would ever be.

His thoughts must have jinxed it because in that exact moment Sera started to make loud smooching noises. Cullen wasn’t sure if she intended to mock him or if she wanted to encourage Inquisitor Adaar for whatever awaited her in that broom closet.

Both women left his side eventually, fleeing from strangers approaching them, mostly nobles that thought it would be advantageous to be seen with the Herald of Andraste. He could understand it to an extent. Herah had it hard enough already, most nobles at Halamshiral didn’t treat a Qunari kindly. She deserved to get away from all this for a while.

Cullen could only guess what Sera and Herah were up to after Sera’s remark. The thought made him blush. At least the Inquisitor was having fun while he was suffering. He would rather have all the side effects of his Lyrium withdrawal all at once instead of being touched by strangers without manners.

He longingly stared after them, seeing Sera’s blonde hair disappear in the crowd. He was on his own now.

Cullen wished he could pay an empty broom closet a visit as well until the event was over. Sweet solitude.

"Commander, that woman you‘re in a relationship with, does she really exist?“, another lady asked and he knew he would start to blush and stutter any second in search for an excuse or an inscrutable lie.

But for the first time this evening he was lucky. When he saw Dorian stumbling to the buffet, alone, unoccupied and an empty wine glass in hand he saw his chance.

“Dorian, sweetheart, I‘m here.“ He waved at the mage and really hoped Dorian was either drunk enough not to notice his weird behavior or quick enough to catch up on the situation Cullen was currently trapped in.

The Tevinter shot him a confused look but came closer nevertheless.

“Here he is, my date, the person I told you about, the man I’m in a relationship with.“, Cullen stuttered, pointing at Dorian who was clearly trying to make sense of the situation.

“Ah, my Commander, I thought I had lost you.“ Thank the Maker Dorian was playing along. He was undoubtedly a smart man.

“Cullen, you can’t be serious?“, one of the ladies screeched in his ear, a painful noise leaving it ringing for multiple seconds. Leliana‘s ravens could learn a lot from this woman‘s high-pitched exclamation.

“Isn’t this the evil Tevinter Magister everyone was gossiping about the whole night? I know he’s with the Inquisition but we were warned about him, everyone said he should be avoided at all costs. He‘s no suitable company for someone as handsome and heroic as you.“

Hearing the word Magister Dorian rolled his eyes but he didn’t comment on it. Cullen could feel him correcting the term to „Altus“ in his head, followed by "Southerners, can’t recognize the difference between a dog and a cat.“

“That is for me to decide.“, Cullen said. "I‘m glad, Commander, otherwise this relationship would be rather one-sided, wouldn’t it be?“ Dorian was offering Cullen his arm to desperately cling to which to his own shame Cullen did.

“Amatus, you promised me a dance. I couldn’t find you until now but I‘m here to take you up on it.“ “Of course, love.“ Cullen was clearing his throat and was trying to shoot Dorian what he thought was an affectionate gaze.

One of the ladies actually had the indecency to grasp after Dorian‘s arm and was trying to shove him away from Cullen.

“I really wouldn’t do this if I were you.“, the mage said, voice sharp. "There‘s a clear lack of blood magic tonight for my taste. You wouldn’t want to witness some, would you? A real taste of a Tevinter party. I could arrange that.“

Cullen was always surprised how eloquent Dorian was and how he always found a way out of the most horrible situations. Using his status as the evil Tevinter mage everyone was making him out to be was risky but it definitely seemed to work in this case.

The woman - and many others of his suitors - looked shocked and were hiding their disapproval with throwing their hands to their faces to cover their eyes. Like this childish gesture could make Dorian vanish and disappear from the spot if they pressed their eyes shut hard enough.

“Scandalous.“, two were whispering to each other. “What a waste. A man like the Commander..., I didn’t know he shared certain quirks with the empress.“ “I wouldn’t let her hear you.“, Dorian said. "Or should I tell her myself?“ "She wouldn’t believe you, you‘re from Tevinter." "You really wanna try me? I can be pretty persuasive.", Dorian asked, his words a warning.

The lady was silent for a moment before she bowed her head, slowly shaking it.

“Of course not, I apologize.“, the woman said, clearly not meaning it. She was faking a smile which distorted her face into an ugly grimace behind her mask.

“As if these quirks are the only problem here, the evil Magister has clearly enchanted him.“, one of the gentleman said.

“With my charms and wits maybe. Or my handsome face.“, Dorian said smugly. “All assets you people are visibly lacking. And now if you would be so kind to excuse us, the Commander owes me a dance.“ “That I do.“ Cullen would grant Dorian all the dances in the world for saving him.

With their arms locked they left the Ballroom in search of a quiet spot for Cullen to recover. They were in luck, one of the balconies was empty and even had some free benches to rest on.

“What just happened?“, Dorian asked. „Apart from the obvious, of course.“ “I apologize for using you as my escape plan, Dorian, I am deeply sorry.“ “No, no, it‘s fine. Their behavior, horrible that. Reminds me of home. I wouldn’t even wish this on my father or the Venatori. Maybe on Corypheus though. He wouldn’t be able to destroy the world. Those ladies would never let him go. They would tear him to pieces with their prying gazes. Oh, Corypheus, you owe me a dance." Dorian was spinning his empty wine glass in his hand while speaking.

"Oh, I didn’t even let you get a new drink.“, Cullen said, trying to apologize. Again. ”That was obviously why you came inside, wasn’t it? And now you left empty-handed." "I wouldn’t exactly call this empty-handed. I‘ve got quite a handful." Dorian gestured to their linked arms, an amused grin spreading on his lips.

"Well, I had enough to drink for the evening anyway. I’m feeling a bit tipsy already.“, Dorian started "But let’s not change the subject over something so unimportant as an empty glass of wine - as good as the Orlesian stuff might be. I‘m just gonna get the whole bottle later." Dorian placed his empty glass on one of the benches.

"So, Commander, do tell. Why me? Wasn’t there someone else the Commander of the Inquisition could have faked an romantic involvement with? I‘m pretty sure the Lady Seeker was around somewhere." "... Nevermind, when I think about it now, she would have probably chopped your head off for the idea alone. I was the safer bet, no head chopping here. Even though: you’re aware this is enough for a scandal? You won’t be able to save yourself from the rumors. The evil Tevinter Magister", Dorian mentioned the wrong title with his typical annoyance "... and a man on top of that. We will be the talk of the evening, not even an assassination attempt can change that. In my experience Orlesians are that close-minded."

Cullen hadn’t thought of that, clearly. He had just wanted to get away from these people as far and as quick as possible, not taking the consequences into consideration. He needed to make this right at some point but this wasn’t the time for it neither could he do something about it while being trapped in the Winter Palace. This was Josephine’s strength, not his.

Cullen felt guilty for making Dorian an even bigger victim of Orlesian gossip even though he himself didn’t care too much about their insults if they only kept their physical distance. But maybe Dorian felt different about this.

“I‘m not ashamed of being seen with you, Dorian.“ Cullen said after a long moment of silence. He actually meant it.

“Oh, Commander, you do surprise me.“, Dorian said, faint smile spreading on his face. “It‘s nice having some company after all. You could think I smell of cabbages with everyone trying to stay as far away from me as possible. I was already at my seventh glass of wine when you saw me heading inside. I needed to keep myself entertained somehow. I was feeling rather lonely and a bit drunk now as well to be fair.“ “I‘m still glad you‘re here, Dorian. Can I make it up to you somehow? As a little thank you for saving me. Maybe even with the dance I promised to you earlier. I have to warn you though I‘m a terrible dancer. But one who keeps his word.“ “Are you sure? Dancing with the evil Magister, in full view of every noble in Orlais. How shocking.“ “They‘ll live.“, Cullen said.

He was surprised by his own confidence regarding the gossip. But that was the point, wasn’t it? It was nothing like idle hearsay after all and it wouldn’t bear any real problem for any of them. Especially not if they would manage to save the empress at the end of night. Orlais would be in debt to the Inquisition and only positive word of their members would spread.

“You say that now. If you can find me ten silk scarves, I‘ve got a dance that will really shock them.“ “I-", Cullen started “don’t know what to say to that. I just hope you‘re a better dancer than I am. In dances that don’t involve silk scarves that is.“

A red color was spreading from his cheeks to his throat while he was trying to get that picture of Dorian doing some erotic Tevinter dance out of his head. Without much success, he had to admit. Who would even say a thing like that? Dorian Pavus obviously.

"Oh, I am indeed.“, Dorian said, he didn’t seem to notice how flustered the Commander was at his words. Which was great, Cullen thought. It left him with the last pieces of his dignity still intact.

"Picture me a boy of 15, being forced by his mother to dance with every suitable lady in the room. You learn some things even if you don’t want to. But you see, it‘s of use now. Mother certainly wouldn’t approve of it now, as you can imagine. But enough talk. Let‘s dance.“

Dorian was bowing and offering his hand to Cullen. Every lady would have been envious of the perfection and grace with which Dorian executed that gesture. If it wouldn’t have been the evil Tevinter asking for a dance of course and some noble gentleman instead.

Cullen was certainly blushing because of Dorian’s performance but he took the mages hand in his own anyway and was instantly pulled into Dorian‘s grip whose fingers were placed on Cullen’s waist immediately.

“Is this okay for you, Commander? If this is too much physical contact after what you‘ve just been through, I understand. We can postpone our little dance or leave it be if that‘s more to your liking.“ “I’m good. You decide, Dorian.“

The mage shook his head and made some “Tsk, tsk.“ noises but started with slow and practiced steps even Cullen could follow.

“Thank Godness one of us has a little initiative.“, Dorian chuckled.

Cullen didn’t know if the nobility was actually watching them from inside the Ballroom but he didn’t lie, he couldn’t care less about it. He owed Dorian that dance and it was most definitely more pleasant than being trapped by harassing strangers, noble or not. He actually quite enjoyed himself after the horror of the last hours. A moment of peace with someone he liked.

“After our beautiful dance I’m actually quite sad you‘re not interested in men at all. A shame, that.“ “Yes, a shame.“, Cullen agreed without even thinking about it.

•

Suddenly one of the bushes next to the railing of the balcony Dorian and Cullen were dancing on started to chuckle and when both men followed the noise with their gazes to uncover its origin, they looked straight into the amused faces of Sera and the Inquisitor. Both women were trying to hide behind its leafs while failing miserably. Sera‘s laughter wasn’t exactly subtle either.

“So much for an empty broom closet.“, Cullen stated. Sera was grinning at him. “No, this is so much better." The Inquisitor nodded. “And here I was thinking our dear Commander would be the knight in shining armor tonight. How wrong I was."

[philocake]

CANON FACTS ABOUT DREAMTALE

simply because some people have been pissing me off a little over our wide Internet, I’ve decided to post stuff that is 100% canon about Dreamtale, a beautiful AU which unfortunately not many people know well enough, and for that they think it’s worthless, garbage and/or a blatant plagiarism. so, since most of this info is unknown to many of those who know about this AU, I’m here to open your eyes and relieve you of your stress!

this is just a long, helpful, awfully necessary summary, because all the posts spitting false information about Dreamtale make my blood boil even if it’s not even my AU. here you’ll find stuff you might already know, but it ranges from the basics to “secret” facts only certain people have had access to thus far (aka spanish speakers who know joku has a youtube channel)

remember, all of this is canon unless stated otherwise, no theories included (speculations with enough proof are still valid). thank me later.

* (joku, si por alguna razón estás leyendo esto y no lo quieres aquí por lo que sea, yo lo quitaré. pero no quiero que la gente siga hablando de esta forma tan pésima sobre tu AU y algunos merecen saber más de lo que tienen a su alcance.)

----

General facts:

- Within the concept of the AU, there are 3 vital trees that keep the balance of the universe: Life, Magic and Feelings, all protected by extremely powerful guardians (Quetzalcoatl, Lanny and Nim respectively). Each tree is in a hidden world; nobody must know where they are in order to keep them safe, though some people have found them, both good and bad intentioned. Because of this, Dreamtale occurs in a world completely unrelated to any place from the original Undertale, since it’s the occult world where the Tree of Feelings resides. This AU, by consequence, breaks the 4th wall several times.

- Dream and Nightmare were created after their subsequent mother was attacked by a human wielding a weapon, a dagger, powerful enough to wound a guardian in an attempt to obtain one of the golden apples. It’s possible this human was one of Quetzalcoatl’s creations, since at the time of the attack there was no life near the Tree of Feelings, and that it might have been deliberate. Dream and Nightmare were originally little fireballs, yellow and purple respectively. Nim was going to give them human bodies to protect their frail forms, but the energy that radiated from the fireballs made them explode as they had very few escape points. They were then given skeleton bodies (based on Swap!Sans), which allowed that energy to flow without trouble - this is why they are not considered Sanses per se. Dream and Nightmare are currently 503 years old (their birthday is the 21st of December).

- The apple incident occurred when Dream and Nightmare were 6 years old, physically, which meant Nightmare went through 6 years of bullying.

- The encouraging voice Nightmare heard before eating the apples was actually the conscience of the man who killed Nim, as he ended up being absorbed by the negative side of the Tree. It hasn't been specified if he had any more direct influence on Nightmare’s corruption, however.

- Dream can’t touch the black apples, and Nightmare can’t touch the golden ones, otherwise they would invert. It’s unknown what would exactly happen if Dream touched the black apples, and it will remain unknown in canon as he would never do such a thing. It’s also unknown what would happen if both twins touched a single apple at the same time.

- Dream and Nightmare were not true guardians, only replacements. They had to learn how to unleash their true powers on their own.

- At some unknown point, Dream met Ink, who in this instance made him believe he was a kind-hearted protector just like him. Dream thought Ink was hiding his emotions for some reason, until one day he saw him not doing anything to help when some people were in trouble. This caused a heavy argument between them that almost ended in a fight. That was when Dream realized they had immensely different mindsets, given that Ink didn’t care about people’s wellbeing, and felt like he had been lied to. He doesn’t trust Ink anymore after this, even though he’s unable to hate people.

- The villagers that lived in the world of Dreamtale were overcome by negative energy over the years, and turned into zombie-like, depressed beings that will attack and kill anything they see.

Story depth:

Despite his exterior, Dream actually felt overwhelmed about helping people back in the village, but just like Nightmare, he kept it a secret from everyone. He knew everyone counted on him, but he didn’t really count on anyone, and sometimes, after helping people, he snapped and went off to cry somewhere far away from the village so that no one would realize he was internally suffering.

At some yet unknown point before the apple incident, Dream met a homeless cat-monster while he was crying and saying to himself that he “couldn’t do this anymore”. The monster overheard him, but when asked why he was crying, Dream never told the truth.

This cat was Neil, a new character introduced into the story as of February 2018. He once had a family, his wife and his son, but they were caught in an intentional fire that burned their home down and in an attempt to save them Neil lost his arm. He tried to attack the people of the village because they knew what was going to happen and never did anything to help, but his behavior got him exiled. Long after that, he got a hold of himself and began building a house on his own, a little closer to the village. That was when he and Dream met.

