#but i do wish there was more exploration of different aspects of canon than this specific fanon ''time period''

[maemil]

I feel like this is a combination of people commonly choosing to ignore or change parts of canon they dislike/disagree with (I, for one, would never write babsgirl post-oracle because I hate that decision for her) and people whose main idea of canon comes from fic creating a fanon "current day" from what they can piece together (which will end up favouring common changes).

So decisions that are heavily disliked (like Kon not existing, Barbara's disability being changed, aged up Jon) disappear in fanon, while headcanons/decisions that are popular get added even when they don't exist together in canon (Red Robin Tim & Supersons are popular, but so is Tim & Jon's canonical queerness).

It’s so interesting to me how the DC fandom right now is stuck in this weird time period which has never existed in the comics but seems to exist entirely within fanon. And it exists in an extremely substantial amount of fanon works even though it’s never been an established time period

Its like. Damian is robin, Dick is nightwing and Bruce is Batman, but Tim is still red robin. And even though he’s red robin he’s out as bi, which happened like ten years after his red robin run. And Babs is still oracle and she’s still in a wheelchair and no one is batgirl, but her and Dick are usually not dating even though they’re dating atm in the comics. And Jason exists in this nebulous state where he both is and isn’t an active criminal like some high stakes Schrodingers cat. Steph and Tim usually aren’t dating either. Alfred is somehow still alive, and almost no one in the fandom acknowledges that he’s dead in their fanwork

And Jon and Damian are friends, Jon hasn’t been aged up, but he’s also usually acknowledged as being bisexual (even if it’s not a ship fic). Kon is alive and everyone remembers him. The powers that either of them are able to use are entirely dependent on the whims of the author

It’s anyone’s guess as to whether a fanfic author decides that Barry or Wally is going to be flash in their fic. Bart is always impulse, he never retired at any point, in a few fics he never even died even though Kon did. Roy Harper is Jason’s friend and rarely Dick’s, Lian is a young child, and Kori is Jason’s friend. No mention of the other titans

It’s so weird cause like. It’s not that these events never occurred in canon it’s just that they all occurred at wildly different points in time, not usually overlapping, and somehow the fandom has collectively decided and agreed upon this made up time period which has never existed in the comics. It’s kind of cool honestly but also genuinely bizarre

[dduane]

I just read the part where Kirk experiences the Enterprise's point of view in The Wounded Sky to someone else, where she sees the crew as children she is training up to the Great Desire of exploration for exploration's sake, especially Jim. His reaction, essentially: "That was really pretty. ....And then he blows her up."

I hadn't thought about that before! I checked the copyright date, and it looks like The Wounded Sky came out a year before The Search for Spock, so you were writing without knowing that sacrifice would eventually happen.

How did you feel about that? Do you wish that writing decision had been made differently? (If, as a Trek writer, you're allowed to comment on other Trek writers' choices!)

You know, I tend not to think a whole lot about such issues. First of all, because (in the long run) it gets you nowhere in particular that's useful. And secondly, because it's not a thing that, as a Trek writer in any medium except film, you have the slightest power to change.

Now, at this end of time I think we can safely say that no one's going to hire me on to write a Trek film. And also that no one at that end of the creative spectrum is going to pay the slightest attention to anything I say, either. Both of those situations are just What's So, and neither of them bothers me. (Since I have universes of my own to manage at the moment, and that's where my attention properly lies.) So as regards my opinions about other writers' work, I'm pretty much off the hook.

If I had been on screenwriting duty for that film, would there be things I'd have wanted to do differently? Hell yeah. From the premise up. But the important thing here is: would those things necessarily have worked better on the screen / with the audience? Impossible to tell. And speaking as someone repeatedly given permission to work in someone's universe, the main thing to be aware of is the expectation that your chief responsibility is to do what best serves the characters and the IP of which they're part. (There's a post over at Out of Ambit with a lot more of my thoughts on the subject:)

The other thing to remember is that, though I've worn the Canonical Hat in my time, novel work is by definition non-canonical. Doing it, you are at all times working with the understanding that the licensor rarely views your work as anything better than a corporate side hustle—a way for the IP to make some cash on the side—and will ignore you and the stuff you've created unless given pressing reasons to do otherwise. (Such as when they might make some unexpected money off it... at which point you remind yourself as forcibly as necessary that what you did is Work For Hire; they own it, lock, stock and barrel, and you should not realistically expect to be given any credit.)

And, if you understand the rules and enjoy the work enough, all of this is okay. The reward is not in making a lot of money doing it, or even in having aspects of your work openly assumed into canon. The reward lies in being allowed to contribute to a given universe in public (and, yeah, getting paid for it by the licensor). It's not payback: it's payforward. And you're left an astonishing amount of freedom to bring your vision to that universe. (Sometimes... as one colleague has McCoy say... you have to be "very, very careful" to get away with it. But it can be done.)

The truth is that even in the 1980s, I was sharing this level of playing-in-a-universe with a goodish cohort of editors and writers: a big roomful at least. Now I'm sharing it (retroactively speaking) with hundreds of them. With the best will in the world, even in the 80's the licensors (as regarded film) couldn't have realistically polled/listened to all of us regarding our creative opinions about the screenplay end of things. As for what that'd look like nowadays... I'll leave you to your own deductions. 😏

Anyway, thanks for the question. It's always nice to know that there are people who want to know what you think. 😊

[onwhatcaptain]

I still have tons to say about the Garashir Goes Canon™ moment in Lower Decks so here is my big meta post about it! Below the cut is a meta discussion about the penultimate Lower Decks episode, contextualizing what it means for something to become canon.

To be clear, this is a mostly positive post with analysis included. You’ll see lots of love for Garashir and Lower Decks and also oodles of fandom meta below the cut, since we have a complicated relationship with Paramount. My analysis and graphic is based on a recent lecture about Star Trek canon I gave at KiScon!

First, I have to say that both Unification and this Lower Decks episode following mere weeks after of my lecture panel at KiScon titled Fuck Paramount, about what Star Trek canon really is and what its place is in relation to us as slash fans, is absolutely mind-blowing timing. I wish everyone in both the K/S and Garashir fandoms had been able to attend it because it was absolutely designed to serve as a framework for both of these major fandom moments. And also it was just funny as hell. But most importantly, it was relevant, and existed to give us a sense of understanding when navigating Paramount hell, particularly when they play Gay Chicken (will they, won’t they — most of the time, they won’t).

Since not every single Star Trek fan on this website was at KiScon last month, I want to expand on that a little more here, this time in Garashir context, since last time it was centered on K/S, though Garashir came up several times! When I was giving my lecture, I asked the audience what it would look like if K/S were made canon tomorrow. Everyone had different ideas—but the most common theme that came up was sheer distrust of Paramount doing it justice.

For those of you that are reading this, the thesis of Fuck Paramount was that you as a fan and a viewer have more control over what is and isn’t canon than you think, and that our role as fans is to take ownership of our stories back from corporate interests. I also developed a four-sided framework to describe how we interact with canon to take power back and make sense of canon. Both Unification and the very, very fresh Lower Decks episode have already been controversial for a number of reasons, the primary one they share being: “Wait… does this make this canon?”

So far it looks like the main reactions for this Lower Decks episode (especially considering how sudden and late in its run it is) are mostly “HOLY SHIT THEY REALLY DID IT” and “I AM DISAPPOINTED BY THE MERE SCRAPS.”

And my position on it is that both of them are completely reasonable reactions that don’t contradict one another! I’m going to make the case for both sides as I try to explore the implications of this episode with respect to the episode’s subtext, corporate storytelling, and so forth. I’m not going to go too much into the academic aspects, but I am happy to make the original slides available for anyone who is curious about my canon analysis framework.

Why It’s Enough

On one hand, this episode is done well. Undeniably. It’s a lot of fun. I have also said many times before that the only way I’d want K/S or G/B to become canon is if they suddenly randomly drop the info that they were married and don’t bring it up again, because otherwise they might do more harm than good! This was an example of it done incredibly well, in my opinion.

This episode serves as all the confirmation you could possibly really need of Garashir. Yes, there are quite a few gimmicks involved—it’s all AU, all the way. Garak is now a surgeon from another dimension, and Bashir is from an entirely different dimension, and also not really himself, but a hologram. Here’s how they’re introduced:

WILLIAM BOIMLER: “Elim Garak, a brilliant Cardassian Surgeon—and his husband, an emergency medical hologram based on Dr. Julian Bashir.”

What I really love about this moment is that it actually does more than it looks like it does, at face value. For most of us, our first instinct is to go, whatever, he’s based on Bashir, he’s not even the real one! But what they did here was brilliant—it serves as implicit confirmation that our man Bashir is also bisexual, and loves Garak. He is indeed not a corporeal human being, but as the DS9 episode where the LMH is designed based on Bashir tells us, the hologram is designed and based on who he is. It has his personality traits. Interviews are conducted to make sure that the hologram is as authentic and true to the real thing as possible:

O'BRIEN: “You mean this programme is going to have all of his personal likes and dislikes?” ZIMMERMAN: “That is why we bother to choose a human template in the first place.”

William Boimler, from the prime Star Trek universe, doesn’t say the EMH is based on some Bashir, he says this one is based on Dr. Julian Bashir. Again, this serves as clear confirmation that he is modeled on recognizably the same character from DS9. They’re not that different in essence from their prime universe counterparts, or it wouldn’t be fun for the writers or the audience. We learn that Garak is still former Obsidian Order. They are still the same people, in essence. They may be AU characters but the point is for them to be similar to the originals, or they may as well just have been some guys!

The important thing, for me, is that it’s a clear, unambiguous acknowledgement. It’s played straight. Well, not straight—but not as some elaborate joke or filled with contempt. It doesn’t tease and doesn’t dance around the issue and wink and nudge, begging the viewer to question whether or not they’re together. That much is made immediately very clear. In the episode, AU Garak and AU EMH Bashir are a married couple, and they kiss. Every moment of their relationship is sincere, the comedic moments being not about the fact that their relationship exists, but about the dynamics it brings to the story. It also tells us very clearly that they’re not even from the same universe, and that their compatibility remains nonetheless:

HARRY KIM: “Are they from the same reality?” CURZON: “No, but they love to brag about how statistically unlikely their marriage is.”

Again, I tend to see this as a positive nod to the compatibility of these characters rather than a brush-off that says the prime universe Garashir couldn’t be together. And then Garak tells us his universe’s Bashir is like the original: still a racquetball player and competes with Chief O’Brien—again, revealing quite a bit.

