#and then I couldn’t remember WHY I thought that way other than fanon influence

[an-absolute-travesty]

Before the next (potentially last but honestly I struggle to believe it-) book, I really need to do a full reread because I can feel my grasp of canon slipping a little

[unsympathetic-teach]

[Image ID: Two screenshots from tumblr user “yiqiangmina.” The first says “PLEASE post the “fandom impacts canon” rant I’ve had similar feelings for quite awhile now. I hate how Thomas lets fans influence his characterization of Sides and how the writers room made it worse.” 

The second reads “Because “Logan’s the mom” “Logan loves wine” and all came from the FANS. Which is also why i believe Logan’s “stop ignoring me” thing is becoming an actual arc.” /End ID]

These are my thoughts exactly!!

I feel like Thomas has always been pretty interactive with his fans, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing! Like,,cool,,,people could send asks to his blog..and it’s kind of apparent that he (or someone on the SaSi team) goes through tags and finds art (or like? there is some other process for the fanart shout outs that we are unaware of). On their own. And those aren’t necessarily terrible things? But combine it with the “writers room” and Joan, who I believe was the main writer for the series (or at least put a lot of love and time into writing good characters), it feels like the show is becoming a caricature of itself. 

In the most recent episodes Roman has felt like his s1 self, Logan is becoming more and more like his fanon personality, hell, I even feel like Virgil is becoming very “uwu”-ified in the canon series. And it feels so abrupt! I was watching the most recent Aside and i was hit with whatever the fuck Roman was doing, because he felt so much louder and more annoying than I’d remembered him, and I couldn’t tell if it was a narrative choice, or maybe I was remembering him wrong? But now I realize it was probably just bad writing. 

And I *so* agree that the whole “stop ignoring me” arc is coming from the fans. There really hasn’t been any build up to it in the canon series, and most of the emotions that Logan has been expressing in the most recent episodes felt like a completely fanon version of the canon character. Why is Logan suddenly so ok with being more openly emotional? Why does he suddenly feel upset about the others “ignoring” him when there are very few canon instances of that happening? What the fuck????

And I do think this comes from how Thomas and the rest of the crew interact with fans. I think that the way asks are open (or at least used to be open) on Thomas and Joans blogs influenced how the characters were written because the fans ideas about the characters were present in those asks. I think the “fan artist shout outs” are good in theory, but in practice looking through tags or whatever will definitely influence how Thomas/the team sees the characters. I *hate* the patreon choice and the “writers room” choice because there is no way in fucking hell that fans are not influencing the real fucking arcs in the canon series through that. I dislike that they can’t hire actual animators and instead rip off fans to animate their episodes, because, again, if they are interacting with those artists at all beyond a very formal and professional relationship, then those artists will influence the team.

And maybe I’m wrong!! I have No idea what happens behind the scenes of Sanders Sides, but recently the show has felt off. It has felt way too much like the fandom. I used to be able to watch the episodes and be slapped in the face with how different the fans view of the sides is compared to the actual canon personalities. Now it feels like it’s all muddled together, like Roman has become a bigger, louder, more egotistical asshole than his character in SvS and the first two asides felt (aka his most recent character development), how Virgil is becoming cuter and more palatable recently, how Janus is somehow completely forgiven by Thomas and Patton??? How Logan’s arc feels out of place, and how it feels like he’s saying lines lifted directly from fanfiction. I hate it!! It’s ruining the show for me!! Because i reallly dislike this fandom and how toxic it has gotten over time, and I dont like the see the fanon concepts of much more complex and interesting characters becoming the canon versions. 

And again, I would like to stress that Thomas has always been very entrenched in the fandom. That his view of the characters is definitely somewhat influenced by that. And the recent choices with “writers room”, all the patreon bullshit, the dresses, and (in my opinion) the tiktoks have emphasized his involvement with fans and fandom, and that the recent narrative choices might reflect that. 

Also i feel like Joan being gone will have a real affect on the show. I don’t know why. I just don’t really trust Thomas or the rest of the team at this point because of the animation shit, the time between episodes, the patreon, etc. 

This is probably really hard to follow and I’m sorry i just,,, I dislikes the most recent episode so strongly and I have a lot of feelings lmao. (P.S lmk if the Image ID can be improved!!)

[sugarcubetikki]

The Ladynoir Fight Scene

 I’m going to talk about the Ladynoir fight scene in the NY special and consequences of that because that was the biggest conflict in that episode. And a lot of the fandom have mixed opinions about it, I hear different opinions all the time. I’ve heard things from it’s all Ladybug’s fault to Chat Noir isn’t fit to be a superhero. I want to present some of my own opinions and analyze through the entire situation.

Firstly, I’d say the actual situation was caused due to a chain of events. Honestly, Adrien had quite a solid plan and it would’ve worked if he wasn’t trapped in the room with Marinette (basically if Aeon and Jess weren’t scheming). They were put in the worst case scenario and a lot of events led up to it: Marinette convincing Gabriel to let Adrien come, Gabriel’s own desire to go to NY for “villainous” reasons and wanting to leave Adrien out of it, Plagg wanting Adrien to have more freedom, Adrien being afraid of disappointing Ladybug, Aeon and Jess’s plan.

A chain of events adding together to lead to the worst situation as possible. Obviously, this was necessary to create conflict and evolve the characters.

Even if a chain of events did lead up to this, the characters did make mistakes.

Adrien

Let me clarify that his mistake wasn’t coming to New York but it was rather not informing Ladybug.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to New York?”

I do understand his situation, it was the first time he was entrusted with a responsibility, and he was so afraid to blow it and disappoint Ladybug.

It’s important to note that he thought he was obliged to stay in Paris. He thought she would be mad if he went to New York because he wasn’t able to carry out his responsibility. He didn’t understand that she wouldn’t be upset for telling her that he wasn’t going to stay in Paris. He was only given the responsibility because he was able to do it due to being in Paris. But if he couldn’t stay in Paris, that wasn’t his fault, and Ladybug would’ve understood that. If he informed her, she simply would’ve found another solution. No anger involved.

This also says a lot about Adrien. He feels obliged to do things and if he can’t do them, he’s expecting disappointment and anger. Wonder were that mentality came from? I’m looking at you, Gabriel.

With that mentality, he felt that informing Ladybug would anger her, because he doesn’t know what freedom tastes like. He’s allowed to have emotions, and he’s not always obliged to do things. As long as he communicates he’s fine. The result of his mistake comes from once again...his sheltered life and trashy parent (not to mention listening to Plagg).

Also, for people saying he doesn’t deserve to be Chat Noir for making a mistake, let me remind you that the whole point of the show is for the characters to learn from their mistakes. If they don’t make mistakes, there’s no development or conflict, and if you’re going to say he didn’t learn enough from his mistake, I’ll say accepting that you’ve made a mistake enough that you feel like you’re unworthy and punish yourself by taking away the one thing that makes you happy is more than enough.

Plagg

People say Plagg should know better. I agree. He should.

But he’s not Tikki. He’s more laidback (cue theories of Plagg having bad owners in the past).

And it’s important that he’s with Adrien because his influence on Adrien encourages him to get out of his shell, have more freedom. That doesn’t always go the right way though.

Like this time. I mean, there was no reason for Plagg to tell Adrien not to inform Ladybug, unless he also expects anger due to being abused by bad owners in the past which also makes him somewhat poor socially. I wonder if he sees a bit of his past self in Adrien. Coming back to track anyhow (save this topic for another time).

Plagg’s laidback nature and yearning for Adrien to have more freedom naturally pushes him to encourage Adrien because he cares.

And for Plagg, he actually gives some pretty useful tips for a backup plan. I mean, he’s a free spirit, I can’t expect him to be all strict and responsible like Tikki. But in all honesty, he seriously needs to take kwami tutoring classes if they exist. Tikki would be willing to offer lol.

Marinette

This one is going to be long. Because I’ve heard a lot of unreasonable claims against Marinette (as usual unfortunately).

Firstly, people think it’s hypocritical of Marinette to tell Chat to take care of Paris, and then blame him for coming, when she shouldn’t have been in New York herself. Like I said, she wasn’t mad at him for coming to New York, she was upset because he came without informing her. And she wanted him to take care of Paris, because he was her partner, and she thought he was going to be there anyways. He could alert her if it came to the worst case scenario, what if she wasn’t able to access her phone, or issues such as time zone differences. It’s obvious that she’d have to travel back whenever there’s an attack as she’s the only one who can purify the akuma and use the cure to fix everything. And saying she shouldn’t have gone in the first place? How else would they have the special? Also, she’s not obliged to stay stuck in Paris either, they can use their space powers or the horse miraculous to travel back anyways.

Second of all, people blame her for being mad at Chat. Saying that she shouldn’t have been mad in the first place. Since Chat is all supporting of her and all...

Well, I say she had every right to be mad. 

In her point of view, she does have every right to be mad.

And comparing this situation to Chat being supportive of her when she makes mistakes isn’t fair. Those situations are different.

The most common comparison used is Miracle Queen and it’s not a fair comparison. 

