#and for a character so commonly misunderstood by the fandom she was written so good

[arsonist-tittyfuck]

More people need to notice that it isn't always the writing that makes something good but if it can provoke thought

Because holy shit I just read a fic that writing wise I've read better but it got me thinking so much. Like that's now a good fic in my book it got me thinking so much about the character the fic was centered about. The author clearly understood this character and their relationships with the other memebers of casts.

There's parts I wish were excuted differently BUT it wasn't my fic and honestly when I THOUGHT on those things it made sense.

LIKE THAT'S THE THING this fic got me thinking so much. Even with parts I didn't exactly agree on they still provoked a lot of thought

[truthbeetoldmedia]

The Toxicity of Kylo Ren and Reylo 

It’s no secret that the newest villain of the Star Wars franchise, Kylo Ren, is a polarizing figure. In fact, there’s a large fanbase that don’t think of him as a villain at all (despite confirmation from cast and crew). If you take issue with that statement, look at the marketing: it’s Rey, Finn, and Poe at the center of the franchise. Not Kylo. Instead, he’s framed as a misunderstood underdog that is undeserving of the criticism he faces.

Now, that’s not to say that Kylo Ren can’t be appreciated as a character. It’s completely possible to appreciate him as a character and not as a person — after all, thinking someone is interesting or well-written isn't an endorsement of their behavior, or a claim that they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

People can be drawn to characters for all sorts of reasons. A lot of people enjoy rooting for the villain simply because they’re a villain. You can appreciate a character's potential, or their personality. It could even be as simple as thinking Adam Driver is good looking, or appreciating his portrayal of Kylo, with that being the reasoning for being drawn to that character. 

Despite all of this, there’s an interesting (and troubling) phenomenon happening with people who have decided to “stan” Kylo Ren — not his potential as a villain, or because Adam Driver is talented, but the character himself, so much so that there is a fundamental misunderstanding (or willful ignorance) of his actions and motivations. 

I’m not apprehensive to call this kind of fanservice toxic, because that’s what it is. There’s something really unnerving about stanning someone who has commited genocide, runs labor camps, and has direct, not-at-all subtle parallels to Nazism. 

Ignoring Canon

The main theme here is that Kylo is somehow “misunderstood,” and not only that, but deserving of a full redemption (and a girlfriend in the form of Rey, but I’ll get to that in a bit). The narrative and what we know about Kylo in canon is a stark contrast to how fandom sees him. There’s this image of him as a down on his luck, unloved, victimized person who has been wronged by the people in his life, which simply isn’t true. 

Kylo is the ultimate example of privilege. He arguably has the coolest parents in the world in the form of Han and Leia. He was, at the time of his turn to the dark side, being taught by Luke Skywalker (his uncle). From the get go, he had the support and resources that we rarely see someone have in the Star Wars universe. 

And for those who like to counter with the argument that Han left Leia and is somehow a deadbeat dad — he did so after Kylo killed the entire group of Jedis Luke was instructing and abandoned his family willingly. You can dislike that decision all you’d like, but it had no bearing on Kylo’s turn to the dark side. 

A more fitting criticism would be towards Luke, who admitted that he sensed something disturbing in his nephew and briefly thought about killing him. I’ll admit that this is fair enough, but for Kylo to react with murdering numerous Jedi students and then immediately joining the space fascists? I’d say this side of him has been lurking under the surface for a while. 

Also consider — was Luke wrong? Dude literally built a device specifically to commit genocide. 

This romanticization of a hard life that never existed is even more disturbing when you consider that there’s another character whose backstory fits this narrative: Finn. 

Finn’s storyline is what certain fans desperately want Kylo’s to be. Finn was kidnapped at a very young age, forced to become a stormtrooper and was embedded in the hateful doctrine that Kylo is such a fan of. Despite being raised in that toxic environment and being indoctrinated with propaganda from such a young age, Finn — of his own volition, before he met Rey or Poe or anyone else — made the decision to resist and break free of the Empire. 

He did this because he felt it was morally correct, at great risk to himself and his well being. He’s been in that environment for his entire life, so he knows exactly what happens to traitors. Despite all of this, he does it anyway. 

Unwanted and Unearned Redemption

There’s also this strange need to advocate for Kylo’s redemption, something that is very clear he doesn’t deserve or want. 

I’ve noticed a lot of fans who are desperate for his redemption call him Ben — his given name — which is both hilarious to me and makes no sense. He literally chose to change his name to Kylo Ren. He doesn't want to be Ben anymore, and he’s made that very clear. 

