#as you can see i can generally see the appeal in every ship and i barely ever have hard no's

[yiga-hellhole]

ship opinion bingo with gan-based ships

rauru/gan

sonia/gan

zelda/gan

link/gan

bonus : kohga/gan and demise(or Ganondorf hw)/ghirahim

the whole shebang, huh? here we GOOOOO!!!!

RAURU/GANONDORF

AND WE HAVE A BINGO! so i haven't finished totk but bro. bro. holding your arch nemesis by the tits for 10.000 years. yeah something happened there. i adore a good divorce ship, and this is the one where the divorcees just keep coming back to each other because the homoeroticism is too on the nose. i see it. i see it. i see it.

SONIA/GANONDORF

again, haven't finished totk. i have only seen sonia in like two cutscenes thusfar. but i love it when women get to be pissed off at huge burly men and in doing so get to be recognized as a viable threat. so i will be rotating this one in my mind on the backburner until i'm more informed on their canon dynamic and each characters' backstories in the game

ZELDA/GANONDORF

this is one of those ships where i don't really care for it but some people do interesting stuff with it and i see what they're going for. the fun with zelda and ganondorf is that he doesn't necessarily want her, but wants everything that she has. this old man is so fucking jealous of someone half his age at minimum. so honestly the age difference is a bit too big and dynamic is a bit too antagonistic for me to actively like this ship. i guess i can see it playing out as a bodice-ripper type story, but that goes against nando's character to me, and i've never quite been fond of them in the first place. something like an arranged-marriage-turned-something-more or a hyrule warriors esque wartime romantic tension could work. they *are* entangled eternally in a cycle of being tied by soul, but fated to be enemies each time. at some point something could spark i guess. but at the end of the day its a solid "eh" from me

LINK/GANONDORF

the same kind of arguments as zelda/ganondorf, but instead of royal diplomacy, link has a sword. again there's gotta be something about being the one prpphesized to slay the same guy cycle after cycle. maybe in one of the cycles, he won't want to...? how scandalous. but generally, i don't care too much for this ship

BONUS ROUND!

KOHGA/GANONDORF

i love divorce and i love horny old men thirsting over big buff dudes. i have a feeling kohga has a thing for large and bulky men, for no reason at all, that's not at all present in the game. so, in botw i see ganon's worship as a purely "riding-on-the-coattails-of" thing where kohga doesn't actually care much about ganon, he just wants a reason to make his personality cult and have an ez way to overthrow the monarchy. when that fails, he ditches the joint. but then ganondorf awakens into this absolute handsome beefcake and the illustrious master kohga would probably be like. "okay. hold on. Pause." and the rest is history. i see it. i havs the vision.

GHIRADEMI/GANGHIRA

this has already been answered in the ghirademi bingo. but if you go for ganghira, there's the added tension of "you remind me of the man i devoted myself to, and his presence lingers within you", which would definitely have some serious emotional weight to ghirahim. but that i don't see reciprocated, once again, given that ganondorf always pursues power first. and this time there's not even the shared bond that ghirademi has, where ghirahim served as his sword for centuries! they basically just met, and all ganon knows is this sword freak is devoted to him! oh ghirahim, stop going after men who terrify you!!

[mochrincrunch]

ships (boats) are body horror and their intimacy with the ocean instills in me great unease

[icarusallusion]

One of the main reasons I've been so fond of Otasune since I first knew it was a thing was because I think they're genuinely one of the purest forms of love in Metal Gear.

Throughout the series we see horrible relationships between horrible people trying to get by and then that relationship gets dragged through the awful scenarios they live with, be it war, internal struggles, infidelity etc. Despite this common place struggle with so many other characters, we see Otacon and Snake steadfast loyal and healthy throughout every struggle they go through.

They may not be an official couple, but they will always stay the most communicative relationship even outside of shipping. I see people joke about how Otacon kind of bosses Snake around (especially in MGS4), but I always saw it as refreshing. In the series, there is so many times where x character does something horrendous and y character just sits aside and silently sulks about it.

But this doesn't happen, like at all, with Dave and Hal. There are many times where Snake doesn't think about consequences to his actions as a general rule of soldier, however Hal has never been a soldier. So when these things happen, Otacon tells him off and it's something Snake genuinely needs to hear. It's something human, away from combat. Because Otacon is one of the very few characters that talks to Snake as a person, as a human, not as a soldier or fucked up clone baby.

Snake has gone his whole life scrapping the bottom of the barrel to stop feeling so lonely, he flirts with every woman he sees, he attaches himself very easily onto superiors, etc. Snake is a man who has spent his whole life trying to appeal to people, to get the praise he was never allowed as a child. Otacon gives him the comfort he never got. While any military superior can say Dave is the best of the best. None will look him in the face and tell him he has to live to just live.

Hal also opens a lot of doors to Snake's own discovery about himself. While this next point might sound a little cringy, stick with me. People may joke about the anime interest Snake and Otacon share, but it always came across so genuinely sweet to me. Snake's only interests up until he met Otacon have been, stop feeling lonely and war. I think even part of his musher life and interests within sledding can contribute to part of this. I mean come on, not even a regular musher keeps 50 dogs in their house and dogs are a natural remedy to loneliness. But in all seriousness, David refers to the huskies as his only family and I don't see him connecting with any other mushers he works with, it reads as him wanting to not be alone while also still being so lonely. As well as how mushing is considered a more normal interest than being an otaku, especially in the early 2000s. Mushing is a sport, and being an Otaku was pretty much unheard of or hated. Watching this guy who has been stuffed full of war propaganda scream a dorky "falcon punch" and "ninjutsu" with his best friend is so heartwarming in a way.

As well as Otacon's whole meme turned question of "do you think love can bloom on the battlefield?" Is something that I think Snake needed to be asked. It's probably been something he's been thinking about. It is also one of the most human things Snake asked throughout the game. About finding love in fear. Otacon constantly prods into Snake's heart and brings out the good in him.

Not only does Hal open up a space for Snake to have genuine unashamed interests and show true pure humanity. He also shows off their childhood. Both Hal and David never got proper childhoods. They connect that with each other through cheesy animes, talking about uncertainty in love, finding out what life is all about, navigating feelings, and through that damn cheesy handshake hug. It's all genuinely pure and wholesome love that connects what they didn't get to explore in childhood with one another. When Snake opened that piss covered locker and saved Otacon, he brought his own salvation into his life without knowing it. The very presence of Otacon saved Snake. It's why MGS4 felt so depressing for me especially, the strain between Snake and Otacon left a hole in my little heart and made Snake feel even more hopeless.

I also want to talk about how Snake benefited Otacon.

Otacon begins as cowardly and timid, he's an incredibly insecure character that struggles to connect with others, probably stemming from the issues in his younger life. When he meets Snake, he's faced with someone he could relate to that has an outward appearance that makes him seem so much more confident than he is. Snake is not this, he's as insecure as Otacon. Indirectly, Snake is the whole reason Otacon gets on his feet to take action against terrorism, takes action to become a better person. Snake shows Hal that he doesn't haven't to be strong to do the right thing. Throughout time, Snake helps Otacon come to terms with his own self worth and issues.