And the B-plot is about them squabbling, acknowledging very clearly to us that Cardassians really do just love flirting via argument, which serves as a brilliant nod to everyone who complained for three decades that the DS9 writers never really admitted that Bashir and Garak were just flirting. Finally! The writers seem to understand quite well what’s important to us, even if this isn’t the ‘Real Garashir.’

What satisfies me ultimately is that this doesn’t in any way look like a rejection of the possibility of Garashir in the prime universe. It looks to me like it supports the text, not a mean-spirited denial that it could only happen under bizarre AU circumstances. To sum it up with another Boimler quote:

BOIMLER: “The multiverse is just a rehash of stuff I already know.”

Hm… :)

And as I pointed out in a prior post, the whole point of the episode is to show that even in different circumstances and worlds, the love characters have for one another remains a constant and is utterly transcendent. The episode straight up tells us that some relationships are so powerful that they span dimensions and realities, and then Garak and Bashir say they would follow one another to any reality!

In my panel-lecture, I said, “[Paramount’s control over the text] suggests that certain readings require their endorsement or confirmation to be true.” But this doesn’t feel like that to me, and so I accept this. It leaves room for possibilities of all kinds, and opens more doors rather than closing them. I can appreciate that.

I also spoke about how canon isn’t one thing—not a binary yes or a no, and that there is no singular meaning. I call this multiplicity:

“Multiplicity is about the continuous proliferation of ideas and the rejection of the text as having a single meaning. It rejects mere viewing or the consumption of media in favor of dialogue and participation rather than a one-way communication.”

This episode served to defy singular interpretations of the text. It tells us that there are infinite possibilities and it took a route that challenges the single-story interpretation of Garashir = Not Canon. It made room for new perspectives and affirmed what “the stuff we already know.”

Why It’s Not Enough

Now for the other side of the coin: why it’s not enough. As exciting as it is to have this kind of confirmation from the current writers for Star Trek in a frankly increasingly conservative storytelling environment, it’s still disappointing for many people that even in the most progressive Star Trek that exists, they cannot or will not openly state that the prime universe Garashir got the ending and acknowledgment they deserved. 

It feels like begging Paramount as a corporation for scraps and thanking them for what really doesn’t feel like enough—it stops short of full, sincere, complete validation of Garashir’s queerness. As I said in my panel, it’s normal for us to want confirmation from the writers and creators that what we’re seeing is real and not just imagined, even when the role of fanfiction is for us to transform canon and reject it ourselves.

It’s absolutely exhausting for us to say we see something that is continuously denied by those who ‘own’ the story in favor of mass appeal, and to me, that is a legitimate perspective that can coexist with the idea that fandom is designed reshape the canon to fits its own needs, and that we don’t need confirmation from the creators for something to be true. Fandom exists to defy corporate ownership of stories, but to have to fight for mere moments where marginalized perspectives are foregrounded causes anger for good reason. We may not need confirmation from them, but saying that we should never expect anything from Paramount releases the corporation of accountability and obligation to respect the audience and their own characters. We should be able to expect and trust that these characters and their relationships can be done justice by those who have the privilege of steering that ship.

It’s one thing for me to say that this episode affirms the reality of Garashir, but it’s also true that prime Garashir probably could not be given complete canonization because this is the best way they knew how to ‘get away with it’ all while maintaining its mainstream and popular appeal with heteronormative audiences that would have a problem or reject it if it happened to ‘real Garashir.’

Slash fans, for decades, have existed in the lane of compromise—firmly between having our truth validated and entirely rejected in favor of a Star Trek that is designed to be sold as a product to as many people as possible. Rarely do we receive more than a bone tossed to us by the powers that be, and when we do receive it, it’s on their incomplete terms, often with massive concessions made to make it happen. For Garashir to receive their blessing, they had to twist it into an AU. The reason they could do this episode is because it gave them the neat plausible deniability to also say this has nothing at all to do with prime Garashir, so that it didn’t entirely alienate audiences who wouldn’t support a queer narrative.

This is their way of having their cake and eating it too. In some ways, it looks like they’re just trying to make everyone happy, but the story shouldn’t have to make everyone happy, and a compromise can really just feel like everyone loses, or like prioritizing the status quo again. For decades, the status quo has always left those with marginalized readings of the text unhappy, sidelined by a narrative that is supposed to be progressive and supposed to look to a future where queerness is natural and not taboo. And if this is the best they can do, it’s only reasonable that it should still sadden us, disappoint us, anger us. It’s hard not to resent that reality.

What Now?

I urge folks to continue negotiating the text, as I did above in the first section. I made sense of it in a way that fits my understanding of Garashir! You do not have to assume that there’s no more to it than that because it was all that was said on screen. We don’t have to look at canonization as the final say on the text. My perspective is that we should take it as a wonderful and deserved affirmation, and continue to transform the canon as we see fit. This is your time to decide what it means for these characters. Personally, I see it as a massively positive step forward. Just remember that where canon is concerned, you are in control of what it means.

Canon is still transformable, multiplicative, negotiated, and timely. Holders of the ‘IP’ are only one piece of the puzzle where the truth of a story is concerned. So take this as a beginning to more, not an end! As I like to say, “canon is a means to an end, not the end itself.”

Also, please don’t hesitate to add your thoughts, questions, comments, or anything else. I hope you enjoyed this meta post, if you read this far.

[jennaimmortal]

Musings on OFMD Season 2

I’m feeling a bit sad today for the OFMD writers. After rewatching S1 & 2 a couple times, it’s become blatantly clear to me that Izzy’s arc this season was a very obvious love letter to both Izzy fans & the great Con O’Neil. Izzy was very clearly written to be an obstacle to Ed’s healing & personal growth, a snare that Ed needed to be freed from, albeit with plenty of nuance hiding under the surface. It would have been much easier for them to kill Izzy off while he was still the toxic, abusive, sadomasochistic terror of S1E10.

Instead of taking the easy route, though, the writers flipped the trope on its head! They utilized every bit of the potential buried beneath Izzy’s super fucked up shell. This season Izzy got

• a fully fleshed out redemption complete with terrible consequences of his 1x10 actions

• a realization of the possibility of another way of thinking & existing that he’d spent all of S1 running from & trying to destroy,

• genuine love & support from his crew mates which he was actually able to accept,

• exploration of the long abandoned softer side of his nature,

• an apology from Ed w/o first offering one of his own,

• a powerful, devastatingly poignant speech that mentally demolished a new nemesis, and finally

• a beautiful, meaningful death in the arms of the man he’d dedicated so much of his life to, known that he was truly loved by him & completely accepting of the fact that Ed’s love was not in the form he’d always hoped for.

It was so much more than we could have hoped for, and was very obviously done in service to the MANY fans that had fallen in love with Izzy even after S1, as well as to give Con a storyline worthy of his immense talent. Considering the face that Izzy was never going to end up becoming the show’s third protagonist, it was more than we could have hoped for!

OFMD has two protagonists, Stede & Ed. All the secondary character narratives that haven’t directly involved Ed and/or Stede have been icing on the cake, but the cake has always been the Gentlebeard love story. I feel like some people forget this, expecting them to treat the secondary characters as if it were an ensemble show instead of a show with leads.

Izzy’s arc really was an amazing gift! The writers gave us this incredible journey for Izzy this season, and what did a disgraceful number of people do? They attacked David directly, insulted the entire show, the writers, & other characters, even wishing actual harm & misery to other characters or even to David himself!

While I know that comparatively speaking, the percentage of show fans who reacted this way was relatively small, it was still an astounding amount of hatred & vitriol thrown at the people who had obviously worked very hard to give Izzy fans something beautiful to hold on to after his inevitable death. Much of the discourse honestly shocked me, considering the fact that OFMD isn’t even an adaptation of another work.

When fans get angry at shows written as adaptations of books, it’s a bit more understandable for them to have extreme reactions. They’ve had certain ideas and headcanons about characters they’ve felt very strongly about for a long time. It can be really jarring & painful when expectations like that aren’t met, the characters or plots are taken in totally different directions, or even excluded entirely.

OFMD, however, is an original creation. This is David Jenkins’s story. These are David Jenkins’s characters. He knows his story, his plotlines, his characters far better than anyone else does because they came from HIS brain! So while we as fans can have our own interpretations & head canons, they are always going to be at risk of being proven totally wrong by the ACTUAL canon.

One of the worst aspects of fandoms, in my opinion, is the way people become so proprietary over the story & characters, insisting that their own interpretations & theories are the only correct ones, which is exactly what happened with Izzy. Fans’ individual & collective interpretations, theories, hopes, & other head canons became concrete & true in their minds. So much so that when the actual story didn’t meet those expectations, so many of them lashed out in some truly unpleasant, sometimes hateful ways.

My only hope is that the rest of the fandom’s love, appreciation, constructive criticism, heartbreak, pain, joy, & excitement has been enough to drown out the deluge of vitriolic comments directed at David & the other writers.

If you stuck with me through this unintentionally long diatribe, thank you! Maybe take a moment to give the writers some comments or replies on social media, showing your love! I know I will!

[kyouka-supremacy]

I really wish there were more fics that delved into how Akutagawa's love for Atsushi is different from his love for Dazai.

Tbh I just wish Akutagawa's romantic feelings for Dazai were acknowledged more and I'm only now realizing it's so weird how nobody really ever brings them up? while it's all so evidently there. I mean, considering Akutagawa to be / having been in love with Dazai is seriously a perfectly feasible, consistent, realistic way to interpret the text without any need to bend or stretch it. It just makes a lot of sense for how his character is portrayed - his obsession with Dazai, his devotion, his desperation to be acknowledged and approved by him - and I think it's quite the important piece to understand his character. His love for Dazai is a significant aspect of Akutagawa's character, and it also explains why he's always been so vulnerable to manipulation by Dazai specifically. In a way, I think Akutagawa being so unmistakingly gay is also coherent with the way he's completely indifferent and even oblivious to Higuchi's feelings for him that lie at the light of the day– although, please note, that's a slippery slope that can degenerate in apologism for the way he abuses her, so I beg to be mindful when considering that.