Neil was not too fond of people, and because of this he did not want Dream to come back there. But Dream kept trying to help him, silently building the house alongside him, and over time, Neil began to enjoy Dream’s company and they became friends. Actual friends, and not just one more person taking advantage of his altruism. After this, Dream set a routine: help Neil during the day, and stay with Nightmare at night, or earlier. 

Neil knew Dream had a brother, however he never visited him, or the Tree, or the village in general, as he could not return.

Dream was with Neil when the incident happened. Neil let Dream run off to the village, but followed him after he heard screams. While not being part of it, he came in time to see all the chaos and destruction Nightmare had created seconds before he disappeared. His heart broke when he saw Dream as a stone statue, and even though everyone was gone, he kept coming back there regularly, as if hoping one day he would find his friend alive and well.

Meanwhile, Nightmare built that dark castle he’s known to have and (maybe?) an army of dark Papyri to help him. However, the comic this was first shown in depicted Dream under their custody – this is no longer canon, as Dream was never taken there and was instead left in the village.

Later on, Lanny, the guardian of the Tree of Magic, traveled over to where Dream was. Being overprotective, Neil threatened her to get away from him, but after exchanging some words they made up their minds to get Dream out of there and find a way to help him together. Lanny told Neil that the magic of the Yggdrasil (aka the Tree of Magic) could heal Dream, however she was only a materialization and couldn’t do anything outside of her world. Neil decided to take Dream there himself, then.

They set up a plan, but when Neil came back for the statue, it was gone. Earlier on, Nightmare had moved it to a deep fissure in the center of the village where the main town used to be to stop Neil from finding it. When he did, he was ambushed by Nightmare and his ‘ally’, Ccino, a Sans from an AU called Fluffytale.

Before all of this happened, Nightmare had found Ccino being beaten up by some undefined people. He enjoyed this at first, but the memories of the real Nightmare about being bullied made him snap and he killed the assailants. When Ccino thanked him, Nightmare only told him that he didn’t do it for him, he did it for him, his ‘real’ self. After that began a toxic relationship between the two, the only canon pairing in Dreamtale thus far. Ccino felt protected with Nightmare, and because he was someone depressive, Nightmare let him stay close; since he fed on negative feelings, he was like a constant charger for him, and he used that to his advantage. He felt nothing for him, and that was the only reason they were together. It was a deal: if Ccino said he no longer wanted to be with him, Nightmare would most likely kill him.

Both of them attacked Neil as he tried to get Dream away from there, but he still made it to the point where Lanny was waiting for him in order to teleport him to her world without Nightmare following. There, Lanny explained that the magic that had turned Dream to stone didn’t actually come from the Yggdrasil but from extremely powerful hatred, and she was no longer sure the Tree itself could do anything for him. After this, it’s unknown what exactly happens to any of the three, though Neil is known to end up dying and Lanny eventually becomes Dream’s teacher and trainer. He was still stuck in stone for 400+ years, though.

Before or after Dream is set free, Nightmare will try to snatch the fruits from the two remaining trees, actually managing to steal one (from which tree is still unknown).

*Note that, since his creator has left the Undertale fandom, Ccino is no longer in Dreamtale and it's unknown if the parts of the story where he appeared will still be in or if they will be completely reworked.

** There was a comic, probably separate from the ongoing one, that showed Dream finding his brother, just like he used to be, apparently dead. While he mourned him, the little, purple fireball that represented his true form appeared out of nowhere, telling him that he was indeed dead. At some point after that, the corrupted Nightmare attacked Dream, and tore off his cape while he was trying to escape. This is where Dream realized his brother was gone. The cape he wears with his new attire is the same one, except he fixed it up as best as he could.

Endings:

Dreamtale has four endings: good, bad, neutral and true. The upcoming comic revolves around the true ending.

- In the bad ending, Nightmare manages to kill Dream and obtain the last golden apple, making him extremely powerful and filling the world with despair.

- In the neutral ending, Dream manages to kill Nightmare, but saves one last black apple which he then takes back to what’s left of the Tree of Feelings and joins with his own, burying them together like seeds. This ends up killing him, though. The two halves of the apples make the Tree regrow and everything rewind to the day they were born, much like a reset. This ending will keep repeating everything over and over again, and it’s described as the worst one because of it. 

- In the true ending, Dream becomes a real guardian after defeating his brother in likely a different way than in the neutral ending. He manages to unleash his full power, this breaking his skeleton body and giving him a more humanoid appearance.

- The good ending is the only one that hasn’t been specified yet.

Character facts:

Dream:

- If Dream had been the bullied one, he would have held on throughout the years. Nightmare, being made of negative feelings, couldn’t help feeling overwhelmed by the hatred, even if he used to be the more brash of the two brothers, but Dream wouldn’t have let it get to him.

- Dream always spent a lot of time with Nightmare, healing him when he was hurt and even breaking the presents people gave him to make new ones for his brother after realizing he never got anything. He really looked up to him.

- Dream is very strong, stronger than his brother before the corruption. He can easily lift boulders and other similarly heavy objects without much strain. Dream’s strength is shown in a comical way in, well, the comic, with him easily lifting a stack of heavy concrete bricks while Neil only carried some hay, prompting him to silently say “f*cking kid…”

- The reason why Dream remained clueless after being freed, depicted as having the mentality of a kid, was because he was deprived of his senses for four centuries, and he was physically 6 when the incident happened. He had no way to learn about the world while he was trapped, until Lanny (most likely) told him everything.

- Once Dream gets his new attire, his weaponry changes with him. His arrows are made of positive feelings, which he takes from those around him (this will directly affect them: if someone is really happy and Dream shoots an arrow thanks to those feelings, said person will go from being joyful to just being neutral – never negative in any way). His bow can also split into two daggers joined by the bowstring, however he only uses this when absolutely necessary.

- He has to constantly hop between timelines to stay away from Nightmare and to keep spreading positivity, as his aura is not strong enough to reach every universe if he stays still.

- He has a deep respect for Error, since he knows that if he doesn’t keep the AUs balanced, everybody would die.

- Dream can heal himself, but it's not an extremely fast process. If a wound takes about 3 hours to heal, it would take Dream about 1. He can also heal other people, but that drains his soul's energy and tires him out.

Nightmare:

- Before the bullying started, Nightmare was the more cocky and proud of the brothers. He has always been the more serious one, and is always interested in learning - both normal and corrupted, each in their own ways for their own purposes. The corrupted Nightmare still likes to read.

- Nightmare doesn’t actually have 999 souls, just one, the first apple he ate. The rest are that black goo that surrounds him, an extremely powerful shield that renders him invulnerable to most things; if he were stabbed with something, his body would absorb it and there would be no damage.

- Despite shown using one in that outdated comic, Nightmare can’t actually use Gaster Blasters of any kind.

- The corrupted Nightmare never lies, only hides the truth. He also takes deals very personally and will not hesitate to kill whoever backs off from them (even if he rarely attacks people physically, mostly as a threat).

- The real Nightmare is still in the mind of the corruption, reminding him of important things such as Dream being his brother and all the psychological damage he went through because of the villagers.

- His aura can affect the entire universe he’s in, and many others that are close enough. He doesn’t need to move much to spread negativity.

- Unlike his brother, Nightmare has no respect whatsoever for Error or for anyone who protects the balance of the multiverse. He doesn’t care if Undertale and its AUs die off, as he knows there are many other worlds out there. He still would rather not have any massive massacres, as it would take away the negative power he can obtain from people.

** Dream and Nightmare are rather complex characters, as there are certain things they cannot do or feel because they are driven by more negative or positive energy than anybody else has. This limits their actions and gives them a certain way to behave, ie Dream’s incapability to hate people, (non-corrupted)Nightmare’s instant lack of self-esteem when put under pressure, Nightmare’s lack of love or empathy, Dream’s urge to save any world no matter what… All of this is caused by the energy they are made of and what the world has taught them.

Neil:

- He’s 36 years old, though he lives throughout most of the 496 years Dream is trapped in stone since Dream gave him something to make him live longer (not specified).

- After losing his home and his family and being exiled from the village due to his hostility, he headed off to live in the mountains. He was hostile to people because they never helped him, which prompted them to gossip and say things like he was the one who started the fire.

- More than a friend, Neil saw Dream as the son he’d lost, very few times calling him by his own name and rather using words like kid, boy, etc. He becomes very protective of him and would gladly give his life to keep him safe.

Nim:

- She’s never been fond of mortal life, seeing everyone as careless, greedy creatures.

- Nim didn’t entirely die until the corrupted Nightmare destroyed the Tree; she lived within it, and could still reappear every once in a while, though as a spirit. Dream and Nightmare were the only ones that could see her in this state.

- She never bothered having a good relationship with Dream and Nightmare and they barely ever knew much about her.

Lanny:

- Being an elf herself, the village that surrounds her Tree is populated only by elves. She doesn’t like monsters around the village, as they take too much of the magic the Yggdrasil emanates, which keeps her and the other elves young and gives them longer lifespans.

- Lanny refers to Nightmare as a monster, since she hates him with all her heart for destroying the Tree of Feelings, killing all the people in the village, endangering Dream and thus the precarious balance of feelings, trying to steal the fruits, and etc. She’s generally angry for many of the things that have happened.

- Her wings are not real wings; she can fly (maybe just hover), but not thanks to them. They are an aesthetic, used to make her look prettier according to her. They are an extension of her magic that she can shape at will.

- Lanny was actually in love with Nim, though she never reciprocated her feelings. She was devastated when she died and placed the blame on Dream and Nightmare, just to have someone to blame. She treats Dream with hate.

Quetzalcoatl:

- His true form consists of two giant snakes, one that controls life and other that controls death. They can fuse together to create the human-ish form he’s usually depicted in.

Fun facts:

- Before eating the apples, Dream and Nightmare could not feel people’s emotions. At the same time, they didn’t radiate any kind of positive or negative energy, since the power emitted by the fireballs was something that couldn’t be perceived.

- Dream could have a very, very slim chance to bring Nightmare back without killing him, but odds are he would be the one to die in the attempt: there is a chance that if he touches his soul, a black apple after all, he would turn it golden. However, it’s not bound to work with so much negativity surrounding him, and his arm could start to melt if he tried such thing.

- Dream and Nightmare cannot control people’s dreams or nightmares. At max, Nightmare can mess with people’s minds using what they fear or hate the most to his advantage, this way creating hallucinations and making them eventually go crazy until they can’t keep holding on, and Dream can make people feel better and safer.

- The 3 guardians are all based on mythological creatures; Nim is something of Greek origin (not specified, likely a dryad), Lanny is an elf, and Quetzalcoatl is based on the Aztec god of the same name. They don’t have their own names; they simply took them from things that interested them, as they can watch every world that surrounds them.

- The apples of the Tree of Life are not edible; they are made out of glowing blue crystal. When people die, their souls travel inside these apples. Then, when they are thrown to the ground, these souls break free and are reborn into different people, in different worlds. Thus, the circle of life.

- The Tree of Magic seems to be the only Tree whose fruits are not apples. They look like pears and are rainbow-colored inside.

- Reaper (not exactly the same Reaper/Death/Sans from the Reapertale we all know) has been rumored to have a role in the AU, eventually. Killer may be in, too.

- Joku created Nightmare before she created Dream, for another AU completely different from Dreamtale (cancelled for a long time now) called Underflesh.

- Dreamtale's concept was partially inspired by two movies, these being The Prince of Egypt and Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland.

(i tried linking to the sources i got most of this stuff from, but that prevents the post from showing up in the tags (thanks tumblr). check the version i posted on deviantart for the links if you want more reliability)

[knightowl725]

Small Steps

Fandom: Critical Role

For Fjorclay Week 2020′s Fake Relationship Prompt

Read on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23779240

Fjord would like for it to be documented on his gravestone--

--one likely in the Clay family’s graveyard, the one he’d only heard mixed stories about where they could make cheeky jokes about him being a Stone and drink tea made from his decaying body--

--that Jester Lavorre was the cause of his death.

“We have to get in if we’re going to get information,” Jester whined.

They stood around the corner from the unexpectedly exclusive tavern, Jester’s third attempt at sneaking in failed. She plucked off the painfully obvious false mustache and frowned at them in a little pout.

“Maybe we can try a more...subtle method?” Caleb ventured.

Beau snorted. “Yeah, us. Subtle.”

“Why don’t I just sneak past the guard?” Nott asked.

“You can’t just sneak in if we need to get information,” Fjord pointed out. “We have to enter legitimately.”

“Well, the guard doesn’t take bribes,” Jester told them. “And none of my disguises or distractions worked.”

From the corner of Fjord’s vision, a familiar pink-and-green giant ambled up to the group.

“Where have you been, Caduceus?”

“I, uh, just went to speak to that nice gentleman at the door,” Caduceus said in his slow, smiling way. “Looks like this is a tavern reserved for specific folks.”

“What kind?” Caleb asked.

“The kind that court the same sex, it seems. Some kind of, uh, couples tavern.”

“Ooh, like a dirty tavern?” Jester grinned slyly.

Caduceus laughed. “Ah, no. No, it seems it’s just for socializing and the sort, but only for gay couples.”

“So a few of us can just pretend to be dating,” Nott suggested.

Fjord turned to Beau. “Shame Yasha isn’t with us tonight. I feel like you two’ve done something like this before.”

Beau, arms crossed, scoffed in amusement, but before she could say anything, Jester cried, “Beau can’t go!”

Silence fell over the group.

“Yeah, Jes, that’s what they were saying,” Beau told her.

A deep purple flush colored Jester’s cheeks. If the group had seen the dynamic between the two shifting over the past weeks, no one had said anything. And based on Jester’s reaction, it was still too soon to bring it up.

“Well, I’ve already talked to the guard,” Caduceus began.

“Which would make you perfect to return with your partner,” Caleb said. Caduceus pressed his lips together in a way that told them he was not planning on finishing his thought that way. “If you’ve already buddied up with him.”

“I suppose…”

“You should go with Fjord,” Beau suggested, earning a bright-eyed grin from Jester. “I mean, since Fjord is so good with people and all.”

“Caleb’s not a very good liar,” Jester said severely, drawing an incredulous look from anyone present enough to actually hear her.

“But Fjord and Caduceus are brothers!” Nott objected, drawing a firm and simultaneous, “No!” from the men in question.

Caleb nodded. “Then it’s settled. Fjord and Caduceus will go as a couple and find out what they can regarding the man we’re looking for.”

“Maybe he’s gay,” Beau offered.

“We can only hope,” Fjord muttered. Glancing over to see Caduceus looking at him with concern, he forced a tense smile and said, “Come along, then, Caduceus.”

“I’m sure you’re going to do just fine, Fjord,” the cleric assured him as they walked off. 

“Have fun!” Caleb called from behind them, the final clue that he was absolutely aware of what he was doing.

While the Nein skirted respectfully around whatever was being built between Jester and Beau, they only barely contained their giggles and teasing about him and Cad. There wasn’t anything between them, though. Just a deep friendship built on mutual respect and admiration. And a shared deity. And a continuous warmth whenever they stood close, or met their eyes, or worked together or… Whatever.