The mistakes she made didn’t involve anything that could make him angry. She was honestly torn up about it and communicated. 

Over here, Chat didn’t communicate, and she was in a position where she could be angry, because the consequences of his mistake are also her own responsibility.

If he did communicate beforehand (I’ve said this too many times), he would’ve been upset about it, but she wouldn’t have been, she would’ve assured him that he needn’t be upset and she’d think of another backup plan instead. 

But he didn’t. In her eyes, he could’ve and didn’t. And she doesn’t know if he would’ve told her. If there wasn’t an attack, she might’ve never found out. How is she supposed to feel about that? 

His explanation doesn’t make sense in her eyes. It makes sense to us, the audience, because we know of his sheltered life, we know that he struggles with these kind of things. But she doesn’t. She knows nothing about his background. She doesn’t know his life behind the mask And it’s not her fault. She can only rely on their bond and partnership.

Ladybug: Why didn't you tell me that you were leaving?! Cat Noir: I was afraid you'd get angry!

Look at Ladybug’s perspective for a minute, forget about Adrien’s poor social skills, and really think if his answer was valid.

It doesn’t make sense why he would think she would get angry for telling her. It kinda sounds like he lacks faith in her (which we know is not the case). He hasn’t made a mistake this big before. And the way he reacts about it is that instead of confiding in his partner, he chooses not to tell her and makes decisions without her knowledge behind her back, I mean, how could she not get angry for that? Because they’re both the heroes of Paris. They’re meant to confide each other in things like this, If there’s a problem, they’re meant to communicate so things won’t go wrong.

Ladybug could’ve easily left Paris without telling Chat either. But she didn’t. She told him because he was her partner, and they work together as a team. She expected him to cover for her, and alert her, so she could make her way back to defend the team. But when he comes face-to-face with a problem? One that directly links with him not being able to stay in the city to defend it, he didn’t tell her. Instead, he leaves without her knowledge, and she didn’t know that Paris was left defenseless. Both of them our heroes. It’s both their responsibilities. When she confided in him, he didn’t do the same. And when asked why? All he says is that he was afraid she would get mad at him. That reasoning doesn’t even make sense, and it’s not something she can accept for not confiding in her. It runs deeper than just not informing her, it makes her feel like he’s not reciprocal in their partnership, that he lacks some sort of faith in her, that he thinks she would get mad that easily, and use that as an excuse. Remember, this is the same person who asked him:

“You don’t think I’m as evil as your nightmare, do you?”

Him not confiding in her is a scar to their bond. Not only does it endanger Paris. But it also makes her feel like he doesn’t have faith in her. He didn’t have enough faith in her to tell her that he was leaving. That he could use her getting angry as an excuse. 

We know that due to his poor social skills and bad parent, he feels obliged to do things and expects disappointment when he can’t. It wasn’t that he didn’t have faith in her, more that he expects anger and disappointment when he can’t do something, and he was never taught to communicate when he comes across such a situation. And the fact that this was the first time he was given such a huge responsibility by her, and faces a problem, he doesn’t know how she’ll react, so he’ll expect she’ll react in the same way such as “someone we know” because he doesn’t know any better. Since he was never taught that communication is valid in a situation like this, he didn’t understand.

But she doesn’t all that about him. You’re all mixing fanon with canon. She knows barely anything about his personal life. How on earth is she supposed to know that he’s lived most of his life alone and his little experience with people? If she knew that, she probably would’ve reacted differently. But she didn’t. She assumed the first thing that came to mind. 

So, maybe the line “I can’t trust you anymore, can I?” was more out of spite than anything else. She was just hurt.

Moreover, after he did accidently cataclysm Aeon, it wasn’t like she was jerky about it. She didn’t blame him after that at all. She said nothing to him. Because she does trust him. She does know that he didn’t mean to do it, and she probably guessed he was feeling guilty. Because unlike his poor social life, he does know that him enough that he’d feel guilty for doing that. I mean, anyone would, honestly. And even when Paris was destroyed, she said nothing to him after that, because she was considerate enough to not push the line, and not add even more to his guilt to what he was feeling. And she definitely felt bad about the whole situation herself. 

In a overall, that whole argument was miscommunication and it really shows how troublesome their secret identities can be at times. That it limits what they know about each other and can cause misunderstandings. Since there was so much miscommunication and tension between them, they weren’t able to work together as a team, which lead to them being distracted, and causing the disaster.

This is why it is so important for them to trust and confide in each other. It makes them stronger as a team. And the New York Special definitely made them even more stronger after going through that conflict. 

[hello-yue-here]

About your atla ship songs, I have a couple of questions (sorry if my phrasing comes out wrong, english isn't my first language and I worry it might across as accidentally defensive): how did you end up with the choices for zukka, jetko and yuekka (note: I haven't seen the great comet, so feel free to obsess over it, I'm intrigued now and the hype is appreciated!)? Sidenote: I think the mailee choice is HILARIOUS and the tokka one just make me sad, I didn't expect to be attacked like this😭

kdjfha;s i love you im gonna obsess SO HARD over great comet now. you may regret this

this is gonna be so long so the rest is under the cut whoops

yuekka: no one else from great comet

where do i even begin. WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN

okay so background information on this show: it's based off of a 76 oages excerpt from war and peace and its centered around a woman named natasha (and this guy pierre but he's irrelevant to this song so we wont worry about him) and natasha's bethrothed is off fighting in the war right now. she hasn't seen him in a while but she is in love with him.

every single lyrics of this song SCREAMS yuekka to me. the innocence and purity of their love. the love at first sight. and even the melancholy ending just- i go apeshit for this song. i love this song so much. and denee benton's voice??? kljsdhflwksugf please listen to this song if you haven't already. listen to the whole show. your life will be changed forever.

onto the lyrics (i stg this is ab to be the whole song whoops)

"the moon"

THOSE ARE THE FIRST WORDS ON THE SONG. natasha and andre (her bethrothed) met underneath the moonlight. Sokka and Yue first spoke to eachother at night and always met each other for their most intimate moments under the moonlight. also yue is LITERALLY the moon so like: right of the bat with those two words it's yuekka.

"and i saw your eyes / and i saw your smile / and the world opened wide"

sokka fell in love with yue the moment he saw her in the canal. she literally enchanted this motherfucker. everything about her made his heart go crazy. and 'the world opened wide' to me is from yue's perspective. Yue had never left the north pole and sokka had seen a good chuck of the world at the point. He took her on appa, he told her about his adventures. he saw the world yue wished to see and you know damn well that Sokka would have done anything to give it to her.

"oh the moon /oh the snow in the moonlight / and your childlike eyes and your distant smile / ill never be this happy again / you and i and no one else"

natasha sings fondly about the moon and the snow, seeing as it was where she fell in love with andre. yue and sokka LITERALLY fell in love in the same place: in the snowy nothern water tribe under the light of the moon. childlike eyes: THEYRE CHILDREN!!! distant smile: this is where it gets a little sad. theyre both children with way too many duties during a world that has known nothing but war for the past century. they want to be happy but yeah, theyre smiles are distant and far away because happiness seems out of reach for them most of the time. i'll never be this happy again: the moments yue and sokka shared together were probably the happiest either of them ever were. they were able to ignore the war and the world in the moments they shared together. and with no one else. no one else would be able to give each other this sense of peace and happiness and love.

"joy and life inside our souls / and no body knows just you and me / it's our secret"

Yue and Sokka had to sneak out in secret at night to go and see each other. Yue and Sokka couldn't be together for real because Yue was already engaged, but they were literally in love so she decided to see him anyways in secret. kasdjfhklasjd im losing my mind over them at this point.

"this winer sky / how can anyone sleep / there was never such a night before / i feel like putting my arms around my knees / and squeezing tight as possible / and flying away"

these are my FAVORITE lines in the entire song. yue and sokka had never felt this strongly about anyone before and that's why they are so drawn to each other. they had never experienced love before and they wanted to hold onto it for as long as they could even though they knew they couldnt. Sokka takes yue up on appa and she is wistful and wishes she could live like he does every day: ie flying away. oh my god these two deserved so much better. so much fucking better.

now for the saddes part. the saddest fucking part.

"maybe he'll come today / maybe he came already / and he's sitting in the drawing room / and i simply forgot"

natasha misses andre so intensely at this point. when i first listened to this show and heard this song i was like "wait a min... is andre like... dead?" and im sure i wasnt the only person who assumed that this was why natasha felt so sad by the end of such a beautiful song. (spoiler alert andre is fine)

but this line really exemplifies how sad natasha is, and hints at the fact that andre may never come back. it implies that their relationship is doomed (at least in my opinion) and that's all yuekka. Sokka misses yue intensely when shes gone. Yue accepted her fate almost immediately but sokka was in denial. he thought there had to be another way. but in the end it wasn't meant to be. and sokka will go on, loving yue, wishing for her back, even though it's not possible.

fuck im gonna cry.

zukka: all i've ever known- hadestown

"i was alone so long / i didn't even know that i was lonely / out in the cold so long / i didnt even know that i was cold"

sokka is from the swt so theres where the cold comes in. also in the gaang (initially) it was just him katara and aang. and katara and aang were much closer to each other than sokka was with aang and the two of them were benders so sokka was kind of an outsider with the two of them. He also represses a lot of his emotions and feels the need to do everything himself so i do see a lot of loneliness in sokka. and the fact that so many people in his life have left him (his mom, yue, his dad, suki briefly, etc...) he is known to keep people at an arms length. i see a lot of loneliness in sokka.

zuko's loneliness is a lot more obvious: he has literally been cast out and abandoned by everyone except iroh. and even then he still feels the need to be alone (remember zuko alone? thought so) these boys look after themselves and push others away and revel in their loneliness in order to keep themselves from getting hurt. at least in my opinion on canon and also some fanon because id be a liar if i said fanon didnt influence how i view ALL my ships (not just zukka)

"all ive ever known is how to hold my own / but now I wanna hold you too"

COME ONE MANNNN, they just wanna hold each other. theyre both very big protectors as well and kljhflkasdhg they wanna protect eachother like kljdhfl im gonna lose it rn.