Akutagawa's feelings for Dazai are in ultimate analysis extremely relevant for how Akutagawa falls and acts in the sskk picture: Atsushi being not the first person Akutagawa ever fell for, so in a way him being more aware of his own feelings than Atsushi is; Akutagawa falling for Atsushi first (and harder), because at this point he already knows he likes men, he already knows what being in love with someone feels like. But at the same time I believe that it's so interesting to explore how his feelings for Dazai are different from what he holds for Atsushi. On one side you have Akutagawa's feelings for Dazai being passive: not in the way he doesn't act after them, of course he does, but in the way he's always passively subject to Dazai's abuse, unable to stand for himself, blinded by his devotion to Dazai and unable to really see the damage he's causing him. Passive in the way that he's created this image of Dazai in his mind, perfect, god-like, static and unnatural, that struggles to evolve and adapt to reality. Akutagawa's love for Atsushi, on the other hand, is aggressive: always actively trying to hurt the other, always attempting to make the other suffer; it really speaks of someone whom, all his life, has always associated love with pain. Akutagawa hurts Atsushi because he knows love means pain, and he hurts Atsushi because he can't allow his love for him to hurt Akutagawa again as deeply and painfully as it's done in the past. It's a little sad. Ultimately, Akutagawa's love for Atsushi being the push Akutagawa needs to get over Dazai at last, something I fear he never really managed to do up to - I believe - at least chapter 53: getting over Dazai as something he gradually achieved after the soul-searching he did during his absence between chapters 53 and 84. Chapter 84 being the one where Akutagawa willingly, readily said “no” to Dazai in a way that was so sudden and surprising for anyone who knows him and that is easy to interpret as Akutagawa finally starting to free himself from the influence Dazai has had on him up to that point. That's why Akutagawa's sacrifice for Atsushi is all the more important and poignant, because him protecting (and dying for) Atsushi was never for Dazai to begin with.

I always always considered Akutagawa being gay and in love with Dazai to be like. the most evidently queer thing the bsd canon has to offer (and maybe the “you know the reason yourself don't you”, but I guess that falls under the bigger category of “Ryuunosuke Akutagawa is a character that is gay”); but now that I think about it, nobody ever brings it up really. I can guess it's probably because most people - including people who like Akutagawa and ship sskk - ultimately sympathize with Dazai, and even where acknowledging the hurt he's done to Akutagawa, don't really like to dwell on it or explore the relationship between the two of them which is... legit, indeed. Still, I think their relationship and Akutagawa's romantic feelings for Dazai are a very important part of his character that shouldn't be overlooked when trying to accurately portray him.

And the rational part of my brain knows this can't be intentional, knows Akutagawa wasn't written to be read as gay. But there's another I'd dare say equally rational part of my brain that keeps speaking up to say the majority of his characterization - his devotion to Dazai, his (can I say? tender) sacrifice for Atsushi, his mistreatment of Higuchi - really starts to make sense only when you interpret him as gay. So, sorry???

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Idk if you already discussed this but how do you feel about Adrinette being canon when there wasn‘t a reveal yet? Because I think the show just took all the exciting aspects of the love square away by making one side canon and the others strictly platonic.

Sure, they‘re cute and whatnot, but I don‘t think they‘re exactly interesting without the identity shenanigans and stuff? Especially because (to me at least) Adrinette always felt like the weakest side. It‘s a school crush romcom type of love, which is great and all, but like…. You have superheroes in your show?? Hello??? Why not combine the two elements more effectively???The others are either badass superhero couple (I loved the Ladynoir dynamic in the movie for example) or one superhero hangs out with the civilian and they bond. That‘s literally all of fanon Marichat, and I personally think it works with Ladrien too. There‘s different aspects of those relationships that can be explored and create problems that they have to overcome (like the power imbalance with the civilian x hero ships, how do you handle that while dating?)

I wish the writers would use the square more effectively

I'm not against pre-reveal dating, but I agree that Adrienette is the worst side to chose from a story telling perspective because - as you so rightly pointed out - it's arguably the side with the least identity shenanigans and the side that has the least ties to the superhero stuff that's supposed to be the show's main focus. Adrienette is the side you chose if you're focusing on civilian drama which, to be fair, was season five's main focus even though Gabriel had stolen the miraculous and we were all expecting that complication to be the focus of the season five plot.

Instead the focus was "will Marinette ever have the courage to say a kind word to Adrien's face instead of just telling others how much she loves him even though she knows that he explicitly returns her feelings, making this plot kind painful on every level" which was... a choice.... Five seasons and we're still doing this shit? Really?

This may mean that the writer's plan in season six is to continue to focus on civilian drama or it could mean that they didn't think further than season five and we're about to get a lot of awkward writing. Who knows? I have no idea how they're going to handle civilian dating plus secret identities for long since the writers chose the only side of the square where running off to fight akumas isn't a given thing that the couple-in-question knows will happen. My best guess is that the writers will probably just avoid putting Adrienette in the type of situations Adrigami and Lukanette were put in, I guess?

No matter how they handle it, I don't expect major identity shenanigans because the show has never done much with identity shenanigans probably because quality identity shenanigans require you to be able to draw out plots over multiple episodes and then resolve those plots. This show cannot have that kind of plot progression given it's formulaic nature and the "there must always be a secret between Adrien and Marinette" rule, thus the identity shenanigans being so limited.

This means that the side best suited to the show's writing is probably Ladynoir. Still room for the minor identity shenanigans that the show limits itself to, baked-in-yet-low-stakes tension from having to keep the relationship a complete secret, and a much more logical result of the writing in the first four seasons. While Adrien is far from perfect and has issues to rival Marinette's, his crush always felt like the stronger one given that he actually spent time with Ladybug and had a true relationship with her.

Marinette, on the other hand, barely talked to Adrien because the show literally has a rule that she can never successfully confess her crush, so they needed to keep her and Adrien from becoming close to make those continued failed confessions somewhat plausible. Given all that, it's hard for me to buy that Adrien's crush flipped to this girl that he barely knows. Meanwhile Ladybug's crush flipping had a pretty strong setup given that Chat Noir has been her loyal support in her darkest hours.

But that's not what they went with! Instead of having the secret be the low-stakes identities secret, the secret between them is, "Your father was a super villain whose minions killed you on multiple occasions and whose death you were arguably involved with. While were on the topic of your messed up family, you're an artificial being whose creation killed you mother. Oh, and we're also hero partners, which feels like a minor thing compared to all of that, but we might as well mention that, too."

...choice were made folks. Choices were made. This is so not how you write a formula show! You never go this serious!

Since you mentioned the Civilian/hero pairings, let's talk about those both to end on a lighter note and because that's where my personal favorite lies as I am here for identity shenanigans. That's right, folks, I am once again here to sell you on my Ladrien supremacy agenda.

While I have nothing against Marichat, it is not a good fit for canon. It's simply too limiting because Marinette is not a celebrity. There's a reason that of Marinette's canon hangouts with Chat Noir (and almost all Marichat fics) start on her balcony. That's really the only place they can meet up without drawing attention, which should be a major concern for them.

I physically cringed when the show had them go to the movies and on an ice cream date because Chat Noir was being so irresponsible! He cannot be shown to have a close relationship with a civilian, which is the excuse he should have given at the end Elation since that the episode included Gabriel discovering their relationship. The excuse Chat Noir actually gave feels pretty dismissive of his canon relationship with Marinette. She has canonically spent more time talking to Chat Noir then she's spent talking to Adrien and the same actually goes for the amount of time Ladynoir spends talking about non-hero things, so this feels off:

Cat Noir: I’m sorry about what happened, Marinette. You’re right, you have the right to love anyone you want. Even a superhero. But it’s easy for a person to mistake idolization of a superhero for love. So, even if I like this person very much, I could be taking advantage of the situation, and I just can’t do that. It would be wrong.

Evil Illustrator, their heartfelt talk in Glaciator, the movie date in Glaciator 2, and a bunch of other little moments add up to somehow make Marichat the deepest side of the square, which is painfully bad writing given how little screen time this side gets, but it's still what canon gave us. Marinette is not just a fan who only knows him from a distance. They are friends and even occasional teammates. The only reason this pairing doesn't work in canon is because there's nowhere for the relationship to go until a partial or total reveal happens.

Prior to that, it's just these two hanging out on her balcony or maybe going on secret dates around the city. Cute, but not suited to a silly superhero romcom aimed at kids where every story needs to be told in about 20 minutes. It's best left to long form fan content that is allowed to be more about drama and romance than the actual show and also a little more spicy than the actual show because - let's be real here - those rooftop dates would not just be talking. I don't know how you'd write this pairing in a way that's both genuine and well suited to the intended audience. It's simply way more suited to a teen drama than a kid's show.

Ladrien, on the other hand, could work if canon wanted to go there. I don't think it would be a good fit for more than a season*, so Ladynoir is still the better pick for canon's format, but Ladrien could be a nice bit of pre-reveal padding to draw out the reveal and add some fun comedy if the show were allowed to have a reveal.

Because Ladybug and Adrien are both celebrities, you can have them interact in diverse settings without anyone thinking twice. This allows for a good amount of hijinks where Ladybug is trying to protect her boyfriend at public events without revealing their relationship while Adrien is trying to get her to let him run off and transform.

You can also do things like the public seeing them together, thinking they're a couple, and having them both deny it because they aren't, leading to Ladynoir comedy where Ladybug cries because she wishes they were and Chat Noir is like, "Wait, what? You what? ...My Lady, as your loyal partner who is here to support you in all things, I will get you your man even if it kills me!" The thinking-they're-a-couple thing could also be solved via Ladynoir by Ladynoir going public while Adrien remains "single". There's just a lot of potential for the show's style of absurdist humor here.

*Ladrien does eventually fall into the same issues as Marichat where it feels like the reveal needs to happen otherwise you're just repeating the same plots or going too spicy for a kids show via bedroom-based meetups, thus me saying that it's only good for about a season. There's also the problem that Akuma fights and supervillains are endless fodder for Ladynoir issues, but the only issue Ladrien could possibly address is Gabriel and Marichat's got nothing save for maybe Lila? So if you don't want to let a reveal happen, Ladynoir really is the best pick by far. Adrienette can work, but it's way less fun since they have to keep all these secrets while Ladynoir really only has one major secret or, at least, Ladynoir should only have one major secret (the identities). Canon has really dropped the ball on this one.