They made their way back around the block to the tavern. The same guard stood at the door, a large goliath man who nodded in couples and the odd single person.

“Wonder how they get in,” Fjord mused.

“Regulars?” Caduceus offered. “Think he said something about that.”

“Right.” Fjord took a breath. “Let’s, let’s get going then. Get in, get what we need, get back to the others.”

Caduceus nodded, and they walked side-by-side up to the door.

“Ah, you’re back,” the guard noted. He looked at Fjord. 

“My partner and I were hoping to come in for a little while,” Caduceus said with a smile. 

“You didn’t mention him before,” the man said.

The firbolg slung an arm around Fjord’s shoulders, a little loosely due to the height difference. Fjord did his best to look completely casual about the contact. “Ah, well. You never know.”

He nodded. “Fair enough. Enjoy your evening.”

Fjord gave a courteous nod to the guard as he stepped aside. 

The tavern was warm, a little dim in a relaxed way. There were your standard tables and bar and food and drink, as well as sunken in areas filled with pillows and low tables where couples lounged. 

“Doesn’t really seem like the kind of place to be so exclusive,” Fjord murmured, Caduceus’s arm still around him. Gods, what was wrong with him? Between healing and battle and the close quarters of the dome, he should be used to this. And yet, were it not for the grace of the low light, he’d been a blatant deep green.

Caduceus withdrew his arm, scanning the room slowly. “Suppose that’s why they keep it so exclusive.”

“Huh.”

“What was this gentleman like, again?”

“Human. Beard.” Looking around, Fjord bit back a sigh. “Terribly unique. Name is Berth.”

“We’re going to have to mingle, then.”

“Right.”

There was a pause, and Caduceus leaned down, closer to his height, to ask, “Are you alright, Fjord?”

“Yes, of course.” Seeing the frown on his face, Fjord faltered. “I’m just...uncomfortable, I suppose. It’s not you, it’s just...the situation.”

“We could always leave, go about this another way.”

“No. We’re here already, let’s just--”

“Pardon me, gentlemen,” said a smooth voice. They turned to see an elven man, or perhaps half-elven, standing just at their side. He was dark-skinned, with long, curling hair and tight clothing. A bright smile greeted them. 

“I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.”

Fjord felt himself tense, but forced his expression into something more relaxed, a bit perplexed.

The man went on, “I know we’ve all been in your shoes - new place, new crowd, old discomforts. Why don’t you join me and my friends for a drink?”

“That sounds nice,” Caduceus said. “Fjord?”

Fjord smiled. “Yes, of course. And thank you…”

“They call me Wyth,” said the man. He turned and led them to one of the sunken areas. Amongst the pillows lounged five others, two pairs of women and a single man whom Wyth settled in beside. Each pair was in varying states of contact. Nothing scandalous, but certainly intimate.

Fjord turned so that they wouldn’t see him whisper to Caduceus, “When in Vasselheim.” 

He let out a low chuckle that might have given them away, but seemed to draw no suspicion. Fjord sat first, taking the last open section within the ring of cushions. The one he found was propped up against the edge of the sunken floor, so he was still able to sit mostly upright. 

Caduceus sat beside him, more relaxed and stretched out. His long legs reached the edge of the low table in the center, and he let one arm rest behind Fjord, just touching. Fjord, uncertain what behavior was fully expected, set a hand as casually as he could on Caduceus’s leg. That...seemed okay.

“These are my friends,” Wyth said, half on his partner’s lap. He rattled off names until it was their turn.

“My name is Fjord, and this is my partner, Caduceus.”

They hadn’t discussed fake names, but Caduceus wasn’t exactly versed enough in lying that he wanted to take the risk. Besides, they shouldn’t be doing anything too risky. What was the worst that could happen? They run into people later on that thought they were dating? The entire Mighty Nein already did.

A server came by, unloading drinks for everyone on the low table. Fjord took his to have something to hold.

“Always nice to see new faces around,” said one of the women, a halfling. “How’d you two meet?”

“We’re adventurers, of a sort,” Fjord explained. “The group I was part of, well, I was captured by an enemy. On their way to save myself and other members, they came across Caduceus.”

“It was time for me to leave home,” Caduceus said in his cryptic way.

“And he helped with our rescue. Our paths have...aligned ever since.”

“How daring,” Wyth said. 

“Very romantic,” said another of the women.

Caduceus chuckled. “I like to think so.”

“Yes, I’m certain finding me in a dank cellar, covered in blood and dirt and piss was very appealing,” Fjord muttered, taking a long swig. 

That earned him a laugh. “You forget I was raised in a graveyard.”

“You two are so weird,” Wyth said. Then he grinned. “I love it.”

As the others laughed and chatted about their own strange encounters, Caduceus gingerly picked up his own tankard and peered into it. 

“Want me to get you some water?” Fjord asked. “It’ll, uh, give me a chance to take another look around.”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” Caduceus said, setting back down the drink. 

Fjord rose and climbed from the sunken area, focused on maintaining some level of cool. 

This was fine. This was fine. Those people seemed perfectly nice. They were buying it. Of course they were. If people who knew them thought they were seeing each other without them trying, then this would obviously work. 

It had to be the setting. The romantic lighting and soft cushions and couples and nonsense. And the alcohol. Nevermind he’d had all of one drink. As in, one drink from his glass. It was having an affect, certainly. 

Alright, so now even he wasn’t buying it. As he stood at the bar, waiting for the barkeep to get a free second to grab her attention, he allowed himself a moment of honesty. 

There was something...there with Caduceus. He couldn’t say if it was returned. Clearly the other feelings were, the mutual respect, the kinship, all that. The foundation, if you will. But the structure being built atop it, well. It was hard to say if it was Fjord’s work alone.

And did he want anything more to happen? Liking someone didn’t mean something should be done about it. Look at Jester! There had definitely been something between them at one point, a seed with the possibility of growth. But then Caduceus had happened and Beau had continued to happen and it just...didn’t grow. He loved her, but not like that.

“Water, please,” Fjord asked when the barkeep glanced his way. She nodded, then continued work on the drink she was mixing.

“Hey.”

He glanced over his shoulder to see a broad human man, no beard. 

“Couldn’t help but notice you’ve been standing alone here for awhile,” the man said. “Mind if I keep you company?”

The brief short-circuit that happened any time someone flirted with him shut down Fjord’s brain for a few seconds. The man mistook that for approval and stood a little closer.

Before Fjord could politely send the man away, he felt someone wrap their arm around his shoulder, tighter than before.

“Thank you for getting me a drink,” Caduceus said, close enough to his ear to send an unrelated shiver down his spine. The cleric looked down, down at the human was a smile. “Have you been keeping my partner company?”

His arm shifted, almost more around his neck now, though not uncomfortably so. Just… a clear signal. 

“Sorry,” said the human. “Didn’t think he had anyone considering how long you left him here.”

“Water,” said the barkeep, and Fjord took the distraction.

“Here you go, Cad,” he said, handing off the glass. Caduceus took it with his free hand.

“Thank you.” To the human, Caduceus said, “I have enough faith in our relationship not to spend every moment with him. Until I sense he needs me to intervene. Shall we head back to the group?”

“Yes, let’s,” Fjord said quickly, awkwardly grabbing the hand over his shoulder and guiding Caduceus away from the bar.

“Our new friend Wyth happens to know our man,” Caduceus told him softly. “I think I got enough for us to leave, if you’re still uncomfortable.”

His arm still around him, his breath all too close to his ear, thinking about laying side-by-side again, Fjord felt his face heat up. “No, I, ah, would hate to waste this opportunity. We should stay a little longer, just in case we learn anything more.”

“They are such nice people…”

“Exactly!”

Caduceus looked at him for a moment, then he reached out with his free hand to take Fjord’s. His eyes went heavy-lidded as he left a single, slow kiss on Fjord’s palm. Then, he pulled back, freeing his other arm, and smiled. “It’s a lovely shade of green on you.”

Fjord took in a sharp breath, knowing the blushing was only getting worse. “Right. Back to the group, then.”

Still, he slid his hand into Cad’s before they rejoined the group.

Maybe it didn’t have to change overnight, what was growing between them. Maybe it didn’t have to be a structure built, but a garden nourished. It would take its time, in little ways, no matter the teasing or misconceptions. 

Yeah, that might be nice.

[l-e-i-n-t-h]

Is Tony Stark an abuser? Or to hate or not to hate Tony

I made this post in a sideblog asking precisely about this, cause I’m new to the marvel fandom. I watched some movies, certainly watched the Avengers movies, but it was a peripheral interest for me, until I prepared to watch Endgame, one month before it premiered. I always liked Captain America, but when I watched (or rewatched) TWS and CW, I fell in love with him, and here I am.

My doubt about abuse in the MCU more or less remains. Hear me out, please:

I was in the Supernatural fandom. There, once you pass the “Dean is so dreamy” phase, and the “perfect big brother for Sammy, the little moose” phase, you realize ALL THE BLATANT ABUSE: physical violence, emotional abuse, berating, mocking, control, humiliation, gaslighting, manipulation, and a big etc. You realize Dean treats Castiel like crap too.

When you become aware, it’s specially painful, cause Sam is so emotionally damaged: he doesn’t have healthy boundaries, and the times he has tried to set them, the narrative has punished him really hard. He takes all that abuse and believes it is love, while still managing to keep being kind and empathetic. IT’S SAD AS FUCK. As an abuse survivor myself, I related so fucking hard, and then I got tired of the show and the fandom BS, so I stopped watching.

Dean's abusive behavior is all "up close and personal", constantly manipulative, and claustrophobic. The victim simply cannot walk away: the narrative doesn't let them, the sick relationship doesn't let them, exactly the way abused children cannot escape their parents. So despite all his heroic deeds, I ended up hating Dean really really much: he was supposed to be a good person, and outwards he is, but he abuses the people who love him the most. I tend to ignore protagonists if they don’t appeal to me, but if they’re abusive, that’s a no-no, no matter what the fandom says. 

Being that my meassure for abuse and abuse unawareness in a fandom, I’m still drifting at sea in the MCU. Is Tony an abuser the way Dean is? Let's check his closest relationships:

Pepperony is this sad thing about an intelligent woman whose role consist of putting up with Tony: she has to wait for him, be available for him, tolerate him. In exchange for what? Being endangered, stressed out, unheard and neglected by a guy who makes her laugh. She can walk away, but she doesn’t. He doesn’t necessarily mistreat her, but he doesn’t excell at the whole boyfriending thing either. I think she has a case of the very low standards and of the “I only have you”, like she said in IM1. But I don’t see her particularly damaged by this relationship. She seems... content.

Irondad can be deemed abusive somewhat easily, in a way that’s similar to the Dean-Sam dynamic: poor Peter thinks well about Tony, while his "mentor" actually treats him like crap. Peter's young life has been particularly affected by Tony's choices: Peter doubts himself, is held against impossible standards. And some crimes were commited against him.

But, what Tony does to the rest of the characters can be called abuse? I mean, it's shitty behavior, I'm absolutely sure of that. Friends do not try to force friends to renounce their human rights. Friends do not tell you to "stand down" while they murder your brother in front of you. Friends do not leave friends to rot in an unconstitutional jail.

Friends do not shoot friends in the chest

Nor in the gut

...

Wow. I guess I can stop right now, cause I’m kind of answering my own question. By definition, abuse is any action that intentionally harms or injures another person. Dean’s is textbook domestic abuse: he’s close to his victim, and exerts control over him, which is the very intention of abuse, according to the same source.

I was confused about Tony, because he actually harms people around him, most of the times unintentionally. It wasn’t his intention to harm Peter by taking him to Germany. He just used him to harm others (LOL).  Probably it wasn’t his intention to robb his coworkers of their human rights while enforcing the accords. His intention was to relief his own conscience... at the cost of other people’s rights. It wasn’t his intention to hurt Pepper by telling terrorists his address. He just... did. Because he forgot other people exist.

(X)

He’s not close enough to his coworkers (friends, if you want) for his conduct towards them to be actually destructive, the way Dean and John Winchester destroyed Sam’s autonomy. Fortunately, people around Tony are all adults, with the exception of Peter. What Tony did to them did not destroy them, not because his actions weren’t shitty enough, but because unlike Sam Winchester, these people are not damaged at their cores, and they are not alone: they have each other, or have other people. But the fact that the victims are not destroyed, doesn’t make the conduct non abusive.

And, unlike Pepper, or Sam Winchester, Tony’s coworkers can set healthy boundaries. Tony can’t control them. He crossed them, they left him. And that makes them heroes I can get behind.

What Tony did to Sam Wilson, Steve and Bucky was plain abuse, but the root of all his evil is not his abusive behavior, but his intense narcissism. 

By the moment, I think I can ignore narcissism in a character. It’s the trait of a vast majority of villains, but I usually ignore villains: they’re just the mountain the hero must climb, like a force of nature. I don’t invest my feelings on them, unless they are “up close and intimate” abusers like Black Jack Randall in Outlander, or Negan in The Walking Dead. 

I think that’s the reason why I don’t hate Tony’s guts. I only dislike him. And meh him. And well, unlike Dean Winchester, he’s dead, he cannot harm anybody now. That impotence factor, the “ugh, I wish my baby was safe from this asshole” thing, isn’t present here. 

I’m tagging @disasterhusbands because she prompted this (rather pointless but really fun) analysis.

What do y’all think?

[ghoultyrant]

I've tried a few times to write Samus' pov before and I've had a lot of trouble. I feel like she is fairly inscrutable as characters go, being largely voiceless, and taciturn even when she does speak (not counting Other M). A lot of her dialogue is also removed from social interactions, being internal memos in scan logs. Idk. Maybe this is just me.

Samus as a character isn’t so much a cipher as an archaeological mystery.

The point of that comparison being that the Metroid series actually tends to tell a large fraction of its story through its environments, and does so quite well. Metroid II makes it clear that the endgame area is some manner of laboratory where the Metroids were apparently created, probably by the Chozo, but at some point control was lost. The laboratory is their nest because that’s where their existence as a species started, rather than the Metroid Queen selecting it as a good brooding ground for some other reason. Notably, the laboratory is unusually isolated and difficult to reach, even by Metroid II’s standards of travel distance, suggesting that the lab was deliberately cut off from the rest of the planet, and also probably explaining why the Metroid Queen didn’t wander off elsewhere to nest; she very possibly couldn’t.

In turn, this grounds a detail many players probably never questioned, but which is slightly odd on its own: that Metroids can apparently only grow into their Alpha and so on forms on SR388. As a consequence of natural evolution, this is certainly possible, but seems odd. But given that they’re clearly artificial, it’s easy to guess that the Chozo put that in as an artificial constraint; most likely the Chozo had plans for shipping them out to other worlds, and for some reason or another didn’t want them to change form once they were off the planet. (There’s a lot of plausible reasons for why they’d want this, but that’s a bit of a tangent)

Furthermore, this also grounds the Metroid Queen itself. Most players probably never question the fact that there’s literally only one Metroid Queen on an entire planet, because after all she’s the final boss. There’s obvious video game design reasons involved. But actually, it makes perfect sense in-universe: while fandom frequently assumes that any Metroid could potentially molt all the way to being a Metroid Queen, and that’s not an unreasonable assumption, it’s also entirely possible the Metroid Queen was one-of-a-kind because the Chozo carefully designed things so she’d be unique; that the Metroid Queen was built to be a Queen from the ground up, and is not supposed to be capable of producing more Queen-capable Metroids. That would be a logical thing to do to limit the damage in the event of a containment failure, and neatly explains why the planet has only one Metroid Queen even though Metroids themselves are running rampant across the planet.