In MGS2, it has one of my favorite examples. The infamous bro hug scene.

Before it, this is when Otacon allows himself to open up about his childhood, not even just Infront of Snake, Infront of Raiden too. This showcased such a development in his character because he's proudly talking about it, while even through tears he doesn't hide it anymore.

Did you know that during that scene if you pan the camera to Snake, you can see that he is crying too?

When Hal has a breakdown over his sister's death, Snake is there to comfort him as well as tell him how it is in bluntness with a hand on his back that he needs to save people. It isn't cold or callous, it's letting Otacon know that he has something worth fighting for after a loss like that. Then when they face one another, they embrace each other and Snake tells Hal that he believes in him. Hal spent a lot of time as a scientist, hoping for someone to believe in him, while Snake puts all of his belief into Hal.

I can never forget the iconic "You're the only god I can pray to, Otacon" line. Snake has a deep loyalty, love, and belief in Otacon that Otacon has never been truly given before.

They both, in turn love each other till the end of their lives. Their love was one of the most heart wrenching and beautiful things in Metal Gear Solid and it's no surprise it captivated so many people. Their relationship, whether you ship them or just see them as a bromance. There is no denying the love they feel for one another as friends or lovers is one of the most iconic and sweetest bromances out theres They have impacted so much pop culture and I love them forever, as I'm sure many of you do who read all the way to the bottom.

[frownyalfred]

Can I get clarification on your pro shipping post? The example you gave was a 20 year old with a 40 year old, and that's "problematic" (not really), but not really what I think of when I hear "pro shipping". Usually it's the shipping of minor/adult or incestuous relationships that I see getting defended. Does being against fictional works/ships that depict pedophilic or incestuous relationships as normal/romantic count as puritanism to you? Do you see the ship of Bruce Wayne/Damian Wayne as a personal preference with no moral implications?

I think there's a huge difference between being personally against something, and wanting to shame others or ban others from reading or writing something. The Puritanism comes from wanting to limit and ostracize others who don't share your beliefs. It comes from believing that your perspective is the only morally right one.

I think there will always be people who want to write or read about ships like that, yeah -- incest, pseudo-incest, everything in between. By moral implications, do you mean for the person interested in the ship? Or do you mean for others? Because I see that concern a lot on here -- this idea that somehow, by wanting to read/write about something, people are either 1) harming others by spreading this morally wrong ship or 2) harming themselves by normalizing the ship, and therefore making it more likely that they'll pursue similar relationships in their real lives.

We don't have much evidence for either of those claims. People have been clutching their pearls and wringing their hands over "morally wrong" books for ages -- and yet, Game of Thrones is still available in every bookstore. Am I a bad or woefully misguided person for having read Lolita in high school? Is a 16 year old reading a Bruce/Damian fic likely to turn around, shrug, and say "guess fucking my Dad is okay now"? Did an entire generation of fans shipping Wincest somehow have lasting, moral effects? I really don't think so. Not at the scale anti-shippers online seem to think, at least.

I think we need to separate how we moralize people from the content that they consume. And acknowledge that shaming and excluding people for wanting to read something doesn't exactly do much to prevent "moral implications." There's also a huge difference between reading a book, and endorsing the ideas/events inside of it. Same things with fics.

Anti-shipping is very appealing to people because it purports to protect people from harm. Until you look a little closer, and you realize that that protection comes at the expense of free expression, creative license, and agency to choose what we personally do and do not consume. And that that protection isn't really airtight out of your anti-shipping discord or tumblr community.

I think the best we can do is let people write and read what they want -- whatever they want, with limited warnings/etc like ao3 employs -- and ensure that those pieces of content are tagged, warned, and displayed accurately. We need to understand that the only control we have is over ourselves, and what we choose personally to consume or not consume.

I don't generally read those fics you mentioned, but I'm not saying they should be banned from ao3. Just because I might possibly think they're wrong or gross doesn't mean I think the person who wrote them is wrong or gross, either. The more we go down that moral slip and slide, like I said in my previous post, the worse off we will all become.

[shibaraki]

🍉 ─ SPONSOR A WIP FOR GAZA

Hi friends!! I don't know how this will go but I wanted to participate and help contribute a little bit more to the fundraising efforts for Gaza set up by ficsforgaza. I’m taking things slower on the writing front this year so I only have a few to list, some longer than others. Even so, I hope some appeal to you and encourage you to give a donation.

RATE: $1 per 100 words

INSTRUCTIONS: donate to a vetted fundraiser of your choosing, take a screenshot of the donation confirmation (make sure your private information is censored) and send it to me along with the title of whatever WIP you're sponsoring!

Here’s an example:

hi monty! here's proof of my donation to child mohammed and family's gofundme. I'd like this to go toward the wip 'name your courage' :) ty!! [screenshot.png showing evidence of donation states that $5 was given, therefore 500 words will be written for the wip titled 'name your courage']

Upon receiving your ask (I won't be publishing them) I will amend the list below and prioritise progressing that WIP as well as keeping this post updated weekly. Just for clarity: I’ll be submitting redacted evidence I receive to @ficsforgaza to try and ensure that people are not sending those same screenshots to different writers.

TO AVOID BEING OVERWHELMED I HAVE MADE A DONATION WC GOAL FOR EACH WIP❗️Just to be clear—donations go towards progressing a WIP. The sole purpose of this is to encourage donations and spread awareness. Every little bit helps. Even if a fic doesn’t get completed right away I still appreciate your participation and promise to fulfil the WC goals.

🍉 ─ WIPS AVAILABLE:

↳ NAME YOUR COURAGE — BAKUGO KATSUKI #: GN AFAB reader, post canon au, quirkless discrimination, falling in love, social work, worldbuilding, angst + fluff + eventual smut

determined to reach deep inside himself and reconcile the shame that still lingers there, pro hero dynamight publicly aligns with a well-known quirkless charity organization. what he gains is greater than he could’ve imagined.

current wc: 12,932/20,000+ donated (goal) wc: 5,000/5,000 🎊 ☑️

↳ A MANY SPLENDORED THING — KUROO TETSURO #: GN AFAB reader, divorcee kuroo, best friends to lovers, heavy mutual pining, hurt/comfort, eventual smut + romance

you wonder, not for the first time, why tetsuro could never see what was right in front of him. it was as though the compass of his sharp intuition reversed polarity when you were in the vicinity. you’ve been in love with him since you were sixteen and he’s the one person that never noticed.

current wc: 13,962/20,000+ donated (goal) wc: 5,000/5,000 🎊 ☑️

↳ #HEARTBURN — TODOROKI SHOUTO [COLLAB FIC] #: GN reader, meet-cutes, social media + shipping, reader is a paramedic, strangers to friends to lovers, fluff + humour

who knew your run-ins with the suspiciously accident prone pro-hero shouto would capture the hearts of the general public—or that a bit of harmless flirting could have such inconvenient consequences?

current wc: 2,500/5,000 donated (goal) wc: 2,500/2,500 🎊 ☑️

↳ EMERGENCY CONTACT — AIZAWA SHOUTA #: GN reader, friends to lovers, fluff + humour, sexual tension, reader is an underground hero, adopted eri, getting together

when aizawa gives eri a special card with a number to call if there’s ever a big emergency and no one else is around who can help, he doesn't consider the fact that her idea of an emergency is vastly different from his.