Now that I've written all this out, maybe the spicy issue is why canon went Adrienette? It's a lot easier to limit their alone time than it is to limit the alone time of any other side. I maintain that you could get away with it in pre-reveal Ladynoir by just ignoring the issue and giving them things to fight any time they try to have a date. You could also end episodes on them starting their date, leaving everything to the imagination but also keeping the setting relatively public (rooftops and the like) unlike the civilian/hero sides whose dates are going to be way more private. I fully understand why a show aimed at 5-to-12-year-olds wouldn't want to go there. That is far more suited to the teen drama Miraculous so desperately wants to be based on the ill-suited plots the writers keep going with.

[sokkastyles]

I hope you don’t mind me sending in asks every so often, because I really love your blog and I like reading your opinions/analyses of ATLA’s story and characters. What I want to talk about is this one trope in fiction that I’ve always liked and wanted to see more of, which is “Person A sees characteristics of Person B’s personality or abilities that are kind of morally dubious or complicated and possibly less than desirable (depends on what the ability or personality trait is) and even though Person B has complicated feelings about what they saw, they never flinch or look away from who Person A is.” Because I’m obsessing over Zutara again, this made me think of the scene where Zuko sees Katara bloodbend for the first time and while he is momentarily surprised, his facial expression goes back to normal quickly. Something similar happens when he sees her waterbend while confronting Yon Rha. I really wish we had gotten a scene where Zuko and Katara actually talk about her blood bending abilities, though the main reason I wanted this isn’t only because of the potential for another Zutara moment. I also really wish the narrative had utilized bloodbending more and that we had gotten to see more of Katara’s complicated, ambiguous feelings about bloodbending (and yes I know she didn’t like bloodbending in canon, but I wish we got to see her be a bit curious about it or not knowing how to feel about it before she decided that). What are your thoughts about this? Is there anything about Katara’s bloodbending that you wanted to see explored in the narrative as well?

First of all, I love getting your asks! They are always very well thought out and insightful! I think you sent me another one that I didn't get a chance to respond to yet because I have been very busy, but I'm not tired of getting asks from you at all!

And I do think an underrated aspect of Zuko witnessing Katara bloodbend is that it's validating to him as an abuse survivor, as a fellow child of war who also lost his mother, as someone who deals with anger issues, to see Katara bloodbend and be able to control her bloodbendinng in that moment.

I do not think that Zuko was intentionally living his revenge fantasies through Katara or encouraging her to commit violence. We've actually seen both Jet and Hama try to do that to Katara and there are some distinct differences. If you recall the way Jet and Hama talk about their actions, and the way they try to get Katara to also do those things, they appeal to her with specific language. They appeal to her anger, specifically, telling her to think about what happened to her mother. They take joy in assuming that she is just like them and has sunk to their level.

When Zuko talks with Katara about Kya, he does not focus on her anger and loss and the need for revenge. Instead, he tells her that Kya was brave. When he sees himself in Katara, he doesn't see negative. He sees someone who is angry, yes, but also someone who isn't controlled by that anger.

Part of the problem with the way antis talk about this episode and Zuko or Katara specifically is this pathologizing around whatever "fantasy" they think Zuko or Katara might be engaging in. And let's be real for a second. It is actually incredibly common for abused children to have revenge fantasies about their abusers. Like, incredibly common. But it's something that is not talked about very often because we don't like to think about it. When it is talked about, it is usually in terms of the person becoming violent themselves.

I do think that Zuko wanted for Katara the same thing he got with his father, the chance to confront him and to walk away, to not be goaded into violence or sink to that level. But that doesn't mean it isn't also incredibly validating for Zuko to not only watch Katara have power over this man, but to be able to exert enough control over that power to be able to walk away.

Which is similar to what Zuko does with his father. Zuko doesn't want to be angry anymore, but that doesn't mean he suddenly becomes a doormat. And when he faced his father, he was prepared to fight if he had to. He brought his swords, he redirected lightning right at Ozai's feet. He made it clear that he could have hurt Ozai if he had wanted to. But he has enough control over that anger not to. Directionless anger is ultimately similar to intrusive thoughts of revenge, because both make the person feel helpless and out of control.

Also my piping hot take is that Aang was afraid of Katara's anger because he himself never learned to control the Avatar state, whoops.

Anyway, I love that Zuko has that moment when he maybe sees a bit of his old self, the part of himself that was angry and wanted to hurt people because he was hurt, in Katara, and it surprises him. But now he's wise enough to have compassion for himself, and for her by extension, and understands now that that anger comes from grief.

[the-oasiris]

Alpha and Omega Earth Sova Dynamic + Sova Lore Yap Session B)

Saw a post floating around talking about the dynamic between Alpha and Omega agents and how omega agents being labelled automatically evil is kinda stupid. Because no, they're NOT evil. They're Omega's Earth's last hope of survival. They're the heroes, much like how our Alpha agents are the heroes of Alpha Earth for standing up to this bizarre threat. It leads to a fun grey area that is not explored at all. I hope it gets some love in the future, but for now, character development is more important for the game.

That post got me thinking about my own HCs and interpretations of A and O Sova. I rly got into exploring elements of the Alpha and Omega aspects of the game's story due to me shipping Owling (Sova/Sova) but it suddenly became a really fun thing to dive into. It's going to be a long post, so for those who kinda want the TLDR, the img below has a summarized ver of my HCs for A and O Sova's dynamic. Also, these are just my personal thoughts on the character and it's definitely not me trying to sell these HCs as canon or the closest truth we can get to on Sova's lore. Riot please write more shit for this guy I'm begging you. At least explain his stupid eye or his old alias I'm on my hands and knees bros.

Grab some snacks and bevvies for the big wall of unedited hyperfixation fueled yap under the cut. I'll also include my thoughts on ASova/OSova, but I will mostly be discussing their dynamics and stuff outside of the topic of shipping.

Initially, Owling started as a fun indulgent cloneship that had no rhyme or reason, but the literal next thought I had was treating the ship like some kind of character study based off my HCs of him. The then evolved to become a journey of Sova learning to love himself, literally and metaphorically, however incomplete he may be.

As mentioned in my chart, the Sovas are true clones of each other, mirrors. Their major life events are similar but the outcomes are different as well as the way they choose to interact with the people in their lives and the world. This therefore creates small differences in their 'perfect mirror-like' likenesses.

Sova Lore + HCs in General

My ASova headcanons are as described in my little chart. I feel like the Sova we get presented is very work-oriented whose past was shaped by his time in the military. It may very well be all he had had when he was younger. Perhaps it was what he turned to for direction in his life. I don't really have a solid headcanon for his upbringing, I'm mostly tossing several ideas around because they all seem very possible depending on how I want to picture Sova. Currently I lean more towards his parents being too busy to raise their son and therefore handed him over to his babushka to be cared for and raised. They still exist in his life, but their absences had made a significant impact on his psyche. He believes if he becomes someone useful, someone whose work was meaningful and worthy of praise, perhaps his parents would regard him more tenderly, their visits would be more purposeful, there would be reason to see their son other than obligation. He wishes to be useful not just for the sake of his parents, but for his babushka who is old and frail but has taken great pains and burdens to raise him to the best of her ability. Sova turned to the military for it was a respectable line of work. You serve the country and therefore its people, it seems a perfect fit for him who had much affinity for physical skills (hunting and general fitness). Not only that, the military would be good for him, for he need not think about his pains and troubles. The strict drills and constant orders would give him little time to dwell on his sorrows or whatever ails him. Even if his heart is lost, at the very least he has orders to follow, his path would straighten out for him as long as someone was telling him what he should be doing. In regards to his old callsign 'Filin', I'm sticking to the generally accepted HC that it's his old callsign from whatever military company he was in before Valo. As for his experiences then, my thoughts aren't too lengthy. It was a normal job experience, but he was very much just a machine there. A good obedient soldier. However, a mishap in one of his missions cost him his right eye. He continued to serve despite the injury and forced himself to remain useful to the company.

As a result of such life experiences, the Sova we see today can easily be described as a straight-laced man with strict morals who works to live. From what little trivia we have of him, he definitely has hobbies and interests outside of work. He likes hunting, photography that leans towards nature as it's focus. From his voicelines, we can gather that Sova is actually a really friendly and loving guy. He is vocal about his love for his babushka, he praises his teammates often, and he always seems ready to jump in the line of fire for his teammates if it means saving them (and by proxy, the mission). This kindness extends even to those he shouldn't extend it to, namely OSova, who is the enemy. Can you imagine sparing the guy who is invading your earth? Giving them a second chance? I feel like it's more than just some good samaritan thing/altruism, but there is unfortunately no reason given from Riot so far.

With all that knowledge of him, I interpret Sova as a person who is kind, friendly and full of desire to do good. But he has a lot of personal struggles under the hood that he pushes away in order to service others, in order to continue to be seen as a 'good soldier', to be seen as useful. His life outside of work is lackluster, his personality centered around being an asset. He struggles to properly care for himself mentally and emotionally, but is very good at sweeping everything under the rug and calling on his 'work mode' to 'solve' these issues. They don't exist now that a gun's in his hands and his boots on the field. His personal troubles will leave him, like the arrows that fly from his bow, like the bullets that race towards his target's head. The only grounding things in his life are: - His babushka loves him - He's a damn good shot with the gun and the bow - He's an excellent soldier, amazing at his job

Sova, you are miserable in your excellence.

For all his amicable nature and good intentions for others, he hardly shows the same courtesy to himself.

And finally, I yap about OSova.

Omega Sova

OSova is almost everything ASova isn't. - He is less of a workaholic (he very much works to live, but not as intensely as ASova). - He is more open to others and therefore his relationships with the Valo protocol and others in general are much more intimate and closer. As a result, his dynamic with his Cypher is also a lot less charged and they actually get along. - He is more in touch with his emotions and is tackling his fears and problems. Very unlike ASova who is avoidant.

I like to think of OSova as a representation of what a slightly healthier Sova would be. A version of Sova who is trying to improve his mental health and his relationships. He's not the 'Perfect' version of Sova, he too, is still very flawed. But he is happier, is mentally healthier and lives a generally more fulfilling life because he is actually putting effort into himself, trying to be whole.