Speaking of the Chozo and environmental storytelling, the fact that we saw their statues on two different planets back in the original trilogy was already a strong indication that the Chozo were a spacefaring species. Metroid Prime using scan logs to spell it out was a confirmation of an already-likely-true thing, not a state of canon invented by that particular entry. Again, I imagine a lot of players never questioned it because there’s game design reasons that are obviously applicable (eg that Chozo statues are frequently used to mark Important Power-Ups), but it’s extremely good environmental storytelling.

Anyway, that’s just some bits from Metroid II. Aside Other M and let me be brutally honest Samus Returns (I enjoyed it, but it mostly doesn’t try to do environmental storytelling, and probably-accidentally heavily retcons things, with the Metroid Queen’s nest no longer being set deep inside a laboratory being the most blatant example), the Metroid series does this heavily and constantly. The player is expected, if they care about the story and the world it takes place in, to look at the details they can see and make inferences.

And if they don’t care about any of that, it’s not intruding on their experience: they can just play a fun little game with blasting aliens and whatever.

Looping this back to Samus, though: yeah, we mostly don’t get Samus’ voice, both in a literal sense and in the writing sense. What we get is a ton of secondary information hinting at the kind of person she is, supplemented with concrete facts (eg that she was substantially raised by the Chozo), and then are expected to draw inferences.

As one of the more obvious examples: the first two games implicitly establish that Samus has to have a high degree of confidence in her abilities, or if she doesn’t she’s got a literally suicidal streak. She twice accepts missions to travel alone, deep into hostile territory, with the interstellar bounty hunter equivalent of nothing but the clothes on her back. Metroid II’s manual tells us that some elite corps of soldiers was sent to SR388 and never heard from again, and this didn’t dissuade Samus from going in completely alone.

This strongly implies she earnestly believes she can do the job when a literal small army couldn’t even survive: it’s not just that the Egenoid Star Marines failed at the mission, it’s that they were so completely out of their depth that none of them were able to escape the planet to report their failure!

Important and related is that starting from Metroid Ii it’s very normal for Samus to unambiguously have the option of just turning around and leaving. Her ship is on-planet, she uses it to leave at the end of a given game, and nonetheless she sticks each given mission out. She doesn’t encounter Omega Metroids and go ‘no, this is too dangerous, I’m out’. She doesn’t rampage across half of Zebes in Super Metroid and give up in disgust when she fails to find the stolen Metroid reasonably quickly. She doesn’t report the Space Pirates on Tallon IV to the Federation and leave them to clean up that particular mess while she goes to get a drink. Echoes and Fusion are the only games that actually trap Samus on-site temporarily to justify her ongoing presence, and even then if you bother to visit and scan her ship regularly in Echoes you’ll discover it’s ready for liftoff well before it’s time for the endgame, while in Fusion it actually doesn’t take that long to get back access to the Main Deck and thus her ship.

A lot of games that place a player character alone and far from civilization are very careful to explain that the player character was stranded in this strange place, and implicitly or explicitly sets the player character’s goal as escape back to civilization. The implication is generally that these are people who would never willingly inflict such a situation on themselves, and if they ever accidentally found themselves in such a situation with the ability to back out, they’d take it in a heartbeat.

Samus, meanwhile, keeps ending up in these situations and sticking them out. She doesn’t mind being alone with her thoughts for long periods of time.

It’s worth mentioning that the Japanese version of the original Metroid tracked how long you’d played, only your hours of play were presented as how many days Samus had been on Zebes. If you treat this ratio as canonical to all future games, which are generally designed so a first-time player will beat them in 4-20 hours... yeah. Samus has repeatedly spent several days or weeks in a row far away from civilization, and is just fine with sticking those situations out, and even inflicting them fairly spontaneously on herself if she has a specific reason for doing so. (eg she goes to Tallon IV in pursuit of Ridley)

Now, since this is inference there’s a fundamental ambiguity here. I personally tend to interpret Samus as being someone who finds socializing with her fellow sentients to be a stressful experience, such that going out into the wild for a week is a form of decompression and relaxation, but this isn’t the only plausible interpretation, and honestly I probably go to that interpretation because I don’t cope well with that kind of social interaction, rather than it actually being a better interpretation. One could plausibly interpret Samus as someone who, say, is actually fairly intensely social and just rates (Insert mission objective here) as more important than her own personal comfort. (In this interpretation, it would be assumed she instead decompresses from her missions by partying with her must-exist-in-this-interpretation large circle of friends) That’s certainly an excellent justification for her chasing Ridley in Metroid Prime, for example, and if we ignore Other M entirely I can’t think of a Metroid game that could be said to contradict that particular interpretation. (And Other M doesn’t count because it contradicts literally every other game on so many levels; if one game doesn’t fit while the rest are consistent with each other, you toss that one game as an inconsistency)

(Well, actually, another reason I take my interpretation of Samus is that she was raised by Ascetic Space Bird Monks, but then again plenty of people rebel against their upbringing. It’s perfectly possible to say Intensely Social Samus was driven crazy by the Chozo expecting her to be an Ascetic Space Bird Monk But As A Tiny Human, and even suggest that she takes being Intensely Social even farther than she would’ve otherwise as pushback against that whole thing)

BUT

While there’s room for interpretation and murkiness on details, Samus across the games has a fairly clear sketch of a certain range of plausible personalities. This range is also further reduced if we actually, for example, acknowledge Samus’ monologues from Fusion, which make it clear Samus concerns herself with the big picture (Suggesting that she sticks out her missions at least in part because often The Fate Of The Galaxy hinges on them kind of thing), and also seems to indicate (Consistent with her observed behavior), that Samus isn’t someone inclined toward negotiation as a problem-solving mechanism -that is, she doesn’t even countenance the possibility of trying to talk the incoming Federation goons into not trying to weaponize the X, going straight to ‘I need to make sure it’s not possible for them to try’- and that she’s got a bit of a philosophical streak to her, of exactly the sort one might expect of someone raised by Ascetic Space Bird Monks.

But even without the Fusion monologues, it’s not actually that hard to dig up a coherent personality for Samus, consistent with what we see across most of the games and compelling in its own right. It just takes a mentality that, while unusual for most writing/reading, is completely consistent with how the Metroid series prefers to convey its stories.

[migleefulmoments]

Abby is the 1 who needs a reading comprehension lesson. An anonymous person said 'You're a narrow-minded fool if you actually put any stock in whether or not a married man is wearing his ring.' Abby's reply was 'Never once did I or anyone I know say that a married person has to wear a ring.' Am I crazy or is that totally 2 different things? Sometimes Abby is so blind it makes me crazy. Also, if u could do a follow up to her blatherings re her post it would be great. I'm just gobsmacked over it.

I see you wrote another post clarifying it was Cassie who made the comments you quoted but the entire coven’s comments after Cassie just get more ridiculous- “fact” after “fact” of lies and nonsense comparisons.  It’s batty that they believe any of the lies- but they believe them all! 

Anonymous asked: My grandpa doesn't wear his wedding ring because he used to work as an AC/heating repair man (he even taught college courses on fixing heaters at one point) and then was just not in the habit when he retired. That doesn't make his and grandma's marriage less valid. Rings are a symbolic thing that most cultures don't even do. You're a narrow-minded fool if you actually put any stock in whether or not a married man is wearing his ring.

cassie1022 answered: Oh yay, fun. (Cassie -always so charming)  My dear Nonnie, once again, reading comprehension eludes someone that believes in the Miarren myth. Never once did I or anyone I know say that a married person has to wear a ring (and yet Abby pops in below to claim the same but then argue that it IS the ring coming and going that looks suspicious. Let’s pretend that cc rings were real- he didn’t wear them every day regardless of what Abby claims.). Some people don’t wear them because they work with their hands, like your grandpa, and some just don’t feel comfortable wearing them. Let’s be real though. D has never shown an aversion to wearing rings. He’s worn them quite often, even while playing a show (yes, but he also took them off.  It’s his prerogative.  Until he says he’s getting divorced, it’s none of our business). There was a time when the only time he DIDN’T have a ring on was while he was in character (so what? He has had his wedding ring on most times we’ve seen him. You are counting individual photos as entire days and that isn’t accurate)

That being said, let’s examine. When was the last time you think D fixed a car, operated heavy machinery, or, like your grandpa, fixed an AC unit or heater?  (You have no idea what he does in his spare time.  This is a gross comment-some people do things with their hands -build things- because they enjoy it)  (Maybe if he could do that, people wouldn’t be making their own sweat gravy when they go to TSG.)(So now we start with the lies and mischaracterizations. FUN. There are two comments from TSG claiming A/C was broken. Since likely Mia doesn’t own the building, she has no control over the A/C being broken). 

As I’ve already said, rings aren’t for everyone, but I’ve also pointed out that D has been an avid ring wearer most of his life, and there is more than enough photographic evidence to support this. Also, most couples that exchange rings don’t usually stop wearing them in the first year of marriage.(And he hasn’t stopped wearing his now has he?) That’s when it’s usually a point of pride and you want the world to know you are someone’s spouse. (Does Darren seem like the kind of person who is worried about “the world knowing he’s someone’s spouse”? He’s pretty open about his relationship and taking his ring off for an hour or two isn’t indicative of anything).

You know what DOES make a marriage less valid? No legitimate officiant.(LIE)  There are only a handful of states where you can officiate your own marriage, and guess what? Louisiana isn’t one of them.(He didn’t, Joe did)  You need an ordained minister and in addition to that, the minister must register in the parish where the marriage is taking place.

So, if this makes me a “narrow-minded fool,” so be it. I’ve been called worse. (It definitely does).  

ajw720 I needed to laugh this morning, thank you nonnie.(I would imagine you need to laugh a hell of a lot more than you do Abby)  You people really don’t get it (Oh lord).  Also, it isn’t JUST the ring (which is very suspicious especially as he deliberately takes it off at random times, there one minute gone the next) (Here abby argues it isn’t the ring.... except it is the ring) , it is as @cassie1022 pointed out, no officiant (LIE) , weird wedding algorithm (the fact that Abby truly believes there was a guest algorithm says everything there is to say about Abby’s judgment and the cc nonsense)  is FAMILY HONEYMOON (a joke)  constant babysitters (LIE) d’s complete lack of enthusiasm (he practically said he was bored and realized at the last moment that that was bad) (Desperate Abby, you're so desperate) , talked about pooping exes as opposed to how life changed with his bride (and you don’t get that this is was keep from speaking about his personal life? How long have you been a fan? Joking about something to distract from having to answer something private is spot-on Darren), speaks more passionately about his jacket then his wedding (we done got hitched) (This means nothing Abby...NOTHING. He wrote a boring post about his jacket and you’ve been losing your shit over it ever since. IT meant nothing...it was a coat he wore to an event. You only like it because he was boring and serious. It was the farthest thing from Darren I’ve ever read.), announced the engagement using a reference to the wrong freaking franchise (I can’t...this is one of your dumbest arguments out of a lot of arguments. It was a JOKE Abby, a joke.  He used the franchise that made the joke funny. Darren doesnt’ own a franchise)   , FIVE FUCKING encagement rings (LIE), the last of which is an advertisement that she is paid to wear and they haven’t even tried to hide this fact (LIE), utter lack of chemistry (again desperate Abby) , the weirdness with his non-relationship but clear friendship of sorts with his ex co-star (It’s not “weirdness” it’s a nonrelationship-you said it yourself). , the way she is promoted that is beyond excessive for someone who isn’t famous (This entire rant is unhinged. Nobody is promoting her, he’s living his life with her.  Like we expect he would with his wife. There is nothing untoward with their behavior together.  The fact that you have to label it “promotion” says that it worries you a lot). the fact that the sold their entire wedding to about 100 sponsors )(LIE) (I am sure there are more than we even realize), the clear references to fandom at the sham mockery (OMG Abby, give it up. Nobody cares about you), and that this allegedly private couple also released 85% of their wedding for public consumption (They released 27 photos. That is HARDLY 85% of their wedding. You saw a lot of the same photos posted by their friends and it upset you but they didn’t release 85% of their wedding. It was a 4-day event and the wedding events started at around 3 pm and lasted until after midnight -27 is not 85% of 10-ish hours of celebration).  

If it was ONLY that he randomly took his ring off depending on how the wind is blowing, fine, that is evidence alone of nothing.  All of these things, and hundred and hundreds of other facts (which are ALL LIES). (inconsistent timelines (Darren doesn’t owe you a “consistent timeline” that’s asinine)   they don’t know where they met each other RC handshakes (You know that isn’t a handshake- they were photographed together right before the “handshake’ you won’t let go of and he’s heard introducing her as his girlfriend ), D running from her every moment he can, etc, etc)(Whatever you tell yourself to sleep at night), are clear evidence it is fake that is beyond a reasonable doubt (Bwahahahahaha you are conning yourself Abby) .  Him kissing her in her bar is his job.  I suggest nonnie you pay attention to the details (Which ones- your lies or the real details?) And please pay attention to the captain, he hasn’t even been subtle lately, he has been fairly blatant (Le sigh, he isn’t the captain.  He’s a dude who loves his boyfriend Will and writes children’s books that are not cc Bibles) .

Happy Thanksgiving Nonnie!  I hope you can tear yourself away from reading blogs you disagree with long enough to enjoy your friends and family! Cheers!

notes-from-nowhere What love are you talking about, anon? M doesn’t love D and she makes this clear every chance she get (LIE- there is nothing that suggests MIa isn’t in love with Darren). Do I have to remind you how she denied to D’s mom one red carpet to celebrate her son? (LIE Abby fabricated)  Or to D’s dad to be honored for his military past?(another LIE Abby fabricated)  But why listing all of her actions when you know very well this is only the surface.

Btw, I still have to know a singer/actor lost a finger because of a wedding band. Anon, try again, this attempt failed. (SMH)

leka-1998 You know what I like about this instance in particular? Apart from the fact that the ring isn’t off the whole time, he’s still wearing the other one here.

After 284719 years, she should also know what the language D’s mom speaks is called. Seems she doesn’t care enough. (Another LIE that Abby fabricated) 

Also, former platonic roomie says hello. (LIE) 

ajw720

They still can’t explain away B/enny, the man D just praised for his new album yet D hasn’t even mentioned his brother’s (I can’t explain it but it has nothing to do with Darren and Mia.  You’re the one making it a problem) .  The man that mocked fandom on his IG by referring to M/oulin R/ouge when posting about the fraud in NOLA (Nobody-especially Ben Hudson- gives a shit about fandom Abby. You’re a nobody)  The man who seemingly officiated the wedding (Again a LIE)  And the one who appears to have a dog (yes he does, he lives with his girlfriend, Joanna, and their two dogs) . Hey remember just a few weeks ago when PBB dropped her teeth in the dog’s bowl? Funny as we know she and D don’t have a dog (Nope, they clearly don’t- stop trying so hard).…

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

Regarding my post recently about how annoying I find anti-Reylo petty!posting, I want to make it absolutely clear that like, I don’t have an issue with people wanting to have serious discussions about the problems they have with it or with Kylo, Particularly because Kylo painfully reminds some people of current real-world behaviors. 