Leia and Han clearly wanted him to abandon his position in the First Order and come home during The Force Awakens. During his showdown with Han towards the end of the film he’s given a shot at redemption, which he rejects violently by murdering his own father. After this happened it was speculated that this was a sacrifice Kylo had to make to rise up in the First Order, or to prove to Snoke his loyalty to infiltrate the First Order better and ultimately turn against it. 

This was pretty easily disproven in The Last Jedi when he also attempts to kill his mother, Leia, who barely manages to survive. At the end of that same film, he’s also responsible for the death of the definitive hero of the franchise, Luke Skywalker. 

If the theory about Kylo proving himself to Snoke was true, the tendency to murder his own family (and consequently the people offering him redemption after all he’s done) would have ended with Han.

After all of this, he’s given yet another chance to redeem himself, this time by Rey. He turns down this opportunity like he did the others. 

As mentioned before, even without his violence towards those who want to help him, his actions are enough to completely eliminate the possibility of redemption. He’s overseen and advocated for genocide. He’s a member of an actual fascist organization. At this point, there’s no plausible way that he could be redeemed, nor should he be. 

Romanticizing Abuse 

This leads me to the discussion surrounding Rey and Kylo, or “Reylo,” an incredibly convoluted and twisted way to look at romance. 

Reylo fans desperately need Rey to be the one to “save” Kylo, a textbook example of an abusive and toxic relationship. This is the Star Wars version of “She can change him,” making Rey the bearer of Kylo’s emotional labor when he has no interest in changing at all. 

It’s not Rey’s responsibility to bring about his redemption. A true redemption needs to happen organically, of his own volition, and not because he’ll get rewarded with a girlfriend if he does. And, let’s be honest, it’s not a realistic expectation. If he only changes for Rey and not because he realizes that genocide is morally wrong, that’s profoundly disturbing and also selfish. 

Here’s some advice: if someone says they’ve changed only for you and because of their love for you, that’s a red flag. They aren’t changing for reasons that are morally correct, or for anyone’s benefit; they’re changing because their feelings and their feelings alone matter. If Kylo changes because he loves Rey, that is a self serving act for his benefit only. 

Further, what happened to Kylo torturing Rey in The Force Awakens? He kidnapped her, holding her captive, and entered her mind without consent. That’s as clear a metaphor for abuse you can find, and that’s not even my only example. 

In The Last Jedi, Kylo attempts to persuade Rey to join him on the dark side. He tells her that she’s “nothing,” but not to him. To him, she matters. This is very commonly touted as a romantic moment, but the emotional manipulation is more than obvious. 

Kylo doesn’t care about Rey. He says she’s “nothing,” that none of her friends care about her, that she’s worthless to them. By tearing her down then building her up by saying that she’s not nothing to him, he’s enforcing the idea that the only way she can have significance is with him. 

I don’t even mean “with him” in the romantic sense — he pretty transparently only wants her on the dark side for her power. Kylo is a terrible jedi, and he’s witnessed Rey’s prowess a number of times. He only wants her power and skill, not her as a person. 

He murdered her father figure, Han, in front of her, and nearly killed her best friend, Finn; he’s tortured her and manipulated her — it’s never been more obvious that he doesn’t care about her at all. 

If anyone knows anything about abusive relationships, this is the first thing that abusers do. They alienate their intended victim from their friends and family, ensuring that they alone are the only source of comfort. It ensures that if things ever get bad, the victim has nowhere to go and no one to turn to but right back to the abuser. 

What message would it send to little girls and boys if Rey were to end up with Kylo after all of that? Deal with his violence and manipulation long enough and he might change? If I have to spell out why that’s dangerous, I don’t know what else to say. 

In addition — what does this say about how people view Rey? Do you really want her to be with someone who has tortured her, betrayed her, and manipulated her? The answer is that people who want Reylo to be together only care about Kylo, not Rey. 

Toxic Masculinity 

Despite these specifics, the general acceptance of Kylo’s behavior is surprisingly rampant in fandom. His actions aren’t simply excused, but romanticized. He has obvious anger issues, control issues — that scene in the beginning of The Force Awakens when he lashes out and destroys the control panel with his lightsaber? That may as well have been a shot of an abusive, angry man throwing around furniture and punching walls because he has no emotional control. 

Sure, people like Kylo. They’re allowed to. But there’s a clear difference between liking a character and blind endorsement of that character's actions. I know plenty of people who like Kylo as a character, but the difference is if they meet someone like Kylo in bar or see one of his outbursts, you’d call the fucking cops. You wouldn’t ship him with your best friend. That's the dividing line here.