current wc: 1,600/3,000 donated (goal) wc: 2,500/2,500 🎊

↳ THE STAG — OKKOTSU YUUTA [RETURNING WIP!] #: AFAB reader, courtesan au (no curses), courtesan yuuta, reader is a tailor, falling in (forbidden) love, fluff + angst, love letters

your hands were made to embroider, to cut fine silks and sew tales into fabric. from time to time they’ll find themselves touching a courtesans skin. it is only to measure, and never for pleasure.

current wc: 649/? donated (goal) wc: 2,000/2,000 🎊

↳ SOMETHING BORROWED — NANAMI KENTO [EVENT WIP!] #: AFAB GN reader, no curse au, neighbours to lovers, single parent nanami, foster kids yuji + sukuna, fake engagement, pining, getting together

the precious little you know about your neighbor is that he’s handsome, unmarried, and he has two long term foster sons. after the twins panic during an inspection and identify you as nanami’s fiancé, you’re left with the opportunity to learn more. 

current wc: 10,288/? donated (goal) wc: 250/2,000 ☑️

That’s all for now, though there is a possibility that I will add more WIPs later. And let me know if you’ve got any questions (or if I’ve missed anything lol).

It’s totally fine if you can’t donate or if none of these fics appeal to you!! Please feel free to check out the other writers on @ficsforgaza’s page if you’d rather sponsor some different fics, or even make requests to those accepting them ^_^ thank you guys!

HERE’S EVEN MORE WAYS TO HELP PALESTINE, AND DON’T FORGET YOUR DAILY CLICKS!

[saiscribbles]

Lily seeing the painting in The SU Movie: What’s this Oedipal, Freudian, Jungian, Narcissistic painting?!?! (Despite the panting being a normal cherub painting and misusing a psychology term… again)

Lily seeing the Marcille and Fallon bathe together: This is just fan service! They’re naked and therefore it’s there to appeal to weebs!!! (Despite that bathing/ being in a hot spring with friends is a common thing in Japan and other countries as well)

Lily with “A place farther than the universe”: Oh yeah the high school age girls shake their boobs in front of older men but you can easily skip that part the rest of the anime is so wholesome!

Yes and Lily conveniently didn't mention the two scenes of teenage girls bathing together in her Antarctica anime.

Cause after all if Falin and Marcille bathing together in Dungeon Meshi is a "fanservice bath scene" then these must be too right?

Lily also censored the scene of Hinata bouncing her boobs at Kimari while the girls are all encouraging each other to seduce grown men to get on the Antarctica expedition because "we're high school girls, after all". Which just makes it look even worse.

Have I mentioned this show was entirely written by a then 50 year old man Jukki Hanada? Who was also a writer on Re:Zero? Which Lily makes fun of at the beginning of the video?

Who writes a ton of these moé Cute Girls Doing Cute Things shows which are generally aimed at grown men with the appeal being how simple-minded, bubbly, uncomplicated, pure and cute the girls are. Generally paired with highly niche male autist interests, you know such as big ice breaking ships.

Non-sexual objectification is still objectification. Yes sorry I'm gonna be one of those feminists ruining your anime.

By the way these screenshots are from a cut I put together of things Lily would normally complain about in any other show:

I watched it in Japanese subtitled because that's the only thing available on Crunchyroll. The dub is only available on the Blu-rays which I doubt Lily actually bought. Which means I have officially supported this show more than she has lol.

Needless to say I'm not doing a react to her video on it and this mini react is enough. The show is a boring paint by numbers affair about teenage girls and grown women all wanting to go to Antarctica for no real reason other than the plot demands it because that's the premise. Like Shirase's missing mother wasn't even a scientist or an engineer or anything she and her two friends also just spontaneously decided to go to Antarctica, one of the most dangerous places on Earth, cause it sounded fun.

The writing is lazy and contrived at every angle because it's just in service of watching moé anime girls be around highly detailed machinery. Also there's no lesbians Lily is lying to you.

[alexanderwales]

Pitchposting: Generation Ship

(Pitchposting is a way of giving away ideas that threaten to grow in my mind until they become draft documents. They are free to a good home, though there's no guarantee that I won't try to write them at some point.)

Alright, hear me out: it's a generation ship, one expected to reach its destination with an entirely new generation of people who never knew the homeland, except instead of being a scifi concept, we're doing it as mundane as possible.

I think this is one of those ideas that only appeals to me because I immediately start thinking about the logistics of it all, and there's something in the mundane, gritty realism that really appeals to me. Mostly I'm worldbuilding and problem solving, trying to get at what it would actually be like for people to have been at sea their entire lives, to have a ship that either needs to endure the waves or be rebuilt as it goes.

I was going to say that this needs to be fantasy, but I guess technically it can be an Alderson Disk or something. An Alderson Disk has a habitable circumference of approximately a billion kilometers, a sailing ship can go maybe eighty miles a day, that's a ballpark of 12.5 million days to circumnavigate the disk, which is 34,000 years. That's a hell of a lot of generations, twice as long as we've had agriculture. (But you could also just have it be a fantasy world that's larger than our own, with a generation ship that was only trying to flee to greener pastures that are a hundred years away.)

The purest version of this story is a world that's just water, to match the void of space. The ship sails, repairs are made from flotsam and jetsam and driftwood from unspecified places, rainwater is caught and put into barrels, pitch is used for patching, fish and kelp are hauled up from the ocean, birds are captured from the sky, and the ship must necessarily endure storms and swells.

I've always felt there was something compelling about constrained living situations, places where everyone knows everyone and you have to make it work because there's absolutely no way out — where you're on a knife's edge because there's only so much preparation you can do. A generation ship needs to think about absolutely all of its needs and how it will deal with the deterioration of all things over time, along with problems that might only crop up once every hundred years, or problems that won't become apparent until long after the ship has left the dock.

Let's say you have a sailing ship the size of one of the largest sailing vessels of the 19th century, a thousand people all told. The families are carefully braided to prevent accidental incest, everyone has their position in life, every master has at least one apprentice but probably more so gout or cancer don't eliminate the last person who knew how to make more pitch.

This is clearly an Idea story, one that starts with a ridiculous premise and then explores it, but one of my favorite things about idea stories is finding the characters and the conflicts within them. For a generation ship, the biggest, most obvious conflict is the conflict between generations: the old people who once knew dry land, the middle generation who will likely die before the destination is reached, and the children who will be the beneficiaries of all this travel.

We have a woman who was born to the sea, who loves the sea, who loves the travel and takes great joy in knowing that she's probably not going to see the end of it until she's ancient. We have the grizzled sailor who's nearly risen to the rank of captain and sees the whole mission as utter foolishness. A boy of thirteen who is obsessed with writing stories about the land they've set off toward and keeps his telescope on the horizon, hoping that the predictions were off, that they're somehow two decades early. A girl of sixteen who doesn't feel suited to the marriage that's planned for her, who is secretly in love with her best friend. A scientist who has been quietly advancing the state of knowledge with every new fish brought up from the deeps.