Just as an example, within my own ships I’ve had serious issues in the past regarding the implications of how certain characters and storylines were handled. I shipped Rumbelle from OUAT for a long while. I was super into the concept during Season 1. But then Season 2 changed a lot of things for me. It was revealed that Rumple systematically manipulated Regina for many years. It was revealed that he also murdered his first wife out of anger and jealousy (she was his emotional abuser, but the framing of his motives made his major reasons clear. Also emotional abuse doesn’t justify murder but I digress).  He repeatedly lied to Belle in order to selfishly keep her with him and blind her to what he did to his first wife.

Belle spent the entirety of their relationship basically denying his darkness and insisting that he change. It was probably one of the ugliest renditions of a Beauty and the Beast tale there is, because it managed to pretty much intentionally have the messages some people criticize BATB for having (even though it never did).

I still like the concept of Rumbelle in theory, because Robert Carlyle’s performance in that first Season was phenomenal and I loved the idea of the character initially. It would have been awesome to see a well written romance for him.

But as you can see, this ship inherently has serous issues, and many of those issues involve racism and sexism and abusive behavior. I would still enjoy shipping Rumbelle, but personally I feel like too much of canon’s poisoned storyline has permeated it’s fandom and fanfic, so I just can’t really invest any energy into picking out the stuff I don’t like anymore.

While the height of my OUAT fandom days didn’t really occur during the height of the anti-villain stanning days, I certainly still had people assume a lot of things about my feelings regarding Rumbelle, many of which reduced me down from a complex human being with ethics into a braindead icky fangirl who didn’t care about the ship’s problems because I was too busy stanning Rumpelstiltskin/Mr.Gold.

Over the years on this site I have had people treat me and others that way over characters and ships like Loki and Labyrinth’s Sarah/Jareth, and any number of villains or villain/heroine ships I’ve had in my time here. People who engaged in this kind of behavior rarely interacted long enough to ask what my (or anyone else’s) actual nuanced opinions were, because it was easier for them to create an immoral target out of us. The purpose was to make themselves feel superior over someone they could not humanize, not to spread awareness or engage in actual discussion with peers.

The most frustrating part of this is the blatant hypocrisy involved with this kind of behavior. I’ve seen Loki fangirls I’ve known who seem to enjoy trashing Reylo, as if Loki had significantly cleaner hands or ideologies than Kylo. As if the Loki fandom hasn’t churned out a boatload of Abuser!Loki fanfiction, as if they hadn’t mostly turned me off of my own ship (Loki/Darcy) because of how toxic they could depict it. As if I didn’t see a sizable percentage of Loki fangirls make Nick Fury the biggest villain in their fanfics, making him essentially an oppressor figure. 

If you are a Loki fangirl you are certainly not automatically better than a Kylo fangirl. You don’t get to pretend that you are cleaner than the Reylos. If you like any villain at all, your hands are not necessarily cleaner.

But if you’ve never liked a villain at all, your hands are not necessarily cleaner, either. How many Rose/Doctor shippers who hated on Martha, or Clara/Doctor shippers who hated on Danny Pink, are anti-Loki or anti-Reylo, I wonder? I’m really not at all convinced that people who behave this way care about abuse, sexism or racism when it’s their own ships or favorite dudes.

The problem with these mean spirited petty jokes, bitching and bullying posts about Reylo that get passed around on this site is that they give away the hypocrisy of (predominantly) white fangirls who only half-bother to bring up serious issues when it’s convenient and safe for them, when it looks good for their SJ cred and social media reputation, and when they can hurt others with it without any consequences or repercussions for themselves or the things they personally enjoy. 

And honestly I’m done with that. Have the courage and maturity to be critical of your own spaces, while respecting other people’s ability to do so within their spaces. If you are going to be critical of something, actually be thoughtfully critical and leave the petty bullshit behind you, because it just makes you look like a dick at this point.

So in conclusion, if you’re a marginalized person who had negative feelings about Reylo and expressed that thoughtfully, that post was not directed at you. If you are a Reylo who doesn’t have a single critical eye for what you consume or how you yourself engage in fandom, particularly when it comes to how you might alienate marginalized people, that post did not exist to protect you.

That post was me not giving a single fuck about anybody’s bullshit anymore. I don’t care about anybody’s online reputation or ego or petty mocking anymore, I don’t care how much SJ talking points and banners you list in your blog descriptions. I’m tired and getting way too old for this obnoxious high school shit.

[thehollowprince]

Endgame - Tony Stark

WARNING: MAJOR ENDGAME SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT!!!

I figured I’d start with Tony, because as anyone who follows me, or has seen my blog knows, I do not like this character.  This movie is no exception to that, in that I wasn’t a big fan of what they did with his character in here, but there were moments I actually did like.  So I’m going to make a list of what I liked and what I didn’t about his character and then some thoughts on his overall arc throughout this movie and the MCU in general.

I will try to keep the dislike section away from being blatantly “Anti Tony” but I make no promises.

Also, these lists will have bits from other characters that were a part of the main six’s journeys, so just keep that in mind.

Fair warning, the likes section is probably going to be a lot shorter than the dislike list, which won’t be too long either.  The Russos kept their word in that the Avengers from Infinity War that took a back seat were given more in this film, but Tony was still in it a bit too much for my liking, especially with how everything played out.

With that out of the way, let’s do this.

LIKES

Morgan Stark 

Pepper’s Iron Woman suit

Tony and Howard

“I am Iron Man”

Rhodey and Pepper being by his side

Proof that Tony Stark has a heart

Let’s start with what I liked about his story arc in Endgame.  I loved Morgan.  His daughter was adorable and he had a great little relationship with her, from what little we saw of it, away from everyone (left) and living in a cabin in the woods.  The whole scene where he says “Shit!” not knowing his daughter is sitting right there was hilarious and precious all at the same time.  Add to that the fact that she blackmailed him into getting her a treat for her silence and my heart was won.

How he acted with Morgan was a great shift in his character from all of the previous movies and I’m assuming it had something to do with having a biological child, as opposed to this whole concept a good percentage of the fandom likes to pretend is a thing (”Irondad”), but more on that later.

Pepper’s suit that she wore at the end was amazing.  I loved it so much better than any of the other IM suits used throughout any of the movies, and I loved during the epic battle at the end how well the two fought together.  Plus Pepper being included in the big Girl Power team-up at the end of the fight is the stuff of legends.

As anyone who followed me over this last year knows, I’m not a fan of Tony’s (and his fandom’s) constant need to blame everything wrong he ever does on a combination of things, one of which is his relationship with his father.  This is probably the most screen time Howard got in any of the movies and I did love that Tony used it to connect with his father over something they now have in common - having kids.  It was nice to finally see Tony put aside all his issues and recognize that his father was a human being.  Also, Jarvis being there was amazing!

More on this in the Dislikes section, but Tony’s response to Thanos’ “I am inevitable!” line being “I am… Iron Man.”  It was a nice callback to the first movie and the comics and I’m glad they ended his character on that note.

As he lay dying, which I didn’t take nearly as much pleasure in as I thought I would, I did like Rhodey and Pepper being there by his side, and Pepper’s little speech to him, telling him he could rest now, which was a nice callback to earlier in the film where she asked him if he could rest if he didn’t help.  As much as I don’t like them together, it was a touching moment to see him die with his wife and partner at his side.

The wreath with the original arc reactor put on the lake was just a nice touch, in my opinion.

DISLIKES

Nebula

His return to Earth

The Five Years Later

Still building suits

His superiority complex and attitude in general

His treatment of Scott Lang

“Do you trust me”

The constant quips and sarcasm

Peter Parker

One

His funeral

Okay, this one might upset people, but I did warn you.

For starters, I did not at all like the way they (The Russos) had Nebula act around Tony while they were on the Guardians’ ship.  Granted, they did a lot of character assassinations in this movie, but this was one of the ones that stood out the most to me, especially given how she treated everyone else throughout the rest of the movie, with her usual disdain except for her sister and Rocket.  Having her be so kind and nurturing to him just felt like something out of a fanfiction by someone who worships Tony but never saw any of the Guardians of the Galaxy films.  Though, I will admit, having him in his dying moments open his eyes to see Carol blazing in to save him and then her setting the ship down like it was nothing was pretty spectacular.

The moment he’s back on Earth, he just starts in with his bullshit again.  I’m sorry, but blaming Steve for the epic loss that they all faced was such a childish move, but that’s become something of a staple for him.  Blaming all of his problems and failures on someone else, even when they’re not just his failures.  It’s always someone else’s fault, because self-reflection isn’t a strong suit of his character, nor is his capacity to let it go.  Him standing there and yelling at Steve, as if everything was entirely his fault because Ultron blew up in his face and his “suit of armor around the world” didn’t pan out the way he wanted was such a dick move.  We’ve seen how Thanos and his forces dealt with Wakandan technology, which we all know is better than Stark Tech.  So for him to think that the Ultron Project would have even been able to stop Thanos, especially once he was armed with the Infinity Stones is pure hubris and I’m sick and tired of it.

The five years later scene, particularly when Steve, Scott and Natasha come to him for help after they thought up a way to fix it all, just made my blood boil.  I know no one wants to admit this, but Tony didn’t lose anyone in the snap.  And no, I’m not counting Peter as someone close to him, because up until the scene where Peter went poof, he’d been nothing but disdainful or outright neglectful of him.  The three that showed up to ask for his help lost everything, and while it is understandable that he didn’t want to lose what he now had, his outright dismissal of them was infuriating.  Especially when you factor in that he had to have his ass handed to him, and watch everyone else lose their loved ones before he finally put aside his ego and settled down with Pepper.

Even with the world decimated, he still can’t stop with the suit building?  Seriously?  Sure, it came in handy later when Pepper donned it for the big fight, but he was working on that before Steve and Nat even showed up.  He wasn’t preparing for the fight, he was just doing what he always does and feeding his addiction to those suits.

Another thing that bugged me about them coming to him for help was his whole attitude about it.  Not only how dismissive he was to Scott, but since when is Tony an expert on quantum physics?  There was no build up to that, no mention of it before, and it just smacked of something they threw in there to try and find a reason for Tony to rejoin the Avengers for this final film.  Between Scott and Bruce, and with Rocket’s brilliance and Thor’s knowledge of Asguardian science, they should have figured it out.  But no!  We had to have the Tony be the one to save the day.

You’ll get a theme here about my dislikes all being related to the blatant fan service of those who worship Tony Stark.

In regards to the way he talked to Scott throughout the entire film - I didn’t like it.  I didn’t like his dismissive attitude or his constant barrage of insults.  Scott Lang is probably one of, if not the, nicest character in the MCU and he doesn’t deserve to be treated like that by some bored billionaire with a grudge.

The “Do you trust me?” line was aggravating as hell.  Anyone who watched these movies knows that Tony doesn’t trust his teammates, or even treat them with basic respect half the time, and given how he acted to Steve upon his return to Earth, and how they left things at the end of Civil War, I think the addition of that line was a slap in the face to any of the people who loved Steve’s character over the years.

The constant sarcasm got old about seven or eight movies ago.  At some point these writers and producers have to realize that being a sarcastic asshole isn’t really a personality, despite how much they try and pretend it is.  It’s 2023 in this movie, which puts Tony over fifty.  It’s way passed time to just let it go.  He doesn’t always have to get the last word in.

I am not a fan of all of this whole "Irondad" farse that so many people have fallen for. The few times they've interacted at all, Tony has been either outright dismissive, if he even pays attention to him at all, so for Peter to come back and that hug to take place, not to mention Peter crying while Tony was dying bugged me. We've seen absolutely nothing in the MCU that would support this behavior aside from blatant fan service.

Tony looking over and seeing Strange holding up his finger (not the finger I would have chosen) to indicate this is the one time in 14 million that they stopped Thanos annoyed me.  Not the fact that Tony got the stones for that final snap, but the fact Tony was even able to touch them.  Before anyone comes for me, I’d feel the same way if it had been Steve or Clint or T’Challa or Sam or Bucky or whoever.  One of the things we’ve been shown throughout the MCU was how damn powerful those stones were.  Hell, the Power Stone killed almost everyone that ever touched it, with my understanding being that humans would have been disintegrated on contact.  But someone, Tony Stark, the middle-aged man was able to hold all six Infinity Stones and perform a snap?  I mean, sure, he died in the end, but he shouldn’t have been able to do it at all, especially when we saw how using the Stones nearly killed Thanos, who has been proven to be vastly stronger than so many of them, Tony included.

I also really didn’t like the funeral.  Yes, it was nice to see his friends and family there, but the further back they went, the more I kept questioning “Why?”  Why were all those people there?  The Bartons and the rest of Team Cap and that random kid behind them?  Carol?  Some of those people barely had any interaction with Tony, if at all, and suddenly they’re all there to mourn him?  I don’t know if the whole thing was supposed to be an homage to the fact that an era has ended in the MCU, but the whole scene left something of a sour taste in my mouth.

FINAL OPINION

Anyone who has followed me over the years knows that I don’t really like this character.  It started out with mild dislike, but then just snowballed into outright hatred, so this film, which managed to pull him back even if only a little, helped me remember some of what I originally liked (read: didn’t hate) about the character. 

The whole Tony exiting the MCU thing by having him sacrifice his life just reeked of fanservice and RDJ’s heavy-handed negotiation skills.  It’s been a constant in every movie he’s been in, except Homecoming, that he has to have the big emotional climax.  This film marks the fourth time that Tony has decided to leave superheroing behind, and at this point, it’s just become a gimmick.  Even though this time he is confirmed as dead, I don’t really feel all that bad for the character because of MARVEL’s insistence in putting him in movies where he wasn’t needed and I’m sure they’ll find a way to bring him back somehow for future installments.

This character could have been so great over the course of the MCU, but the writers just stuck with the same tired old tropes and put them on repeat, even up to the big heroic sacrifice in the end, which fell flat to me because he already had more than one of those.  Those being his flying of the nuke into the wormhole back in The Avengers, and then his destruction of all his suits in Iron Man 3.

They tried this so many times already that it lost it’s uniqueness for any of those who are invested in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

[angrykpoprants]

I don't think I'm gonna support the next comeback in August. It's mainly due to armys being terrible the accusing winner's mino of pedophilia, Hatred towards got7 and rampant racism towards black fans and the recent racism the k army directed to black fans over fan cafe photos and bts continues to be silent on it has rubbed me wrong way and I don't feel right supporting the next comeback as a black fan myself

I don’t really think its wrong to not fully support the comeback, you still have every right to call yourself a fan/army. Truth be told I haven’t fully supported their comebacks since B,S,& T. I still buy their albums and watch the music video once but that’s about it, if you don’t want to watch the music video or buy the album also, that doesn’t mean your less of a fan either. I kind of stay away from watching the live performances and all that stuff because there’s just so much negativity that their fans put out their. 