"You take me in your arms / And suddenly there's sunlight all around me / Everything bright and warm / And shining like it never did before / And for a moment I forget / Just how dark and cold it gets"

SUNLIGHT SYMBOLISM. zuko is literally powered by the sun. i don't think i even NEED to elaborate on this one anymore lol. They find comfort in each other away from all of their trauma. when they're together nothing else matters and i personally love that for them. they both deserve love.

"I knew you before we met / And I don't even know you yet / All I know is your someone I have always known"

these two are extremely similar in canon. many parallels. older brothers overshadowed by their prodigy little sisters. longing to make their fathers proud (granted one dad is good and one is fuckin evil), both are pretty bad with emotions. both are seen protecting others before themselves (sokka protecting suki during the serpant's pass, sokka protecting toph on like multiple occassions, zuko protecting katara in the final agni kai), the list goes on. they know who the other is because they see themselves in the other person. they already know each other because they are each other (in a way, not entirely, but the similarities are strong in my opinion)

"I'm gonna hold you forever / The wind will never change on us / Long as we stay with each other / Then it will always be like this"

i just think this line is so cute and sweet (ignoring all the symbolism and foreshadowing that comes with the last line in the musical itself. im gonna pretend this is nothing but happy) and i think these boys deserve happiness so yeah. this song is zukka to me lol.

jetko: thrill of first love- falsettoes

if you've never listened to this song go an do it now. you will know INSTANTLY that it is jetko because of the dynamics alone. marvin and whizzer are pure jetko and i take no crticisms.

marvin and whizzer are both extremely stubborn, and they don't always get along, and they fight a lot, and they get mad at each other a lot, and they are both passionate as hell, and they will bring this passion into everything. they love each other that is without a doubt, but they arent perfect and they are once again stubborn and determined as fuck.

sound familiar? it's literally jetko.

the lyrics aren't what remind me of jetko, but the dynamic itself. the lyrics are too on the nose for a gay couple in 1970's america so that rlly cant apply to jetko all that much. but the way these two characters bounce off of each other and get annoyed with each other and argue with eachother reminds me of jetko. because let's be honest: these two are the most stubborn characters in the whole show. they will fight for what they believe and it will take literally everything to change their minds.

i love jetko but i think they would have petty arguments all the time and get aggravated by one another so easily. and this is even seen in canon: they work so fucking well together but they did not even HESITATE to fight one another after neither of them would give in and let the fight about whether jet was right or wrong about zuko being a firebender. like i cannot say it enough they are stubborn as fuck.

but underneath all that stubborn pettiness and bickering: marvin and whizzer still love each other. and jet and zuko would still love each other. because even though they are stubborn when it comes to arguments, they are even more stubborn and determined when it comes to each other. these two passionate motherfuckers are in love.

(now when i chose this song i decided to ignore the fact that this song literally spells out the fact that marvin and whizzer's relatinoship is doomed because they literally say passion dies. thats the difference between jetko and whizzer and marvin because i dont think passion dies. i chose this song strictly for the bickering lmao)

and i know you didnt ask about tokka but,,,,

i rlly wanna talk about the tokka one

so im going to

tokka: on my own- les mis

look. i KNOW this song is about unrequited love and i love tokka as a couple but,,, the unrequited love in this song just SCREAMS unrequited tokka to me so thats what i went with.

eponine is a girl who has neglectful parents who lives life by her own rules: toph. eponine is shown to be tough and confident and spunky to others but behind all of that she has emotions, she feels love, she hides her vulnerability so much: toph. she is in love with a guy she cant be with because he loves someone else: TOPH

eponine is toph to a t and toph is eponine to a t. this is not up for debate lmao

"without him i feel his arms around me"

toph is always seen grabbing onto someone (and its almost ALWAYS sokka) when she's somewhere where she can't use her feet to see. FEEL and ARMS cmon. look at it.

"and i know / i know that he is blind"

COME ON. IMAGINE TOPH SINGING THIS LINE. this line is already powerful enough in les mis but having toph, a blind character, sing it just makes the symbolism even deeper. toph sees the potential relationship they could have together. toph sees that sokka is oblivious to this. toph is not blind to the truth or the potention, but sokka is blind to her feelings. im about to lose my mind over this line.

"I love him / But every day I'm learning / All my life / I've only been pretending / Without me / His world will go on turning / A world that's full of happiness / That I have never known"

i need to sit down for a moment. toph grew up in a household where her parents did not understand her. she has learned to hide her true emotions and vulnerabilities from everyone. and its the fact that toph knows that she and sokka will never be together and the fact that she still loves him in spite of that is what makes this even more heartbreaking.

"but only on my own"

TOPH AND EPONINE SWEETIES I LOVE YOU

thank you for indulging my theatre kid nonsense. you are very sweet and kind and lovely and awesome and i hope you have a lovely day bestie :) <3

ask me why i think these songs go with these ships

[notthatiwilleverwriteit]

Let's say that there was no tianshan and zhanyi. Could you see a situation where zhang and mo would be together romantically? And he tian and jian yi?

Hello, dear anon!

Before I get to my answer, let me apologize for keeping your ask waiting for so long. To make up for the wait, I thought I would do some edits inspired by your question. I hope those will add some extra.

Also, I have talked about the relationships between HT/JY and ZZX/MGS a couple of times before:

My thoughts on HT & JY and ZZX & MGS (platonic)

Did HT get bored of JY?

HT’s behavior with JY vs. with MGS

Could ZZX interact more with the other boys?

ZZX’s opinion on HT?

Mostly those are about platonic friendships, though. I’m always interested in the boys interacting outside of their canon ships but I can’t really say I ship them. I can see where people shipping HT/JY, for example, are coming from but I can’t really feel the ship in my heart.

So, your ask, dear anon, was quite a challenging one. The canon ships were too distracting for me to really get to the bottom of this. Finally, I decided to try and pretend like Zhanyi and Tianshan didn’t exist at all. I dropped them and built stories for HT/JY and ZZX/MGS to make it a bit easier. So, this answer will be somewhat of a mix of canon pondering and creative fanon.

I’m going to cut this here because this turned out to be quite a long post.

“Could you see a situation where zhang and mo would be together romantically?”

I think seeing a romantic connection between ZZX and MGS was definitely more difficult than between HT and JY. ZZX doesn’t really interact with MGS that much, and what little he does, it’s usually very neutral in tone. We know he cares about MGS as a friend, but it seems that’s just how ZZX is outside his relationship with JY.

To be honest, even if Zhanyi wasn’t a thing, I couldn’t see MGS and ZZX being romantically involved in canon. In a way that felt natural and fluent, at least. I feel like the story (and even the characters) would have to be quite different for these two to be romantically interested in each other.

Putting ZZX and MGS in a romantic context raises a laundry list of all kinds of questions. Would JY still be ZZX’s best friend? Or would ZZX have some kind of childhood history with MGS? If not, how did they cross paths? Would MGS still be in gangs? Did ZZX develop romantic feelings first? Are they unrequited or would MGS eventually feel the same? How would ZZX’s love and affection guide MGS?

I feel like canon-wise MGS and ZZX are too “far” from each other to really have a romantic connection. Sure, they have their little bonding moments, but I can’t really see those carrying them all the way to romance. They are also quite similar characters in the sense that when left alone, they are both rather quiet and keep to themselves. For a romantic relationship, I think ZZX would have to become the one who takes the initiative and perhaps even chases after MGS in his own way.

I also struggle to see MGS’s character development in that relationship. If he was still a delinquent and involved in gangs, what would push and pull him to change the direction of his life? I’m not saying ZZX couldn’t have that influence but I kind of have to squint to imagine it. Rather I could see it be an angsty love story where ZZX watches MGS get in fights from the sidelines and MGS refusing his help but also feeling guilty about disappointing and troubling ZZX yet again.

And that is what I took as the basis for my little edits for ZZX/MGS. The canon panels offered at least some interesting moments that could build a story when tweaked a little.

In this scenario, ZZX and JY are still best friends but MGS is his childhood friend from kindergarten. ZZX remembers MGS as an adventurous boy always eager to follow a random path. He never backed down when the older boys bullied him which often landed him in the principle’s office. To the grownups, he might have come across as a wild kid but ZZX knew he was also kind and caring.