And then there's the plot, which there are so, so many options for. I would start the novel with simple sailing, a few chapters of the daily routine, the personalities, their petty fights with each other, and the stress of being in the middle of unfathomably deep waters whose depths are only glimpsed when the nets bring up something new. Then ... an island, another ship, sea creatures that have a glimmer of intelligence, a storm that makes the ship limp, spoilage that threatens starvation unless drastic action is taken, a political squabble that might bring all the plans crashing down.

Maybe it's a book about being trapped by the past, or about hanging on by what feels like a delicate thread, or about how systems are fragile and careful thinking and brave leadership are the only things that will get us through.

Mostly I think I want to be a geek about a ship that needs to survive in the ocean for a hundred years, and I do not have the time to write this novel, not when there are so many other novels to write.

[the-s1lly-corner]

If you take cannon x cannon would you be okay with Zooble x Gangle fluff (idk why I feel the need to clarify that) hcs? Of course if you don’t do those types of things that’s perfectly fine! I just like the ship and the tag is kinda dead

Zooble x Gangle hcs!

imma be real i did not see this ship coming, but honestly i can see the appeal! by the way, do they have a ship name yet? im not sure what to tag this otherwise </3 i dont usually do canon x canon, simply because its not asked for a lot so this is definitely new for me!! didnt know what gif to use so have this i LOVE when hugs are animated like this SOBS

mmm indifferent kind of mean character x soft and emotional character, we have met yet again

"excuse me she asked for no pickles", zooble in an au where it's the real world and they go to mcdonalds, i think

gangle is the only person allowed into zooble's room

TREEHOUSE BY ALEX G THATS WHAT THAT REMINDS ME OF

really the only person zooble can be emotional around, not that they're really emotional in general but you know?

let's gangle vent and cry

gangle draws, she's always doodling her and zooble. zooble has kept every single drawing she has given them

zooble stands up for her whenever someone (namely jax) bullies gangle

zooble doesnt strike me as the type to use petnames, neither does gangle but i feel like gangle would make an effort there... kind of stumped on what she would call them.. hmm...

ngl she looks like she would say pookie/pookie bear, but i can also see them saying any variant of sweet(insert thing) and/or honey(insert) but i may be biased since gangle is my second favorite of the cast

things happen to jax after he steps on gangles comedy mask.

i wont say what things

but things happen

if theres anyone hanging around zooble during free time, it is most certainly going to be gangle

looking for gangle? then look for zooble

that meme of the puppy standing over/protecting the kitten, thats them

"hey dipshits she's trying to talk", censored of course, but the point still stands, they are gangle's number one fan and advocator. probably tries to teach gangle how to be tougher

gangle and zooble drawing together thats it

drawing each other

theres badly drawn hearts everywhere

SOBS, im sold on this ship honestly

[nevermorgue]

Not sure if you ship it, but do you have any Plulalie headcanons?

I do not ship it, but I do see the appeal!! Just for you, I decided to make some !!

- sometimes pluto will braid her hair before she goes to sleep so the next morning she can have it slightly wavy

- pluto can and does fall asleep to her voice when she speaks softly to him

- eulalie loves to be the big spoon so much, she holds him like a plushie

- they make pillow forts more often than you’d think.

- eulalie is the type to idly poke and caress his hand when they’re not doing anything. just kind of feel his knuckles and map out every inch of skin just because she can.

- even things like that embarrass him. he’s too easy

- definitely the types of people to make each other things like small crafts or just food in general

- if these people ever had dinosaur nuggets you bet your ass eulalie would make their dinosaurs kiss before giving him a peck on the cheek and then biting off its head with ketchup

- sometimes she gets overly hot in her sleep so pluto switches them around so he can loosely big spoon

- she has most definitely dipped him in a dance before. he felt like he couldn’t breathe in that moment

- eulalie always tries to stand on his right side, not wanting to be in his blind spot

- loooooves sitting in her lap when they’re alone (if she tries to get him to do it near other people he will explode)

- She’s taught him a couple of Japanese lullabies. It took them an hour to get him to properly pronounce the Japanese R.

- they paint each others nails

- definitely tag teams with Duke to call him things in their native languages to watch him get frustrated

- 黒猫くん、子猫ちゃん are some good occasional nicknames

- she has a strangely good poker face when it comes to card games. he never beats her. she’s always smiling, it’s hard to tell when she has a bad hand.

- when she tenses up or holds him tighter in her sleep, he buries his face in her hair and whispers quiet comforting words to her until he falls asleep again

- if eulalie ever introduces him to omurice she would draw a cat on it with ketchup. or even a chibi pluto with cat ears.

- eulalie teaches him all the hand games that she knows

- they exchange book recommendations a bit. eulalie prefers darker fiction, but he still reads whatever she gets the most excited about so they can talk about it together

[theshadowsingersraven]

this nyxlin drama lowkey reminds me of the time a zutara artist was run off tumblr because they drew aged up katara/zuko romantically, but I think it was actually angry kataang’s or e/riel’s -because they also drew gwynriel and e/riel’s were jealous- who were stirring up shit 😭

That would honestly make a lot of sense for how/why I didn't see many posts from them or overall in the Nyxlin tag when I was catching up on what happened. Pretty much every person (notably largely Elriels) who supported Elain Week's censorship got an insta-block from me if they weren't already. And I'm sure a decent amount of people blocked me from my stance on Elaingate, Rhys Week, and Nyxlin Week.

And good! You should block me. Seriously. Art has the right to be celebrated and appreciated, especially in the circumstances designed to do that for a specific character and dynamic! Character appreciation and celebration will never look the same to everyone, and just because it's not what you enjoy doesn't mean it stops being appreciative or celebratory. If you can't grasp that, you don't deserve access to my art anyway. You certainly don't deserve to be in my space, that's for damn sure. Kindly, get out.

Honestly, it kind of makes sense considering the overlap of canon rigidity, purity culture, and morality policing of fiction coming from sides of the fandom that generally can't accept criticism about their faves, or even things that go against what they want for their faves. They are terrified of creativity that doesn't give them what they want and it shows. It's the most Evangelical-ass shit ever, and it's fucking weird.

Like...for all intents and purposes, Nyx is an OC in any works that feature him. And I'd know, because I wrote an adult Nyx for my ongoing ACOTAR D&D campaign set 20 years after ACOSF. So yes, Nyx is twenty in my timeline, because it's writing and I can do what I want lol. I have no basis to write Nyx off of other than Rhys and Feyre. Which means...I'm still doing my own character-building to only less than I would for a completely new OC.

Let's compare, shall we?

Writing my OC Solara's backstory: Writing her parents from scratch ✔️ Writing her early childhood ✔️ Writing her trauma ✔️ Writing her adolescence and relationships ✔️ Writing her interests and adventures as she became an adult✔️ Writing her dynamic with her love interest and how she interacts with Prythian as a whole ✔️

Now obviously these are all at minimum influenced by/will be derivative of aspects of ACOTAR because, y'know, transformative works. But still, I made her.