Personal HCs on their first encounter

When ASova meets OSova for the first time, obviously nothing meaningful goes down because they gotta kill each other. But personally, I think on one occasion, ASova gets curious about his mirror self. He wonders if their lives are truly mirror-perfect reflections of each other. And he steals OSova's eye. He cuts along the familiar eye scar but cuts an additional line for he dislikes that they look exactly alike and the scar mysteriously remains permanent (this is just for my enjoyment and definitely has no real supporting rhyme or reason lol). He doesn't give the eye to KJ despite her expressing interest in it, for this is a personal selfish matter. What he finds shocks him, for OSova lives a very different life from him. And he grows angry for he is... jealous. His mirror self seemed to be living a beautiful life as compared to him and he wants to know why. He needs to learn more, needs to collect more intel. There has to be a reason his mirror self is enjoying things he doesn't seem to have himself despite being a good and useful person on his earth. Therefore, in addition to being his enemy at work, he cannot spare OSova ever again. He needs his eye. He needs to know.

AOSova Interactions HCs

It is natural that the Sovas are hostile to each other, for they are enemies. But OSova is surprised at how vicious and almost predator-fierce his mirror is with hunting him down and killing him. Sometimes it feels like ASova kills him with more brutality than necessary for whatever reason. When OSova is cornered and most definitely dead, it seems like ASova seems to go out on a limb to kill him in a more vicious way or uses excess effort to take his mirror out. OSova, being Sova, who has a soft heart and an inherent sense of kindness, tries to speak to ASova before he is killed again. But of course, ASova, who is blinded by his envy and hard driven by his soldier's duty to kill his enemy, doesn't let him talk. But eventually, one day, he does. And OSova questions their likenesses. Are they truly clones? He didn't know he was quite so fearsome, quite so merciless and cold. ASova finally allows OSova to speak, and suddenly, he realizes that they are so much more different than what he has seen. ASova also comes to realize that perhaps, in this big wide world and beyond, maybe his enemy, his 'evil' self, is the only one who can truly help him understand his pain.

It is not a pleasant thought, but that thought will soon disappear when his hunting knife goes through OSova's heart.

Sova Learns To Love Himself + Owling (Sova/Sova) Elements (Cont. from AOSova Interactions)

Teehee my fav part... If you so desire, this can be read as platonic as I've removed romantic elements.

The sauce for Owling in this sense comes from the fact that ASova believes that OSova is the only one in the world, this universe, that will understand his pain and accept him no matter what. Because they're Sova. They're supposed to be one and the same, right? Also because OSova has extended an extremely kind hand towards him over and over despite ASova mercilessly killing him time and time again without allowing him to even get a word or so in. OSova forgives this, for they both know they're 'both good soldiers who carry out orders no matter what'. And the orders are obviously to eliminate their enemies, their mirrors. ASova was just doing as he was told, and OSova holds no grudge. Hell, he probably even respects him for staying so loyal.

After OSova finally gets a word in, the pair often try to meet up secretly whenever they encounter each other on a mission to talk. It's mostly ASova talking, sharing his burdens with his copy, hoping to learn what the hell is he not doing right that OSova is. He too, wishes to live happily, much like how OSova seems to be living. OSova comforts his mirror. It is awkward initially, for what does one do when you enemy and mirror self comes at you, killing you viciously one day and then crying into your shoulder the next? But as they chat, OSova feels much pity for his copy. He wishes he could be happy, too. As much happiness their current situation allows. I'll skip over a lot of the story I've thought of for the both of them because this textpost is an ungodly length already. But, the most important interaction they will have, is that, one day, OSova reassures ASova that no matter what happens, no matter what becomes of them both, that he accepts him as he is. For they both deserve it. And if no one else will, it's ok. OSova will love ASova instead. Unfortunately, for it is still a time of war between Alpha and Omega earth, they can't both leave the field alive. And so, for now, one of them will have to go. Until their next encounter, then. But at least this time, ASova leaves with the reassurance that he can be loved. Even if it's only love from himself, he has it.

Ok I'm Done Now

And that's the end of the yap sesh phew LOL. I've left out a billion things but it's like 3am and I can't be here forever... I hope my point came across clearly enough and that any weird inconsistencies or holes in my thinking aren't too nasty because my ass aint gonna beta/edit this shit. If you read this all the way thru, thanks for braving through this behemoth of a post U_U)9 Also I hope this creates more Owling fans or at least some interest in the ship somewhat HAHA

[angels-of-horror]

Hi angels!! I’m currently writing a fix-it-fic for everyone who’s as distraught by the ending of Folie à Duex as I am…

I have a few different directions I can take this in, but I want your opinion! In terms of where Arthur and Lee end up, which direction do you wish film had taken, and which would you rather read as an alternate ending? This will inevitably determine both the tone and the events of the story.

a.) They go full Joker & Harley…

This is definitely the darker, angstier ending. The Joker & Harley Quinn have always had dark underlying themes in their relationship, and this would likely lean into that. This would be a story of how Arthur’s character might completely evolve into the classic Joker we all know—and how Lee’s character could grow to resemble classic Harley’s. Of the various possible plots I have in mind, this one most closely resembles the events of canon, but explores it solely from Lee’s perspective rather than Arthur’s.

b.) They become a variation of the Joker & Harley Quinn, but some part of Arthur is still Arthur.

This is…probably the happiest ending these characters are capable of. In some ways, they do become the classic “Joker and Harley Quinn” we all know and love (or love to hate), but there will be a conflicting nature to them both throughout the entirety of their story. Arthur will become the Joker, but there will still be this buried aspect of himself that is Arthur Fleck. Lee’s character will mirror this. So they will be our favorite classic clown villain couple, but their relationship with each other will be different (they'll have more of a Bonnie & Clyde, partners-in-crime dynamic).

c.) Do whatever you’d like to! I’m probably not going to read it though. — In which case, no worries at all! <33

d.) A secret third thing? I’m open to suggestions, let me know! If you have any ideas you want to tell me about, my ask box is open <3

If you’ve read this whole post, you are my actual favorite, and you seriously deserve a balloon and some cotton candy 🎈🍭💕

[deripmaver]

Which is worse, rape or murder? - Or, should Casca have died during the Eclipse?

Unlike most of my meta posts, this is one I'm making as a direct critique of a specific take I've seen. It's similar to my meta about apostle Casca in that regard, where I want to look at a specific idea and why I dislike it, as opposed to wanting to explore my thoughts on an aspect of canon. To be clear, this is only something I do if I've seen a take a bunch of times, enough so I know it's not a one-off. It's also not something I do because I want to engage in discussion with the people who've said whatever the take is, it's something I do in case other people who agree with me might be interested in a meta post that's more in line with their viewpoint.

I provide this disclaimer because, as I've said a few times now, the idea that it's the better choice to have Casca die during the eclipse is one that I just really dislike, and I make that preeeeetty fuckin clear. I can't control who sees this or who comments, but I did think I should make my stance explicit.

Berserk fandom is an absolute treasure trove of bad takes about rape and sexual assault. Considering the seriousness with which the manga takes rape, despite it's sometimes quite dodgy framing and portrayal, the fact that the fandom is Like That is fully a testament to cishet men's inability to consume media without turning into a brainless amoeba of toxicity.

I have to say, though, what shocked me the most was that this particular take, that Casca should have just died during the eclipse, was not from the dudebro side of fandom ('cause if she had they couldn't make their silly little "casca enjoyed it" jokes).

I'm coming right out of the gate with my opinion, which is a firm no, Casca should not have died during the eclipse, and the story would be weaker if she had. I'm going to presume during this analysis that the people who say this assume that her death would be instead of her rape, as opposed to her being raped and then dying, which would be... Horrific. Even more horrific than canon, lol.

I do have sympathy for some of the people who wish she had died, and in a way I understand, though I vehemently disagree. Some of the posts with this POV sound almost traumatized as they proclaim I wish she would have died, it would have been better. As this is something I've only noticed in the tumblr fandom side of things, where most people are women, I think this comes from women readers feeling furious and sick about one of the most vile rape scenes out there. In some ways its intentionally vile, in others - ie how grotesquely sexualized it is - it's unintentional. Then, of course, she continues to suffer in her disabled, infantilized trauma state. I hear these readers wanting to shout at Miura that he should have just killed her off rather than force her, and us, through reading that. It would have been kinder.

I have... Far less sympathy for others. There's a side of fandom that simply does not care about Casca (in a different way than the dudebros who don't care about her despite gushing about how she's peak tomboy waifu). It's amazing the veneer of progressivism these people put on as they say that Casca should have died, because she did not contribute to the narrative before the eclipse, and she certainly hasn't after. Going to get even spicier for a second and point out fandom's long history of wanting female characters dead because they get in the way of mlm ships, and how I think this is SOMETIMES simply another manifestation of it.

To be fully fucking clear, I do NOT think that being a grffgts shipper (censored so this doesn't show up in the tag LOLLLLL) precludes being shitty about Casca. I think tumblr's demographics, and those demographics' typical shipping preferences, mean that grffgts is naturally going to dominate. By simple statistics, most of the people whose opinions I hate are going to be grffgts shippers. Same with most of the people's opinions I like on tumblr tbh. I do, however, think it's prudent to point out old school fandom misogyny, and how I personally feel it's showing up in the fandom, and also point out that it pisses me off that Casca dying during the eclipse is at all presented as the least misogynistic outcome.

I'm also going to say now that this is firmly being kept in the realm of fiction. In real life, there are horrific discussions about how being a victim of rape defiles you for life, and that it's better to die without the "shame" of being raped than live with it. While I have to be blunt it's difficult for me to separate some of the discussion of Casca dying during the eclipse from that anti-survivor bias I see in real life just because ~we live in a society~, I in general think this sentiment is coming from a place of simply analyzing, narratively, which outcome is less misogynistic given how the rape in canon is portrayed.

Would it narratively have been better for Casca to have died? What about the impact of her death versus her current storyline?

First, I think I need to outline my interpretation of the eclipse rape. I don't think that the decision to have Griffith rape Casca was Miura simply being a misogynistic cishet dude who threw in rape for the hell of it. I also don't think it's OOC. Again, there's much to critique in how it's drawn, but not in the fact that it happened. Griffith, in his moments of feeling out of control and powerless, uses sexual advances to reassert his control over the situation - see Charlotte, or the wagon scene with Casca. A distaste for sexual violence committed by his enemies doesn't mean Griffith is incapable of wielding sexual violence as a weapon himself. In real life, there's a paradox where rape committed by political or social enemies is seen as the worst crime one could ever commit, while the mundane rape committed as a consequence of patriarchy is excusable and the victims should be blamed and shamed. Did Miura have the gender studies acumen to think about that when writing? I dunno, but neither does anyone who thinks he didn't.