When ZZX reunited with MGS in the last year of middle school, he recognized MGS immediately from his red hair (ch. 177):

But compared to their childhood, he seemed more hostile. He glared at people and spat curses and threats. None of his child-like curiosity and caring heart seemed to be left. It didn’t take long for him to get involved with the school gangs where he was known as a bit of a mad dog.

When ZZX heard MGS had gotten mixed up in assaulting some girl, he knew immediately it was a lie. MGS would never do something like that. Seeing him in the principle’s office was so hard for ZZX (ch. 184):

When MGS was released from the office, ZZX followed him. That’s when he found him getting in the face of one of the biggest delinquent leaders. ZZX could hear him screaming about something not being the way they had agreed. When one of the gang members attacked MGS from behind, ZZX’s legs moved on their own. He ran over and threw himself in the fight not really thinking about what he was doing. All he was aware of was that he needed to keep swinging for both of them.

The faculty eventually broke up the fight. MGS had gotten quite badly hurt and was taken to a hospital. ZZX spend a few nights there, too. After the fight, JY was relieved beyond words. (ch. 150):

But ZZX knew he had to do something. Things couldn’t keep going like this with MGS. So, he went to see MGS at the hospital (ch. 248): 

MGS said he had recognized ZZX at school almost right away but hadn’t approached him. They were from different worlds now. ZZX fell silent at that but he couldn’t accept it. He wanted things to go back to how they had used to be and get his friend back.

After MGS got out of the hospital, ZZX refused to back down even though MGS resisted his efforts. ZZX waited for MGS in the morning at the school gates and he and JY would stick to him as much as possible throughout the day. ZZX didn’t want to let MGS out of his sight, but MGS’s reluctance weighed on him. (ch. 196):

And that pretty much wraps up what I could come up for ZZX/MGS. As I said, I had to change the canon somewhat. I felt like I needed a premise of some kind for them to have a (romantic) connection.

“And he tian and jian yi?”

Now, HT/JY on the other hand was easier. As I said, I don’t ship them personally but I can see where people who do are coming from. I didn’t interpret HT’s interest in JY in the beginning as romantic feelings but I do think the opposite readings are also valid. So, I will utilize those vibes for them.

Canon-wise, I think HT and JY have enough contact where you could continue to build a romantic interest quite naturally. HT has a naturally flirty disposition that would spark butterflies in JY’s stomach easily. He also feels protective of JY, especially given the fact that HT doesn’t want JY to get involved in the mafia world.

JY would be a good counter for HT’s darkness and inner angst. His airheaded, oblivious energy could end up comforting and reassuring HT without JY even knowing about it. JY also trusts HT judging by the way he often consults him about relationships. I think those heart-to-hearts have opened a special bond between them in canon which could be easily continued as a romantic pull. Kind of like JY being the only one to whom HT has revealed his true thoughts about relationships and the world. JY had seen those glimpses.

The scenario I came up for HT/JY didn’t stray as far from canon as did ZZX/MGS, so it was easier to manage. The comic also had more material for them to work with.

In this scenario, JY and ZZX are still best friends but JY has unrequited feelings for HT instead. Even ZZX doesn’t know about them or that he likes men. They are similar to the secret “light on the outside, heavy on the inside” kind of love JY had for ZZX before kissing him and confessing to him. When ZZX found out about all this, it was similarly dramatic as in the Zhanyi canon (ch. 144):

The unrequited feelings JY has are quite painful for him. He’s afraid of confessing them. What if HT will be disgusted? What if he just plays around without actually meaning the things he says? What if he rejects JY and he loses their friendship? ZZX becomes the only person who knows about JY loving HT.

What makes JY’s position even more difficult is the way HT likes to naturally flirt with people, JY included. (ch. 104, 108, 115, 122, 323):

He touches JY nonchalantly and JY’s stomach and heart make little flips. He says things that make JY blush like an idiot. Being around HT makes JY both nervous and excited.

But it still hurts. HT is quite popular among girls which hasn’t escaped JY either (ch. 186, 102):

Sometimes a careless question or choice of topic can deliver a blow of heartache. Sometimes JY hates HT for a reason he can’t even name himself. He hates him for being so smooth and handsome and cruelly playing with JY’s heart.

But there are also times when JY can have HT just for himself (ch. 132,133):

Those times when it’s just the two of them, JY feels special in HT’s eyes. It feels like every touch, joke, and tease is just for him and only he knows about them. JY finds himself laughing a bit easier, leaning into the touch, and enjoying the butterflies.

But the truth is HT is actually aware of JY’s feelings for him. He knows. And they’re not as unrequited as JY believes. HT cares about him a lot, and those moments they share are also precious to him. He wants to protect and cherish JY which is why he’s reluctant to acknowledge the pink blushing elephant in the room. He’s a part of something that he never wants to reach JY. The last thing he wishes is for JY to know about all the messed up darkness HT carries and is involved in. So, he teases and flirts to get some kind of “in-between” satisfaction.

However, there are times when he can’t help but lean into the comfort JY unknowingly offers (ch. 260, 227, 228):

Those are the times when HT wishes he could just tell JY that he knows and that he wants it too. Fuck the rest of the world, let’s just be us. That he will never let anything happen to JY. That he sometimes wants to hear his voice at 2am, so is it okay if he calls.

And that concludes the little story for HT/JY. If compared to ZZX/MGS, I don’t think it changes the canon as much and it flows more naturally to me. But I did enjoy writing both scenarios, don’t get me wrong.

I hope this little extra material makes up for the wait! Thank you for your questions, dear anon!

[chorusnihili]

I'd love to hear more about the development of your Gaster! :D

BACKSTORY ASK MEME 1. How did you first come up with your muse’s backstory, if you did at all? Continued from here Also asked by @alagaster 

So I left off with the question of just how Gaster's soul ended up in pieces.

I’m actually going to detour at the moment and say that it was around that point that I had decided to make the blog.  I had a vague beginning and an ending, and usually that’s not enough for me to want to start, but I was excited, I had a lot of fun, so I went for it.

Honestly, one of the first things I need to have before I even think of making a blog is a good url.  Urls are super important to me, and generally, whether or not I think of a good one is a key factor in whether or not I actually make the blog.

But in this case, I was too eager to start and I actually just threw together chorusnihil so I could get started on the pages.  The thought process remained the same--the chorus is from Greek plays, the group of characters that narrate the actions occurring in the play.  nihil is Latin for nothing--and I later changed it to nihili, which is Genitive, to roughly make the “chorus of nothing” or “nothing’s chorus,” a reference to the fact that the guy wiped himself out of history, and so there’s no protagonist to narrate.  This was supposed to be a temporary URL, but I got attached to it, for reasons I’ll get to later.  

(And really, isn’t a roleplay blog a modern chorus in it’s own way?)

Also there’s the phonetic pun-- CORE-us, anyone?

So I threw together a lot of the basic bios.  Most of the stat pages are really bland, most of the guts of the story comes from the hidden details, most of which were added on later.  

Something that came up around this point was Gaster’s relationship to Asgore.  A lot of fanon pictures them as really close.  A lot of fanon also portrays Gaster as Gaster as desperately wanting to retake the surface, which...as mentioned previously, my Gaster just, wasn’t into.  

So it sort of put Gaster in between Asgore and Toriel--he wasn’t happy about the decision to go to war with humanity, but he wasn’t going to abandon everyone, even if he did become really reclusive.  

I thought about the idea of the human souls, and I knew that Gaster would immediately hate the idea of working with them.  And that was convenient, too, since it allowed me to further separate Gaster and Alphys’s work.  At first, it was just a heavy disagreement.  The idea that Gaster killed Asgore accidentally came a great deal later, but it honestly served to be a rather critical piece of the story. 

The design of the DT Extractor and Sans and Papyrus were also very vague concepts at this point. 

Revisiting the idea of his fall.  We know from the canon dialogue that he fell into his own invention and that he was scatted across space and time.  

The CORE is the common culprit and it was what I had chosen, too.  But how?  How could an energy source... do that? 

So the idea occurred to me that maybe--maybe that was exactly as it was designed to do.  After all, even in the real world, we have power plants that operate by ripping apart molecules.  So... magic.  Why not magic?  A machine that derives power out of ripping apart magical energy.

And monsters are made out of magical energy.  

Falling into that sounds like a very grisly fate, indeed.      

The idea of how he got erased from reality isn’t one I really have solidified.  G has a couple of theories, and I’m willing to roll with either of them, but, really?  I’m not super interested in making a hard reason for it.  Namely to adapt to other versions of fanon other muns might have. 

Essentially, the theories say that the CORE destroying him released so much energy that it tore a hole in the Determination that pushes the timeline forward, thus allowing the Void to enter and merge with his soul.  

From there, either, 

A., his Determination very briefly was larger than that of the Timeline, and he himself invoked a Reset, but given that he was outside of the timeline at the moment, it was corrupted and only erased certain parts rather than fully resetting.   I think that this was the original theory that I used in the original RP.  