Writing Nyx's backstory and how he is as a twenty-year-old adult: Writing his parents from scratch ❌ Writing his early childhood ✔️ Writing any trauma he might have ✔️ Writing his adolescence and relationships ✔️ Writing his interests and adventures as he became an adult ✔️ Writing his dynamic (collaboratively) with his love interest and how he interacts with Prythian as a whole ✔️

And this is a version of Nyx that I made. Yes, it's still influenced by canon, but if I put in 90% of the same effort to write him as an adult as I did a complete OC, we can acknowledge they're functionally the same.

It's not that people look at Baby!Nyx and instantly think he's perfect to be shipped with someone and there's something to be gleaned from canon about him in particular. We know nothing about Nyx as an individual. That applies to any Nyx ship.

The appeal, at least in my experience, to Nyx ships, including Nyxlin, is the dynamics at play around Nyx, i.e., his role as an eventual leader and powerful figure in the Night Court, the dynamics that affect Rhys and Feyre also extending to him, how the rest of Prythian/Illyria might view the first offspring of High Fae, Illyrian, and Made parents. It's about his circumstances, not him as a character because he is not a "character yet", he just exists!

People are just creative enough to consider those long-term effects on who he could become and how that interplays with other characters. I don't mean to be cruel, but genuinely, have these people never created an OC before? Have they never shipped anything outside of canon? Have they never read any fics featuring time travel, for example, as a plot point to get characters in the same era at the same time when otherwise the ship would not be able to happen? Are they that unfamiliar with making circumstances outside of SJM's canon to allow things to happen for fun?

Genuinely, the lack of creativity for all of us being in this for reading and writing is concerning.

Even just saying this and advocating for Nyxlin's right to be celebrated as well as Tamlin as a whole pretty much puts me in the position of having to tag this as pro-Tamlin. And I wouldn't even describe myself as anything other than Pro-Azriel and probably Pro-Nesta and Pro-Elain because I don't really dislike any characters. I'm equally as critical to all of them and if their good parts just sort of cancel out the bad or are only a bit outweighing one or the other...I don't actively dislike them, I'm just neutral about them.

But this fandom is so fucking polarized because of the toxicity and the Us v.s. Them, Morality Policing culture that's been festering, people can't even neutrally address something. People are harassed so quickly just for not understanding or being familiar with something, and then in the other court people do the harassing because they don't understand or aren't familiar with something the other party likes/dislikes. If don't utterly despise Tamlin, it's somehow considered supportive enough to qualify as "pro" to antis.

Too many people in this fanbase create this parasocial-adjacent attachment to these characters like they're real and have real feelings/boundaries that need to be protected. They are not! Characters can't be hurt by anything happening outside the narrative. Just because you personally do not like something/don't find it appealing or even find it discomforting does not mean it's morally objectionable. It's just not for you, and understanding that experiencing content not made for you is not an attack on you is kind of a necessary life skill.

This rant ended up way longer than I expected it to be, but anyway...y'all stay safe out there.

[kabukiaku]

please know that you are never annoying and will never be annoying for posting about TerzoOmega and it’s always the highlight of my day and it’s fun to see someone so passionate about a ship while still being cool about other people’s opinions (the bare minimum, I know, but fandom can be very combative and it’s nice just to see some wholesome enjoyment of fandom :-) )

thank you op <3 I sometimes feel self-conscious with these two, especially if I come across hot takes of my favorite characters. Even if they don't always apply to me, even if I don't do these things with my favorites, I still end up feeling some sort of guilt or shame just by the general discussions of it all.

but I should know better, and the point here is that no one should stop you from talking, drawing, writing about the x thing you like. even if may not appeal to every corner of the internet. and that's fine. I'm not here to appeal to everyone, as not everyone here will appeal to me.

I'm here to have fun, share my passions, and have others to share that passion with me. 🖤💜✨

[anthurak]

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?*

Salty Ask game

For ruining a pairing, I could honestly put many if not most hetero ships in RWBY in this category thanks to fandom bullshit, in particular ANY girl/Jaune ship outside of Arkos, and even that’s shaky for me (I have a special loathing for the Jaune/Harem crowd). Though one case I find particularly unfortunate is Ruby/Oscar, a ship that when if first started cropping up in Volume 4, I thought was kind of cute. But by now it’s gotten tied up in theories and headcanons and people clamoring about how it’s going to happen in-show, all while apparently missing some KEY aspects of Oscar’s character. Namely the fact that Oscar, much like Jaune, is a massive SUBVERSION of a main-character archetype, and not an actual main character.

Which means that it feels like every Ruby/Oscar take I see, at best sounds like it’s treating Oscar as some deuteragonist to Ruby at the expense of Penny or even Ruby’s own teammates, and at WORST sounds like it believes Oscar to somehow be the ‘real main character’ of the show.

I think Ruby and Oscar have a very interesting dynamic in the show itself, like how Ruby acts as a mentor to Oscar in the way that Ozpin failed to do for her. Unfortunately, it feels like much of the shipping for these two has completely missed the memo on any of it.

As for a fandom OTP that I just do NOT get, that’s actually rather difficult. As even for the ships I don’t like, I can generally still trace the ‘logic’ of it to the ‘source’ of the appeal for some people. Even if that source is something as simple as "I think it would be hot if these two fucked" or something as banal as “I want to fantasize about having sex with this pretty girl(s) and am too lazy to come up with my own OC to project onto, so I’ll just project onto this character I find ‘relatable’ and awkwardly crowbar into a generic self-insert mold” -gestures to the vast majority of Jaune/girl ships-

That being said, I have always been rather baffled that the Steven Universe fandom effectively mandala-effected itself into believing that Lapidot was ever anything more than a crackship that the creators threw in because they seemingly somehow ran out of ideas of what to do with Lapis.

[demaparbat-hp]

Hello. I wanted to say that I really like your art style, especially how you do Katara's face. That's awesome.

But every time I read the description of your AUs, it gives me the creeps. You once said you try to stay true to Katara's character, but... your AUs are like "what if I take one of her major character traits and throw it in a trash bin?".

Halfblood AU: no connection to her culture that basically defies everything Katara thinks and feels about her waterbending.

Helping the Fire Nation AU: no hope for the avatar that Katara expressed in the intro of every episode of the original show.

And lowkey less kindness. She's cautious and bitter and wants to help only Zuko.

She seems like a completely different character. Not Katara at all.

Zuko too. I doubt he'll be in the White Lotus, it's not in his character at all. He may use the help of the members, but the original ("The Desert") tells us he will not be one of them, it's just not his style.

You make zutara look shallow, like you think that Zuko and Katara as they are in the show would never work together. As a person who sees appeal in this ship I feel very uneasy seeing your interpretations.

And my god, why do you hate Hakoda so much? Every time you add anything to halfbloodAU he looks more and more disgusting. I cannot believe mister "you and your brother are my entire world" would do what you are saying. And a married man with a child cannot be so naive to think that a woman won't become pregnant after having sex with him. Hakoda would've returned and checked and tried to help.

Sorry. I wish I could enjoy your art, but you're making it so hard.

Hello, and thank you for writing. I'm glad that you enjoy my art, at least to some extent, and I'm sorry if I ever made you uncomfortable with my AUs. However, I find myself in the need of defending them.