I also think it's supposed to establish his actions during the eclipse as fully over the moral event horizon. Without it, it's easy to ask if ultimately, Griffith's decision to sacrifice his followers to a cruel death is justified to create a perfect utopia. With it, it establishes Griffith as acting fully on cruel, malicious impulse in moments of emotional turmoil, which puts his future utopia in jeopardy. I can't be the only one who sees Falconia as a ticking time bomb. Of course, this doesn't mean he needed to rape Casca, but simply that I think it was necessary to his character to do something that crossed that moral line. He could have raped Guts I suppose. Killerbambi has entered the chat.

While I think this might sound strange, I actually think it's immensely validating to have a character who is a victim not just of rape, but of rape committed by someone she already knew. That's genuinely unique in media on the whole, which plays into that paradox I mentioned earlier - in real life, the vast majority of assaults are committed by someone the victim knew. Having the story surround the continual, horrific trauma of betrayal, of having to watch the person who hurt you move on while trauma keeps you in horrible stasis is almost so realistic it's... uncomfortable. Painful. Hard to read.

There's no greater purpose to what happened to Casca. She didn't grow from it, instead she regressed.

Her general lack of agency post-eclipse is much critiqued in the fandom and like. Fucking yeah fair LOLLLLLL BUT ALSO... But also. Fandom on the whole can be so cruel about traumatized female characters, like there's no way they can do trauma "right." In Casca's case, her lack of agency is turned into a reason she should simply have been killed off instead, as though there aren't so many survivors who, while not as literally as she does, retreat into a shell of themselves and are frozen with trauma as the world begins to pass them by. Of course, the critique would be that she's not a real person, she's a female character written in a misogynistic way by a man, but I personally think this overstates Miura's issues with his portrayal of rape. To me, it presents what they think are his biases as justification for their own biases.

Time and time again, I see survivors discuss feeling validated by Casca's trauma response after being assaulted. Even the parts of the rape scene that I vehemently dislike, such as the hyper-focus on Casca's body and the physical reactions she's having, I've seen more than one person say they felt validated because they too had an unwanted arousal response during an assault. I'll still critique the scene, but regardless of if this was Miura's intention, its impact is clear.

I'll again plug this article by Jackson P. Brown, How Berserk’s Casca challenges the myth of the “Strong Black Woman.” Just to show a quote from it:

All of the action of the story after Conviction Arc is in service of restoring Casca's mind. During Conviction Arc and after, Casca has groups of women who love and protect her, with women as her source of safety. Guts is single mindedly focused on bringing her back, putting his body on the line again and again to protect her and restore her. I wondered about including Guts here because I'm sure I'll get some anon about the Beast of Darkness, which again fair LOL. I have complicated feelings on that, but mostly I think the importance the narrative puts on her mind and her protection is touching, and I think this outweighs how the negative things apparently mean that she should have died.

Her story and trauma, despite its flaws, is shockingly realistic and validating to so many people. She's also a key narrative component post-eclipse, and not just ~for Guts' manpain~ or as a helpless plot device, her story is her own. I've written about Elaine as a character and what she represents, but in brief, Casca doesn't disappear after the eclipse. Miura wrote Elaine with these moments where Casca comes to the surface, and while I wish we had more of her POV I think you can look at how she's coping from how Elaine reacts to the world around her.

I also think it's necessary to have Casca at the Hill of Swords. There's Guts, who Griffith torments in the way only a bitter ex can, and Rickert, who doesn't know what happened the day of the eclipse, but I think Casca is the key component in that scene that cuts through all of Griffith's posturing and Guts' anger. She is there, making the real, human cost of what Griffith did during the eclipse unignorable in a way that no other character could. It's one thing for Guts to be furious with him and Rickert ignorant, it's another to have someone who loved him so innocently and dearly trembling just at the sight of him. Let's not pretend that the depth of betrayal in this scene would be the same if you swapped her for, say, Judeau.

It's funny, Miura is quoted as saying that his initial reason for keeping Casca alive was to provide Guts an ever-burning flame of vengeance, an eternal reminder of everything that he lost during the eclipse. What's wound up happening, on a meta level, is that Casca provides the reader a constant reminder of what happened during the eclipse. As more and more focus is given to her PTSD with her revival, the cruelty with which Griffith acted (and continues to act) becomes harder and harder to ignore. It becomes more difficult to push it aside as just bad, misogynistic writing.

And also, quite simply, I like narratives about trauma recovery, and therefore I'll always find Casca's story worth telling despite my frustration with a lot of it. It's absolutely wild to me that for how often I see the fandom complain about her being "fridged" they think it would have been better to see her ACTUALLY fridged, no chance of coming back at all, just dead to fuel Guts' revenge arc. Would it really be better to have her be just another dead girlfriend? Really?

That's really what it comes down to. I like Casca as a character, and I want her to have lived. The people who wish she had died, many of them simply don't like her as a character. Not all, particularly in that first group I mentioned at the start, but many. Everyone has their preferences of course, but I don't think I need to respect when someone thinks a character has so little influence on the narrative that they should have just died, especially if that character is Casca.

If Casca had died during the eclipse, it would not have been a good death. It would not have been brave, or triumphant, or worth anything for her as a character. Judeau died to protect Casca, but even his death was not brave, it was just sad. That's the whole point of the eclipse.

To have Casca die that way would be a disservice to her as a character, far moreso than to have her struggle on as a traumatized victim of sexual violence. That's genuinely what I believe.

[inkyarcturus]

For my contribution for pride month I’d like to share my personal head canons for Harry Potter characters!!!

Harry Potter: I’m gonna be honest I project on this man far too unhealthily to NOT be biased (I’ve been going by the name Harry in IRLfor 3 and a half years now I think? Bc of this man /srs) but that man’s bi with a capital B 💕💜💙 personally I enjoy seeing trans man Harry as well but unfortunately I don’t see as many fanfics of him as such :,) shoutout to all the fanfic creators I see making Harry a trans woman tho!!! I’d also love to see a genderfluid/nonbinary Harry or two!!!

Hermione Granger: trans woman!!! 🏳️‍⚧️ *crowd cheers* as for sexuality wise? I’ve seen her depicted as straight, bisexual and lesbian- and honestly I think I can see her fitting all of these!!!

Ronald Weasley: I always struggle to pinpoint what I headcanon Ron to be. I have seen a couple of people headcannoning him as a trans man 🏳️‍⚧️- referencing Molly continuing to have children until she had a girl creates perfect levels of angst for this- but I wouldn’t say it’s a permanent aspect of him inside my head. Now that I think about him a little more- I think I might headcanon him as unlabeled more than anything sexuality wise. I think he’s into women but he wouldn’t be opposed or too surprised if he developed a crush on a guy.

Luna Lovegood: She’s a lesbian 🏳️‍🌈💕 (I will occasionally accept fanfics where she is pan and is with Neville but her being a lesbian is the main headcanon) also a little gender queer in whichever way you choose 🏳️‍⚧️ sometimes I see her as genderfluid, bigender and just generally nonbinary

Ginny Weasley: bi- so so bi 💕💜💙

Draco Malfoy: Gayest motherfucker in town I’m sorry- Mr. Tells his father literally everything about Harry 💚🤍💙

Remus Lupin: bi 💕💜💙 there’s no question about that in my mind, I think he has a small preference for men but that’s it!!!

Sirius Black: He switches between using the labels queer and gay but you know that man kisses other men!!! 💚🤍💙 I know a lot of people tend to headcanon him as genderfluid which I enjoy seeing but it’s never been a main stay headcanon for me :,)

Tonks: (She/they) Lesbian and Intersex 🏳️‍🌈💕💛🟣. I’m sorry but the age gap between Remus and her in the original books make me uncomfortable- as for being intersex, I think most ppl believe being a metamorphmagus means she is automatically genderfluid, while I like seeing genderfluid representation, I think ppl often fail to acknowledge the difference between sex and gender. As a metamorphmagus, she transforms her body, her gender doesn’t seem to change w it in the books. While I like the headcanons of them being genderfluid I wish more people explored that specific idea.

Severus Snape: queer? Queer. In every sense of the word. I think most people view him as bi 💕🟣💙 which I agree with (Lily and Mulciber, also absolutely headcanon him having a crush on both Lucius AND Narcissa) but also I think he’s a little bit gender funky- I mean just look at him- no one who stands like that isn’t just cis /ref. Sev absolutely painted his nails and did eyeliner, he absolutely wore a floor length black skirt and absolutely had days where mister hit wrong in all the right places and everyone in her group helped by doing tiny things like braiding her hair and putting bat clips in it for fun 🏳️‍⚧️

Anyways speed run round 🏃

💕🟣💙: Cedric Diggory, Cho Chang (has the fandom chosen a new name for her yet?) Bill Weasley

🧡💛🤍🩵💙: Charlie Weasley, Neville? (Didn’t think of this until just now but it’s growing on me?-)

🏳️‍🌈💚🤍💙: Dean thomas, Seamus Finnegan, Dumbledore (I may not like him that much but he is gay)

🏳️‍🌈💕: Minerva Mcgonagall, Poppy Pomfrey

If I missed anyone I’m sorry :,)

Anyways!!! Join if you’d like with your own headcanons!!!

@pottistic @marriso1 (If you guys don’t wanna join w ur own headcanons that’s okay! I thought this would just be fun :P)

[risualto]

8. To what degree do you use your OC as a means to explore your own romantic proclivities (or shortcomings)? Is your OC a self-insert and the relationship a form of wish-fulfilment and/or an means to explore certain fantasies? Or do you enjoy exploring something completely different to your own experiences and preferences?

25. Other than your own characters' relationships, can you give an example of someone who is particularly good at writing or otherwise portraying romantic and/or sexual relationships? What is it about their work that really stands out for you?

32. If you ship your OC with a particular canon character, then what was it about that character that drew you to them? Is it that you have a certain "type" when it comes to shipping? Or did you surprise yourself with who you felt drawn towards? If your OC is in a relationship with another OC then did you change any aspects of either of their backstories or personalities to make this work?

Another old ask, but better late than never, right? This got long, so it's under a cut.