B., the Void acted as a corrective force trying to correct the hole in the timeline.  In doing so, it erased Gaster from the reality, thus replacing the existing timeline with a new one in which certain things never happened.  

C., something involving the power of Rewrite that Gaster has from the duality of Determination and Void.

D., something else entirely.  

And so we had the scattered Unbound Gaster. 

Which, funfact, the name Unbound Gaster for the form was supposed to be temporary, as well.  It’s a reference to Unbound Hoopa for Pokemon.  (Which is why Provoked Form Gaster isn’t called Unbound Form!)

Within the original RP that I developed most of this lore, Refused Gaster didn’t exist.  In fact, that roleplay ended with Gaster’s permanent death--and being permanently forgotten to the world.  A choice he intentionally made because the damage he did to the timeline by falling into the CORE was still present and only getting worse, and the only way to fix it was to allow his Soul to come together and pass on properly, thus allowing the damage to mend.

It was sad.  I cried.  I got emotional.  

I got attached to a traumatic asshole character I literally had for four days.  

Somewhere in here, I began to think about the origins of Gaster.  Like, way way way in the past.  Some people have Gaster being actively involved in the war, but it didn’t work for my portrayal, of having him be so afraid of humans and the surface.  So for it to work out, I had him really young for the war, really young when everyone got driven underground.  

I killed off his parents because ......

Frankly I didn’t want to design them :|

There’s a lot of varying opinions and interpretations about skeleton monsters, and it’s a section of the fandom I’ve decided to stray away from for now.  

But I didn’t want the loss to be traumatic.  Gaster’s been through a lot already, and I have personal vendettas against characters who solely consist of trauma after trauma.  

So I decided to make the loss very distant--he’s aware he probably had parents, or maybe he came to be some other way--but he doesn’t remember them, there’s no tragic “my parents were killed in front of me,” it’s simply something he didn’t have, and something he never needed given the nature of monsters to be kind and caring.  

...

But it felt like it was missing something.

So I started to toy around with this idea of a mentor, one who played the role of a father-figure, one who would plant the seeds to give Gaster the appreciation of science and knowledge.  Someone who could take this lost and terrified boy and start to turn him into the intelligent and steady doctor we end up with.  

Then came the problem of how he and this mentor would actually meet; Gaster’s scar proved to be a convenient excuse, plus it gave me a backstory for that, as well.  A few humans attacked him and delivered the injury, and Gaster’s mentor found the wounded boy and took care of him.  

The mentor is meant to be a vague entity, and you can view this in action in this memory.  (Only partially because I didn’t want to name them.)  Unfortunately, as per the nature of characters created post hoc, their fate was already sealed.  I made the choice to cut their influence on Gaster’s life short.  

(If they were around longer, who knows?  Maybe they could have prevented some of the stupider things Gaster has done.  Maybe they could have changed fate.  But...  as we’ll get to, everything happened exactly as it had to.)  

Again, I made it a very distant loss.  It’s a rather simple conclusion that not every monster would be happy vacating the surface--Gaster’s mentor had lived there their entire life.  It was their home, they were not leaving, even upon threat of death.  And so it was a bittersweet parting, but one with closure, and Gaster said his farewells and departed to the Underground.  

Honestly, what I find really shocking about this character is just how intensely he wants to do good.  I mean, I’m no stranger to good characters, but few of my characters push it as far as Gaster does, and how quickly that feeling came to me, considering he started in the original roleplay as a ruthless asshole bastard more than willing to fuck over and torture a bunch of children just for a chance at being whole again.  

Most of Gaster’s early life in the Underground found in this post was written on the spot as I wrote that post, so it came really late.  

I still find it hilarious that he used to work in therapy.  You’re well aware you need therapy you fucking bastard.  Quit denying it.  

So, revisiting the idea of Gaster and Asgore.  I do like the idea of them being close, and Gaster even calls Asgore his best friend.  The declaration of war put a huge strain on the relationship.  

I originally thought about the idea of him accidentally killing Asgore for shits n giggles.  At my heart I am indeed an angst gremlin, so I was just thinking about what an alternate timeline where that happened might be like.  After all, Gaster’s angry, Asgore’s full of guilt, with the way monster magic works, it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to think that it could happen.  

But the more I thought about it, the more it fit eerily well.  The guilt gave Gaster a reason to create Sans (and later Papyrus) as part of his belief in Karma (creating a life to replace the life he took) and to look into Alphys’s research into Determination enough to create the blueprints for the DT Extractor; both of these things were things that I couldn’t otherwise really fit into his storyline.  

And finally...

His declining mental state and despair over the concept of the DT Extractor was what led to him being distracted enough to make such a critical mistake and fall into the CORE.  

And given that the timeline changes when he falls, I realized that...  I could have this happen, and the current timeline be unaffected.  

Now, given that I said that I wanted to avoid more trauma in Gaster’s life, this decision might seem contradictory.  But, it also served a very important point--Asgore returning to life, that mistake being fixed upon his fall gave Gaster something to hold onto.  Something that made his fate not as awful as it otherwise would have been.  A small piece of solace in hell.  

Plus, Gaster’s guilt at the incident caused him to resign as Royal Scientist, further allowing him and Alphys to have their separate stories. 

And pretty much everything snapped together at that point.  Really, strangely well.  I joked before on this blog if I’m really the one writing it.

If Gaster had not killed Asgore, he would have never created Sans and Papyrus, he would have never created the DT Extractor blueprints; if he did not create the blueprints, he would have never been distracted enough to fall into the CORE, if he never fell into the CORE, the blueprints would have never ended up with Alphys, she could have never created Flowey, and if Flowey was never created, he could have never used the souls to break the barrier and the True Pacifist ending would have never come to pass.  

It all happened exactly as it had to.

It feels oddly poetic, given the way Undertale works.  

In some ways, it’s cruel.  Gaster regularly struggles with the idea that for his people to be happy, he had to literally be wiped out of existence.  But in other ways, it’s a comfort--for at least he knows that his suffering wasn’t for nothing.  That there was a purpose--that even if he had to be erased, he played a vital role in ensuring his people found victory. 

Oh.  One final note...  In finalizing this story, you may notice that Gaster follows a classic pattern.  We have a hero, who’s mostly good, but through his own flaws makes a tragic mistake and seals his own grim fate.

It’s called a tragedy and they’re common in Greek plays.

What was that about a chorus again?

I think that’s just about every important point I could cover.  That being said, if you couldn’t tell, this is a very fascinating topic to me, so if you have any further questions or need any clarifications, feel free to send them in.  

[ardenttheories]

Weird notes and thoughts on Pesterquest: Volume 6, under the cut because this shit got long.

GAMZEE

Gamzee calls the Reader “sister”? Several times, in fact.

The Rage symbol is hidden in Gamzee’s pie.

Gamzee “moves on marianette strings” and his eyes flash as he stands up, which indicates that the movement is controlled by someone else (additionally that refusing to eat pie immediately loses him his free will?)

Either Gamzee is being funded by someone/something, or we’re literally just seeing troll Amazon in action.

The reader is a colossal dumbass for leaving a raging highblood to see “what would happen” in the future (although maybe if they’d stuck around they would’ve seen much sooner what was going to happen)

Gamzee, when raging, doesn’t want to see himself; he goes out of his way to destroy every reflective surface

When raging, Gamzee always scars his face. He does it here, too - which seems odd. Either he did it himself, or Kanaya did it - either way, it must be symbolic.

(Amended to the above, maybe the slash represents the Bardic Split - which we see fully when half of Gamzee is sucked up into Lil Cal. Slashed face = full Rage Bard)

The Reader mentions that they feel like they’ve seen everything as if someone else did it, so we’ve got that same odd instance of Reader remembering other timelines - which means there isn’t one “Alpha” Reader, and that all outcomes merge back into the Reader eventually.

Someone “spoke to Gamzee” about the truth of the world. If he thinks the Reader is going to “meet him soon”, maybe he means someone in the Dreambubbles? Like LE? 

Considering this is a timeline where Gamzee goes off the wall and kills everyone (or so it seems, since he’s yet to be stopped), could this allude to the honk HONK timeline? Can’t remember if they ever entered the game or not. It’d be a nice touch if so!

The pie is definitely NOT something you’re meant to eat, and I’d assume the initial nausea is Reader’s body trying to reject it before the effects kick in. Now we know what it’s like, there’s literally no surprise that Gamzee eats the pie all the time. It really does dampen him - but with a much stronger, more immediate effect.

(Amended to the above, if Gamzee is easily influenced to Split as soon as he stops eating the pie, then consistently eating is key. Explains why even refusing to eat once hashes him out.)

“Someone wants you to forget. Forget all of your friends and past adventures”. So, Reader is likely still very much under Doc Scratch’s control? Or if not Doc Scratch, then something else (maybe just the narrative) - but interesting to note how it doesn’t work while Reader is high.

The sopor slime really must block out any and all attempts from outside influences to control the mental flow of the consuming character.

Trying to go to the Friendsim timeline causes something very wrong to occur; Reader is literally blocked out from it, and managing to do it seems to fuck everything up for a split second. I have no idea what the T-posing alien was for, though.