Creating AUs is something I take seriously, and one of the core traits of an AU is that it's, inherently, a different world. I can change virtually anything, and that's okay. Haven't we all read a fic and thought, this character wouldn't react like this in canon, but went along with it anyway? Because we know this isn't supposed to be canon. These characters are living in a different context, and react to things differently.

Canon exists for a reason. An AU does, too. They're different concepts and must be treated accordingly. It's a matter of context.

But we're talking about characters, aren't we?

You've pointed out that I've changed Zuko and Hakoda, too. And you're right. I've found that people online are more... defensive of Katara when compared to other characters. And while that may not be important to this specific discussion, I do find it rather curious. It's something to think about.

Anyways, I change characters. And I've gotta confess, I'm not ashamed of it.

My Katara is still Katara, and my Zuko is still Zuko. I'm just playing with how I believe they would react in different scenarios, and with different backgrounds (that's important, too).

You mentioned that my AUs are like "what if I take one of [Katara's] major character traits and throw it in a trash bin?". And I'm sorry that they give you the creeps, truly.

But maybe I want to explore how being a product of two different cultures affects not only Katara, but also Zuko as characters. Halfblood gives me the opportunity to address these sociocultural issues through their personal experiences, and I find that kind of narrative awfully compelling.

And maybe I wanted to change one core trait of Katara's personality and see how that affected both her journey and the general plot. Hunters is a writing experiment, and it has taught me a lot about human nature. Thanks to what you so kindly call "throwing a character trait in a trash bin", I've gained a lot more respect for who Katara is in canon. If anything, I consider Hunters!Katara as a foil for Canon!Katara.

And I don't hate Hakoda. I have a lot of respect for him as a leader and a father. I think he's a great character and role model for others within the ATLA universe. Bashing characters for fun isn't really my thing. The choices I made for Hakoda in the HalfBlood AU (and Aang in Hunters) are a matter of narrative and plot building, not my opinion on his character.

Just think about how different that AU would be if Hakoda made better choices, if he didn't have a wife and a son waiting for him at the South, or if Katara's father was a random Earth Kingdom villager. About 60% of the conflict in the story would disappear. And I could build that conflict with other stuff, I admit it. I could use different plot points or make the characters do other things or give Katara One Big Happy Family.

But it would change the core themes of the story I want to tell.

It's important to me that Katara is a product of two different cultures. It's important that she has no father figure in her life. It's important that Hakoda, who is a great leader and a great man and a great husband and a great father for Sokka, made a huge mistake in his youth that has been weighting on him ever since. It's important that Sokka is suddenly faced with the realization that his father, his idolized role model, is human and has also royally fucked up.

I want to talk about these things.

But I'm able to recognize that they're heavy subjects and, really, most of us are just here for the fluff anyway. So I'm sorry if I've made anyone uncomfortable. I won't hold it against you if you don't like what I do or just ignore whatever lore I set up for my AUs.

This is fiction, this is freedom, and this is the way I express myself. We all do it differently, and that's part of the beauty.

[themetalhiro]

you thinking i said she hates him when i clearly used "dislike" because it's nowhere near hate is insane. marcille is nearly always uncomfortable around laios because his personality is incredibly off-putting to her. she never goes out of her way to interact with him more than necessary. she very obviously tolerates him and is generally fine with him but has no desire to be actual friends with him. dont put words in my mouth. the desire people have to make straight couples out of a series where the most important relationship to the story is a fairly explicitly lesbian pairing is absolutely unreal

( Anons last message for context )

You sound very silly right now anon, I just have to say it. Do you also think chilchuck is there for his paycheck only?

You can feel extremely strongly that something is suggested, but if it’s not canon, it simply isn’t canon. I could argue that marcilles succubus (the things that shapeshift into what the victim finds most appealing) was a male prince. THAT’S canon. Do I think because of that, marcilles staunchly straight? No. That would be extremely stupid.

You may interpret the relationships in the series however you see fit, that’s your right. That’s what I’m doing. None of them are more important than others.

I AM noticing though while you’re taking what you read between the lines as absolutely unarguable, you’re missing the in-your-face fact that Marcille, besides his eccentricities that exasperate her, genuinely respects Laois as a leader and a person. She enjoys his friendship and cares for him deeply. It’s displayed in every chapter of the damn comic.

You have tunnel vision for your own ship. That’s fine, but keep me out of it! Maybe try fanfic if that’s all you give a shit about? If it helps you sleep at night, I think farcille is cute and has plenty of merit too.

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Hi Kym! I apologize if you have answered an ask like this before, but I am curious for your opinion.

You've talked a lot about how intentional all the Buddie parallels are in terms of costuming for several seasons now, both with Buck and Eddie together, then with their respective girlfriends, and in comparison to Bathena. We are now even getting throwbacks to season 2 and Eddie's first episode with Buck's stonewash jeans! Tim is adamant in interviews that he never planned this bisexual awakening in advance (we know that Eddie was originally meant for Maddie ofc) and that he doesn't know where the characters are going yet, but even Oliver has said he intentionally leans into the Buddie of it all with his acting, or at least into Buck's then-presumed bisexuality.

My question is, with just how pointed and intentional the costume choices have always been, is Tim is lying? Or are the costume designers secret Buddie shippers and intentionally lean into this storyline too? How much of what we see in terms of costuming is the decision of the show runners/directors vs creative expression of the costume designers? Is there a point in the show for you where it became clear how intentional it was becoming with the costuming, where they may or may not have said, "we're going to commit to telling this story in subtext until we are allowed to tell it overtly"?

Thanks :)

Hey Cookie-Kat!!

How lovely to have you in my inbox, and what a great question!

putting my answer under the cut - because it got long!!!

The answer I give is going to have to be a bit vague I'm afraid because the reality is that as I don't work on the show and I'm not 100% sure on the set up of their various departments, I can't categorically state how they are going about things in 911 land! I can share my experience and knowledge of how things can be done and try to give you some sort of framework - but I can't definitively say that this is how they are doing things.

First up let's address the whole Tim lying thing.

Tim is all about subterfuge in interviews - its literally his job as a showrunner. I would take every thing he says in an interview with a giant grain of salt. the entire purpose of his interviews is to tease and hook people, without giving anything way becasue why would he spoil all the things he has planned that make people watch the show he is creating. If he came out in an interview at the start of the season and said

'yeah, we're going to do a cruise ship disaster and all these things are going to happen, and in episode 4 Buck is going to get kissed by a guy and figure out he's bi and Eddie is going to find out his girlfriend was a novice nun and its going to send him into a catholic guilt spiral, and maddie nad CHim are going to get married, but x, y and z are going to happen before they can get down the aisle'

Why would anyone tune in to watch the show? we'd already know what was going to happen so there wouldn't be any point - there would be no buzz and the viewing figures might be ok, but they wouldn't be remotely close to what they are. I know for a fact I probably wouldn't be tuning in - people like to be surprised, they like to speculate - we in fandom take it to a higher level, but even the general audience speculate - water cooler conversations about what you watched the previous evening and how you think it's going to play out are part of a show's appeal - part of how it keeps people watching - shared experiences are a powerful commodity, especially in network television and they cannot be shared if we all know what is going to happen.