8. To what degree do you use your OC as a means to explore your own romantic proclivities (or shortcomings)?... A...lot. Lmao. Like a ton. Most of what I know about myself and my relationship to romance and sex comes from the stories I have read (and how I react to them) and the stories I write. But, to be honest, usually I don't know what a given story is going to teach me until I write it. For example, I never considered that I might have a dominant aspect of my personality until I started to explore the sexual tension between Yrrce and Ayumo. I never considered how my own difficulty rejecting people could lead to more pain down the line until I explored that as an aspect of Elex (TWC). I didn't really understand the degree and flavor of my ace-ness until I started thinking about Inky (FF14) and her relationship to attraction vs. fantasy. So, often, I find that even when I start out with a character who has a romantic inclination that I initially think is just an interesting personality trait to explore, the desire to explore that tends to come from something inside me that's asking to be interrogated. OCs are a low-stakes way for me to do that.

25. ...Can you give an example of someone who is particularly good at writing or otherwise portraying romantic and/or sexual relationships?... Basically every author I follow on tumblr? My mutuals are exceptionally talented.

That said, I have a particular fondness for @floreswrites's works. He has a way of inextricably linking identity to romance so that the characters feel quite three-dimensional. And, there's always this aspect of tension in his works. Usually it's pining and angst at its core, but the tension never feels contrived or like a pure plot device, so its resolution is an immense catharsis both for the relationship and personally for the characters involved. That's not to say that being in a relationship is the end-all-be-all of personal development in his work; he does an excellent job of showing that relationships are stories unto themselves rather than a hand-wave happy ending, but still.

I can't really answer the sexual part of this question well since I tend to focus more on the romantic fulfillment that comes out of sex due to my own biases. But any author who can write a sex scene that feels pleasant for me personally to read has my admiration because I don't even know how to do that yet. It's a work in progress.

32. [nested questions, difficult to summarize, shhh, the text is in the ask <3] My personal type, when it comes to OCs, comes down to characters who tick one of two boxes: (a) characters who use flirting/charm to deflect from their own insecurities, and/or (b) characters who struggle with unconditional acceptance and love because that was withheld from them in their backstory. These two archetypes often overlap. I don't think this "type" extends to my actual preferences, because the partner to those types of characters often takes on a sort of savior role, and that's not really a recipe for a healthy relationship IRL 9 times out of 10, but in fiction? Delicious.

I can't answer every part of this question for every OC, but I do have three notable examples of romantic development that kind of address this question.

First up is Inky, who I initially thought was not going to have a love interest, and if she did, that it would never in a million years be the two people she ended up with. I didn't create her with the goal of "romancing" anyone in FF14, and so when Heavensward finished up with no signs of her being attracted to anyone, I thought she would just be the ultimate platonic Scion soulmate.

And then in came Thancred with a steel chair, fulfilling her childhood dashing-hero dreams in a very real, tangible way, now with the form of someone she had time to get to know as a good friend and who accepted her for everything she was, and I had a very real oh no moment. Then, the two of them broke up during/after Shadowbringers, and I was very content with the idea of that relationship just having been a small part of their story--until Urianger came in with a whole adamantite throne and not only saved Inky's relationship with Thancred, but managed to--despite being the only Scion she didn't fully click with for four expansions--develop in a direction that made them just as endearing and attractive to her. And now she has two boyfriends. So that was a fun surprise.

Second in the interesting ships list is Ytelarien and @undyingembers's Lenarius/Lenosa. We had an RP with the two of them where they met in an alternate reality that was ongoing for some time (but unfortunately hasn't been for a few years now--mostly my fault). Despite both of them having other "canon" love interests, there was a level of tension between them in the RP that developed quite naturally, even if we never got to pursuing it properly. It surprised me how compatible the two of them were despite also having a good deal of friction. Maybe someday that will be fun to explore again and see what happens.

Third is an example where I did noticeably change the OC involved. One of my longer-running D&D characters, Montgomery, underwent a massive personality shift about two sessions into playing him because I realized that, since I was the only player in the group with experience playing D&D, the other players were looking to my character for leadership, despite me not having designed him that way initially. For the sake of the group dynamic and making sure that the sessions weren't emotionally distressing to the other players, I talked to the DM and altered Montgomery's personality behind the scenes to take him (away from the fantasy-Silicon Valley rich kid who needed to learn how to be a real person) and shift him to a young man whose queerness--in all senses of the word--had left him contorting in all the wrong ways to try and earn love and approval.

As a direct result of that change, a romance became possible with one of his party members, Lorelei, that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. I didn't make the shift with the end goal of romance in mind, but considering that Montgomery and Lorelei's relationship is one of my favorites that I've ever been a part of writing, it hits me a lot just how close I came to never experiencing it if I hadn't altered his backstory and personality.

This got long, so here's Lorelei and Montgomery kissing as a reward for reading the whole thing.

[dearinglovebot]

Hii I’ve been following your page for a while and I wanted to ask, what’s your opinion on the book Evolution of Claire by Tess sharpe?

im HONORED <3 and I have many, many opinions EoC.

tldr; I like the concepts. execution leaves things to be desired

the good:

her internal monologue is so, like, unambiguously autistic at all times. she’s outright socially awkward, extremely neurotic about minor things, and very, very lame. as she should be! not explicitly stated but ugh it’s so canon to those who #know

I love tanya and her plotline. I think claire having a reason to be so distrustful and on-edge about People during the park is one of the most important things to establish for her backstory. because the version of claire we meet is extremely people adverse and allergic to vulnerability in a way that doesn’t exist for no reason. having the only close friend she’s really ever made betray her is very tasty angst.

the concept of claire having dinosaur related trauma while managing the park is really, really compelling. it’s another layer to her not “connecting” with the animals. she has very explicit PTSD in the last few chapters surrounding the attack. it’s only natural that her brain would try to distance itself from the emotional aspects.

and having the dinosaur be a RAPTOR! it’s another layer to why the claire/owen dynamic is so volatile at first. like, yeah. of course she’d have trouble being vulnerable around a guy who’s job revolves around raptors. of course she’d be trying to control as much as she could. of course she’d be looking for easy exits to say “well we tried. guess it’ll never work”.

it canonizes many of the things I feel are implicit in JW claire such as her coming from a poor, working class background and having fundamental personality differences to karen that put them at odds with each other. and also being a friendless loser throughout grade school because she’s busy trying to rule the world

the neutral:

i personally don't care for YA books as a genre and i do wish it had a more adult sci-fi tone. it feels much more camp cretaceous than jurassic world.

i'm not particularly convinced that anyone in the book is a teenager from 2004. I say this with love but it's very culturally 2018 tumblr-esq.

the bad:

I don’t care about justin as more than just A Concept. the romance isn’t particularly interesting to me and felt like meeting a quota more than having narrative relevance. I don’t think much, if any, of her reaction to his death would’ve changed if he was her close friend rather than crush. I get that it’s YA so obligatory straight romance plot line but it just didn’t do anything for me

it feels much more like someone making a justification for her FK storyline than truly exploring claire. I don’t think it’s necessary for claire to be a former aspiring animal activist for her becoming one to make sense. in fact, I think it feels truer to her character if she comes to the island for a buisness internship, starts to like the animals, and then is abruptly traumatized by them. it’s just doing too much

this is going to sound horrible but I think she’s characterized as too… nice. I love my wife dearly but she’s kind of off-putting and rude at the best of times when she isn’t actively Trying To Get Something (first interactions with eli, talking to the investors, etc)

basically, it feels kind of afraid to give her the “flaws” we all love about her. it’s more like a puff piece than a very raw, real biography of a complex woman

[cosmicjoke]

Is it OK to ask you questions about your fics? Your portrayal of different mental illnesses is SO SO good. You incorporate these little details that I’ve never seen other writers include like the way Levi’s sexual abuse makes him feel literally deformed and how it goes beyond him seeing himself as unattractive and how Levi’s OCD is as much about the intrusive thoughts as it is about the compulsions and how Levi takes the thoughts as proof he’s bad. I don’t have an ED but my twin sister had anorexia and the way Levi acts is -eerily similar- to how she would act in the middle of her illness down to the little rituals and how she would describe the feeling of fat on her body and how she would take any mention of her needing to put on weight as other people trying to make her “fatter”. And my sister would also actually throw the food others would try to get her to eat. I wanted to know what inspired you to tackle these subjects and if you were willing to share, how you know so much about this material. Seriously I’ve never seen a better portrayal of these things. The amount of research is -incredible-. Also as a linguistics fan, your focus on how Levi’s environment influenced his language is ON POINT.

First of all, of course, you can ask me anything you want! And second, wow, I'm honestly blown away by your kind words. I can't tell you how much they mean to me, to know how much you appreciate and enjoy my story, and the research that's gone into it.

To answer your question, I wish I could take all the credit for the accuracy of my depictions of Levi's various issues in my story, but I actually have a friend, @scarletskiesinthepaths, who's been really helping me out there. Honestly, without her input and sharing her own experiences, I never could have gotten anywhere close to as accurate a portrayal as I have in "This Life, After". I'm hugely indebted to her for allowing me to really do a lot of these topics justice and avoid any sort of offensive or insensitive moments, at least hopefully, haha. So yeah, any sort of realism, particularly with regards to Levi's medical issues, really comes down to her helping me. But I'm so glad the story has managed to reach you and you see some of your own experiences with your sister reflected in it. I always think that's the greatest compliment a writer can receive, is to know that the issues they tackle in their work particularly touch those affected by those issues in real life.

In terms of what inspired me, I just like tackling dark subject matter in general, so I always kind of gravitate toward issues like the ones I have Levi dealing with in my story, whether that's child abuse or serious medical conditions, etc... I also think Levi's life post-canon is ripe for exploration, and I initially set out with this story just to write something exploring what Levi's life post-canon would be like, particularly with him having gone from being "Humanity's Strongest Soldier" to being disabled and needing a wheelchair. I find that particular aspect of Levi's character very interesting to think about. And it just sort of grew from there, and I ended up giving Levi a lot more issues than I originally planned, lol. It just sort of took on a life of its own.

Also, thank you so much for your kind words regarding Levi's dialect in my story, haha. I really enjoy writing the sections from Levi's POV in particular, for that reason. I'm glad it feels genuine and not forced or affected in some way to you. It just makes sense to me that Levi would speak with a fairly heavy dialect, given the type of upbringing he had, etc...