VRISKA

“You step on a weird bug and you don’t even care” that’s a reference but I can’t for the life of me remember it. EDIT: FOUND IT. Page 797 of Homestuck, titled “Jade: Lose interest in fauna and never speak of it again”, the narrative details her being a majestic beast and ends with “you eat a weird bug and don’t even care”.  

The Reader is still being forced to make new friends. Even when their feelings are very much against this - and I assume they are still struggling with that concept of doing things with no meaning - their narrative is forcing them to do it. 

Vriska trans.

Vriska steals Reader’s luck. She doesn’t even know she’s doing it, I think, but I’m assuming that’s what it is. I’m also assuming this is why the Reader can’t speak out against her at first, and all of our options are just one box; she’s stealing their narrative importance, too, and the only good outcomes are ones that favour her and her ego/character.

Vriska deciding not to rag on Reader for up-chucking is oddly kind of her, but at the same time you’re getting this really heavy handed sense that she’s a lonely girl - the same one we got in her conversations with John in actual Homestuck. Feels like this might replicate that sort of friendship? Where she ends up opening up to John prior to going after Jack Noir about her life and how much she dislikes it.

On top of that, she seems genuinely upset when the Reader leaves. Vriska wants friends but has no idea how to make them, although that doesn’t admittedly excuse her actions towards Kanaya - though it does show more about how conflicted she is as a person. 

Reader can just open up the game client at will. Reader if you ever touch the close window button I will destroy you.

Reader really dislikes having a name. It’s not a comfortable facet of their being, despite having shown they own one - likely because they’re just meant to be a vessel for our whims, and therefore shouldn’t have a name.

More implications that the Reader is living multiple canons at once that then merge together into a singular Reader at the end, since here they already know Vriska’s name before being told (which they do, in one route).

Like with the humans, Vriska can’t actually control the Reader. More hints to Reader being human? Or just to Vriska’s inability to control something that isn’t Alternian?

This Reader is, in fact, the Reader from the comic - the Land of Stumps and Dismay is clearly referenced.

Boldir appearing is so fucking sad. Poor Reader. In a more genuine sense, though, Pesterquest seems to be trying to say here that this offshoot of Homestuck isn’t fake unless we see it as such - and that, I assume, something good (and perhaps will) come of it. The Reader has complete freedom to do as they please, even if they’re still a puppet on strings for the moment - if they can remember, then they can fix it.

More clarity on the Reader; their memories are, indeed, locked away. Not gone entirely, but repressed by Doc Scratch for the purpose of the story. On top of that, Reader was definitely being used to set Act 2 of Hiveswap in place. Vibes well with the announcement of Act 2′s trailer. 

This story is for the Reader - and always has been. It doesn’t belong to “them” - which I assume means Doc Scratch and Dirk, perhaps? This isn’t their story. It’s ours. “What will you do?” Vibes well with Homestuck^2′s fanonicity. 

Oof. Doc Scratch returns to knock Reader down. Reader, supposedly, is only relevant because Doc Scratch says they are - as an observer, as a vessel for the story. The story can go on without Reader (although I highly suspect that it can’t, since Doc Scratch mentions “the really important bits” would survive without them - e.g. Meat could go on, but Candy couldn’t, and Pesterquest is a mix of both.)

Did Doc Scratch really just call Reader “darling”? And more references to the Reader and little girls. I’m starting to get a fairly female-vibe here when combined with Gamzee’s prior references to the Reader as “sister”. Which is ironic when you consider that the women in Homestuck tend to be the ones that carry the plot along, and the men tend to be the hands that enact it out.

Doc Scratch isn’t “the one doing this”, whatever that means. I’m assuming something along the lines of “are you controlling the narrative? Are you making this happen?” But he clearly is, I think, unless the strings we saw don’t belong to him. Or he could be refering to something else entirely, or going a bit meta (thereby saying no, he isn’t doing it, but Hussie is). Might need to think on that more. 

What is the scratchy voice that screams “fix this”? Hopefully this means in the next few volumes, Reader is going to start remembering more and trying to fix the timeline - or at least stop it from being one heaving big paradox.

Vriska is really not happy about having to feed her lusus. I know it’s gone over in Homestuck, but it’s way more evident here; she does not want to do this. I think it’s sad, too, that she feels betrayed and hurt when Reader doesn’t turn around. Maybe she knows how bad it looks and knows that the Reader standing up to her makes her seem the villain? That Reader’s suddenly the hero trying to stop the big baddy from killing the innocent trolls that she doesn’t even want to kill?

Oh. Huh yeah that’s exactly what she thinks, I just didn’t read far enough before typing. I wonder how often this has happened? Or if she’s just adamantly aware that every time she feeds someone to her lusus, she’s being a bad guy - while being a victim at the same time, and struggling between the two views. 

Poor Vriska. Her sobbing at the end fucking hurts. How many friends has she had to feed to her beast of a mother?

Vriska’s lusus talks to her constantly. That’s got to be hell, going through your life knowing that your mother is demanding more food from people you actually, genuinely like if you want to not be eaten by her as well.

Vriska turned on Terezi after the revenge thing because “that’s what you do to backstabbers”. I wonder if she even wanted to, then, or if she did it because she felt betrayed and hurt and that was how she dealt with being betrayed by someone who knew that she did what she did because she couldn’t not do it?

Her being down that Terezi doesn’t care anymore makes a lot of sense as to why she tried to use Kanaya to get back in with Karkat and Terezi. I think, more than anything, Vriska hates being ignored. She can handle being hated so long as there are still people there - but when they leave, and people always leave, then she’s left on her own to deal with a life she really does not enjoy.  

Vriska’s concept of love is horrifically skewed by her perception of herself and of romance as dictated by Mindfang’s journal. She thinks there’s this person she has to be and she struggles deeply with it. Quite literally, tables in player handbooks that tell her who she is and what she has to do.  

She’s not content with Kanaya because she thinks Kanaya sees her as something broken that needs to be fixed - which isn’t wrong, because Kanaya is trying to change her for the better, without wholly knowing what’s going on and making a lot of misconceptions because Vriska doesn’t know how to talk to her about the truth - and therefore she sees a lot of what Kanaya does as just another person wanting something from her. 

I’m assuming the other “she” she mentions is Terezi - aka Terezi is the only person who cuts through the self doubt and the self hatred and these concepts of who she should be (and the voice of her lusus literally telling her she’s not good enough, on top of ther own doubts). Which would explain why Terezi’s betrayal hurts her so much. 

Reader pointing out that Vriska let her guard down around Terezi only to be betrayed and force her to put up a stronger guard? That shit hurtes. Case in point, though; Vriska sets up this guard around her because she can’t afford not to (because she’ll either get hurt or end up having to feed the troll to her lusus anyway). 

Vriska can save her friends by feeding her lusus enough trolls - so, more death to keep the people she likes alive. Though she mentions Karkat in line with this? Did Karkat ever meet Vriska IRL?

Schoolfeeds indoctrinate the trolls with the idea that they have to kill everyone below them so they’re more viciously okay with killing any species out in space - which are naturally lower than them in status by warrant of “not being Alternians”. 

Vriska wants to be like Mindfang literally right after mentioning how Mindfang joined the Summoner’s rebellion? She really wants to change what Alternia is like. I’d go so far as to say she gives 0 fucks about the hemospectrum in truth. Seems like she wants a better world for everyone, though - not just herself. 

Oof. Vriska’s self image is likely severely fucked up by her lusus. Must really fuck a 13 year old girl up to be told you’re fatter than your mom and you have to bring her more kids to feed her. Especially when you’re dying and she refuses to stop even then. 

You’re looking at a survivor. At someone who did nothing wrong. FUCK that hits hard. I love the comments about Dave, Rose, and Jade, too - and the specific exclusion of John. That ramps up my “all the kids suffered prior to the game, gained what they wanted after the game - except John, who is an inversion of that” theory for his Classpect.

Reader’s taking control of the narrative! I repeat! Reader’s TAKING CONTROL OF THE NARRATIVE! Now this bodes well to future volumes, and makes me wonder if this is the first step to the Reader fixing everything.

[aefintyr]

what's one thing u want people to know or remember about ur muses?

Uhhhhhhhhhhh, this is an unexpected question lmao I literally had to sit here for a few minutes and just like, think about it. Because I’m like, terrible at headcanons. I usually keep that shit in my brain or I vomit it at friends lol

LETA PYRITES

As much as Leta is justified in their actions, it doesn’t excuse what they’ve done and they know it. Yes, their role is mainly as a spy and blackmailing others but they have witnessed many, many deaths, been complicit in the deaths of many Muggles and Muggleborns, and have actively killed when they’ve had to. They’ve never wanted to and don’t enjoy it, but they know it doesn’t matter in the eyes of their victims or their victims’ loved ones. In their eyes, they’re just another Death Eater, another Pureblood, another monster. Their reasons don’t matter. And Leta has learned to live with this.