For the people that don’t know whats going on about Mino I’ll explain it below since it can be a sensitive topic and I don’t want to trigger people. But for the TL:DR he is not a pedophile. 


The armys never fail to surprise me. Don’t you remember during their second Mama performance when they collaborated with got7, armys went around supporting got7 just because they performed with bts and they said that they were friends with them… They even supported Jackson because Jackson said that he’s friends with Rap Mon, yet now that got7 is stealing the spotlight from bts they all of a sudden hate got7. I feel like armys wake up angry and wanting to fight people everyday. Got7 has been around for a while, people supported them even when they were featured in an episode of who is next. Got7 is very talented and they work hard so they deserve to get attention. I’m sorry armys but there are a plethora of very talented kpop groups, bts is not the only one of its kind… heck, bts isn’t even “original” there literally Bigbang mixed with B.A.P B.A.P has been around a about 19 months before bts and bigbang has been around 7 years before bts. 


I know you said that they fan cafe thing is synonymous with racism and I full on believe you but I’m going to address them as separate because both of them are a major issue in and of itself.

As far as the racism thing… there are a lot of accounts of armys of all kinds of races being racist towards other fans… I’ve even experienced blatant racism from their fans at both TRB and wings. At wings my friend who is full Asian and I were waiting patiently in line, we were keeping to ourselves and we were one of the last people to arrive. In the line that we were in the people in front of us kept looking back and they said that “I thought they just came to America for their white fans“ and I was thinking “did I really just hear that?” who knows what else they said when they got in the venue… It’s just sad that those two girls have that much hatred inside of them, at TRB I attended with my mom as I was only 15, and my friend was 13, both her and my mom are full white. People assumed that my friend was my moms daughter which is understandable, I’m not mad at that, I don’t really look like my mom either. As soon as the heard me refer to her as Mom and my friend refer to her as Miss.P for anonymity… its not that me or my mom have a problem with remaining anonymous but its more like I don’t know who follows me and for what reason… mainly it because I don’t want any retaliation from bts fans maybe someday I’ll be less anonymous, they started treating both me and my mom super rude and weird. Even during TRB, my mom had went upstairs to go to the bar, there was another mom there but she was talking about how awesome Asia is and how her two children younger than me are going to go to Korea and blah blah blah, it was basically this fantasy-land view of Asia and Asians. My mom then told the lady that being married to an Asian isn’t all lollipop and rainbows and living in Hawaii my mom dated a few other Asian men before she married my Father. After that her behavior towards my mom changed, as if she was disgusted over who my mom chose to marry, yet she created that same-like fantasy in her head for her daughters. I had also gone up there to get some water and to get out of the crowd I have asthma and I forgot my inhaler, hot/lukewarm water helps sometimes and the look on her face she she saw me looked was a real look of disgust, she was extremely rude to me too. 
If that’s the type of prejudice that I face, being a hapa… I cant imagine what you go through.

Now with the fancafe issue, ever since they opened up the fancafe, the photo have been share left and right. Am I saying its okay? No, it’s against the rules. They have said that they were going to shut down the fancafe or ban people if content gets shared but it seems to just be empty threats from bighit. What’s not cool is that they put the blame on black fans. Fans of all races have been sharing fancafe photos. If they truly want the sharing of the photos to stop then they should report it to bighit… but at this point are they even going to do anything? Its just like how they say that legal action will take place of the content from their dvd’s gets shared but does anyone actually get sued?

Yes, your right, bts and/or bighit should step in at this moment because there is way too much toxicity in that fandom. It’s not hard to tell the fans “hey dont be mean”. “dont be racist”, or even “be nice to other fandoms”. B.A.P has said all of that to their fans, just take a look at BYG’s speech in Atlanta. Bigbang has even said something along the lines of “its okay for you to like other groups, we dont really care” which i believe somewhat help die down the fanwars in the VIP fandom. Although, I dont think that’s what bighit cares about anymore. Yes, bts should be able to come out and say it themselves but like i have said previously, we dont really know what their contract entails, we dont even know if they are aloud to say anything that could potentially jeopardize the money coming into to bighit, and that’s all bighit cares about now, I dont even think bts has freedom of speech at this point, they seem to manufactured as of now. Although, bts has been subtlety dissing their fans lately and I think that this fandom needs it at this point.

Below will be the controversy with Mino.

Now about the Mino pedophile issue, no… Mino is not a pedophile and he didn’t commit pedophilia. Mino was following an instagram account that was ran by a photographer called prettypuke. I’ve know about this account for a while because he had been following since 2015, although some fans say that he was hacked. Now that photographer was also the co-director for CL music video Dr. Pepper which was released in 2015. I also believe that he had worked with other YG artist before and other people from YG were also following him.

What happened is that there was this article in published saying that Mino was a pervert… not a pedophile which, in some cases can go hand and hand but not all perverts not pedophiles. The reason why that made headlines in Korea is becuase of their online censorship and pornography ban which its more like anything that can be sexual is banned, Then this Army got a hold of the article and “translated” it but she flat out called him a pedophile. The reason for that is there was this picture that was uploaded and it was a boy with a buttplug on is forehead, what seemed to be him pretending to be a unicorn. However, just because there was a sex toy in that picture that did not make the picture sexual. There are a ton of videos and pictures where children find their parents toys. It got so bad to the point where Mino unfollowed everyone on his Instagram and the photographer had to make a statement. He said “Here is context to the image causing so much controversy in Korea. I fucking hate that it has come to this. This is my son Casper two years ago. Children are extremely inquisitive. My job as a dad is to be present, educate him, and protect him” along with that he said “My son happen to find his mother’s toy and began to play with with it. To him it’s just a found object, disgusting adults are the ones bringing negative connotation to such a simple image that shows no sexual intent“ 

The army then tweeted out a half-assed apology, she really didn’t apologize to Mino per se but more apologizing out of embarrassment because there even were a group of armys attacking her. Its just so sickening that she thought that that was okay to say because forever his image will be messed up due to people deeming him a pedophile and it seems like people just started to forget about the whole SMTM controversy. There are no accusations that they can use to even make him seem like a pedophile. This could potentially mess up his solo debut. No matter what, when a man gets accused of being a pedophile, rapist, molester, etc… and hes proven innocent that label will forever be on him for the rest of his life, not necessarily though the legal system but through out the street.  Part of me is also think that she did that to try to tarnish winners name because after Everyday their fame has been increasing like crazy.

[hideyourfiresrp]

The Rules

Hello, everyone! With us nearing the end of our site buzz, we thought now would be a great time to release the site’s rules. Please read these thoroughly and if you have any questions feel free to send an ask so that we can clarify anything or add anything you think we might be missing. Please note that these are copied from the site, so some of the information may not be needed right away. Please also note that these are subject to change.

Here on Hide Your Fires, we pride ourselves on being understanding, relaxed, and welcoming, and we like to think our rules reflect that as well. Still, we do expect everyone to adhere to the rules as we have posted them, and staff withholds the right to change or add to these rules as they see is fit. We'd like to thank you in advance for taking the time to read through our rules as well as joining or considering joining our site. We know this is long, but it's to make sure everything is absurdly clear. Below, these rules are split into sections to make things easier on you.

REGISTRATION

We ask that you register with your character's first and last name in all lower case, i.e. daenerys targaryen. If you wish to change your name, please do so in the control panel. We have this set so that they are automatically accepted. For surnames, we accept canon ASOIAF houses only, and do not accept made up houses for surnames. The only area this would be reconsidered is for wildlings and for bastards, which will always have one of the canon bastard surnames. If you need help finding an open house for your character that you can work to fit your idea, please reach out to a member of the staff team. For aliases, we will not be allowing duplicate aliases, or at least not duplicates with some sort of distinguisher, i.e. lena and lena2, or lena and lenaaa. Please look at the member directory prior to joining. If you do register with a taken alias, we will ask you if you could change it or add a distinguisher, just to make everything easier and less confusing for everyone involved.

CREATION

We do not have any gender ratios or rules of what kind of character you can make, though this can change at admin discretion should ratios become terribly uneven. That being said, we do utilize character limits. Each member can have up to three major canon characters total but up to five characters total with original characters or lesser canons to start off with, and more characters will need to be purchased through our points system to prove activity. As for faces, we only accept period faces or faces that can pass as period faces, such as models. If there's questions regarding a face, please feel free to ask a member of staff at any time and we will always help with resources. Some stipulations we do have for characters, however, are the following: First, if you plan to play a character that is in close relation to another character you play, please get admin approval prior to registering. Second, if you play a major canon and are planning a plot that involves marriage, please also get admin approval for this as well as any other large plots that would affect the world or the region the character is in as a whole. These conditions are mostly for plot reasons, and while we can always make exceptions there are certain characters and their matches that would be too big to the plot to make exceptions for and some plots that would come across as power playing, which is strictly prohibited. Most major canons should marry other major canons, and any marriage of a major canon should be run past admins for approval.  To touch of the subject of the Game of Throns TellTale series, we do allow the characters featured in the games. That being said, we do not keep to the canon featured there. The magic lore and iron grove lore features in this game is not permitted on site, but if you would like to make Mira Forrester and have House Forrester feature the known words and lore from the game, we won't say no to that. Just note, some of the canon will not be the same, as we do not follow the game's lore and we are au from asoiaf canon as well.

ACTIVITY

When it comes to activity, we try to stay as laid back as possible but we also have to balance not allowing members to simply hog faces and canons without actually utilizing them. Because of this, we try to be extremely clear on what is expected of you prior to joining. For every account you have, you must have at least one in character post per week. This will not count games or development, but raven threads can be used. For canon characters, this requirement is doubled to two per week. Absences will excuse you from this requirement, but staff also reserves the right to negate an absence if we feel you are abusing this policy. We also ask that you do not make any new characters until your absence is up. We will be conducting our own checks of activity roughly once a month, looking back on the previous month and how many posts were made. If the month had four weeks, we will be looking for at least four in character posts for characters who are not considered site canons, and at least eight for those who are. If you fail to meet this requirement, we will send you a message to check on where you stand with that character. We all have bad months, and if you get back to use within two days we will not archive your account, but if you need to be messaged for a third time in a row we will automatically be archiving the character as inactive due to the inactivity. If you want to mark your character as active again after this happens, you must meet the activity requirements that you missed. You may post a reply to an existing thread or start a new, open thread to re-activate. Please post in character moderation to have your character and their topics moved back to the correct places only after this has been completed. As far as archiving goes, threads and requests will be archived if they have not been posted in or bumped in one month. For requests, we allow one bump every ten days. For communication threads, this time frame before archival is lowered to two weeks. Incomplete apps will be archived after ten days, and pending apps will be archived after seven. You may have a thread moved from the archives back to its original forum at any time by posting in our moderation thread.

BEHAVIOR

Just to be very clear - we expect you to follow the general roleplay rules - be nice, no drama, if you have an issue take it to a member of staff, etc. This shouldn't have to be listed but we are going to be very clear with this one. Be respectful, don't steal content, always treat others with respect. Please do not at any time pester others for plots or posts. If you're not sure if something is okay to post, ask an admin prior to doing so. Please do not link your shipper or wanted ad in the cbox or in any discord channel except the designated channels unless it is asked for specifically. Please also remember that we all are into various fandoms with new seasons, new shows, new movies all the time as well so please note that we do not allow spoilers of any kind in the cbox or discord. If you want to chat about these things please make a discussion thread in the out of character forum so as to keep this from people trying to avoid them, with an [s] in the title for spoilers. As far as our cbox goes, tumblr links are okay, in-site content is okay, youtube videos are okay, but anything that pertains to other roleplay sites is not allowed.

AESTHETICS

We have a code bank here on site that will be added to as often as possible and because of this we ask that you please do not use codes from third party hosts, such as cttw, candyland, wecode, etc. We have included a thread for coding requests, so feel free to suggest codes or specific styles of codes for us to offer. That said, we do allow members to use codes they themselves have created, as long as the codes do not break any other coding on the site. Another thing we would like to add here is that we do not allow our codes to be used on any other site. We also do not allow our codes to be recreated, used for inspiration, or distributed as your own. If you rip our codes, we will take outside action and those found guilty of it will automatically be banned from the site. Please do not do this. The graphics necessary for our skin include the following: a 250x400 avatar, one square gif that will resize, and one rectangle gif that will resize. We post this so everyone knows in advance what graphics they may need to create, find, or request. We do have a graphic request section as well, so if you're not graphically inclined please don't worry.

MATURITY

We have jcink premium, implying that all adult themes are allowed, and because of this we do not allow members under the age of eighteen. Should we find that a member is lying about their age, they will be banned immediately. Keeping that in mind, we still urge our members to be respectful of one another. If you're going to be threading violence, sex, abuse or anything that may be deemed inappropriate by sensitive guests/members, please tag your thread with a [m] for mature or [tw] for trigger warning. If you feel like you need to ask if your theme is okay, please just tag it anyway to be safe. It is always always always better to over tag than to under tag. This goes for posts in developers as well. Now, on the flip side, if there is something that is triggering that you notice and there is no warning, please pm an administrator so we can go to that member -- do not go to that member yourself. On the same note of eighteen and older, please remember to refrain from blatant nudity in your avatars and profile imagery as well. Another thing we would like to touch on under maturity is that we have zero tolerance for member on member coercion. We take harassment seriously, and we ask that all members message us if they feel harassed or pressured to write something they do not feel comfortable with at any time. All threads should be consensual between all partaking members. While we don't care what you thread as long as everyone partaking is comfortable with the content, we do care when someone isn't and is being made to feel like they have to write that. Please do not pressure each other, be that for posts, plots, character, or mature themes.

ET CETERA

Just as a disclaimer, the admins reserve the right to pend or deny characters if we agree upon a just reasoning as to why. Please note that a pend does not mean we do not like the character. Please see this as a chance for revision and character development. Roleplay is roleplay for a reason, so please remember that this is supposed to be fun. At any point after joining if you wish to leave or mark a character inactive, please just let us know. We have included this in our moderation thread to make this as simple and easy as possible, and we will never blame someone for wanting to leave our site. We want everything to be as fun and comfortable as possible, so feel free to talk to us at any time if you are having any problems. WE ARE HERE FOR YOU. Always.

[emeraldnebula]

Thoughts on the comic book industry, Part 4

Having talked about how the comic book industry is still clinging to creative and marketing tactics that are at least 2½ decades out of date, there's really only one other place to go with this line of rambling. And in the age of social media, it's the most self-evident of all.

Not only is the comics industry stuck decades in the past, but it's hopelessly out of touch with reality, both creatively and politically.