I would also add that this season is the most explicit acknowledgement of buddie that we've had in interviews and that means something. The show - writers, actors etc have all been incredibly careful before no to ensure that they haven't crossed over into queerbaiting the audience - which is something I really appreciate them for. But this season, things have definitely changed. whether that is down to being on a new network, that actually has a marketing strategy and that actually seems to care about the show and the stories that they have wanted to tell, I don't know, but it is so refreshing and exciting to see.

Tim is a clever person - he knows exactly what he is doing and every single season, without fail we have him saying things in interviews that can be read in multiple ways - none of them have ever been lies - subterfuge is the name of the game - then if you reread them in the aftermath of the season, you can see what he said did in fact play out as he hinted at - he has the context that we didn't have at the time and that is why he can subvert and talk his way around things.

I genuinely don't think Tim planned to give Buck a bisexual awakening from the start - we know he never planned on the buddie of it all, but a good writer will go where the characters take them. As soon as you create something and put it into the hands of others (the actors, directors and crew) things can very quickly take on a whole new direction and a life of its own.

If you ask me, I genuinely don't think Buck could've had a bi awakening before this point - it wouldn't have made sense from a narrative perspective (and his death and rebirth actually make the perfect jumping off point to explore) until now because of the very nature of Buck.

There isn't a single show (by show I mean one that isn't a limited series which will by definition have a planned arc) on network television that knew where each and every character would end up at the end of the show or that characters journey (by this I mean when cast chose to leave a show). Yes they might have planned a few beats to hit along the way, but they wouldn't know the end point for the character. We have a perfect example on 911 - Michael - the show hadn't intended to end Michaels arc in the way it did - his journey as a queer man coming out later in life was an important part of the show - important for representation as much as anything - they had to adapt and change in light of what was going on with Rockmond and write out a character that they would've had other plans for.

The other thing I should mention is that When Tim says he hasn't decided or written the scripts for upcoming episodes, that doesn't mean he doesn't have a plan. He very much will have a plan. There would've been clear arcs for each character laid out at the start of the writing process for the season - they would want to get character a from one point to another by the end of the season. Its the how they get there that is the unknown - at this point we don't know the end points for any characters this season, but if we take season 5 Eddie as an example - at the start of the season he is post shooting and back at work, seemingly perfectly fine. By the end of the season he is genuinely in a good place having gone through his trauma arc. The arc they would've decided on for Eddie that season was to explore his trauma and how to get him from a 'seemingly' good place to a genuinely good place. From there they would've decided on various touchstones - so Ana being mistaken for Christophers mother and them being a family is his trigger to launch his arc. Chris being scared of loosing his father a major touch stone, pushing him into leaving the 118. His then feeling on the outside - left out and replaced by Lucy is his next one, followed by the fact all his army buddies are gone, another touchstone - coming in quick succession to build momentum and leading to his breakdown. Pushing him to actually get help - therapy is another touchstone - one that helps to get him to the end of the season in a vastly different place - healing but still working on things.

So you see - they generally plan an overall direction, but how they get there is the bit that is a bit fluid and can be determined to a certain extent by audience reaction (I don't mean that they would out and out rewrite the entire plan for the season for a character, but they might chose to lean into different aspects if the audience react in a certain way - we saw this with Lucy - planned for a bigger arc, but the audience reaction to her was pretty negative, so they changed direction with her character and cut her part down).

In terms of Bucks bi arc - they will have been waiting on how it was received before fully determining how to play it out for the rest of the season - I genuinely think we'll be seeing more of Lou as Tommy later in the season as a part of Bucks arc - The way Lou has spoken about it being initially a 4 episode arc, suggests to me that its always been intended to run it longer if reaction was good - which we know it was. My explectation remains the same - that Tommy will be around until either the end of episode 9, or the middle of episode 10, to get Buck to where he needs to be by the season end.

I am on the fence as to where exactly that is - Everything from set, costuming and the script is screaming at me that it's about Buck figuring out not only that he is bi, but that he is also in love with Eddie. That is his arc for the season. What I am unsure of is how they are going to leave things at the end of the season (and I think a part of that will have been determined by audience reaction), whether or not we'll leave him acknowledging his feelings to himself, to a third party (Tommy and or Maddie), or to Eddie himself. Of course part of it will be determined by Eddies arc and how far they plan on getting him in regards to dealing with his catholic guilt and what form and direction t hat is going to take, but I cannot see any reason to start exploring that aspect of his character if you weren't going to use it for a queer arc of some description.

In terms of costuming - which was the main point of your ask - sorry I get rambly in these replies some times - I always view it as the first 2-3 seasons at the very least will be about establishing a characters look and vibe within the wider show, and from then on you can start to play into themes and colour theory etc. Somethings you can establish earlier - especially if they are centric to a character more widely. Examples of this are Eddies army green tees and shirts - establishing him visually as ex military, or the black singlets that he wears when in an emotionally vulnerable place, or Buck wearing his white trainers as part of his search for self, or his white shirts as a signal of him being in danger. You can do this, because they aren't playing on anything in relation to other characters at this early point.

So the decision to take Buck out of jeans (stone wash jeans specifically - he's been wearing jeans they've just been black or dark navy) and have him in very obviously shorter trousers, creating a specific aesthetic for him - this smarter, fitted clean cut style that is different from his season 1 looks, has been about playing into his journey of searching for self - that is his big overarching arc - the one that spans multiple seasons.

The intent to do that, wasn't about Buddie (or bi Buck) when they started to use it as a visual marker for him. It was (and always has been) about Buck. about his search for meaning in his life and who he is, who he wants to be - about being his authentic self.

The reason I got so excited about seeing him in jeans once more, when the first stills dropped at the start of the season - was because I knew that it was a signal that this bigger arc was coming to fruition and moving into its next phase. The costume team have been sitting waiting for when the time was right to do this - its being done with such intention.

Of course I hoped that it would be buddie related - things were pointing in that direction from other costuming choices. And to me at least, I still think its very much buddie related - because to do this now - for this bi awakening arc - its too loud and too big for 'just' a bi awakening arc - its about something bigger for Buck - something long term (and I'm not saying Buck being bi is't long term, because obviously it very much is - bi rep is so important!) him figuring out he is bi is a smaller part of a bigger whole for his character. The implication of the jeans returning is that this part of himself he has unlocked plays into a bigger story. Bucks search for self has always been about finding love - about being wanted and seen and accepted for who he is. As a costume designer, I wouldn't personally be putting him into jeans at this point unless it was related to his endgame - being bi isn't enough on its own for them to decide to visually show that he has fully found what he has been looking for on his search throughout the seasons (the white trainers still being in used also play into this) because he is still looking for that lasting happiness - he's just taken a massive step forward to figuring out what it is and where it lies.

With regards to colour theory and the paralleling of Buddie with other ships such as Bathena or Madney. Colour theory alone it wouldn't be enough to convince me, it is in combination with other factors such as the paralleling of Bathena and Madney that it comes into play. The thing is, creating those parallels and colour theory combinations doesn't have to lead to something. I'm going to do a terrible job of trying to explain this, but I'll give it a go.