ÉTIENNETTE WILKES

My sweetest, softest, rose-tinted girl. She isn’t the serpent hiding underneath the flower, she is the flower. But that doesn’t mean she’s innocent. She compromises her morals until they become basically irrelevant because she chooses her friends over morality, over what is right. She surrounds herself with monsters, cares for monsters, and willingly works for the biggest monster of them all. Part of it is being inadvertently conditioned over the years by her friends to disregard her morals, but a lot of it is by choice.

MARY MACDONALD

Her Catholic upbringing had a big effect on how she views the world, regardless of whether or not she still believes in God but especially when she stops. It affected her disillusionment and subsequent distrust of Dumbledore, and it affected her own morality when it had been so absolute. Thou shalt not kill. Her faith and belief in God was one of the foundations of who she was, and that gets absolutely shattered after Mulciber nearly kills her. Through the haze of depression and emptiness that follows, she eventually comes to two startling conclusions: either God isn’t real and could have never saved her or God is real and didn’t bother to. She takes a sharp left turn into morally ambiguous territory, and as they say - the rest is history.

PANDORA LOVEGOOD

The fact that she is a Malfoy is so, so important to her character, y’all, like I’m not even fucking with you. It gives context to how she interacts with others, her relationship with blood purity and Death Eaters, the subsequent rejection of those things because she doesn’t have time for that and just why Pandora treats the world a particular way in reference to how she’s always been treated throughout her life.

ALECTO CARROW

Alecto has numerous ugly scars on her back inflicted upon her through dark magic by her father. Her back is honestly a mess of horrendous scar tissue and have never properly healed due to the nature of cursed wounds, and she has always been self-conscious of it. Her father made sure it was on a place that generally others wouldn’t notice. When she attends pureblood events and parties, she never wears backless dresses and is very particular when she has sex with others. They’re a permanent reminder of what she has to live up to, of her father’s expectations and punishments when she fails to. She hates him for it that she imagines killing him countless times and hopes to run away. She loves him enough that she continues to try and fail to be good enough for him.

GRISHA MCLAGGEN

Will I ever stop saying her relationship with Tom/Voldemort? Probably not. I mean, you can’t blame me when it’s kind of the center point of the fan film. He’s a crux component of her identity and the discovery of her heritage, and how she grew into herself during Hogwarts. Grisha holds herself responsible for not stopping him when she had the chance, when she had many chances to. For not seeing the red flags for what they truly are, for seeing them and turning away because she wanted to see him as the brilliant boy she fell in love with, as her best friend she was going to change the world with, as the hero who saved Hogwarts at the cost of a poor girl’s life and a sweet boy she knew. Grisha bought into the illusion and the person because she wanted to, because she couldn’t face the reality of who this boy she’s known all these years really was. Then she became an Auror as a result but it was already too late to save him from himself. And then she was too late to save her friends from him.

BELLATRIX LESTRANGE

Bella is a monster, plain and simple. She is a horrible, terrible human being and is a villain for a reason. I don’t see how you could ever forget this but don’t think I forgot this, because I definitely haven’t. She’s a powerful, deadly monster; delighting and an expert in killing people. But this doesn’t negate how important her relationship with her sisters is to her character and to me. To her, they are, or were, her soulmates; her flesh and blood, meant to be hers and meant to be by her side forever. She is not who she is without them. Her loyalty to them is fiercer, more absolute than her loyalty to her own parents - or so she thought. Andromeda’s betrayal entirely fractures her identity and how she saw herself and the world around her. She stops letting people in almost entirely, her distrust skyrockets, and she double downs on everything awful about herself while simultaneously becoming obsessive over those she cares about that she has left. 

ALICE LONGBOTTOM

I don’t believe I’ve ever stated this on the blog yet or have it mentioned on Alice’s profile yet, but Alice was a fucking magical genius. She was a poster child prodigy born into the limelight because of her Quidditch superstar dad and Sacred 28 mum, constantly compared to and pitted against her Squib twin sister and she hated it. But she also worked hard to live up to her own expectations, and in some ways the expectations of her parents and the public. She is brilliant and good, applying herself to anything and everything - partially so her sister doesn’t miss out on all the sorts of magic Hogwarts has to offer. I believe Dumbledore would’ve recruited her regardless of whether or not she was an Auror, that was only a bonus. Basically, out of all my muses, she’s the only one who would actually be a threat to Bellatrix and the Lestrange brothers.

MAFALDA PREWETT

Okay, I often joke about how awful Mafalda is; how she likes to show off, is an attention seeker and is hungry for validation, sarcastic and bitchy and rude, and has a tendency to be nosy and eavesdrop and gossip about others. But like, she’s a match for Hermione in terms of intellectual and academic prowess. And she isn’t afraid to work hard for it, to make up for the years where she was left in the dark by her parents in order to catch up to her peers and be better than them. Like she genuinely enjoys learning and is very, very gifted and studious. She’s a tad bit too arrogant, sure, but there’s a genuine reason for her arrogance.

CHARITY BURBAGE

Charity is still very materialistic. It’s not a surprise, honestly, for a girl raised by purebloods and swathed in wealth. She enjoys and savours expensive clothing, fine wine and food, lavish trips to beautiful cities. There’s a certain image she projects after rejecting her real name and using ‘Burbage’ instead, with long sweaters, and cups of tea, and dog-eared pages in worn copies of Hamlet. But yeah, she still keeps a small fortune of galleons around before she self-exiled herself, and the apartment she bought is in a far more expensive area of Muggle London. But at the same time, she was willing to give up her comforts and material wealth and luxuries for the sake of her independence and bettering herself away from the influence of her family. 

LILY EVANS

My Lily is, purposefully, not like Fanon!Lily, or at least I’m trying to consciously not make her like that; whether or not I achieve it is another story altogether. There’s a lot of pent up resentment, and she was very willing to break the rules that she often made others uphold. She wasn’t friends with the Marauders at all during most of Hogwarts, only starting to befriend them when she began dating James in her seventh year and absolutely abhorred the boy until she ended her friendship with Snape. She had her own group of girls she was very close with, including Mary Macdonald, her best friend, and had dated a few people before James, with one very serious relationship with a girl ending by Sixth year. She was very willing to seriously hurt Mulciber (and even kill him) when she heard what he did to Mary, and after Dumbledore said that Mulciber wouldn’t be expelled for his actions. 

KATIE BELL

She REALLY likes girls, that’s all. Okay, but seriously her friendship with the girls around her - Angelina, Alicia, Leanne, Hermione - is so important to her, and important to me too. It’s as intrinsic to her character as Quidditch is, as the terrifying moment when she got cursed by the opal necklace. Although they are a part of her realisation that she’s attracted to girls, she really loves them a lot and would do anything for them. 

DORCAS MEADOWES

She never wanted this life. Dorcas has been running away from this for so long, trying so hard to untangle herself from all of it, because this isn’t who she is, who she wants to be. She rejected magic, she rejected the Wizarding World, she rejected her place in the war. Being special, being different from everyone around her, fucking frightened her. She was content with the life she already had - being normal, as normal as a Jewish-Indian girl can be living in Wales with two dads. Her moral compass is the choke chain that holds her in place, that drove her to join the Order after much convincing from Alastor Moody, that had her agreeing to become a double agent within the Death Eaters’ ranks. There’s a lot of self-loathing and reluctance when it comes to her character and her involvement as a Double Agent.

[faejilly]

@jadesabre301 replied to your post “@jadesabre301 replied to your post “@spacemomnephmoreau replied to...”

oh man I'm leaving you so many comments but AH that makes sense re: Percy/Vex because I know so many people are SO INTO IT and I am still lukewarm at best (although I like how it's handled on the show, at least so far, for the most part). Friends getting friends to ship these is The Most Dangerous.

Friends Are Very Dangerous (and I like your many comments! never stop! well maybe someday this post is kinda ridiculously long already)

jadesabre301 replied to your post “@jadesabre301 replied to your post “@spacemomnephmoreau replied to...”

YESSSSSSSSSSSS JANIE YES YES YES WHAT SHE SAID

i LOVE ME1 Kaidan I LOVE THAT HE HAS HIS SHIT TOGETHER

I mean on the continuum you have Carth (completely wrecked), Alistair (just a sad puppy), Sky (wrecked but doing okay), and then Kaidan's all like "yeah I mean I accidentally killed a guy when I was seventeen but I've had time to work it out I'm good" and I was all *heart eyes forever*.

Which is part of why I have to like completely ignore Kaidan/the Kaidanmance in ME3 because they completely removed that essential part of him, that he HAS HIS SHIT TOGETHER, and he's just such a woobie and whatever, writers, whatever.

*this.gif*

Like, ME1 Kaidan = FAVE FOREVER and I still haven’t played ME3 Kaidan. Also I’m still mad about the way they treated him and Ashley in 3 and ALSO the way they like dumped almost all the LIs from 2? LIKE 2 was ABOUT YOUR TEAM BUILDING and then 3 they threw them all away. well that was an important team chapter! *rage.gif*

@jadesabre301 replied to your post “@jadesabre301 replied to your post “@spacemomnephmoreau replied to...”

and fandom is so *weird*, like, look at Quark and DA2 (my experience wasn't helped by the fact that I played through with *Thistle*), clearly things took off for her there, and I felt bad that I was less invested in something so important to her but I just couldn't find anywhere that *fit*.