It goes beyond being unwilling to look outside the box from a business standpoint. That's bad enough on its own, but it's a by-product of the creative side of the equation. Creatively, the major publishers are not only stubbornly devoted to outdated and stagnant methods from decades past, but they're stubbornly devoted to their own pet ideas at the exclusion of all else. It doesn't matter how unpopular their ideas are even from the beginning, it doesn't matter how poorly their pet directions sell, it doesn't matter how much the vast majority of fans object to those bad ideas. It's what the company wants, therefore it's inherently good and to hell with anything else. If the audience makes it clear they don't like the company's pet ideas, that's just all the more reason for the major publishers to cram it down the readers' throats. If the readers don't like where the major publishers are going with their products, the publishers aren't above bullying, insulting, and pressuring readers into caving in and supporting them regardless.

Now keep in mind, I'm not talking about the kind of fans who scream bloody murder over an old costume design being updated sans trunks, or who throw screaming hissy fits over creatively stale and burned out creative teams being replaced with fresh blood. I'm not talking about the kind of fans who cry havoc and protest when a franchise needs to be rebooted, or just needs some freshening up. Those are the kind of fans DC and Marvel actually WANTS, and largely caters to. I'm talking about DC and Marvel actively alienating, insulting, and belittling the vast majority of what once was/should be their readership – the fans who truly love the characters and object when the major publishers actively crap all over their characters, betray everything the characters stand for, pull event-gimmicks and stunts that are just purely hateful and serve no real creative purpose, and actively reject and disregard legitimate criticism. Little by little, DC and Marvel have whittled their readerships down to the tiny, selfish minority whose tastes mirror that of the companies. And in no small part has it contributed to the downfall of the industry.

This isn't a new thing by any means. Even as far back as the Iron Age, DC and Marvel were dismissive of anybody who objected to their pet directions. Batman fans for years had objected in the letter columns to Catwoman being retconned by Frank Miller as a hooker, as well as to Batman's increasing devolution from a heroic man of honor to a paranoid, hostile asshole. DC repeatedly disregarded those concerns, insisting that Miller's conception of the characters was canon and would not be changed. (And once Miller's go-to editor Bob Schreck took over as Bat-editor and brought Miller back to DC, everything Batman fans had been objecting to got ramped up a thousandfold.) The Superman books were levied with complaints about Lois Lane's abusive behavior toward Superman before and during their Iron Age marriage, as well as nonstop objections to Lois' '90s-era loverboy Jeb Friedman. DC blew off those complaints as sexist backlash to a "strong woman," even though comic book creators had similar complaints about the direction of the books. Even before "One More Day/Brand New Day" used a satanic pact to end Spider-Man's marriage to Mary Jane Watson, the '90s-era Clone Saga was conceived primarily to force Spider-Man back into bachelorhood, even if it meant claiming the Spidey people knew for years was a clone and the real deal was AWOL. The Green Lantern books respoded to fan concerns about the Parallax-possessed Hal Jordan being reduced to a one-note crazy bad guy...by doing just that and asking fans if they were pleased with the results. And so on.

Jump forward to the 2000s, and what do we have? Stephanie Brown/Spoiler seemingly tortured to death in the Batman books for no real reason, and the writer responsible, Bill Willingham, bragging about how much he alienated the fandom and how "golden" it is to turn your fandom against you. Marvel editor Tom Brevoort claiming on message forums that angering and alienating your readership translates to better sales, because a happy fandom makes your sales too "soft." (Never mind how blatantly untrue that is, especially since the '90s comic boom ended.) The aforementioned "One More Day/Brand New Day," where Joe Quesada and Dan Slott not only went out of their way to insult, bully, and disregard anyone who dared disagree with their vision, but also opened one of the "Brand New Day" issues with a character ordering the readers to "just shut the fuck up and give me your money!" Cry for Justice/Rise of Arsenal, where backlash to the ruination of Green Arrow and Black Canary's relationship was met with a sales pitch for a new Gail Simone Birds of Prey book and where complaints over the needless deaths in the story were dismissed with excuses that DC could have killed off even more Green Arrow characters. The current situation with Marvel's SJW-leaning comics, where anyone who voices objections to bad far-left propaganda and blatant mouthpiece characters is hit with every politically charged insult in the book. Or DC's "Rebirth," where anyone who voices disagreement with DC's current direction dismissed for being "fake fans" or being mocked for calling out how nonsensical and malicious the company's pet ideas are.

Do you see where this is going? Where it's been going for the last couple decades? Over and over again, the major publishers have made a point of ignoring legitimate criticism and feedback, disrespecting a readership they badly need, and insisting on pursuing what they personally want no matter how much it fails ansd how much it drives readers away. The idea that what they're doing is wrong, or at the very least misguided, is utterly foreign to them. If sales are plunging, they don't take it as a sign that they're screwing up or that what they're doing no longer works. They take it as a sign that they're shedding undesirables and that what's remaining are the true believers. They'd rather have total control and a shrinking minority of ass-kissers whose tastes mirror their own than to make the effort to appeal to a broad audience. And for what? Deservedly bad reputations. A dying industry for which history will ultimately blame them. Franchises that have been rendered toxic, or at the very least laughable.

And what's worse, the Big 2 absolutely refuse to learn from their mistakes, instead doubling and tripling down on them. If an idea is conceived and executed in bad faith and it deservedly fails, DC and Marvel don't recognize it as such. They view it as the readers being too stupid to know what's good for them and dial it up to 11. If they lose readers with their bad decisions, they view that lost readership and that lost money as being fair weather phonies. And if readers speak up as to why they're giving up on the books, if they're lucky and don't get insulted or mocked, they'll get a sales pitch for DC and Marvel's other wares. Again, this isn't a new thing. During "Knightfall," when a fan wrote in expressing how he felt Superman's death and Batman's impending spinal injury (a leaked plot point early on) felt like cheap gimmicks, what was the response he got? A sales pitch for The Flash, Legion of Super-Heroes, and DC's Vertigo line. No reassurance that Batman's temporary paralysis would be purely a test of character, no explantion that "Knightfall" was intended to be an examination of what it truly meant to be Batman, just a cheap attempt to cajole an unhappy fan into buying books he may not want.

The prevailing mindset of the last 26 years – if not longer – is twofold. On the one hand, there's the idea that if the characters' lives are made to be endlessly tragic and miserable, the readers can feel better about their own lives. In fact, a DC editor (Kevin Dooley, if I recall) said just that in response to a fan who wrote in about his dislike of the abritrary tragedy that had piled onto Aquaman leading into the Peter David revamp. On the other hand – and this one's arguably the more pervasive – there's the idea that if you make certain characters outright selfish assholes who always get their way no matter how unrealistic it is or how many people they have to stomp along the way, the reader will be inspired and empowered by them. Again, this shows just how out of touch the Big 2 are. Nobody saw anything inspiring about Spider-Man's deal with Mephisto. They saw it for the selfish, short-sighted, cowardly act it was. Lois Lane has been regarded as a hostile and unlikable character for decades, and her reputation only worsened when DC made her a "strong" (re: abusive) woman. Batman's degeneration into a insufferable, arrogant Marty Stu figure was harshly criticized even as far back as the late '80s, with people writing in begging for his heroism and humanity to be restored. And the meanspirited treatment of Superman, Green Arrow, Arsenal, the Green Lanterns, Aquaman, and others hasn't made the vast majority of fans feel better about themselves. It's angered them. It's made them feel betrayed. People go to art forms like comics, movies, TV, theatre, and radio drama for escape. They want to take a break from the bad stuff in their lives. They don't want to go from their regular troubles and see something even worse play out before them. Again, out of touch. The publishers are only playing to a tiny minority that's more or less in total agreement with them.

Now, you could argue that during the '90s, the big comic book boom more or less gave DC and Marvel the freedom they needed to pull off this kind of crap. Event-gimmicks and shock value being big sellers at the time and all. But 26 or more years later, what's the excuse? The industry is bleeding readers not just by locking itself decades in the past, but also by actively driving away anyone who isn't of the exact same tastes as the Big 2 or isn't a social media ass-kisser. Bad press doesn't equal big sales anymore. Aside from the odd milestone issue and maybe #1 issues of certain titles, people aren't buying anymore. And even at comic book conventions, talking to comic book creators past and present...they're fully aware of how far the industry has fallen, and they have their own horror stories to share about some of the bad decisions that have led to this point. But those who are still in the industry have to go along with those bad decisions simply because they've got to pay the bills. And those who aren't so active in the industry know full well that it's unwilling to change for the better.

What makes it even worse is that beyond the creative stagnation and selfishness, there's also a political bent to the way the industry carries itself. In the age of bad feminist/SJW/PC politics, comics have swung very hard in that direction, with Marvel going whole-hog into it. Many of the more prominent creators are very openly far-left, and very active in the social media mob mentality. Some, like Mark Waid, have been very open about running anybody – creator or fan – out of comics if their political leanings aren't far-left. Again, this is an industry that's wildly out of touch with reality. Not everybody shares the same political beliefs. Not everyone who's right-leaning or a centrist (my own stance) is a monster. Not every far-left talking point or goal is a good or even practical thing. Art – a even commercial form like comics – as with all things, NEEDS differing viewpoints, needs differences of opinion, needs all walks of life to be full-bodied and valid. Nope, the current comics industry wants a hive mind in all respects, politically aligned in one direction and mindlessly cheerleading whatever it is the Big 2 decide they want.

None of this is remotely viable. Aside from the major publishers going out of their way to do stuff they know the vast majority of people do not want at all, how do they expect to sustain themselves on an audience that's purely of their preferred political stance? Especially when, as social media and even the behavior of some comic book pros has shown, the far-left is just as extremist and reprehensible as the far-right? (Aside from admitting to leading purges against creators who aren't far-left, Waid also recently violated anti-trust laws to shut down an indie comic called Jawbreakers simply because its creator disagrees with Waid's/the comics industry's politics.) Speaking from personal experience, it gets really tiresome listening to comics creators you like endlessly bitching and moaning about anything even slightly center-of-left, or mindlessly spouting anti-Trump propaganda regardless of whether or not it's true. I as a fan don't like being talked down to, and I as a person don't like anyone trying to bully me into converting to their personal politics. Most people, when they read a comic, listen to music, or watch movies, TV, or plays, just want to be entertained for a little while. If you keep hammering away with bad far-left bullshit and getting mad when people don't just fall in line at your say-so? You're out of touch. You're ignoring the reality of your audience, and of day-to-day life in general. And you're alienating fans and/or potential fans in that way as well.

"But," you say, "if the Big 2 are this far gone, why not just support other publishers? Surely there's other stuff out there to devote your time to!" And that is true to a degree...but with the decline of the comics industry has also come a major atrophy of what's available out there, and how the distribution monopoly has limited the playing field in favor of the Big 2. And this will be where we go next.

[linkspooky]

Who cares about Amon? Even Seidou was much more important in the story than he, I don't know what Ishida's goal with this character. Honestly, Amon is a waste of time for the manga. Sorry if I looked rude, I just can't understand this character.

This kind of sounds like character hate, so you should try to be more careful when sending it to other people’s inboxes. I have a hard time answering questions that look like blatant character hate because I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. 

I’m going to answer your question though anon, just a disclaimer to be careful. It’s easier to answer the question of “What is the narrative purpose of building up Amon with so much narrative importance, when all the onscreen development belongs to Seidou?”

That’s a question I don’t have an answer to per se but it is also is something I’ve thought about quite a lot. The simplest answer is that’s sometimes how Ishida’s pacing works itself out to be. Characters with only one or two character moments building up to it suddenly appear for a highly important scene.

From a narrative standpoint there wasn’t actually that much build up to Marude and Hide suddenly appearing to foil Furuta. Marude himself was a character that had way more focus in Tokyo Ghoul then in Re, and his main scene of character growth in Re before he did the thing was this one.

The one narrative fact we’re given about Marude in Tokyo Ghoul Re is that he’s wary about Matsuri succeeding the CCG. The next thing of importance he does in the manga is kill Yoshitoki, and then team up with Matsuri to get rid of Yoshitoki’s successor. So the build up was a long time off from the eventual payoff and it also went a completely opposite direction of where you expected. 

So given the nature of Tokyo Ghoul and it’s tendency towards subversion rather than actual straightforward build up and payoff, the current situation of Amon’s character could just be a symptom of that. Let’s keep talking under the cut.

After all it was Amon who has been built up as becoming a one eyed ghoul from day one, since his confrontation with Kaneki. 

It’s also Amon who had a character arc perfectly slotted for him becoming a one eyed ghoul. Remember there’s a really huge difference between the character reception of Amon in Tokyo Ghoul and the character reception of Amon in Re. In Tokyo Ghoul Amon was praised as having one of the best character arcs. In Re: most of the time I see people talking about Amon it’s like “Kaneki inspired Amon to change?? maybe???”

This also could be another extension of the subversive narrative of Tokyo Ghoul, remember nobody expected Takizawa to even be important whereas it was Amon who was perfectly slotted to have an arc of becoming a half ghoul, coming to understand Kaneki’s perspective and then coming to realize that ghouls also needed to be helped to change the twisted world for the better. 

Seidou’s importance was not even considered likely at the time despite there being an entire chapter using him and his family and home life as the focus in order to illustrate what a terrifying thing it was for CCG members to write their last will and testament. 

Actually, until Re: most of the fandom did not even bother to pay attention to the specifics of Seidou and Akira’s relationship, or notice Seidou’s crush on her. Then :Re rolls around and despite technically having hints at Amon’s importance, the first one eyed ghoul we are introduced to formally is not Amon but rather Seidou.

At the time like I said, everybody thought Seidou’s existence was mainly to serve as a foil to Amon. Seidou was the weak willed one, he gave in and decided to become a ghoul instead. That or he enjoyed the power too much because he had always felt inferior to both Amon, Akira and Juuzou. Either way they pretty much all aligned Seidou to serve as a lost cause in comparison to Amon who did not give in, and managed to fight past and resist Aogiri. 

Of course their portrayal did not help in that regards either. Seidou is shown as somebody whose letting his own issues leak out of every orifice. For all intents and purposes he had given up on any attempt to grow and embraced monsterhood.

Yet we see Amon acting as a vigilante in the shadows, coming to fight Aogiri who were the definitive bad guy at the time of the manga as they fled. 

The problem is of course, that Seidou continued to appear onscreen after this whereas Amon stayed entirely offscreen except for one small interference to once again attack Aogiri in a hit and run. The question then arises, if Seidou is meant to be the negative foil to Amon, to show what would have happened if Amon gave into Aogiri’s torture and pressure then why is it Seidou who keeps appearing onscreen and Amon who never shows up?

Then of course Seidou’s entire arc on Rueshima happens, I’m not going to go over that becaus I already did a couple of times in separate metas, but what interests me about that is basically that the entirety of :Re puts more the relationship between Seidou and Akira to the forefront.

At the auction, the special class meeting, and then of course it exploding with Rueshima. 

Despite being saved by Amon, the one Akira talks to the most and the one she chooses to save is Seidou. Meanwhile, Amon and Akira’s relationship is not mentioned the entire manga except for one cutaway scene where Saiko is being interrogated by Akira about the large ghoul she saw. This move kickstarts Seidou’s development. 