Kylo Ren is a direct parallel to real-world men who lash out because they’re filled with anger and frustration that’s turned into something truly ugly. They lash out at the people who are willing to help, all because they feel themselves robbed of things they think they deserve. Kylo wants power, he wants control, and he cares about nothing else. 

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theatres internationally on December 19, 2019.

[the-ghost-of-jason-todd]

Gotta Ramble About Daemons Forgive Me

...listen i love every Golden Compass voltron au i’ve ever read but i still have opinions about their daemons and no one has done them quite like i want them to

like, for instance: shiro.  shiro is almost always a dog or a wolf in fics (or a large cat, i think i saw that once), and while i DO appreciate the large canine part of it i also think that his daemon should be less majestic/intimidating?  definitely no less dangerous, but shiro is not a predator himself (tho wikipedia tells me a wolf is a scavenger which i did NOT know, thanks mainstream media for skewing my view of wolves so badly, ultimate predator my ass).  he’s a scrappy fighter who is almost always an underdog, unforgiving in his motions when he’s up against an enemy, but sincere and respectful.  he’s a scavenger.  personal favorite for his daemon?  coyote/jackal.  though i think a hyena would be delightful, tbh.

keith is another one who is almost always written with a predator.  or maybe not ‘predator’, but one of the animals who is commonly assumed to be a predator.  i see a lot of keith daemons that are large cats, and i’ve seen one or two that are birds (i saw a hawk once, i think... might have been an eagle? a falcon?  eh one of those).  i’d really like to see keith with a raven or a crow as a daemon.  he’s sharp, quick, and often misunderstood.  like a raven, he often has a sense of playfulness or humor that is overlooked in favor of something less personable, ie people don’t see keith’s softer, more emotional side because of his laser focus/logical approach.  not to be confused with someone who isn’t also, dangerous, however.  he’s good at planning but sometimes just dives right in beak-first.  also BONUS ravens/crows often follow after coyotes!!

lance i’ve seen with a bird, an otter, and something else i can’t remember right now.  lance is the contradictory one, he’s steady but versatile.  often overlooked, and it took him a while to grow into his talents, but not for lack of effort.  he’s just good at making his effort seem effortless, brushing it off using confidence.  also, he’s loud when he wants to be, sometimes i think he just enjoys making noise.  surprisingly territorial at times (literally how many times has he demanded to know what or who allura is getting involved with lmfao).  pretty face but a little goofy--his daemon is a goose.  lmfao i’m serious.  geese have conquered water, land, and air alike.  often underestimated but are actually quite deadly lmfao.  honk a lot.  but also are effective at what they do, and are marvelous at catching fish (did you know that they know how to herd fish into clear water to catch them?).  also geese are deceptively lanky??  they look like noodles with their long necks and weird ass legs but they are powerful swimmers/fliers.

hunk has had everything from a bumblebee to a bird to, like, a bear??  the boy is v varied, mostly because i don’t think we have as much of a fandom-wide understanding of his character.  so here’s what i see: hunk is very set in his ways.  he doesn’t particularly like to be put on the spot, he’s got a lot of anxiety, and he’s very grounded in the sense that he knows what’s up and he knows what is risky and what isn’t.  he can be SUPER stubborn, and also a lil nosy.  he’s always looking for a hug.  daemon?  snake.  CONSIDER IT.  snakes tend to have a habitat that they’re very comfy in, where they keep mostly to the shadows.  snakes will often let you know that they’re unhappy, but are usually benign because they’re just doing their thing.  they’ll curl up and hang out in warm places, but they can move fast and strike fast if they need to--or, alternatively, some of them don’t move fast at all, some of them are slow but deadly and use constriction to kill their pray!  that’s exactly hunk’s wavelength.  also just consider his snake daemon curled up around his head when he gets panicky??  or slowly sneaking into people’s bags looking for food lol.

pidge is more difficult because often her daemon just hasn’t settled yet?  i think i saw one where she had a bird (there was one fic where nearly everyone had a bird okay i actually don’t remember any other details because they were all just birds).  she’s agile, relies on maneuverability to keep ahead of combatants, and is hella smart.  she ALSO doesn’t go out of her comfort zone often, except to protect her family.  she’s miserable every time they go out into nature lmfao.  i think her daemon would settle to be a bat.  bats are small, agile, but depending on the bat can leave a HELL of a bite.  they navigate in ways most of the animal kingdom can’t even comprehend (echolocation).  nocturnal, they only go into the world when they’re ready to, and honestly?  bats are like, all or nothing.  either a bat is hiding or it’s flapping around with everything it’s got.  and they can have very strong social bonds.