Also I killed Fenris on my first playthrough but that's not canon, cough.

Also I didn't understand how important Fenris was because I also didn't *know* Fenris like at all, cough cough.

I also managed not to either friend or rival Varric, which Quark still marvels over.

"HE'S *DESIGNED* TO BE YOUR BFF! HOW DO YOU FAIL TO GET INFLUENCE WITH HIM?"

Varric is not any of Hawkes’ BFF on a meta/storytelling/RPG level. If, you know, that helps you feel better. (I don’t remember what I did with actual gameplay approval stuff.) I just ... I feel like sometimes I am playing a drastically different game than the one that other people play? I mean, I frequently adore characters that fanon deplores, but it’s a symptom of a greater disconnect, I think, not just the only example.

I mean, the game should be somewhat different with a different sort of OC, (I mean, Thistle, she is a difficult person) but at the same time you should be able to see where it is the same game, and sometimes I cannot manage that. See: the world’s reaction to Sebastian. ;) (I mean, I like fanon Fenris way more than the relationship the game actually gave me. Much like I enjoy fanon Miranda while the potent combination of sexism/titillation/judgemental-asshatery that’s in the game makes me vaguely ill at best.

@mireliambar replied to your post “I somehow have two entirely separate Sebastian POV wips that are kind...”

Just like I have 2 blackwall stories in my head... and I don't want to drop either

I have at least five Erana/Blackwall related stories, and there’s some ME and DA2 always and also still So Much Theia and I mean, honestly, with the exception of actually having written my Yuletide and posting it on time (thanks to @jessaknits) my WIP-List-of-Doom is almost exactly identical to the way it was three months ago.

@jessaknits replied to your post “@jadesabre301 replied to your post “@spacemomnephmoreau replied to...”

See, this is why I follow the people I still follow. Because you guys (including your commenters, because obviously) are awesome (and see the same ick that I see, because boy there is some ick out there, yeesh)

there is a lot of ick, yes. and you are also awesome

<3.

@jessaknits replied to your post “@jessaknits replied to your post “you know like I wrote that...”

I totally get the appeal of the disaster husbands, boy howdy. And that story doesn't play the same way if you gender swap, because Patriarchy. Hmph

They have to be the right kind of disaster husband though. It’s very hard to explain. :D But yes. Husband who is too awesome for any lady to keep up with is instantly icky, but wife who is too awesome for anyone to keep up with is instantlly glorious. 

Because Patriarchy

@leahazel replied to your post “@mireliambar reblogged your photo and added: oooh...”

tbh I always assumed they made Cass straight for the same reason they made Alistair and Aveline straight -- because they have a mental block against the idea of "Lawful Good" types being bi.

Well, yeah. I thought that was obvious? It’s why the only time they managed an entire Bisexual Cast was when they were basically all criminals and Disaster!Children.

@janiemcpants replied to your post “@jadesabre301 replied to your post “@spacemomnephmoreau replied to...”

I love how Kaidan explicitly already took care of his shit and doesn't need you to fix him, yet he's the one always labeled "whiny".

ALWAYS *GRR*ARGH*FOREVER AND EVER AMEN

@leahazel replied to your post “@jadesabre301 replied to your post “@spacemomnephmoreau replied to...”

At least it doesn't have dragon shapeshifters? But unngh, fairy tale retellings are my kryptonite.

Mine too! (and also, how do you KNOW it doesn’t have dragon shapeshifters? HMMMM? Voltage is pretty good at finding my Id, after all, they  might manage it there as well.)

@jessaknits replied to your photoset “marthawells: The Harbors of the Sun in Paperback The Harbors of the...”

I really really need to read her stuff. I followed her Tumblr for that reason and I have to say even her blog is one of my favorite things right now. <3

SHE IS SO GREAT

HER BOOKS ARE SO GREAT

HER PATREON IS MY FAVORITE EVER

20/10 WOULD RECOMMEND

[lunarheiress]

The Tumblr Community

First off, I’m sorry if this is super long but I’m super pissed so here we go.  Second I’m gonna warn that I am gonna swear, my apologies.

 This website is a literal hellscape. It’s activism mixed with fandoms mixed with news mixed with creeps mixed with all this other bullshit that would take too long to list. Literally, this platform is a disaster, and it had nothing to do with the website itself. It’s all the people. The people on this website suck. People joke that they hate this site and that they think its awful, but they’re all inflated with this weird Tumblr superiority vibe. Like somehow, being an asshole on here is better than doing it on twitter or facebook. But in a sense, that’s true! Because on here, you can be an absolute dick and people will like you for it????

First off, there’s this weird bandwagon effect where people jump on every to something and it just keeps growing and growing. This is really bad in fandoms, where people take fanon content way too far and then have the audacity to be upset when a show doesn’t take the path they thought it would. People bully others for not liking ideas and try to act like they’re saints. It’s bullying, but the bully isn’t just one person, it’s thousands, even if the first bully was wrong. 

Then there's the activism. “You don’t really support ______ unless you do _____”. “Lol (a group that is not considered a minority) is so stupid for (really anything under the sun, sometimes it's existing).” This website throws around the word radical rather liberally for a platform full of actual radicals. Don’t mistake activism for radicalism. There is a difference between fighting for your cause and being batshit insane and prejudiced. And, shockingly, it is very possible to be prejudiced against a group that is not a minority. IF i can find the article I’ll link it here but I read a really nice one lately about the two different kinds of racism. There is a type of racism that can actually affect a persons’ livelihood, which is a major problem that people are trying to combat worldwide. Then there's the other kind with sarcastic racist comments and dehumanizing other people just to be petty. A lot of people on this site like to say things aren’t racist because they’re not the first kind, but they definitely are the second kind. and ladies. There is a MAJOR difference between saying “I want women to have equal rights” and “I hate men”. The difference is, one of them is activism and one of them is prejudice. And the violence! Jesus! If physical confrontation is the only solution, then sometimes that is the reality of the situation. But wanting to kill/assault/mutulate someone is not okay?? Not at all?? and its kind of weird that I have to say that. People should not be excited at the prospect of violence. And it shouldn’t be some kind of trump card either (i really wish there was a better way to phrase that but the orange man has tainted the saying no matter what). Like, it shouldn’t be some kind of revelation. “Hmmmm, that person doesn’t want to physically attack someone else, that obviously means they support evil” Like no. just no. 

People also don’t like change on this website, but in a weird kind of dangerous way. People think that change is impossible. Ya’ll got an entirely new skeleton every 7 years or so, why not an entirely new state of mind. Ya pulling out 15 year old receipts like that means anything. Like, ten years ago I was a fetus in elementary school. I had trouble with science and couldn’t draw a stick figure. Now I’m an artist who’s sold work, and I’m literally at university for Biochemistry. Ten years ago scientists had an entirely different idea about why your skin gets wrinkly in the water, but guess what, that's all different now. So much can change in one year, just one, so why do ya’ll think people can’t change? Also, it’s kind of scary how rigid things can be when it comes sexuality and gender on here. Like, “you had sex with a man once, you can’t be a true lesbian” no? no no no. People change their minds, peoples personalities change. Who knows whats going to happen next year. Everything about this world fluctuates, and this website wants to choke peoples opportunity to eplore these changes. But I digress.

Oh! and shippinh! don’t even get me started on shipping, or god damn aus. People try to justify supporting pedophilia and abusive relationships all in the name of shipping. It’s fine to have imagination but try to remember the weight of what you say. And don’t try to tell me that shipping and fan theories are harmless. Despite what all the 20 and 30 somethings on this website want to believe, there are actual children on here. Young people who are easily influenced by what media they are interested in. They come on here and see some stupid ship where someone has taken two people who very obviously hate each other and shipped them because “it's cute”. This little kid I used to tutor, this eleven-year-old boy, has a Tumblr account. Do you know what he asked me a while back? He asked me why Rey pretends not to like Kylo in the movies. He’s seen Reylo or whatever its called and it just messes with his head. Some of you will be like “pfft, eleven? obviously, he should understand by now” because some of you don’t actually understand that kids are kids and they learn everything at different paces. Like, this website is filled with angsty teens who think they got shit figured out, and they’re encouraged by adults who are convinced that they were special mature snowflakes, but facts are facts. Young people don’t know everything, and toxic Tumblr is here to make that so much worse. Next someones gonna say “well, they should know not to take everything on the internet seriously” so, big fuckin surprise, I’ll blow your minds by telling you kids don’t actually always know that!  

(Now, I know I’ve been using the word kids a lot but this goes for anyone under the age of 17, or maybe even more depending on your experiences.)

Worst of all, all this shit mashes together to form one big nonsense. “If you watch (tv show) you can’t be a real supporter of (cause)” and other nonsense like that. I’m just so tired of this site. I’m only staying because I like the actual design of the site. That and I have a little bit of faith in humanity left, that somehow everything will work out. Anyways now I’m emotionally and physically tired so, I’m gonna go try to forget about this trash community for a little bit.