Seidou is the one who develops in :Re, not Amon. Especially if you consider Owl to just be a stagnation of all of Seidou’s old flaws, adhesion to social normals, inferiority complex. It’s Seidou who reaches self realization. If you don’t believe his opinion on ghouls has changed, look how he goes from this to this.

Seidou has gone from buying into the mindset that ghouls do not have emotions and therefore he is not a ghoul, all the way to accepting himself as a ghoul and then even offering to help take care of other ghouls.The character who has grown is Seidou (of course he still has a holding pattern but this is Tokyo Ghoul, the holding pattern is God), but we see the character who reaps the most character importance is Amon.

Even though the entirety of the arc before this was about Seidou and Akira’s relationship, the end of that arc is Akira and Amon getting together. 

It’s strange really. Not even from a shipping perspective, just from a way things are built up and developed in a story. Usually romances are achieved when characters become self realized and fully developed people and therefore have something to contribute to each other in a romance. The reason Akira and Amon did not kiss at the end of Tokyo Ghoul is because that exact reason, Amon still had hang ups. 

Yet without even addressing those hang ups or developing at all, it’s Amon who reaps the human contact that serves as a narrative end to becoming a full developed person.

Yeah I know talking about relationships as narrative rewards is weird, but that’s like how 90% of literature treats it anyway. I’m not even trying to talk about shipping just address the strange beast that is the nature of character development in Tokyo Ghoul. 

So there are about four chapters, from Good News to One Will Hang that are specifically about playing catch up in regards to Amon’s character. Not to mention an entire fight to bring him back into the narrative. There’s also Amon’s connection to Hide, Kaneki’s best friend. There is signs that Amon is still meant to be an important character, so you can’t explain this swap between developing Seidou and developing Amon as meaning Ishida just changed his mind and decided to make Seidou a more important character in :Re than Amon was. \

Amon’s arc (In Re) is never really specifically about Akira but it ends with Akira. Seidou’s arc bleeds and drips Akira, but it ends with him walking away with Akira. Another subversion, just as how Seidou despite never being about accepting ghouls and half ghouls accepts himself as a ghoul much faster than Amon whose arc from the very beginning has been about him interacting with one eyed ghouls and questioning the relationship between humans and ghouls. 

There could be a couple of reasons for this subversion. Perhaps because it’s so important for Amon’s character arc, empathizing with ghouls and coming to see himself as a ghoul is something reserved for the end of his arc. There’s also the possibility that his and Kaneki’s confrontation and conversation was rushed entirely through with absolutely no resolution or changing of the other’s mind is because they’re actually due for another confrontation. 

Like, Luke and Darth Vader fight at the end of Empire Strikes back but besides the revelation of Luke’s father and Luke losing a hand nothing really came out of the fight because Luke was not meant to meet him at the time. Yoda even said so, he hadn’t completed enough of his training to fight him. Yet Luke rushed in anyway because his friends were in danger.

Then at the Return of the Jedi Luke is ready to face Vader, but not because he’s completed his training and is a stronger Jedi, but he’s now a stronger person who is capable of forgiving instead of giving into anger. Then finally some actual change comes about from the confrontation.

So Amon and Kaneki meet each other prematurely and of course neither one of them really has the world shaking conversation they had always been hoping for, and it implies later on they’ll have a real conversation that actually changes minds. 

Then there’s of course the rolling stones character arc for Seidou. Yes, Seidou’s entire arc has been focused in :Re on his feelings in the past towards Akira.

Perhaps then the reason why his arc does not end with Akira is because Seidou’s been mistakenly putting too much importance on Akira since the start. Akira would represent his want, whereas what Seidou has always needed was the self revelation and evaluation of his own behavior. So Seidou in the end doesn’t get what he wants, but he also at that point has the character strength to accept it whereas beforehand we see him stranging Akira and begging her in tears not to tell him that his life is worthless. Because his decision to spare Akira is based entirely on to him, that his measure of value, that his humanity is in how Akira sees him.

If Akira tells him to die like a dog then he is one. That’s the final sign that there’s no hope of saving Seidou Takizawa.

Therefore the ultimate realization of Takizawa’s arc is not in getting the girl, but rather the realization of himself. Therefore we see Takizawa has the strength to walk away from simply pursuing only what he wants. A character trait that’s actually more rarer in Tokyo Ghoul than you think. Then even in his depednant state now of living through life and giving eaning to his life with Akira and Amon, his ultimate character growth would be to learn to live without them.

There’s other possibilities too. Seidou’s importance in Tokyo Ghoul: Re and his increased involvement over Amon. (Even in the chapters that Amon is playing catchup with the plot, Seidou shows up in 118, and then again in 124 after Amon has disappeared from the plot). It could be part of the further deconstruction of AMon’s character. Pretty much everything Amon seemed to be about in Tokyo Ghoul is subverted in :Re.

He did help Donato with eating children of the orphanage. He chose to continue the charade. The necklace of the cross was not about his sin of ignorance but rather his sin of guilt towards what he did with Donato. Amon is also shown to be much less accepting of being a half ghoul when as I’ve said about three times already, Amon’s entire arc in Tokyo Ghoul was built upon trying to understand what a half ghoul might mean for his selective world view. With the implication that Amon would be the one to expand his world view, when in actuality what we see of Amon is him clinging to the past. Also, the entirety of his offscreen premise was written with the assumption that Amon would appear in and do something important this entire time whereas it was revealed he practically did nothing for three years. 

However, the fact that Seidou has the cross now and continues to carry it and he’s also, the one who continues to appear after Amon and Akira depart from the plot could be hinting that Amon’s burden he once carried himself has now been passed onto Seidou. The same way Seidou passed on the emotional vulnerability he wanted to show to Akira onto Amon, Amon throws the guilt and burden he feels towards the past and his obligation to act, the symbol of that to Seidou. Seidou is also unable to get rid of it, even when he tries to disappear from :re for his own reasons.

So if the plot were simply to end with Seidou walking away from Akira and Amon and that being the neat bow to tie up his character arc and pass the baton onto Amon as the new character of importance, then such a big deal probably would not have been made out of Seidou still holding onto the cross, or Seidou showing up not once but twice again after his final confrontation with Amon.

If the story were done with Seidou it would have had him dying to save Amon that time. That would be the perfect place to end it, yet we see him continue on. So what’s with the extended focus on Seidou at the cost of Amon’s own screentime and development?

My best guess is it’s a subversion to the idea that fate is made by really important one eyed individuals like Kaneki and Amon. It’s a question of that importance in the first place, the same thing that feeds into Seidou’s inferiority complex that makes him feel somehow lesser and more important to the both of them even though he too has areas where he is better than them and areas where he is worse.

If Amon has a purpose in the plot, it’s to be as human as any other character. I think the entirety of :re has been about so far deconstructing the man from the myth and making it painfully apparent that despite his lofty ideals Amon too is just as human as the rest of them. Only when he accepts his own humanity, and therefore his ghoulhood as well (Ie, his flaws) will he be able to actually move on to accomplishing that importance. 

[sigurdjarlson]

We need to talk about Kevin fandom (tw: rape, abuse, pedophilia mentions)

this discourse gets me so pissy so here’s a vent post

(1) "They're coping mechanisms are unhealthy’ it's only unhealthy if it harms them or someone else. Ask any decent mental health professional.

(2) you don't get a say in someone's mental health. Maybe it is unhealthy for them but unless they're causing REAL harm to someone or they ask your opinion it's none of your business. You are not their mental health professional 

(3) using abuse/rape in fic to cope has been proven beneficial for many survivors. It's a way of taking back the power they've had taken away. There's a lot more to it as well.

(4) "you can only do this if it's for coping" how do you plan to enforce this rule? Force every single person to talk about their incredibly private traumatic experiences just so you seem whether or not it's okay for them to do something? I'm sorry that's disgusting. That's absolutely disgusting. 

(5) You do not speak for all survivors even if you are a survivor yourself. Your experience is not universal. Everyone's experience is different and everyone copes and reacts in different ways. I am one and I don't speak for all of us.. 

(6) it makes you uncomfortable? Okay!! That's alright. Totally understandable!! You want to police others because it makes you uncomfortable? No!! Not okay. 

(7) you have the responsibility to take care of yourself. There are steps you can take to avoid this kind of media. Trigger warnings, tags, summaries, blocking systems..those are all there for a reason. Please make use of them.

(8) "think of the children" this could be used for any kind of adult content. "Violent video games cause violence!" First off no they do not and also they come with ratings that blatantly say it's not for children. Its properly rated. It's not the creator of the game's fault if a child gets hold of it. To sum it up: that's the parent's job. I read erotic fic before I was 18 and it's not the author's fault lmao.

(9) "people will act it out" oh my god oh my goddd I can't stand this. No!! They won't. If they do? They already had very severe problems to begin with. It was not caused by this "problematic" piece of fic or art. Do NOT take the blame off the people that actively choose to hurt others by saying ~they read some problematic things so this must have caused it uwu~ you know what caused it? Them choosing to do the act. Most people have a healthy distinction between fiction and reality. 

(10) "this happened to me" I'm sorry you went through something like that. I truly am. But you still don't have the right to tell other people what they can and can't do. Take steps to protect yourself. No one else can do that for you. Your mental health is your responsibility and yours alone. You do not have the right to put that responsibility on complete strangers. It's not their job. The world cannot nor should it have to cater to you..

(11) "this thing makes me uncomfortable so therefore it must be bad and if it's bad the person writing it must be bad" is the logic here and it's incredibly faulty. Once again. Your experiences are not universal. Something that makes you uncomfortable might not make someone else feel uncomfortable. For things that have a tendency to make a lot of people uncomfortable there are these things called trigger warnings and warnings in general.

the person is not bad. They are not supporting or normalizing this behavior just by writing a fanfic. Are they saying "it's okay to rape people everybody should go out and do it"? No? then no they're not.

(12) fanfic, fanart, etc are such small medias that they don't effect or influence society In the way something like say "50 Shades of Grey" would. That's the stuff we should be concerned about and focused on criticizing. It's blatant misinformation.

(13) if half the effort people put into these crusades against ships was used to help actual survivors..there would be a lot of good being done in the world. These are fictional characters. We joke around a lot but you don't have to protect them. They are not real. Real people are more important than fictional ones. So, please if you spend so much time and effort on these things, channel that energy into something good and positive instead of harassing and harming real people on the internet over /fictional things/.

(14) “Fiction effects reality.” You’re right it does. However it does not directly cause these bad things. It’s what people choose to do with fiction that matters. Choices. Choices. Choices. 

(15) Fiction does not have to be pure. Fiction has always been a platform where people can explore the darker things in life. It’s interesting to some people. Personally I like a lot of dark shit because it’s interesting. It’s so incomprehensible to me that people can do these awful things that I find it interesting to explore why these people may have done them through fiction. 

(16) Liking something in fiction does not mean you support it. I’d hate most of the fictional characters I absolutely adore if they were real. 

(17) Some of the kindest people I’ve ever met are part of problematic fandoms and some of the worst are the people who scream that they’re trying to protect the world from that problematic fandom. You see there’s no correlation between what you like in fiction and what kind of person you are in real life. You know what is a great indicator of what kind of person you are? How you treat real, live people and the choices you make.

(18) I get it. These things elicit very strong emotions in people and for very valid reasons but that does not mean it should not be allowed to exist. Like I said it is your responsibility to create your own safe space. Blacklist/block/unfollow do whatever to keep those things out of your space. And...Don’t go looking for these things god damn it? If you see (tw: rape) and then go into the fic anyway and get upset? That’s not the author’s fault. They put the proper warnings in place. You ignored them. 

If there isn’t a proper warning. Perhaps consider kindly asking them to put some up? Maybe they forgot. It happens. People make mistakes.. If they refuse to do so they’re kind of a dick but it’s better to just ignore/unfollow/avoid/block that person and move on. 

(19) Lets make a summary.

You are responsible for your own safe space and taking care of your mental health.

Fiction does not CAUSE bad things to happen. People who choose to do those bad things do.

“This upsets me” does not = “it’s bad and shouldn’t exist and the person making this thing is bad” your logic is faulty m8

If something is properly tagged and has the proper warnings then it’s not the author’s fault if others ignore it and get upset. They did their part.

Fictional characters are not real. You don’t have to protect them. Harming real people over fictional ones is absolutely reprehensible. 

It’s no one’s job to parent other people’s children. No, children shouldn’t be looking at this content but it’s the parents’ job to keep their children away from those things. (proper warnings, tags, etc are important too but that itself is not a guarantee) 

Liking something in fiction does not = supporting it, condoning it, normalizing it. It just means you like something in fiction. Most people have a healthy distinction between fiction and reality. If someone does act on it..they already had very severe issues to begin with. 

Survivors are never obligated to reveal their personal experiences in order to be “allowed” to consume or make certain things. 

A coping mechanism is only unhealthy if it’s hurting the person or others. (it’s not hurting anyone by existing) It might not be healthy for you but that does not mean it’s not healthy for that person. AND it’s not your job or place to decide whether or not something is healthy or unhealthy for a person unless you are their mental health professional. Stay in your lane.

People don’t have to be using it as a coping mechanism! Maybe something really is just their kink. Maybe they find it interesting or whatever. Who cares as long as they’re not out doing it in real life. Who cares as long as they have a healthy distinction between what is okay in fiction and what is okay in real life. Mind your own business honestly.

I think some of these people really do have good intentions. They think they’re helping the world or others somehow. But having good intentions does not mean you are right. Be aware of what you’re doing and how it’s effecting others. Channel all the energy you put into hating things into doing something good in the real world. Or use it to create and enjoy things you do like or enjoy. Why focus on the things you hate?

And some of these people don’t have good intentions. For some it’s just a self righteous circle jerk. It makes them feel better about themselves. It’s a “I’m more morally enlightened than you” contest. These people don’t care about the issues they claim to care about or the people involved. They just want to make themselves feel good by making others feel bad. And that? That’s horrible.

They’re just using serious issues as buzzwords (which takes away the impact that word makes and THAT is a bad thing) Rape, pedophilia, abuse, etc. These are very, very serious issues. 

When people roll their eyes when they see someone claiming “pedophilia’ because there are people on here seriously accusing people of being pedophiles for shipping a 17 year old with an 18 year old or shipping some characters with an age gap? 

(which for the record. Talking about people who are of age and with a partner that’s significantly older than them. it’s untrue that all relationships with an age gap are unhealthy. is there a possibility for it to be unhealthy? certainly but that’s not a guarantee that it is. Your experiences are not universal. Every situation and every person is different.)

There’s a problem because you’re making people take these things less seriously. Have you ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf? 

You do that and sadly no one will listen when you actually find something to worry about. Is that right? No. But it’s the truth. No one will take you seriously.

You don’t accuse people of these things willy nilly. You can ruin people’s lives. Are they doing those things in real life and hurting real people? Do you have solid proof that they are? Yes? (Fictional media is not proof unless they admit to doing something) By all means step in and get the authorities involved. That’s absolutely awful.  Is it just fiction? Take a step back, block/unfollow/blacklist and move on. 

What people do in real life matters. That’s it. That’s the key. Stop harassing people over fictional crap because THAT...shows what kind of person you are and it’s not a good one.