Anyway, thank you so much! I really appreciate it, again, and if you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

MARWA (WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (TV SERIES)) (CW: Mind Control)

1.) okok so a major character (nandor) uses a genie wish to bring back the 37 wives he had when he was human (he’s a vampire who was turned in the 1400s but is alive in the modern day) to pick his favorite to live with and settles on marwa. she’s established as someone who’s passionate about science and mathematics, but nandor uses his genie wishes to essentially mold her into his perfect woman like a doll, from changing her hair color to making her not want to go to the night market with him to making her like all the things he likes. this culminates in him LITERALLY TRANSFORMING HER INTO A BRITISH MAN NAMED FREDDIE and that is her send off from the show. the treatment of her is disgusting i’m sorry for ranting i love wwdits but honestly the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth

2.) WHERE TO START my god. Marwa is introduced into the story as one of a crowd of women who are interchangeable to the man summoning them, WHO IS HER CANONICAL HUSBAND but he gives less than half a fuck about her, which is played for laughs. The writers made it completely unclear whether she is a real person or basically a magical simulation with no inner life and did not bother to clarify that at any point. Her plotline consists of her husband using magical wishes to modify various aspects of her body and mind and the writers never explore whether she is aware this is happening or not, much less how she might be experiencing it. It is a terrifying psychological horror story from her perspective but we are not given any insight into her perspective so who cares I guess!! For example, he wishes for her to have a rounder ass and then wishes that all of her preferences align perfectly with his own, so that she'll stop nagging him about wanting different colored flowers at their wedding than him. There are SEVERAL more examples. Her experience of having all of her desires replaced with her husband's desires shows up only for jokes, plus one moment that is used to confirm that her husband's real love interest is one of the other male leads in the show. (I ship the two male characters, I'm not complaining about that, but like COME ON SHE WAS A HUMAN PERSON ONCE AND SHE IS LIVING IN A HORROR MOVIE AND THIS IS WHAT YOU'RE DOING WITH THAT???) THE WORST PART is that when it's time for her to exit the story because her body and personality have already been essentially replaced by magic and she is now a boring toy, she is LITERALLY PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY transformed into a random British man so that her husband can have that guy as a love interest instead of her. She (he? It? Again it is never NEVER explored whether Marwa is like, alive inside this British man's mind somehow? Or if she was ever really alive in her body?) moves to England to be in love with the original British man she was based off of, so basically her twin. This is also played for laughs. Her entire personality and body are not even killed off with like a death scene but literally ERASED FROM REALITY AND REPLACED WITH A COPY OF THIS SHITTY WHITE DUDE.

3.) (Context: Nandor is a vampire who has been alive for a while. When he was human he had 37 wives. (Btw some of the wives were men but that’s besides the point.))

She was brought back to life (along with a couple others) via Djinn wish just because Nandor wanted to have a ‘wife’ (some of the ‘wives’ are men). After being deemed the ‘best wife’ by Nandor she is the only one left alive. It is clear the entire fourth season that Nandor doesn’t care for her much and she is only there because Nandor wants to be married to someone. He ignores her wants and interests the whole season. Via another Djinn wish Nandor makes Marwa like everything he likes so she is more agreeable with him. Later on, he meets another character’s boyfriend named Freddie. Nandor basically falls for Freddie immediately and via Djinn wish, wishes Marwa to be exactly Freddie. :| With that wish, Marwa is effectively gone. She now looks and acts like Freddie. The two Freddies meet and after freaking out a little (and some magic) they get along because they like the same exact things. By the end of the season both Freddies are sent off to never be seen again. Also, Nandor has some extra Djinn wishes so he could’ve turned Marwa back but he didn’t.

Additional links: Article about the Freddie thing: https://www.themarysue.com/what-we-do-in-the-shadows-missed-hard-with-its-treatment-of-marwa/

She likes what he likes:

Also This:

MIKOKO SAKAZAKI (KAIJI)

1.) She is one of two (2) women with a speaking role in the manga (which has been ongoing since the 90s), and was the first female character to appear at all. She has a crush on the protagonist, Kaiji, but this is treated as a joke/ as gross because of her appearance. She is meant to be ugly because of the size of her nose and lips and therefore is invalid as a person. She has no role other than to pester Kaiji with her crush, and despite him ignoring or acting weirded out around her constantly, her attraction to him never fades. She gets almost no characterization outside of this and is only seen once after Kaiji leaves, where she is drawing a manga where he comes back to her. When she's shown once in a bikini, the sight is so disgusting to the protagonist that he sprints away at full speed. Despite this, she is sometimes used in ads for the series.

2.) Her face looks "too much like her father's", yet he never receives any negativity for it. Every single male character in the manga has the same style of facial features, yet when the creator puts them on a woman it makes her mockable and gross.

[fuyyu]

so, i have this little piece of analysis on the world building of winx club's original run. it was meant to be part of kind of a rewrite based on fate's tv show fumbles and i have contemplated the idea of making a video essay on it but since it will most likely never happen, i am posting here a snippet of the perspective i was the most salty about.

✨ technical spells ✨

(or whatever the english adaptation used to call them)

there are many aspects of the workings behind magic that are never explicitly stated in the series, but through the shows events we can deduce them. for example, witches use magic thanks to negative energy or something akin to "waves", elements that aren't necessarily spiritual. all witches seem to focus on mind control or natural phenomena and they don't have access to transformations (or they can access transformation-like powers without it); on the opposite side we see fairies who use positive energy or spiritual/conceptual powers (that's why we can have some kinda bs-y powers like "technology"): they are the most powerful when they transform. we know also that witches, if they so wish, can become fairies (just like mirta did) so it's really more of a choice than anything else.

what they all have in common is, evidently and weirdly, that they are female magic users. considering the context in which winx club was first released, i won't tap (too much) into gender identity matters for this post, so every time i talk about women in this post i am (unless specified otherwise) refering to cis gender women, as i could expand on trans perspectives but i prefer to refer to the canon for now.

in the second season, this phenomenon is tangentially but subtly explored. how, might you ask? this the season to be jolly, because an interesting character is introduced to do so: professor avalon. he is an expert of ancient magic, assuming the teaching role for a brand new class in charmix, which focuses on "technical spells".

what are they? avalon states that there is a significant difference between magic that fairies use in combat when they shout out random names and recited enchantments. so, technical spells seem to access a different magical source which can be taken advantage of through these very specific formulas and rituals engineered over the centuries by knowledgeable fairies, witches, enchantresses, wizards and so on and so forth.

this is extremely relevant.

not only it appears most of the witches magic is perpetrated through rituals of sorts, making them probably the primary technical spells user-base, but in this instance avalon says that the magic fairies usually use when transformed is somehow invoked from their within, and it's spontaneous. this is proven true in many episodes when the fatigue in battle derives from depletion of one's magical energy. and we know witches can achieve this ability, too. there is an internal and an external energy source. what is the origin of this internal magical capability?

we can point at various possibilities. but before we do that, i would like to explain why i think these may be the options.

up until the 3rd season, which is the original run, we never see (human) men using magic without any kind of aid. men (or men presenting, in some cases) who use magic are:

valtor, a demon made by trixies' foremothers

nabu, who needs a sceptre to use magic

dark circle's wizards (s4), who are implied to use in some measure earth's fairies magic, captured through millenia

saladin, a light's company/alliance member, uses a sceptre like nabu

wizgiz is a leprechaun

palladium is an elf

avalon too is heavily implied not to be (totally) human, because of his paladin form

men, in this status quo, have to either spend a great amount of effort, time and resources to master magic (but basically never master it like fairies do) or become a specialist. and here is the catch. in season 1 we learn something that basically confirms (or at least, so i see it) magix a women's world, as opposed to the world bloom comes from: specialists can be women as well.

while there are no male fairies, no male witches, and all male magic users are non-human or aided by external sources (magical objects and technical spells), it's implied there are, indeed, female specialists when darcy enters a specialists' bike contest and the announcer immediately identifies her as a woman. this alone doesn't confirm that female specialists are a thing and if they are they are probably very scarce, but the announcer let us deduce it by being taken aback but not commenting on how that shouldn't be possible in the first place. somehow, it's let to be understood that a female uniform exists as well. this may vary from adaptation to adaptation, but in italian there isn't much of an objection to her participation on the spot.

so, we can safely assume that there are no gender policies on academy enrollment in any of the schools. it's just not possible for men at the current state of affairs to enroll in alfea or torre nuvola. but women can enroll in insititutions like fonterossa.

❤️‍🩹 why is that? ❤️‍🩹

(or better put, why could that be?)

here the rewrite is heavy handed, but this can be a very fun and interesting thought. maybe magic is, at it's core, creation. magic is the ability to not change reality, but to make thing exist in reality. let me explain.

when flora makes dying plants vigorous, she isn't changing the plant's structure, she is creating the nutrients ex novo and providing essentials (such as sunlight previously absent) and making it so that the plants feels the benefits of those new things.

traditionally, and in the winx club world view, women hold this power. women have the miracle of birth on their side. and the power to make a new life has to, somehow, be the same that allow magic to flow. it could be whatever, you can call it life force or whatever.

so, magic could be inherently tied to one's fertility (and here various conversations could be started, as to "would a transmasc still be a fairy?" and "are sterile women capable of magic?") or the potential of it. faragonda is a great fairy, but she doesn't transform anymore and that might be why. she can still use powerful magic, though. most of it is relatable to technical spells, if we want to force this point of view, but i will let that to you.

another option is chance. at some point magic just happened and women are the one who got it for cosmical possibility and their appearance, as well as other invisible characteristics, are results of that magic and not viceversa as previously theorized.

or again, it's hormonal. maybe progesteron and other typically female hormones are tied to magic. or a fictional hormone is. this would allow men to use it too, in limited quantities and enhance it through external sources (accessible through previously stated magical tools).

this was, in my humble opinion, a great starting point for a hypothetical winx tv show. it could elaborate on a complicated world building while tapping into social aspects that, being the kids' cartoon it is, the original show couldn't. it could give a definite structure to the magic world and open up infinite possibilities for the earth's narrative that apparently lost all of his magic (but we know it didn't really), investigate new storylines and give some fairies god-like status (thinking about dafne and bloom rn). also it could be a great trampoline for so many environmental details, like people in the background using casually magic only being women and men rarely doing so.

it could also be an amazing way to explore complicated gendered issues of the real world, through a meticulous deconstruction operated in these new lenses.

why am i salty about this? 2 reasons. the live action didn't pick this up and THE ORIGINAL CARTOON FORGOT ABOUT TECHNICAL SPELLS AS WELL!! they are never brough up again. damn you, winx club.

(finally letting this thought go and if you want to expand on this please do)