Various people, who work on the show in some capacity have all commented over the years that they weren't expecting the level of chemistry that Oliver and Ryan have. We also know that they have played into the buddie of it all with some of the scene choices they've made - sort of an acknowledgement of what we're seeing - the elf scene in s2 is a prime example - a nod to fandom and the fact that they are being shipped together - and an acknowledgement of the chemistry - without it necessarily needing to mean more (the same goes for things like the text comments on the botfly influencer livestream call etc).

Back then wardrobe are still very much in character establishment mode - creating and defining the looks of the characters, and playing into colour theory on an individual level, not necessarily on a partnership level (S2 Bathena would've been treated in this way as they were already intended to be an end game couple so you can play into colour theory much earlier), that comes later. I wouldn't have been able to write costume metas in season 2-3 in the way I do now, because the parallels didn't exist and the ground work hadn't been laid.

Once you get past that intial establishing phase, hat is when you can start to play into the colour theory much more in relation to specific characters and pairings. One of the clearest examples of this is Eddies black shirt green trousers combo that he wears at the loft when having serious conversations with Buck. He first wears it in season 3 at the end of the lawsuit/fightclub arc (3x09), and then we dont see it again until season 5 (5x04) at yet another scene in Bucks loft.

The meaning of the colours in that scene are important sure, it is playing into colour theory, but what is happening visually is that we're subconciously connecting dots and remembering that Eddie has worn this outfit before to talk to Buck - that means it must be a serious conversation, one very much focused on something Buck has done (or hasn't done depending on which way you look at things). Eddie has been in Bucks loft on multiple occasions between those two scenes, and Buck and Eddie have had multiple serious conversations in the intervening episodes as well. so why that scene if its not meant to make us connect dots?

Now on a fundamental level, those two scenes can be read as establishing the close friendship Buck and Eddie share - that they are following through on their s2 promise to have each others backs. its entirely correct to assume that - it is after all what those scenes are establishing. But what it is also doing is laying the ground work for if they want to take Buddie further. we know that the conversations about Buddie have been happening in the writers room and on set for a good long while, and even if you don't yet know if you're going to go in that direction, you would be foolish not to lay the ground work in a subtle way if you can, so that the option is there if you did decide to take that direction.

A show will use what ever tools are at its disposal to lay various foundations that it can then pick and choose to build on as it wants or needs to. It is why we see the pictures in Eddies house moving around, why things on the fridge change (fridge theory is not as out there as some people would have you believe - there is a whole thing coming up on Eddies fridge in reaction to guts and the digestive system - which will very much be playing into his catholic guilt arc!) in Christophers room move around and change - its not just about him being a growing (soon to be teenager) boy, its also about laying foundations for story arcs they might choose to develop down the line and the Buddie groundwork is no different.

Its not about the wardrobe team being shippers of Buddie - its much more about them knowing where a season is headed (in brad strokes, even if they don't have specifics) being really good at their job and now being able to bear the fruits of their labour from earlier seasons - they had been doing the same with buck and Taylor - now they're doing it with Buck and Tommy (and Eddie). It would've been super easy to spin the costuming for Taylor into more positive colours - especially on Buck - in season 5, but they had the bigger picture and knew she wasn't going to remotely be endgame, so they were able to play into that throughout the season. Establishing Tommy as a version of Eddie is building on the Eddie groundwork they laid and using it to make it very clear that we are supposed to see the similarities between them - its steering us as viewers towards thinking 'oh Buck has a type - He's dating someone like his best friend - he should just date his best friend' is all about subtly nudging the audience in the right direction - towards Buddie - its just most people won't pick up on it in a conscious way.

I'm not sure if this makes any sense or if it even answered your ask, but essentially the show is using everything at its disposal to tell the story its telling and they have been laying groundwork that can take things in various directions - they are just choosing to push the buddie agenda to an increasing degree (and I have said groundwork far too many times in this post!!)

Thaks for the great ask 💜💜💜

[alatismeni-theitsa]

https://www.lifo.gr/stiles/optiki-gonia/kaos-einai-i-shesi-mas-me-ti-mythologia

Can they stop with modern labels? Every time they try to say that ancient Greece was a queer paradise where it was far from this.

It was criticised in society unless the man was powerful and rich. Like it was a tiny minority and they create this narrative of ancient Greece have over 50% being queer or something.

It's time for our xenoi friends and followers to learn another Greek term. Xenolatreia. It means "worship of anything foreign (mainly from the western countries)", which is a widespread phenomenon among Greeks for the past 2 centuries. It's the following sentiment: "Anything that comes out of western countries is good and it should be praised because we here in Greece are a bunch of illiterate monkeys who live on trees, and cannot see the Deeper Message our Superior Westerners show."

Lifo has had some decent articles over the years but this one reeks of xenolatreia. Lifo supports that the Greeks hate the series because it has queer people in it. so it goes on a campaign to show that Greek mythology had queer people. Which, sure, I don't disagree, but it misses the point. While some Greeks surely have been offended just by the existence of queerness, Lifo misses the REAL reason why Greeks in large felt their mythology was butchered by KAOS. They even wrote it in the article themselves:

"Zeus is a paranoid authoritarian dictator in mid-life crisis who fears losing his power and murders his aides to vent. Hera is a promiscuous goddess who repeatedly betrays Zeus and has mutilated mute priestesses for protection. Dionysos is a spoiled and immature zoomer who, apart from pranks, indulges in orgies with all genders. Poseidon a sadistic god of the sea, who tortures the crew on his ship for fun. Prometheus is gay and killed his lover so he could overthrow Zeus. Orpheus is a famous pop singer and Eurydice does not love him. Theseus is black and gay. The Erinyes are tough-as-nails mechs that look like they stepped out of 'Sons of Anarchy'. The Fates resemble a three-member jury in a talent show. The Trojans are a terrorist group that acts against the gods. Crete is more reminiscent of California than the Mediterranean."

Queer and diverse identities in general are nothing bad. The way KAOS mixed everything into a salad is the real bad thing, and the showrunners hide behind the queer representation when they are met with any other kind of criticism. It's the same tactic Lifo follows here. Only extremely stupid people would have an issue if Ganymees and Zeus were a couple in the show when it was also a part of our mythology. The problem about KAOS for the larger population is not the queerness.

Lifo continues:

The idea we have of Greek myths is, at best, a jumble of bits and pieces created by the Greek school: Zeus has sexual relations with mortals, Hera is jealous, Dionysus engages in revelry, Persephone for some reason resides in Hades , a bird eats the flesh of Prometheus, Aphrodite is the most beautiful and Athena the wisest of the bunch, Artemis hunts, Apollo plays the lyre: a very general and vague idea, much more chaotic than the mixing of myths which "Kaos" attempts.

What a shitty argument. Did you pay any attention in school, I wonder?? Do you know that we know our myths also outside the Greek school and that the Greek school teaches based on the ancient sources, and we often read the ancient text itself?? Also, no, the situation here is not more absurd than what KAOS does. The mythology is what it is. KAOS takes an already established thing and makes a turd out of playdoh.

Instead, we demand that a series aiming for commercial appeal follow our preferred script line and stay true to what? In our own obsessions, revisions, angulations and Christian puritanisms?

To our freaking culture, dear Lifo. To the myths we wrote and passed down for two and a half millennia, dear Lifo. They are fairly widespread and they are very difficult to get wrong.