TL;DR:  Shiro=Coyote, Keith=Raven, Lance=Goose, Hunk=Snake, Pidge=Bat

[hua-fei-hua]

💚💤💢👀💘!! :D

wheee!! these’re mostly from bnha bc that’s the fandom i primarily concern myself w/lol

💚Ship that you secretly like: i actually do like erasermic. it is sloooowly growing on me. i think it would be fun to someday write a fic where they pretend to be married bc class 1-a or all the ua kids keep asking if they’re married so one day they’re just like “fuck it yeah we are” and then change absolutely nothing about their daily lives. then some kids would get suspicious and start sleuthing around, but in the meantime, the rumors spread to the teachers, whom aizawa probably wouldn’t trust to keep their mouths shut (although. to be fair, that begs the question of why he’d trust mic to keep his mouth shut, other than “it personally affects him too”) and then while the kids are starting to uncover more clues pointing towards “hey this isn’t actually real” the erasermic stuff would all start becoming more real and the kids are all like “so what is the truth” 

💤Ship that is canon but you don’t ship: hmm. i don’t typically consume shows where ships become canon. i guess the closest i can answer here was in snk when sasha died and it was revealed that she was dating that one minor character cook guy and i was like, “really? you went for springles like that, isayama? tsk tsk that ship’s double dead now”

💢Ship that is most misunderstood: i could probably go off on a couple different ships’ fandoms here, draw some hard lines in the sand and declare some allegiances, but i’m not gonna capsize the boat today and play it safe by merely rocking it with some cold takes i’ve definitely seen elsewhere in the fandom lol

anyway, despite not going out and looking for krbk fic myself, i’ve read a few based off rec lists, i’ve read some fic authors’ thoughts on their fanon, and i’ve seen comments based on my own writing of them. i think kirishima is often mischaracterized as some soft and sunshine uwu boy, which is not a hot take to my knowledge. like don’t get me wrong, he’s a sweet and caring boy, but he’s also a shithead teenage boy doing normal rough-and-tumble teenage boy things. he’s gonna be a dumbass. he’s gonna be overdramatic and entirely oblivious about his feelings at the same time. he has this tendency to be a bit woobified, which is really not much more than an overextension of his canon backstory based on insecurities, but like, c’mon. he’s not actually that bad.

i’m actually a bit guilty of that too lol. i read a few kiri meta posts while reading orchid and ended up changing the way i was portraying him hahaha.

i think that bakugou is a very delicately written character that’s extremely difficult to get wrong. he’s kind of like cotton candy in that if you handle his character even a little bit too roughly, it loses all the fine threads that make it three-dimensional. i feel like people can see him as just this tsundere not-so-bad bad boy, and i mean don’t get me wrong, i think he’s hilariously tsundere too, but that stems from something too. bakugou’s not necessarily a good person. he doesn’t necessarily mean well. he has his asshole moments, but when it counts, he tries to do the right thing. he’s learning and he’s growing because he wants to be better for himself. he wants to be the best, and if he doesn’t learn and grow, how is he gonna become the best?

i also will admit that i don’t think there’s much canon supporting them as a romantic pairing, but to be fair, by my standards, only izch has enough canon support to justify interpreting them as potentially being more than friends. kiri is gay-coded, from the meta i’ve seen swirling around, but i’ll also admit that that doesn’t mean he can’t have male friends.

👀Ship you’re curious about: i’m curious in a bad way abt some ships that i feel like i’ve seen commonly also shipped alongside tdmm, but i might just be negatively biased lol. 

anyway i’m not gonna go off; i feel like i’ve already rocked my already tiny boat enough on this particular ask, but a ship i’m curious about in a neutral/slightly favorable way would be awamomo. i have a huge soft spot for the unrequited, and i like seeing canon unrequited loves stay unrequited and the pining person learns to move on. i thought abt exploring the awase/momo dynamic a bit in a post-fake-dating disaster au where momo meets todo in college and over the course of a few weeks, tells him about her messy high school life where she asked awase to be her fake boyfriend for reasons, but then shit appeared to hit the fan for reasons she’s not entirely clear on. in exchange, todoroki would tell her about his own dramatic backstory, and they get together. momo would still have to go find awase and talk to him abt what happened, and he’d probably admit he liked her but has moved on now, and they’d part as friends. 

💘Ship that is unpopular but you still like:honestly? i actually have a soft spot for monokendou, like y’know, monoma/kendou from class 1-B. i think i found them when i saw a small rarepair collection when i first entered the fandom and was looking for tdmm stuff, back when tdmm was a rarepair. i know tetsukendou is more popular but idk man i just think monokendou is neat.